"Nation" had some good concepts - it could have made a pretty decent short story. But as it was, it was just a really bloated novel, bogged down by ramblings that never quite make a point.

I thought the book was a little preachy. For instance, the hero's loss of faith in his gods loses its potential impact on the reader because the writing conveys a strange insistence that he is rational and right to disbelieve. It was especially strange to me how the hero goes on denying the existence of the gods even after he literally speaks with the god of death (and on more than one occasion!)

There were some parts of the story that I did like - I liked the scene where the hero communes with death in order to achieve the emotional distance he needs as the sole survivor who must bury all his people after a disaster. I was also touched by his feelings of guilt, unfairness, and wounded pride when he has to take advantage of the advanced equipment in the foreigners' shipwreck.

But these good parts were too few, and overall I was disappointed - there was just too much chaff.

Lleva su tiempo, alrededor de 50 minutos, pero repito: Recomiendo seriamente que hagan este tutorial. Peguenle una chequeada, no es complicado, requiere de concentracion y predisposicion.

This reminds me of a highly successful rice dish I made one day. I wanted to make salted fish rice. Mother said there's no salted fish at home. But there is chicken breast.

OK, I said, let's make chicken breast rice then. She demurred. I suggested she checked with the kedai lady downstairs. She doesn't sell salted fish, my mother declared.

Have you ever asked her? No? Well, ask her, OK? Mum did and found that the kedai woman did sell salted fish, but not the kind needed to cook salted fish rice or "kiam hu pung".

I persuaded her it didn't matter. Salted fish is salted fish. OK? Since, we already had the chicken breast, I decided we might as well make chicken breast salted fish rice.

RECIPE
For two persons. For more, increase, proportionately.
Ingredients
Uncooked rice, wash and allow to dry.
100gm of salted fish, any kind will do. Wash and dry well. Slice thinly, if possible.
Half a chicken breast (more if you're feeling greedy), slice thinly as well, if possible.
A knob of ginger, doesn't matter whether old or young. Cut into strips.
Sesame oil.

Methodology
Heat a pan or pot. Some people would insist on a kwali or a frying pan, but I use whatever comes in handy, which is usually a Corningware dish. Put in sesame oil and ginger. Fry till ginger is giving out ginger fragrance. Add salted fish and chicken. Continue stirring and then add rice. This process should take no more than 10 minutes.

Transfer everything to the electric rice cooker. (That's what I do, but you have the option of keeping everything in the pan, pot or whatever you're using to do the stir frying in to continue the cooking process).

Add some water or better still some stock or some left over white wine that's no longer good for drinking, or simply a mixture. Cook till rice is soft and all the ingredients are well blended. Serve!

I find this a yummy gummy one dish meal that could also be made with pork or even fresh fish or, as a luxury, lobster; or to be very traditional, Chinese sausage (lap cheong).

The idea is to be creative and go with the salivery flow.

The closing party of the Skin:Inks exhibition on July 10 had to be the coolest Hong Kong party in many months. Party goers, celebrities, über-cool tattooed guys and gals packed Cliq nightclub to celebrate skin art and raise funds for the Kely Support Group. So-u.Tv’s team was there to catch all the action including Phat Chan from 24 Herbs getting a tattoo by Gabe, David Beckham's tattoo artist. See it all at http://www.so-u.tv/playVideo.php?id=1888

紋身展覽閉幕酒會七月十日已在CLIQ舉行, 當晚氣氛熱烈人氣沖天, 有眾多的名人跟紋身藝術家出席, 曾幫碧咸紋身的Gabe更即埸為廿四味的陳偉雄紋身, 當晚作品拍賣所得將捐給啟勵扶青會作慈善用途, 想一睹當晚的盛況請收看http://www.so-u.tv/playVideo.php?id=1888

Că mi-am adus aminte.. am fost sâmbătă seara până în Metro, cu ocazia unui grătar. Şi acolo mi-am reamintit de ce România e la nivelul la care e, şi e văzută cum e: pentru că deşi am avut genii excepţionale şi realizări nenumărate, poporul român e prost rău.. cum am ajuns la concluzia asta?

