The lack of electricity and gas has reduced modern conveniences like lights and stores and hot water boilers to useless objects. “We’re marching backwards in time,” she writes, “cave dwellers.”
Introduction by Antony Beevor to A Woman in Berlin: Eight Weeks in the Conquered City
Tag: Christmas
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She vividly evokes the civilians trapped in Berlin and deprived of meaningful news. They know only that information from the western front, where the Americans have just reached the Elbe, is by then irrelevant. “Our fate is rolling in from the East,” she writes.
— from the Introduction, by Antony Beevor
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Self went to the Mendocino Coast Botanical Gardens for the annual Festival of Lights show, where she stumbled across this wonderful tableaux. And thought it would be perfect for Cee Neuner’s Flower of the Day Challenge.
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Still playing catch-up with the Photographing Public Art Challenge (PPAC) co-hosted by Cee Neuner and Marsha Ingrao.
Such a fun challenge, self is so happy whenever she gets to post.
Happened to be at the local car-wash, and was amused by some Frida Kahlo items:
These Diego and Frida Christmas ornaments were in the SFMOMA Store:
And finally, further proof (if proof were needed) that Frida Kahlo’s influence is worldwide, these socks were on sale at the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, UK:
Self’s personal favorite is the Frida Kahlo pillow.
Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.
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Catching up, slowly but surely, in the Photographing Public Art Challenge (PPAC) co-hosted by Cee Neuner and Marsha Ingrao!
Display Windows: Harrod’s, Teatulia, Jenny Kate
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Still playing catch-up with the Photographing Public Art Challenge (PPAC) co-hosted by Cee Neuner and Marsha Ingrao. From Marsha’s blog, Always Writes:
- Public art encompasses any form of art you see in a public place, large or small, statues, murals, graffiti, gardens, parks, etc. The art should be visible from streets, sidewalks, or outdoor public places. Let your imagination and photographic eye show us diverse samples all over the world.
Self has been feeling quite nostalgic about London. She took these pictures December, 2018. Christmas decorations are public art, right?
She took the picture of gold paper chains through the front window of the London Review Bookshop, one of her favorite hangouts: It’s on Bury Place, off Great Russell Street in Bloomsbury.
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Self is new to this Photo Challenge.
She thinks her post has to do three things:
(1) Show something starting with a “T.” See below: Trellis
Gamble House, Palo Alto
(2) Show a favorite that starts with a “T”: Christmas TREE.
(3) Show a Top of a Tree: Monterey Pines grow in Fowey, Cornwall, who would have thought??? The story goes that Fowey Hall used to belong to an old sea captain who traveled to California and brought Monterey pine seeds back with him.
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Self forgets. Memory is fallible. But photographs never lie.
She used to spend a lot of time in England and Ireland.
For Past Squares, her second post of the day: London, early December 2018.
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Self is reading about all the wonderful improvements made to London’s public parks by Charles II, James II and William and Mary.
- “Each royal generation tried to outdo the one before.” — England’s Magnificent Gardens, p. 26
Reading that sentence, self can’t help being reminded of the “improvements” inflicted by Melania on Jackie Kennedy’s beloved Rose Garden. It would seem she was driven, not by a wish to outdo her predecessors, but by a wish for VENDETTA!
Back to England’s Magnificent Gardens: The improvements made by the various monarchs did not come from “their own money. That came from the government of the day and, ultimately, from all the nation’s taxpayers.”
Darn it! WE the people probably supplied the funds for Melania’s hack job — with our tax dollars!? Didn’t Omarosa say in her book that Melania was not a victim, she was always in control? She knew how to get her point across. In fact, this Master of the Passive Aggressive didn’t just use gardens to make a statement, she also used fashion! Who can forget the green military style jacket (vaguely reminiscent of Fidel Castro’s garb) she wore to almost everything during The Former Guy’s last year in office? Or what about the blood-red Christmas trees that looked more like they belonged in Handmaid’s Tale or Halloween Kills?
Stephanie Grisham in her book corroborates Omarosa: yes, Stephanie says, the First Lady was very very passive aggressive. And SHE TOOK IT OUT ON CHRISTMAS. (Melania was probably thinking, I’m miserable as First Lady. I’m going to do the White House Christmas decorations in RED, like the inside of a bordello! Because I don’t like Christmas! Christmas is off the table! Christmas is nuts! I’m going to destroy Christmas!)
Self wonders where Melania learned how to be the Queen of Passive Aggressive. Was it something she picked up in Slovakia? Or later, when she was accompanying the Donald on his private jets? Or was it something she was born with?
When TFG had to entertain, she left him very much to his own devices, which is why he had to improvise with take-out from McDonald’s. Maybe they fought earlier, and this was her revenge.
Melania for the win!
Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.
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Self will surely finish A Promised Land today. She’s on p. 609 (only 100 more pages to go). It’s been by far the longest book she’s read this year:
The holiday season also meant we hosted parties practically every afternoon and evening for three and a half weeks straight. These were big, festive affairs, with three to four hundred guests at a time, laughing and chomping on lamb chops and crab cakes and drinking eggnog and wine while members of the United States Marine band, spiffy in their red coats, played all the holiday standards. For me and Michelle, the holiday parties were easy — we just dropped by for a few minutes to wish everyone well from behind a rope line.
— A Promised Land, p. 609
Kanlaon 