Monday, February 25, 2013

Poem for Monday, Pre-Raphaelites, Orchids, Oscars

Reluctance
By Robert Frost

Out through the fields and the woods
   And over the walls I have wended;
I have climbed the hills of view
   And looked at the world, and descended;
I have come by the highway home,
   And lo, it is ended.

The leaves are all dead on the ground,
   Save those that the oak is keeping
To ravel them one by one
   And let them go scraping and creeping
Out over the crusted snow,
   When others are sleeping.

And the dead leaves lie huddled and still,
   No longer blown hither and thither;
The last lone aster is gone;
   The flowers of the witch hazel wither;
The heart is still aching to seek,
   But the feet question 'Whither?'

Ah, when to the heart of man
   Was it ever less than a treason
To go with the drift of things,
   To yield with a grace to reason,
And bow and accept the end
   Of a love or a season?

--------

Quickie since I was downtown all day and have been watching pre-Oscar and Oscar shows all evening. Paul, Cheryl and I went to the National Gallery of Art to see Michelangelo's David-Apollo, French Drawings, Watercolors, and Pastels from Delacroix to Signac, Faking It: Manipulated Photography before Photoshop, and especially Pre-Raphaelites: Victorian Art and Design, 1848-1900 and Pre-Raphaelites and the Book which were phenomenal -- lots of paintings on loan from the Tate, lots from around the U.S., more details when I am not listening to Daniel Day-Lewis. Then we went to the Smithsonian's Museum of Natural History to see the orchids and bumped into Sharkie and Heather, which was awesome.


The Hope Diamond, National Museum of Natural History


The Dom Pedro Aquamarine, National Museum of Natural History


Orchids of Latin America, National Museum of Natural History


Moran, National Gallery of Art


Me and Delta, National Gallery of Art

We had cassoulet for dinner in honor of Les Miserables and watched the aforementioned Academy Awards. Quick spoiler-filled thoughts: McFarlane's opening was phenomenal, but we are of course totally biased because of THE SHATNER (though we utterly adore Sally Field for being such a good sport with the "Anne's gonna win" bit). We loved the Brave director's kilt, Lucius Malfoy winning for the cinematography in Life of Pi, the Bond retrospective, the performances by Jennifer, Adele, and Barbra, the Jaws music to play people off if they talked too long.

We also really loved the Les Mis cast group sing (anyone with bad things to say about Russell Crowe, say them somewhere else), Anne Hathaway winning (not surprisingly but graciously), Ang Lee winning (if it wasn't going to be Spielberg, Lee was my choice, though I feel that Lincoln was overlooked in general), Jennifer Lawrence winning a tough category -- I liked everyone in the Best Actress category this year -- and Daniel Day-Lewis on his good luck because he was supposed to play Margaret Thatcher and Meryl Streep was supposed to play Lincoln (which was also supposed to be a musical). More tomorrow!

No comments: