Today, The Grandma has received sad news. Last Tuesday, Gil Gerard, the actor who immortalized the character of Buck Rogers,passed away. Buck Rogersin the 25th Century was one of the most successful TV series of the 80s and marked an entire generation eager to consume science fiction content.
Have a nice trip through space, friend Gil,
may the stars accompany you
on this eternal path.
Buck Rogers in the 25th Century is an American science fiction adventure television series produced by Universal Studios.
The series ran for two seasons between September 1979 and April 1981 on NBC, and the feature-length pilot episode for the series was released as a theatrical film before the series aired. The film and series were developed by Glen A. Larson and Leslie Stevens, based on the character Buck Rogers created in 1928 by Philip Francis Nowlan that had previously been featured in comic strips, novellas, a serial film, and on television and radio.
Originally intended as the pilot for the show and meant to air on television, the movie was, instead, released theatrically in March 1979 as Buck Rogers in the 25th Century. The film made $21 million at the North American box office, prompting Universal to move ahead with a weekly series later that year. The film, which was also released internationally, featured all of the main protagonist characters who would appear in the weekly series, and it also included Princess Ardala of the planet Draconia and her henchman, Kane.
The theatrical film also served as a pilot and two-part first episode for the series, entitled Awakening. Several scenes were edited, some to remove the more adult dialogue in the film, including when Buck refers to Wilma as ballsy, and later when he says shit, and a scene in which Buck kills Ardala's henchman, Tigerman, was edited to not show Buck kicking him in the groin.
Also, some new and extended scenes were added for the TV version, including several scenes within Buck's new apartment, which was the setting for a new final scene in which Dr. Huer and Wilma try to persuade Buck to join the Defense Directorate. This scene ends with Buck actually declining their offer, though he opts to join them in an unofficial capacity by the first episode of the series proper, Planet of the Slave Girls. In this unofficial role, Buck does everything from acting as a covert agent on various undercover assignments to assisting Wilma as a flight/combat instructor. Buck is, most often, partnered with Wilma, with whom he often shares a flirtatious relationship.
Including the two-part pilot episode, the first season consisted of 24 episodes, with four of the stories being two-parters. The tone of the series was lighter than the pilot movie and showed a more positive picture of future Earth. The Inner City was now known as New Chicago; human civilization was established as having spread once again across the planet and also to the stars. After the movie pilot, no reference to barren radioactive wastelands was made and, in several episodes, the world outside is shown as lush and green. The mutants seen in the pilot film were no longer seen, and Buck sometimes ventured outside New Chicago with no hazards encountered. As opposed to the isolationist planet seen in the film, Earth no longer has an invisible defense shield surrounding it and is shown to be the center of an interstellar, human-dominated government, sometimes called the Federation or the Alliance, with its capital at New Chicago. During the first season, references were also made to other new Earth cities such as New Detroit, New Manhattan, New Phoenix, New Tulsa, Boston Complex, and New London. A City-on-the-Sea was also seen, mentioned as being the former New Orleans.
Wilma Deering and Dr. Huer were the only Defense Directorate personnel seen in every episode, though several others were seen in individual episodes. Most Defense Directorate personnel regard Buck as being at least an honorary captain, in reference to his 20th-century U.S. military rank, but his membership in Earth's defense forces is unofficial. Nevertheless, Buck often flies with the fighter squadrons and uses his 20th-century U.S. Air Force background to assist in their training. Dr. Huer regularly meets, greets, and otherwise deals with representatives of other sovereign powers. Huer was also seen in military uniform (at formal occasions), thus indicating he is or was a member of the military.
Travel between the stars was accomplished with the use of stargates -artificially created portals in space (similar in appearance to wormholes), but referred to as warp travel on at least one occasion by Wilma Deering. Stargates appear as a diamond-shaped quartet of brilliant lights in space that shimmer when a vessel is making transit. Some people find the transit through a stargate to be physically unpleasant (transit resembling a spinning of the spacecraft). Buck's dislike of them is shown in part one of the episode Planet of the Slave Girls and again in part two of the episode The Plot to Kill a City.
To portray futuristic-looking buildings on Earth, the show used stock shots of the remaining national Expo 67 pavilions, particularly the French and British pavilions, as well as shots of the Bonaventure Hotel in downtown Los Angeles.
