Names

I always rather liked my first name.  Though later, I've found it pretty era-specific--given to girls born between the first performance of J. M. Barrie's Peter Pan in 1904 and the beginning of that fast-food chain in the '80s, I think it was.  But gone, too, it seems, are such tried-and-trues as Donna, Carol, Barbara, Betty to be replaced by girls' names whittled out of surnames.  McKenzie, Tyler, Taylor, Riley.  The '60s and '70s Old Testament names for boys seems to have tamed down a bit.  Zachariah, Jeremiah, Jedediah, Ezekiel.  Instead, some of our 21st century grandchildren are finding themselves with names from a splendid list of both the resurrected old-fashioned and the interesting unusual.  Rosalind, Evelyn, Susannah, Vega, Paikea, Sebastian, Oscar, Theo.

Then there are names mostly found nowadays in England.  Nigel, Reginald, Alistair, Rupert.  Violet, Daisy, Pansy.  And English and Irish names with their own unique pronunciation.  Mark Twain once said, "Names are not always what they seem.  The common Welsh name Bzjxxllwcp is pronounced Jackson."  I've felt a little like that when reading the names Sacheverell and St. John (men).  Siobhan, Sinead, Saoirse, Aoife, and Maebh (women).  (That's Sa-SHEV-er-al and SIN-jin.  Sha-VAN, Shin-AID, SEAR-sha, EE-fa, and MAY-v.)

Casting about for an illustration, I hit on this since it represents that fine girl's name, Viola, and is seasonally appropriate.

Then I've run across some beguiling names.  When in Athens, Patrick Leigh Fermor, the writer-adventurer, fell in love with a Princess Balasha Cantacuzene, a Romanian princess twelve years his senior.  In a moment of reverie, I wondered who I'd be if I had such a name.  For one thing, I'd be taller, slimmer.  I'd wear lots of silk scarves, maybe hats.  I'd live in Europe with a long-haired cat and an exotic chanteur from Paris's bird market.  And, yes, I'd make regular trips to Athens.

Joseph Fiennes who played Shakespeare in Shakespeare in Love is really Joseph Alberic Iscariot Twisleton-Wykeham-Fiennes.  Dirk Bogarde, the (mostly) '50s English actor, was Derek Jules Gaspard Ulric Niven van den Bogaerde.  And the Irish actress who took the name Siobhan McKenna was born Siobhan Giollamhuire Nic Cionnaith.

The longest name I've run across is the name of the last king of Laos, deposed in 1975, Savang or Sisavang Vatthana.  His full name was Samdach Brhat Chao Mavattaha Sri Vitha Lan Xang Hom Khao Phra Rajanachakra Lao Parama Sidha Khattiya Suriya Varman Brhat Maha Sri Savangsa Vadhana.

Some names present problems when none should be present.  For instance, Gandhi is too often misspelled Ghandi.  Santa Fe somehow becomes Sante Fe.  And I've had people ask me if "New England" (which is part of my address) is one word or two.  I want to say it's one just to see what happens.  I mean, would they write "Newhampshire" or "Newyork" or "Newprovidence"?  But I'm polite and say, "Two."

Many years ago when I was working at my typewriter a lot, a family member suggested I take a pen name ... and she would, too.  Mine, she said, would be Cowrie Elounta, hers Mellow Abboobuhkuh.  I wrote them down and stuck them on my bulletin board.  So, who would I be if I were Cowrie Elounta?  I'd invite people over for a glass of white wine and sit out in a garden filled with pots of flowers.  I'd dress in skirts and maybe '50s boleros.  I'd grow my hair long and pin it up off my neck.  I'd make lists of words I liked--tomfoolery, twaddle, marmalade, eggshell, rapscallion, whippersnapper, bespoke clothing.  But ... I'd also live in a sunny climate and procrastinate from writing by weeding my herb garden and taking picnics down to the beach!

Beads

I've collected beads for years.  I've always enjoyed perusing bead stores ... coming away with a pretty selection of this and that.  I turned some beads into drop earrings.  But many just stayed in my partitioned plastic boxes.  Then, bingo, one day not all that long ago, I simply got to work (it was play, actually) and strung them into necklaces.  Forget about earrings; I had far too many beads.  I found that stringing was a cinch; I simply used a nylon-coated wire from our local bead store which proved to be both strong and flexible enough to allow me to experiment with different combinations.  Then I took the finished necklaces back to the bead store where one of the pros fit on clasps.

