The Song Within Me Sings So Sweet

Fragmented plans of yesterday

Still haunt me as I lie abed

And dream of dreams that went astray

And all the things that went unsaid.

But, yesterday’s a fading dream

Accomplishments and failures too,

The gavel of life’s auctioneer

Has scattered most beyond my view.

And now today, the sleepy child

The newborn babe of my today

Awaits the calling of the wild

Enchanting calls I must obey.

No time to tarry or to wait

New beginnings greet my mind

No time to murmur it’s too late

But, let my eyes to tears be blind. 

All those things once left undone

Strong yearnings of my youthful heart

Still live within me, every one

To start my day, renew my spark.

Shall I paint or write a book?

Shall I breach a foreign wall?

Tread the path I never took?

Cast off fear that I will fall?

Life’s not over while I breathe

I shed the troubles of the past

New ideas within me seethe. 

And not yet have the dice been cast.

The song within me sings so sweet

Each note becomes a clarion call

That leads me on with every beat

Embracing dreams within us all.

Beef Bourguignon: Easy and Delicious!

 Beef Bourguignon:  Easy and Delicious!

Ok, so it’s not exactly the time to be jolly.  Illness is sweeping the globe. You’re stuck in your house. The house is already so clean you can’t stand it.  The clothes are washed and folded and refolded.

But, hey, the wine cabinet is full, n’est pas?  That alone is cause to put on some soft music and think naughty thoughts.  OH, already done that?  You’re way ahead of me!  My apologies for interrupting….  

But, just in case, here’s some unwanted, necessary advice?  Pour yourself some vin de chez vous, suga, put on some soft music, light a few candles, and let’s make some stuck-in-the-house French comfort food.  Before we start, better pour yourself another.  I suggest red, but hey, who am I to spoil a good party?

I promise this recipe is a delicious way to go through a bottle or two of jolly good red on your way to whoopee-land.

And by the way, why is Beef Bourguignon called that?  The dish originated in the French province of Burgundy or in French: Bourgogne.

Easy, Delicious Beef Bourguignon (Biscuit recipe follows)

Note: I changed the traditional recipe to simplify and match what I had on hand.

3 pounds beef roast, cut into 1 inch cubes

Salt, pepper

Enough flour to lightly dust the meat (I used rice flour, but any flour will do)

1 Cup or more of red wine

3-4 Cups beef broth

3 Potatoes, scrubbed, unpeeled, cut into chunks

1 Big handful of baby carrots (or large carrots cut into chunks)

1 Stalk celery, cut into bite sized pieces.

Thin sliced green onions for garnish and to lend a fresh taste

3-4 Tablespoons Canola Oil, or another oil that can stand up to high heat

Rice as an accompaniment 

Biscuits also as an accompaniment

Oven to 300ºF or 150ºC

Before you start on the beef, make the biscuits (recipe below).

Put the beef, salt and pepper in a large bowl and dust with the flour.

Using a large Dutch oven, with a lid, put oil in the pan and turn on the heat.  Before the oil starts to smoke, cook the meat a batch at a time, to just brown.  Don’t cook all the juice out!

Put all the meat back on the heat and pour in the wine, scrapping the bottom to deglaze the pan.

With the pan deglazed, pour in the beef broth, add the vegetables and put the lid on the pan.  Pop it in the pre-heated oven and cook for about two hours, or until the meat is very tender.

Remove the pan from the oven and put it back on the stovetop to simmer, and reduce the liquid to a medium thick gravy. 

Serve over rice, garnished with thin sliced green onions.

I also served mine with biscuits.  Here’s the recipe:

https://stroudallover.blogspot.com/2012/01/mastering-ubiquitous-biscuit.html

And for dessert?  Cheery  Cherry Pie, naturally.  You’re thinking, Cherry Pie?  Really?  Yes, brothers and sisters, in times of ubiquitous illness, others may turn to chicken noodle soup, but I turn to cherry pie. Hasn’t failed me yet.

Now, let’s have another glass of your excellent wine!  Or maybe a Spanish brandy?

Picasso and Paper

My mother said to me, “If you are a soldier, you will become a general.  If you are a monk, you will become the Pope.”  Instead, I was a painter, and became Picasso.

