Midnight in Paris - by Rosse - Mary

Gill Pender is a U.S writer who worked in Hollywood as a guionist for differents movies and decides to travel to Paris, before his wedding with his girlfriend Inez, because he's looking for inspiration for his first novel. He can be described as a nostalgic person, who always wanted to live in the Paris of 1920 decade, where famous artists lived and share time with them. 

During this travel with his girlfriend and her parents - a very conservative couple, who don't have anything in common with Gill - thay found another couple, Carol and Paul. They were married recently and were very good Inez's friends, also Paul was her boyfriend during the University and has the approval of her parents. 

Gill never imagine that his dream could be truth some day and, at the same time, he was worried about his book, because he felt that nobody wanted to read it. He was looking for a good person, an influence artist, who help him with this. His first night, after a party with Inez, Carol and Paul, he decided to have a walking for Paris. Suddenly, he saw an old taxi that arrived him to the 20s years and he met his idols and other famous artists, and he fells in love with Adriana. But this dream confused with the present and his relationship were affected by this status and time travelling, however, fortunately, he found the real love in the correct time.

Questions activity 3

What is the difference between the time that Gill lives (the present) and the past (France 1920s)?

I think the main difference between these days and the past is the lost of the capacity of dreamming, in spite of the opportunities that we have now. In the 20s, the surrealists artist did their works in function of dreams and love, and also, people think in have fun and enjoy life, in spite of the circunstances and the chovinism. Now we have all the knowdelege in our hands, thanks to the tecnology, but people are stressed and unhappy, because the dreams are considered as a madness, and the beautiful things are losing in time. 

What famous artists does he meet?

He met to Scott Fritzgerald, who wrote "The great Gatsby", Ernest Hemminway, Pablo Picasso, Salvador Dalí, Luis Buñuel (movie director), Cole Polter (singer and composer), Gertude Stein, a writer and editor who reads his book, and Man Ray (painter and Dali's friend).

Is it all happening in his mind or does he really travel in time? 

He really travelled in time, like other people who could do it too, as Adriana and the detective who followed Gill, but, for the rest of people, everything was in his mind. 

Who is Paul? 

Paul is the ex boyfriend of Inez, he became in a pedantic person who thinks that knows about everything related with art and history, also, his wife Carol always flatter him and Inez admires him a lot, opaquing Gill. 

Why do the screen players decided to put those specific artists in the movie? 

In my opinion, it's because three reasons: The main character admired greatly to the most of those artists and they were some of the most imortant poeple of the 20s art history, but also, it could be done because they could understand the Gill's personality and nostalgia, and help him to find a new way in his life, where he could be happier with himself. 

How is Dali partrayed in the movie?

Dali is showed as a mad and cute person, who always found inspiration in each thing he sees, but he, inside all his madness, could reflect with accurancy the Gill's problem and his feelings. I think that Dali was one of the best played characters of this movie. 

Does he really find the answers that he was looking for? 

In spite of his idealization and obsession for the 20s decade, and, by another hand, the fact of meet a lot af great artists and their help, he didn't find the answers he was looking for, because he saw that he wasn't comfortable in his ideal time, because he knew he has to come back to present and faces it to find his real place. However, he found good help to his book. 

What is the role of Hemingway in the Gill's life? 

The writer is a kind of spiritual guide in the Gill's life. He showed him that Inez wasn't the correct pair for him and also he gave Gill the self-confindece to become a great writer, in spite of he wasn't a very charismatic person and he was a little bit pessimist.



Who is Adriana? Why do you think she ended the evening so abruptly?

Adriana was a lady of the 20s who was studying fashion design with Coco Chanel and she was the Picasso's lover. Gill fell in love with her, because she could understand him and she also was nostalgic for the "Belle Epoque" times (ending of 19th century and beginning of the 20th century), because of this, they had a very good connection each other. 

I think she ended up her short relationship with Gill, because they travelled to this time and she felt at home, found a job and decided to stay there with Rodin and Gauguin, who were nostalgic people too, but with the Renaissance. In that moment, Gill realized that every artist was nostalgic in a way and that was wrong, so he decided to come back to his time and fix his life. 

Question activity 4

Do you think that Gill and Inez relationship has changed? In what sense? 

I think their relationship was intended to fail, because they didn't know each other and they weren't things in common, the only thing that they had in common was they liked the pita bread and it isn't an option to get married with someone. Also they never understood each other and she was criticized Gill's nostalgia everytime. He needed to be accepted for her parents as well, althought his ideas are differents to them. In my opinion, this adventure in the past was only a catalyst to the break up, because it only showed the real Inez's face to Gill, to realized that, as Hemingway said, she wasn't the correct woman. In addition, she had a romance with Paul, because they were similars, as well as Gill and Gabrielle, the french seller of the Nostalgia Store, his new and real love.     

