Hopelessly devoted to you...

What a sunday!! I got a show of nature with Swan singing in Symphony...

And then I got a live show-woman, the queen of Xanadu, nothing more nothing less than Olivia Newton John! I knew that she was in Chile. But to meet her, it was such a coincidence...well, I do not believe in coincidences, since I was thinking of her in the morning, about her awareness on Breast Cancer, imagining that someone in her family also died of cancer, who is actually true, her own father. And it was such a hot day, that after taking my dog to a walk in the park I screamed for an ice cream...And look who was there having brunch? So I waited for her, and when she left the place, I said, "Olivia!" "Yeah...", she answered to me, so casual yet with so much charisma and caring as if meeting a long lost friend. Then I asked her when or if she was coming to Brazil again for I wanted her to take another pic with my brother. All that she wanted it was to give water to my pet, who is always in the move (just like me), saying, "See, she was thirsty... it was all that she wanted..." And that because I had already given my Preta a bottle of water. Such a lucky dog, Pretty Preta, to drink from Olivia's bottle! Olivia has such a great energy and she's an inspiration to us all... She's indeed a living legend!!!!:)) So here I share this moment with you:


It's so amazing, just to think about my whole childhood spent listening to all the vinyl albums with Olivia Newton-John's music that my brother collected, just to thirty years later have the same fate as my brother did of meeting her....and talking to her. That was priceless. Thank God and thanks to the Universe, for allowing the Law of Attraction and syncronicities to happen in such wonderful ways...
Here's the pic that my brother took with her when she was in Rio, to spending the Carnaval in Brazil (when she was thirty-two) and when I mentioned that she said, "Yeah, it was a long time ago!":)

Sunrise over Andes

Heaven is thine
Embrace what's mine
As I cannot give a flower
Vividly there to shine.
Entice the kiss as shadows of a bliss
Never ending the sunshine of ours.

Love frees us of all pain,
Or that one may restrain.
Vicious circle that ever widens without end.
Essentially a glorious manifestation we befriend.

Love with no boundaries and no restraint,
Or it makes one saint, or the other faint;
Vows the sweetest face, the tenderest embrace,
Each bringing the sun to place in such grace.

Sometimes the snow comes down in June again.
Or also it's the sun that goes round a blue mountain.
Under the sun nature comes to life this very morning
Little birds sing, busy bees and drivers are horning.

The sun rising over the Andes makes me meditate
Over the place we are, in our Earth current state.
On how we can create more harmony with violet light
Letting Love vibration surround us into a deep insight.

HEAVEN LOVE, LOVE: SOUL TOOL - Acrostic by Ana Claudia nTunes

Changing the Guard at Palacio de la Moneda

"En Garde!" He shouts.
"What's this all about?"
could have sang the bards.
"Changing the Guards."

What were they doing
before they went renewing
the others marching in the yard
Changing the Guards?

Were they playing cards
or were all in disregard?
What if they miss their time
when nothing else should rhyme?

It would have made a mess
if they were playing chess,
instead of Changing the Guards.
It must be so very hard...

To stay up all day long
and doing nothing wrong.
How can they belong
and still stay so strong?

What if some of the guards
leave soon or are in retard?
What happens if they move
from their conventional groove?

"Changing the Guards" © 2008 Ana Claudia Antunes

Independence Day in Chile

Ana grabbed her camera this afternoon and went right to the Palacio de la Moneda in Santiago to film the president of Chile, Michelle Bachelet, live, leaving and heading to the Independence Day's Parade:

Neruda's Chascona

Neruda's house in Santiago was named by the Nobel prize of Literature as "Chascona" after his wife's look for she always wore her hair as a big tugged wig. She was often called "Medusa" for that (or perhaps her character;) and visiting his house gave me inspiration for small lyrics which I transcribe below in Spanish and translate in English.

La Chascona (Neruda's House)
Lyrics by Ana 'nTunes

Hay una mujer desnuda
en la casa de Neruda!

Inside Pablo Neruda's home
a body lies without a dome.Luego de llegar a la entrada
uno poede ver una bella hada.

Right there in the front hall
we see a fairy in an icy wall.En su amplio y calmo jardin
hay de misterios un sin fin.

Endless enigma had the bard
In a large and calm backyard.
En medio de la pieza rara
hay un quadro con su cara.

In the middle of a rare room
a portrait reveals his gloom.Subiendo la escalera en el hall
uno como que entra en un caracol.

Climbing up the weird snail stair
will make you grasp for some air.Y en esa pieza hay montones de cosas
de libros tan antiguos como de losas.

Up there it's a room filled with bric-a-brac
and rare books that'll make you want to pack. Pero lo que mas me encanto en su casa
fue ver la gente mirar a ver que pasa.

But what I most enjoyed there after all
t'was to see visitors passing by the hall.

