W/NW Pic-O'-The-Week #46

So, I'll be indulgent. We are in the middle of a bush fire 'crisis' here. Not been to work, and not likely till at least friday. Blood moons, smokey haze. My spouse, who works at an aged care facility was told today to prepare to evacuate, didn't get home till 4.30. Not good. I think this is happening elsewhere in the world. Not good. But still, a moment of great grace. A ninety year old birthday this last saturday. God gives a little grace every now and then, and we should share it:

The ninety year old: Bad focus. poor eyes. Monochrom with 75mm go to zeiss lens.

And others, with a characteristic gesture:

And some others.

And the final, at last in focus:

I wish we could all be ninety. But then again, I pray repeatedly for just 20 years of youth.

Regards, Arthur

Tell me about it.

Lima Peru on New Years' Day

" God, you're wicked, Allen Herbert" Arthur.

Arthur, I was thinking of putting a good word in for you at the pearly gates with Saint Peter. But then I thought I might not make it there. A possibility;)

So, I will put a good word for in for you ,in the other place, just in case we might not make it to the pearly gates...

Canon IVs, Jupiter 8, HP5. An old Baptist church near our home suffered complete destruction in a disastrous fire recently.

Sometimes, you think, maybe back in yesteryear the world was a kinder place.

Perhaps not.

Allen Herbert. This will take some time, and most people will not want to read it. Forgive my lapse and imposition.

I did my first degree at Sydney University. They had a garden alcove off the main quadrangle. Established at the University's inception. In it was an imposing brass statue of Hermes (Apollo's messenger - remember, no message ever comes unmediated), finger pointing to the sky. And off in one corner was a smaller, very smaller, statue of Cupid. I thought it captured the debate between Aristotelians and neo-Platonists at the time of the university's establishment. Aristotelians thought we were advancing to a better future, through the exercise of reason: onward and upward to a better future. Through the exercise of reason we could shape the world (as an aside, if you want to, watch 'The Name of the Rose', a movie based on Umberto Eco's (now dead) novel that captured the the 12th century collapse of the then, at least in Europe, dominant Augustinian fatalism - 'there are lovers of this world who think we can change it. They will die in this world' - that came about with the discovery of Aristotle's Politics). The neo-Platonists thought that with every passing year, we moved away from, and lost, a glorious past: Plato's metaphor of the cave shadows, from recollection, though my memory fades, from his Republic.

The Name of the Rose is worth it, if only for Sean Connery. I think someone has done a remake as a series recently, but have not seen it: 'stat rosa pristina nomine, nomina nuda tenemus'.

Rupert the bear is a tonic. Bravo to you. I enjoyed it immensely - though in Australia it was Humphrey the Bear. I will post another image of the 'young lovers' I chanced upon last Thursday, and who agreed to be photo'd. I will leave you to decide if the world was a kinder and better place in the past, or if we look forward to a better future. Regrettably, for this site, done with an Hasselblad camera, FP4, developed in ID11 (I have not yet returned to the catechol formula Bill Bowes gave me).

Thanks for sharing. Regards, Arthur (apiarist1)