Happy holidays, everyone! For all you broke filmmakers, writers, artists, and other people with more heart than money, here's a free way to spread good cheer to charities and start the new year right. CauseWorld is an iphone app where you direct sponsors like Citi and Kraft to donate money to the charity of your choice just by walking into a store. Here's a story on it. Pretty sweet, huh?
Susan Ee
www.feraldream.com
Thought some of you may also be a fan, and might think this was cool as well.Patrick Stewart—Star Trek's Capt. Jean-Luc Picard and X-Men's Charles Xavier—will be knighted by Queen Elizabeth II, according to a report in the British newspaper the Mirror.
In addition to appearing in films, Stewart has been spending much of the last decade performing on the British stage. He is to be knighted by the queen on this year's New Year's Honours list. (The news isn't official yet; the newspaper bases its report on anonymous sources.)
If he is knighted, Stewart will join fellow X-Men star Ian McKellenPalace sources said the Queen is a huge fan of the 69-year-old, who played Captain Jean-Luc Picard in Star Trek: The Next Generation.
Dear Everybody,
I am Andrea Angelika Aszalós, writer of the novel
BEHIND THE SILENCE... Confessions of a porcelain-painter artist (published by Bastogi - 2008 - Italy) and I am presenting on this Blog site a very important part of my life: my Mother's, Éva Aszalós and my Sister's, Hajnalka Aszalós', works of art of porcelain-painting, and the oil paintings of my Mother. Synopsis of the novel and link to the story of the Moonlight and the Eosin glaze follow below
My mother and my sister are porcelain-painter artists and have made many sacrifices so that could be born that singular world that I am presenting on this blog-site to you. For these ”sacrifices” and struggles for the survival that are behind this World of Beauty, I have written the novel by the title ”Behind the Silence”, which has been published in June 2008 by an Italian publishing house.
I recommend the Synopsis of this revealing Novel and every world of my letter with all of my belief in the moral force, to your attention and to the attention of everybody who has love in their heart and who are thirsting for the rarely appearing pure mirror of the naked truth about a world that is not allowed to seen by some interests.
Artistic Album of the Familiar Collection
Published in November 2009
The Artistic Album, that includes 148 pages, and many photographs about the Familiar Collection, is published in English and in Italian languages in this month (november 2009) thanks to a sponsors who has financed the edition in change for three beautiful works of arts, and I am so gald to can share it with you as for my family it is a very great gift from life and from God!
Over presenting the works of art of porcelain-painting, it introduces also my Mother's and my Sister's oil paintings, some biographical informations about my Mother's artstic career and important words about Feelings and Thoughts regarding some of the works of art of the Familiar Collection. ... and of course through the synopis of my novel "Behind the Silence... Confessions of a porcelain-painter artist" it brings closer to You and to the Readers of this marvellous book including so many miracles, the atmosphere in which these talkative works of art had been born.
It will be possible to order this beautiful Album before this Christmas in Italian book-shops, and from my family as well, and I am so glad to can share it with you.
With much love:
Angelika & Family
About three years ago I promised my mother that a day I would take a pen, and write down the situations, that so many times has crossed our life - and also in themselves could be material of a sketch or a short story - and which are derived from my mother's and my sister's rare profession and from the strange social and "art-political" atmosphere, by which is characterized this little country. At that time I didn’t thought that this "moment" would come so early, and could become pressing for our life.
I can present on this site only a little part of the work of a whole life, and so the Familiar Collection made up in the long years, which contains more than 700 works of art. Among these works of art that has been being internationally signed on the world for more than 10 years, there are many irreplaceable items, presented at that time also in the National Museum of the Applied Arts of Budapest.
Photos of the art-works of the Aszalós Porcelain's Collection
The novel that I have written ( Behind the Silence… ) elaborating real events, is based on documents and correspondences, and touching some personalities of huge influence, presents, through my Mother’s life, the defenceless situation of the contemporary artists of our days for the economic policy, and how do the fights of interests, arising from this, ruin the life of some wonderful artists and persons.
For the last years’ happenings neither for moral points of view nor for other reasons there was no other choice for my family but to disclose to the World all that things that my family had to live through this singular and rare field of art in the peculiar social and ”art-political” atmosphere that characterize Hungary. …and so to describe all those things that are hidden Behind the Silence.