Midnight in Paris.

Midnight in Paris.

a)    Paul says that Nostalgia is denial.  The denial of painful present. Do you agree with this?

In real life it may be expressed when some people want to return to childhood, or to another city or country where they have lived a more complete life and a more friendly and happy environment.

I think in the case of the film, it is the denial of an unsatisfactory, frustrating and exhausting Gil´s life , clearly Paul did not have that problem but Gil suffered with a life that he could not control and make richer in feelings, happiness and creativity.

Gil did not accept his unsatisfactory life, so the refuge was the France of 1920s. He had a world he could not share with Inez. They had nothing in common except the plan to marry.

The triggers for this denial were all around Gil: a girlfriend who did not understand him, materialistic political relatives.  She wanted to live in Malibu and Gil wanted to live in Paris, they were absolutely different, and being different is fine, but you must respect those differences and accept the other as an independent person who decide together to be life partners. Ines was intolerant.

I think Gil's denial was an unsatisfactory and incomplete life. Inez represented everything that Gil destabilized him in terms of what he wanted to achieve and limited his freedom and inspiration.

Gil was a writer living in this particular world full of imagination and adventures waiting to be lived. Anyways being an emotions seeker is typical from writers and artists.

On the other side, Inez is fine, but she needed another totally different person next to her, Gil definitely was not that person.

Music and Plants by Rosse - Mary

This article will talk about how plants are affected by the music. This matter has been investigated by botanic scientist for several years and - with their reaction of the human voices - there were known as urban myths, but this researchs showed that both popular beliefs are truth. Some scientist discovered that plants  react to the sounds in the same way as wind and ones can grow up earlier than others because of the music influence. Also this post will talk about how the effects of differents kinds of music, voices and some dances affect the plants health and, as a conclusion, I will show a vídeo with some extra experiments that show the reactions of plants to the music.

During great part of 20th century, some scientist were researching about the effects of music in the plants growth. This interest started during the beginning of the century, thanks to the indian psycologist Sir Jagadi Chandra Bose, who dedicated his whole life to investigate how plants react to different enviroments conditions. His books were published in 1902 and 1926, and proved that plants are sesitive to the heat, cold, noise and light. 

Later, the american botanist and horticulturist Luther Burbank discovered plants had, at least, 20 sensory perceptions to react to a new life. He talked with his plants and saw they reacted to his voice. His research was bassed on a Darwin's book called "The variation of animals and plants under domestication". 

Indian culture

In 1962, the indian botanic and Director of the  Botany Departament at India's Annamalia University, Dr. T.C Singh experimented with classical and indian traditional music to see their effects in some plants and discovered that they grow up in height because of this, but also he expossed the plants to the vibrations of an ancestral dance and saw the same results. This kind of dance is called Bahata-Natyam and is the most ancient dance in India, but he didn't use musical instruments. The results showed that even Petunias grew up because of the dance influence.

Country and Jazz

The scientist discovered that with the country music, domestic plants didn't have any reaction, as a no sound effect, but, strangely, they experienced a better growth with the exposition to Jazz music.

Rock music

The biggest experiment about this was made by the australian scientist Dorothy Retallack in 1973. At the beggining, she played the F note in front of a group of plants for 8 hours, another group were expossed to the same note for three hours and a third group didn't recieve any sound. The results showed that the first group died after two weeks, while the second one lived more time.

Retallack's experiment.

In the same year, other students experimented with classical music and their plants grew up succesfully, however, with the exposition of Rock music, the plants got away from the speakers. Retallack saw that them had a similar damage than overwater exposition and marigolds died within two weeks. She put her attention than plants tried to scape from Rock music.

Recent researchers about classical music

In 2004, some scientist saw the effects of classical music and discovered that some vegetables had possitive responses to the melodies and noise. They grew up in similar conditions, unlike the seeds that didn't recieve any stimulation.

Some years later, in 2007, another research about this matter was published. It said that the onion plants grew up more when it listened to classical music, specially when it had more dynamic rythms, and less when it was soft.

Metal and Plants

• Heavy Metal music

Black Sabbath.

The British gardener Chris Beardshaw did an experiment with different kinds of plants within differents greenhouses. In addition to the classical music and the silence, he expossed a group of them to the Black Sabbath's songs and another to Cliff Richard's music and the weird result was the flowers that were expossed at the Sabbath's music were more ressistants to ilness and plagues, and the biggest ones, althought the plants wre the shortest ones, even better than the ones that were grow up with classical music, while the plants that were expossed to Richard's music died few weeks later. His experiment was showed in the British version of Daily Mail and the Telegraph newspapers. 

