Glenn Gould plays J. S. Bach

Goldberg Variations

On Youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UzO0XWcnA38.

Bach is different from Mozart and Chopin (my current two favourite composers). I feel that he lacks the emotional intensity and tension that characterize the latter two in that his pieces are not exactly of a certain mood or thought. But Bach is absolutely sublime in the intricacy of the pieces so that the quick succession of the notes reaches a prayerful electricity--I don't know what I would call it, slow or fast, it is dreamlike in its contemplativeness.

Music is not representative (unlike any other art form which I can think of at this time), and therefore it comes the closest to our hearts. At the same time, it is also the most abstract. So I cannot say in so many words what it means and what Bach's piece was to tell us.

I would say that it is an expression of nature, as all music is (you: duh? ). The Goldberg Variations is quite a joy to listen to, and it is an expression of exactly that: Joy.

Rightly, I shouldn't even be writing this because it is quite a pointless exercise, how can I tell this: what is music? Listen to the piece I have linked (above) and comment here.

Conclusion

My sister and I had a really long discussion last night. I think we've come to a conclusion, at least for now.

Love is being alone together.

Or, as we remembered then, to paraphrase Rilke:
Love is when two solitudes come together and protect.

Also, has anyone noticed, God (of the Christians at least) has strong feelings.

Because you didn't like the stuff in the last post

For my sister.

Usually I prefer to keep my passions private, but this blog is anonymous and I'd like to go ind-depth instead of just talking it over.

Hmm, how should this go?

I imagine that most people are unwilling to tell/let other people (especially those close to them) what they really think as they perhaps feel that it betrays their individuality. Or more likely, they feel that it makes them weak; also, I myself believe that we all need secrets to live asthey provide depth, something for us to feed on in our moments of doubt.

More specifically, our couple-in-love would be...shy (?) around each other? Opinions?

And is it love, true love? They're both really young (and sex-obsessed if you ask me, boys are like that). Sex, to many people, is a fact of life and many people put the both of them together. I just wonder, is it a social activity or just one involving sensation? Our girl is terribly ... hm ... demure. What's she thinking? Is it what she imagined? Yes?

I would say yes.

I can't tell you exactly where it is going. Where do you want it to go? I feel that love between couples is not a happy thing essentially, not a happy thing whether they stay together or leave each other. I vote that they stay together.

Love (the way it is with most people) is a funny mixture of desire, selfishness, discontent and impermanence. It is cyclical in nature with it's moody storms and lull periods of harmony. It is a 1 + 1 = 2 kind of thing, not 1/2 + 1/2 =1 or even a 1 + 1 =1. We don't complete each other, it's the periods of solitude while one is in love that really counts.

To be honest, what is it? What is it we're talking about, I don't know. I should like it to be in the tone of satire as it's one of the only ways in which to face something that would otherwise be altogether too painful to look at. We're weaker than we think we are.


My vision of F is that of a doom-eager, tragically egotistical, self-obsessed young fellow. But he is the real-deal in a world full of children pretending to be unhappy and prodigiously gifted; he has his gifts although his ego is not one of them.

Our tragic heroine is one who writes her own life. She is weak of will, not thinking, a desirous and restless girl. She loves unwisely and is unwilling to decide her life although one could argue to a certain extent that she was forced into her circumstances. She does things that she know aren't good for her moral self as she wants to.

I'll write more some other time, oh dear me it's late.

My turn to play Doctor Freud

For my sister.

Love is at first not anything that means merging, giving over and uniting with another (for what would a union be of something unclarified and unfinished, still subordinate?), it is a high inducement to the individual to ripen, to become world, to become world for himself for another's sake. It is a great exacting claim upon him, something that chooses him out and calls him to vast things.

Rainer Maria Rilke Letters to a Young Poet

Rilke sees love as personal development and perhaps the awareness of something/someone outside of the self. Do you agree? (comment below)

Personally, yes, I believe it is a growing of the self into the world, greater awareness and the stripping off of the base selfishness (and other forms of self-centredness and egocity to become more sensitive) that ails all human beings. Love as a lesson? (comment on this below) Whatever it is, it is a journey, nevermind where it ends, in a permanent union or a bitter split--we still come out different from how we were when it first came to us. (Not like one of those awful pop songs that alk about the griefs of break-up--they fail to see that love's value is essentially in the transformation it causes in us.)