The events written in my novel affect my family’s life even today in a very hard way and I am recommending to your attention the story of the Moonlight glaze – so the story of the pair of the world-famous Eosin glaze, that my Mother after 100 years discovered again and whose technology, just like by the Zsolnay family at that time, also by my Family is kept under a secret.
See more details about the Moonlight-glaze's importance and story :Moonlight and the Eosin - Paralells and History,
In my Family's collection there are included also the works of art belonging to the category of the art treasures, made with the technolgy of the ”Moonlilght” glaze (so with the pair of the technology of the world-famous Eosin glaze that the inheritor factury of the Zsolnay manufactury of one hundred years ago, by today can’t reproduce in its originally form).
I am presenting on this blog also some of the photo-documents belonging to our references beside the titles of the chapters of ma novel that you can read below.
Unfortunately by today my mother has been suffering in a serious, incurable auto-immune disease for four years, and she is kept in life by very hard medicines, and so, also due to this fact, many things in her life have a deeper meaning for her.
Many Thanks for your attention and for your comments on a Whole Life's Work filled with heart, lived with the passion of an Artist who has given her life entirely to her work and to her loved Ones:
Andrea Angelika Aszalós Write to me to My e-mail
Synopsis of the novel Behind the Silence, follows below
Message to a kind friend: For a while I can't receive all of my e-mails! I thank you if you try to contact; me in an other way !!
PHOTOGRAPHS & ARTISTIC ALBUM of the Aszalós Porcelains
Words of Éva Aszalós:
I believe that God cares for Everyone and will care for, and think also to us, to my
dear family!
Synopsis of
Behind the Silence…
Confessions of a porcelain-painter artist.
My novel, which I have written on the basis of documents, correspondences and my mother’s memories, stands on a lived life’s real events.
It’s about my mother, about a beautiful, but by today broken person’s feelings, of a peculiar lot, and about the events hiding behind them. In the mirror of these, I show how the Politics – demanding part also from the values of Art – make impossible and sentence to death a family in the country of a tragically incompatible nation with its own sons. Through the peculiarities of the Hungarian society’s different strata, I present the contemporary art’s position in our time; the condition of the contemporary artists, who are at the mercy of the ”Fews’ interests”; and the invisible court of law, that shutters some wonderful artists’ life, annihilating them in their human quality. Within the contemporary art, I introduce my readers into that rare branche of Art, on which nearly three-hundred years ago emperors and bishops spent enormous wealths, and which even now is famous for its prestige all over the world: in the unbelievably colourful World of the Porcelains, full of intrigues, which is honoured by the name „White gold”;.
My novel, as I’ve written, is about my mother, about a delicate woman’s tempestuous course of life full of vicissitudes, whom God has given a present to, with some very exceptional endowements, and filled her heart with many love, belief and spiritual force, so that she could struggle against the dams ruining with slow death of a soured society by its own poison. Her singular sensitivity and the special field of art where her unusual skill has carried her, made her know and see many human faces, which meetings has brought in her life many pleasure, but also many suffering.
In one of the highland villages of a strange and formerly leggendary nation, settled in the Center of Europe not much more than one-thousand years ago, is born in the january of 1956, in the year of the revolution ended in massacre, that young girl, who is forced by her environment to escape already when she is a child, at hardly thirteen years old, so that she could ”arrive” as far as possible from the reality which has conducted her family to tragedy that cost her mother’s life. For her mother’s desire expressed in her ultimate letter, she is raised further on, in a small town at her uncle, where she has to face many cruelty alone. Notwithstanding, this town brings her also those meetings of her life, which give her a spiritual force which seems invincible, and a belief which doesn’t know impossible, for her further struggles. Two loves, lived for a life, carry her on in a two-faced world’s maze: the Porcelain-pinting, whose art she acquire in this place, and a strangely ”double-souled” Man, with whom she forms the most holy bond, and founds a family. Her first daughter, Hajnalka is born here, just like her desire, becoming into decision in her soul, to breake with her past again and definitively.
