St PATRICK'S DAY GREETINGS!
Courtesy of The New Yorker cover artists...
Showing posts with label Festivals. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Festivals. Show all posts
Thursday, 17 March 2016
ST PATRICK'S DAY COVERAGE
Courtesy of The New Yorker cover artists...
Thursday, 27 November 2014
Thursday, 14 February 2013
THE LOVE TRADE
Lest you were wondering – but I'm sure you weren't – here is the TRUE meaning behind why we celebrate the Feast of St Valentine...
And in case you are among the many millions of Valentine-less people irritated by the fact that seemingly everyone else is celebrating being (or hoping to be) in love, here are a few decidedly cranky – in some cases downright scary – vintage Valentine's cards to make you grateful not to be on some people's romantic mailing list!
This one moves...
...though you might wish it didn't!
And one for the lads...
Some of these cards are quite old (the hippo, the pig and the heart-eating monkey) others, I have learned, are from a later period as 'Anonymous' intriguingly reveals in the comments below.
Anon's entertaining reminiscence was accompanied by a link to one of his favourite Valentine's Day cards, featuring a couple of Disney characters, and (to save you having to copy and paste the link), I've 'madly' decided to add here for everyone's amusement...
These cards come from various sites on the net, including The Mitch O'Connell Blog where you will find a great many more!
Saturday, 2 February 2013
FORTY DAYS ON
Today – forty days after Christmas – is the ancient Feast of Candlemas...
Marking the mid-point of winter, halfway between the shortest day and the spring equinox, the name Candlemas derives from the custom of taking into church the candles to be used in the coming year and blessing them.
Since the earliest days of the Christian church, this festival has signalled the formal ending of the Christmas season by commemorating an event recorded in the Gospel of St Luke.
Following the Jewish tradition of pidyon haben, Mary and Joseph presented their first-born child, Jesus, in the Temple in Jerusalem. According to Luke, the event was witnessed by an elderly devout Jew named Simeon who had received a promise from God that he would not die until he had seen the Saviour of the world.
Taking the child in his arms, Simeon spoke words that, across the centuries, have featured in the daily services of worship throughout the Christian church.
In Greek the words say...
In popular culture, the 'Nunc Dimittis' will be forever associated with the closing titles of the 1979 BBC TV dramatisation of John le Carré's spy novel, Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy in a setting by the late Geoffrey Burgon (responsible for another magnificent television score accompanying Brideshead Revisited).
The Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy version was sung by a boy soprano (the uncredited Paul Phoenix) and, despite having a child singing what is the prayer of an old man, it it has a haunting and gloriously ethereal sound as you can hear here.
Here's another famous former boy soprano, Aled Jones singing Burgon's setting in company with a current young chorister, Ben Crawley...
This Candlemas, I wish you all a day of peace and tranquillity.
Images: Candle in St John the Divine, Kennington by Brian Sibley © 2012; 'Simeon's Song of Praise' by Aert De Gelder c.1700
Marking the mid-point of winter, halfway between the shortest day and the spring equinox, the name Candlemas derives from the custom of taking into church the candles to be used in the coming year and blessing them.
Since the earliest days of the Christian church, this festival has signalled the formal ending of the Christmas season by commemorating an event recorded in the Gospel of St Luke.
Following the Jewish tradition of pidyon haben, Mary and Joseph presented their first-born child, Jesus, in the Temple in Jerusalem. According to Luke, the event was witnessed by an elderly devout Jew named Simeon who had received a promise from God that he would not die until he had seen the Saviour of the world.
Taking the child in his arms, Simeon spoke words that, across the centuries, have featured in the daily services of worship throughout the Christian church.
In Greek the words say...
In Latin...
- νῦν ἀπολύεις τὸν δοῦλόν σου, δέσποτα, κατὰ τὸ ῥῆμά σου ἐν εἰρήνῃ·
- ὅτι εἶδον οἱ ὀφθαλμοί μου τὸ σωτήριόν σου,
- ὃ ἡτοίμασας κατὰ πρόσωπον πάντων τῶν λαῶν,
- φῶς εἰς αποκάλυψιν ἐθνῶν καὶ δόξαν λαοῦ σου Ἰσραήλ.
And in the English of the 1662 Book of Common Prayer...
- Nunc dimittis servum tuum, Domine, secundum verbum tuum in pace:
- Quia viderunt oculi mei salutare tuum
- Quod parasti ante faciem omnium populorum:
- Lumen ad revelationem gentium, et gloriam plebis tuae Israel.
