weekend: no time toulouse

[anotheranon]

D. and I went to the Toulouse-Lautrec and Monmartre exhibit on Saturday.

Conclusions - very good and comprehensive, and seeing the "famous" originals of paintings I recognize from books was a thrill as always - is it possible to be a fangirl for a piece of art? D. was not as enthused as I was but enjoyed the lithographs, particularly Tournee du Chat Noir.

I was surprised at all of the non- T-L paintings in the exhibit, including several by Van Gogh before he went to Arles and developed his familiar orange/yellow/blue palette. His were still recognizable even in paler colors because the proportions are all slightly slanted or askew. Another surprise was that Toulouse-Lautrec did a lot of his "finished" works on plain cardboard - and here I was thinking all this time that he just used a lot of brown :P

The characters of Monmartre are always fascinating to me because you see them in different paintings and start to recognize individuals. My favorite is Yvette Guilbert, the cabaret singer with the trademark long black gloves. This painting (not part of the exhibit) is my favorite; the way T-L painted her as all angles and points and long skinny arms she looks quite like an alien to me - what would an alien keep in those gloves?

Maybe I'll write a sci-fi brothel-circus story sometime, populated entirely with green-faced creatures based on Toulouse-Lautrec's art....

Saturday: in a fit of home improvement, D. had maintenance out to fix the kitchen faucet, which had calcium (or something) buildup and was losing pressure and leaking all over the counter. It is now replaced by one of those inverted "U" shaped spigots that stays nicely above the volume of the sink, so we can stack dirty dishes and still have room to fill the Brita water pitcher :P

Continuing the home improvement I went to target to replace the shower curtain - while furtively looking for dark chocolate M&Ms. Alas! The plain ones were sold out and I don't care for the peanut butter ones. Luckily, they DID have new dark chocolate Hershey's Kisses! My favorite poison in a perfectly sized dose ;)

Sunday: rapier fencing. Got my ass handed to me because... well, I'm new at this :P Also, I was practicing with a borrowed weapon made for someone far taller than me, and I lack the strength to keep holding a 49" weapon aloft for 15 minutes at a time. I need to start working out the muscles right next to my pectorals - the front of the shoulder where the arm meets the torso, whatever those are called (anyone?).

General: I'm now in constant low-key "Hermoine-mode" in preparation for my class. I'm going to try and read as much of the main textbook as possible before the class starts on 5/31 - I may not understand all of it, but at least I'll know what's coming :P

Comments

[nminusone.livejournal.com]

> I need to start working out the muscles right next to my pectorals - the
> front of the shoulder where the arm meets the torso, whatever those are
> called (anyone?).

It's either the pecs themselves, which attach a little way down the upper arm, or the delts. If it's involved in holding your arm up, it's the delts, since the pecs pull the arm in and down, not up. Depending on the position of your arm the front delts can seem a bit more like "inner" delts, which don't exist. From what I imagine of fencing I'd say you're looking mainly at the front and side delts.

Also when the arm gets above horizontal, the traps often come into play. For instance in an exercise like the shoulder press aka military press, the delts are pretty much done when the upper arm gets parallel to the ground, and above that the traps pick up the work. (Approximately.)

This is probably as good as time as any to mention the principle of training specificity. If you need endurance, train for endurance. If you need speed, train for speed. As much as I love strength training, it is definitely not equivalent to training for endurance or speed, when those are what's needed. If you're just starting it hardly matters how you train, but once you've been at it for a while, your training should reflect the performance of your sport.

[wendyzski.livejournal.com]

This month's Smithsonian magazine has a cool article on Toulouse.

[jlsjlsjls.livejournal.com]

Sounds like a wonderful exhibition ***sigh***. I'll have to see if anything interesting is coming to Calgary this summer. ***crosses fingers***

New dark chocolate all over the place! I can find no trace of the dark chocolate M&Ms up here (and the Web site gives me the impression that they're U.S.-only), so I guess I'll have to depend on the charity of my friends (or else wait until August) ***does best to look pitiful***

P.S. What do aliens keep in their black gloves? ... why their chocolate stash, of course (the dark fabric hides the occasional "melting accident" stains). Choccie fixes are the real reason they come to Earth ... the whole abduction/anal probe thing is just to distract us as they plot to make off with all the supplies. :p

[hadesgirl.livejournal.com]

I'll attempt to smuggle you some with the DVD's I'm mailing back.

[jlsjlsjls.livejournal.com]

***Prostrates self and worships at the altar of Saint Gigi***

[patgreene.livejournal.com]

is it possible to be a fangirl for a piece of art?

There are paintings that I would drop everything and fly around the world to see if I could. So I think the answer to that is yes. (I tend to refer to Vermeer's Kitchen Maid as "my girl in Amsterdam." : ) )

I have not seen a lot of Toulouse-Latrec, but the exhibit sounds wonderful.

[anotheranon.livejournal.com]

It sounds like a combination of delts and traps - the sword is held almost parallel to the ground, and doesn't change much in orientation during attacks.

Right now I'm just trying to develop some strength - the weapon usually only weighs ~2lbs, but it's hard to hold that at arms length for the extended time demanded by drills. Endurance will be my aim in the long run.

