— Alexander, grandson of Catherine the Great, about his own father, Paul, Emperor of Russia from 1796 (when Catherine died) to 1801
Last year, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art had an exhibit on Edvard Munch.
His portraits show faces erased of individual characteristics. THOSE PEOPLE ARE US.
Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.
Get up!
Sebag-Montefiore divides his history of the Romanovs into three Acts. Act II, which self began reading over the weekend, is called The Apogee, c. 1700 – 1800.
Instead of chapters, there are “Scenes.” Below is an excerpt from Scene 2: The Empresses.
p. 154:
More scenes of depravity to follow.
Stay tuned.
Spring is just around the corner. Buds are beginning to open.
Here are a few of her flowers, just “faces in the crowd” :
More on their way:
Plum tree’s covered with tiny white flowers:
Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.
Self is now on p. 86. There have been many great individual sentences.
Nevertheless, she must get a move on.
It is extremely cold here in the San Francisco Bay Area, and she needs to exit the house tonight, to pick up someone from SFO. Lacking a parka, she must layer. Not only must she layer, she must wear her UGG boots, which Marie Claire told her years ago was only suitable for under 30s. She hopes she doesn’t encounter people with rheumy coughs, as she did yesterday at Walmart. She wanted to run screaming out of the store, but she was stuck in line and had no choice but to stiff-upper-lip it.
Here’s the Sentence of the Day:
The Jolly Company were toasting the trip at Lefort’s palace when, as General Gordon wrote, a “merry night” was ruined by “the accident of discovering treason against His Majesty.”
Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.
Love this week’s Daily Post Photo Challenge. Self has tons of “faces in the crowd” pictures. TONS.
Here are three more:
Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.
Hugely enjoying this massive tome, so much so that self took it with her to Black Panther, and kept reading until the theater lights went down.
Chapter on Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich, also known as the “Young Monk” :
Meschersky found the chief armourer Bogdan Khitrovo, nicknamed the “Whispering Favourite,” guarding the Red Staircase, brandishing his jewel-encrusted staff of office to hold back importuning crowds. He punched Meschersky.
“You shouldn’t strike me — I’m here on duty.”
“Who are you?” asked Khitrovo, who knew perfectly well.
“The patriarch’s servitor.”
“Don’t make so much of yourself. Why should we respect the patriarch?” and with that he smashed him on the head with his baton, sending him bleeding back to Nikon.
Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.
Self loves participating in Cee’s Fun Foto Challenges. This week’s challenge is BIRDS.
Since self is a writer, she has a lot of books. When she travels, there are more books in her suitcase than clothes.
Two years ago, in London, self was trying to heft a suitcase onto a double decker. The bus driver actually left the wheel to help her (This would never happen in San Francisco. Or Redwood City, that’s for sure!). Self tried to warn him. He took one tug at self’s bag, gave her a sharp look, and said: “I tell you, it must make you feel really good leaving home, knowing you’ve brought all your books along with you.”
When she’s in London, she always stays in Bloomsbury. Which means, of course, frequent trips to the London Review Bookshop. She was so good, this last trip. She only bought four books. One of them was a book of Amazing Rare Things: The Art of Natural History in the Age of Discovery, by David Attenborough and Susan Owens.
Here’s one of the illustrations: Frigate Pelican, by John James Audubon, from his groundbreaking collection The Birds of America (published 1822):
Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.
This week’s Daily Post Photo Challenge is “a face in the crowd.”
Self has a lot of pictures of anonymous people, because she travels a lot by herself.
In December 2017, self visited London’s Barbican for the first time. She went to see the Basquiat: Boom for Real exhibit. Life-changing.
Before that, she was in Paris:
Christmas Day 2017 in the Tuileries, Paris:
Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.
Kanlaon 