Is there such a thing as true love? What is true love? (I've wondered this myself, and very seriously too.) The poet Marlowe brought forth a very interesting point in his poem Hero and Leander,
Who ever loved that loved not at first sight?
Alright, this is not the entire quote I wished to give you, however, the gist of what follows is that when the person decides personally what/who he loves, it is not a strong love. Rather, love that is a compulsion, inexplicable, is Love. What Marlowe means is that true love is a result of fate, not the fruit of personal will, which means that there is a force outside of us that decides for us whom we love. I suppose it is true to some extent as love is blind (although, as an asides, Nat King Cole did remind us: but will you please make up your mind?). Seriously, I could argue for this: true love requires no reason. If one loves another for a reason then one loves the qualities that the object of one's affections represents instead of the person, there fore making love nothing more than a venal thing, borne out of the selfishness of one's own heart. Not ideal at all.

Love is very important to us all (we always talk about it, don't we?). However, I find it regrettable that people have gotten such a strange, warped idea of love that it has become more of a vice or a nudge-nudge wink-wink thing between the youngsters that you and I have trouble speaking of it face to face (or even writing notes on paper to each other in case our parents might find it and get the wrong idea). Human love is a very personal thing, not like the love of God (in some religions) which is for everyone and something which even believers find hard to comprehend, so deep and vast it must be. We have no idea, no reasons as to why we love each other, but being the subjective beings we are, perhaps we love because it is the closest we can get to the truth (?). As a natural compulsion towards others like us.

What do you think?


Sex is an even more uncomfortable topic but I'm proud to say that we're sixteen and not obsessed by it even now. More than ever now, popular opinion is that sex is great, is natural, is good for us and people who think it is a sin are the sinners themselves. (Is this what drove us off the self-indulgent Earth-Goddess Tori? How I can mock something when I no longer love it!)

More than ever now, give me your opinion. (In comments.)

Personally, I feel that it is all a base joke (and so do our lovies!). Is it necessary? That is what I ask. How does it benefit us? (As a girl, I can speak quite eloquently against the sex act.) I think that this is why sex is a taboo topic and that kids feel that it is cool and rebellious to speak about it publicly--it's just another way of upsetting their parents. We know, but we still do it as guilty pleasures (so we call it, it sounds so ^%&^* innocuous). Magazines and pastoral care lessons only tell us that it is good as they're afraid that we'll stop listening. Well, don't listen, it's nonsense and nobody learns anything from it.

I argue that sexual desire is a fault as it shows how beholden we are, still, to our earthly flesh. It's an insult to our minds and our higher intelligence as Human Beings, whether sex was invented by the Devil to tempt us from the divine bosom or just a key in evolution so that we continue to spawn (and spawn and spawn...what for?). Oh, but still, we do it. It's Fun.

And I believe that for most people, sexual desire is a natural and very important component in character as it is a natural fault by dint of our place in the Animal Kingdom. I think that it has something to do with the ego as well, ties in with that thing about breeding and perpetuatinjg one's genes. But now that we've become so advanced, isn't it about time that we got rid of this dirt that still continues to exert such a hold over our selves? (Individual will is what makes life worth living.)

Your opinion.



And the passages/character development I promised you:

He was quiet on the bus home. Was it a religious wounding, this sudden casting-off of his childhood? Or a show of his scorn of the faith he had held all his life? (The question should rightly have been: What faith? but that was too painful to consider; he chose to overlook it.) And what of that other he had left behind? Was that a question or an answer? Ordinarily he chose not to be anguished (he was not), he was a passionate being consumed by the extremes that his heart pushed him to, he was angry, he was merry, he was a wolf, a lamb. He lived in the moment, for the moment, that was what kept him alive. His tremedous will.
He was not a wise fellow.


and

Why had he done it? God it was betrayal, by God it was. How should he stop it from happening the next time, stop it from coming between them even in words? Now that he was far away, perhaps now he should tell him. Yes, then he wouldn't have to see his face...they could go back to being friends.

