The Gestalt of You (and Me)

Watching old copies of The French Chef (Julie Child was 6' 2'' with frizzy hair) and reading Amy Tan's novel Saving Fish from Drowning has me ruminating on personal style and the empowerment it can bring through self-expression and authenticity. Julia was a very happy lady despite her size 12 feet!

"Yet I was not dissatisfied with my looks -- well when I was younger, yes, multiply so. But by the time I became a young woman, I knew it was better the be unforgettable than bland. I learned to transform my faults into effect. I darkened my already thick eyebrows, put big-stoned jewelery on my knobby fingers. I dyed my muddy hair in long streaks of bright gold, red, and lacquer black and wove them into a passive plait that striped the entire length of my back. I adorned myself with layers of unlikely colors, clashing tones married by texture or design or flow. I wore large pendants and medallions, clown-green gaspeite where people expected cool imperial jade..."
- Amy Tan, Saving Fish from Drowning

A day in the life of Ben Franklin

(from ben franklin's autobiography: the new yorker)

Bravery

is admirable in all its forms.

"Sometimes, sit and think. Sometimes, just sit."

(taken at the sculpture garden in minneapolis)

My oh my.

Tulip-magnificence.

(Holland)

The Rose Garden

one day in summer
when everything
has already been more than enough
the wild beds start
exploding open along the berm
of the sea; day after day
you sit near them; day after day
the honey keeps on coming
in the red cups and the bees
like amber drops roll
in the petals; there is no end
believe me! to the inventions of summer,
to the happiness your body
is willing to bear.

-mary oliver, the roses

tidepooling

low tide at deception pass, spotted a purple sea star: "five broad rays are stiff and bumpy, patterned with lines of very short white spines...common on rocky beaches under overhanging rocks...feeds by humping over prey and forcing shells apart then inserts its extrudable belly to dissolve and devour the inner parts" (yate's marine wildlife).

Insect covered in morning dew

see more here.

Lessons from Loved Ones

Pat is fearless with his physical form. I want to be, too! The world belongs to the brave.

<3 Happy Patty's Day, Pat <3

Happy Paddy's Day, Pet!

This year St. Paddy's Day was especially important to me -- I have a new and much-loved Irish brother, my boyfriend's name is Pat, and I'm visiting the homeland this summer.

Tea Time We baked scones (a UK/Irish thing, recipe here) and served it with Irish Breakfast Tea. Scones are notoriously difficult to cook but they turned out tasty, especially with lots of Kerrygold Irish Butter and Orange Marmalade (Pat's preference) or Nutella, which I tried for the first time in Ireland many years ago.















Biking to a garden Where better to visit than a green, green place. This rose garden is less than eight blocks from our house.




































See Pat reading in the lower left.























Dinner with meat and potatoes




Music

• Pandora station: Tommy Makem & Liam Clancy - It's good craic.
  

Movie

• The Secret of Kells: small budget animated film made in Ireland about the Book of Kells

"i have lived through many ages/ ran with salmon, deer, and wolf./ i have seen the northmen invading ireland/ destroy all in search of gold./ i have seen suffering in the darkness/ yet i have seen beauty thrive in the most fragile places."

"How Not to Read Imaginative Literature"

I fear this might be a contradiction.





From How to Read a Book by Adler and Van Doren

"The Importance of Suspending Judgment"

I really like this one.







From How to Read a Book by Adler and Van Doren

Google maps has bike routes!!!

!!!!!

with distances and estimated time and everything

!!!!!

The Condensed History of Women in Space

told through cartoon portraits here.

















"Metallocarbonane enthusiast Anna Fisher flew aboard Space Shuttle Discovery on mission STS-51-A in November 1984. Fisher became the sixth woman in space. Bonus: first mother in space! "

"a mongrel working his legs to a gallop/ hustles the gull flock to flap off the sand-spit" -sylvia plath

just back from camping in the hoh rainforest and a walk along the dungeness sand-spit on the way home.

If you're gonna make a serious meal, you need serious gear.

(images: me; pizza: me & pat)

Recovery Road?

We're in the blue.















(click to enlarge at source)

a bouquet of books

a fresh stack of books from the public library

aren't they beautiful, and they haven't even blossomed yet

The perfect 113 seconds.

Buddy Holly - Dearest

The Annotated Alice in Wonderland

Recently I read The Annotated Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carrol with notes by Gardner and original illustrations by Tenniel. Marvelous! I'll restrict my comments to annotations since most of you have read the story itself.






















I love how the Lobster is standing in ballet's first position, such attention to detail by Tenniel. The annotation points out that little girls delight in making this observation, where they can recognize something they've done in real life in the pages of a book. Maybe even twenty-six year old ladies were amused doing so...

"'Tis the voice of the Lobster; I heard him declare You have baked me too brown, I must sugar my hair.' As a duck with its eyelids, so he with his nose Trims his belt and his buttons, and turns out his toes. When the sands are all dry, he is as gay as a lark, And will talk in contemptuous tones of the Shark: But when the tide rises and sharks are around, His voice has a timid and tremulous sound."

Another scene of madness and merriment is when the Duchess puts too much pepper in her soup. I declare one can never have too much freshly ground pepper in one's soup! The annotation reads, "It was the custom in Victorian England to put excessive pepper in their soup to mask the taste of slightly spoiled meat and vegetables....Carrol provided these lines to be spoken in the stage production of Alice:

There's nothing like pepper says I.... Not half enough yet! Nor a quarter enough. Boil it so easily, Mix it so greasily, Stir it so sneezily, One! Two!! Three!!!"

A wonderful incantation worth remembering.

Lastly, Aldous Huxley chimes in on the meaninglessness of the Mad Hatter's question, "Why is a raven like a writing-desk?" His answer given in the notes is "Because there's a b in both and there an n in neither...Huxley defends the view that such metaphysical questions as: Does God exist? Do we have free will? are as meaningless as the Mad Hatter's question -- 'nonsensical riddles, questions not about reality but about words.'"







King: Boris
Queen: me
Malice: Alli
Hatter: Pat




Beautiful soup, that.