Juanin Clay, who played Major Marla Landers in the first-season episode Vegas in Space, was originally cast as Wilma for the TV series. (Erin Gray had initially opted not to return after the pilot film, but she later changed her mind.) Wilma's personality was softened considerably in the series. While she was still seen as a strong, confident and consummate professional in her work, she had a much more relaxed attitude and a warmer relationship with Buck.
A potentially romantic relationship between Buck and Wilma was hinted at, but rarely expanded upon, and, in the first season, Buck was involved (to some degree) with a different woman almost every week. Producers demanded that Wilma have blonde hair, so dye jobs were needed to lighten Erin Gray's brunette locks. During the final episodes of the first season, Gray was allowed to return to her natural hair color, and Wilma was dark-haired throughout season two.
Buck's best-known enemy during the first season was Princess Ardala, played by Pamela Hensley, whose desire was to conquer and possess both Earth and Buck himself. She appeared in four separate stories, including the pilot film, two single episodes (Escape from Wedded Bliss and Ardala Returns), and the two-part first-season finale (Flight of the War Witch).
The opening title sequence for the series included stock footage from the Apollo 4 and Apollo 6 launches.
Today, The Grandma has been reading about Terra,the multi-national scientific research satellite, that was launched on a day like today in 1999.
Terra (EOS AM-1) is a multi-national scientific research satellite operated by NASA in a Sun-synchronous orbit around the Earth.
It takes simultaneous measurements of Earth's atmosphere, land, and water to understand how Earth is changing and to identify the consequences for life on Earth. It is the flagship of the Earth Observing System (EOS) and the first satellite of the system which was followed by Aqua (launched in 2002) and Aura (launched in 2004). Terra was launched in 1999.
The name Terra comes from the Latin word for Earth. A naming contest was held by NASA among U.S. high school students. The winning essay was submitted by Sasha Jones of Brentwood, Missouri. The identifier AM-1 refers to its orbit, passing over the equator in the morning.
The satellite was launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base on December 18th, 1999, aboard an Atlas IIAS vehicle and began collecting data on February 24th, 2000. It was placed into a near-polar, sun-synchronous orbit at an altitude of 705 km, with a 10:30am descending node.
Terra carries a payload of five remote sensors designed to monitor the state of Earth's environment and ongoing changes in its climate system:
-ASTER (Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer). ASTER creates high-resolution images of clouds, ice, water and the land surface using 3 different sensor subsystems. They are the Shortwave Infrared (SWIR); Thermal Infrared (TIR); and Visible and Near Infrared (VNIR). They cover 14 multi-spectral bands from visible to the thermal infrared. The SWIR stopped working in 2008. ASTER was provided by Japan's Ministry of Economy, Trade, and Industry.
-CERES (Clouds and the Earth's Radiant Energy System)
-MOPITT (Measurements of Pollution in the Troposphere)
Data from the satellite helps scientists better understand the spread of pollution around the globe. Studies have used instruments on Terra to examine trends in global carbon monoxide and aerosol pollution. The data collected by Terra will ultimately become a new, 15-year global data set.
After launch, operators observed that high energy protons like those found over the South Atlantic Anomaly or the poles could induce single-event upsets that would cause the Motor Drive Assembly (MDA) Built-In Test Equipment (BITE) to turn off the MDA. These false shut-downs occur 12-14 times a month and eventually the operations team automated the recovery to reduce the impact of these shut-downs.
Starting in 2007, increased thermal resistance in the SWIR cryocooler of the ASTER instrument caused the temperature to gradually increase.
By 2008, despite frequent attempts to recycle the cryocooler the data began to significantly degrade and on January 12, 2009, ASTER managers declared the SWIR no longer functional due to anomalously high SWIR detector temperatures. Data gathered after April 2008 was declared not usable.
On October 13, 2009, Terra suffered a single battery cell failure anomaly and a battery heater control anomaly likely the result of a Micrometeoroid or Orbital Debris (MMOD) strike.
On February 27, 2020, the Terra flight operations team conducted Terra's last inclination adjust maneuver due to the satellite's limited remaining fuel. With no more such maneuvers, Terra's mean local time has begun to drift starting in April 2021 and with it, its data quality.
