leaves

sweet williams and gabriel oak

noreply@blogger.com (Jeremy) — Sun, 26 Feb 2012 21:46:00 +0000

I didn't get to the flower market on Sunday.

Instead, I braved the mobs on Brick Lane (through a back route, kind of) to get my hands on some Tibetan momo's. Delicious!

And since I didn't have a new batch of flowers (I had been thinking Sweet Williams), when I got home in the evening I just fluffed up and trimmed and culled and reconstituted last week's tulips instead.

I am listening to this Low record, with its flash-photographed bouquet on the cover, namely the song "Immune," which for some reason I have been singing along to since Christmastime.

Oh, and speaking of foliage, I got a copy of this, you may want to, too.

Saturday night, Jamie and I watched Far from the Madding Crowd. Period films just work better when they are made in the late 1960s. And it helps if they're starring Julie Christie and directed by John Schlesinger with Nicholas Roeg on the camera.

Both of us are always a bit in love with Alan Bates. I'm glad he got to play Gabriel Oak the shepherd in this.

We were watching it on the couch, 156 minutes interrupted only by a couple of tea and toast breaks. We got the disc at Close-Up, the best film library I know of in London.

Earlier on Saturday, we touched down in Epping Forest, sounds dramatic but really just a few minutes from east London by train. I said to Jamie, OK, I can smell it now, you know, poo and dirt.

Trees, you are not green yet, but you still help us breathe deeper.

Mud on my boots.

It looks like it does on the old TFL posters, the graphic ones that say Epping Forest by tram or motor bus or (could that be right?) the Central Line.

Jamie says, one thing I am lucky for is I know I take pleasure in little things. He said he was on the train and he was taking pleasure in the sun on his face. And he said, other people, I know they had work, or stress, but they didn't... And I was saying, that's what we've got, little things.

And we both prefer ale to lager. And we're different all the time, every day, but then we're both liking sun on the face and dirty ale and Alan Bates' beard and yes, often we just agree on things like the size of the point of the pen (0.8).

So anyway, it was our wonderful day in Epping Forest: We just walked for not such a long time, and then sat for a rather long time in the pub. Give us a break, we are out of shape.

We were putting ourselves back into shape.

And I just kept talking about, what movie should we watch when we get home.

spring fever!

noreply@blogger.com (Jeremy) — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 20:52:00 +0000

Honestly, today was magical, from that filter coffee (Sumatra, mellow) in the late morning to a pint of ale upstairs at the Barley Mow after dark.

Everyone was like: IT IS THE FIRST DAY OF SPRING.

The people in the city were jolly, we were like cats touching noses.

I'm sure it won't last, but for now, all I want to do is act ridiculously and listen to Beat Happening.

pancake day surprise

noreply@blogger.com (Jeremy) — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 21:31:00 +0000

This came on the radio tonight, and I almost cried.

synesthesiac

noreply@blogger.com (Jeremy) — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 23:13:00 +0000

Simon Evans gave me this record many years ago. It's got a photograph of an incense factory on the cover, and it practically smells of Nag Champa. In fact, my copy probably did, if it hung around Simon's apartment at all. That would be when Simon was living with that big dog and its owner, the nice woman with the drinking problem. I've been thinking recently about Simon walking that big dog. And that yellow spot on the corner of Diamond Street, Diamond Corner Cafe, where he and Jamie worked, and put their art up on the walls.

it's tops

noreply@blogger.com (Jeremy) — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 23:06:00 +0000

Free Eames films on Hoxton Street was the perfect way to unwind after work.

lights out for the territory

noreply@blogger.com (Jeremy) — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 15:50:00 +0000

I swear yesterday there was just the one blossom on the tree out front. And today there are dozens, like popcorn. Pinky white.

There are six wood pigeons who now call this place home. The first time I saw them, they were marching in a line in the snow. Now they hang out in the tree, all fat and with a soft prettiness. Faint colour like this first hint of Spring.

Also, magpies of course, and what I think are a couple of coal tits. A few weeks ago, I woke up to birdsong. It was virtually countryside. I wonder about nature, if these birds and plants and other creatures are confused by the erratic climate. If they are missing the way it used to be, pursuing atavistic routines.

What a farce!

But, the blanket of snow is gone from the churchyard, and underneath: crocuses!

Days are longer, just a bit, just that little bit, and there we were out walking in the remnants of the Sunday market on Brick Lane; it always feels like the end of the world, the teenage movie version of the end of the world.

On my lunch, I see women holding hands and I'm thinking I'm finally seeing more lesbians in London. And then, loved up and distracted by precocious springtime sentimentality, I even think I'm seeing a man braiding a woman's hair in the square. But really he's just standing and smoking a cigarette close to her big hair bun, and from the angle I was at...

But this is true: A boy up a ladder is taking dead light bulbs out of the ELECTRICITY SHOWROOMS letters. And across the way, also in light bulbs, that new illuminated text piece, which has been meaning so much to Jamie, doing what it's supposed to do: Offer a message of hope when you're feeling down on your life in the city.

Too much coffee (bought from the boy whose face is all smiles at Allpress). Individual drip: Wicked, lovely coffee.