Some of my fellow fencers suggested: 1) lay on your back, take a 5-10lb weight in both hands over my head and lift until it's over my face - repeat and 2) use one of those "bungee" cords over the edge of a door and pull downwards. I did 1) last night and don't feel much strain; will be trying 2) later in the week to see what happens. Further suggestions are welcome.

[anotheranon.livejournal.com]

I think I may have seen that in a waiting room or at the library... thanks for the heads up!

[anotheranon.livejournal.com]

Turns out the dark M&M's are only available for a limited time (http://msnbc.msn.com/id/7328162/)! Get 'em while the gettin's good!

[anotheranon.livejournal.com]

Sounds like you get the "art fangirl" thing! I'm sure I drive other patrons nuts squatting down and otherwise hovering to see just how the brushtrokes work together, etc.!

I envy your trip some time ago to the Prado - I've always wanted to see Bosch's "Garden of Earthly Delights" "in person"!

[patgreene.livejournal.com]

Ah, yes, Bosch. No print can do "Earthly Delights" justice -- I found it really disturbing, and ended up having to go sit down for a while. Of course, I was severely jet-lagged when I first saw it (I went back to the Prado a couple of days later, but didn't spend a lot of time looking at it - I was more interested in hunting down the Goya).

[patgreene.livejournal.com]

Also, as far as the brushstrokes thing... I would give anything to know how Vermeer manages to have light come *out* of a canvas. It's breathtaking. And I could stand and look at Van Gogh's brushstrokes for days. One of the things that I found disappointing about seeing Starry NIght at MOMA in New York was that they had it hung behind glass. Given how famous a painting it is, I can understand it, but it made it hard to look at the brushstrokes, which is really important to seeing Van Gogh.

[jlsjlsjls.livejournal.com]

I mournfully mentioned them at work today and somebody had a vague idea that their offspring had mentioned seeing them somewhere, so I'm hoping for an update on that tomorrow, if she remembers to ask (I have a sinking feeling it will turn out to have been on a U.S. network commercial rather than in RL).

I've seen a few M&Ms Star Wars displays up here, but so far they've all just had the regular milk chocolate variety ***sigh***

[anotheranon.livejournal.com]

I envy you that :) And it completely skipped my mind that there's be plenty of Goyas too!

[anotheranon.livejournal.com]

I am guessing they put it behind glass for protective reasons - if I'm right, it's sad but probably necessary - these things dont preserve on their own very well :(

I saw the "Van Goghs Van Goghs" exhibit here in 1998 and a number of the paintings were without glass. What was most telling was that a few of the heavily spackled "points" on the paint were flattened, indicating that they may have been part of one of Van Gogh's painting "sprees" where he'd crank out a canvas a day and store them one on top of the other while not quite dried.

I missed the Vermeer exhibit here and while I can't claim to be a fan, after seeing "Girl with a Pearl Earring" I kinda regret missing it. What do you recommend as representative of his work?

[nminusone.livejournal.com]

With exercise #1, it sounds like the intent of doing them lying down was to increase the effort needed during the initial part of the motion. So that's the part of the motion to emphasize. Holding the weight over your head (in that position) isn't going to do much except for stabilizer muscles.

I don't remember the kinesiology of the delts well enough to be 100% sure, but as I recall it is not terribly necessary to shift the effort to different parts of the range of motion. At least not until you get pretty advanced, I think.

For building up strength, front and side delt raises are basic. Do them standing up, with a dumbbell. For the front version, just lift it straight in front of you, up to horizontal. The dumbbell's bar should be parallel to the ground the whole way, with perhaps a slight twist (inner side comes down) at the top of the motion. For the side version, start with the weight down at your side and raise it, straight out at your side, to the horizontal. For the side raises do both at once, it's easier to keep good form that way. For the front version, just be very careful and square.

To add trap involvement, either go slightly above horizontal with all exercises, or do shrugs, which are a very basic trap exercise. Be warned that shrugs can thicken your neck surprisingly. As a woman you may not run into this to the extent that a man would, but on the other hand *any* untrained muscle gains a bit of size very easily, no matter who you are, so there is that possibility. If I try to get fitted shirts, the ones that fit my neck are typically 6-8" or more too big around my chest, and that was true long before I ever seriously worked my traps.

These exercises will mainly help with strength, but to bias them somewhat in favor of endurance, do many reps and do them slowly, with lighter weights. Think of it like aerobics for your shoulders rather than (anaerobic) weightlifting.

When you get to really focussing on endurance later on, I would say just hold the sword straight out in front of you for 5 minutes, or as long as you can stand. You might trade off and use a heavier weight for a shorter time, but in the end I would come back to using the sword itself, or at most something a bit heavier than the heaviest sword you ever really expect to use. Controlled "bouncing" may help somewhat.

For speed your best bet is to focus on drill type exercises, or whatever equates to katas in western sword training. Again use a heavy but realistic sword, or a normal one plus small wrist weights.

Unfortunately the muscle adaptations for maximum speed are counter to those for maximum endurance. If I had to guess I'd say work strength first (possibly a few months depending on how trained your delts are), then endurance, then finally speed. Just a guess tho.