My new desktop, I hadnt heard of this artist but it turns out he is pretty popular! I love this work actually but I havent been exposed to any other work and I am definately not going to Dublin anytime soon :-)


Lucian Freud, Sleeping Head, 1979-80, oil on canvas, 40.32 x 50.48 cm, Private Collection, Photo: Courtesy Acquavella Contemporary Art, Inc.

DUBLIN, IRELAND.- Lucian Freud is arguably the most important and distinguished figurative painter working today. This exhibition comprises some 50 paintings, 20 works on paper and etchings, from the last six decades, several being completed just months prior to the exhibition and others never shown before in a public venue. The exhibition also includes a selection of photographs of the artist. Best known for his portraits and nudes, Freud’s subjects include his family, friends, lovers and fellow artists. His early paintings and works on paper are often associated with a meticulous control of the brushstrokes and line, depicting people, plants and still-life, including several made while living in Ireland . From the late 1950s he began to paint people using more various flesh tones and thicker pigment. A number of ‘fragments’ in the exhibition give an indication of the artist’s willingness to leave a picture partly bare. The works in the exhibition are or...More

I recently went to a wine tasting at Randolf Wine Cellars and tasted about 30 wines.. a little from their blurb about these wines:

april 17: southern france
french wine tends to scare a lot of new and experienced wine drinkers away with their hard to read labels and all that talk of “terrior”. burgundy and bordeaux often come to mind when one thinks of french wine. for this third tuesday tasting we are going to take a trip through the often overlooked southern french wine regions. historically known as the vacation spot for europeans, and we’ll find out why! starting at the most northern tip of the cotes du rhone where the often sought after cote rotie is made. following the rhone river down into the stony soils of chateauneuf du pape, in the southern rhone. we will then move south- east to the mediterranean sea and into provence, where the world famous bandol is produced. staying on the coast we head west to the languedoc- roussillon, where we will find the often rustic and dirty wines of minervois, and corbieres. we continue into the south west right near the spanish border, where will find the big and bold cahors, as well as the often dry but sometimes sweet jurancon. french wine is more about the place it comes from rather than the grapes it is made with. join us in finding out the many different aromas and flavors that make up southern france!

They had around 6 different distributors set up 6 tables and you go up to each one and taste 5-6 wines. I had to spit out most of them because I wanted to have a nice time and also I didnt want to get drunk around the girl I was with !

Here are notes about the wines from an amateur oenophile (I learned that smily faces work quickly while writing on a tasting):

Table 1 - CWM

1. 2002 Aric Cortiers - Too Fruity, :-(
2. 2002 Las Vals Cortiers - Too Fruity, :-(
3. 2005 Domaine La Tour Vielle Rose - Too high in Tanin, :-(
4. 2004 Domaine de Lascaux Blanc - okay, no real after taste
5. 2004 Faury Condrieu - Medium Bodied, Dry, kinda complex
6. 2004 Domaine Gros Nore Bandol Rouge - Dry, full bodied
7. 2004 Domaine Raspail-Ay Gigondas - Light, Bad :-(

Table 2 - H2Vino

1. 2006 Moulines Gris de Gris - Rose, sweet smell, needs airing
2. 2002 Domaine de la Madone Beaujolais Villages - no smell, dry, great after taste
3. 2004 Mas de gourgonnier Rouge - med bodied
4. 2004 Gautier Fitou Rouge - Syrah and Granache, high tanin
5. 2003 Domaine Chapelle St. Joseph Vacqueyras - 70% Granache, great taste, not great after taste
6. 2004 Rijackaert St. Veran "En Jullie" - Burgundy region, chardonnay :-)

Table 3 - Wine Adventures

1. 2006 Chateau Beauchene Cote du Rohone Rose - not sweet, good smell
2. 2003 Domaine De La Citadella Cotes Du Luberon - Deep South, medium bodied :-)
3. 2005 Matthieu De Brully Saint - Veran - Chardonnay, good one! :-)
4. 2001 Bois Menestrel Vacqueyras - bitter, strong smell, very full bodied :-(
5. 2004 Chateau Tour Boisee Minervois - smooth, probably the best yet, vanilla, spicy smells