She moves into the beautifully situated Szeged, in the Great Hungarian Plain’s loveliest town, famous for its cultural life and for the high standard of the musical education, so that she could give to her children everithing that she missed in her youth. Andrea, her second child is born here, and she is seduced by an other very nice profession, by the fashion, which she start in with the same enthusiasm and pleasure, with which at that time she did the painting of pictures and porcelains. After the alternation of relatively balanced and tempestuous periods, after successes and enormous failure at the end, finally she returns to the Porcelain-painting, to that her dream which has been always living in her. The financial conditions to found an independent porcelain-painter studio are given to her only by this time.
Into the secrets of this splendid craft, which preservs tradition, but still includes in itself renewal, she introduces her first-born child, Hajnalka, and in few years is born a promising, fabulous and rich world by their hands. Spellbound by the Secessionist style, she works out colours which, with their profundity and peculiar light-refraction, are entirely unique on the world, and in the years, she discovers the producition-method of the world-famed glaze named Eozin, which has been being kept as secret since one hundred years, and to which she gives the name of Moonlight (Holdfény) because of its mysterious glittering of metallic lustre, shining in the most beatiful tints of the green colour, and for her respect for Vilmos Zsolnay.
She has high hopes for the porcelain-painting: she feels from the ”beginning” that it means for her the ultimate possibility of put in order her daughters’ and her own life. And she doesn’t think that, with the beautiul craft, she is happened in a ”viper’s nest” climbing until the highest social strata, which is invisible, far and maybe incredible for many people, but for her is inevitable, mortal and mortally real. Her Mother-country, this country unable to restore itself to health maybe for ever, whose history was full of vicissitudes, cause her more and more disappointment. In other form: slipped into more decorated garment, concealed behind new faces’ new masks, but she meets the same forces which has exiled her from the little highland village.
Under the burden of an incurable disease, forming in her meanwhile, and because of the glacial air of the shutting doors’ wind, her great belief and spiritual force leave her more and more.
The last year’s struggles mean for her, life or death in the real meaning of the word.
Written and translated by: Andrea Angelika Aszalós Phone: + 36 20 311 3800
Published by Bastogi Editrice Italiana in June of 2008
All rights reserved Andrea Angelika Aszalós and Bastogi Editrice Italiana Srl.
Chapters and some of the Photo-documentations:
The Tragedy ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
The years of Kalocsa: two Loves born to living for a life,,,,,,
A new chapter in my life
The town of Szeged and my second-born child, Ancsa ,,,,,,
Love: Redemption or Cross ,,,,,,,,
The dream and the reality
The limits of the Nature ,,,,,,,
The Lot sealed ,,,,,,,
A wrong decision and their consequences ……
Foundation of a porcelain-painter studio …
Exposition in the Embassy of the Republic of Hungary, in Vienna …
Ray of hope
Exclusive Gallery of the Aszalós Porcelains …….........
”The_Moonlight” …………
Shine and tears
A beautiful porcelain exposition at the Days of Szeged and the visit of the delegation
of the government …………..
A tiny fruit of the struggle of power: the Prize of ”Honoured artisan-artist’s” of the County
of Csongrád …………………………………………………………………………
The Prize of the ”Honoured artisan-artist’s of Hungary”…………………………….....................................................
Calculations
My life on the ”chemist’s scales” of my husband …………
Touching of the Past ………………
The fatal contract …………………………
A mysterious man or fight for the life ……….
Gift from a person wasn’t known ………
The hand of God ……
The human dignity …
Refusal and Hope ……
A morsel for the Survival !
I offer the works of my life ……
The Madam Judit
An old dear acquaintance of mine ……
An art-patron billionaire in Hungary ………
Cry for help ………………
The Support …………
Questions and answeres ……
The Mask thrown ……
The telephone-call at late in the evening ……
The fight of the Billions ……
The Christmas saying good-bye …........
Memories from the Past
Some present thrown away and some other which cannot be taken away ….......
Dietro il Silenzio...Confessione di un'artista di pittura di porcellane - INTERNET_BOOK_SHOP. it
"One builds sand-castle on the shore only if he or she believes that waves can be domesticated."
