Happy Father’s Day for Sunday, 2 September 2018

Hello Friends,

Happy Father’s Day to all the amazing Dads around the world.

Some Fathers are involved in the lives of their children from the very beginning. They value their relationships with their kids. For this year’s tribute to Dads, I’m posting about a special children’s book which was illustrated and written by Snezhana Soosh.

Snezhana was inspired to create the book by the bond she had with her son, and the relationship she didn’t have with her own father. He didn’t know how to show his love for her. She’d observed other fathers sharing tender moments with their daughters. Illustrations of the big, gentle papa and the tiny girl were her expressions of the love and tenderness she’d lacked and very much wanted for herself. She hopes fathers will see in her paintings how important they are in their kids’ lives.

Dads can do anything when they’re hanging out with their children. Dad By My Side celebrates fathers and loving relationships with kids.

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The Blurb

A heartwarming celebration of the special relationship between a father and daughter from Instagram sensation Soosh.

Whether they're playing make-believe, making you smile, or warding off monsters under the bed, dads are always there when you need them. Debut picture book artist Soosh celebrates fathers with a gorgeously illustrated and moving story about the parent-child bond.

When Soosh first posted her initial series of images of a larger-than-life father and his adorable daughter on Instagram, fans from across the world immediately took notice with over 2 million views on a popular viral content website in a single week.

These illustrations now come together in a universally relatable story of familial love for parents and children to share.

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Dad By My Side is available now from several book sellers.

Here’s the Amazon.com 

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Watch the video, “The Love Between Dads And Their Little Girls In Heartwarming Illustrations By Ukrainian Artist”

Have a lovely weekend.

♥ Ashlyn

Women in History 5 - "Queen Hatshepsut of Ancient Egypt"

 

Hello Friends,
Queen Hatshepsut put on the false beard of a male pharaoh and ruled Egypt during the 18^th dynasty. No doubt she had her reasons for giving up being a Queen and becoming a masculine figure of authority. The names she used as king were grammatically feminine participles, and were not hiding her female status. She was innovating the dynastic traditions or bending gender rules already. 

Hatshepsut’s kingship was one of the most successful in Egyptian history. She was powerful. She led a military campaign. Trade flourished and Egypt grew wealthier. She built her famous temple at Deir el-Bahari in the Valley of Kings, Luxor. 

Hatshepsut’s mortuary temple at Deir el-Bahari in the Valley of Kings, Luxor.

The building has three levels of smooth geometric lines set against the backdrop of rugged, rocky natural mountains. The lower courtyard once had gardens of trees and shrubs.

source: Google+ France Michard Knapp

 She added obelisks and a “Palace of Ma’at” (Goddess of truth, justice, balance and morality) to the temple of Karnak. Hatshepsut royal name was Ma’at-ka-re, “spirit of harmony and truth”. 

The next pharaoh in the royal succession tried to erase her name from history.

The modern day gentlemen who discovered her mortuary temple and tomb judged her deviant reign by the prejudices of their own minds. However, now researchers are changing their thinking about the great Egyptian Queen and also King.

Next up, I have a link to an article written by Elizabeth B. Wilson for the Smithsonian Magazine, which discusses the original soap opera way of thinking about Hatshepsut and some possible reasons why she declared herself king.

Hatshepsut’s Temple.

source: Google+ France Michard Knapp

The Queen Who Would Be King

A scheming stepmother or a strong and effective ruler? History’s view of the pharaoh Hatshepsut changed over time

By Elizabeth B. Wilson

Smithsonian Magazine 

The Queen Who Would Be King

It was a hot, dusty day in early 1927, and Herbert Winlock was staring at a scene of brutal destruction that had all the hallmarks of a vicious personal attack. Signs of desecration were everywhere; eyes had been gouged out, heads lopped off, the cobra-like symbol of royalty hacked from foreheads. Winlock, head of the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s archaeological team in Egypt, had unearthed a pit in the great temple complex at Deir el-Bahri, across the Nile from the ancient sites of Thebes and Karnak. In the pit were smashed statues of a pharaoh—pieces “from the size of a fingertip,” Winlock noted, “to others weighing a ton or more.” The images had suffered “almost every conceivable indignity,” he wrote, as the violators vented “their spite on the [pharaoh’s] brilliantly chiseled, smiling features.” To the ancient Egyptians, pharaohs were gods. What could this one have done to warrant such blasphemy? In the opinion of Winlock, and other Egyptologists of his generation, plenty.