Poza pe partea cealaltă a articolului...

It's here! The first little green nubbin' of a tomato. Actually, there were two, and I couldn't resist picking one and taking a bite. It was bitter. What can I say, I'm tactile-kinesthetic. And orally fixated.

I have both determinate (bush-type) and indeterminate (viney-type) tomatoes. This season, my first in this garden, I'm experimenting with the indeterminate type. (What's the difference?)

Steve Solomon says in his book "Growing Vegetables West of the Cascades" that you can grow indeterminate vines that are 8 feet or more in length, trailing up an over a tall trellis or support system. To do this, I'm following his suggestion to trim off all but two (I'm doing three) main leader vines on this plant. It is the one pictured, the first to produce fruit. Not sure if the first fruit is because of  the method of snipping all but 3 leader vines, or if it's the variety (yellow pear).

I'll do a subsequent post that shows my vine support system -- an "A" frame support and twine.

My goal is to get these vines 7-8 feet long, to go up and over my trellis support.  Has anybody had similar luck getting long, productive indeterminate tomato varieties?

It is the Monday after Palm Sunday. The previous afternoon, Jesus has ridden into Jerusalem to the cries of "Hosanna!" He has briefly visited the temple, then gone back to Bethany with the Twelve and spent the night there. Now it is the morning and Jesus is hungry (presumably they had no food with them as they slept under the olive trees on the hillside) so he is glad to see a fig tree by the side of the road ahead, in full foliage. Even though "it was not the season for figs" (Mark 11.13), Jesus goes to the tree, but when he finds only leaves, he tells the tree, "May you never bear fruit again" and the tree withers away.

This story has always presented something of a difficulty because, on the face of it, Jesus is being quite irrational and unfairly vindictive. If it was not the time for figs, why expect to find any? And then, when there weren't any, why blame the tree?

Well, it was not quite as simple as that. The "season for figs" was June in the sense that figs were not fully ripe until then, but once a fig tree was in full foliage, there would normally be fruit too — green figs which, though not at all pleasant, were in fact edible. And it seems that Jesus was hungry enough to have eaten a few green figs to staunch his hunger, had there been any. But there were none, and this gives Jesus the opportunity for an enacted parable which will be closely related to the first spoken parable he will tell when he enters the temple again in an hour or so's time.

That spoken parable is about two sons. "What do you think? There was a man who had two sons. He went to the first and said, 'Son, go and work today in the vineyard.' "'I will not,' he answered, but later he changed his mind and went. "Then the father went to the other son and said the same thing. He answered, 'I will, sir,' but he did not go. "Which of the two did what his father wanted?" (Matthew 21.29-31). The answer is, "The first," of course, because the second produced nothing but empty words.

The empty words, I believe, correspond to the leaves on the fig tree. The figs that Jesus sought but did not find, correspond, I believe, to the work the first son ended up doing — the fruits of repentance. And the message of the fig tree is that the the person who is all show, all words and no deeds, all feigned obedience, all empty promises, not only comes under divine displeasure but is actually doomed to wither away. Why? Because he is not just telling lies, he is a lie ... and a lie cannot co-exist with the Truth.

How can I be sure that that is not me?

Well, to switch (metaphorically) from one fruit tree to another, the answer is that I must abide in Jesus. That is the only way I can be fruitful. "I am the vine; you are the branches," says Jesus. "If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing" (John 15.5). My fruitfulness, my being more than just show and empty words, depends on a life lived in union with Christ. I in him, him in me, day in, day out, 24/7.

Lord Jesus, let me be a branch that bears much fruit, and let there be fruit on me today. Amen.

.

TEACH ME TIGER. 114 x 146 cm. 2008

Domaine Anne Gros, Vosne Romanée.