On my recent trip to London, I visited the Royal Academy of Arts, on the famous Piccadilly Street, right across the street from the equally famous purveyor of fine foods to the Royal Family, Fortum & Mason.

This trip, the Royal Academy offered an exhibit of Picasso and Paper.  I knew a little about the celebrity artist, Pablo Picasso.  Visited the Reina Sofia Museum in Madrid to view Picasso’s most famous and probably his most massive painting, Guernica.  Most major museums have had Picasso exhibits and I’ve seen many of them, but it was not until I visited this Royal Academy exhibit that I was able to come to grips with Picasso the man and Picasso the artist.  My simple conclusion is that the two are inseparable.

It’s impossible for me to do justice to the complete multi media panorama of Picasso’s life offered by the Academy, but I will do my best to show you what I learned about how the man was never separated from his art.  Every person he met left an impression on him, every angle, every color, every substance became an amalgam of his mind and his art.

Guitar, 1912, cut-out cardboard, pasted paper, canvas, string, oil and pencil.

So many times I’ve heard, modern art is shit, or something worse.  I see and understand your point of view, but I advise you to look past the art to the process and the intriguing mind of a man who saw art in everything, whose whole life revolved around a connection to his art.  He is reported as having said, “I learned to draw before I learned to speak.”  The Academy exhibit showed clearly that at a very early age, he created art that even now is impressive.  So, when I write that Picasso’s life revolved around art, I mean his whole life, from childhood to his passing, using every conceivable manner of artistic expression:  canvas, paper of every sort, paints, crayons, dyes, pens, pencils, brushes, clay for both sculpture and ceramics and on and on.

At the age of 9 or 10, the artist hand cut these straight from paper without drawing a line!

Face of a Woman, 1962

He worked tirelessly, throughout his life and like most true artists, he worked without fear and without stagnation of any sort.  His style changed often.  The creations that we know, such as Guernica, were the product of sketch after sketch after sketch, on paper, on canvas, with pen, with oil, with anything else that was handy, as he probed and refined unceasingly toward his masterpiece.

God is really only another artist.  He invented the giraffe, the elephant and the cat.  He has no real style.  He just goes on trying other things. –Pablo Picasso

Self portrait, 1907

More cut-outs from Picasso's childhood, in the foreground, mounted on clear glass.

The casual person often persists in the misapprehension that all it takes is talent, and you either have it or you don’t.  In my view, talent is merely a blank sheet of paper and what you do with it is what counts. We all have several blank sheets.

I am always doing that which I cannot do, in order to learn how to do it.  ---Pablo Picasso

In Picasso’s case, working every minute of everyday, closely associating with other artists, wooing women, much of which has nothing to do with art….or does it?  He embraced life and all it has to offer, to the fullest, and all of it he applied to his art.

Notebook after notebook.

Seated Woman, 1938

The artist is a receptacle for emotions that come from all over the place: from the sky, from the earth, from a scrap of paper, from a passing shape, from a spider’s web.

---Pablo Picasso

One of the points of his artistic compass was to distill and simplify his art, even as it became more and more complicated.

He drew constantly and kept multiple notebooks.

The Smoker, 1962

In the studio.

It took me four years to learn to paint like Raphael, but a lifetime to paint like a child. ---Pablo Picasso.

Most impressive was a video showing Picasso at work.  In a unique way, with the camera on one side of thin paper and the artist on the other side, we get to see the drawing appear magically.  I was also impressed with how this world famous artist took directions so guilelessly, almost meekly.  His one concern was his freehand art, content to let others handle the details.  Note also the intensity of his eyes and his concentration.  I had never seen anything like this.  It was so much more than simply a video of an artist at work, the likes of which you can find countlessly on youtube.  This was the soul of the artist captured on film.  But, this is not to say Picasso had no ego.  Quite the reverse, as with many celebrities.  How can you not when everyone near and far proclaims your genius.  His ego showed itself one evening at a dinner with friends, when instead of paying, he simply signed the check. One in his party asked if he was going to pay.   His response was words to the effect of, “My signature is worth far more than any dinner bill.”

I do apologize if the videos do not work. I have given them my best shot.