Table 4 - Vintage

1. 2005 Domaine Paul Autard Cotes Du Rhone - syrah, grenache, high tanin, acrid taste
2. 2002 Guigal Croze Hermitage Blanc - good after taste, no real taste
3. 2004 Domaine Les Pallieres Gigondas - rocky terrain, no real after taste
4. 2003 Guigal Croze Hermitage - red, :-(

Table 5 - Randolph Wine Cellars

1. 2003 Chapelle St. Arnoux Chateauneuf-du-Pape - :-(
2. 2004 Domaine Coudoulet Syrah - Bad :-(
3. 2004 Mas Carlot Syrah-Grenach Cuvee Tradition - Provence region, no real after taste
4. 2001 Domaine De Nizas Coteaux de Languedoc - 60% syrah :-(
5. 2004 Domaine De Nizas Carignan Viellies Vignes - :-(

Table 6 - Fine Vines

1. 2003 Chateau Revelette - Excellent wine, light and dry
2. 2003 Patrick Vacqueyras - better than most Vacs but still a Vac :-(
3. 2004 J.L. Chave St. Joseph - Fruity, excellent
4. 2003 Chateau Roque Le Mayne - Bordeaux, very good after taste :-)

Overall, I wouldnt really recommend southern france wines but if you like a particular kind of grape then this could be a great survey!

This is great stuff, specially since I have been reading a lot of translated poetry recently and its really hard stuff.. Pound does it with such an ease in this Chinese poetry. The literary analysis from Eugene is also very good!

"The River-Merchant’s Wife: A Letter"
(from Cathay, 1915)
by Ezra Pound (1885-1972)

While my hair was still cut straight across my forehead
I played about the front gate, pulling flowers.
You came by on bamboo stilts, playing horse,
You walked about my seat, playing with blue plums.
And we went on living in the village of Chōkan:
Two small people, without dislike or suspicion.

At fourteen I married My Lord you.
I never laughed, being bashful.
Lowering my head, I looked at the wall.
Called to, a thousand times, I never looked back.

At fifteen I stopped scowling,
I desired my dust to be mingled with yours
Forever and forever and forever.
Why should I climb the look out?

At sixteen you departed,
You went into far Ku-tō-en, by the river of swirling eddies,
And you have been gone five months.
The monkeys make sorrowful noise overhead.

You dragged your feet when you went out.
By the gate now, the moss is grown, the different mosses,
Too deep to clear them away!
The leaves fall early this autumn, in wind.
The paired butterflies are already yellow with August
Over the grass in the West garden;
They hurt me. I grow older.
If you are coming down through the narrows of the river Kiang,
Please let me know beforehand,
And I will come out to meet you
As far as Chō-fū-sa.

By Rihaku (Li Po)

Eugene Gloria Comments:
The mucilage that binds my New Directions copy of Selected Poems of Ezra Pound has dried and crumbled like crushed Communion hosts. I have neglected this artifact of my student days in Ohio far too long. What I have not forgotten is that this poem was the one I found most striking when I first discovered the Moderns. The poem takes a long look back to make poetry new. With Ernest Fenollosa’s notes on the Japanese translation of the eighth century Chinese poet Li Po (Rihaku is the Japanese name for Li Po), Ezra Pound re-imagines the ancient poet’s wartime emotions he himself did not possess as a noncombatant in World War I. In the first of Li Po’s “Two Letters from Ch’ang-Kan,” the poet is speaking in the voice of a woman left at home while her husband fights in some distant war. Waiting, she consoles herself by recalling him dragging his feet and imagines his footprints still fresh near the gate. Here emotion is understated, subtle and given to us through image (now a cliché in our workshops): “By the gate now, the moss is grown, the different mosses, / Too deep to clear them away!” As their parting lengthens, the woman left behind asserts: “At fifteen I stopped scowling, / I desired my dust to be mingled with yours / Forever and forever and forever. / Why should I climb the look out?” Pound allows the lyric to lapse into a feminized longing for a lover who may never return. In one translation from the Chinese, the reference to “the look out” alludes to a story of a woman waiting patiently for her husband on a promontory. Another layer unveiled from this version shows the woman turning into a rock having waited so long (see Wai-Lim Yip’s lucid translation of Li Po’s “The Song of Ch’ang-kan”). How curious it is in world literature for a woman to be transformed into a rock while in the throes of deep longing. One needs only to look back at the story of the indomitable wife of Lot (yet another nameless woman, identified only in relation to her husband) and the brilliant poems by contemporary women poets such as Jane Shore and Wislawa Szymborska who have transposed this biblical narrative from the woman’s point of view. Whether or not Pound’s “non-Chinese” translation of “The River-Merchant’s Wife” is in the tradition of a war poem or a love poem, what I as a reader value most is Pound’s precise language, a discernable idiom that is spoken plainly, what William Carlos Williams would claim as “an American idiom.” What Pound transports into English is a pure emotion—without sentimentality, a kind of precision that is part and parcel of our modern and contemporary tradition.