The statues were those of Hatshepsut, the sixth pharaoh of the 18th dynasty, one of the few—and by far the most successful—women to rule Egypt as pharaoh. Evidence of her remarkable reign (c. 1479-1458 b.c.) did not begin to emerge until the 19th century. But by Winlock’s day, historians had crafted the few known facts of her life into a soap opera of deceit, lust and revenge...

Read more: The Queen Who Would Be King

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The video below is from the Irish Audio Project.(I ♥ listening to Irish people speak) It’s a short radio documentary about the forgotten women of history called, AMAZING GRACES - Hatshepsut, the 'She-King' of Egypt.

In 1828, Jean-François Champollion discovered the partially erased name of a pharaoh, accompanied by feminine titles and conjugation. He was very puzzled - pictorially, the pharaoh was male, but hieroglyphically, he was a ‘she’.

Piecing together the sparse clues, a story emerged that the woman pharaoh had kept her step-son, the rightful heir, off the throne. Forgotten for thousands of years, Hatshepsut, the She-King of Egypt, emerged two centuries ago as an evil, power-hungry stepmother. However, using forensic evidence from the mummified remains, discovered in 1989, the truth of Hatshepsut's life and reign emerges. 

Enjoy your weekend.

♥ Ashlyn

Women in History 4 - "Hedy Lamarr, inventor of the sound frequency concept behind Wifi"

Way back in the 1940’s actress and inventor Hedy Lamarr was following her own initiative and working on radio guidance for torpedoes in World War 11. She was a woman without any formal training in science and engineering. What did a beautiful Austrian actress in Hollywood know about such things?

She said inventions came to her easily. Her breakthroughs in thinking eventually led to the development of Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and GPS technology which is estimated to be worth $30 billion today.

Hello Friends,

An incredible woman from history, Hedy Lamarr passed away in 2000. She’s back in the news again after talk that Wonder Woman actresss, Gal Gadot is considering a role in a television series about the life and career of Lamarr.

Hedy Lamarr started acting at 17. She was once called the most beautiful woman in films. In 1938, she left Europe and starred in her first Hollywood movie during the Golden Age of cinema. 

Hedy Lamarr 1939, Argentinean Magazine
source: Wiki Commons

In the years that followed and led to World War 11 she learnt that radio-controlled torpedoes could easily be jammed and set off course by the enemy. At the time, England was surrounded by German U-boats. Her first husband was an arms maker and she’d previously had dinner conversations about German military technology.

With help from a composer and pianist, Hedy designed a mechanism that instead of using a single radio frequency, it could you use multi-frequencies to send a signal and not be interfered with. The concept was called frequency-hopping which she patented in 1942. The invention was rejected by the U.S. Navy because it was a technology that came from outside of military institutions. However, in 1962, the Navy used and improved the concept as a reaction to the Cuban missile crisis.

Hedy had no formal training in science and engineering. She was a self-taught inventor. Her Hollywood home had a studio where she could work on her innovative ideas. Her achievements were largely kept a secret, and she’d rarely taken credit for her own work.

“People have the idea I’m sort of a stupid thing,” Hedy Lamarr said in a tape recording.

Today, Hedy Lamarr’s multi-frequency signal idea is used in Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and GPS technology.

Recently, a documentary was made about Hedy Lamarr. Watch the trailer to “Bombshell”, The Brilliant Mind of Hollywood Legend Hedy Lamarr.

More news about trailblazing women…

British physicist Dr. Jess Wade has written 270 Wikipedia pages for trailblazing female scientists in an effort to get every woman “who has achieved something impressive in science to get the prominence and recognition they deserve.”

Read about it here, huffingtonpost.com.au 

Have a happy weekend.

♥ Ashlyn

Women in History 3 – “The Forgotten Classical Music”

A woman playing a piano is a familiar image. Women have enjoyed listening to classical music too, but in yesteryears, did they ever write it?

According to historian, Anna Beer, yes they did, and the women deserve to be remembered as part of our cultural heritage.

Hello Friends,

Cultural historian Anna Beer has written a book about women composers dating back to the 17^th Century. Against the odds, some women did succeed in creating classical music which was a world for men. Some of the music in Anna Beer's youtube playlist is wonderful and beautiful (link at the end of the post).

Getting the music out into the world was a challenge for the feminine composers. The expectations in the past eras of history were for women to become wives and mothers. The women tried many different approaches to breaking the glass ceilings or open the door to the exclusive music sanctums.