Update! Because...

Yesterday's purchases:
The Orchards of Syon by Geoffrey Hill--$5.00 (originally over $28.00)
The Oxford History of the Crusades by Jonathan Riley-Smith--$10.00 (original price unknown but most likely more than I'd be willing to pay)

These were from the bargain bin at Kinokuniya (Liang Court), but they were still pretty new. People just didn't want them. Miraculous! I also found Don Quixote (I wanted to try that, but I looked inside and it's absolutely unbearable--sometime never then), and Death and the Sun (a book on matadors and bullfighting which I'm slightly interested in, but you can get that in the library and it cost ten dollars).



Today my brother did a wushu presentation with the rest of his wushu class at a McDonald's outlet at East Coast (three kids, not including him). His class is made up of children who have problems like low I. Q. or autism (like him), but there is one normal girl in it who's there to help her brother. They're doing it because the wushu class is not earning enough money and might close down and that means no more wushu class (so they had to do the performance in order to get more people to come and join). So they just informed the parents of other kids with problems who might be interested (apparently it makes the children more focused and all that).

Most of the kids who attended the performance had Attention Deficit Disorder and played with the decorative water pools (all part of McDonald's efforts in Bringing Sexy Back--yeah right, we're not fooled here). The waitress scolded them. All part of life with special needs kids.

Continuation on the PSLE Results

6: 18 pm on the 23rd of November

My brother got a very decent grade. This is all due to the hard work of my parents and his tution teachers. My mother spent the whole afternoon calling them up to thank them for their help.

I will not reveal the grade as it's confidential and we all know how kids/adults love to know about other people's exam grades. I'm not about to give them that kind of satisfaction. Suffice it to say, we're all pleased with his results--and we can stop caring about it by next year when he's gotten into his secondary school.

As for myself, it's about time I got back to ordinary life. I have to choose a Junior College--anyone care to recommend one?

PSLE Results Day

23rd of November

Primary School Leaving Examinations Results Day.

Not mine! Mine was over like four years ago; today's for my brother.

This is the result of six years of hard work (for my mother that is, my brother's too autistic to know or care about how important the exams are).

My mother expressed (oh, really she's been doing that for days already) just how nervous she is. My brother was never too concerned about his work, she's always had to push him, sitting next to him all afternoon to make sure he does his assessment books. She's not alone though, a friend of hers (mother of another autistic boy who is also going to recieve his results today) is considering not going to collect her son's marks because his poxy school ranks them so that everyone knows just how badly you've done. (She's afraid that she will be embarrassed.) No doubt some parents will be pleased with that, they're the ones with smart kids (this is typical of petty little Singapore, everyone compares grades here).

It's coming to eleven, which is when we're leaving to collect my brother's results--I have to get dressed now.

Feeling frickin' sad now

I went to Orchard Road, our brightest, sparkiest shopping district and the most significant thing that happened was getting ripped off by some "charity" tout. It's true.

I'm sixteen. My sister is sixteen and we're both as gullible as sheep.
I am so angry.
We were cheated out of TEN dollars of our parent's money.

I believe that I am angry at myself really.
We realised that he was a cheat right after we had handed over the money because he put it in his pocket.
We asked it back.
He shouted and got confrontational.
We did not want that.
We walked away.

Now I am far away at home.
Typing out my anger inch by inch.
I wonder at my ineffectiveness, is it a result of my comfortable life? my stupidity? my dyslexia? or is it my religion, what I have been tutored in all my life, give to the fortunate, "even if it's a cheat if you think it is a cheat that is How are you sure? Somebody needs that ten more than you do. Give."
That is what my mother used to say.
She still says it.
And if that guy is a cheat he'll go to Hell for his wrong-doing.
There is justice in the great scheme of things.
No you cannot beat him up swear at him as it makes you bad.

The disturbing thing is that he was thin. Weedy. He said he was fifteen.
I feel terribly terribly hurt the way you would feel hurt if you were a five-year old.
I will not tell my mother any of this as she will only give me that insincere lecture again.
We know we know it's not true.



