June 19, 2017 at 9:20 pm (Artists and Writers, Plays, Recommended, Traveling)
Tags: Emma Rice, England, inspiration, London, Mondays, Shakespeare, summer
This year, self was fortunate enough to catch two plays at Shakespeare’s Globe: Twelfth Night and Tristan and Yseult.
Both plays were terrific. But only one was truly unforgettable, because self watched it her last night in London, that fabulous city.
Here’s an excerpt from the Tristan and Yseult programme, written by Director Emma Rice:
Love, I celebrate it, practise it, mourn it, and fight for it.
But my appreciation and experience of this most seductive of topics is dwarfed by Shakespeare’s understanding of love. My mind spins when I imagine how his life must have been: how hard he worked, how far he travelled, how dark and scary the landscape he lived in was. If I close my eyes and propel my imagination back in time, I hear the tectonic plates of the planet creak, I see the ground opening up and Shakespeare clambering out of a deep crack in the earth’s surface, dusty, desperate and gasping for air . . . then, with the clarity of clear water, he sings from the earth he was born. Shakespeare gave voice to desire and to grief, to parenthood and to marriage. He charted the waters of courtship and the loneliness of a failing marriage. He mourned for us, married for us and betrayed for us. He gazed fearlessly into the human existence like no other, before or since.
Shakespeare’s Globe, Just Before the Start of “Tristan and Yseult,” June 2017
Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.
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June 7, 2017 at 5:42 pm (Artists and Writers, destinations, Flowers, Places, postaday, Recommended, Traveling)
Tags: art, flower photography, Gardens, inspiration, museum, Paris, postaday, postaweek, praise, Wordpress
ORDER: “Neat, tidy objects and spaces.”
Monet’s garden at Giverny has a profusion of flowers but it’s the individual blossoms that really show you nature’s genius for order.
Giverney: May 2017
The flower is ready for its close-up:
Finally, I. M. Pei’s magnificent pyramid at the Louvre:
Fabulous: I. M. Pei’s audacity
Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.
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June 6, 2017 at 1:06 pm (Artists and Writers, Conversations, Links, Recommended, Traveling, Writing)
Tags: causes, grief, inspiration, J Journal, Literary Magazines, London, news, wisdom, writing process
This morning, self was standing on Platform # 5 in St. Pancras, waiting for the Picadilly Line southbound to Russell Square, when she heard the announcement over the PA system: We invite you to take a minute of silence to remember the victims of last Saturday’s attack on London Bridge.
It just so happens she has the Fall 2012 issue of J Journal here in London, and here’s what she read in the Editors’ Note:
. . . after muggings in the park or fights on the street, after flood and fire, after 9/11 — why write? Why read? What good comes of either? Aren’t they just flimsy paper shields against what Yeats worries is “passionate intensity,” the eruption of chaos, of hurt and death? No. After violence, after strangeness on the street, after degradation and the jolt of darkness, what do people do? Grab someone and start talking. The writer grabs a pen and arranges events, turns abstractions into images, draws from chaos something to hold, something with meaning. In that way, perhaps writing is itself the first act of justice.
— J Journal, A Note From the Editors, Vol. 5, No. 2 (Fall 2012)
Could have been written yesterday.
J Journal is published twice-yearly by the Dept. of English of John Jay College of Criminal Justice, 524 West 59th Street, New York City.
Stay tuned.
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June 1, 2017 at 7:20 pm (Artists and Writers, Flowers, Links, postaday, Traveling)
Tags: art, flower photography, Gardens, inspiration, postaday, postaweek, Wordpress
Two days ago, self had the opportunity to visit Giverney for the first time. She got so lost in the gardens, she didn’t even bother going inside Monet’s house. Go figure! She’s always loved flowers. They are her friends, always. Which is perfect, since this week’s Daily Post Photo Challenge is FRIENDS:
Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.
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May 18, 2017 at 10:24 am (Artists and Writers, destinations, Links, Places, Traveling)
Tags: Cee Neuner, Dublin, Garden, inspiration, Ireland, memories, photography, websites
Cee Neuner has a new series called ANYTHING GOES.
Theme for the week is All One Color.
Here’s a recent picture self took of Dublin’s iconic St. Stephen’s Green, first week of May. St. Stephen’s Green is very aptly named:
St. Stephen’s Green, First Week of May 2017
Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.