• Death Metal music 

Some death Metal bands.

If we see the Dorothy Retallack research again, we remind that the plants got away from Rock music, and we can have the conclusion that they can't be expossed to an argressive music as Death Metal, however, in 2006, the Discovery Channel tv program "Mythbusters" did an experiment were 10 plants of peas were expossed to music and human voices. They saw that the music affected to the plants growth and the most successful result had on the ones that were expossed to the strongest Death Metal music. Curiousily, in this case we can see that not all the plants have the same reaction to the music. 

Conclusion

At the end, I will show you a Youtube vídeo with extra experiments that were made by farmers and common people who were interested in how music affects the plants and vegetables growth. It is called "Do plants respond to music?" and it was published in 2015 and I hope you like it.

The art of Music present in the well-being of our animals.

Cows produce more milk listening to the music.

It seems incredible and even funny; but it´s true, because the administrators of a Spanish Cooperative said that the quantity and quality of dairy products is improved by exposing cows to dazzling classical music.

This has been solidified by Leicester University in England, where psychologists have proven that dairy production increases, when cows listen classical music, especially the Pastoral Symphony of Beethoven and the melody Bridge Over Troubled water by Simon and Garfunkel.

Mr Adrian North, who was in charge of the investigation with his colleague, Liam MacKenzie, informed the BBC that "calm music can improve milk delivery, probably because it reduces stress."

And the evidence is irrefutable, because the results showed that a cow that listens Mozart produces 5 liters more milk daily than a cow that doesn´t listen to music, or listen to other musical genres like Reggaeton, in addition to analyzing the milk was found to be Richer in protein and in nutritional properties.

The happiness of cows is in the minds of farmers, but not necessarily because they care about their well-being, but because a happy cow releases oxytocin and oxytocin is key to the release of milk. "Happy cheese comes from happy cows" is a motto of the California Real Milk Campaign. And what is the solution to make cows happy? Apparently R.E.M., Lou Reed and Simon & Garfunkel.

According to a study by the University of Psychology in Leicester, cows like melodic and easy-to-listen rhythms. For this reason, Modern Farmer organized a playlist with the best bovine hits of all time called "Music for milking", which contains the following songs:

“Everybody Hurts,” REM.

“What a Difference a Day Makes,” Aretha Franklin.

“Bridge Over Troubled Water,” Simon & Garfunkel.

“Moon River,” Danny Williams.

“Orinoco Flow,” Celtic Woman.

“Perfect Day,” Lou Reed.

However, modern Farmer emphasizes that cows don´t like heavy metal or music to dance. It is common sense to think that cows that spend their whole lives connected to machines that take milk without moving can prefer to listen to Lou Reed than Black Sabath.

Meanwhile, in South America, countries like Colombia affirm that their cows prefer Salsa music for the feeding / production process, instead they are very demanding for the milking process and only do so at the rhythm of Vallenato.

My friend Maria Laura, who lives in Osorno, Chile and loves her cows, which she has baptized, affirms that she recognizes every one of her cows and she calls them by their own name.

Maria Laura told me that she knew about music in milking production, on one of her trips to England. She was anxious to return to Chile and apply this new system in her field.

The result of production was astounding. To this day, their cows listen to music in their production and milking processes. Their favorite music is classical, and Mozart is their favorite.  Although for the 18th of September their preferences are “cuecas” orchestrated.

GENDER ROLES

Learn more about one of the precursors of the struggle for women's rights in Chile.

Today I don´t want to move far from our latitudes to share with you about an amazing Chilean woman, she was the first woman studying law. She should receive her class sitting behind a curtain because her presence was considered a huge distraction for her fellow men. She had to obey that order because if she didn´t, she could not study at the University of Chile.

Nowadays we can find many women studying without rules at any university in our country. Thus we want to recognize her contribution as a student leader, her fight for female suffrage among others.

This woman was the Chilean Elena Caffarena Morice  ( 1903-2003) an emblematic model of the feminist leaders that were at that time.

Elena Caffarena was a Chilean feminist leader who fought throughout her life to change the traditional view of women: limited to motherhood and housework.

She was born in Iquique, on March 23, 1903 when the saltpeter made the city shine. Daughter of Italian textile entrepreneur Blas Caffarena Chiozza, was the third of seven brothers. She studied Law at the University of  Chile and was one of the first women to participate in the Federation of Students of the University of Chile (FECH).

Elena, devoted her entire life to fighting for female emancipation. She defended the right of women to develop in a democratic society and with equal opportunities with men. She graduated as a lawyer in 1926, becoming one of the first 15 female jurists in the country.