Really, I think that people only came up with the concept of justice as a way of revenge. And that the meek will inherit the earth as there is nothing else for us.

Right now all I want is to become good. Good; without the hope of a reward in the end as I do not want to be there to recieve it.

Insight from...

...a dinnertime conversation with my mother.

History is the study on the nature of power.

(picture of Velazquez's Las Meninas here except that this lousy website won't let me upload it! grr!)

Philip Augustus Returns to France, 1191

From http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/1191philaug.html, part of the Internet Medieval Source Book.

Medieval Sourcebook: Itinerarium Peregrinorum et Gesta Regis Ricardi: Philip Augustus Returns to France, 1191

[Adapted from Brundage] Philip Augustus regarded the capture of Acre as a personal liberation from the Crusade. Philip had never been as enthusiastic a Crusader as Richard and he had, moreover, been in bad health since his arrival in Palestine. With Acre once more in Christian hands Philip considered that his part in the Crusade had been accomplished and he began immediately preparing to return to the West.

When things had thus been arranged after the surrender of the city, toward the end of the month of July [during which the Turks had promised to give back the Holy Cross in return for the freeing of those who were besieged] a rumor circulated all at once through the army that the King of France, upon whom the people's hopes rested, wished to go home and earnestly desired to prepare for his journey. How shameful, bow disgraceful it was for him to wish to leave while the task was still pending, unfinished. How shameful, too, for him whose job it was to rule such a multitude of people, to arouse Christian men to this pious and necessary venture, and to see to the continuation of this difficult business....

But what could be done about it? The French King professed that illness had been the cause of his pilgrimage and that be had now fulfilled his vow insofar as he could. But, especially since he was well and healthy when he took the Cross with King Henry [Henry II, Richard's father] between Trier and Gisors, this assertion of his does not agree with the witnesses.

He was not, in fact, leaving the work wholly undone. The King of France had done much in the Holy Land, in besieging the city; he had likewise rendered a great many services and given much help. By the authority of his presence as the most powerful of Christian kings and by merit of his most excellent dignity he had made it necessary to hasten the execution of the work toward the taking of the city....

When it became known, in fact, that it was the inflexible wish of the French King to leave and that he would not yield either to lamentations or to tearful supplications, the French renounced, if they could, their costly subjection to him and repudiated their lord. They called down upon the man who was now about to depart every adversity or misfortune which could happen to any mortal man in this miserable life. The King nonetheless hurried up his journey as speedily as he could. He left behind as his replacement in the Holy Land the Duke of Burgundy with many men. He asked King Richard to put some galleys at his disposal and Richard graciously ordered two of the best to be given to him. Philip's ingratitude for this offer was later sufficiently apparent.

King Richard asked the French King for an agreement for the preservation of mutual faith and security. They, like their fathers, disliked keeping up a rivalry and, though they looked for mutual love, it was never considered sufficient to exclude fear. King Richard was eager for a pact, for he had been stung by the nettle of fear. He demanded that the French King take an oath to keep faith and that he promise that he would not knowingly or maliciously trespass on King Richard's lands or the lands of his followers while Richard remained on Crusade. But if King Richard should seem to be incorrigibly at fault in some particular, he would be called upon by the French within forty days after he had returned home to correct whatever grievances there might be and he was to be warned by the French King before that monarch sought any revenge. The King of France took an oath and swore to King Richard that be would observe all of these conditions. The French King gave as hostages the Duke of Burgundy and Count Henry [Duke Hugh III of Burgundy and Henry of Troyes, Count of Champagne] and five or more others whose names are not given. How faithfully the French King stood by this agreement and oath is known well enough to everyone. For, as soon as he reentered his homeland, he stirred up the country and threw Normandy into disorder. What more? The King of France took leave and departed from the army at Acre. Instead of blessings, everyone had bad wishes and curses for him..

On the feast of St. Peter in Chains [Thursday, August 1, 1191] the King of France boarded a ship and sailed toward Tyre. He left the larger part of his army, however, with King Richard.