In October 2022, Terra is expected to reach and exceed a 10:15 AM MLT crossing which is expected to lead operators to initiate a constellation exit to a lower orbit altitude (694 km). Decommissioning would occur around 2025-26 followed by an un-controlled reentry several years later.
While Claire Fontaine rushes through the last few days of work and The Grandma prepares for her Christmas holidays, Joseph de Ca'th Lon has just arrived in Décines-Charpieu, Lyon to see the Northern Star who plays a very important match tonight. Joseph will be in this beautiful city until Sunday, enjoying its history and its endless cultural offer.
During the flight from Basel, he has been reading a new Astérix adventure, this time Astérix the Legionary.
Astérix the Legionary is the tenthAstérix book in the Astérix comic book series by Rene Goscinny and Albert Uderzo.
It was first published as a serial in Pilote magazine, issues 368-389, in 1966.
This is the first time Astérix does not join the usual album-ending banquet (he is still visible in the final panel, albeit not at the banquet tables), an absence not repeated until Astérix and the Magic Carpet two decades later.
When the pirates are first sunk, the ship's wreckage is a parody of the 19th century painting The Raft of the Medusa. In the English version, the pirate captain even bemoans, We've been framed, by Jericho, a pun on the artist Géricault. In the French original, he says, Je suis médusé (I am dumbfounded, or, most literally, I am Medused).
The legionaries in Astérix's unit are comic stereotypes of various nationalities, which parodies the French Foreign Legion's recruitment of foreigners.
The hair of the Belgian legionary resembles that of the Belgian comic character Tintin.
In the later part of the story, the Egyptian makes comments in hieroglyphics about hairy body parts -this is based on a child's game in France that involves repeating back a rhyme of whatever was last said in the form of old hairy (body part).
The plot is partly inspired by a 1939 Laurel and Hardy film, The Flying Deuces (Les Conscrits), in which the pair join the French Foreign Legion after Hardy falls in love with a woman who turns out to have a husband in the legion. Laurel and Hardy later appeared as legionaries in Obélix & Co..
The line timeo Danaos et dona ferentes (I fear the Greeks, even those bearing gifts) is used as a standard mnemonic reference to Tragicomix's name.
Key Lessons From Astérix The Legionary
-Friendship and camaraderie. Astérix and Obélix's unwavering friendship is one of the key themes of the book. They stick together through thick and thin, supporting each other and facing challenges head-on.
-Perseverance and adaptability. The Gauls are known for their resilience and ability to overcome obstacles. In Astérix the Legionary, they join the Roman army as a means of rescuing their captured village mates. They have to adapt to the strict military lifestyle and face grueling training, but their determination allows them to succeed.
-Satire and humor. Just like in other Astérix books, Astérix the Legionary engages in satire and humor. It pokes fun at the Roman military and their bureaucratic system, making it an entertaining read for both children and adults.
-Loyalty and sacrifice. The book emphasizes the importance of loyalty, as Astérix and Obélix are willing to risk their lives to save their friends. They show selflessness and bravery, highlighting the power of sacrifice for the ones you love.
-Overcoming stereotypes. Astérix the Legionary challenges stereotypes and preconceived notions. Despite being Gauls, the protagonists prove their worth in the Roman army, debunking the notion that only Romans can be strong and skilled warriors. This theme promotes equality and challenges societal biases.
Someone told me long ago There's a calm before the storm I know, it's been comin' for some time When it's over, so they say It'll rain a sunny day I know, shinin' down like water
I wanna know, have you ever seen the rain? Comin' down on a sunny day
Yesterday, and days before Sun is cold and rain is hard I know, been that way for all my time 'Til forever on it goes Through the circle, fast and slow I know, it can't stop, I wonder
I wanna know, have you ever seen the rain? I wanna know, have you ever seen the rain? Comin' down on a sunny day
Yeah!
I wanna know, have you ever seen the rain? I wanna know, have you ever seen the rain? Comin' down on a sunny day
It'll rain a sunny day I know, shinin' down like water
Today is a rainy day in Barcelona and The Grandma has decided to stay home in front of the fireplace reading about Alexandre Gustave Eiffel, the French engineer who was born on a day like today in 1832.
