My first introduction to the work of the late Santi Bose was at a gallery in Manila called Sining Kamalig. That’s where I saw the Blue Room. I begged my parents to give me the painting for my seventeenth birthday.
A few years later — surprise, surprise! — they bought the companion painting, the White Room, for me. I brought both paintings to California with me. They are among my most treasured possessions.
mixed media, early Santi Bose. Posting for Travel with Intent’s Six Word Saturday
This is one of those places that never seem to change — a little oasis of peace right in the center of the city of Menlo Park, a bedroom community for Silicon Valley tycoons. Every year, the shops have seasonal “themed” parties — Fall, Christmas.
The day she took these pictures was her birthday. She was with her son and daughter-in-law and Lucia.
Thank you to Life of B for reviving the Squares Challenge!
Oh, what fun. It is summer, self’s favorite time of year. It is hot as all get out, self is wearing a muumuu, she even wore it to go to a dentists appointment, and her dentist complimented her and asked where she got it.
This is wildfire season in California, and as a matter of fact there was a fire quite near her, just off Edgewood Road. But that was handled in three days. There’s another, bigger fire in Yosemite which is hopefully on its way to containment. There is a drought, so everyone’s been asked to limit watering to two days a week. Other than that, it’s been a good summer. Self has raised three new rose bushes and a bougainvillea in her backyard. And she’s been reading, a lot. In the past month: four Dr. Ruth Galloway mysteries, two Gone novels, Book One of Adrian Tchaikovsky’s The Final Architecture trilogy, and Where the Crawdads Sing (she’s still not sure if she’ll see the movie).
The guest host for this week’s Lens-Artists Photo Challenge is solaner, and the prompt is SUMMER VIBES:
Here are three little glimpses of self’s Summer of 2022:
Thanks to Hammad Rais for hosting the Weekend Sky Challenge!
I believe I read somewhere that it’s also his birthday? Happy Birthday, Hammad!
Took this picture yesterday morning, standing on Main Street.
WIP, Hunger Games, Everlark:
Her boy believes she can walk on water. She smiles a little at that. She’s heard stories of the Old Days. There was a man who did walk on water. He was a fisherman.
He imagines he sees her walking the streets of the Capitol. The rare nights when he’s by himself, he’ll hear the whistle of an arrow as it grazes his ear. He knows it’s not just moonbeams and fakery.
Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.
Went to visit Peggy King today. She is 96.
Self met Peggy’s sister, who works in a Los Altos art gallery.
Self was astonished to learn that Peggy has the same birthday as Dear Departed Dad: March 3. Which makes them both Pisces. Which is a sign that’s supposed to get on famously with Cancer (self’s sign)
Without further ado, the poem of the day, from Miguel Hernandez (NYRB/Poets), selected and translated by Don Share
Death, in a Bull’s Pelt
Death, in a bull’s pelt,
full of the holes and horns of its own
undoing, grazes and tramples
a bullfighter’s luminous field.
Volcanic roaring, ferocious snorting,
all from a general love for everything born —
Yes, the eruptions that flare
kill peaceful ranchers.
Now, ravenous, love-starved beast,
you may come graze my heart’s tragic grasses,
if you like its bitter aspect.
Like you, I am tormented by loving so much,
and my heart, dressed in a dead man’s clothes,
winds over it all.
As the week wears on, WordPress bloggers invariably start getting creative with the photo challenge.
Here are a few bloggers’ interpretations of this week’s theme: ON TOP
Tomorrow is a busy, busy day, as self will be traveling. But she will have her laptop wherever she goes, so she’ll keep blogging.
Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.
The prompt this week from the WordPress Daily Post is THREES.
Threes meaning: “three-picture stories.” Meaning, narrative.
QED, self thinks. After all, self has often thought that most of her pictures function better as a sequence. Each photo like a still of a silent film.
But when she finally sat down this afternoon to select her three-picture sequence, she ended up choosing three pictures she took of a site (the Bruns Amphitheater in Orinda) that don’t seem to tell much of a story. Shrug. Self will keep posting. Even when she’s in Seattle, attending the AWP annual conference for the first time in something like six years.
Below are pictures she took last summer, when she indulged in two Cal Shakes performances: Romeo and Juliet, on her birthday, with son and The Man and Jessika and Pepe and a small group of son’s high school classmates (Self still finds it hard to believe that Margarita Donnelly, who ended up publishing self’s first book, Ginseng and Other Tales From Manila, was a graduate of that same school, Sacred Heart in Atherton, CA. Back when it used to be an all-girls school!)
She saw another Cal Shakes production in August, this time with just one other person, Jessika Remolona (who’s expecting a baby this June! Woot Woot!): Oscar Wilde’s Lady Windermere’s Fan. Jessika and self brought enough bottles of wine to carry us through almost three hours (They let you take the wine inside the theater. You can actually drink during the performance. Which makes self feel like she is in the Golden Globes or something)
Self loves Shakespeare. She loves Shakespeare outside.
After she saw her first Cal Shakes play (Romeo and Juliet with Adam Scott playing Romeo. Adam Scott) she could never watch Shakespeare in any other guise than outdoors. In the summer. With a bottle of wine.
Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.
Kanlaon 