Sharing happiness and being happy for others

The death of Whitney Houston, like Amy Winehouse before her, is always a wake-up call to pay attention to the lives we have, right now, today. Today is all we have. Instead of wishing our lives away, hoping for better times in the future, or worrying too much about the past, we are reminded that it is best to focus on today. These are just two of many enormously-talented people in the world who achieved fame, years of fame, and for all their fame, did not seem to find the happiness they were seeking. Their lives sunk into the hell that is drug abuse; their personal pain and negative experiences are poignant reminders that fame and wealth will not necessarily bring happiness. I read somewhere that Whitney’s husband was jealous of her professional fame, and that this led to psychological and physical abuse on his part. If he managed to drag her down rather than her pulling him up, how sad is that. Is professional jealousy a common thing in marriage and relationships? I don’t know. Sometimes I am tempted to answer yes, especially the more fame and wealth one partner achieves compared to the other. Fame and wealth may be good to have; we may experience them as rewards for a job well-done. They may make life easier, but they cannot buy happiness or guarantee it. And that must be the bitter rub. With all the money in the world, one cannot buy the love of another, not if it is real love one is out after. And one cannot buy happiness.

Happiness is an elusive thing, and no one has managed to define it satisfactorily (at least for me) to date. It is a very personal experience—for some it may be the experience of family life, for others career success, for others the realization of personal dreams. For some it may be a combination of all these things. For others it may be daily contact with nature and with the animals and birds around us. It is important to acknowledge the happy times in our lives; important to tell others when we are happy. There is too much focus in our world on telling others when we are sad, depressed, upset, or angry; not enough focus on telling others when we are feeling happy, content, joyful or at peace, or when others make us happy. Why this is I cannot say. Perhaps we always want to share the negative. Or perhaps we are afraid to share the positive. Afraid that others will take our happiness from us, or come with a flippant or sarcastic comment concerning our happiness. Sometimes just verbalizing something positive sounds so strange, out-of-place, unnatural. Or perhaps we are afraid that we will hear the standard well-meaning advice that many people tell you—don’t get too wrapped up in your happiness; the bad times will come again. Don’t get too comfortable or don’t be too happy about being happy. As though that was a crime. Others may feel guilty about finding happiness, especially when they know that family and friends have not found it. Why can’t we be happy for others when they find happiness? It is no reflection on our lives if they find happiness. We can choose our responses, and I think it's best to choose to be happy for others and to support them when they are happy. Wouldn’t you want others to be happy for you when it’s your turn? Don’t you love the people who turn to you when you are happy and say—‘I’m so happy for you right now’. It’s freeing, it’s loving, it’s generosity in action. God bless those people. 

The new and improved, spontaneous and creative modern-day workplace

Ran into a former colleague yesterday; he left academia a few years ago and moved into industry. Not necessarily because he wanted to; more because there were no further possibilities for him to get more funding at that time, so when his contract ran out, he had no job. That’s how it works in academia. The nature of academic jobs is transient; if you don’t like this aspect of academia, it is not for you. Most non-tenured academics work contractually for three to four years at a time. But my former colleague was telling me how tough it has become to work and keep your job in the private sector as well. Not easy there either. You must like constant change, and you must adjust quickly. If not, you’ll be left in the dust and possibly without a job if you don’t keep up. There is a lot of instability there too, and you can no longer rely on finding a ‘permanent’ job. The public and private sectors seem to have discovered that the offer of a permanent job to an employee may make that employee complacent and thus non-productive over time. Of course that can happen. But does it always happen? No. What they haven’t factored into the equation is that without some sort of stability, there can be no productivity because there is no time to relax and to produce. If you are always worried about whether your job is to be eliminated or if you will lose your job because your performance is constantly being measured, you cannot produce well. That is my contention at least. My former colleague talked about quarterly performance evaluations. That must be extremely stressful. I think annual performance evaluations are enough.