Brief side-track:  with this past November's lower light, I bought an appealing grey heather worsted weight yarn with which to knit a pull-over sweater--something I enjoy doing when the weather starts to chill up and the evenings lengthen as the wintering sun sets in what would otherwise seem to be the middle of the afternoon.  Taking my knitting with me on my recent train trip to Santa Fe, I got the bright idea of picking out beads in one of Santa Fe's great bead stores and making a matching necklace.  Being a heathered yarn, besides the grey, there were bits of black, copper, and straw-colored yarns intermingled, so choosing colors was easy.

Here they are, sweater and necklace.

Note the little owls in the middle. 

And here are the other necklaces I made.  If you have a bead store near you, try it out.  You can use glass beads, metal, bone, clay, semi-precious stones, seed pods, shells.  For clasps, you can use one that's magnetic, one that screws together, or one that simply slips together.  Working with beads is a very tactile, satisfying pastime that produces something totally unique.

This is a magnetic clasp.  Get the two halves anywhere near each other and they immediately pop together.

The snakes and shells were hand-made from clay and given to me as a gift.  This shows what the magnetic clasp looks like when closed.

I had one bird (not two) and one small piece of amber, so I used them as a pair.  (Another magnetic clasp.)

Iona, One April

Exactly this time of year some years back, I took myself off to Scotland for a visit to the Inner Hebrides.  By going mid-April, I'd still find low-season rates ... and maybe, by then, springy enough weather to do some plein air painting.  The air fare was indeed excellent, the B&B rates weren't bad, and Scotland's west coast scenery was all I could have hoped for.  Wide expanses, old eroded volcanic mountains, plenty of open sky.  I positioned myself in the coastal town of Oban where I enjoyed a bit of whiskey-tasting, some wandering on foot (I didn't want to pay for a car rental or tackle left-hand driving), and dining in restaurants, all of which seemed to hark back to the '50s, whether serving down-home food or playing old Frank Sinatra songs. 

The town of Oban on the Scottish mainland

But ... Scotland in mid-April proved to be too wet, blowy, and downright freezing to do any satisfactory painting.  I carried my watercolors with me but came away with only one brief sketch ... done while wearing mittens.

One day, putting all else aside, I took the ferry from Oban over to Craignure on the eastern side of the neighboring island of Mull where I then caught a bus (or coach, as it was called) to Fionnphort on the western side.  The road was one-lane with occasional turn-outs where vehicles paused to let each other pass.  The driver kept up an amusing prattle.  To survive the Scottish winter, he said, "We 'ave a wee pairty from November to the aiend of March."

On the ferry between Oban and the Isle of Mull

At Fionnphort, I then took a small boat the short distance to the tiny Isle of Iona.  Beautiful, peaceful, light-filled Iona, only some three miles long and a mile wide, proved to be serene, unspoiled, and magical in its purity, its turquoise waters, and its views across to the mainland's snow-covered mountains.  Ireland's exiled monk, St. Colomba, had landed here in 563, founded a monastery, and introduced Christianity to Scotland ... from which it then spread to England.  Celtic manuscripts were produced here.  Scottish kings buried, including Macbeth and Duncan.

Inner Hebrides Isle of Iona with the Abbey to the right

The Abbey on Iona

I'd been wanting to see Iona since reading Kenneth Clark's description of it in his book Civilisation in which he said it gave one the feeling that "some God is in this place."  What was it, he asked, that produced its sense of peace?  "The light, which floods round on every side?  The lie of the land which, coming after the solemn hills of Mull, seems strangely like Greece, like Delos, even?  The combination of wine-dark sea, white sand and pink granite?  Or is it the memory of those holy men who for two centuries kept western civilisation alive?" (1)

Wavering up and down in the choppy seas, our little boat also made its way to the nearby puffin-inhabited rock-isle of Staffa, notable for its extraordinary columnar basalt sea cave, Fingal's Cave--the name Mendelssohn gave the Hebrides Overture he wrote after seeing Staffa.  One of our boat's American passengers looked up at it and muttered, "Awesome."

Fingal's Cave on the Isle of Staffa ...

... with more hexagonal basalt extending into the sea.

I always thought I might return to Iona.  Small enough to get around on foot and with only a tiny population, it would make a perfect spot for a retreat.  Or a real painting venture.  Almost treeless, it has radiant views.  With no cars, it offers a perfect quietude.  One can wander through its flower-dotted ruins or visit its handsome restored abbey.  And the sea is always there ... and the gulls.

Though mid-April proved to be too early in the season for outdoor painting, I did take photos and turned one into an oil painting after I got home.

"Snow Over Ben Nevis"

(1) p. 7, Civilisation by Kenneth Clark, 1969

My Personal List of All-time Favorite Movies

In looking back, I realize it's the movies of the late '30s and '40s that captured my heart.  Perhaps because I was a child and very impressionable.  But all will agree that that era spelled movie magic.  Many from the '50s were also good, but I remember many as either always breaking into song or being too Marlon-Brando-tough.

Not all that long ago, I made a list of my all-time favorites.  Oddly, none from this current century made the cut.  Maybe like a good stew, they just need to perk in their juices awhile.

Though his movies didn't make my list, to have something to illustrate this posting, I'm including this sketch I made of James Dean for my high school art class.

1937          Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
                  Lost Horizon
1939          Wuthering Heights
                  The Wizard of Oz
                  Gone With the Wind
1940          Fantasia
                  Pinocchio
                  Rebecca
1941          How Green Was My Valley
1942          Casablanca
1945          Brief Encounter (UK)
1947          The Ghost and Mrs. Muir
1948          The Red Shoes (UK)
1949          The Heiress
1950          Sunset Blvd.
1951          The African Queen
                  The River (France/India)
1952          High Noon
1953          Stalag 17
                  Shane
                  Singin' in the Rain
                  Roman Holiday
1956          The King and I
1959          The Apu Trilogy (India)
                  Some Like It Hot
1960          The Apartment
1962          Lawrence of Arabia (UK/US)
1963          Tom Jones (UK)
1969          Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
1975          Dersu Uzala (Japan/Russia)
1977          Annie Hall
                  The Goodbye Girl
1979          My Brilliant Career (Australia)
                  Manhattan
1981          The Gods Must Be Crazy (South Africa/Botswana)
                  Chariots of Fire (UK)
1982          The Grey Fox (Canada)
1983          Educating Rita (UK)
                  Local Hero (UK)
1984          Amadeus
1985          Out of Africa
1986          A Room With a View (UK)
                  Hannah and Her Sisters
1987          Babette's Feast (Denmark)
                  Hope and Glory (UK/US)
1988          The Music Teacher (Belgium)
                  Working Girl
1989          When Harry Met Sally
                  Shirley Valentine (UK/US)
1990          My Father's Glory (France)
                  My Mother's Castle (France)
1991          Enchanted April (UK)
1993          The Remains of the Day (UK/US)
                  Dave
1995          Sense and Sensibility

And I don't want to forget these:

The Gold Rush.  Top Hat.  Goodbye, Mr. Chips.  The Philadelphia Story.  Now, Voyager.  Random Harvest.  Jane Eyre (1943).  Laura.  Both Olivier's and Branagh's Hamlet and Henry V.  A Song to Remember.  The Three Godfathers.  Hobson's Choice.  The Bridge on the River Kwai.  Mister Roberts.  The Cranes Are Flying (Russia).  The Sundowners.  Father Goose (one of Cary Grant's most amusing).  Zorba the Greek.  My Fair Lady.  The Graduate.  Barefoot in the Park.  All the President's Men.  The Big Chill.  Murphy's Romance.  Jean de Florette (France).  Manon of the Spring (France).  Big.  Dirty Rotten Scoundrels.  The Russia House.  Mediterraneo (Italy).  Thelma and Louise.  The Lover (France).  Groundhog Day.  Apollo 13.  And, of course, The Court Jester.  Let's see, was that pellet with the poison in the chalice from the palace or the vessel with the pestle ... or maybe it was in the flagon with the dragon .....