About Eugene Gloria:
Eugene Gloria was born in Manila, Philippines, and raised in San Francisco. He earned his BA from San Francisco State University, his MA from Miami University of Ohio, and his MFA from the University of Oregon. He is the author of two books of poems — Hoodlum Birds (Penguin, 2006) and Drivers at the Short-Time Motel (Penguin, 2000), which was selected for the 1999 National Poetry Series and the 2001 Asian American Literary Award. He has also received a Fulbright Research Grant, a grant from the San Francisco Art Commission, a Poetry Society of America award, and a Pushcart Prize. He teaches at DePauw University and lives in Greencastle, Indiana.

I spent last weekend in NJ helping my sister out with proof-reading her dissertation on communication between generations in diasporic gujaratis. She has been discussing this for years with me, its a topic that is dear to both of us but I had no idea it was going to be so hard to read her thesis. An academic thesis is so much more complex in writing styles and in the theories that she has explored than the usual conversations we have had.

Starting with the topic:

PASSING ON THE CULTURE IN THE DIASPORA

INTER-GENERATIONAL COMMUNICATION OF CULTURAL IDENTITY AMONGST GUJARATIS IN THE USA

An excerpt of her writing:

This dialectic management of inclusion and exclusion closely intersects with processes of assimilation and adaptation of the Indian-Gujarati community, the theme to which this dissertation is devoted. To understand how these processes interact, we need to direct our attention to cultural identity, a construct that we become aware of only when we meet members of another culture

This is going to be my new desktop background in the computer at work....Deschamps has always been my favorite 'New Realist' !

Le Nouveau Réalisme at Galeries du Grand Palais

Gérard Deschamps, Trois Lichtenstein = un Deschamps, 1965, 220 x 200 cm. Collection privée, Paris. Courtesy Galerie Georges-Philippe et Nathalie Vallois.© ADAGP, Paris 2007.

PARIS, FRANCE.- Galeries Nationales du Grand Palais present Le Nouveau Réalisme, on view through July 2, 2007, An exhibition jointly produced by the Rmn, the Centre Pompidou, Paris and the Sprengel Museum Hannover, Hanover, to be shown at the Sprengel Museum Hannover from 9 September 2007 to 27 January 2008. Lasting from the late 1950s to the mid-1960s, New Realism was part of an overall drive to renew artistic forms and themes in a booming consumer and industrial society, in reaction to the immediate post-war period: Neo-Dada, Pop Art, Fluxus, Zero Group, New Realists…Klein, Hains, Villeglé, Tinguely, César, Arman, Spoerri, Raysse, Dufrêne, Rotella, Niki de Saint Phalle, Deschamps, Christo – dubbed the "New Realists"* by the art critic Pierre Restany – held many group shows and happenings....More

Today is a very interesting day, not for me.. but just the date and how it is historically a bad omen... great time to watch horror movies... Some years ago when I was reading 'Complications', this chapter on the 'fear of friday the 13th'  or paraskavedekatriaphobia made me realise the significance of this date in the medical world. Let me put parts of Gawande's article in Slate and some history from wikipedia below:

History of Friday the 13th (from Wiki)

Before the 19th century, though the number 13 was considered unlucky, and Friday was considered unlucky, there was no link between them. The first documented mention of a "Friday the 13th" is generally listed as occurring in the early 1900s.^[1][2]

However, documentation aside, many popular stories exist about the origin of the concept:

• The Last Supper, with stories that Judas was the thirteenth guest, and that the Crucifixion of Jesus occurred Friday.
• That the biblical Eve offered the fruit to Adam on a Friday, and that the slaying of Abel happened on a Friday (though the Bible does not identify the days of the week when these events occurred). ^[3]
• That it started on Friday, October 13, 1307, the date that many Knights Templar were simultaneously arrested in France, by agents of King Philip IV.

However, historically, there is no true date that the Friday the 13th superstition can be linked to.

In the case of Greece, Tuesday, April 13, 1204 was the date that Constantinople was sacked by the crusaders of the fourth crusade. The first ever fall of the then richest Christian city, and the looting that followed, allegedly gave Tuesday 13 its bad meaning. Ironically enough, Constantinople fell for the second time in its history on Tuesday, May 29, 1453, to the Ottoman Turks, a date that puts an end to the Byzantine empire, and to Greek sovereignty for several centuries, and therefore reinforcing Tuesday as an unlucky day in the Greek world.

Many modern stories (including The Da Vinci Code) claim that when King Philip IV had many Templars simultaneously arrested on October 13, 1307, that started the legend of the unlucky Friday the 13th. However, closer examination shows that though the number 13 was indeed considered historically unlucky, the actual association of Friday and 13 seems to be an invention from the early 1900s.^[4][5]

^{-------------------------------------------------------------------}
E.R. and the Triple Hex (From Slate)
When a full moon and a lunar eclipse collide with Friday the 13^th, do more accidents really happen?
By Atul Gawande
Posted Friday, March 20, 1998, at 3:30 AM ET

A couple of months ago, when my fellow surgical residents and I went around a table divvying up nights on emergency room duty, one March date sat conspicuously unpicked--Friday the 13^th. C'mon, I thought. This is ridiculous. So when it was my turn again, I put my name down for March 13. Rest up, one resident told me. You'll be in for a long night. I laughed and dismissed the thought.

But looking at my calendar a while later, I noticed that the moon would be full that Friday night. When someone noted that a lunar eclipse would be occurring then, too, I felt my skepticism slip a little. Perhaps I would be in for a miserable night, after all. Trained scientists such as myself, however, do not succumb easily to superstition. Like any self-respecting rationalist, I asked the obvious question: Isn't there a study on this?

It turns out there is one reputable study that has tried to assess whether or not luck actually does go bad on Friday the 13^th. (I'm not sure which is more surprising: that someone actually spent time researching this or that I could find only one such study. This is, after all, a world that has studied even how chewing gum distributes saliva around the mouth.) The 1993 study, published in the British Medical Journal, compared hospital admissions for traffic accidents on a Friday the 13^th with those on a Friday the 6^th in a community outside London. Despite a lower highway traffic volume on the 13^th than on the 6^th, admissions for traffic accident victims increased 52 percent on the 13^th. "Friday the 13^th is unlucky for some," the authors concluded. "Staying at home is recommended." How you escape the bad luck at home they didn't explain.

You really can't make much of one study of one Friday the 13^th in one town. Lots of other factors could have caused that surge of crashes. Still, Friday the 13^th phobia is widespread. Donald Dossey, a North Carolina behavioral scientist, has coined a term for it: "paraskevidekatriaphobia," which he derived from the Greek for fear of Friday the 13^th. He estimates that between 17 million and 21 million Americans suffer mild to severe anxiety or change their activities--performing rituals before leaving the house, calling in sick to work, or postponing flights or major purchases--and that businesses lose $750 million in revenues because of these fears.

More...

I just found this in my mailbox, its a wealth of information from so many different sources about the war.

Why? Is it true?