I går malede jeg tigrenes striber op med pastose sorte penselstrøg, som kalligrafiske skrifttegn, der dannede dyrenes form og bvægelse.

På samme måde fortsætter jeg med farverne. Disse maler jeg med lange penselstrøg i en fortsættelse af de sorte striber. Bundfarven ser man mellem de farvede penselstrøg og de giver derved den malede figur en helhedstone. I modsat fald, hvis strøgene var malet direkte på en hvid grund, havde det været usammenhængende.

I den venstre del af billedet har jeg malet tigeren gul, som en kontrast til den violette baggrund. Det får den gule farve til at blive meget aktiv så den nærmest presser  den røde tiger frem mod billedets midte. Den røde tiger, som er en kontrast farve til den blå tiger, driver denne op i luften til angreb mod den mørkerøde tiger. Farverne til de to kæmpende tigre har jeg valgt som aktive kontrastfarver til den lysende sol i baggrunden. Det er det mest aktive område i billedet.

For at holde modet oppe under det store arbejde har jeg lavet den lille sang om de ti små tigerbilleder - nød lærer nøgen tiger at spinde!

Ti malerier blir tegnet op så fri;
Et blev af dem blev sat væk og så var der ni.
Der var en, der var to, der var tre,
der var fir’, der var fem i atelieret,
der var seks, der var syv, der var otte,
der var ni, der var ti i atelieret.

Ni malerier blir farvelagt så flotte;
Et blev gemt, var så sejt - og så var der otte.
Der var en, der var to, der var tre,
der var fir’, der var fem i atelieret,
der var seks, der var syv, der var otte,
der var ni, der var ti i atelieret.

Det næste maleri ta’r jeg som en tyv;
Det bli’r til side sat og så er der syv.
Der var en, der var to, der var tre,
der var fir’, der var fem i atelieret,
der var seks, der var syv, der var otte,
der var ni, der var ti i atelieret.

Seks tigerbilleder små kom på bordet frem;
et malet færdig blev - og så var der fem.
Der var en, der var to, der var tre,
der var fir’, der var fem i atelieret,
der var seks, der var syv, der var otte,
der var ni, der var ti i atelieret.

For ikke bare at tegne en tiger op på lærredet med en linie, derefter udfylde figuren med en farve for til sidst at placerer striber på “dyret”for at frembringe illusionen af en tiger, så gør jeg noget andet.
Her i stadie 03, bryder jeg tegningen og maler dynamiske, pastose og lange sorte penselstrøg, således at striberne følger dyrets krop og på den måde giver tigeren en volume. Striberne understreger også bevægelsen, som kan være løbende eller kæmpende.
For mig er det et meget vigtigt element med disse formbeskrivende og åbne linier for på den måde kan der blive plads til farven som vil blive påbegyndt i næste billedstadie.
Det andet billedstadie jeg stiller til side bliver det maleri der vises øverst på denne side.

Nedenstående sang synges til melodien “Ti små cyklister.”

Ti malerier blir tegnet op så fri;
Et blev af dem blev sat væk og så var der ni.
Der var en, der var to, der var tre,
der var fir’, der var fem i atelieret,
der var seks, der var syv, der var otte,
der var ni, der var ti i atelieret.

Ni malerier blir farvelagt så flotte;
Et blev gemt, var så sejt - og så var der otte.
Der var en, der var to, der var tre,
der var fir’, der var fem i atelieret,
der var seks, der var syv, der var otte,
der var ni, der var ti i atelieret.

Det næste maleri ta’r jeg som en tyv;
Det bli’r til side sat og så er der syv.
Der var en, der var to, der var tre,
der var fir’, der var fem i atelieret,
der var seks, der var syv, der var otte,
der var ni, der var ti i atelieret.

