Happy Birthday John Lennon

BACK IN THE U.S.S.R

When I began looking for references for the Orthodox celebrations of Christmas for the January 6 post, I had hoped to clarify just which Orthodox church the holiday belonged to, and where these ‘festivities' took place. I wanted this clarity for myself, but also to share. Maybe in the global web-o-verse, I could have a chance of wishing Merry Christmas to some faraway folk. I encountered both clarity and more confusion in that January 7 was also considered as Christmas Day, and there were Eastern Orthodox and Russian Orthodox churches. I used sources from Minsk and also from RT, which I think could stand for Russian Television. A common theme pointed to an increase in such celebrations because there was more religious freedom now than there used to be.
Later in the evening, my husband turned to a program on a local Public Television station called
'How the Beatles Rocked the Kremlin'
and I overheard Minsk in the narration. Irony is not befitting enough a word for the story that unfolded. I was immediately transported back in time when Beatlemania ruled all the corners of the free world. It had never occurred to me what it meant to those behind the iron curtain. While I was making fledgling sketches of guitars, there were young people making black-market bootlegs of Beatle records on (of all things) x-rays. Turns out that x-ray of Uncle Chekov’s ribs was suitable material to cut record grooves in. And the Beatles may very well have influenced whether or not there are religious observances of Christmas in Minsk. To learn more about the Beatles influence on the Kremlin, click HERE . I also highly recommend watching the program, and you can find a link to that HERE.
(Merry Christmas!)

With the Beatles

Today has been declared 'Beatles Day' as part of a marketing blitz to promote a video game of some sort. It does not matter what the 'official' reason is. Even tho I got caught up in it and joined the largest group on Facebook, that doesn't really define my passion for the Beatles. Even being able to say I saw them in person does not get to the crux of the biscuit. Pictured here is what appears to be something from I scanned from the cover of Sgt Pepper. It isn't. It is a 2 inch piece of wood that I painted the design on. It was done after reading 'Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain'. It is my first 'painting on the right side of the brain'. If I could find my attempts to do anything like this prior to reading the book, you would know this represents a quantum leap. I still look at it in amazement. Having lived so long without the ability to do anything so realistic, I found it almost impossible to believe that I had accomplished this feat. Beatle music was something I frequently played when feeling creative; now I could even illustrate the lyrics that inspired me!

'...I'm fixing a hole where the rain gets in, and stops my mind from wandering where it will go'... I had discovered an artistic license to let my mind wander where it wanted to go. I will be forever in debt to the Fab Four; I got by with a little help from those friends. Those friends will show up in this blog again in the future; they are such an important part of my past. I am still saddened by the loss of John and George; but the collective collaboborative spirit of my favorite Liverpudlians will continue on as precious muses. Yeah, yeah, yeah.