Out! --- Day 6/263

Walk: Flywheel (taxi), Embarcadero Cinema (reclining seats), Fillmore
Distance:  Not far (6 blocks) but OUT, 5 exercise/asana/flexion

The Florida Project

So, Ciwt's first movie, major solo outing and therefore major accomplishment in almost two months!!  Felt good to be free(ish) but she wishes she had enjoyed the movie she went out for - The Florida Project - as much as she respected it.  Certainly a must see for all buffs of high quality movie making.

Home Alone - with Books --- Day 6/262

Walk: Pad, with and without immobilizer
Disance:  Not Far, 2 x Up/Down and Beyond, 6 x Exercise/Asana/Flexion

So, former bookworm and bookstore owner, Ciwt, has taken quite a long hiatus from novels since immersing herself in the art and yoga worlds.  But, here she is at home healing, so she's been making up for lost time.  Sort of.  Lost time in the starting department but not so much in the finishing one. 

Good mysteries, yes, she reads them right to the end - in no small part because good mystery writers yank her along until she turns the page and realizes she's at the back cover.  But she's been having trouble with the more generic novel, particularly contemporary ones.  There seems to be a trend in Big, Longgggg books with a multitude of characters.  Plots are barely recognizable and buried under endless author flourishes.  Ciwt just begins following a character with interest when he/she goes into a department store or sits down at a video game or goes to a health food restaurant - you name the topic - and all of sudden there are five or six (witty) pages on whatever he/she thinks of that.  And then a friend of the character's comes along and they start chatting about their parents or favorite music or something.  And then there are the lyrics of the song or a sudden poem or recipe.  Ten pages later Ciwt has lost the plot and interest - even if she respects the quality of the writing.

Maybe long books have always been like this.  But somehow she doesn't think the Russians or Dickens or James Michener even or other writers of long books were flat, meandering, just kind of going on and on at an even and sort of bored/cynical level (like this).  Maybe the new long, 'everyday' tomes are partly due to the publishing houses working with very few editors. 

Oh well, enough of Ciwt's own flourish and back to her current 737 page book she's sure not to finish.

Pooh and the 21st C --- Day 6/261

Walk:  Pad w/out immobilizer
Distance: 5 minutes, seated march x2, 6 Exercise/Asana/Flexion, The Necessary Movements cont.

"What's a Kindle?"  asked Pooh.

kedi --- Day 6/260

Walk: PGCC
Distance: A Few Blocks, 6 Exercise/Asana/Flexion/Walk/March without immobilizer

Must See! for cat lovers.

Not Today --- Day 6/259

Walk: Hood
Distance: 1.5 miles, 5 Exercise/Asana/Flexion, Immobilizer free walking and 'marching' - getting there

Catch you tomorrow....

Consider This --- Day 6/258

Walk: The Hood and The Pad
Distance: 1.2 miles, 5 minutes at home Without Immobilizer!, seated marching Without Immobilizer!, 4 exercise/asana/flexion

Johannes Vermeer, The Art of Painting, 1665-1668, oil on canvas

Vermeer was trained in and employed the techniques taught in the art guilds of his time and practiced by his contemporaries.  His paints were the same and only ones available during his career.  The only color he used more often than his contemporaries was the more expensive ultramarine blue instead of azure. His brushwork was by the book of his time.  His subject matter was often identical to his contemporaries and sometimes copied from them (which was acceptable practice among his fellow artists).  He most probably used the camera obscura as a tool for producing his paintings.  When he died, his reputation was such that his paintings were often ascribed to other, more well regarded artists in order to ensure their sale when they came up for auction.

So, what demarks a genius, an adjective every art viewer from the most casual to the most learned would agree applies to Vermeer?

On Balance --- Day 6/257

Walk: Hood on another v. hot day out here
Distance: 1 mile, 6 exercise/asana/flexion

Pieter de Hooch, Woman Weighing Coins, c. 1664, oil on canvas

                      Johannes Vermeer, Woman Holding a Balance, c. 1664, oil on canvas

In our materialistic times, Ciwt was struck by what seemed to be portraits of pure greed painted by two of the finest Dutch genre masters and now on view in Washington, DC.  She couldn't help but also by struck - as always - by the supreme genius of Vermeer.  de Hooch was an exceptionally talented painter whose canvasses radiate warmth, glow actually.  If you were to see just his painting above you would be deeply drawn in; wowed actually.  But, next to Vermeer, well...

But Ciwt wanders.  No, the subject here is not 'greed is good.'  In the first painting, de Hooch's, the woman is attending to daily husbandry duties at a historical time when the value of coins was directly related to their weight.  Vermeer is painting about something more timeless and elevated: balance and humility in life.  Behind her is a painting of Christ who would be the ultimate evaluator of the worth of a person's life, and Vermeer's woman is a permanent reminder of the difference in weight between the human and the spiritual realms.

Upstairs/Downstairs, The Prequel --- Day 6/256 . (ooops, wrote but forgot to publish)

Walk: Union Square for excellent 6 week check up.  Then to Trader Joe's, omg, like dodgem-cars
Distance: 4 Blocks, Up/Down x2, 4 Exercise/Asana/Flexion

Samuel van Hoogstraten (Dutch,1627-1678), The Slippers, aka View of an Interior, 

(titles given in the 19th century), unknown date/in his lifetime/ca 1645, oil on canvas, Louvre

Ciwt had never seen this painting which is included in the Dutch Masters show now up at the National Gallery of Art in DC.  And it made her smile when she did.  

How daring was Mr. van Hoogstraten!  The majority of Dutch genre paintings are of women at home almost always reverently attending to domestic matters like sewing, writing, sitting quietly and patiently with dogs and children.  There is never a thing out of place or a speck of dust in sight, and the strong suggestion is that this humble, practical paragon of womanhood is responsible for all the perfect cleanliness.

Enter van Hoogstraten who shows the viewer a scene from a domestic's point of view.  Broom leaning against the waall, light in the corridor, door to the main house open.  So where is the mistress?  Clearly not cleaning.  Is she home? If so, is she alone?  Who is with her?