I’ve talked to many different people who work in the public and private sectors, both here in Norway and in the USA. They all say the same thing—the work world has gotten much harder and tougher. Modern-day workplaces are now new and improved. If you don’t measure up, you’re gone. If you don’t produce, you’re gone. If you’re not creative, you’re gone. If you don’t like constant change, brainstorming, open office landscapes, and teamwork, you’re gone. If you’re a loner type, a non-conforming type, a quiet type, there’s not much room for you these days. You’re expected to conform, to avoid conflict but to be creative, to network, to connect, to work together in a team but to be creative, to be constantly on but to be creative and so on. I don’t know how all of this is possible. I find it difficult to draw a direct connecting line between creativity and productivity. A creative idea needs time to take root, to blossom, to grow. It cannot be pulled out by its roots before its time. It cannot be harvested before its time. This means that there is a time lag between the birth of an idea and the birth of the product that may come from that idea. What if it takes a year or two? What if it takes five years? Is that allowed these days? All I know is that scientific research cannot and does not work like this. It’s hard to measure our productivity as scientists except to look at our publication records. And even those can be misleading. You may have one good article published during the past three years in a very good journal, and that article took several years to create. Or you may have several average-quality articles published in average-quality journals that took the same amount of years to create. If management only looks at the latter, then a scientist will be considered productive. But is this the correct picture? Is it the whole picture? I think not.  

Personally, it would be pure torture for me to have to perform on cue every single time I had a meeting with other team members—to come up with creative ideas on cue, to know just the right thing to say, to have a quip ready, to have advice in spades. I don’t work that way. I don’t tick that way. Heck, there are some meetings where I can sit quietly and just listen to others talk. I leave those meetings and reflect on what’s been said and accomplished. I respect others who can and who do perform on cue; who can ad lib and brainstorm at will. I am not one of them. I never was, even as a child. I am not very spontaneous. I respectfully request that others respect that all people are not the same, and that it will be impossible to create a society of workers who all think alike.

Another day in the life of a scientist

Long day in the lab yesterday. One of those days that leave you dead-tired, so that when you get home you just want to find the couch, turn the TV on and just do nothing. Got my morning coffee first. Workday started off with me doing a procedure called western blotting—104 cell samples loaded manually (by me) onto four plastic-like gels and pushed through them by electricity. Point of procedure? To separate proteins in the samples according to their molecular weights. Just the sample loading took over an hour. Have to pay attention--very easy to make a mistake and load the wrong sample in the wrong place. Made buffers after that. Found all the accessories needed to complete the procedure. Lunchtime in my office. Knock on my office door. Impromptu visit from the big boss. Shoveled in my salad while talking about my future—lab frock on and thoroughly harried. Thought about that. In my younger days I wouldn’t have eaten a bite while talking to the boss. Would have been too nervous. Now I do. No longer nervous. Getting used to all these conversations. Back in the lab. Two more hours of finishing up this gel procedure. Nice results. A reward for the hard work and long hours. Not always that way. A quick coffee break. Meeting with my student--discussed results. Hers and mine—she does the same procedure to get data so we can discuss what’s happening in her cells. Interesting project. She will get her thesis done. Hope there will be an article out of it. Cannot predict that when you first start the work. Do all this work for several months and suddenly a dead-end. That’s research. Used to disappointments—makes success all the more enjoyable. Scanned in some data, transferred it to the computer, sent it on to my student. Finished up paperwork before heading for home. Bought a grilled chicken, fried up some mushrooms, made broccoli—voila—dinner on my own. Hubby out with his lab group for dinner. TV night for once—not often that happens! The King’s Speech, Game of Thrones, The Way We Were—well-worth the watching time. Monday starts another week, more long days in the lab. Wonder how I did this when I was younger—long long hours in the lab, sometimes twelve per day. Dead-tired a lot of the time. Like being in the lab though. Will probably be doing that till I retire--white frock on, in front of the lab bench, alone. Not a bad way to work given the new workplace propensity for long unsatisfying meetings these days. Would rather be in the lab, all things considered. 

The music of Sherlock

I am really enjoying the BBC series Sherlock, as I wrote the other day in my post The Fascination with Sherlock. Have just seen the third episode from the first season, and am hoping that NRK continues right into the second season, which I believe has only two episodes (the first season had three). I think it is a high-quality production with some really terrific acting and plots, and I hope it continues in that vein. What I didn’t mention in that earlier post is that the music from the series is also top-notch and very catchy—just perfect for the show. 

