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Springtime in the 214

"The Eastern Style Romance"

Last night I finally had the opportunity to see "Curse of the Golden Flower", Zhang Yimou's 2007 movie about the Tang Dynasty, starring Chow Yun Fat and Gong Li as the Emperor and Empress.

Aside from the Shakespearean machinations, the opulence is something that only China can do. It probably surpasses "Cleopatra" in set design elegance. Only what nearly bankrupted 20th Century Fox is just the merest bagatelle for the resourceful Chinese.

What you see above is a Forbidden City-style palace built to scale, no CGI f/x, and our hero is in a vast plaza of thousands of Chrysanthemums. A great battle ensues in the plaza with thousands of golden soldiers, and at it's conclusion an equally large army of palace staff in a matter of hours clears the bodies, hoses away the blood, sweeps up the detritus, lays new carpet and replaces the thousands of Chrysanthemums in time for an important festival.

This breathtaking display of sheer manpower in service to one idea could not help but call to mind the extravagantly opulent Friday night Olympic Opening Ceremonies in Beijing, also produced by, yes, Zhang Yimou!

Darcy Zhang, my China correspondent, weighs-in:

Zhang Yi Mou , the director takes 2 years to prepare this , a lot of time and a lot of money , as to the newspaper , there are almost 8 billon people in China watch this show , at the 8 pm that day , the street almost empty , everyone stay with the TV and the show, it is glad that there is no mistake or any bad thing happen to the flame. but as my friends told me in Beijing , It was extremely hot and wet that day in Beijing ,believe me , it must be very tough to wear such heavy and formal clothes in that day.

Interesting thing is , I did not enjoy the show quite much, I prefer the last one in Greece ,I thought it was lack of passion and not catch my eyes , kinda slow , I expected would be more crazy and fashion one , but seems the western and many others do enjoy it .the flame is good though ,but too many wires , they could do it better.but any way , I Do glad you enjoy it . The eastern style romance.

Reptiles Rising

Who is that? Sarah Jessica Parker in a Vivian Westwood, you ask?

No no no no no no.

For whatever reason, the lizards and geckos and anoles (oh my!) are in full flower this season (see below) and I just so happened to have had my camera with me.

This was my favorite, an office gecko using the poinsettia as a hammock in which to sun. Looks fun!

This guy was doing mating display on the handrail at home ... Definitely Mr. Big.

Lotus Eaters

I haven't had much to say about politics and the presidential race because its all so boring and depressing, and people who get PAID to say these things seem to hash it over fairly well without my help. However ...

I see that Barack Obama suffers the slings and arrows of outrageous doofism lobbed at him from all sides with honor and remarkable aplomb.

Hillary Clinton has become a new camp Broadway show: "Hillary!"

John McCain gets daffier all of the time.

And the nabobs have been just dull as hell. I wish I could be full of manure like George Stephanopoulos and Charles Gibson and live in a gigantic house in the Hamptons, but I'm afraid I make too much sense.

This morning on KERA on what I used to call "The Pompously Named 'Think' Program" and now call "Think (Too Much)" in the interests of brevity, Arianna Huffington was telling cold hard truths about the trivialization of American politics, but no one was going to listen to her when the next thing they kept expecting out of her mouth was, "This was a Filmways Presentation, dahling!"

SO ... this is why I have been focusing lately on dinners and walks and ...

Saturday night we were all standing outside talking when we were overcome with the smell of evening blossoms. We stopped talking immediately and followed the smell. The nectar of honey and perfume swirled around us and buoyed us aloft, at least spiritually, until we found a fall of fresh-blooming honeysuckle and jasmine along the fence on the other side of our building.

A female neighbor walked up with her dog. "Well what are you guys doing out here in the parking lot?"

"We're smelling flowers."

"Not that it makes us gay!"

Never mind that we were standing on the corner of Lesbo and Gaybo.

For the next few moments we stood there in reverie.

It wasn't much. It didn't solve the food shortage or the high price of gas or save a child, but for those few moments we were all feeling good.

Poinsy Update

Now that it is Deep April, I thought a poinsettia update was in order. As you see, it thrives and still is putting out new bracts and blooms, just as if it were in the cloud forest. We must have a quality of light in the atrium that simulates the amount of light the plant would get under a mountainside canopy.

Flora

Isn't this absolutely amazing?

Last Sunday I set out on foot to witness the Spring. After consuming my de facto Daniel Diet (just eat right, what's the big challenge in that, but I ain't givin up coffee. Coffee is the drink of the people ... the Pre-Columbian people) for lunch, I grabbed my camera to document what The Creator (with some evolutionary hybridization via Man) hath wrought.

These are actually tiny tiny alyssum-like flowers taken with my macro function. I think each blossom was about the size of the flat head of a thumbtack.

These are about the same size, but a bit further back. They were in someone's garden and I didn't want to linger long enough for someone to wonder just what in creation I was uptah.

This is okay if, you know, you're into yellow.

Finally, this was a forlorn alleyway behind a tumbledown house that is tree-heaved to unbelievable angles; just a lost, forgotten and abandoned place that isn't particulary attractive or quaint, yet the springtime turns the prosaic to the poetic. Squint your eyes and Monet could make this completely disarming ... minus the plastiform garbage container of course.

Springtime in the City

I just wanted to pause a little and share a few pics from the area. Everyplace in the world has it's charms, but Dallas in the springtime is pretty hard to beat.

Poinsy of Digression

I know, "What is this doing here in March?"

I can explain.

My original vision was to take the raggedy poinsettia plant I had been keeping alive all year until it was the size of a large bush and do what you are supposed to do and make it bloom in time for Christmas.

I was postponed. It bloomed in time for Easter.

There are a few things they don't tell you when attempting to meddle with the primal forces of nature as they apply to tropical plants.

First of all, when growing a poinsettia to this size for decorative purposes, judicious and artistic pruning every couple of weeks to encourage bushiness rather than tall, tall branches is a good thing because the red bracts only form at the end of branches, hence you will get more.

Luckily we had completely dark rooms at work to keep the plant during the 14 to 16 hours of strict blackness it must have in order to force the blooming cycle. This process must be adhered to strictly if you want results in a timely fashion. The body clock of plants is unforgiving and is reset an extra day if you interrupt the cycle. The length of time to control alternate day/night is around 8 weeks.

It is good to remember to give the poinsettia good healthy daylight as well. A 100 watt lightbulb set on a timer, lest you forget to bring the plant back out, is not enough, even if it is least something.

The first change you will notice is that all of the stems go deep red. They are kind of a pink/chartreuse to pale green normally. You know you are on the right track once you see this.

After this, stay with it. In my particular instance, because I could not stay with it like clockwork, and because my 100 watt bulb was insufficient daylight and caused yellowed and dropped leaves, I gave up after Christmas last year, and thriving from neglect, sometime after the first week of January one little red leaf appeared at the end of each branch.

Here is another misapprehension to watch out for: the first red leaves change like the leaves of autumn, from green to red. The rest GROW OUT THAT WAY. And the red, at least of this particular species, is so blinding that it induces moire hallucinations.   

I actually had to photoshop this pic down a few notches and it is still blinding.

As you can see, the yellow flowers are starting to appear as well here. There are still lots of new red leaves growing out at near-time-lapse speed, so it should be pretty impressive for the rest of the Spring.

I thought you might like to see it.