Ava Gardner Biography

I like biographies of movie stars if they're truthful and interesting. This one, Ava Gardner "Love is Nothing" by Lee Server, is receiving wonderful reviews in the US and the UK. The US review begins:

When a smitten great-grandson of Charles Darwin pronounced Ava Gardner "the highest specimen of the human species," he summed up the consensus about this voluptuous movie queen. With remarkable unanimity, those who met Gardner were apt to second that emotion.

Server also wrote the biography of Robert Mitchum subtitled "Baby, I Don't Care" which is considered one of the best film star biographies around.

NASA's Best

What a beautiful NASA website from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory at California Institute of Technology!

To see the Sombrero Galaxy and more of the best pictures of 2005, click here. (uses flash)

Charles Frazier's New Book

If you liked Cold Mountain, you'll be happy to know that Charles Frazier's follow-up novel will be published on October 3. It's been 10 years since Frazier's first novel, Cold Mountain, won the National Book Award for Fiction. Here's how the publisher Random House describes thirteen moons:

"At the age of twelve, under the Wind moon, Will is given a horse, a key, and a map, and sent alone into the Indian Nation to run a trading post as a bound boy. It is during this time that he grows into a man, learning, as he does, of the raw power it takes to create a life, to find a home. In a card game with a white Indian named Featherstone, Will wins — for a brief moment — a mysterious girl named Claire, and his passion and desire for her spans this novel. As Will's destiny intertwines with the fate of the Cherokee Indians — including a Cherokee Chief named Bear — he learns how to fight and survive in the face of both nature and men, and eventually, under the Corn Tassel Moon, Will begins the fight against Washington City to preserve the Cherokee's homeland and culture. And, he will come to know the truth behind his belief that 'only desire trumps time.' Brillianty imagined by a master of American fiction, THIRTEEN MOONS is a stunning novel about a man's passion for a woman, and how loss, longing, and love can shape a man's destiny over the many moons of a life.''

Easter in Denmark

This article appeared in the Hobart Mercury, a Tasmanian newspaper. It concerns Princess Mary, the Little Prince, and Easter in Denmark. The photo is from Danish Royal Watchers blog and shows Queen Margrethe II holding Prince Christian.

PRINCESS Mary's "baby kingaroo" looked more like a floppy-eared Easter bunny at his grandmother's birthday party.

Mary and her husband Crown Prince Frederik proudly showed off their six-month-old son Prince Christian as Denmark's royal family gathered to celebrate the 66th birthday of Queen Margrethe II.

The party at Marselisborg Castle was a double celebration combining birthday and Easter festivities -- including some uniquely Danish traditions.

As well as the usual chocolate eggs and rabbits, Danes enjoy a special Easter beer from their breweries.

The stronger, tastier brew is used to help wash down the traditional Easter Thursday meal of cabbage -- sometimes up to seven different types.

Danes also traditionally do large loads of washing over Easter in the belief that the clothes will stay cleaner for the rest of the year.

The royal family gathered at the baroque-inspired Marselisborg palace, the summer holiday home of Queen Margrethe and her husband Prince Henrik.

Maira Kalman

I knew I was going to love this website as soon as I read about it on Dave White's blog. (I'd give you the link to his blog, but I'm not sure you're cool enough. If you think you can handle serious LA cool, write for the link in the comment box and I'll send it out.) Anyway, Dave referenced this website of Maira Kalman's so I had a look and her art is wonderful. She has several New Yorker covers (see "Crosstown Boogie Woogie"), many children's books, and other art on her site. Check it out!

Planting Herbs

Here is an herb pot for spring which would be perfect for your five favorite herbs. Or you could have two pots, one for Italian herbs, and one for your other five favorites. Since you only snip the plants, there's no reason why they can't share the same soil and water.
Shop.com has the fresh herb pots, but the link doesn't work. I got there by froogle search for "herb pots".

What a Marvelous Idea!

The Queen has had lunch with 99 people who were born on the same day as her, as part of her 80th birthday celebrations. The monarch described the 70 women and 29 men who attended the Buckingham Palace reception as her "exact twins".

Can you imagine all those 80 year-olds together for a birthday party at the palace? What a treat!

John Forrester, who had travelled from Australia, was rewarded with a seat next to the Queen at the lunch. He described her as the "most natural person in the world", adding that she would "endear herself to anybody and everybody. You look back over your life and say 'when have I bettered it?' Well, when I got married, when I had kids, yes, but beyond that this has to be the top of the tree."

The guests were treated to a three-course lunch, with the main course of filet de boeuf bordelaise being served on a royal silver dinner service normally reserved for state banquets. The solid silver plates, decorated with the Prince of Wales's feathers, garter and coronet, date from 1893 to 1902.