Here are some links to two of the themes:

Sherlock Opening Theme: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XLlt0cK4uA0&feature=related

Sherlock's Theme by David Arnold and Denis Yeletskikh: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ECV064U6ygw

Some of my favorite books

As promised in my post about writers from a few days ago--some of my favorite authors and their books:

·         Thomas Hardy: Jude the Obscure; Tess of the d’Urbervilles; The Mayor of Casterbridge; Far from the Madding Crowd

·         Henry James: The Portrait of a Lady; The Golden Bowl; Washington Square; The Wings of the Dove; The Turn of the Screw

·         Charles Dickens: Great Expectations; A Christmas Carol; A Tale of Two Cities; David Copperfield

·         Francois Mauriac: Viper’s Tangle; Therese; The Woman of the Pharisees; The Desert of Love

·         C.S. Lewis: The Screwtape Letters; Mere Christianity; Surprised by Joy; Miracles; The Problem of Pain

·         Jean Rhys: Wide Sargasso Sea; Good Morning, Midnight; Smile Please; Quartet

·         John Le Carre: A Perfect Spy; The Spy Who Came in from the Cold

·         John Steinbeck: The Winter of Our Discontent; Of Mice and Men; Cannery Row

·         Dorothy Sayers: Whose Body?; Strong Poison; Have His Carcase; Hangman’s Holiday; Gaudy Night; Busman’s Honeymoon

·         Milan Kundera: The Unbearable Lightness of Being; Life is Elsewhere; Immortality

·         Rollo May: The Meaning of Anxiety; Love and Will; Man’s Search for Himself; The Courage to Create

·         George Eliot: The Mill on the Floss; Silas Marner  

·         Charlotte Bronte: Jane Eyre

·         Emily Bronte: Wuthering Heights

·         Henry David Thoreau: Walden; Civil Disobedience

·         Ray Bradbury: The Martian Chronicles; Something Wicked This Way Comes; Fahrenheit 451; Dandelion Wine; The Illustrated Man

·         Michael Crichton: The Andromeda Strain; The Terminal Man; Timeline

·         Stanislaw Lem: Solaris

Ideas in the darkness and in the light of day

The best time for planning a book is while you’re doing the dishes.

— Agatha Christie

If Agatha Christie said this, then it is not so difficult for budding writers (like myself) to admit the same. I think of all the times when I’m doing housework, and ideas pop into my head, and I make a mental note to write them down before they just flit away into the vast cosmos. I wonder if there is a world somewhere—the world of lost ideas. I wonder if there is a way of entering that world, in order to retrieve some of the ideas that got away. Because they do slip away if you don’t catch them when they first appear. Many of them appear while doing mundane chores. But many of them come vividly to life in the darkness. How many times I lie awake at around 5am and ideas rush into my head, and I ponder each of them, turning them over and over in my mind. Can this work? Can I write about that? How will I develop this or that character? Should I do so? And so on. Some of the ideas don’t pass muster in the light of day. It’s odd what the early morning darkness will do for your creativity. Some of the ideas are wild, fantastical, and completely irrational—but they are exciting to think about because there is an element of dare and bravado to them; that can disappear in the waking light. My mind is somehow braver in the dark, and it is an aspect of me that I don’t understand. This can also be true for finding solutions to problems—personal or otherwise. I come up with such wonderful solutions in the dark—things I’m going to say (and mean), decisions that will be irrevocable--the new me with a tough no-nonsense attitude. I come up with quips and sarcastic retorts to rude people and can plan out my replies to those who like to talk over me when I try and speak. And then the dawn breaks and in the light of day I’m not so tough. I have to struggle to be brave and to remember my promises to myself made in the dark. And it is the same with writing. The ideas are there--hundreds of ideas. I don’t lack for ideas for what to write about. The problem is choosing the one idea I want to focus on. The ideas have probably been there for years, inside of me, waiting for an opening. Sitting down and actually writing about them releases them, expands them, solidifies them and makes them real. But in the darkness they all seem so viable. In the light, they are not. In fact, some of them can seem quite ridiculous.

I try to pay attention to my inner voice, the one that tells me what path is probably best to follow these days. My heart is in accord with this inner voice. So I have often experienced that my inner voice tells me to have several projects going at one time—I work a little on one of them during one week, and then suddenly the following week, my inner voice suggests that I focus on another project. I don’t know if it is like this for other writers. For example, I am currently working on a book of short stories and a science fiction novel, but the book that is ready to go at present is a book of reflections about workplaces and the work world that I’ve been mulling over for the last month or so. Most of the essays and reflections that make up the book were written during the past two years, but it is the actual compilation of these that took some time. How best to present them, which ones should come first--that sort of thing. It all fell into place, and once again I marvel at the creative process. I understand so little of it, but it is so exhilarating to experience. The freedom associated with it is like nothing I have ever experienced before, and once you taste that freedom, you will not trade it away for anything. 

Writers I’d like to interview

This idea came to me during a conversation with my husband this morning on our way to work. And then I started to think about some of my favorite books and their authors. Who would I like to have a really interesting conversation with, and would that necessarily be the result if it was possible? Some of the writers who came to mind (both living and deceased), in no particular order, are as follows: Thomas Hardy, Henry James, John Le Carre, John Steinbeck, Ray Bradbury, Stanislaw Lem, Charles Dickens, Francois Mauriac, CS Lewis, Jean Rhys, Milan Kundera, George Eliot, Rollo May, Charlotte Bronte, Emily Bronte, Henry David Thoreau, Michael Crichton, and Dorothy Sayers. These are just a few of many; but I think these particular writers had a remarkable influence on me at different times in my life. I’ve read at least one book by each of these authors; in many cases, three or more.

I wonder how it would be to interview them; I certainly have many questions I’d love to ask them. Questions about how they write; the process of writing--do they sit and write each day? Where do they get their inspiration from? When did they know that they had this talent, this ability to put words on paper that ended up being a book, and when did they decide to reveal that talent to the world? I would ask them how it felt to finish their books; especially the first one. How did it feel to read a review of their first book? How did it feel to earn a living by writing, and was/is it possible? Or do you always need to have a backup job in case the writing doesn’t provide a comfortable-enough living? Do they associate with other writers? Do they share their writings with others during the process, or do they wait until the book is finished before they show it to someone else? Are they ever nervous about how their books will be received? How long did it take to write their individual books? Do they re-write and edit constantly? Do they believe in a collective unconscious—a collection of the archetypical personal experiences of many individuals that can be shared with all those who wish to learn from them or utilize them for their creative works? I will include some of these authors’ books in a future post—the ones I call my favorites.

Some famous quotes about heaven

Just to balance out yesterday's post--famous quotes about hell--here are some famous quotes about heaven. The different views of heaven and resulting quotes are as different as the individuals who have uttered them. That was true for yesterday's quotes about hell as well.

Heaven means to be one with God.

Confucius

Death and life have their determined appointments; riches and honors depend upon heaven.

Confucius

Our life of poverty is as necessary as the work itself. Only in heaven will we see how much we owe to the poor for helping us to love God better because of them.

Mother Teresa

Words without thoughts never to heaven go.

William Shakespeare

Ignorance is the curse of God; knowledge is the wing wherewith we fly to heaven.

William Shakespeare

The love of heaven makes one heavenly.

William Shakespeare

Aim at heaven and you will get earth thrown in. Aim at earth and you get neither.

C. S. Lewis

No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life's change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new.

Steve Jobs

The "kingdom of Heaven" is a condition of the heart - not something that comes "upon the earth" or "after death."

Friedrich Nietzsche

To see the world in a grain of sand, and to see heaven in a wild flower, hold infinity in the palm of your hands, and eternity in an hour.

William Blake

Heaven is under our feet as well as over our heads.

Henry David Thoreau

Pennies do not come from heaven. They have to be earned here on earth.

Margaret Thatcher

We ought to fly away from earth to heaven as quickly as we can; and to fly away is to become like God, as far as this is possible; and to become like him is to become holy, just, and wise.

Plato

Nothing but heaven itself is better than a friend who is really a friend.

Plautus

You have to go on and be crazy. Craziness is like heaven.

Jimi Hendrix

Heaven and hell suppose two distinct species of men, the good and the bad. But the greatest part of mankind float betwixt vice and virtue.

David Hume

Ask yourself whether the dream of heaven and greatness should be waiting for us in our graves - or whether it should be ours here and now and on this earth.

Ayn Rand

If you are not allowed to laugh in heaven, I don't want to go there.

Martin Luther

A happy family is but an earlier heaven.

George Bernard Shaw

My home is in Heaven. I'm just traveling through this world.

Billy Graham

A man content to go to heaven alone will never go to heaven.

Boethius

Music is harmony, harmony is perfection, perfection is our dream, and our dream is heaven.

Henri Frederic Amiel

Blessed be childhood, which brings down something of heaven into the midst of our rough earthliness.