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May 12, 2017 at 12:22 pm (Artists and Writers, Links, Recommended, Traveling)
Tags: art, England, exhibits, Fridays, inspiration, London, museum, poetry
It is Friday. The British Museum is open late. Right now, it’s full of schoolchildren. They slouch all over the galleries in their jeans and backpacks. Some are French. One French schoolgirl calls an elevator by pressing one sneakered foot against the down button. Remind self never to touch a button in the British Museum. Ever. Another sits on the floor of a gallery, just staring in a kind of daze. Two of her friends come sit next to her. They don’t ask her if anything’s wrong.
The Hockney sketches are in a room right next to the British Watercolors, 1850-1950. Self walked all through the watercolor exhibit yesterday. It was so amazing.
She went back today for the Hockneys.
She loves Cavafy. So does Hockney.
Hockney’s sketches of men are simple pencil, or pen and ink. They are so evocative. Two men lie naked in bed together. There’s one simply entitled “Peter, 1966.”
How beautifully he captures the form of these men in repose! Some of the schoolboys in the gallery were giggly, though not to the point of disrespectfulness.
There’s also a sketch of a shopkeeper standing at the door to his business. Beneath that sketch is a Cavafy poem, “In the Dull Village”:
In the dull village where he works —
as a clerk in a shop;
very young — and where he waits
for two or three months to go by
another two or three months till business slows down,
to go then to the town and throw himself immediately
into its life and entertainment,
In the dull village where he waits —
he went to bed love-sick tonight,
his whole youth afire with fleshly passion,
beautiful youth beautiful in intensity.
And pleasure came to him in sleep; he sees
and has the body he desires in his sleep.
— C. P. Cavafy
Further background on the exhibit is here.
It runs through this Sunday, May 14.
Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.
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April 30, 2017 at 9:46 am (Flowers, Links, Sundays, Traveling)
Tags: Annaghmakerrig, Cee Neuner, Garden, inspiration, Ireland, memories, photography, Tyrone Guthrie Centre
Forget the name of these flowers, but self had a wee bush back home in Redwood City, California. These are at the Tyrone Guthrie Centre in Annaghmakerrig.
Here’s the link to the flowers that grew in her garden in northern California. The official name is Alstroemeria “Third Harmonic.”
One day, self will write a story called “Third Harmonic.”
Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.
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April 28, 2017 at 3:53 pm (Artists and Writers, destinations, Holidays, Places, postaday, Traveling, Women Writers, Writing)
Tags: Albion, Annaghmakerrig, art, California, happiness, inspiration, Ireland, memories, writing process
This week’s Daily Post Photo Challenge is
WANDERLUST
- Have you traveled anywhere exciting lately? This week, let’s see where you’ve been. — David W., The Daily Post
Self is still in Ireland! Which is a long way from her home in northern California. Here’s a wee artwork that artist Bernadette Burns (who lives on Sherkin Island, West Cork — self met her at the Tyrone Guthrie Centre) left behind in her studio. Self taped to it to her MacBook Air as an emblem of what she is: a wanderer.
On Self’s MacBook Air: A Memento From Another Artist
Here’s a shot of Annaghmakerrig Lake in early March. The wind was blowing hard that day. Self was fascinated by the ripples on the lake’s surface and by the outline of trees on the far shore. She would never have known this lake if she weren’t seized by such wanderlust:
Annagmakerrig Lake: Cold Day in Early March
And here’s a picture of the view from Albion River Inn, California, where she spent New Year’s. And began writing a new story, called The Rorqual, which is about a sea invasion of Earth (by creatures called Longnecks). It was the first New Year’s she spent completely by herself, and she made the most of it.
Albion, California: January 2017
Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.
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April 28, 2017 at 10:01 am (Artists and Writers, Personal Bookshelf, Women Writers)
Tags: Annaghmakerrig, art, Fridays, inspiration, Ireland, poetry
Vona Groarke, from her poem Maize, in the Annaghmakerrig book:
(Self will copy this poem into her journal, so that a year or five years or 10 years from now, she will remember she read it today, Friday, the 28th of April 2017):
The Faber Castells ripen in your hand.
You’ve been drawing since breakfast:
sky after sky, face after face, but something
in yours says they’re not quite right.
Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.
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April 22, 2017 at 4:59 pm (Artists and Writers, Books, Explorers, Personal Bookshelf, Places, Recommended)
Tags: art, environment, inspiration, praise, Saturday
Shackleton’s Journey by William Grill (Flying Eye Books)
This is a grrrreat children’s book which gives a clear picture of the difficulties faced, through spare illustrations that evoke the truly epic nature of Shackleton’s journey.
There’s a quote from Roald Amundsen on the publication information page:
- No man fails who sets an example of high courage, of unbroken resolution, of unshrinking endurance.
— Roald Amundsen
Self absolutely loves it.
Stay tuned.
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