Alexandre Gustave Eiffel (15 December 1832-27 December 1923) was a French civil engineer. A graduate of École Centrale des Arts et Manufactures, he made his name with various bridges for the French railway network, most famously the Garabit Viaduct. He is best known for the EiffelTower,designed by his company and built for the 1889 Universal Exposition in Paris, and his contribution to building the Statue of Liberty in New York. After his retirement from engineering, Eiffel focused on research into meteorology and aerodynamics, making significant contributions in both fields.
Alexandre Gustave Eiffel was born in Dijon, in the Côte-d'Or, the first child of Catherine-Mélanie and Alexandre Bonickhausen dit Eiffel. He was a descendant of Jean-René Bönickhausen, who had emigrated from the German town of Marmagen and settled in Paris at the beginning of the 18th century. The family adopted the name Eiffel as a reference to the Eifel mountains in the region from which they had come. Although the family always used the name Eiffel,Gustave's name was registered at birth as Bonickhausen dit Eiffel, and was not formally changed to Eiffel until 1880.
Eiffel went on to attend the Collège Sainte-Barbe in Paris, to prepare for the difficult entrance exams set by engineering colleges in France, and qualified for entry to two of the most prestigious schools -École polytechnique and École Centrale des Arts et Manufactures- and ultimately entered the latter. During his second year he chose to specialize in chemistry, and graduated ranking at 13th place out of 80 candidates in 1855. This was the year that Paris hosted a World's Fair, and Eiffel's mother bought him a season ticket.
After graduation, Eiffel had hoped to find work in his uncle's workshop in Dijon, but a family dispute made this impossible. After a few months working as an unpaid assistant to his brother-in-law, who managed a foundry, Eiffel approached the railway engineer Charles Nepveu, who gave Eiffel his first paid job as his private secretary.
At the end of 1866, Eiffel managed to borrow enough cash to set up his own workshops at 48 Rue Fouquet in Levallois-Perret. His first important commission was for two viaducts for the railway line between Lyon and Bordeaux.
The Exposition Universelle in 1878 firmly established his reputation as one of the leading engineers of the time. As well as exhibiting models and drawings of work undertaken by the company, Eiffel was also responsible for the construction of several of the exhibition buildings. One of these, a pavilion for the Paris Gas Company, was Eiffel's first collaboration with Stephen Sauvestre, who was later to become the head of the company's architectural office.
In 1879, the partnership with Seyrig was dissolved, and the company was renamed the Compagnie des Établissements Eiffel.
The design of the Eiffel Tower was originated by Maurice Koechlin and Emile Nouguier, who had discussed ideas for a centrepiece for the 1889 Exposition Universelle. In May 1884, Koechlin, working at his home, made an outline drawing of their scheme, described by him as a great pylon, consisting of four lattice girders standing apart at the base and coming together at the top, joined together by metal trusses at regular intervals.
Initially Eiffel showed little enthusiasm, although he did sanction further study of the project, and the two engineers then asked Stephen Sauvestre to add architectural embellishments. Sauvestre added the decorative arches to the base, a glass pavilion to the first level and the cupola at the top. The enhanced idea gained Eiffel's support for the project, and he bought the rights to the patent on the design which Koechlin, Nougier and Sauvestre had taken out. The design was exhibited at the Exhibition of Decorative Arts in the autumn of 1884, and on 30 March 1885, Eiffel read a paper on the project to the Société des Ingénieurs Civils.
In 1887, Eiffel became involved with the French effort to construct a canal across the Panama Isthmus. The French Panama Canal Company, headed by Ferdinand de Lesseps, had been attempting to build a sea-level canal, but came to the realization that this was impractical. The plan was changed to one using locks, which Eiffel was contracted to design and build. The locks were on a large scale, most having a change of level of 11 m. Eiffel had been working on the project for little more than a year when the company suspended payments of interest on 14 December 1888, and shortly afterwards was put into liquidation. Eiffel's reputation was badly damaged when he was implicated in the financial and political scandal which followed.
After his retirement from the Compagnie des Etablissements Eiffel, Eiffel went on to do important work in meteorology and aerodynamics. Eiffel's interest in these areas was a consequence of the problems he had encountered with the effects of wind forces on the structures he had built.