The exhibit at the Royal Academy of Arts was all encompassing and brilliantly presented.  A Picasso fan or not, one could not help but be impressed by the presentations of Picasso’s art and the clear and numerous explanations.   This was an enormous assemblage of both art and a beautifully presented story of Pablo Picasso, the man, the artist.

For better understanding, I offer a very short sketch of Picasso’s life.  He was christened Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno Maria de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Ruiz y Picasso, expressing the names of saints and family.  He was born in Málaga, Spain, but the surname, Picasso, comes from near Genoa, Italy.  Picasso’s father was a painter and his first drawing tutor.

The family moved around a lot, as did Pablo as an adult.  Born in Málaga in 1880, he lived most of his adult life in France and died there in 1973.

He spoke both Spanish and French, having moved to France in 1904. He may also have spoken Catalan, since his parents moved to Barcelona when he was four.

Along the way to becoming famous, Picasso studied at a variety of art schools, yet moved in his own directions, the true sign of an artist.

Of course there are more photos! And a video!

Other studies for painting.  He did thousands over his lifetime.

This was done on paper, with ink drawing, changed many times, and then had paper with colorful designs pasted on here and there.

Plare at the Printing Press, 1969

Picasso had a fixation on the Minotaur, the mythical half man, half bull.

Country Dance, 1921, long after he developed Cubism.

When you in the morning rise

When you in the morning rise 

And wipe the night from sleepy eyes

Then stretch the muscles with a yawn

And whisper, morning to the dawn,

I bid you cast away the plain

And give the mind a chance to reign 

To shrug off sensibilities

Embrace the possibilities

To fill your day with pleasures new

Just think of all that you can do.

Scribble something for a start,

Or take a long stroll through a park.

Watch a bird as it explores

Note the grace with which it soars

And how it flutters if by chance

Floating down upon a branch.

Let words flow from your pen

Or gaze at lilacs once again

And note the shades of purple there

It's all for you to see and share.

Divorce yourself from tiresome duties 

Awaken all of natures beauties

And best of all then you can find

All the beauty in your mind.

Observe some children for awhile,

Imagination free and wild

No constraints to trap and blind

The wonders of an open mind.

Release to roam the child within

Free the passions once again.

Take the time to wander, play

Breathe the air of life today.

               ----William Stroud

Report From London

Hyde Park

Report From London

I’m about to finish up a week in London…well, not London as I knew it or you knew it.  This London has empty streets and no queues for anything, including a pint at the pub.

Time of day when the lobby is usually crowded.  Breakfast room was nearly the same.

This morning, at 0900, I went downstairs to breakfast.  The expansive breakfast room is about the size of a large restaurant, with a décor that rivals any elegant dining room.  Deep carpets. Large paintings adoring the walls. Carefully prepared place settings on fifty tables all featuring designs of inlaid wood.  Dozens of staff in black and white livery.   It was that way on the first morning I was here, with lines in front of the two coffee machines and kitchen staff dodging through oblivious patrons to restock the rapidly depleted buffet.  Fresh fruits attractively arrayed and cold cuts and cheeses, and abundant hot dishes to please every ethnicity.

This morning, there were five of us, plus me.  Soon two of them left.  Only saw two staff and one of them just came in as I sat down with a plate of fried eggs, English back bacon, sausages, and baked beans, plus a full cup of rich Americano coffee.  Also this morning’s newspaper, from the entryway for the taking. The food was all there, the people not.

On the walk back to the elevators, beautifully tiled floors, and elevator doors of heavy brass, all nicely polished….I passed not a single hotel guest. A glance at the elegant front desk showed no one, except three staff dressed in black suits, white shirts and black ties, apparently sharing a chuckle or two.

The past few days have seen the city shut down.  Theater performances cancelled,  Prime Minister Boris Johnson calling for avoidance of large gatherings, including those in pubs.  Those I stopped in were nearly empty….yes, you see there are some things even the stoic English are not inclined to give up without being threatened by bayonets.  So the pubs are still open and I’m still able to get my pint of London Pride, or London Glory, or Dooms Bar, three of my tasty favorites.

Most stores are still open, even the flock of block after block of what Americans would call Mom and Pop operations.  But, there are few to no customers.  Shopkeepers lean languidly in the doorways, hoping for the best and curiously enjoying the occasional pigeon. 