Further links (from the Medieval Sourcebook):
Angevin England (Henry II and Richard I)--http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/sbook1n.html#Angevin%20England

The France of Philip II Augustus--http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/sbook1m.html#The%20France%20of%20Philip%20II%20Augustus

New link!

I found this wonder ful link to a website on the Medieval times.
http://www.shadowedrealm.com/
Ignore the cliche url, it's really quite good. I'll be putting it on my links section too.

A wonderful article on Richard I of England and Saladdin: http://www.shadowedrealm.com/articles/exclusive/article.php?id=17#edntref5. Nice and long.

Richard and Philip--pictures and sources

It's skimpy on the pictures as I cannot find very many relevant or recognisable ones. The truth is, they just did not have photographs back then and "official" pictures were not meant to be pictures of people. They were just images of someone representing the authority or a dynasty.
The tomb effigies might be of more use, or even the vague contemporary descriptions.




Philip, on the extreme right (over there), burning heretics. (Illuminated manuscript, fifteenth century, from Morgan Library, New York, M. 536, ©Morgan Library


http://www.princeton.edu/~heresy/program.html



Richard. There is the image of the Three
Lions on his shield.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Lionheart

And look here,

Grandes Chroniques de France http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grandes_Chroniques_de_France
____________________________________

A beautiful image of Richard and Philip accepting the keys to Acre when they were on the Third Crusade.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Philip_Augustus_and_Richard_the_Lionheart_at_Acre.jpg

____________________________________

A biography of Philip on the Catholic Encyclopedia. http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/12001a.htm

A list of books about Richard and the Third Crusade: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Lionheart#References
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Lionheart#External_links

And on Philip:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_II_of_France#Sources

I wanted to read The Government of Philip Augustus but the local library does not stock it. If you know where to find it, could you leave a comment at the bottom telling me where? (Oh god, I'm getting desperate.)

Some of the pictures I wanted to put up but couldn't: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Philip_II_of_France

_________________________________________



As an asides, this: Medieval and Modern Passages Supporting the Theory of Richard I's Homosexuality is shit. I hate it when fags (or anti-fags or anybody else with a cause--which usually turns out to be totally unworthy) use historical figures or famous people tpo justify themselves. Being gay does not make a person great. And neither does being a woman, a left-hander or a dyslexic. (I am all those things and I can vouch that it is not a factor. I have seen so many awful websites with lists of famous _________--fill in the blanks.)

In fact, it is not even known whether or not Richard (or Philip for that matter) was homosexual. He had no offspring with his wife, Berengaria of Navarre, but that does not prove much--he was hardly ever with her (get your minds out of the gutter, he was out on Crusade or away defending his territories). Also, he had "one illegitimate son, Philip of Cognac" (wikipedia).

People who have to hinge on the greatness of others to bring glory to themselves are just losers. Period.

Richard and Philip

Since some time last year (which is a pretty long time, considering how old I am), I've taken a great interest in history--just that it was not the kind they taught at school so I cannot say I studied it properly(twentieth century onwards only, meaning the First World War, the Holocaust, Marxism etc.). It was http://en.wikipedia.org/ which gave me this interest as I have a habit of going to one article, then navigating randomly by clicking on any links in the first article that catch my attention (ADHD?). Now I'm automatically drawn to anything related to sixteenth century Europe, the Middle Ages, and sometimes even to the Ancient Greek and Roman civillisations.

Although it sounds really cliche and all that, I have a great interest in the Crusades. It's not due to the fabulously strong attention of macho men riding horses in the name of Christendom, driving out the dark barbarian forces. Really. I like to believe that I have a more lucid, mature and humanist view of the period. It's nothing on current affairs either, what with Islamic terrorists blowing themselves up all around the world in the name of jihad (that's simply violence due to misguidedness, human egocentricity and self-righteousness, pure and simple--extremist know and need no reason for what they do).

I just like examining the past, human behaviour and how history has left its mark on people, individually and culturally (like, for instance, how we love looking at History, and how human behaviour follows a cycle as history is always bound to repeat itself by dint of human nature itself).