Catholic Churches in Santiago

...after all this pilgrim track.
she got an angel behind her back.

The Merry Rainbow

Last night I didn't sleep very well. I was worried about getting up very early this morning to try get the tickets to see Ennio Morricone (composer of many unforgettable movies, such as The Untouchables, Cinema Paradiso, Once Upon a Time in America, Malena, among many others) in Concert next Thursday. It was the second time I tried, the first resulted in a total fiasco when they had the entrances over the internet and only a few lucky ones were even able to access the page. This time it was much more to the early birds sake for what before it was on line now it's in line! So I left home, not without my breakfast (as my granny always says, "An empty bag never stays up") and took with me only a pocket book. When I arrived there to see that huge line, my desire then was to run on the contrary direction. I didn't know where it finished I saw people running in many directions. I didn't know which way to go. Then I asked a guy who, by the way, had his mouth wide open while standing there, petrified through that immense crowd, where was the end of the line. He cracked in a nervous laughter and said, "I don't know. I think it is somewhere over there!" Very, very far, far away. But I had an unbreakable faith. I picketed the book from my pocket. There lies the author's biography and it was from the Irish Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, showing that it pays off to be resilient. I also rely on my partial Celtic heritage. "Luck is on my way!" I mentally envisioned the tickets already in my hands, touching it as a big prize. And believe me, I made it. I actually made it through those more than three hours waiting, standing on the sun, blisters on my shoes, suffering all the blues and through an evermore angry crowd and I have got the ticket now over my hands like a priceless trophy!! A woman who belonged to the organization staff saw my big smile, and told me, "And there it was worth it!" So much for my credibilities: Today is the day before (or after if you see on this year's calendar) of San Paddy's day, the beginning of the Holy week, it is the Palm Sunday. And I feel thrice blessed!

But my luck started yesterday (thanks, Saint Pat!:) I got the tickets that I so wished for the performance by the Santiago Ballet, The Merry Widow, which was first presented in 1975, by the Australian Ballet. With the mis-en-scene of English choreographer Ronald Hynd filled with ballroom dances from waltz to fox-trot, mazurkas and czars, this Ballet is a bombshell with a revolution of colourful designs and costumes, with scenery of a gigantic proportion, and a super production worth watching. If I were to compare it with a musical as this Ballet's twin I would name "Beauty and the Beast" with an unforgettable production which I had the privilege to watch (and twice) in a fancy theatre in LA.

So I watched the Ballet of Santiago from very far away, from the seat I had I could only watch a head in front of me. So I went upstairs and proved that the zoom from my camera still worked, though fairly. You can get a glimpse of what it was this last night event on the pictures below. For a picture is worth a thousand words.
Or you can always watch it on "Your Tube" by the same company and production:

The Ballet is about a widow, and she is always merry, not married (well, married she was, at least once) and guess what? Her name is Ana (like me:) All start with a married woman flirting with a man.

Her husband, the Baron, is too worried about Ana's inheritance (unlike me her husband actually left her a fortune) to think about his wife's infidelities. So he throws her a big party with many of the Royal members, so that she may choose one to marry, hence keeping her heritage in its original place.





In the meantime, there is already a man that Ana has an eye on, Danilo, with a love that flourished yet in their youth. But Danilo refuses to dance with her. He wants her to choose another partner. When they were both left alone, then it was she who refuses his attempt to get closer. To make matters wor$ the unfaithfully wife invites his lover to marry the widow, but also to a idyll.



Meanwhile, Danilo finds out that the widow is planning to invite the dancer ladies from Maxim's, and see that as a sign of reconciliation. But things get strangely complicated when Camille, the lover (not Ana's but the Baron's wife's lover), decides to marry Ana. And to save the reputation and not to hurt the Baron's feelings, Ana changes places with his wife, and therefore gets busted with Camille, which was not in Danilo's plan. He in the other hand get furious and goes to Maxim's to forget his misfortunes.




Now is the Baron's turn to ask Ana to marry him. "I will divorce my wife, she's been cheating on me!" (No kidding?) "I am a respectable wife, a lady with honour" those are the words left to the Baron by his beloved wife, therefore saving their marriage. Anyways, Ana had refused him already, saying that she would loose her inheritance if she decides to marry anyone. And she means, ANYONE! And then she tells the same to Danilo, who is smart enough to say, "hey, I am not anyone, I am your only one. And no worries over your tunes, I will take good care of your fortune." Then they get married instead. And all ends well. The scenes are in Paris, always, Paris, and the last act shows a Maxim and the Parisian bohemian life in all its splendour and that took me back to the Bateau Mouche where I once took a photo with the Eiffel Tower as a dazzling vision. And the last scene with the grand waltz, I got transported through time and space, in a dream's realm, as the gold in the end of a merry rainbow. Fascinating!