More Than A Century Of Jazz

Amongst the dozens of exhibitions on at the moment, another will be inaugurated tomorrow, in The Centre of Contemporary Culture of Barcelona, that records the 20th century through Jazz. From it's birth in the first years of the 20th century, the Jazz has inter-related intimately with the other forms of art like painting, photography and films.

Together with cinematography and Rock, Jazz was one of the most important artistic events of the last century. This exhibition will be presented in chronological form the relationship between Jazz and art including literature, not forgetting graphics and animation drawings. (Public and private, of Larry Rivers) CCCB.

Or, if you prefer to be right in the middle of live jazz with the dimmed lights and smoky atmosphere, there are countless Jazz clubs in Barcelona, all celebrating with or without the pretext of it being the centennial event.

Tags:centennial,jazz

Current Mood: Cheerful

The Other Me, The Other You

It's not about cloning or clones. In fact it's not even new this idea of services that a couple of Spanish companies had come up with: offering personal and/or domestic assistance to those who have tight work schedule, or prefer to indulge the little free time they have in fun activities rather than mundane daily household chores. They would do just about anything at all you want done for you, for a fee of course. They do mean everything: from filling up your fridge with your daily need, take the dog for a walk, accompanying your children to and from school, arrange and organise your home, making sure you have the right suit and tie for attending the premiere of an opera, feed your budgie, cat or goldfish ... To sending roses to your new conquest or even writing love poems on your behalf ...

Long before now there have been similar services offered like personal shopper or trainer, secretary who does a lot more than typing and correspondence, and personal assistants, and the popularly called cleaning ladies, housekeeper, nannies or the type I know best when I lived in Hong Kong, the household servant or maids. The only difference is that the things they will do for you now, depending how much you pay, include a lot more than the basic household chores.

These companies claim that they are meticulously thorough, starting with a lengthy first interview to get to know their clients' needs, so that they can do things for you exactly like you would have done had you had the time or energy to do so. Hence the slogan on the advertising 'The other You, The other Me'. I would have thought that if they do things exactly like what I do, I wouldn't have engaged them; I would have expected them to do everything better than I can, to justify or deserve the high charges.

The charges are fixed accordingly, job to job, without an established scale. As a general guide, from €600 to €3,000 per month. I wouldn't have thought there are not too many who can afford to pay €3,000. That would mean the client would have to earn several times that figure. Well that excludes me altogether! Back to the kitchen sink MoiMoii.

Tags:kitchensink,homehelp

Current Mood: Accomplished

From Moon To Canvas

The 4th man to have walked on the moon, Alan Bean, has since become a painter. He took the moonwalk in Apollo X11 in 1969. In 1981 he thought his retina had recorded sufficient spectacular images of the stratosphere and decided to take off his space suit for the apron of a painter. He took up the palette and brushes and began to transform the amazing images of what he had the opportunity witnessing to the canvas.

Now those who have keen desire to visit the moon, but lacking the capital to realize this dream, can visit the National Museum of Air and Space in Washington (6th & Independence Ave), where Bean's exhibition of paintings was on in 2010 under the title: Alan Bean: Painting Apollo, first artist on another world.

The exhibitions presents an ample collection of his work, seen through the ex-astronaut's own eyes, all that he had seen and experienced of that very special and unique space travel. His painting is artistic but of realism, of that virgin planet that we all wonder about.

 

Tags:apollo12,moonpainting.

Current Mood: Accomplished