Read because: I'm listening to all the HP books on CD
Borrowed from: the Sacramento Library
Rating: 8 out of 10
Synopsis: Harry is back and in fine form in the third installment of his adventures at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. His summer with the hideous Dursley family is cut short when, during a fit of quite understandable rage, he turns his Aunt Marge into an enormous balloon and then runs away. Soon, it becomes quite apparent that someone is trying to kill him; even after Harry is ensconed in the safety of fall term at Hogwarts, the attacks continue. Myriad subplots involving a new teacher with a secret, Hermione's strangely heavy class schedule, and enmity between Ron's old rat, Scabbers, and Hermione's new cat, Crookshanks, all mesh to create a stunning climax. The pace is nonstop, with thrilling games of Quidditch, terrifying Omens of Death, some skillful time travel, and lots of slimy Slytherins sneaking about causing trouble.
My review: I really like book 3 of the series. Things get really dark, with omens of death for Harry, a mass murderer on the loose, and some really close calls for the three wizards. I also love the introduction of Sirius Black (played by Gary Oldman in my head), who is one of my favorite characters in the entire series. He's extra crazy in this book, and it's really fun to watch Rowling develop his character, not to mention the characters of other adults in the book -- Snape, James Potter, Pettigrew, and Lupin. I also really like Lupin in this book, and how he gives support to Harry when most others write him off. And once again, Jim Dale is the best audio book reader out there. (Finished 11/23/09)
]]>Recommended by: a bunch of people. Plus I'd read other books by Bell.
Purchased from: A Borders going-out-of-business sale, at 80% off. Woot.
Rating: 9 out of 10
Synopsis: "Is sex a picture of heaven?" Bell wonders. It's all about God and sex and heaven, he says: "...they're connected. And they can't be separated. Where the one is you will always find the other." It's the story of God becoming human, of humans mirroring God and love made manifest in the chaos of our humanity. Sex God is about relationships revealed in a way that elevates the human condition and offers hope to those whose relationships are wounded. In Bell's spare, somewhat oblique style, he addresses lust, respect, denial, risk, acceptance and more. He does a fine job using the Bible and real life to show that our physical relationships are really about spiritual relationships. This book joyfully ties, and then tightens, the knot between God and humankind.
My Review: I feel like I should have read this a long time ago. I've had it for a while and I read it in less than twenty-four hours. It was a wonderful picture of what God has set out marriage and sex to be. Bell really delves into how the spiritual and the physical come together and how our relationships here are a picture of God's relationship with us. It's fascinating, really. Bell's style takes a little getting used to -- it's sparse and really uses the white space on a page. This book, though, was probably the least-difficult to handle visually (compared to his other books). I wish I had it with me so I could quote from it a bit. Anyway, I highly recommend this book, especially to high schoolers and people who work with them. I could have used some of this information back in my youth-leading days.
]]>What a great book....this is another one of those modern day romance chic novels but it isn't the typical Susan Elizabeth Phillips book. This isn't the typical boy meets girl, boy falls in love with girl and they live happily ever after.....there is a little more than that in this book. And even as a surprise some of the characters from Match Me If You Can have reappeared in this book as well.
Susan Elizabeth Phillips did it again and I would have to say this is one of my favorites from her.
Enjoy!!!!
Happy reading!!!!
]]>My rating: ★★★★✩
Very good, light read for the plane. An excellent apocalyptic setting, that held together well throughout the book.
In Plague Year, a "nanotech" virus got loose and reduces all warm-blooded creatures to mush. The catch? There is a governor that says it can't survive if at the standard air pressure at 10,000 feet. So everyone made a run for the mountains and small pockets of humanity survive, barely, with the occasional foray below the magic line, at a terrible physical cost. Cam and Sawyer lead one faction in California.
A capital of sorts is established in Leadville, Colorado, "the highest incorporated city", while the space station is still in orbit and Ruth is a leading nanotech engineer who pines to get back to Earth to help out. Finally, she finagles a landing and finds out all too much. She and Cam end up leading a party to recover important information from the creation lab.
This was a fun read and the premise held together remarkably well. The main characters were well drawn, if slightly wooden, as was much of the dialog. And some of the frictions that happened didn't always make sense, but the story went along so smoothly you hardly cared. If you like your apocalyptic novels to be hard sci-fi, then this is your book. See his Plague War for the sequel.