The Queen, accompanied by the Duke of Edinburgh, told her guests "we can and should count our blessings. I doubt whether any of us would say the last 80 years has been plain sailing. But we can give thanks for our health and happiness, the support we receive from our families and friends, some wonderful memories and the excitement that each new day brings."

The Queen thanked her guests for coming, adding: "I hope all those of you who are my exact twins will make the most of our special day on Friday."

Record Oil Price? Maybe Not...

Here's the lead in most reports today concerning the price of oil:

Crude oil set an all-time high Tuesday as worries over supply persisted in Iran and Nigeria.
Light sweet crude for May delivery, which expires on Thursday, traded as high as $70.88 per barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, surpassing the previous record of $70.85 set last summer after hurricanes devastated the Gulf Coast.

Here's the reality:

Though a record in absolute terms, the price is still well shy of a record, if adjusted for inflation. The peak price would have been set during the Iranian revolution in March 1981, when a barrel of oil would have cost about $90 in today's dollars.

Source: CNNMoney.com

Ella's Easter Egg Hunt

Still a crawler, Ella needed Daddy's help with her egg hunt. We made sure she closed her eyes while the eggs were hidden.

Urban Cowboy

Spending the long weekend with son, daughter-in-law, daughter and Aussie, we did a lot of talking about lots of stuff. Being family we agree and disagree, but one thing we all gave a big nod to was that Urban Cowboy was one of the best movies ever. John Travolta was the perfect Bud; Debra Winger was the perfect Sissy; and we all know someone like Scott Glenn's Wes Hightower. Also Looking for Love is the perfect country/western song. If you're too young or too old to remember this movie, rent it on DVD and enjoy a real Texas story with a universal theme.

Think about this: The role of Bud was written for Dennis Quaid and Michelle Pfeiffer was originally cast as Sissy.

Spielberg Joins 2008 Olympics

Film-maker Steven Spielberg is joining the design team for the opening and closing ceremonies for the 2008 Beijing Olympics as a consultant to Zhang Yimou who will lead the team.

Spielberg, whose last film, Munich, concentrated on the killing of 11 Israeli athletes at the 1972 Olympics, said: "Our one goal is to give the world a taste of peace, friendship and understanding. Through the visual arts, the art of celebration of life, we are dedicated to making this the most emotional opening ceremony ever."

Zhang, 54, said: "I'm very honoured. I make a solemn promise to the Chinese people I will complete the task beautifully and successfully."

The opening ceremony is scheduled to take place in the Chinese capital on 8 August 2008.

It's Springtime in the Hill Country!

Happy Easter Everyone!

Kiss Those Pounds Good-bye

This is the sandwich which will make you shed 85 pounds! (English currency, not weight) The McDonald sandwich - named after its creator Scott McDonald, the chef at London department store Selfridges - is said to be the world's most expensive. Its cost is down to the Wagyu beef that makes up most of the filling, packed in a 24-hour fermented sour dough bread. Wagyu cattle are one of the most expensive breeds in the world. The Japanese cows are raised on a special diet, including beer and grain. They are supposed to be regularly massaged with sake, the Japanese rice wine, to tenderize the flesh. The ingredients of the sandwich are Wagyu beef, fresh lobe foie gras, black truffle mayonnaise, brie de meaux, rocket, red pepper and mustard confit and English plum tomatoes.

Here's Our Mary in Portrait

Danish Royal Watchers is a terrific blog for everything that's "Danish royalty news". Go there to see photos of the unveiling and a photo of the entire portrait. Pictured on left is the center portion of the work.

This is an excerpt from the press release concerning the portrait:

It was the expressed wish of the museum that the portrait was not to be a typical official portrait, but a more personal characterization of the new member of the Danish Royal Family.

Since his first sitting with the Crown Princess in May 2005, Heimans has been working intensively on the portrait and has repeatedly visited Denmark. The result is a resounding success: a work that fuses the Crown Princess’ present day situation with her Australian heritage.

The Princess is seen in the Garden Room of Fredensborg Palace, where Lauritz Tuxen more than 100 years ago painted King Christian IX Danish and his extensive Pan-European family. She is getting ready to leave the palace - her coat lies at the ready over a chair, and she is putting on her gloves. She gazes pensively at something we cannot see. The room around her is multifaceted and labyrinthine: It is reflected outwards and inwards in the great mirrors that Heimans has replaced the room’s actual landscape paintings with. In the mirror behind Mary, a glimpse of Hobart can be seen, and in another mirror, a reflection of the Danish flag can be detected in the ceiling. In this way, the painting represents the Crown Princess on the brink between the old life and the new, the known territory and the unknown. At first glance, it is difficult to find one’s bearing, but the Crown Princess seems calm and confident, ready for her challenge.