The prayer, known as the 'Nunc Dimittis', became part of the night time office of the Christian church called Compline, or Evening Prayer, and many composers have written settings for the 'Nunc Dimittis' from Thomas Tallis to Arvo Part. (You can click on the composers' names to link to recording of their versions.)
- Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace : according to thy word.
- For mine eyes have seen : thy salvation,
- Which thou hast prepared : before the face of all people;
- To be a light to lighten the Gentiles : and to be the glory of thy people Israel.
In popular culture, the 'Nunc Dimittis' will be forever associated with the closing titles of the 1979 BBC TV dramatisation of John le Carré's spy novel, Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy in a setting by the late Geoffrey Burgon (responsible for another magnificent television score accompanying Brideshead Revisited).The Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy version was sung by a boy soprano (the uncredited Paul Phoenix) and, despite having a child singing what is the prayer of an old man, it it has a haunting and gloriously ethereal sound as you can hear here.
Here's another famous former boy soprano, Aled Jones singing Burgon's setting in company with a current young chorister, Ben Crawley...
This Candlemas, I wish you all a day of peace and tranquillity.
Images: Candle in St John the Divine, Kennington by Brian Sibley © 2012; 'Simeon's Song of Praise' by Aert De Gelder c.1700
Saturday, 17 March 2012
PEANUTS TO ST PATRICK
A small – very small – joke for St Patrick's Day...
HAPPY 17 MARCH!
Peanuts © Charles Schulz
Peanuts © Charles Schulz
Sunday, 23 May 2010
WHATSUNDAY?
Today is what used to be called Whitsunday and tomorrow would have been Whit Monday, if they hadn't nicked that holiday, back in 1970, and traded it in for what is now the Bank Holiday Monday at the end of the month.
So, what is Whitsun? Well, its the English name for the Christian festival otherwise called Pentecost and held on the seventh Sunday after Easter to mark the coming of the Holy Spirit to the Apostles with a rushing wind and tongues of living fire.
The first mention of the word 'Whitsun' in English is, apparently, to be found in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle for 1067, where it appears as ‘hwitan sunnan daeg’. The derivation of the word has been much debated, but is generally thought that 'whit' is a contraction of 'white' (rather than anything to do with 'wit') and refers to a popularity for holding adult baptisms on that day which traditionally required those being admitted into the church to wear white.
It became a popular convention for folk to wear new clothes on Whit Sunday and the religious observation of the day was coupled with all kinds of secular merrymaking beginning in the Middle Ages with morris dancing (involving representations of our recent blog-friends Robin of Sherwood, Maid Marian and Friar Tuck), outings, picnics, fětes and fairs to which were later added a range of sporting events on the Monday.
One curious superstition was that any child born on Whit Sunday was doomed either to kill or be killed. Such a fate could, however, be averted by holding a mock funeral for the child -- or, alternatively, by squashing an insect in the child's hand.
Not then a good day on which to be born and most certainly not a good day on which to be a bug!
A good day, however, for this blog to clock up the following interesting number of hits!!
Image: Detail of stained glass window in the former St Mary's-at-Lambeth, London, now home of The Garden Museum by Brian Sibley © 2010, uploaded via my flickr Photostream.
So, what is Whitsun? Well, its the English name for the Christian festival otherwise called Pentecost and held on the seventh Sunday after Easter to mark the coming of the Holy Spirit to the Apostles with a rushing wind and tongues of living fire.
The first mention of the word 'Whitsun' in English is, apparently, to be found in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle for 1067, where it appears as ‘hwitan sunnan daeg’. The derivation of the word has been much debated, but is generally thought that 'whit' is a contraction of 'white' (rather than anything to do with 'wit') and refers to a popularity for holding adult baptisms on that day which traditionally required those being admitted into the church to wear white.
It became a popular convention for folk to wear new clothes on Whit Sunday and the religious observation of the day was coupled with all kinds of secular merrymaking beginning in the Middle Ages with morris dancing (involving representations of our recent blog-friends Robin of Sherwood, Maid Marian and Friar Tuck), outings, picnics, fětes and fairs to which were later added a range of sporting events on the Monday.
One curious superstition was that any child born on Whit Sunday was doomed either to kill or be killed. Such a fate could, however, be averted by holding a mock funeral for the child -- or, alternatively, by squashing an insect in the child's hand.
Not then a good day on which to be born and most certainly not a good day on which to be a bug!
A good day, however, for this blog to clock up the following interesting number of hits!!
Image: Detail of stained glass window in the former St Mary's-at-Lambeth, London, now home of The Garden Museum by Brian Sibley © 2010, uploaded via my flickr Photostream.
Sunday, 4 April 2010
HALLELUJAH!
EASTER DAY and in celebration of this ancient, holy, festival, here is the glorious 'Hallelujah Chorus' from George Frederick Handel's Messiah, as performed on Andre Rieu's Live From Radio City Music Hall in New York City in 2004, with the Johann Strauss Orchestra and the Harlem Gospel Choir.
Hallelujah Choruses don't get much more triumphalist than this...
wishing you a happy
EASTERTIDE
Monday, 22 March 2010
MASQUERADE
In case you don't recognise us (we've had rather a lot of worry lately!) this is David and I attending the re-opening-in-new-premises-party of one of our favourite local restaurants, Amici...
Everyone was invited to wear masks so we selected a couple of Venetian ones from our own collection.
As anyone who's ever visited Venice knows, pretty much every other shop sells Venetian masks - many of which - if the naive tourist did but know it - were made a long way from Venice and imported for sale to souvenir-seeking day-trippers!
There are, in fact, only three or four authentic mask-makers left in the city, compared with some three or for hundred mask shops!
As anyone who's ever visited Venice knows, pretty much every other shop sells Venetian masks - many of which - if the naive tourist did but know it - were made a long way from Venice and imported for sale to souvenir-seeking day-trippers!
There are, in fact, only three or four authentic mask-makers left in the city, compared with some three or for hundred mask shops!
And you wouldn't believe how many of them have notices in their windows advising potential purchasers that they were the exclusive providers of masks for Stanley Kubrick's 1999 film, Eyes Wide Shut. Some even have testimonials from Tom and Nicole. You'd think, bearing in mind what a turkey the film was, that they'd want to keep quite about such an association!
But I digress, the masks we are wearing above were made in Venice - David's in papier mache and mine from leather with horse hair eyebrows!
This be-crystalled confection, on the other hand - despite being offered for sale only a few hundred yards from St Mark's Square, - was made by Swarovski of Austria...
However, if you know where to look, you can find authentic mask 'laboratories' where the antique crafts are still practiced...
In such establishments you can buy the beautiful...
Or the beastly...
Or a little something to tickle your fancy...
Once a year, at Carnival (just before the beginning of Lent), the masqueraders take to the campos, calles and bridges and decorate this already elaborately decorative city with outlandish flowerings of exotic costumery and eccentric masks for the benefit of post-card and art-book photographers and the general wonderment of tourists who imagine, quite wrongly, that they are getting a peep at what Venetian life was like back in those rudely, romping days of Casanova and Co.
Never mind, Venice is a theatre and the mask-wearers are - like everyone who visits the city - performers on its stage...
Photos of masks © Brian Sibley, uploaded via flickr. You can see more of my photos of Venice (and elsewhere) on my flickr Photostream.
Wednesday, 17 March 2010
Wednesday, 6 January 2010
JOURNEY'S END
Today is the Feast of Epiphany, from the Greek word ἐπιφάνεια, meaning "appearance" or "manifestation".
The observance of Epiphany had its origins in the Eastern Christian Churches, and was a general celebration of the Incarnation of Jesus Christ but, in particular, marked the visit to Bethlehem of the Magi or "Wise Men" whom we later transmogrified into the Three Kings of the ever-popular carol and a million Christmas card designs.
And don't forget, today's the day - if you haven't already done it - when you really must take down those Christmas Trees!
You'll find more windows (this one belongs to Il Papiro in Calle del Piovan, San Marco, Venice) on my blog, Window Gazing
Images: Magi by Richard Hook from the Look & Learn Picture Gallery; Christmas window by Brian Sibley © 2009
The observance of Epiphany had its origins in the Eastern Christian Churches, and was a general celebration of the Incarnation of Jesus Christ but, in particular, marked the visit to Bethlehem of the Magi or "Wise Men" whom we later transmogrified into the Three Kings of the ever-popular carol and a million Christmas card designs.
Epiphany Poem
The red king
Came to a great water. He said,
Here the journey ends.
No keel or skipper on this shore.The yellow king
Halted under a hill. He said,
Turn the camels round.
Beyond, ice summits only.The black king
Knocked on a city gate. He said,
All roads stop here.
These are gravestones, no inn.The three kings
Met under a dry star.
There, at midnight,
The star began its singing.The three kings
Suffered salt, snow, skulls.
They suffered the silence
Before the first word.- George Mackay Brown Epiphany Poem
And don't forget, today's the day - if you haven't already done it - when you really must take down those Christmas Trees!
You'll find more windows (this one belongs to Il Papiro in Calle del Piovan, San Marco, Venice) on my blog, Window Gazing
Images: Magi by Richard Hook from the Look & Learn Picture Gallery; Christmas window by Brian Sibley © 2009
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