His first aerodynamic experiments, investigating the air resistance of surfaces, were carried out by dropping the surface to be investigated together with a measuring apparatus down a vertical cable stretched between the second level of the Eiffel Tower and the ground. Using this Eiffel definitely established that the air resistance of a body was very closely related to the square of the airspeed. He then built a laboratory on the Champ de Mars at the foot of the tower in 1905, building his first wind tunnel there in 1909.
The wind tunnel was used to investigate the characteristics of the airfoil sections used by the early pioneers of aviation such as the Wright Brothers, Gabriel Voisin and Louis Blériot. Eiffel established that the lift produced by an airfoil was the result of a reduction of air pressure above the wing rather than an increase of pressure acting on the under surface. Following complaints about noise from people living nearby, he moved his experiments to a new establishment at Auteuil in 1912. Here, it was possible to build a larger wind tunnel, and Eiffel began to make tests using scale models of aircraft designs.
Eiffel died on 27 December 1923, while listening to Beethoven's 5th symphony andante, in his mansion on Rue Rabelais in Paris. He was buried in the family tomb in Levallois-Perret Cemetery.
Ah, bien je prétends que les courbes des quatre areêtes du monument, telles que le calcul les a fournies, donneront une grand impression de force et de beauté.
Well, I think the curves of the four pillars of the monument, as the calculations have provided them, give it a great sense of force and beauty.
Today, The Grandma has decided to go sailing. The sea is calm and although the weather is cold, it is a good day to enjoy the peace and tranquility that the sea gives.
Sitges is a city that is always good to visit because it has everything: history, culture, gastronomy, fun and, most importantly, the friends who live there. So any excuse is good to take the boat and go spend the day with them.
Sitges is a town about 35 kilometres southwest of Barcelona, in Catalonia renowned worldwide for its film festival, Carnival. Located between the Garraf Massif and the Mediterranean Sea, it is known for its beaches, nightspots, and historical sites.
While the roots of Sitges' artistic reputation date back to the late 19th century, when painter Santiago Rusiñol took up residence there during the summer, the town became a centre for the 1960s counterculture during the Francoist regime, and became known as Ibiza in miniature.
Today, the economy of Sitges is based on tourism and culture. Almost 35% of the approximately 26,000 permanent inhabitants are from the Netherlands, the UK, France.
The name of the town is simply the Catalan word sitges, plural of sitja, meaning silos in English.
Human presence in the area dates to at least the Neolithic era, and an Iberian settlement from the 4th century. In the 1st century BC, it included two separated villages, later absorbed by the Romans.
During the Middle Ages, a castle was built in Sitges, owned by the bishopric of Barcelona, which later ceded it to count Mir Geribert (1041). In the 12th century, the town fell under the rule of the Sitges family. The latter held it until 1308, when Agnes of Sitges sold the town to Bernat de Fonollar, after whose death it went to the Pia Almoina, a charitable institution, to which it belonged until 1814.
Between the late-18th century and the early-20th, the history of Sitges was dominated by its close links with Cuba. Thousands of youngsters from Sitges settled in Santiago de Cuba, Guantánamo and other areas in Eastern Cuba. Most of them were employed in commerce, usually working for relatives already established in the island. Some of them thrived and created big firms, like Facundo Bacardí, founder of Ron Bacardí, and Jaime Brugal, who later moved to the Dominican Republic and established Ron Brugal. Some others, after having amassed a certain fortune, settled back in Sitges, generally living on rent or investing in sectores like wine or shoe making. These were known as Americanos, known for their habit of planting palm trees in their Caribbean-looking houses, smoking Cuban cigars and rum drinking. The americanos left a huge legacy in Sitges which can still be seen in its architecture and the history of most local families.
Shoe making shaped Sitges' economy during the first third of the 20th century. Sitges economy was mostly based on the production of wine until the late 19th century, when the first mechanized shoe factory was established in the town in 1874, starting a powerful shoe making sector which employed ca. 80% of local workers by the mid-20th century. The tourist boom of the 1960s ended the era of shoe making and made local economy essentially depending on tourism and services.
