The new Chanel N°5 film: Train de Nuit avec Audrey Tautou

I was just viewing some other blogs when I came across an awesome YouTube video posted at http://redthreadperweek.blogspot.com/ for Wednesday, May 6, 2009. It is Chanel No. 5’s short film starring my favourite actress of all time, Audrey Tatou, with her heart-melting eyes! and une française to boot! (I am a Francophile). It is directed by Jean-Pierre Jeunet, Mlle Tautou’s collaborator on Le fabuleux destin d’Amélie Poulain (2001) (Amélie) and Un long dimanche de fiançailles (2004) (A Very Long Engagement), my first and second favourite movies respectively.

So, go view the beautiful Mlle Audrey Tautou in the new Chanel No. 5 film, Train de Nuit.

Bowen Island, B.C., Canada

The Queen of Capilano approaching her berth at the B.C. Ferries Horseshoe Bay terminal at 9:44 am, Sunday, April 5, 2009.

Queen of Capilano nearing her berth.

I slipped into a muddy ditch that feeds Terminal Creek on the horse trail en route to Killarney Lake, Bowen Island, at about 11:20 am.

Killarney Lake, Crippen Regional Park, seen from the western side of the lake at 12 noon.

Killarney Lake’s swampland seen from the viewing bench on the boardwalk at the head of the lake.

© Copyright photographs by Stephan Alexander Scharnberg, April 2009

Bowen Island is a great day trip for we who are fortunate to live in British Columbia’s Lower Mainland. We left the car at home, riding the new trolley, 8 Downtown, to Main Street SkyTrain station, riding SkyTrain two stations westward to ascend the long, steep escalators up to the basement concourse of the heritage building housing The Bay department store, Georgia at Granville. We waited for the next Blue Bus, the stop out front on Georgia Street, for Horseshoe Bay, either the 257 Horseshoe Bay Express or the 250 Horseshoe Bay. Well, we got the 257. We made the 10:00 am sailing, a short 20-minute crossing to Snug Cove, on the Queen of Capilano.

The day was clear blue and sunny. The bright spring air warmed us, the island a popular destination this day like many since the early years of the 20th century when Bowen Island was serviced by the Union Steamship Company. Arrival saw us wander the lawns near the docks and small marina, then between old wood buildings now serving as tourist shops and eateries, including the Union Steamship Company store, soon crossing the main road for the trail head that would lead us past the small fish ladders that climb the hillside above a small lagoon, then the fields and horse paddock and the small foot bridge over Terminal Creek, and eventually Killarney Lake. We hiked, detoured and rested here and there, picnicked our lunch, and napped on the boardwalk bench at the head of the lake, the halfway point of the four-kilometre loop, in the next four hours. The eight-kilometre round trip is usually about 2½ hours for the average hiker. But, why the rush? We were in no hurry as nature, in her calm and frequent silence, lulled us along in pleasant reverie.

Ascension

The Ascension of Christ by Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn, 1606–1669, dated 1636, oil on canvas measuring 93 x 69 cm. It hangs in the Alte Pinakothek, München, Bayern, Deutschland. It is one of five passion paintings by Rembrandt for the stadtholder Frederik Hendrik. They are: The Raising of the Cross, The Descent from the Cross, The Entombment of Christ, The Resurrection of Christ, and The Ascension of Christ.

After his Resurrection on Easter Sunday Christ Jesus spent time with his disciples. On the fortieth day he bade them farewell and ascended to heaven. In Mark we read that he was given a seat to the right of God. Before his departure Christ announced that the disciples would soon be visited by the Holy Spirit. He would give them strength to travel around the world and be witnesses unto Christ Jesus. And thus, ten days later, this took place on the day of Pentecost.

I visited the Alte Pinakothek twice, August 1986 and October 1989. It is one of the must-see museums while in Europe. And Rembrandt is one of the most important and significant painters of our European and Christian history and heritage.

Ascension Day this year was this past Thursday, May 21st. The painting here is paired with the Bible, Acts 1:9, “And when he had spoken these things, while they beheld, he was taken up; and a cloud received him out of their sight.”

Another fitting pairing is the book, The Reappearance of Christ in the Etheric by Rudolf Steiner, lectures selected from the Collected Edition of Rudolf Steiner’s works in German.

“I am I”

Working on my travel literature manuscript, Footsteps and Shadows: An Education in Camphill and Travels through Western Europe, at about 12 noon, Sunday, May 3, 2009.

Waiting to cross the street to buy two pounds of roasted coffee beans, W. 10th Avenue, West Point Grey, Vancouver, B.C., Canada at about 4:30 pm, Sunday, May 3, 2009.

© Copyright photographs by Stephan Alexander Scharnberg, May 2009

Kitska and Sophia basking

No suntan lotion needed for these two tabbies!