Henri Frederic Amiel

The true object of all human life is play. Earth is a task garden; heaven is a playground.

Gilbert K. Chesterton

You think dogs will not be in heaven? I tell you, they will be there long before any of us.

Robert Louis Stevenson

What some famous people have said about hell

I happened to run across this quote the other day--"Hell is other people"--and I didn't remember who had said it. So I googled it and found out that it was Jean-Paul Sartre who is the responsible party. Interesting quote--makes you wonder in what context he meant it. Was he surrounded by babblers and sycophants his entire life? If so, then I can imagine that would have been hell to a philosopher and thinker who required solitude in order to think and to write. Or was he just a miser with his affections and love, a man who hurt those who loved him? Because to say that hell is other people is really quite a drastic statement. If he was still alive, I'd ask him what he meant by this. But that's not possible. So I found some other famous quotations about hell. If nothing else, they make you think.

The darkest places in hell are reserved for those who maintain their neutrality in times of moral crisis.

Dante Alighieri

If you're going through hell, keep going.

Winston Churchill

It is better to conquer yourself than to win a thousand battles. Then the victory is yours. It cannot be taken from you, not by angels or by demons, heaven or hell.

Buddha

Marriage is neither heaven nor hell, it is simply purgatory.

Abraham Lincoln

I don't like to commit myself about heaven and hell - you see, I have friends in both places.

Mark Twain

Hell is empty and all the devils are here.

William Shakespeare

The safest road to hell is the gradual one - the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts.

C. S. Lewis

I never did give anybody hell. I just told the truth and they thought it was hell.

Harry S. Truman

Paradise was made for tender hearts; hell, for loveless hearts.

Voltaire

I'm going to let God be the judge of who goes to heaven and hell.

Joel Osteen

Every man is his own hell.

H. L. Mencken

A man is born alone and dies alone; and he experiences the good and bad consequences of his karma alone; and he goes alone to hell or the Supreme abode.

Chanakya

Hell is a half-filled auditorium.

Robert Frost

I hold it to be the inalienable right of anybody to go to hell in his own way.

Robert Frost

Hell hath no fury like a bureaucrat scorned.

Milton Friedman

War is hell.

William Tecumseh Sherman

Maybe this world is another planet's hell.

Aldous Huxley

Hell isn't merely paved with good intentions; it's walled and roofed with them. Yes, and furnished too.

Aldous Huxley

There is not a fiercer hell than the failure in a great object.

John Keats

Despair is the damp of hell, as joy is the serenity of heaven.

John Donne

To consider persons and events and situations only in the light of their effect upon myself is to live on the doorstep of hell.

Thomas Merton

If you want to study the social and political history of modern nations, study hell.

Thomas Merton

The mind is its own place and in itself, can make a Heaven of Hell, a Hell of Heaven.

John Milton

The road out

I’m often asked how I dealt with leaving my birth country for this one, especially since I did so as a young adult and not as a child. I answer—it was difficult to do so, but my situation was quite different than for many other foreigners here. I was not an immigrant or political refugee looking for a new life in a better place or an opportunist seeking materialistic gains. My decision to move was made carefully, but it was made in order to give a personal relationship that was still a seed, a chance to grow. I knew that if I did not give it that chance, that I would regret not doing so down the line. At the time I chose to move to Norway, my life was ready for change—both professionally and personally. There were a number of factors that came together in a type of synergy at that time, that made moving here the right thing to do. And over twenty years later, I can say that I don’t regret having moved from the USA to Norway since that budding relationship and my life generally changed in ways that have been mostly positive, challenging, and rewarding. But the past twenty years have not been a bed of roses either. Nothing good is ever achieved without struggle and frustration; that I’ve learned. I’ve also learned that nothing is ever handed to you in this life. At least that has not been the case for my life. It has rarely, if ever, happened that any road I’ve chosen has been an easy one initially. We all choose our respective paths to follow. Mine happen to be strewn with other types of challenges than if I had chosen to remain for the rest of my life in the town of my birth. If I had done that, I am sure that I would have faced other types of challenges. But that is not my life story. I had no idea when I was starting out in the work world that I would end up working and living in Europe.

