Narcissus and Echo

Shall the water not remember     Ember
my hand’s slow gesture, tracing above   of
its mirror my half-imaginary      airy
portrait? My only belonging      longing;
is my beauty, which I take       ache
away and then return, as love       of
teasing playfully the one being     unbeing.
whose gratitude I treasure        Is your
moves me. I live apart         heart
from myself, yet cannot         not
live apart. In the water’s tone,      stone?
that brilliant silence, a flower      Hour,
whispers my name with such slight      light:
moment, it seems filament of air,       fare 
the world becomes cloudswell.     well.

- Fred Chappell (b. 1936)

Fred Chappell's beautiful poem, Narcissus and Echo, is a combination of two poems into a third. Based on the Greek mythology surrounding Narcissus, a vain young man who falls in love with his reflection, and the beautiful nymph Echo, who lives under the curse of only being able to repeat the words of others.

I've always found the story a striking one. There is something very sad about not being able to express what you as an individual think. Chappell's Echo, however, is capable of self-expression; even though she does only repeat the sounds that leave Narcissus' mouth, she forms her own ideas, her own expressions. She speaks.

If you want to read more about the Greek myth behind Chappell's poem, there is a brief summary at this website: http://thanasis.com/echo.htm

Wordsworth's Daffodils

My close friend H came back from her vacation from the March Break with two lovely souvenirs for me and our friend M. They are adorable miniature turtle carvings. Being English geeks to a ridiculous degree and having just come from an English class on poetry through the ages, M and I decided that we would name our turtles after two great poets: Edgar Allen Poe (1809-1849) and William Wordsworth (1770-1850). Thus, Edgar and Wordsworth are now quite happily sitting in our rooms.

In honour of our new friends, I thought I'd post a poem by Wordsworth. Often considered Wordsworth's most famous poem, "I wandered lonely as a cloud" (also known as "Daffodils" or "The Daffodils") was first written in 1804.

I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils,
Beside the lake, beneath the trees
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the Milky Way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced, but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee: -
A poet could not but be gay
In such a jocund company:
I gazed -and gazed -but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought.

For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills
And dances with the daffodils.

Interestingly enough, Wordsworth's sister, wrote about walking with her brother among the daffodils just a few years prior to Wordsworth's poem. Here are her words below.

When we were in the woods beyond Gowbarrow Park, we saw a few daffodils close to the water side. We fancied that the lake had floated the seed ashore and that the little colony had so sprung up. But as we went along there were more and more and at last under the boughs of the trees, we saw that there was a long belt of them along the shore, about the breadth of a country turnpike road.

I never saw daffodils so beautiful they grew among the mossy stones about and about them, some rested their heads upon these stones as on a pillow for weariness and the rest tossed and reeled and danced and seemed as if they verily laughed with the wind that blew upon them over the lake, they looked so gay ever dancing ever changing.

This wind blew directly over the lake to them. There was here and there a little knot and a few stragglers a few yards higher up but they were so few as not to disturb the simplicity and unity and life of that one busy highway. We rested again and again. The Bays were stormy, and we heard the waves at different distances and in the middle of the water like the sea.

— Dorothy Wordsworth, The Grasmere Journal , Thursday, 15 April 1802

An artist at work

I had the amazing opportunity today to watch abstract expressionist painter Cesan D'Ornellas Levine as she created a vibrant painting in front of her eyes at the Petroff Gallery in Toronto. My friend H and I sat and watched her for a bit as she transformed a wooden canvas into a part of her Sun Series Paintings. It was super cool!

While I know very little about visual art and art history (and I hope to learn more soon), I really enjoyed watching Cesan D'Ornellas Levine paint. I would never have thought of some of her techniques. She used white a lot; she would paint with colour, and then 'take off' portions of the dried coloured paint with white paint. She used water; spraying the paint with water seemed to create a really interesting effect. She used a wood-carving knife to etch patterns into her painting since she was painting on wood, rather than canvas. She used paper towel to make a soft, unique texture.

It really is amazing how many opportunities are available to people living in and around the Toronto area. Cesan D'Ornellas Levine's exhibition today was free of charge, and I am sure there are many such events around Toronto that go by without Torontonians taking full advantage. Concerts, art exhibitions, historical sites -- there is so much to see and do, and so little time to do it all!

Skating with Colour

I adore figure skating. While I don't have the chance to do much figure skating myself, I still enjoy watching the artists at work.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xOyrvFE-OZo&feature=player_embedded is a beautiful and inspiring combination of visual art, dance, figure skating, and music. Regina Spektor's "Après Moi" is a lovely song, and Oksana Domnina and Maksim Marinin are amazing figure skaters and amazing artists!

Fashion

In recent months and especially in the last two weeks, I've started to become very interested in clothes and fashion. I'm not positively sure why, but I think it has partly to do with the fact that I'm graduating next year and can no longer rely on throwing on my uniform every day, and partly to do with the fact that I am feeling very academically inspired by my English teacher, and she happens to be extraordinarily fashionable. My best friend also has a stunning sense of style, and I occasionally think to myself that it would be nice if I could be a stylish as her (you could analyze it and say something about wanting to be as an amazing person as her -- she has spectacular character traits -- and transferring those traits to her clothes).

The reason why I find my sudden interest (borderline obsession, considering the amount of time I've been spending on online clothing shops without actually buying anything, Pinterest, Etsy, fashion blogs, etc.) in fashion so startling is because of my strong adversity to it in previous years. I had formerly told myself that fashion should be functional (which I still think is true), and devoting so much time and energy into fashion seems to be rooted in some sort of unfortunate values of artificiality and consumerism.

It occurred more recently to me that fashion may in fact be yet another form of art.