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Brrr... it's winter! Bloody cold standing in the north wind waiting for busses this afternoon! Carrying a couple of grocery bags, my poor fingers were icy cold when i got home, even though i had gloves on! The first few brisk days are always a shock to the system and lately we've had a few and then some milder ones so it's hard to get used to the cold. I will, more or less. It's a long winter.

Today's 30 days/30 posts topic is "A song that makes you cry or nearly "
Any song that reminds you of a sad time of your life, or of someone that's not in your life anymore that you miss, that song is going to bring back those feelings. Music can be very powerful in that way. We often associate certain songs with events and people. Couples often have an "our song". One summer that the radio seems to be playing one particular song a lot? That will always bring that summer back to you. Sometimes it's not a personal association. Maybe the song represents an event or person unrelated to you but it makes you remember that event or person.

One song that reminds me of someone and what he stood for is Imagine by John Lennon. I was never a big Beatles fan. I liked their music ok but most of it didn't really move me. But Lennon, though he had his faults, stood for peace and non-violence. Yet he died in a very violent manner and Imagine always makes me sad and emotional because of that reason. When i hear it, it brings a lump to my throat. Nearly 4 years ago, i was driving to my mom's house. I was nearing the turn off and that song came on the radio. It was very hard not to cry while i was driving. It was the day after my father died. So now there's two reasons why that song can make me emotional. Now i have a personal association to it as well.

My favourite work of art

Yes it's that 30 days 30 posts thing. Today's topic is a piece of art. Below the cut is my favourite piece of art. I think it's my favourite because it was the first *real* piece of art i ever saw in person. I went on a tour when i was in high school in 1977. The tour started in Rome, went to Paris and the Riviera. The Rome stop was only a day, long enough to get a tour around the city and see inside St. Peter's Basilica. We didnt' see the Sistine Chapel because it was being restored at the time. We went into the Basilica and this statue was off to one side. It was behind glass because a couple of years before, a nutter attacked it with a sledgehammer. It had been perfectly restored but was behind bulletproof protection. Even so, i was spellbound. I'd never seen anything carved out of stone that was so beautiful, so luminous and lifelike. It is, of course, Michelanglo's Pieta, created when he was fairly young and the only piece he's ever signed, his name on a sash across her chest. Translated from Latin it says "Michelangelo Buonarroti, Florentine, made it". I thought the statue was so lifelike, the folds of material, the skin and muscle almost real. I bought a small ivory replica of it and still have it. I couldn't take a photo of it then because all i had was a cheap pocket camera and the flash would have reflected off the glass. A friend took a photo with a 35mm but it's blurry from camera shake. When i returned to Rome on a tour all around Italy in 1996, i took this photo myself, from an angle so there would be very little reflection and it turned out really good. I could still stand and look at it for ages.

From Rome, we went to Paris where i saw the Mona Lisa in the Louvre. The Winged Victory, a headless and armless statue also in the Louvre also fascinated me. Returning to Paris in 2007, we went to the Louvre and i saw them both again. The Mona was actually a little bit bigger than i remembered (though it's not as big as you'd think) and the Victory...ahhh... gorgeous and there wasn't a tour group to keep up with this time. I am just astonished at the kind of realism someone can create out of stone, so real that fabric looks soft and touchable and they can make skin with veins and muscle tone look so real that you think the statue is going to take a breath. There are a lot of paintings i've seen that i really like but it seems like sculpture can often take my breath away.

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Birthday wishes go out today to stegzy! *pint*