The Iraq War (March 20, 2003 to present), sometimes known as the Second Gulf War,[23] is an ongoing war that began with the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003. The rationale for the war offered by the Bush administration at the time of invasion was that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction which posed an "imminent threat" to the United States and the world community. This claim has since been found to be false based on the work of the Iraq Survey Group.

Was it premeditated?

New Book Says Bush Started to Plan Iraq War in 2001

Was in neccassary?

May-July 1999
"According to Herskowitz, Bush’s beliefs on Iraq were based in part on a notion dating back to the Reagan White House â€" ascribed in part to now-vice president Dick Cheney, Chairman of the House Republican Policy Committee under Reagan. “Start a small war. Pick a country where there is justification you can jump on, go ahead and invade.â€

Who decides?

Fog of War Excerpt - What makes it immoral if you lose but not if you win?

Who believes?

John Stauber Interview - "The Best War Ever: Lies, Damned Lies, and the Mess in Iraq"

Who suffers?

There is no question that Saddam Hussein has committed atrocious human rights abuses against his people, and that he should be held accountable. Yet these atrocities cannot be used to justify a war that puts hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians at risk.

Who pays?

The War in Iraq Costs

Who profits?

IS OIL OR BIG BUSINESS AN UNDISCLOSED MOTIVE FOR THE WAR ON IRAQ?

Who is lying?

Center for Media and Democracy, Publishers of PR Watch, Iraq

----

"Allow the President to invade a neighboring nation, whenever he shall deem it necessary to repel an invasion, and you allow him to do so, whenever he may choose to say he deems it necessary for such a purpose -- and you allow him to make war at pleasure. If today, he should choose to say he thinks it necessary to invade Canada, to prevent the British from invading us, how could you stop him? You may say to him, 'I see no probability of the British invading us' but he will say to you, 'Be silent; I see it, if you don't.'"
- Abraham Lincoln

"Never has there been a good war or a bad peace"
- Benjamin Franklin

"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and not clothed."
- Dwight D. Eisenhower

"What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans, and the homeless, whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or the holy name of liberty and democracy?"
- Gandhi

"Naturally, the common people don't want war ... but after all it is the leaders of a country who determine the policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in every country."
- Hermann Goering

"Violence is the first refuge of the incompetent"
- Issac Asimov

"Politicians hide themselves away
They only started the war
Why should they go out to fight?
They leave that role to the poor"
-Black Sabbath

I just got back from watching this documentary. It was on my to-go list since the international documentary festival started about 2 weeks ago but I was too lazy to take the initiative. Finally I got company today to go to the Gallery Theatre. Such a nice theater, with a photography exhibit around it in the quaint almost scary neighbourhood.

It was like listening to Chomsky, talk about all these things that happened, which the media has either ignored on purpose or tried to hide that this documentary was unearthing. I thought it was very enlightening and was well balanced in the view. It did not make Castro into a hero or and america into a villain.

Excerpt from the film festival web page:

638 WAYS TO KILL CASTRO

UK, 2006, 75 min., English, Spanish
Director: Dollan Cannell

For nearly half a century everyone from the CIA to Cubans-in-exile in Miami have been plotting to kill Fidel Castro. None of them have succeeded, but as this revealing and snappy film shows, many of the schemes hatched to end the dictator’s life would be deemed too outrageous for even a James Bond movie. Fabian Escalante, one of Castro’s security men has calculated that there have been a total of 638 attempts on El Commandante’s life – most brainstormed by the CIA - and eight of them have been singled out in this witty and informative doc. From college chums with a grudge to femme fatales and from poisoned cigars to sinister bomb plantings those who had a mind to do Castro in stopped at nothing to figure out how to get close enough to pull it off. It is even rumored that John F Kennedy asked Bond-creator Ian Fleming for his advice on how to oust Castro. But as this smart and layered doc suggests, these focused missions have not been without disastrous consequences, from innocent bloodshed to the US government’s rumored affiliation with terrorists.

Seurat has always intrigued me as a painter with a mathematician preciseness in his paintings. His facination with the impressionist movement but seen in a way that is only characteristic of his. Some critic used the term pointilism but I think that was oversimplification of his work. I am going to see if I cant check this exhibit out next week when I am in New York.

