Apanthropinisation

That music...

As some of you have guessed correctly, the instrument in the post below is the zither and is not so rare in the Slovenian folklore. The theme is from a film, a poetic drama about impossible love (nothing new under the Sun), the title of which could be translated into Blooms in Autumn. The story is set at the beginning of 20th century and the narrator is a man who tells his story to a paucity of listeners at a tea party. He is a lawyer tired of city life, so one day he decides to visit his distant cousin who owns a farm in the hills and falls in love with his daughter. After a while he has to return but doesn't want to take the girl with him, saying she would wither in the city, not being used to its vagaries. Eventually, his feelings for the girl prevail and he decides to move to the country, buy some property and marry her. But when he visits her and passes the news, she can't stand the joy and dies in his arms.

Just because I can

Oh, and because I think the music is beautiful although the video is absolutely boring.

Three Word Thursday #3

And they lived happily...

"Have you heard Minnie got divorced?"

"What, again? That's hardly news anymore. That would be - what - fifth, sixth time now?"

"Sixth, but from the fifth husband. She married, and divorced, husband no.1 twice. And she's not even 30 yet. Quite an achievement, eh!"

"Opprobrious, is what I say. She collects men like other people do stamps or coins. In spite of her volgivagant roots and cynicocratical manners they keep falling for her isangelous face. And she must have ripped the poor buggers off - she seems to have gained quite a fortune from her divorces."

"Hm, having mentioned coins, did you know her last husband was quite a big gun in the numismatic circles?"

"So I've heard. And an exceedingly perspicacious guy, too. I wonder how he got involved with her in the first place."

"Well, from what I know, he had been waiting for one of his business partners in a bar when a fracas broke out between two of Minnie's quondam husbands who happened to run into each other there. He stepped in and managed to calm down the two men. Then he treated them to a drink and inquired about the reason for their hostilities. Thus he found out about Minnie and decided to seek her out and offer himself on a plate, so to speak."

"He did? He had a plan, then?"

"Yep, keep listening. One day at a supermarket he 'accidentally' hit her with his trolley. Ample apologies ensued and after displaying an enormous amount of remorse he offered to pay for her provisions and give her a ride home. She couldn't refuse such a generous offer and they ended up together and got married in just a couple of weeks."

"But... I don't understand. Why would he go to all the trouble if he knew what she was like?"

"He is heir to a huge wealth. His uncle was an eccentric British lord, outrageously rich and an author of several treatises on casuistry. The man was a widower with no offspring of his own and left him everything in his will under one proviso: that he marry a woman who had at least four husbands before him. There was no mention of a subsequent divorce, though."

This year's first

This winter has been long and harsh and I've been looking in vain for signs of spring for quite a while. However, today in the city park I found this year's first crocuses.

Hey, wait a...

Oh well, too late again...

Every cloud has a...

rainbow lining?

One flew over... (Three Word Thursday)

I had to have that coin. Not that I was in the least bit interested in numismatics - I wasn't - but this was a personal matter. I simply couldn't let my half-brother have everything after grandfather's death. But he had taken the coin along with all the other possession and had put it on display in a shelf in his cabinet for everyone to admire. Now if I could only figure out how to get to it unnoticed.

One morning I had been awakened by a fracas from the red maple in my backyard. Two agitated magpies had been flying in and out of its dense crown and there, on the ground, was an almost, but not quite, fledged bird, screeching in terror as the neighbour's cat narrowed its circles around it. At that moment an idea struck me. I had to react quickly so I grabbed my slipper and threw it toward the cat. Then I collected the young bird and brought it inside. See, magpies are perspicacious birds and naturally attracted to shiny objects so I decided to raise the fledgling and train him to collect the coin for me.

After months of hard work both Jake, as I called the bird, and I were ready for action. I drove to the half-brother's house and let the bird loose. I knew he always left the cabinet window open while dining downstairs so I chose the time carefully. Jake entered the cabinet as planned and after a few minutes reemerged with a shiny object in his beak. He darted toward my car but all of a sudden took a sharp turn, crossed the road and disappeared into an oak grove beyond the rape field.