Pub near Harrods

Another shot near Harrods.  Usually the crowds are thick here.

Still, walking the streets is enjoyable.  Yesterday I walked some seven miles through and around Hyde Park…no, there is no Jekyll Park…through Trafalgar Square and Leicester Square and Covent Garden.  Went into The National Portrait Gallery, between Trafalgar and Leicester and viewed a few canvases in what these days is a cavernous hugeness devoid of patrons.  The good news was, I could stand and stare for as long as I wanted without being considered rude.

Trafalgar Square

Well-dressed attendants, attired in the popular English uniform colors, black and white, sat lazily in chairs, carefully guarding the paintings and waiting for me to leave and stop interrupting their naps.

Leicester Square, as the hub of the theater district, is normally the busiest spot in London. Leicester is also at the confluence of Piccadilly, Covent Garden, and Trafalgar.  One of my favorite ‘after theater’ restaurants is on a corner, near the tube stop.  It’s sizeable, probably thirty tables, serving Italian and Turkish specialties.  Five or six gorgeous Eastern European ladies normally scurry around, efficiently delivering trays piled high with plates of pizza, spaghetti, and Doner Kababs.

Yesterday, the place was totally empty.  One waitress stood, leaning against a wall, showing extreme interest in her fingernails.

Tube stations at Leicester and Covent Garden, and Piccadilly are normally the scenes of bustling hordes.  Yesterday, they were nearly empty.  And, I’d been trying to do what the Prime Minister asked and avoid crowds.  Turned out, avoiding crowds meant taking the tubes.  Five people were on my car on the Piccadilly Line.

And was the famous Hyde Park empty as well?  I’m sure your rapidly boiling curiosity is uncontainable.  The answer is a polite yes and no.

In the vastness of the green, heavily treed open space, there were a few mothers pushing trams, and some people walking dogs and others like me, asking themselves, “What the hell am I doing here?”

Kids and their mom feed the swans at Round Pond in Hyde Park

In truth, it was a part of my get-the-hell-out-of-my-hotel-room regimen, including walking and thinking and deciding whether to do some idle shopping, or go back to the room and read a book.

Still, London is London, one of the most fabulous cities in the world, with cross cultures and cultural possibilities unimaginable in most other cities.  I found a French grocery store and purchased some French sea salt, but being a bit perplexed by the varieties available and desperate to put my French lessons on naked display, I held up two boxes of salt and asked the clerk, “Voulez-vous me dire, les deux sont la même chose?”

“Yes,” he replied in English, “They’re both salt.”

I bought both. My French suffers from severe restrictions, a prominent one being able to find out what I want to know. Anyway, we both had a good laugh….well, one of us did, the native French speaker.

And so I walked on.  Had a pint of London Pride near Trafalgar Square, gandered at the Lamborghini and Ferrari showrooms, and avoided the crowds, only because there weren’t any.

Museum of Natural Science, normally packed!

A heavy traffic area, Trafalgar Square

Captain Chinno: A little doggrel to lighten your day

The women call him Captain Chinno,

As he drinks the frothy beano

So much that it's most obsceno.

If you know just what I meano.

Why not try a cup of tea?

Asked a Brit quite casually.

No sir, said the Captain Chinno

Tea will never do you see-o

I am all Italiano

Sing sweet songs and play piano

Roll my r's like Valentino

Tea would never do for mio.

Of course grappa would be fine,

Drunk around the evening time.

After pasta and dessert,

A little grappa wouldn't hurt.

But, when it comes to my buongirono,

I crave once more the cafe beano

And perhaps a brandy fino

Said the gallant Captain Chinno.

Ashes of Love, a Poem

Ashes of Love

I have no reason to remember,

Was it May or late September?

Oh how years have fluttered fast

Fleeting glimpses of the past.

Jagged stubble, splintered posts

Leaving only cindered ghosts

Once my heart so brightly beating

Then with fires of love retreating.

Oh it was so long ago

When my heart was broken so.

Even now I don’t recall

The color of her hair at all.

Only phantoms pass me by

Of the blueness of her eyes

And the way my heart would sing

But now is now and that was then.

----William Stroud