Due to the wave of artists settling in the town in the wake of Santiago Rusiñol, who established his studio (nowadays Museu del Cau Ferrat) wealthy families from Barcelona built summer residences in Sitges, especially in the garden city known as Terramar. Sitges acquired an international reputation and attracted celebrities. American businessman, art collector, and philanthropist Charles Deering held an important art collection in Sitges between 1910 and 1921, where he built the impressive Palau Maricel. Intellectuals like G. K. Chesterton, who visited the town in 1926 and 1935, or the German boxer Max Schmelling, who trained for his match against Paulino Uzcudun in Terramar Hotel in 1934.
The British war journalist Henry Buckley lived for a few months in Sitges during the conflict, marrying a local woman. He would eventually retire in the mid-1960s in the town, where he purchased a house and died in 1972.
The municipality of Sitges is located in the Garraf comarca. It is bordered to the north by the municipalities of Olivella and Begues, to the west by Sant Pere de Ribes and Vilanova i la Geltrú, to the east by Gavà and Castelldefels, and to the south by the Mediterranean Sea.
A journey through the Mediterranean is not only inspiring and stimulating, it is also humbling. The men and women who created antique treasures for us to marvel at had to deal with plague, genocide, a world without writing, iron tools, or penicillin -and yet they made something extraordinary of their life and times.
Today is Saint Lucia. In Barcelona,traditionally, on December 13th,
the nativity scene is built and it is time to go to the forest to get
moss, hollyhocks, branches and cork. Since the end of the 18th century,
when the construction of homemade nativity scenes began to become
popular, in some towns cork, moss and branches of greenery were sold for
the nativity scene, mainly in the city of Barcelona during the pre-Christmas fair of Santa Llúcia.
Lucia is a name that comes from the Latin term lux-lucis and means light. It is a very special day for The Grandma,who loves the fair of Santa Llúcia and who especially remembers the time she spent in Napoli studying and working at the Università Federico II.
Napoli is a special city that sticks in your soul and heart. A beautiful city full of history, culture, with an impressive gastronomy and, most importantly, with wonderful people who make you feel at home and who make you always take them with you wherever you go.
Close your eyes, listen to a beautiful tarantella, remember Napoli with the imposing Vesuvius and evoke every moment lived in Sorrento, Capri, Ischia, Ercolano, Pompeii, Procida... and, most importantly, miss the Neapolitan friends who are at a physical distance, but present every day in our lives.
Napoli, me si’ ‘a vita mia.
Santa Lucia is a traditional Neapolitan song. It was translated by Teodoro Cottrau (1827-1879) from Neapolitan into Italian and published by the Cottrau firm, as a barcarola, in Naples in 1849, during the first stage of the Italian unification. Significantly, it is the first Neapolitan song to be translated to Italian lyrics. Its transcriber, who is often miscredited as its composer, was the son of the French-born Italian composer and collector of songs Guillaume Louis Cottrau (1797-1847). Various sources credit A. Longo with the music, 1835.
The original lyrics of Santa Lucia celebrate the picturesque waterfront district Borgo Santa Lucia in the Gulf of Naples, with an invitation (sales pitch) from a boatman to take a ride in his boat to better enjoy the cool evening.
Comme se frícceca la luna chiena! lo mare ride, ll'aria è serena...
Vuje che facite 'mmiezo a la via? Santa Lucia, Santa Lucia! (Repeated twice)
Stu viento frisco fa risciatare: chi vo' spassarse jenno pe mmare?
È pronta e lesta la varca mia Santa Lucia, Santa Lucia!
La tènna è posta pe' fa' 'na cena; e quanno stace la panza chiena
Non c'è la mínema melanconia. Santa Lucia, Santa Lucia!
Perhaps the definitive 20th century recording of the song was that of Enrico Caruso, the great Neapolitan opera singer. Mario Lanza recorded this song in this album Mario Lanza sings Caruso favorites, RCA Victor LSC-2393.
In the United States, an early edition of the song, with an English translation by Thomas Oliphant, was published by M. McCaffrey, Baltimore.