The difficulties any foreigner faces when in a new country have mostly to do with learning the language and trying to understand the new culture that you find yourself in. Scandinavian culture is not very unlike American culture in the sense that we enjoy the same things—a materialistic way of life that does not lack for most things—food, clothing, shelter, vacations, cars, and luxury items, political freedom, family interest (focus on the nuclear family mostly), a mostly secular lifestyle, interest in books, movies, and other media, and many other things. It does not feel foreign to live here as it might have felt had I moved to a poor backward country or one that was a police state or totalitarian regime. When I go out to the malls here to shop, I could be anywhere in America at a big shopping mall. The only difference is the language spoken. So yes, that is a difficulty and it takes several years to learn to speak a new language. For some it may go faster; for me it did not. It is the subtleties in any culture—the unspoken codes of conduct at work and even in social situations, that also make living in a new country difficult. Some of those codes are impossible to crack, or if cracked, impossible to understand. I have given up trying to understand some of them here; I used about ten years doing so and after that I folded. I don’t think like a Scandinavian from the start point. I would have had to have been born here for that to have happened. So I believe in myself, in who I am as an American, am proud of my heritage and my roots, and have truly reclaimed my identity as an American living in a foreign country, despite all the problems in America, the crazy politics and politicians, the contradictions, the inequalities, the disparity between rich and poor, all those things. Scandinavian societies do not have such disparity between the rich and the poor, but there are other problems associated with most people having more or less the same standard of living. It might sound utopian to those who do not live here; it is not. It leads to an odd kind of social conformity, one that I am not particularly comfortable with. It also leads to a kind of complacency that is the result of knowing that the government will take care of most of your needs.

The biggest difficulty for me in living abroad is not being able to see my family and friends in the USA as much as I’d like. And even though I know that I wouldn’t see them all that often if I lived in New York now, it would be easier to do so because the physical distance between us would not be large. It is the possibility of doing so that I miss, perhaps the spontaneity associated with socializing. My annual visit to New York each year is a well-planned event; I start preparing for it many months ahead of time. I hope to spend more time in my country again when I retire; retirement is still years away, but it is not too soon to plan for it. And I am doing that, slowly but surely, so that it will be possible to visit with friends and family for longer times.

The fascination with Sherlock

There have been many actors who have played Sherlock Holmes in both movies and TV films/series over the past eighty or so years; Wikipedia provides a long list of them—too many to list here in this post: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_actors_who_have_played_Sherlock_Holmes. I grew up watching the classic Sherlock Holmes films from the 1940s with Basil Rathbone as Sherlock Holmes and Nigel Bruce as Dr. Watson. Basil Rathbone has defined the persona Sherlock Holmes for me for many years with his intelligence and authoritative demeanor. We used to gather as a family on Saturday evenings in front of our black and white TV set and watch Sherlock Holmes solve one mystery after another with his colleague Dr. Watson. Memorable films include The Hound of the Baskervilles (with a hound trained to kill) and The Pearl of Death (with a deformed killer known as the Creeper who broke the backs of his victims). All of the films were entertaining thrillers, but these two films stand out in my mind as the most frightening, especially for a child. But we apparently enjoyed being scared along the way to the solution of the crimes, and we looked forward to our Saturday evening movie experiences.

Jeremy Brett’s portrayal of Sherlock Holmes in the TV series The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes that ran from 1984-85 is also memorable; the series was quite detailed, gritty and realistic, especially in dealing with Holmes’ drug addiction and visits to opium dens. Sherlock Holmes and the Case of the Silk Stocking from 2004 with Rupert Everett as Sherlock Holmes was quite entertaining; Everett’s Holmes was less arrogant and a bit more friendly. Guy Ritchie’s first foray into the world of Sherlock Holmes was in 2009 with his film Sherlock Holmes, with Sherlock played by Robert Downey Jr and Watson played by Jude Law. Of all the Sherlock Holmes films I’ve seen, this one has to be the most action-packed. It was one long action film interspersed with crime-solving and was enjoyable to watch, although the character of Holmes as played by Downey is completely different than most other portrayals I’ve seen; you will either like that or you won’t. I enjoyed Ritchie’s first Sherlock film but have not yet seen the second.