Canberra Portrait of CP Mary

Chinese-born Australian Jiawei Shen made this portrait of Crown Princess for Canberra. It is currently on display in the Australian capital, but will be a temporary part of the exhibit in Denmark when the first official portrait of the Crown Princess is unveiled tomorrow.

Crown Princess Mary's Portrait

Tomorrow at the National History Museum at Frederiksborg Castle, Denmark's first official portrait of Crown Princess Mary is unveiled. It has been executed by the Australian artist Ralph Heimans, who makes links between Mary's old and new homelands in a way which accentuates her particular background. The Danish magazine, Billed-Bladet, reports that Ralph Heimans has found Mary to be a wonderful subject since they met 10 months ago (last May). During that time he has made five visits to The Chancellery House at Fredensborg, where Crown Prince Frederik dropped in on proceedings to check out how things were going. Heimans says he was nervous to begin with because he hadn't painted a royal before, but Mary was so down-to-earth and charming that she put him at ease and made him feel welcome straight away. So far nothing has been revealed about the painting except that it is painted in oil and is 1.7 metres high and 2.5 metres wide.

To view some of Ralph Heimans's work, visit his website.

Judy Collins

Aussie and I saw Judy Collins at the Kerrville Folk Festival a few years ago. Her voice is still amazing! She sang Someday Soon, Both Sides Now, Amazing Grace and lots of other songs, accompanying herself on guitar and piano. (That's Peter Yarrow of Peter, Paul and Mary accompanying Judy in the photo.) She's appearing now in Australia on the east coast. Here is a poignant excerpt from an interview she did for Australian Broadcasting, the ABC.
MARK BANNERMAN: The 1960s were kind to Judy Collins, the next two decades would show her that other side of life. First there was the battle with alcoholism. What drew you into that?

JUDY COLLINS: I was born with the Irish virus. That's easy. I came by it honestly through centuries and centuries of ancestors, I am sure. I even know some of them - who some of them were.

MARK BANNERMAN: Was it tough to give it up?

JUDY COLLINS: I had a very dark about four years where I was drinking around the clock. I thought, well, it is all over. What will I do if I can't sing. So I started to think about what will I do if I can't sing? Then I thought I don't have a choice. I think I 'm going to have to give it up and I went into treatment.

MARK BANNERMAN: Alcoholism may have been hard to deal with, but the death of her son by suicide was much tougher again. You said something that in a sense is very brave, that you said "That decision ultimately to commit suicide must be respected".

JUDY COLLINS: Oh, absolutely. If you don't have that right, then you don't have any rights. A human being.

MARK BANNERMAN: You really feel that?

JUDY COLLINS: Oh, absolutely.

MARK BANNERMAN: Despite the pain it's brought you?

JUDY COLLINS: Well, if you've had a suicide in your life, then you have no right to take your life because you know too much.

MARK BANNERMAN: A decade on, though, Judy Collins, it seems, is back, aligned with old friends she's found a new lease on life. And all of it because of live music.

JUDY COLLINS: It's a shared understanding of the meaning of art and the meaning of music in people's lives and live music in people's lives is deeply important. It's deeply healing and it's deeply spiritual.

Counting Time

Set your alarm for 1:02 a.m. tonight, and three seconds later, you can revel in the fact that it's 01:02:03 04/05/06. Won't happen again for exactly a century.

Paul Simon's New Release

After several years of work, Paul Simon is ready to release Surprise, his first album since 2000. Simon latest effort is a collabration with U2's producer Brian Eno, the avant-garde artist best known for his musical work with Robert Fripp, Talking Heads, David Bowie and U2.

Simon insists that their working together is not as strange as it (or the resulting album) sounds.

"We're both 'sounds' people," Simon explained. "We're both about soundscapes. I thought he would bring an element that I hadn't ever encountered before, electronics, into a guitar record. Theoretically, it seemed to be a good idea. And when we actually did it, you could tell right away it was a good idea."

Simon was a fan of Eno's eclectic work, and they met at a London dinner party. They decided to "throw it together, see what the mix of sounds were, see what we produced," Simon recalled.
The results are evident from the opening track, "How Can You Live in the Northeast?," where Simon's songwriting meets Eno's wall of sounds to almost hypnotic effect. "Outrageous" is the hilarious tale of a middle-aged man doing 900 sit-ups a day while "painting my hair the color of mud."

And there's the autobiographical "Sure Don't Feel Like Love," with its lyric about a man who remembers how "once in August 1993 I was wrong/And I could be wrong again."

"That's pretty much me," Simon confessed with a soft chuckle. "You think of it. It's hilariously arrogant."

Back to Texas for the Summer!

Well, I just got back to Texas and here is what was there to greet me.....

But she is Fabulous!