tuesday

Stained glass is one of my favorite things. I am, unfortunately, an awfully obsessive lady, and when one dream gets into my head, there's little chance it will ever leave me. This summer has left me with lots of time to carefully chew on the cud of my future (mostly researching grad schools for MFA programs in poetry, avenues of film restoration, and day-dreaming about becoming the next Iris Berry- one of my all-time heroes). I suppose this is my roundabout way of declaring my love for the art of stained glass and trying to jam it into the crammed bookshelf that is my life. And, literally, my bookshelves. 

When I am not fretting (what a wonderful word!) about the near-yet-distant future, I am thinking about gallivanting around Russia and Western Europe. I should like to hop in and out of gothic churches and cathedrals, and of course stop by La Chappelle du Rosaire de Vence- the chapel designed by a then seventy-seven year old Matisse in 1947. I think we all ought to keep the promises we made our thirteen year old selves and find the gumption and dash within us to become the brassy, plucky souls we always hoped we'd be. In my case, I'm going to need time, and a whole lot of it!

Secretly, and not so secretly, I would love to be a stained glass artist's apprentice. I am quite obsessed with dying art forms that must be passed on to sustain themselves (to name but a few of my favorites: silent film accompaniment, millinery, beekeeping, and of course, stained glass). For the past two years or so, I have been terribly tempted to try for an apprenticeship at the nearby Brooklyn Stained Glass Conservation Center, and perhaps as Paul Celan knows, "it is time it was time."

More...

monday

I've not been able to get this poem by Linda Gregg out of my mind for the past two weeks. She is a woman made of presence; and sitting in the same room as Jack Gilbert, Gerald Stern, and too many other poets I respect to name, I couldn't take my eyes off of her as she read from Monolithos. Just thinking about that night makes my face split open! However, this is a poem from her first collection, Too Bright to See.

Something was pouring out. Filling the field
and making it vacant. A wind blowing them
sideways as they moved forward. The crying
as before. Suddenly I understood why they left
the empty bowls on the table, in the empty hut
overlooking the sea. And knew the meaning
of the heron breaking branches, spreading
his wings in order to rise up out of the dark
woods into the night sky. I understood about
the lovers and the river in January.
Heard the crying out as a battlement,
of greatness, and then the dying began.
The height of passion. Saw the breaking
of the moon and the shattering of the sun.
Believed in the miracle because of the half heard
and the other half seen. How they ranged
and how they fed. Let loose their cries.
One could call it the agony in the garden,
or the paradise, depending on whether
the joy was at the beginning, or after.

“Now I Understand” by Linda Gregg

sunday

I spent all evening positively glued to the Smithsonian Library's Seed Catalogue of cards from the 1830s to the 1930s.

Here are a just a few of my favorites (& all five hundred are just as good)!



This one is my absolute favorite. I hope that when I have a collection of words published, the cover would look just as beautiful and sweet. It reminds me an awful lot of Countee Cullen's books of poetry and so many of the books on the rare books floor of the Strand (one of my favorite places ever and a never-ending source of inspiration).



I imagine that a lot of thought and love went into these catalogue covers, yet after perusing through every image, it seems that an equal amount of effort and skill was put into each one. I love to think of a young farmer leafing through one of these, dreaming about which seeds he will plant and harvest while his rosy-cheeked wife carefully picks out the flowers she wants to grow in her garden. I've been dreaming of what I want to grow when I have a little cottage nestled between the forest and the sea (near a very stoic lighthouse, of course). There would be a whole lotta vegetables, herbs, flowers, and fruit trees! I'll save that list for another day though.

More...

saturday

ebay auctions I have recently lost (aka reasons ebay is breaking my heart):

I really had my heart set on this gorgeous 1930s feed sack dress. Of course, after days of constantly watching the bid stay low, there was an awful bidding war in the last fifty seconds, shooting the final bid up to seventy dollars! I was so hoping I'd win this to wear to the Jazz Age picnic come September (I'm planning on going on both days, thus requiring two special dresses), but perhaps the best is yet to come. Or at least, I'm trying to convince myself!

I fell in love with this dress too, but I knew once there were two days left and the bid was already eighty-five dollars, I had to let go and set my heart on something else. It's a real beauty though and went for a whole lotta clams!

And then, of course, these pale pink satin shoes from the 30s that I lost from my grasp in the last few seconds (I live for the ebay rush, what can I say)! Oh what a pair we would've been!

friday

It should go without saying that I have a big fat crush on Louis Jordan and His Tympany Five.

sunday

endless good things:

sun tea, baking strawberry rhubarb pie from scratch for my pop today because he used to carry a pinch of sugar in his pocket to sprinkle onto the fresh rhubarb he would "pinch" from a garden on his way to school as a kid, converting permanently to fountain pens as my weapon of choice, spending hours holed up in my second favorite used bookstore, hosting a "hooray for hulot" tati marathon in the comfort of my bed of quilts, always ordering french dip sandwiches in loving memory of my great grand-pop (the "colonel") who ate one every day for decades, reuniting with old dear friends in familiar places, loading up on fresh fruit and old fashioned watermelon drops from the local farmers market, liking airports more than airplanes, and spending hours upon hours watching lost (I admit it, I'm hooked!)

saturday

friday

Oh what loveliness once bloomed upon such open faces! What must be done to bring this mythical & magical human decency back?

sunday

"We need the tether
Of entering each other's lives, eyes wide apart, crying."

-From John Ashbery's "Parergon"

sunday

agnès toujours

thursday

wednesday