Every now and then it happens. The light splashes a leaf, turning what appeared to be green into half a rainbow. Or, a sudden breeze stirs a glass-like pond, making you shiver.
These moments freeze like ice. You can’t really move your eyes away even if you try.
Painters live for moments like these; all artists do.
Often when in Europe on business trips, I would visit museums, which at that time, were unlike their American counterparts; you could walk right up to a painting as if to touch it. On those visits, I came to admire the use of color and light; for some reason the black in a Rembrandt always struck me not as the absence of light but as the essence of beauty.
Of course it wasn’t always black, it may have been green. Splashed by the light it could turn into half a rainbow if you looked long enough.
This memory came back to me recently when I discovered the 2003 film version of the historical novel “Girl With a Pearl Earring.” The book and the film re-imagine the character who might have inspired what was arguably the Dutch baroque painter Johannes Vermeer’s greatest painting.
As per the book, the film posits that Vermeer's model for the painting was his maid, though there is no evidence this was the case. The original actors cast for the film were Ralph Fiennes and Kate Hudson, but when they both left the project before production started (he for "Maid in Manhattan"), 17-year-old Scarlett Johansson and Colin Firth stepped into the roles.
Firth is simply terrific in every film he's appeared in, a quintessential English character actor, and Johansson's role mainly demanded that she appear modest and desirable. I'm not dissing her performance; she was fabulous in this and other films I've seen.
She most definitely played being desirable.
The unresolved sexual tension between these two yields the story (and in the fictional version the painting) and Johansson does resemble the girl in the actual piece to a remarkable degree. The film also contains scenes that present the Dutch environment of the 1600's as a replication of Vermeer's painting style -- a luminous realism celebrating how light animates our surroundings if we just care to look.
The girl's expression in the painting is the look of knowing she is desired and daring to look back. You don't have to be an artist to appreciate that.
***
That incessant drilling you've been hearing all week indeed is the breaking of ground for what is planned to be my long-term habitat, an extension in the backyard of this house in the East Bay Hills above San Francisco Bay. It is to be ready later on this year.
The headlines:
* After a Year of Loss, South America Suffers Worst Death Tolls Yet -- If the world doesn’t stop the region’s surging caseload, it could cost us all that we’ve done to fight the pandemic, said one health official. (NYT)
* Ten years later, Islamist terrorism isn’t the threat it used to be (WaPo)
* Florida's GOP leadership looks set to follow Georgia's lead in clamping down on voting, even though former President Donald Trump won the state in November. Legislation restricting voting by mail and banning giving food and water to voters waiting in line now heads to Gov. Ron DeSantis. [AP]
* As Biden called for the passage of the Equality Act during his speech to Congress, lawmakers in Florida and West Virginia advanced anti-transgender legislation. 2021 is shaping up to be the most dangerous year on the books for the LGBTQ community. (HuffPost)
* As the drought imperils crops in the San Joaquin Valley, some farmers are questioning the future of agriculture there. (LAT)
* California lawmakers unveiled a $3.4 billion proposal to help gird the state for drought. (AP)
* U.S. fast-food chains cash in, seize market share during pandemic (Reuters)
* Joe Biden Has the Vision. Now Chuck Schumer Has to Bring It to Life. -- The Senate majority leader, marking his own 100 days in charge, is responsible for turning sweeping Democratic plans into law. It’s a tall order. (NYT)
* Get Ready For A Shortage Of iPads And MacBooks (NPR)
* All aboard! Biden to help Amtrak mark 50 years on the rails (AP)
* More Than 90 New Airlines Are Launching in 2021. They Say It’s the Perfect Time -- A new class of entrepreneurs believes the moment has arrived to do something that has proved difficult in the best of circumstances: Start an airline. (WSJ)
* Rally in Transportation Stocks Nears 122-Year-Old Record Streak -- Shares of airlines, railroads and trucking companies have been rising on investors’ optimism that renewed economic growth will boost profits at transportation companies. (WSJ)
* FBI told Giuliani and key Trump ally in Senate of disinformation campaign -- Giuliani and Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) were warned in late 2019 that they were targets of a Russian operation intended to damage Joe Biden politically, said people familiar with the matter. (WaPo)
* Amazon said its first-quarter profit more than tripled from a year earlier, fueled by the growth of online shopping. Amazon’s growth comes as it faces activism from within its workforce, but a measure to unionize a warehouse in Alabama was voted down. [AP]
* Firing of U.S. Ambassador Is at Center of Giuliani Investigation -- Prosecutors want to scrutinize Rudolph W. Giuliani’s communications with Ukrainian officials about the ouster of the ambassador, Marie L. Yovanovitch. (NYT)
* First-ever U.S. release of genetically modified mosquitoes begins in Florida Keys (CNN)
* Disneyland is Open (California Today)
* ‘Citizen Kane’ Falls Below ‘Paddington 2’ On Rotten Tomatoes (The Onion)
***
"Something"
By George Harrison
Attracts me like no other lover
Something in the way she woos me
I don't want to leave her now
You know I believe and how
That I don't need no other lover
Something in her style that shows me
I don't want to leave her now
You know I believe and how
I don't know, I don't know
You stick around, now it may show
I don't know, I don't know
And all I have to do is think of her
Something in the things she shows me
I don't want to leave her now
You know I believe and how
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