Thanks Clara Hughes

Thank you Clara Hughes, the Olympian, for opening up frank and honest dialogue about mental illness in Clara’s Big Ride around our country.

In the late 1990s, the last time I was suicidal, I also went through a period of unemployment during which I assigned myself tasks each day, however small, to get me to do something.  One day I memorized Hamlet’s soliloquy, which seemed apt, since it is a rumination on suicide.  I read it all, but felt it summed up the arguments, pro and con, in just these stanzas, so that is what I memorized, and play in my head, as required.

The Nominations are In!!!

Today the Oscar nominations were announced.  I love the Oscars.  It is the Artists’ Super Bowl/Olympics/World Cup all wrapped in one.  So many kinds of artists are required to make a film. Oh, to be a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences!!!  Although we watched every year as a family, my love was cemented when I laid eyes on one.  I wrote this bit about it in 2008:

St. Henri trees

Damage from the mini ice-storm

Art matters

©2015 David Pope, Australia

When they judge ancient civilizations, one of the yardsticks by which they are measured is the art they left behind.  The artists themselves may not have been treasured in their own lifetimes, but they made art nonetheless.

What a difference a year makes.

An entertainment special on comedians just aired – obviously pulled from the “vault” to fill empty programming hours.

Among the top five profiled were:

Seth Rogen – not creating an international incident.