In 1935 she founded the Movement for the Emancipation of Women in Chile (MEMCH), whose great contribution was to organize mobilizations of women in the struggle for their rights as workers, mothers and citizens.

She got in 1935 that the Chilean women voted in the municipal elections. However, it was only in 1949 that allowed female suffrage in the presidential elections.

She published the book “Capacity of the married woman in relation to her goods”, where she exposes some of her ideas that were very advanced for the time. By the 1980s, she was one of the founders of the Committee for the Defense of People's Rights (CODEPU).

Elena Caffarena died on July 19, 2003.

Today we all know her granddaughter, Pamela Jiles, famous journalist and writer who is the daughter of her son Juan Jiles Caffarena.

Her famous sentences:

"My studies of law convinced me of the legal inferiority of women."

“I am a feminist by a democratic vocation". 

Mona Lisa Smile - by Rosse Mary

This movie was released in 2003 and it was starring by Julia Roberts who is Kathernine Ann Watson, a history of art revolutionary teacher who decided to work in a very conservative ladies school in the beginning of the 50s decade, in order to leave her mark in her students. She has a very modern sense of the gender roles: she wants that her students enter to the University and not only be married women, that was the ideal concept of woman in those times. In acorder to her ideas, she tried to teach, through the art, there is a different way to think and people have to see more than the social rules say. Her ideas bring her a lot of problems with the school headmistress: Jocelyn Carr.

Contrary we think, this movie was made by men: it was directed by Mike Newell, was produced by Fredward Johanson and was wirten by Lawrence Konner and Mark Rosenthal, so, in my opinion, this work represents a double hit to the social gender roles rules itself. 

Elizabeth "Betty" Warren

This movie shows how a woman should be in the 50s: polite, submissive and economically dependent of her husband, therefore, Ms. Watson was a "bad influence" for the young students, because of her independence and her ideas. Also, the movie shows some signs of classism and the high society way of mind, it was reflected thought the Betty Warren's articles, that reported "inmoral practices" like the use of contraceptives and the "subversives ideas" of Miss Watson. But, to everyone's surprise, even Miss Watson, Betty became in the only student who decided to live her own life, after her failed marriage and the unhappiness that learned of her conservative rising, in spite of her mother: a classist and moralist woman.

Miss Katherine Ann Watson

In this century we can see that women are like Ms Watson: we can see that her ideas were accepted with the pass of years and we can admire a lot her revolution inside the ladies school, and we ask ourselves "why is she wrong?, why the headmistress can't open her mind to Ms Watson ideas?" The answer is because the stereotype of a woman was different: they "were born to be housewifes to their husbands's service and good mothers". It was politically correct, but now is a retrogade idea.

Unfortunately, Miss Watson could't achieve that Joan Brandwyn were a professional lawyer, because she decided to get married with her boyfriend and become a housewife. She said that, to the teacher, a housewife hadn't interest, personality and she sold her soul, but it was her decision, because she wanted to form a family more than to be professional. In that moment, Katherine understood that some women found the happiness in their own families and houses, with men that they loved, and it was meaningful too. She saw it wasn't only an archaic model to follow, but it represented the fullness for some women like Joan,

Giselle Levy

Finally, there was a character who, at first, felt a great admiration by the new teacher, because, like her, she was a different kind of woman, who hadn't feel fear to broke the social rules, but when she saw that the italian teacher was interested in Katherine, she felt envy, cause she had a relationship with him. She was Giselle Levy and her principal ability was to have some secret romances with different men, even if they were married. That's the reason why Betty decided to getting even with her when compared her as a "prostitute", only because Betty wasn't happy in her marriage. An important Betty's phrase about the Mona Lisa's smile says: "not everything is what it seems", because we will never know if the model of Da Vinci's painting was really happy or not, but she looks very happy and, to Betty's mother, appearances were more important than realities and feelings.

However, at the end of the movie, they became best friends and Betty decided to live with Gisselle and study laws in Yale, while Katherine refused to continue in the school to start a new life in Europe, after her failed relationship with the italian teacher and the obstacles that the institution impossed in her profession, for example, her study plan of a year had to be aproved by a special commission before its started, among other things.  

This movie shows us we can change the world, only if we have the courage and the different way of think to do it, although we could be women in the 50s and the world wasn't in our favor. Sometimes all we only need is a litlle space, to people listen our ideas and decided if we have the reason or not. The efforts of Katherine to shift every single conservative student in more than the stereotype were valuable for them, so she left her mark and, at the same time, started a social change that today is considered normal.

Medical technology advances - by Rosse - Mary

Hello everyone

I found this insteresting vídeo about new thecnology advances in medicine. For me, the most impressive was the nano-robots that can be used to cure Cancer. I invite you to watch and comment here.