Georges Seurat, Seascape at Port-en-Bessin, Normandy (Port-en-Bessin, les grues et la percée), 1888. Oil on canvas, 65.1 x 80.9 cm. National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. Gift of the W. Averell Harriman Foundation in memory of Marie N. Harriman 1972.9.21. Photo: © Board of Trustees, National Gallery of Art, Washington.

NEW YORK, NY.- From April 27 to August 6, 2007, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum presents Divisionism/Neo-Impressionism: Arcadia and Anarchy, the first exhibition in the United States to focus on Italian Divisionism—a style so named for its painting technique, which employed the “division” of vibrant color through brushstrokes—and to examine its relationship to French Neo-Impressionism. The exhibition comprises approximately forty paintings drawn from major museums and private collections by the masters of Italian Divisionism, including Giovanni Segantini, Angelo Morbelli, and Giuseppe Pellizza da Volpedo, together with significant Neo-Impressionist paintings by Georges Seurat, Paul Signac, and Camille Pissarro, among others. Divisionism/Neo-Impressionism situates the Italian Divisionists within an international context alongside the major proponents of Neo-Impressionism....More

I also want to check out this gallery, I didnt even know of it till today's Art Daily:

Trans-Chromatics - Vittorio Matino at Sundaram Tagore NEW YORK.-Sundaram Tagore Gallery is pleased to present Trans-Chromatics, an exhibition of paintings by artist Vittorio Matino. Vittorio Matino is a Milan based artist whose career spans half of a century, and straddles the boundary between the abstract and the figurative. His work is recognized for long dynamic vertical strokes of vibrant color and their ability to exhibit chromatic...More

Something I should keep on the radar to check out in Atlanta when I am there the weekend of 20th:

Art-I-Ficial Intelligience Invades Atlanta Museum ATLANTA, GA.- Mannequins designed by twenty-five artists from the Savannah College of Art and Design-Atlanta (SCAD) are infiltrating the Museum of Design Atlanta (MODA) with an innovative new art exhibition that transforms the exhibition space into impressions of modern urban living. The exhibition recycles mannequins from the art installation that was used to...More

Finally someone who has a backbone and can confront Mr O'Riley the only way he understands it, by screaming louder than him. This guy is laughing to the bank by giving the public a hard stance without any moral logic or common sense. We need someone like Geraldo to bring more perspective to the American public.

See video:
http://www.youtube. com/watch? v=u0Gwz-2qB7o

A very simple yet touching film. Its in Hindi and does not have subtitles. Message from the Film Maker, Raj Singh:

-------------------------------------------
I recently made a Short film "Dadu", (Dur: 2mins). This film is an
emotional potrayal of changing times. It shows how unknowingly we hurt
people we love. How Relationships can suddenly seem like a Burden & a
Liability.

U can watch this film on the foll Link

http://www.metacafe.com/watch/510313/
-----------------------------------------------

I just went to this really interesting restaurant - Victory's Banner run by this cult of Sri Chinmoy in Roscoe Village:

"For all of those who work at Victory's Banner, the restaurant stands as a spiritual expression. We exist for one reason and one reason only… to serve you joyfully. We hope to do this by offering the best food we can, prepared and served as devotedly as possible.

Yes, we are vegetarian, but you won't miss the meat! We use the finest ingredients, like free-range eggs (no hormones - they taste better!), fresh fruit, real whipped cream and great coffee. We've attempted to make the atmosphere uplifting and peaceful. Even the sugar packets offer an inspiring message!

All of us who work here are students of meditation, and study with the Indian Spiritual Master Sri Chinmoy. The restaurant is a reflection of the impact Sri Chinmoy has had on our lives, and it is inspired by him. His philosophy encourages a sincere inner life with an active outer life. By meditating on the spiritual heart, he teaches, the seeker can discover his own inner treasures of peace, joy, light and love."