However, it's not as serious as it sounds. Not all the time. I also like looking at the People themselves. One topic that is of particular interest (or maybe just because I visited a bookstore today and saw so many books on Richard Lionheart and the Fourth Crusade) is the friendship of Richard I of England and Philip II of France. I know very little concerning them as the only information I can get my hands on is wikipedia (as the poxy local library won't buy any biographies of either of them--if there are any in existence in the first place). But that's not going to stop me from writing an entry about them (and especially my feelings about this odd couple, what the heck).

I felt that both Richard and Philip were terribly interesting and complex personalities. Richard looms large in legend as a gallant knight, riding gloriously off to battle in the name of his faith, but the real man was more...human. He might have been a splendid warrior, a brilliant military strategist, but he was also a son who tried (unsuccessfully) to overthrow his father to take the crown of England (although on a later attemp he finally succeeded); a king who was hardly ever present in his realm (as he apparently did not like the weather, and preferred the joys of riding off to battle to administrative work); and a good friend of Philip II of France, who betrayed him in the end (after their relationship soured).

Philip was also a fascinating person. He was somewhat more sedate than Richard, not much of a warrior king being more at home with the role of an administrator. He was crowned king of France at fourteen as "Louis VII, in the tradition of his forefathers going back to Hugh Capet, had his son Philip crowned king to assure his smooth succession" (wikipedia--told you that was my only resource!); his father died the year after his coronation. From wikipedia:

As King, Philip II would become one of the most successful in consolidating northern France into one royal domain, but he never had more than limited influence in southern France. He seized the territories of Maine, Touraine, Anjou, Brittany and all of Normandy from King John of England (1199–1216). His decisive victory at the Battle of Bouvines over King John and a coalition of forces that included Otto IV of Germany ended the immediate threat of challenges to this expansion (1214) and left Philip II Augustus as the most powerful monarch in all of Europe.
He reorganized the government, bringing financial stability to the country and thus making possible a sharp increase in prosperity. His reign was popular with ordinary people because he checked the power of the nobles and passed some of it on to the growing middle class that his reign had created.

But what really caught my attention was their friendship. Richard and Philip first met as allies against Henry II of England (Richard's father). Then afterward they became friends (as far as I can tell--wikipedia just says so...and so did all the books I browsed through today). They were surprisingly close, considering that they were, first and foremost, political allies; Roger of Hoveden reported that they "ate from the same dish and at night slept in one bed" and had a "strong love between them" (it doesn't mean that they were ever lovers though, it's just that in the past, relationships between heterosexual men were so much more intense, so much so that the word Love may be seriously applied to it). I wonder if their actions were sincere at all in view of what happened later on, and what their true motivations were. Even then, Richard and Philip still acted as politicians with differing agendas in their dealings with each other:

In exchange for Philip's help against his father, Richard promised to concede to him his rights to both Normandy and Anjou. Richard did homage to Philip in November of the same year. With news arriving of the battle of Hattin, he took the cross at Tours, in the company of a number of other French nobles.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Lionheart#Occupation_of_Sicily

Richard had already taken the cross as Count of Poitou in 1187. His father Henry II of England and Philip II of France had done so at Gisors on 21 January 1188, after receiving news of the fall of Jerusalem to Saladin. Having become king, Richard and Philip agreed to go on the Third Crusade together, since each feared that, during his absence, the other might usurp his territories.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Lionheart#Crusade_plans

In spite of the politics between them, I still found the eventual split heartbreaking in the disappointment I felt (and that I feel that the two kings might have felt--I'm sentimental, aren't I?). From the little that I have read, I suppose it began on the Third Crusade:

On March 30, 1191 the French set sail for the Holy Land, where they launched several assaults on Acre before King Richard I arrived (see Siege of Acre). By the time Acre surrendered on July 12, Philip was severely ill with dysentery and had little more interest in further crusading. He decided to return to France, a decision that displeased King Richard I, who said, "It is a shame and a disgrace on my lord if he goes away without having finished the business that brought him hither. But still, if he finds himself in bad health, or is afraid lest he should die here, his will be done."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_II_of_France#Third_Crusade

Richard decided to return from Crusade as he knew that he would not be able to win Jerusalem, and also that Philip and his own brother, John, were plotting (!) against him.