3. jul 2008  UC

COMPUTER ART: Det kaldes billeder udført på computer med programmet “Painter X”. Billederne er trykt i 20 signerede og nummererede ekspl. på Arches, 240g/m², 100% syrefrit bomuldspapir, (21 x 29 cm). Farverne er pigmenteret blæk der har en holdbarhed på helt op til 100 år, når de opbevares i en mappe, mens billeder, der er indrammet, vil bevare deres farver i mindst 30 år.

Jeg har fået forskellige mails om mit Cumputer Art. Folk der har købt disse billeder er glædelig overrasket over hvor gode billederne er når de modtager trykkene med posten.

“Så er tigrene ankommet, - de er fantastiske! Og de har slet ikke tævet hinanden på vejen !

"Jeg er VILD med billederne, de overgår mine højeste forventninger."

“en stor tak for det fine tryk, det er enormt flot - til lykke med det.”

Andre der kun har set dem på skærmen er måske lidt skeptiske fordi de forbinder en computer med noget der bliver lavet automatisk.

Bla. a: “Tak for din sommerhilsen med de flotte computerbilleder. En computer er en spændende ting med masser af muligheder, MEN den kan aldrig afløse det personlige i at lave et rigtigt maleri med alt hvad der er lagt i af krop og sjæl, følelser, sindstilstand og hvad der ellers kommer til udtryk når man er ramt af inspirationens ånd.”

Svar: “Med hensyn til mit “Computer Art” saa betragter jeg den kunstneriske kamp paa lige fod med mit maleri.

Det er jo ikke en reproduktion af et maleri men et lithografi.

Den kunstneriske proces er den samme. Dog kan et litho. laves i flere eksemplarer og derved  sælges billigere,

Det er fuldstændig som at tegne på en lithografisk sten, bare er det her på en skærm. Det er ikke noget som computeren gør automatisk, det hele skal komme fra min viden og kunnen.

Det er som at skrive en roman på computer, historien bliver jo ikke bedre af at den bliver skrevet med en fjerpen. Fordelen for mig er at jeg selv kan styre hele processen uden noget mellemled.”

Fra Uffe Christoffersens atelierblog

Ovenpå maleriets tegning, laserer jeg et tyndt farvelag, tonet i røde nuancer. Jeg tager allerede på dette stadie hensyn til opbygningen i billed-ideen ved at male et rundt, gult område som midtpunkt mellem de to kæmpende tigre ude i højre side. Dette gule felt er komplementært til billedets venstre violette område. Det giver allerede et rum i billedet da den mørke viollette virker som en forgrund.

Det andet billedstadie jeg stiller til side bliver det maleri der vises øverst på denne side.

Nedenstående sang synges til melodien “Ti små cyklister.”

Ti malerier blir tegnet op så fri;

Et blev af dem blev sat væk og så var der ni.

Der var en, der var to, der var tre,

der var fir’, der var fem i atelieret,

der var seks, der var syv, der var otte,

der var ni, der var ti i atelieret.

**

Ni malerier blir farvelagt så flotte;

Et blev gemt, var så sejt - og så var der otte.

Der var en, der var to, der var tre,

der var fir’, der var fem i atelieret,

der var seks, der var syv, der var otte,

der var ni, der var ti i atelieret.

***

Uffe christoffersens atelierblog om maleriet "The Beach Tigers"

SMALL BEACH TIGERS. 01

Sammen med det store maleri “The Beach Tigers” 2 x 5 m. maler jeg 9 små billeder med det samme motiv. (30 x 75 cm.) Det er for at vise arbejdsforløbet med nogle af de vigtigste stadier maleriet har.
Jeg maler motivet op med en mørk blå farve, som skal tørre inden næste stadie, hvor jeg laserer en tynd farve hen over billedet i forskellige nuancer.

Tanken er at gemme et maleri ved hvert stadie så man får en klar fornemmelse af, hvordan det store maleri bliver til. Det første billedstadie jeg stiller til side bliver det maleri der vises øverste på denne side.
Der er 9 små malerier og med det store bliver det ialt 10 billeder.

