Sleep...

I've been feeling exceptionally good this week.

Why? Well, being on holidays is part of it.

I think the most important thing is: I've been getting 9 to 10 hours of sleep a night. Normally I get 7 to 8. It just doesn't seem to be enough. I feel clear-headed and unstressed for the first time in ages.

There's a moral to the story, but I know that once I'm back to work, getting that much sleep is going to be very difficult.

Resolution to try.

Dakek Madonna and Child...

silverwhistle sent me an article from The Guardian about the Koestler awards, an annual award given to people in prisons for achievement in art. I heartily approve of such programs. The hook here was an exhibit of the winners at the Institute of Contemporary Arts, which featured, among other items, a sculpture called Madonna and Child:



I wonder why the website (and the article) fail to identify the artist. Don't prisoners get credited?

Which I'd say was worth the price of admission. But don't talk to me about price of admission: I just learned that the exhibit at the Canadian Museum of Civilization that I'd wanted to see, of Chinese art, costs $20 for entry. I just can't afford that. I am seriously miffed at the increasing inaccessibility of museums and galleries in Canada due to high entrance fees - aren't they still funded by our taxes? I know travelling exhibits are expensive and China is far away, but $20 per person seems to me excessive.

Percy Byshhe Shelley...

Percy Bysshe Shelley was born today, 215 years ago. Happy birthday to one of my favourite people!

I was reading an article about him today, a review of a new book about him by Janet Todd called Death and the Maidens, which, it appears, blames Shelley for the suicides of his acquaintances and the deaths of several of his children. Shelley's reputation has been having ups and downs since he was eighteen years old and was expelled from Oxford for espousing atheism; I'm sure his reputation will survive another book, but I find it annoying to hear the book described as 'frank' when it is obviously simply hostile. For instance: blaming him for Fanny Wollestonecraft's suicide, and then for not paying for her funeral, seems absurd to me - he hadn't seen her in several years, had never had any responsibility for her, and barely had enough money for himself and his immediate family to be able to eat. I wonder if she blames him for the suicide of Castlereagh, because Shelley said nasty things about him.

No need to return to the hagiographic view of Shelley that some have held, that he was a cross between a saint and an angel. That's just as bad. He was a polyamorous poet who paid heavily in his own lifetime for his convictions; whose viewpoint was both caring and eloquent. That's good enough for me.