Andare, Partire, Tornare ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- A haze of romance: Victorian Valentines and Fairy Tales Spent Sunday here at work, supervising the Victorian Valentines program. It was kind of cute, as the kiddies were very into it, although we were amused by one mother who made triple the amount of Valentines than any of the kids did, and wouldn't let her kid leave because she was having such a good time. Boop came with me to earn a few volunteer hours for NHS, and was surprised by the fact that my other helper, who I hadn't met yet, was somebody she had known in her Biology class. All in all, a very nice day. Been having problems sleeping recently. I get into bed, and end up reading, or just lying there, and I'm being awakened more easily by outside noise. Plus, Bemo's schedule has been so wacky that I'll be in bed, and he'll come in to go to bed, and I'll wake up and not be able to get back to sleep. Or if Zee's dog barks, or one of the two cats starts obsessively rearranging the poop in the potty box (or, like our brain-dead cat does, starts trying to cover it with the closet door, or the wall, or the carpet, an endless SCRAPESCRAPESCRAPESCRAPE...AUGH! So maybe the lack of quality sleep is starting to get to me. In case you were wondering, Ottonian art refers to art produced in Germany under the Saxon rulers of the Holy Roman Empire (900-1050). It was influenced by Byzantine and Carolingian forms. Ottonian basilicas such as St. Michael's of Hildesheim were characterized by simple, blocky outlines with wide aisles and large amounts of blank wall. Ottonian religious sculpture is monumental in scale, uses clear, rounded forms, and has very expressive facial features. The Gero Crucifix of 1000 is a marvelous example of a portrayal of Christ suffering for humanity, with his slumped body and anguished face. The doors of Hildesheim, comissioned by Bishop Berneward, are marvelous, especially the panel with God accusing Adam, and Adam accusing Eve, and Eve accusing the snake. (It's really very comical!) Ottonian manuscripts were plentiful, and characterized by flat, linear forms with lots of gold leaf. Screw your Valentine's Day Ditty. I'm valentined-out after this Sunday. The books I was reading while I was supposed to be sleeping were back to back sessions through Robin McKinley's Beauty and the Beast retellings, namely _Beauty_ and _Rose Daughter_. _Rose Daughter_ is the more mature work, but _Beauty_ is very charming. I like the fact that in _Rose Daughter_ she chooses to keep him the Beast and not the handsome prince. But it does make imagining sex between them very difficult. What do you suppose the kids will look like? Is there a good retelling of the Hans Christian Anderson story about the snow witch and the two little children and the splinter of ice that gets lodged in the heart? I can't think of what it's titled...probably something simple like "The Snow Witch." It was sort of referenced in _The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe_ although that may just be the fact that both the witches controlled the weather and decided to make it always winter. 11:31 a.m. - 2002-02-11 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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