I visited the Henry Moore Studio and Gardens in Hertfordshire last week. Such a beautiful, park-like setting! The property was studded with towering, flowering trees.
Posting for Cee’s Flower of the Day.
I visited the Henry Moore Studio and Gardens in Hertfordshire last week. Such a beautiful, park-like setting! The property was studded with towering, flowering trees.
Posting for Cee’s Flower of the Day.
We’re now fifty pages into this confrontation between plagiarizing student and professor (who is a secret gamer, shhhh), with no end in sight.
The author has thoughtfully provided subheadings:
Anyhoo, the student has “snot pellets” coming out of her nose and the professor goes, “Ha. Ha. Ha. Ha. Haaaaaaaa!”
Seriously, I have never, ever heard such a poetic description of a wrecked bridge. Margaret Bourke-White is different from any other war reporter: She’s what would happen if Alice Munro or Jean Rhys were doing cosplay in an army unit. I can’t believe I’m only reading her now.
Each bridge had been demolished with a Teutonic precision. The delicate arches of the small bridges were broken through the crest; larger bridges were buckled like giant accordions.
— They Called It Purple Heart Valley, p. 5
April, 2023: I was in my father’s home province of Negros Occidental. The other novel I’m working on is about the Japanese Occupation. I had heard that there was a bloody battle fought between Japanese and Americans in Patag. So, one day, I hired a car and driver and had myself taken up there.
Patag is in the hills above Silay. The road to the mountains is narrow and winding. There’s a resort, but I wasn’t interested in the resort. We stopped at a public school and I had the driver ask around. Finally, a local woman volunteered to take us to a shrine, built by the Japanese to honor their war dead (You’d think the Americans would want to put up a similar shrine since, a cousin told me, “a lot of Americans died there.” But no)
The path was muddy and overgrown. Would you believe, there’s an ancient Japanese machine gun, set in concrete. The guide invited me to turn it. It turns! 180 degrees. A little further on is a thatch-roofed structure protecting a sarcophagus. Inside are the bones of the Japanese who fought — to the death, they say — to prevent the Americans from taking the hill, even though they knew theirs was a lost cause.
On the hottest day so far this summer, I’m reading about Saipan. The US Army’s 27th Division and the V Amphibious Corps squared off against “Japanese defenders sprinkled around the dizzying maze of caves, ledges, holes, and outcroppings.” That terrain must have been a lot like Patag. The Americans threw three battalions against the Japanese.
Instead of a quick mop-up operation, they found themselves enmeshed in a bitter, casualty-intensive, cave-to-cave, hill-to-hill, ledge-to-ledge struggle that raged for days rather than hours. The Japanese may have been disjointed, desperate, and ultimately doomed, but they made excellent use of the terrain, and fought to the death, proving the enduring lesson that, in modern war, committed defenders ensconced in good defensive ground can wreak havoc on a superior attacking force.
— Island Infernos, p. 357
Ending this post with some of the pictures I took at Patag:
I had never heard about Kehinde Wiley until I saw the Obama portrait, last year. A few days ago, went to the de Young to catch the Ansel Adams exhibit, and caught the Kehinde Wiley show, Archaeology of Silence. Blown away by his bronzes.
Posting for Travel with Intent’s One Word Sunday: Shadow.
The prompt this week: It’s not just PURPLE, it’s IMPERIAL PURPLE!
This iris was growing around Stow Lake, in Golden Gate Park, last year. Looked all over my archives, but didn’t find anything that came close. This must be why it’s IMPERIAL.
Posting for Debbie Smythe’s Six Word Saturday.
I loved the murals on the walls of my hotel in Bacolod, Dear Departed Dad’s hometown in the province of Negros Occidental. The hotel, called the Henry Hotel Roost, is part of a chain of boutique hotels scattered around the Philippines, but the chain places particular emphasis on local (native) products.
Each of the 19 rooms in The Henry Hotel Roost has a unique mural depicting a different Negrense bird. Here are just a few:
I asked the hotel who the artist was, and they told me he went by “Otay,” which is the native word for barber. Apparently, this young man supports his art by working as a barber. His real name is Jovito Hecita, and he is a native of Talisay.
Stay tuned.
It appears self’s books have been available on kindle for a few years. She never knew!
Two of the four:
The cover of The Lost Language is a detail of a painting by the late, great Filipino artist Santiago Bose.
What is this flower? It is GORGEOUS! Thought it might be a clematis, but have you ever seen an orange clematis???
Found in the garden of The Pinschower Inn in Cloverdale, California.
Posting for Cee Neuner’s Flower of the Day.