Barbara Strozzi provided music as well as sex to her music patron. She was a courtesan in Venice, a singer of erotic songs for men and she also published her own music.  

Lili Boulanger, a French woman, presented herself as a femme fragile, a fragile woman, a girl. She was not a threat to the establishment. She went on to win the highest musical honor. 

Barbara and Lili are two of the composers featured in the book,“Sounds and Sweet Airs” written by Anna Beer. 

The Book Blurb

"The cultural historian Anna Beer’s rewarding new book about the forgotten women of classical music includes insightful portraits of eight composers, a couple of whom are truly forgotten, like the 17th-century Italian Francesca Caccini. But penetrating essays on better-known figures, like Clara Schumann, are even more interesting for the way Ms. Beer conveys the sexism and lifelong frustrations some immensely gifted creative artists encountered.” ―Anthony Tommasini, The New York Times

As Heard on NPR's Weekend Edition

“Absorbing ... [Beer] writes with rich detail and sympathetic insight about [these women's] ambitious, adventurous battles to overcome barriers to creativity."

— Publishers Weekly

"Savvy, sympathetic ... essential and insightful study of a woman’s unsung place in the closed world of classical music."

—The Wall Street Journal

SOUNDS AND SWEET AIRS reveals the hidden stories of eight remarkable composers, taking the reader on a journey from seventeenth-century Medici Florence to London in the Blitz.

Exploring not just the lives and works of eight exceptional artists, historian Anna Beer also asks tough questions about the silencing of their legacy, which continues to this day. Why do we still not hear masterpieces such as Hensel’s piano work "The Year," Caccini’s arias and Boulanger’s setting of Psalm 130?

A long-overdue celebration of neglected virtuosos, SOUNDS AND SWEET AIRS presents a complex and inspirational picture of artistic endeavour and achievement that deserves to be part of our cultural heritage.

The featured composers are Francesca Caccini, Barbara Strozzi, Élisabeth Jacquet de la Guerre, Marianna Martines, Fanny Hensel (née Mendelssohn), Clara Schumann, Lili Boulanger and Elizabeth Maconchy.

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“Sounds & Sweet Airs” is available now for the Kindle price of $9.78 US.

Here's the link to Amazon.com

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Read more about it the book here, National Public Radio
Discover the composers in “Sounds and Sweet Airs” by Anna Beer, listen to a playlist of beautiful classical music on youtube, here

When I’m driving, I often listen to the radio channel that is all classical music. It has a very calming effect. If I’m driving through the Australian bush or forest, and surrounded by nature, the music is magical. Rarely do I ever hear any music that was composed by women.  How much longer will these musicians remain forgotten?

Enjoy your weekend.

♥ Ashlyn

Movie – “Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again”

Here we go again with Abba songs, dancing and romancing, retro fashion, a sunny Greek island, and the 3 Dads.

Hello Friends,

Fans have waited ten years for the next Mamma Mia movie. It’s here, and if light-hearted entertainment is for you, go see the musical and romantic comedy. It’s fun to watch. Looks sun drenched and smiley. I walked out of the cinema feeling uplifted and warbling “Fernando” for a good reason.

The latest movie flips between a backstory prequel and a sequel to the original story.

The prequel is set in the 1970’s, when carefree Donna Sheridan graduates from university and follows her dream to travel. On the Greek island, Kalokairi, she finds a seemingly abandoned farm house with a beautiful black horse in the stable. The backstory shows the circumstances of how Donna met each of her daughter Sophie’s three fathers. Their romantic interludes, and the tragedy that affected the man she loved (but he’s still alive).

Donna decided to stay on the island, raise her baby girl and turn the old farm house into a hotel.

In the sequel part of the movie, Sadly Donna has passed away. Sophie has grown up and decided to finish her mother’s farm house to hotel make-over dream. She invites her 3 Dads to celebrate the re-opening of the hotel. But the plans for the new launch go haywire.

Then Wow, Cher makes an appearance as Sophie’s grandmother.  Stepping out of the private helicopter in her high heels, wearing her wig, and costumes with attitude. The movie-makers let Cher be Cher. She sang Fernando, Cher style. I enjoyed it...and kept singing on my way to the car park.

But wait, Sophie’s baby…well I’ve written enough spoilers, watch the movie trailer.

Have fun.
♥ Ashlyn