The World Examining Works

Recipe for a Tea Party

First you need some sort of pretext. (No prizes for guessing)

Then an invitation from a neighbor.....

 

who you help cut bread into heart shapes.

She has set out the very best teacups (but we're drinking bubbly as we work).

Here is the first part of the spread:

 ham and cheese sandwiches and the egg ones, and the chicken and the smoked salmon and cucumber (of course). The jam and the clotted cream are for the scones which you can't see.

Enter the ladies with hats.

The fascinator.....

the feathered do

the sunhat adorned with tulle. (What is tulle?)

The piece de resistance --from an ostrich I think.

But the day, really,

is all about crowns.

 

Wandering About and Fun with Water

 

Under the apple tree in the Penn South community garden a hint of the medieval tapestry --weeds and little violets.

A lovely little old lady whose companion was sweet and attentive. When I get very ancient and child-like I hope someone is just as kind to me.

 

The fire hydrant gushes water all over the road and the sidewalk.

The woman in charge has the wrench that stops and starts the flood.

According to Pat, the crossing guard, even the cops quake when the sanitation truck driver yells at them and tells them to move. Enviable power.

 

 

 

Brooklyn

 

An Easter afternoon foray under the river to Brooklyn where

 

footwear is funky.

Boots rule. And retro clothes.

Lots of dogs, but Buster isn't allowed on the subway.

O'Malley wasn't very keen on posing.

Spring flowers

Shortsleeved dresses

Dapper dudes

and cheery people selling snacks.

 

 

Out to Lunch

 

Sunday: Nyack, NY

A young man of my acquaintance goes out to O'Malley's with his family who then

wheel him past houses with intreging domestic detail like the porch

the weathered barn

the stunning wrap around porch.

He is altogether much more interested in the playground

and the ducks floating in the shadow of a tree.

This could be an illustration in the sort of books this young man reads:  ONE DUCK

 

ps: I am re-reading W.G. Sebald's Austerlitz and am re-rejoicing in his very odd (paragraphless) style and his way of circling and circling round a subject and going off on all sorts of tangents --of not being linnear at all. Some people find him quite unreadable --for which I don't blame them. Also he talks a lot about The Great Eastern Hotel at Liverpool Street Station in London, where , as a small child, I was greatly impressed by a notice that said: Harwich - Hook of Holland - Brussells -Berlin. Heady stuff indeed.

 

 

Street Theater

 

They are doing something important to London Terrace

which requires all sorts of scaffolding and protective netting and hard hats and strapping on of tool belts and harnesses.

I watch them prepare to perform.

From the other side of the street we see almost all of the performers at once (yellow cab added so you know we are in New York).

 
 a cyclist escapes as the curtain rises.....

 

 

 

 

Happy Spring

 

 

Flowers picked in the garden of a friend's house on Long Island on the occasion of her daughter's baby shower.

I knew the mother to be before she was born. A wonderful day.

Sketches

 

I recently went to the Edward Hopper show at the Whitney. Whenever I  actually get out of the house and do something, I realize how much my imagination is nourished by looking at things. I immediately start making photo/sketches of people I'll never paint....

the girl at the fruit store in Chelsea Market.

 

a man waiting for a bus on 5th Avenue

the counter people at Eisenberg's Sandwich  Shop

 

a young woman, intent on her cell phone --an archetype almost -- I think  of Vermeer's woman reading a letter.

 the reincarnation of Guilietta Massina from La Strada, haunting 8th Avenue in search of a cab

if only ancient Fuzzy-Hair hadn't been sitting behind her....but so easy to delete in a drawing

 

 

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Foundlings

 

Yesterday a wonderfully  fat envelope arrived from Australia.

 

It was from Denise Litchfield, aka grrl+dog, guerilla knitter, artist extrordinaire and all around interesting person.

It contained a positive cornucopia of delights.....

including a little change purse and a fabric pin made by Hensteethart.

But the heart of the matter was all the information it contained about a show called Threads of Feeling at The Foundling Hospital in London which I'd been corresponding with Denise about for a while.  The exhibition was of little scraps of fabric left with the abandoned babies in the 18th century. It was interesting that each child was carefully documented. Sadly, the exhibition is over now --  though I'm not sure if I could have borne to see it. A name and some few details attached to each little piece of stuff......What fodder for fiction! --see Oliver Twist, Moses and Romulus and Remus......

I wonder what happened to Florella Burney? What heartbreak lay behind her abandonment? How much kinder to call these children foundlings --  much better a word than bastard --which is what most of these children were, I suppose.

In the photo above, I have included the list of things my first mother gave away with me a very long time ago. I was touched that anyone bothered to keep it.

The Bookshelf Project

 

My bookish chum Beth Bonini, aka BeeDrunken, has a super post about bookshelves --which are absolute catnip to the sorts of people who love to find out what makes other people tick......

They are stunningly accurate diagnostic tools.

 

Herewith a Hipstamatic photo (so you can't see things too clearly) of part of the shelf in the hall. All the books I really like aren't there since I've forced upon people who probably won't read them and definitely won't return them....

Lots of interest in bookshelves out there. Sonia Mascaro had super posts a couple of years ago here which Merisi in Vienna remembered.

 

Then Bee mentions http://thebookshelfproject.com/

which looks lots of fun for bookshelf junkies around the world.

Happy reading!

 

 

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New and Old

 

 

A new development, using traditional design on the road between Marrakesh and Essouira at the seaside.

Lots of Moroccan flags.

 As a contrast.......

A humble, patient donkey.

Happy weekend.

 

 

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