And then—a new Sherlock Holmes—a truly pleasant surprise, in the TV series Sherlock (2010-present). The actor who plays Holmes, Benedict Cumberbatch, owns the role. His Holmes commands attention with his fierce intelligence, arrogant air, offhandedness and condescending attitude toward people he thinks are stupid—all those things that make the detective great. He may actually end up surpassing Rathbone's portrayal of Holmes. His Holmes is quite likable, in the way that difficult and infuriating people often are. Watching him makes you realize that geniuses like Sherlock in the world are thinking at a rate of speed that none of us can match. Cumberbatch manages to impart that important aspect of Holmes’ intelligence. He is way ahead of most people around him. This series has moved Holmes and Watson to London in the present time, and that by itself makes for some interesting changes—the use of cell phones to text, call or to take pictures, as well as the use of computers—all of these aid in the solving of the crimes. Doctor Watson, as played by Martin Freeman, is also a smart man, if a bit slower in his reasoning. He is feisty when he needs to be and can hold his own with Holmes. Here’s hoping that the series can sustain audience interest and survive to entertain us for the next several years.

A little milestone

Today is the day that my blog reached a little milestone--15,000 page views! Thank you to all of you who read the blog, to those who comment, to those who have written to me personally--I appreciate each and every one of you, your interest and your input. As long as there are topics to write about, I will continue to blog, because I really enjoy writing A New Yorker in Oslo.

Sing-along

I attended a very enjoyable dinner party yesterday evening; a friend invited about fifteen of her good friends to share her birthday celebration with her. Get a group of women together, and you know the evening won’t lack for enthusiastic and interesting conversation, and it didn’t. But this evening ended up being a heck of a lot of fun in a whole new way. The hostess sings in a choir, as do a number of her friends. In other words, she loves to sing. So she invited us to a sing-along, in this instance, to the film The Sound of Music. In between eating dinner and dessert, we watched the film from start to finish and sang the different songs as they showed up in the film. We had been dealt out our respective roles, many of which overlapped with others at the party. For example, I was dealt out the singing role for Rolf, the nun, and Gretl, along with two other women at the party. I had never done this before, so naturally I was a bit skeptical (as I always am) to anything that might place me at the center of any unwanted attention. I also love to sing, but reserve it mostly for when I am puttering around at home alone or in the shower or in the typical places one might sing—mostly alone when no one is listening. I have been told that I have a good singing voice, but I don’t sing in a choir and am unlikely to do so at this point in my life. But I have to say that this sing-along experience was an incredibly uplifting and fun group activity, with no particular focus on any one person, and that made it all the more enjoyable. At different points, I found myself listening to us as we hit the high notes, and how our voices all soared in unison, and it was a rush. I sometimes get that feeling when I am in church and the entire congregation sings and the united voices lift you to a whole new place. It’s a wonderful experience and one that will move you out of yourself if you let it.

I was very young when I first saw The Sound of Music; seeing it again was a moving experience, because Julie Andrews and Christopher Plummer and the children were wonderful to watch. All of us watching the film shared our memories of the time in our lives when we had first seen the film. Some of the women had been taken to the theater by their parents, some by their schools—but all of us had been touched by our original experience of the film. And I have to say that it was like being at a teenage slumber party again listening and watching grown women hoot, holler and comment when Maria and Georg kissed for the first time, or when the Baroness tried her best to keep Georg and Maria from being together. It made me realize that there is a common bond among women that transcends cultures, if allowed to surface, which is what this film was able to accomplish for us last night. There was a lot of laughing as well as singing, and it was all a great deal of fun. I’d love to do it again. 

Creatures of the night

Up late the other night—of course I regretted it the following day, but the reason I stayed up late was to watch the vampire film The Hunger from 1983 (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0085701/) on TCM. I can never really pass up an opportunity to watch yet another stylishly-made horror film, and TCM is a great channel to find all those kinds of classic films, horror or otherwise. I won’t say I was enthralled by the film, but it didn’t disappoint either—it had its moments. It is definitely a film from the 1980s—I read somewhere that a critic had said it was like watching a long MTV video—chic and stylish with cool music, but without much substance—that was the gist of it. The Madonna song Vogue came to mind when I was watching it. The actors and actresses (David Bowie, Catherine Deneuve, and Susan Sarandon) did a lot of posing for the camera, but that was the way things were done then. The film was about modern-day vampires in an urban setting, who frequented New York City nightclubs looking for potential victims. These vampires were unlike most of the vampires we’ve come to know about--they could tolerate the light of day, they murdered their victims with small knives shaped like Egyptian ankhs, and they could see their reflections in mirrors. The story had to do with David Bowie’s vampire John trying to find a cure for his rapid aging that had suddenly set in and that would doom him to eternal life without his vampire lover Miriam (Catherine Deneuve) who had made him a vampire in the first place. The film was probably controversial when it came out due to some graphic scenes of violence and sexual (lesbian) activity. I don’t recall much talk about this film from that time, nor do I remember that it opened in many theaters (according to IMDB it opened in 775 theaters nationwide in the USA, approximately 15 per state if it opened in all of them—that’s not many). Perhaps it was considered an ‘art film’, in which case it would have opened at one or two theaters in Westchester County where I grew up.   