© Copyright photographs by Stephan Alexander Scharnberg, April 2009

Kitska and Sophia

© Copyright photograph by Stephan Alexander Scharnberg, April 2009

Felines and flowers

Kitska, our friendly and sociable male American Shorthair tabby, about nine years old.

© Copyright photograph by Stephan Alexander Scharnberg, March 2009

Sophia, our female American Shorthair tabby cross, almost ten months old. Her eyes remind me of The Brain in the American animated television series (1995–1998), “Pinky and the Brain” (they first appeared on “Animaniacs” in 1993). Remember their infamous words? Pinky: “Gee Brain, what do you want to do tonight?” The Brain: “The same thing we do every night, Pinky—try to take over the world.”

The male moggie and me: Kitska and a cup of coffee (note the design of the cup: ceramic American Shorthair on the handle and portrayed on the cup. It is captioned in German as Amerikanischen Kurzhaar).

Pink tulips in the kitchen, South Vancouver, B.C., Canada in early May 2009.

© Copyright photographs by Stephan Alexander Scharnberg, May 2009

April showers bring May flowers ...

My front yard in South Vancouver, B.C., Canada in early May 2009.

On the B.C. Hydro lawns near Edmonds SkyTrain Station, Burnaby, B.C., Canada on Friday morning, May 15, 2009.

© Copyright photographs by Stephan Alexander Scharnberg, May 2009

Mütterliche Abstammung aus Ostpreußen

Gottfried Papke

* Glamslak, Ostpreußen

† Legden, Kr. Preußisch Eylau, Ostpreußen

oo

Wilhelmine Lemganke

* Skissen, Ostpreußen

† Legden, Kr. Preußisch Eylau, Ostpreußen

1. August Alexander Papke

2. Berta Papke, oo (unbekannt) Philipp

3. Hermann Papke

August Alexander Papke

Berufssoldat in der deutschen Heer, Beamter in der Reichsbahn

* 27.03.1872 Legden, Kr. Preußisch Eylau, Ostpreußen

† 06.09.1950 Geisweid (Siegen), Deutschland

Eltern: Gottfried Papke u. Wilhelmine Lemganke

oo 28.10.1899

Anna Gela Elise Beckmann

* 10.02.1877 Zimmersrode, Hessen-Nassau

† (?)

Eltern: Nicolaus Beckmann u. Barbara Elisabeth Öhm

1. Anna Wilhelmine Elisabeth Papke

2. Ottilie Martha Papke (meine Großmutter)

Mein zweiter Vorname „Alexander” habe ich geerbt von mein Urgroßvater August Alexander Papke.

Stuttgart, Baden-Württemberg, Deutschland

I have visited Stuttgart several times over the years, anywhere from one day to six weeks—her beautiful streets, hillside neighbourhoods, Staffeln (stairs) ascending and descending between neighbourhoods, the founding Waldorf (Steiner) School on Haussmannstrasse, walking the woodland parks, and cycling through the surrounding countryside.

I visited in August 1968, six weeks in July–August 1981, one to seven days every summer of 1984 and 1986 and 1987 plus the occasional long weekend in those same years, and again shortly in October 1989 and December 1990.

My paternal grandmother left Hamburg, after its enormous bombing and destruction in summer 1943, and moved south. My father followed in 1945. First they lived in a town (Sindelfingen?) just south of Stuttgart, then in an apartment in Ostendplatz. Father lived off and on with his mother in Stuttgart until his departure for Camphill near Aberdeen, Scotland in February 1951. Grandmother lived there until the early 1980s. My paternal aunt Michaela still lives in Stuttgart. My mother worked as a garden teacher (Gartenlehrerin) in the Waldorfschule Uhlandshöhe garden an die Rote Wand from October 1956 to 1961. And we have long-time family friends in Gablenberg.

Northwest toward Bowen Island and the Sunshine Coast

View from Second Beach in Stanley Park, Vancouver, B.C., Canada.

© Copyright photograph by Viktoria Iakovleva, May 2009

Erotic

© Copyright photograph by Viktoria Iakovleva, May 2009

“Mountain dreams”

Mountains of the earth
with dreams awakening
with the rising sun.

Of an everchanging world
encounters with the sky
either clouded or blue.

As my dreams bring me
around the world
and here back to the setting sun.

Stephan Alexander Scharnberg, November 1985

“Breaking waves”

See them breaking waves:
These birds who with their wings
Touch the spray of a breaking wave
On the edge of our ocean.

Like them you too will do the same:
Breaking waves as you touch the world
With your invisible wings,
In your own quest for life and direction.

Stephan Alexander Scharnberg, September 1988

“Distant Spires”

The evening light warm did fall
slanting slow through beechwood halls.
Ancient images I beheld
as I did see a slaten spire shining fair,
miles off standing high of dusk befallen air
cresting high on a distant darkened hill
proud upon it’s Alpen sill.
There further past a dimmer,
orange, snowy range
it seemed to me
that I could look upon a far-off
warm blue sea.

Felix Hayo Scharnberg