In Sweden, Finland, Denmark, the Faroe Islands, and Norway, Santa Lucia has been given various lyrics to accommodate it to the winter-light Saint Lucy's Day, at the darkest time of the year. The three most famous lyrics versions in Swedish are Luciasången, also known by its incipit, Sankta Lucia, ljusklara hägring (Saint Lucy, bright illusion); Natten går tunga fjät (The night walks with heavy steps); and the 1970s kindergarten version, Ute är mörkt och kallt(Outside it’s dark and cold). The more common Norwegian version is Svart senker natten seg (Black the night descends), whereas the version commonly used in Denmark is titled Nu bæres lyset frem (Now light is carried forth). There also exists a Sámi version, Guhkkin Sicilias dolin lei nieida (In faraway Sicily, long ago was a girl).
In the Czech Republic (or former Czechoslovakia), it was made famous with the words Krásná je Neapol (Naples is beautiful) sung by Waldemar Matuška.
In Austria, it is famous under the title Wenn sich der Abend mild. It is sung by Austrian fraternities.
In Thailand, Silpakorn Niyom, in Thai ศิลปากรนิยม, the anthem of Silpakorn University, borrowed the turn of Santa Lucia; the founder of the university, Silpa Bhirasri, was Italian. A Thai translation of Santa Lucia (itself was adapted from Italian version) was composed in 2017 by Professor Chedha Tingsanchali of the university's faculty of Archaeology to mark Bhirasri's 125th birthday anniversary. The translated lyrics was first premiered on 15 September of that year.
Partono 'e bastimente pe' terre assaje luntane... Cantano a buordo: so' Napulitane! Cantano pe' tramente 'o golfo gia scumpare, e 'a luna, 'a miez'o mare, nu poco 'e Napule.
The ships are leaving for far away lands. The Neapolitans sing on board. They sing while in the sunset the bay disappears and the moon, above the sea lets them see a glimpse of Naples.
Today marks the 162nd anniversary of the birth of Edvard Munch, the Norwegian painter. Last summer, Claire Fontaine and The Grandma travelled to Oslo,visited the Munchmuseet and enjoy the works of one of the most incredible, and at the same time, disturbing, painters in history.
The Scream may be his most famous work, but sometimes the most popular or well-known is not what you like the most or necessarily the best. Art is wonderful because it can create different emotions and reactions in people and because we each end up having our own preferences.
Although Claire and The Grandma almost never agree on anything, this time, they both agree that their favourite Munch work is The Sun.
The Grandma has been reading an interesting article written by Tom Gurney (TheHistoryofArt.org) that talks about this fascinating work, whose original version can be seen at the Oslo University assembly hall.
The Sun, by Edvard Munch, is considered by many as one of the greatest works of modern mural paintings. The enormous painting currently occupies a central spot at the Oslo University assembly hall. It stands tall in a central position as an undeniable display of the power of imagery.
The painting pictures the sun as it spreads out large rays of light in every direction to illuminate the entirety of a northern landscape. The rays flow down the ocean, touching bare rocks and a strip of greenery that separates the sea and land. You can almost not distinguish the sun from the waterfall. In a white ball of light, it shines from the heavens and pours to the sea, creating the impression that the sun is melting down to the earth. Munch also manages to capture the rays splitting into different colour variations as they emerge from a bright white ball of light. An observer can clearly see as they change from white to yellow to red, blue then green as they extend towards the vast horizon. If you focus your attention, you'll notice the clear, straight horizon line as well, dividing the sky from the water. The painter also managed to bring out the sun's circular movements, giving out the feeling that the picture is moving back and forth.
It has this pull that almost draws the observer towards it. Initially, the painting was proposed to be a Nietzschean mountain of man, rising towards a sky covered by thesun. However, upon reflection and following advice from friends, the painter relinquished the controversial idea and instead chose to depict the sun in all its glory, in this pure, intense, and powerful form. The painting was clearly more colorful when compared to his previous work, which had a more morbid, melancholic theme. This can be attributed to the fact that it was painted in the year 1909, after Munch has come back from hospital, battling acute anxiety and excessive drinking. His paintings during the time are described as being harmonious with bold, vital brush strokes.
Inspiration for the painting can be said to be drawn from various painters of the time. The shafts of light can be affiliated with the German expressionism of Die Brucke. The symmetry of the painting evokes some elements of Ferdinand Holdler's visions. And Munch's avant-garde and abstractness can also be compared to Wassily Kandinsky, as he symbolically expresses his fascination with the sun as the source of all life. The Godlike complex is apparent as the sun shows its authority as a focal point of life. It has its hand on everything from the sea to the rocks, reaching out to eternity and declaring its stance as the main provider.
