Saturday, March 04, 2006
The Seasons, Oscar Awards And all that Jazz
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Cold morning---cold for us here in the San Francisco Peninsula. Temp. 50°F (about 10°C). Going to be cloudy but no showers expected until tonight. Yesterday, we had snow on the foothills. Unusual for us and it never fails to cause comments and excitement. The powdery snow does not last too long. Had a lot of rain last March. If the weather pundits are right, this year too we have wet days ahead of us before the onset of spring---16 days from now.
"In a way winter is the real spring, the time when the inner things happen, the resurge of nature."
----Edna O'Brien
"Spring too, very soon!
They are setting the scene for it--plum tree and moon
(Haru mo ya keshiki totonou tsuki ume)"
---Basho (1643-1694), translated by Harold Henderson
My yard looks colorful. It is a pleasure to see the daffodils, irises and freesias. The freesias are fragrant. Sweetpea vines climbing higher and higher and the branches of gingko trees sprouting new leaves. Unmistakable signs that spring is around the corner. Hiking through Yorkshire Dales (UK) a few years back I came across a nursery that displayed a sign "Sweetpeas are now ready for planting". It was late May! The sweetpeas in my yard had almost finished blooming when I left on my trip.Sunday is Oscar night. I have not seen all the movies nominated for awards and so I shall refrain from picking winners. Among the ones I watched, Truman and Brokeback Mountain are sure to bag some awards. Also liked Good Night and Good Luck and The Constant Gardener. Have not seen any of the five films nominated for the best foreign movie award. Paradise Now, an entry from Palestine and described as a political thriller, has caused some controversy. The French entry Joyeux Noël (Merry Christmas) is an antiwar film; the story is about soldiers of World War I who observed truce and got together on a Christmas eve.