The end was bitter:
From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Lionheart#Later_years_and_death

Richard came into conflict with Philip. When the latter attacked Richard's fortress, Chateau-Gaillard, he boasted that "if its walls were iron, yet would I take it," to which Richard replied, "If these walls were butter, yet would I hold them!"
... ...
In 1199 Richard faced another rebellion by Aimar V of Limoges and his half-brother, Ademar, Count of Angoulême, backed by Philip of France. Although it was Lent, he "devastated the Viscount's land with fire and sword"[3]. He besieged the castle of Châlus-Chabrol in the Limousin. (An apocryphal legend, recounted by some chroniclers, claimed that Richard had heard of a treasure trove of golden statues at Châlus.) On 26 March, Richard, not wearing his chainmail, was wounded in the left shoulder by a crossbow bolt allegedly fired by Pierre Basile, one of only two knights defending Châlus. Gangrene set in and Richard asked to see his killer. He ordered that Basile be set free and awarded a sum of money. However as soon as Richard died, with his mother at his side, on 6 April, 1199, his most infamous mercenary captain Mercadier had Basile flayed alive and then hanged.

Philip went on to live to the (relatively) ripe old age of 57, dying in the year 1223. He "would play a significant role in one of the greatest centuries of innovation in construction and in education. With Paris as his capital, he had the main thoroughfares paved, built a central market, Les Halles, continued the construction begun in 1163 of the Gothic Notre-Dame de Paris Cathedral, constructed the Louvre as a fortress and gave a charter to the University of Paris in 1200. Under his guidance, Paris became the first city of teachers the medieval world had known. In 1224, the French poet Henry d'Andeli wrote of the great wine tasting competition that Philip II Augustus commissioned The Battle of the Wines."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_II_of_France#Last_years

Although I know that I'm being a fool to get so emotional about this (since it was all so long ago and I'm not even in the slightest way involved), I cannot help but feel terribly wistful about all this. Richard and Philip most likely felt no pain at all concerning their ruined relationship; they were kings with their legacies and lands to look after, riches and territories to fight over, political alliances and enemies were all just a part of life. The relationship (whatever the nature) was doomed to fail right from the beginning, whether or not they liked each other personally. But I wonder...suppose either of them (Philip, the old and unromantic one especially) ever woke up on a cold night and lay awake with strange memories of each other and all that "oh we were young and foolish" nonsense that we all get misty-eyed about from time to time.

I hope it was so. A memory of idealism and true love's truth is infinitely better than an entire existence in the knowledge of deceit.

After all is said and done, history, often maligned as a meaningless series of events typical of this chaotic universe, does have considerable depth if we are bothered to look at it properly. The people of ages past were not that different from ourselves--in fact, no different at all; I suppose this serves to tell us, even as we continue to live alone as individuals, that we are as a stream flowing constantly although to what end we do not know. And we may be comforted that even in these dark times, we are not alone for every age is a dark age and where we are now, someone has been before and has carried the same pain that we carry.

Hugo van der Goes

The paintings of the Northern Renaissance provide a strange contrast to the paintings of the Italian Renaissance. While the latter is all a rich passion where the emotion fairly pours from the canvas, the former is as cool and precise as the ice-bound soil, cut-glass air and snow infused primeval forests. All silence. All stillness. And if one would look closely, one would see a deep-seated sadness in the solemnity of it all, perhaps as a reflection of human suffering and of the wounds apparent in history.

The painter Hugo van der Goes defines this calmness, the human figure, in his hands, is one deep in thought (of God?). The people depicted in his paintings seem to be thinking deeply of something quite beyond our grasp, and yet, at the same time, of something that we have all thought of or felt at a certain time in our lives.