It was really uncanny, I figured Chinmoy being from bengal and then on entering when I saw the ladies dressed in saris, and the first thing on my mind was 'Sri Aurobindo' ashram (then I told myself, that couldnt be since thats in Pondicherry).. and bingo! when we sat down she comes by and when asked says, Sri Chinmoy was born in bengal and spend 20 years are Aurobindo ashram.. how wierd that I guessed that.

As always, I am sucker for sprititual philosophies so I bought a book, ' Beyond Within' written by Sri Chinmoy to really understand his path to understanding and spritual freedom. Synopsis (from Amazon):

Book Description
When the simple yearning to know life's purpose and feel the reality of God has you swimming against the tide then the wisdom and guidance of a spiritual Master who has swum these waters is priceless. Sri Chinmoy offers profound insight into man's relationship with God and sound advice on how to integrate the highest spiritual aspirations into daily life. The single most comprehensive exposition of the author's philosophy available this anthology contains questions and answers essays and talks on a vast range of spiritual subjects with over 200 truth revealing aphorisms and poems interspersed throughout.

About the Author
Sri Chinmoy is a noted author, musician, artist, meditation teacher and philosopher; but he known above all a a man of peace. In his tireless search for new pathways to inner harmony and world peace, he has explored various fields of human endeavor and touched the lives of thousands of people around the world. "Our goal is always to go beyond, beyond, beyond," he says. "There are no limits to our capacity because we have the Infinite Divine within us." For more than two decades he has held twicw-weekly peace meditations at the United Nations in New York. He has held discussions on peace with anumber of world leaders, including Pope Paul VI, Mikhail Gorbachev, Mother Teresa and Nelson Mandela. He is the founder of more than 350 peace meditation centres throughout the world.

This may seem like one of those Stephen Covey type self help mumbo jumbo but something clicked when I read this today. I guess being around patient care areas day in and day out, this is something that I am going to print and tack it on one of my desk walls. Its these little things that are so easy to forget when we tackle huge workflow problems.... and it still doesnt result in customer satisfaction... these rules are easy to follow but need constant reminders!

The 17 House Rules

1. Break the ice. Make eye contact, welcome the guest, smile, say hello, call people by name and extend a few words of concern.

2. Notice when someone looks lost or confused. It is your opportunity to help out. Empathize that it is hard find your way around in a new place. Don't wait for them to ask directions- offer to help.

3. Take time for courtesy and consideration. Simply kind words and polite gestures can make people feel special. Ma'am or Sir may be in order.

4. Keep people informed. Explain what you are doing and what people can expect. People are always less anxious when they know what's happening. And whatever you do, avoid surprises,

5. Anticipate needs. You often know what people need before they ask. Don't wait, lead the need. It actually places more control over your workday.

6. Respond quickly. When patients are worried or sick, time passes five times slower. The closer the response is to the request, the less chance of a service breakdown.

7. Respect the patient's privacy. Knock as you enter the patient's room. Let patients disrobe /dress in privacy. Place a note on the door if privacy could be jeopardized.

8. Maintain confidentiality. Watch what you say and where you say it. Protect personal information. Interview patients where they won't be overheard. Do not talk about the patient's case in public areas. If you overhear someone doing so, smile and say, "That must be my mother you are talking about".

9. Handle with care. Slow down with the patients. Imagine you are on the receiving end.

10. Maintain dignity. Give choices in interactions with patients. Use words they understand. Give them as much control over their environment as possible.

11. Take initiative. Just because something is "not your job" doesn't mean you can't help or find someone who can. The patient is who we are here for.

12. Treat patients as adults. Your words and tone should show respect and consideration.

13. Listen and act, in that order. When people complain, don't blame others or make excuses. Listen with purpose, what's behind what they say. Hear people out.

14. Help each other. Customer service is not a one-man show. When you help colleagues, you help other people too.

15. Keep it quiet. Noise annoys. It shows lack of consideration and concern for patients.

16. Apply telephone skills. When you are on the telephone, the hospital's reputation is on the line. Smile before you answer. Sound
pleasant, be helpful, and most of all listen, with understanding.