I never saw Jake or the coin again but every once in a while the local paper reports a mysterious disappearance of a valuable object from a home of a wealthy villager. There are never any signs of burglary but sometimes a tiny black feather would lie where the object used to be.

What a difference a night makes

last night


this morning

How we see...

ourselves
the world around us
life
...

Random musing on a random Saturday night

Life is a strange journey and it's quite amazing howmany different fellow travellers we may encounter. There are people we may travel with much of the time and yet hardly notice their presence. Others may travel only a short distance with us, or merely exchange a few words while going in a different direction, and yet those may be the ones having the biggest influence on our future. They may have a message for us or a lesson to learn, and sometimes those are not clear until much later. Such fellow travellers are few and far between and often don't even realise they are doing something special. Of course, we can also be messengers or teachers to other life travellers. I hope I have touched a few lives in a positive way.

Heading toward spring?

Hopefully so...

Pft!

I didn't have to work late this afternoon. In fact, if I wanted, I could have left work whenever suited me. However, the photo (even though taken on Sunday and not today) is as accurate an account of the happenings outside as it gets.

Perhaps I should be grateful not to live in the western Europe where the gales caused huge damage today, or even in Australia with the deadly bush fires and searing temperatures, but I've had enough!

After more than three weeks...

And guess what? I had to spend the whole day, 8 am to 7 pm in an office, and worse - in a windowless room with several other people - except for a half-hour break.

False hope?

This is the most sky we have seen in many a week. It opened briefly just before sunset but was short-lived. It's raining again, and there's rain and more rain forecast for the next few days. And I can't even file a complaint to anybody, all I can do is rant on my blog. But that's what blogs are for, no? Well, among other things... pft.

Winter fairy tale?

Could well be.

Although, thinking of fairy tales, most people only see the 'happily ever after' part. However, there is no fairy tale without the hero (or heroes) having to go through all kinds of trials and tribulations before they get to that part.

And, winter for me, no matter how pretty it may appear to others, is but a series of trials and tribulations, and it never even leads to the 'happily ever after'. There is always another winter waiting in the wings to throw the most hideous adversities at unsuspecting victims who only wish to see some sun every now and again, and don't even remember when it was the last time they did.

This winter's arsenal appears inexhaustible and today's repertoire alone consists of heavy snowfall which managed to close down the airport for five hours for the first time in 22 years; after the snow came the rain - thick and cold and heavy that turned the pedestrian areas into a slushy mess and the edges of the streets into pools of filthy snowmelt unable to flow away through the drains which were clogged by the snow previously ploughed away; toward the night the drizzle has started to freeze on the surfaces, thus causing even more trouble.

I guess we would really need some fairy tale magic to finally ward off this miserable troll of the winter. I've had enough!

Question #5

Do you have any plans to someday start a business around your photography?

With my reluctance to attend social events and dislike of photographing humans? Fat chance!

Not that I wouldn't like to make a living off something I enjoy doing but... I can have fun with trying to capture motives I enjoy now and failing over and over again until I get it right (or not) but shooting for money? I just don't know... it doesn't seem feasible right now. Besides, I want to keep enjoying photography, not making it a grind. Most of my motives are not even suitable for stock sites. And there's one other thing: my knowledge of photo-editing programs is poor, to put it mildly. And I'm too lazy to learn enough Photoshop (or similar stuff) to be able to manipulate my photos. I prefer them with as little processing as possible anyway.

Question #4

Show us a photograph you are particularly proud of and explain why it means so much to you.

When I first read the question, I thought it would be impossible to answer. With every set of photos I take I usually go through a process of liking some photos, then not liking them, then liking some and not others, then changing my mind... you get the idea.

I could have chosen a photo I have submitted to a local on-line photo gallery where it received positive critique; I could have chosen another one a friend of mine saw and wanted it framed on a wall and so on... but eventually I decided to show you this:




The photo is far from being technically perfect; it could have been done better. However, this is one of the first photos I ever took with a digital camera. I had no idea about framing, lighting, composition or any other element of successful photography, and yet I instinctively framed it in the best possible way considering the circumstances. I was quite proud if it then and in a way still am today.