Today is a wonderful day and TheGrandma has taken her bike to go to the beach to enjoy one of her favourite activities: reading.
Reading poetry is an indescribable pleasure for the soul and, like any reading, if you can read it in the original language, the pleasure is even deeper.
The Grandma has chosen the poems of ArturLundkvist, the Swedish writer, Nobel Prize in Literature, who left us on a day like today thirty-four years ago.
Nils Artur Lundkvist (3 March 1906-11 December 1991) was a Swedish writer, poet and literary critic. He was a member of the Swedish Academy from 1968.
Artur Lundkvist published around 80 books, including poetry, prose poems, essays, short stories, novels and travel books, and his works have been translated into some 30 languages. He is also noted for having translated many works from Spanish and French into Swedish. Several authors whose works he translated were later awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. He married the poet Maria Wine in 1936.
Artur Lundkvist was born in Perstorp Municipality, Skåne County. As a child he lived on a small farm, first in Hagstad and then in nearby Toarp. From an early age his main interest was reading and he also liked wandering in the surrounding countryside.
At the age of twenty Lundkvist moved to Stockholm determined to become a writer, he studied at a Folk high school and became acquainted with other young people with the same interests. His first books of poems, the anthology Fem unga and introductions of foreign modernist literature quickly established Lundkvist as a leading figure in Modernist Swedish literature in the 1930s.
Lundkvist went on to publish more than 80 books in many genres and was also a prominent critic.
In 1968 he was elected a member of the Swedish Academy, and was a member of the Academy's Nobel committee from 1969 to 1986. He was married to Maria Wine since 1936 and died on 11 December 1991.
Lundkvist published his first book of poems Glöd (Glowing Embers) in 1928 and contributed to the important anthology Fem unga (Five young men) in 1929. He was one of the dominant figures in Swedish literary modernism, the most vigorous promoter of the modernist breakthrough that took place around 1930, and one of the leading poets of the period. His early works was influenced by Scandinavian and American modernists, most notably Carl Sandburg, and later by surrealism.
In the late 1940s his works became increasingly influenced by Spanish language writers like Pablo Neruda and Federico García Lorca, whose poetry he also translated to Swedish. Although he continued to publish books of poetry, including Liv som gräs (Life as grass, 1954) and Ögonblick och vågor (Moments and waves, 1962) which by many is considered to be among his finest works, prose works dominated his writings from the 1950s and onwards. In several books, starting with Malinga (1952) and leading up to late works such as Skrivet mot kvällen (Written towards the evening, 1980), his ambition was to defy genre limitations and merge prose poetry, fictional stories, short essays, personal memoirs and impressions from his many travels around the world into a new form of literature.
Artur Lundkvist was a very productive writer, and also published numerous articles, short stories, collections of literary essays, and books about his travels in South America, India, China, the Soviet Union and Africa. As a literature critic, and also translator, he introduced foreign literature to Swedish readers,including several authors that would subsequently be awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, such as William Faulkner, T. S. Eliot, Pablo Neruda, Claude Simon, Vicente Aleixandre, Octavio Paz, Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Mario Vargas Llosa. His later work also include several historical novels such as Snapphanens liv och död (1968, about snapphanar), Tvivla, korsfarare! (1972, about crusaders), Krigarens dikt (1976, about Alexander the Great) and Slavar för Särkland (1978, about vikings).
In 1966, his autobiography Självporträtt av en drömmare med öppna ögon (Self portrait of a dreamer with open eyes) was published, and in 1968 he was elected a member of the Swedish academy.
In 1977, he was awarded the prestigious Golden Wreath of the Struga Poetry Evenings festival in Struga, North Macedonia. He died in Solna, StockholmCounty.
Jag har en envis tro på omedelbar suggestion, automatism eller spontanitet, som du önskar, och jag misstror rationalism och efterföljande modifieringar.
I have a stubborn faith in immediate suggestion, automatism or spontaneity, as you wish, and I distrust rationalism and subsequent modifications.
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