The World Examining Works

A Pink Cloud, Some Fruit and a Poem

 

Rather late yesterday afternoon, as the sun was going down, I looked back to see

a very pink cloud. I was so thrilled, I took out my camera immediately. Said camera gave up after two shots.....it was cold out anyway.

This morning it is still cold out -- colder, actually. (Six degrees F). So, in order to avoid doing any work, I decided to take photos of fruit --having taken photos of everything I possibly could out of the window the last few days.... 

All this fruit comes from warm places. So do the plates.

So this is plate/fruit therapy.

I think the rabbit is saying, Hi.

 

Just read a super poem by Cait O'Connor

The Reading Season

It is the reading season;

we do not ask for much

our call a plea for human hibernation.

Come Winter-tide, Wales tests us all.

When snow is forecast, all is gloom

and libraries fill with starving folk.

All seeking words to warm themselves upon.

All seeking books to lose themselves within

and so it is fine weather for the words.

Beloved books will always be a loyal friend,

a blanket of pure comfort, an escape,

a goose down duvet or a featherbed so soft,

a touchstone for the soul when life is hard.

Our needs are simple now and fill one tiny space:

a fire of logs or coal, a comfy chair, a throw,

a mug of cocoa, hot toddy or a glass of red,

a book or two to raise the spirit, test the mind,

cause blood to warm, bring hearts to ease

and keep us from this season’s dark and chill.

 

 

*

File Under: Too Much

 

 

Ah, shoes

in Florence

 more shoes (in Florence again)

and all the wonderful packages of pastilles

now the berries on 22nd Street

and the packages of snuff in Queens

not to mention the fast food restaurant near the Roosevelt Avenue subway stop

and looking up under the train tracks

rather an alarming collection of weaponry.

 

Happy Thanksgiving anyway

 

 

Infinity in All Directions

 

So many Italian photos....

...an annunciation in S.Croce. As iconic scenes go this is the right one to choose:  a lovely young girl is told by an angel that she's going to have a baby. A young man dying, pierced by nails, is in a different category altogether.

We stayed in what had once been part of the Badia, a Benedictine Abbey in the very heart of Florence, originally built in the 10th century, but reconstructed later. We slept in a vast room with a bit of fresco on the wall. I first stayed there almost forty years ago....

A vast desk there too.

At Malpensa Airport the things we sit on are red too.

.... the barstool and the bar which stretches on forever.

 

Doors and Windows / Florence

 

Ah! The endless fascination of portals. The comings-in and goings-out and the endless speculation about what is both hidden and revealed. What we long to glimpse though half-opened windows and doors that remain closed.

The front door of the house where I lived in the 70's.

The small window at the top, through which you can see the sky, is above the disused church on via dei Macci. The space up there was vast and mysterious. Forty years ago it was rented for $8 a month --paid clandestinely to a priest. I wonder what's up there now.

Such a severe window on the Lungarno. Bars. Shutters. Venetian blinds too. What can be going on in there?

The open door of the yarn shop near S. Lorenzi is much more cheerful. And what a selection of wool!  Much too much acrylico of course but Italian pura lana too. I am on a hat knitting tear just now. Family: you have been warned......

In piazza Signoria what a wonderful name  --Uguccione! How much more romantic Guiseppe Verdi sounds than Joe Green. Jack Newhouse sounds like a cad, but Casanova has distinct possibilities....

I always wanted a house with a huge interior courtyard, a cloister garden even, or fruit trees as in a riad..... please send any spare change ......

A sentinel at the door.

 

My friend Tracy, who lives in Norway, has a super current post about KINDNESS.

Really worth reading here

 

 

 

Wandering About

 

Whilst  we waited for the bus on the Lungarno

I noticed a very splendid hat all on its own in a window. A sign of good taste my mother always said......as few things as possible ... not eveything all jumbled together.

Piazza della Republica.

Grownups like cell phones; children like icecream. Well, children like cell phones too but I think gelato wins.

Waiting for tickets at S.Marco to see the Fra Angelicos. This time I was most interested in a panel painting of the blessed and the damned. The damned were so miserable they were chewing on their arms and the blood was popping out. Not what usually springs to mind when thinking of Beato Angelico.....

I am not quite sure why tripe is so popular, but it is.

I was glad the little dog was allowed into the vinaio.

Not to mention the lady with the very fancy stockings going into Mescita.

Robert channeling his inner Savonarola and contemplating a  chickenesque career change.

 

 

 

 

Food/Florence

 

Altogether too many pictures of people wandering about.....

Now for some cibo.

Crostini and various cold cuts and cheese for lunch....

Amazingly huge mesculun leaves in Mercato San Lorenzo.

Pears in the Mercato Centrale.

This is the time of year for funghi....

I'm sure these are favolosi as billed.

Veggies as eye-candy. I hope it isn't only me who drools at them.

Flowers.

What a nice quiet looking trattoria....we had better go in.

 

 

Wish You Were Here/Florence

The rain has stopped at last.

The last afternoon light catches a tower in the distance.

Most of the time we wander around observing:

people in restaurants

people waiting to buy train tickets.....

...the generalissimo....

 

...the man reading the paper

 

...the dandy in piazza Signoria

 

...the old lady on the bus

 

...and the girl with her puppy.

How Marilyn got onto a teapot in Fiesole defies explanation.

 

 

Acquainted with the Night

 

All photos taken on October 31st in Florence, Italy

The tower of the Palazzo Vecchio looms in the distance.

People listen to music as by the loggia in Piazza Signoria.

A photographer captures Perseo as Perseo captured Medusa.

I am making a collection of lions; this one looks pretty cheerful.

A putto on Or San Michele just floats along.

This lion in S.Croce looks a bit fiercer.

Too much rain lately......

....so we head towards the carousel.

 

 

To Market, to Market....

 

The last Saturday in October in the open market

lies a pig all ready for slicing...........

.....and a pumpkin sliced already.

The chestnuts and apples foretell a feast.

Not to mention the foccacia .....

.....and the sugar-glazed pears.

Definitely worth waiting for.

 

 

 

The Joys of Travel......

 

 

The Alps at dawn

.....approaching Milan.

The same.

Milan railway station in the early morning.

Milan railway station in the middle of the day. Note the traditional sister on the lower right, and the mural above the "Exit " sign. Such splendid Mussolini era architecture but imposssible to get a train out;  holiday weekend, strike, who knows what.

Evening.......in the same place

Me fallen down in despair behind the leather workshop behind S. Croce.

(in Florence at last.)

 

Happy Halloween