CHINA fantasies & cliches

On exhibit now through to August 16 is China: Through the Looking Glass, a collaboration between the Costume Institute and the Asian Art Department - a centennial celebration currently on view at The Metropolitan Museum of Art. 

This is the third time I am writing on the topic and countless times it has already been covered by the press. It is an event that captures all our imaginations on many levels - conscious and subliminal, literal and allegorical. 

As with every fine story it has many facets to it with all its attendant Rashomon effect - hence I impose yet another retelling of mine from yet another perspective. 

a child of G0D

Risking redundancy, I am following up on last week's post with yet another song I can't get out of my head. 

I came upon a child of God
He was walking along the road
And I asked him where are you going
And this he told me
~ Joni Mitchell, Woodstock (1969) 

something old, something new

May the nourishment of the earth be yours,

may the clarity of light be yours,

may the fluency of the ocean be yours,

may the protection of the ancestors be yours.

~ John O'Donohue, Echoes of Memory

Sweet dreams are made of this

To be nurtured and nourished

To be given support and sustenance
Who am I to disagree?

Cinco de Mayo

Celebrated all over, nowhere else is this celebration a bigger deal than in the United States of America.

The date is observed to commemorate the Mexican army's unlikely victory over French forces at the Battle of Puebla on May 5, 1862, under the leadership of General Ignacio Zaragoza Seguín. 

In the United States, Cinco de Mayo is sometimes mistaken to be Mexico's Independence Day - the most important national holiday in Mexico - which is celebrated on September 16.