Running Around Once Again

I almost forgot what it was like in college when I ran around like a chicken with its head cut of. Not a very attractive image, I admit. However, I haven't had quite this sense of deadlines and adrenaline rush in a while and it is making me very happy. Last night I went to a Wine Tasting and tried an Australian wine called Malbec. It had a somewhat bitter aftertaste. Although it wasn't quite to my liking, I was nevertheless happy to have had the opportunity to try such a "rare" wine.

Link of the Day: www.allrecipes.com
What is it: a site dedicated to user-submitted recipes. While I am sure most people reading this blog would have been familiar with the link already, I was a stranger to it not too long ago. I have used it primarily for delicious pie-making recipes so far, but the site has much more to offer. The most wonderful parts are the comments that often include valuable suggestions to making good recipes even better.

Artist of the Day: August Rodin
Who is he: a sculptor of the late 20th century. Granted, I wrote about him in my last post, but I felt I hardly did him justice, so a continuation today. A lot of times, artistic works are hard to appreciate unless one views them in person. In this age of excellent digital reproductions, we often find ourselves satisfied with Walmart reprints of famous paintings or even Google images. However, many works of art were meant to be seen in their originals and in context of other works by the same artist. This is particularly true of sculptures. I never was a huge fan of Rodin back in high school. His figures seemed grotesque in the way they contort and writhe. His portraits (think Balzac), look more like a Turner painting of a storm than real people. No smooth skin or even facial symmetry - often cited as the pre-requisite for beauty. Yet, when I visited Rodin's museum in Paris, I came away convinced that he is one of my favorite sculptors. Words cannot describe how mesmerized I was by his works. I was almost overwhelmed with the beauty and life in them, and I felt that this could not have happened if I did not view many of his works in close proximity to each other. It was as if in moving from one of his works to another, I suddenly saw the life that Rodin was infusing into his works. The "imperfections," if they can indeed be called "imperfections," were the very things that gave these works life. It was as if Rodin was applying the Gestalt theory to 3D art. The slight asymmetry was really capturing the beginning of motion and our minds supplied the rest - finishing the motion and hence giving the works life and true movement. It was the "impression" of life that he captured and the eternally changing beauty of life that he immortalized.