17. Look the part. Professional dress and appropriate grooming builds confidence in all of us.

modified from Customer Service in Health Care, Wendy Leebov, Ed.D

I just picked up this book from Transitions this week. It was strange, the day before I bought it I saw it in the window and was facinated by it. I told myself I will check it out during lunch tomorrow. That evening mom sent me an email about this book saying, she read some articles from it in the newspaper.. after that I was like this is a sign that I need to buy this book. So now I bought it, I think it'll be a great read not just for myself but for my sis and brother in law, they have been obsessed with food since last couple of months.

Here is a little snippet from Pollan's webpage:

What should we have for dinner? The question has confronted us since man discovered fire, but according to Michael Pollan, the bestselling author of The Botany of Desire, how we answer it today, at the dawn of the twenty-first century, may well determine our very survival as a species.   Should we eat a fast-food hamburger?  Something organic?  Or perhaps something we hunt, gather, or grow ourselves? The omnivore’s dilemma has returned with a vengeance, as the cornucopia of the modern American supermarket and fast-food outlet confronts us with a bewildering and treacherous food landscape. What’s at stake in our eating choices is not only our own and our children’s health, but the health of the environment that sustains life on earth.

In this groundbreaking book, one of America’s most fascinating, original, and elegant writers turns his own omnivorous mind to the seemingly straightforward question of what we should have for dinner. To find out, Pollan follows each of the food chains that sustain us—industrial food, organic or alternative food, and food we forage ourselves—from the source to a final meal, and in the process develops a definitive account of the American way of eating.  His absorbing narrative takes us from Iowa cornfields to food-science laboratories, from feedlots and fast-food restaurants to organic farms and hunting grounds, always emphasizing our dynamic coevolutionary relationship with the handful of plant and animal species we depend on.  Each time Pollan sits down to a meal, he deploys his unique blend of personal and investigative journalism to trace the origins of everything consumed, revealing what we unwittingly ingest and explaining how our taste for particular foods and flavors reflects our evolutionary inheritance. 

The surprising answers Pollan offers to the simple question posed by this book have profound political, economic, psychological, and even moral implications for all of us. Beautifully written and thrillingly argued, The Omnivore’s Dilemma promises to change the way we think about the politics and pleasure of eating.  For anyone who reads it, dinner will never again look, or taste, quite the same. Read the introduction and first chapter of
The Omnivore's Dilemma (PDF)

IBM is making headlines in India with the work that they are doing with Bharti, couple of interesting articles that I read in the last two days:

IBM and globalisation

IBM and globalisation

Apr 4th 2007
From The Economist print edition LAST June IBM held its annual investors' day in the grounds of the Bangalore Palace, a fake Windsor Castle in India's equivalent of Silicon Valley. Big Blue pulled out all the stops to impress the 50 or so investors and Wall Street analysts who turned up, gathering 10,000 employees to hear speeches by the president of India, the country's leading telecoms entrepreneur and IBM's own boss, Sam Palmisano, all hosted by a Bollywood babe in a red sari. …

This is a really awesome charcoal painting, I have been following Kiefer's work for sometime now. He is brilliant in a dark, morbit haunting sort of way.


Anselm Kiefer, Black Flakes (Schwarze Flocken), 2006, Oil, emulsion, acrylic, charcoal, leadbook, branches and plaster on canvas, 330 x 570 cm. Grothe Collection. Courtesy Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac, Paris, Salzburg.

BILBAO, SPAIN.- The Guggenheim Museum Bilbao presents one of the key exhibitions in the art program for its tenth anniversary: Anselm Kiefer, a unique exhibition featuring a selection of works created in the last decade by one of the most important and acclaimed artists of our time, on view through September 3, 2007. Curated by Germano Celant, Senior Curator of Contemporary Art at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York, this exhibition showcases a selection of Kiefer’s works from private and public collections, the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao Collection, and the artist’s own collection. This thematic exhibition, which has been made possible thanks to the generous sponsorship of BBVA in the year in which the Bank also celebrates its 150th anniversary, combines the emotional power of Kiefer’s works with Frank Gehry’s building to submerge the viewer in a unique creative space that enhances the artist’s colossal artworks. One of the exhibition’s outs...More