THE BOAT OF HEAVEN: HAPPY NEW YEAR!

I was glad to have had my camera with me at twilight down town yesterday.  Twilight -- not the kind that has ladies gasping for a love bite, but that fleeting moment when violet meets blue, when only silhouettes are permitted in the waning light.  Twilight, when we glimpse the boat of heaven sailing through the deep indigo sky.  It was this precise moment when I parked the car and took pictures overhead.  The timing seemed apt, somehow, reflecting the year drawing to a close.

The Boat of Heaven at twilight

amidst a winter latticework of leaves and branches

The ancient civilization of Sumer, prior to the rise of Mesopotamia, referred to the moon as the "Boat of Heaven".  (Click here for some of the translation of these oldest of cuneiform poetry.)  Without this celestial vessel, the Goddess Inanna would not have been able to transport the gifts of culture and civilization to the world.  Where would art, music, poetry, works of masons and metal workers, justice and compassion, wisdom, truth ... and so on ... be without the crescent moon?

So, as we say good-bye to 2011 and greet 2012, I thought to celebrate the Boat of Heaven and her gifts to Civilization as we know it.

Beethoven's "Moonlight Sonata" (1st Movement here) through the fingers of Wilhelm Kempff, an auditory gift.



Georges Méliès' innovatively surreal film from 1902: "Le Voyage dans la Lune", inspired by Jules Verne and H.G. Wells.  Many of you might be familiar with the image of the man in the moon with a spaceship lodged in his eye!

I find the pioneers of photography and the birth of cinema fascinating.  It was with wondrous surprise that I discovered Martin Scorcese's latest film, "Hugo," to be a visual love poem -- dedicated to the magic of cinema, literature and invention.  Georges Méliès features greatly in it.  "Hugo" is shot masterfully, as one would expect from an ode to cinema.  I also assume Scorcese's use of 3D was a salute to the spirit of innovation in film which began with the Lumière Brothers and carried to greater heights by Méliès.




Wishing you all a wonderful 2012!  I am still officially on vacation for another week, but hope to visit your blogs soon.  Enjoy New Year's Eve festivities, and follow the words of Edward Lear:

They danced by the light of the moon
       The moon
       The moon
They danced by the light of the moon.
                     -- from Edward Lear's "The Owl and the Pussycat"