I’ve seen many vampire films in my lifetime—starting with the House of Dark Shadows from 1970 directed by Dan Curtis, with Jonathan Frid as the vampire Barnabas Collins (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0065856/), followed by Scars of Dracula and The Satanic Rites of Dracula (among several others) from 1970 and 1973 respectively (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0067713/; http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0070634/) with Christopher Lee as the vampire (he made many Dracula films). These were followed by the original Nosferatu film from 1922 directed by FW Murnau with Max Schreck as a very scary Nosferatu (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0013442/), as well as Nosferatu the Vampyre from 1979 directed by Werner Herzog, with Klaus Kinski as Nosferatu (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0079641/). I remember the New York Times review of the latter film talking about the furor in the Netherlands (where the film was partially shot) over Herzog’s wanting to release tens of thousands of rats for one of the scenes in the film.  Talk about the quest for realism on the part of a director.  

The classic Dracula from 1931, directed by Tod Browning, with Bela Lugosi (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0021814/), and Dracula from 1979, directed by John Badham, with Frank Langella http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0079073/, are very good films, as is Interview with the Vampire from 1994, directed by Neil Jordan, with Tom Cruise as Lestat (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0110148/). But in my opinion, the best vampire film I’ve ever seen is the 1992 film Bram Stoker’s Dracula directed by Francis Ford Coppola (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0103874/). I remember watching it for the first time when it came out and being totally drawn in by its mastery and haunting atmosphere. I’ve since seen it several more times, and each time I watch it I admire it more and more as a nearly-perfect Dracula film. Gary Oldman as Dracula was brilliant casting—he did an incredible job, as did Keanu Reeves, Winona Ryder, Anthony Hopkins and all the others. It is the specific scenes in Coppola’s film that are unforgettable and haunting and that make it my favorite vampire movie—when Jonathan Harker (played by Keanu Reeves) arrives at Dracula’s castle and the shadow of the vampire precedes his entrance, Dracula crawling down the walls of the castle on one of his nightly outings, the appearance of the female vampires in the castle and their seduction of Jonathan, Dracula’s meeting with Mina, and so many more.

Besides Gary Oldman’s Dracula, I have to say that Jonathan Frid’s Barnabas Collins is my vampire of choice. I’m not a fan of the Twilight vampire movies; I saw the first film after reading the book and it was not for me, but I understand that many people do like it. I might have liked the series as a pre-teenager, but somehow I have the feeling that my entrance into the world of vampires was forever shaped by Dark Shadows. However campy the series might have been at times, it took itself seriously and has amassed a large number of fans through the years. I’m looking forward to Tim Burton’s version of Dark Shadows and Johnny Depp’s portrayal of Barnabas, but I doubt that anyone could ever surpass Jonathan Frid’s portrayal of Barnabas Collins.

Some people have all the luck!

Some lucky people in Norway got to see spectacular light shows last night–the Northern Lights made their appearance as a result of a lot of solar storm activity lately. We were told by the media that the Lights would be visible all over the country (true for the rest of the Northern hemisphere as well according to the media), so I was awake and ready with my camera, but Oslo had cloudy skies and little visibility–thus no Lights. So I have to be satisfied with looking at these gorgeous photos!! Time to plan a trip north to see the Lights! I want to experience them in person. I've realized lately that my particular interest as a photographer is the fascination with anything that has to do with light--the way it plays on water, in the sky, or the way it produces colors and contrasts, rainbows after a storm--all those things. 

http://nrk.no/nyheter/distrikt/nordland/1.7967958


And here is another link, this time to a video of the Northern Lights, filmed by Alister Chapman on the evening of January 24th in Tromsø, Norway. It's called Dance of the Spirits, and it's a very apt name--beautiful.


http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/01/29/solar-storms-spawn-hyperactive-aurora-boreali/?smid=tw-nytimesscience&seid=auto