Biography
The greatest Netherlandish painter of the second half of the 15th century.
Nothing is known of his life before 1467, when he became a master in the painters' guild at Ghent. He had numerous commissions from the town of Ghent for work of a temporary nature such as processional banners, and in 1475 he became dean of the painters' guild. In the same year he entered a priory near Brussels as a lay-brother, but he continued to paint and also to travel. In 1481 he suffered a mental breakdown (he had a tendency to acute depression) and although he recovered, died the following year. An account of his illness by Gaspar Ofhuys, a monk at the priory, survives; Ofhuys was apparently jealous of Hugo and his description has been called by Erwin Panofsky 'a masterpiece of clinical accuracy and sanctimonious malice'.
No paintings by Hugo are signed and his only securely documented work is his masterpiece, a large triptych of the Nativity known as the Portinari Altarpiece (Uffizi, Florence, c.1475-76). This was commissioned by Tommaso Portinari, the representative of the House of Medici in Bruges, for the church of the Hospital of Sta Maria Nuova in Florence, and it exercised a strong influence on Italian painters with its masterful handling of the oil technique. There is a great variety of surface ornament and detail, but this is combined with lucid organization of the figure groups and a convincing sense of spatial depth. As remarkable as Hugo's skill in reconciling grandeur of conception with keep observation is his psychological penetration in the depiction of individual figures, notably the awe-struck shepherds. The other works attributed to Hugo include two large panels probably designed as organ shutters (Royal collection, on loan to National Gallery of Scotland). His last work is generally thought to be the Death of the Virgin (Groeningemuseum, Bruges), a painting of remarkable tension and poignancy that seems a fitting swansong for such a tormented personality.

from http://www.wga.hu/frames-e.html?/html/g/goes/index.html

I cannot upload any pictures on this website, so go to http://www.wga.hu/frames-e.html?/html/g/goes/index.html for pictures. Some of my favourites are The Fall, The Lamentation of Christ and the Death of the Virgin.

Wheee! Oh my, what a feeling!

What a feeling, my O'Levels are over. Now I'm actually able to breathe!

I'm a tad too tired to be exhilarated, all the adrenalin has already been squeezed out of my system to keep going for the exams. I'm also too exhausted to talk about the whole story, it's just something I would prefer to leave behind for the moment. It's surprising really, ever since four years ago when I started secondary school (right after the nervous breakdown inducing--more for my folks really, until the final moments when I realized what was going on--Primary School Leaving Examinations--PSLE, they call it), the teachers have practically tattooed the importance of the O'Levels into the brains of the whole cohort, and all of a sudden it's over. But then again, I was never one of those who got really hot'n'stressed about my work.

I'll finish this post, dedicated to my not-too-intense feelings about finishing my exams.

I'll continue on some other news in the next post--see above.

Oh God, why this?

Just today I found one of those Sharity Elephant donation envelopes on the computer table, for Children's Day. One of my brother's things, he leaves his things crushed in his schoolbag so that the remains are often not found until months later.

It is one of those things that breaks your heart, really. There was message printed on it (by the Community Chest of course):

Hello, my name is Luqman.

I am 4 years old and I have
Down's Syndrome. I'm learning
to talk and play with my
friends. My teachers and
Sharity Elephant are helping
me. Can you help me too?
I will try my best.

Firstly, it's the Down's Syndrome. It's terrible that people have to be born that way; it makes you wonder, what is life, really? What is life if you are not yourself, if you do not know yourself? I am glad to be alive, to be whole...and am I glad not to be like these people, not one of them? Yes, I am. Very much.

There is so much sadness in the envelope. Call me sentimental but yes, it is so. I have felt this kind of sadness, silent, still, bright in all things ever since early childhood, but this must be one of the worst. They even provided a picture of this dribbly little boy, mouth open, eyes down. What is he? What is he? Stare all you like. What is he? Sharity Elephant is standing next to him. They are a freak show, unreal and as sharp and cutting as pixels.

It is an appeal for Help, please (!). He's so far away but the picture does not fail to grind itself into my mind. Is it his suffering, or is it ours since it is we who can sense his lack? Does he know his lack? These questions will follow me...for so long after.

It is all our sufferings perhaps; humans have a keen sense of pain if they are bothered at all to put it into use. The Message there is to hurt a person enough to put a bit spare change in the envelope, dammit.