Metoden får mig til at tænke på børnesangen “Ti små cyklister”

I dette tilfælde må det være:

Ti malerier blir tegnet op så fri;
Et blev af dem blev sat væk og så var der ni.
Der var en, der var to, der var tre,
der var fir’, der var fem i atelieret,
der var seks, der var syv, der var otte,
der var ni, der var ti i atelieret.

UFFE CHRISTOFFERSENS ATELIERBLOG OM MALERIET "THE BEACH TIGERS"

***

Til det store maleri “The Beach Tigers” 2 x 5 m. maler jeg 9 små billeder med det samme motiv.
30 x 75 cm.

Hørrets naturlige farve er en neutral grund som giver mig mulighed for at tegne motivet op med kridt. Kridt er godt at arbejde med, fordi jeg kan blive ved med at rette tegningen til, indtil den er klar til farverne. Derefter erstatter jeg kridtstregen med en mørk farve.

Det rå hørlærred, kaldes på fransk “Lin Fresque”.

At last summer is here.  In Burgundy everyone seems to be out working the vines; in bikini tops in Meursault and Montrachet and in yoke and harness here in Chambertin!

A Comtoise draught horse pulls a plough through the vineyard

~John 15:1-2, 5 I am the true vine, and my Father is the husbandman. (1) Every branch in me that beareth not fruit he taketh away: and every branch that beareth fruit, he purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit. (2) I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing. (5)

I saw a few things right off the top:

(1) A branch cannot live without the vine

"for without me ye can do nothing."

A cluster of grapes cannot just appear. A cluster of grapes cannot will itself to grow. This tells me that one cannot say that they are saved through their church or through their good works. For Jesus said that without Him, we can do nothing. We cannot gain salvation from anything that we do. Salvation is of the Lord, not of anything that we can do. Christ died on the cross for our sins - our salvation is complete in Him.

~Jonah 2:9 But I will sacrifice unto thee with the voice of thanksgiving; I will pay that that I have vowed. Salvation is of the LORD.

(2) A branch that does not produce fruit is pruned

"Every branch in me that beareth not fruit he taketh away"

Many would say that this is proof of salvation by and through works. However, one must notice that if there were at least one grape on this vine, it would fall under the next category (in #3). This particular branch did not even produce any fruit. Jesus condemned the fig tree in Matthew 21:19 because it did not have fruit at all. He caused it to wither away and die. The same holds true here. When a branch does not produce even one fruit (the unsaved), it is cut off.

(3) A healthy branch produces fruit

"the same bringeth forth much fruit"

and

"and every branch that beareth fruit, he purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit"

So what can we learn? Can a cluster of grapes exist without the vine? Does a grape vine grow bananas? Only grapes can grow and flourish on a grape vine.

Only the born-again Christian (the grapes) can be attached to the Vine, Jesus Christ, and remain attached. The unsaved cannot bear fruit (spiritual fruit) to begin with and, therefore, are cut away.

Another valuable lesson is that the saved will be purged with trial and tribulation in order for them to produce more fruit for the glory of God. Each trial we go through draws us closer to the Lord. We grow and become more like the Master!

God in Heaven Hath a Treasure

Thus though worn, and tried, and tempted, glorious calling, saint, is thine;
Let the Lord but find thee emptied, living branch in Christ the Vine!
Vessels of the world’s despising, vessels weak, and poor, and base;
Bearing wealth God’s heart is prizing, glory from Christ’s blessèd face.

Oh, to be but emptier, lowlier, mean, unnoticed, and unknown.
And to God a vessel holier, filled with Christ, and Christ alone!
Naught of earth to cloud the glory, naught of self the light to dim.
Telling forth His wondrous story, emptied—to be filled with Him.

~Author Unknown~

This flowering vine bloomed last week and has now taken up a good portion of the front porch fence.