There are tulips at home in a jar on the table. Hockney, says Jamie. The house smells a bit like bleach, from cleaning winter mold off the walls, and traces of cedar incense and lemon verbena cologne. There is forgiveness in this house right now. Always learning, letting go. Forgiveness can be so assuring; forgiveness is a blanket. There is, hopefully, healing from winter viruses. No cigarette smoking, even though we used to like to do that. Refillable wine bottle; they do that at The Grocery now. £5. And pretty much all electrical equipment is a little bit broken. Things to save up for and fix.

I keep reading about people who move to the country. Because they are sick of the city. And yes, I feel their fresh air. Don't they have a nice life!

And yes, there are moments. People are irritating you. And you have had it up to here. Like at Yayoi Kusama, in the last room, the Infinity Room, a spectacular, and Jamie and I were just about to go all transcendental. And then a phone rings and a young mum answers her mobile and says, "Oh, HI. Where are YOU? We're in the lights room. Isn't it GREAT."

I wanted to push her into the infinity pool.

But, on a good day, people in this city are calling you darling and love. And they are calling Jamie and me lads. Hello, lads. When we get our bagels. Hello, lads, what can we get for you? And I'm like, Jamie, when will people stop calling us lads? (Or "you boys" in America?) And he says he thinks it'll never stop and we will just be two old men, Gilbert and George, still addressed the same.

I suppose it's easy to think of two men as lads. (Jamie says, Berts and Ernies.) But I reckon it's also our wide-eyedness. We're walking home from a screening of Eames films (brilliant!) in a little room on Hoxton Street. It's just a two minute walk, and Jamie is saying, Aren't we lucky to live here.

I live in the city. Boy on the ladder, replace my burnt out bulbs. I'm trying; I could be electric. Let spring come slowly so that I may savour it. The daylight stays, until 5pm, 6pm, 7pm...

today i'm thinking about robert bresson

noreply@blogger.com (Jeremy) — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 09:17:00 +0000

denton welch's dollhouse

noreply@blogger.com (Jeremy) — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 19:45:00 +0000

A couple years back, our friend Colter Jacobsen was in London, and took us to the Children's Museum on a bit of a pilgrimage to see Denton Welch's dollhouse. At the time Colter had been commissioned to work on a project illustrating Welch's text. I've intended on reading Welch since then (a Colter recommendation is practically guaranteed), but it's only been this year that I finally sought it out. What was I waiting for! His novel In Youth is Pleasure and autobiographical novella I Left My Grandfather's House sang out to me in simple, wistful prose, the kind of storytelling that concentrates on quiet and often funny details. He is the sort of writer — and I'm thinking here also of Dylan Thomas, Grace Paley and Sherwood Anderson — that became an immediate favourite, someone who seems to speak the same language that I do, that particular little dialect of English, in which language whispers and hums and thinks as it goes. Wonderful.

california christmas

noreply@blogger.com (Jeremy) — Sun, 22 Jan 2012 11:42:00 +0000

Mom got a eucalyptus wreath for the front door, because she said she remembered I like the smell. Usually we enter the house through the garage, but when I do use the front door, I can smell the wreath, and I feel touched. I don't even realize this until I am driving with Jamie. On a quiet Californian highway, I suddenly feel so appreciative for mom's eucalyptus wreath.

The sun is out most days. I would lounge in the driveway with a book; it was like high school. I was reading Time of the Assassins by Henry Miller and eventually it was driving me nuts. All this talk of God. But by this time I had begun stockpiling books for the New Year:

In Youth is Pleasure, Denton Welch
Murphy, Samuel Beckett
I Remember, Joe Brainard
The Diary of a Nobody, George & Weedon Grossmith
Rebecca Solnit
Roger Deakin
Susan Sontag
Roland Barthes again
Jude the Obscure,Thomas Hardy
...

I've already made a dent into this reading list, and will be happy to discuss if you're in London and fancy a coffee. On the plane home, I read Lady Chatterly's Lover, but for some reason that's still embarrassing to say. Even if I got it for 50 cents at the little shop at my parents' local library?

Besides the eucalyptus, my mom brought in dill pickles and red wine and thick cut chips and crispy chocolate cookies.

Mom and dad took us to Whole Foods and to Trader Joe's. Jamie and I went to a frozen yoghurt shop where they let you sample all the flavours, and then you choose one and pile it with any toppings you want and it is priced by weight.

In San Francisco, which sometimes gleams and sometimes seems so empty and depraved, as always, we saw our friends' art, Colter Jacoben at SFMOMA and Edward Loftus at Gregory Lind. I am still beaming with pride to be associated with both. It is a brilliant feeling to genuinely admire work made by friends.

We drank hand drip filter coffees, incredible. Blue Bottle, Four Barrel. There is nothing like drinking coffee on holiday. Maybe coffee in a new city is even better. But this coffee, wow. I wish I had brought some back.

At Jesse and Robbie's pad in Oakland, they've written love poems to each other on the walls. They've got a friend with a singing voice like spun gold, and they all perform a Sting song with a Siberian harp, and Robbie even does some throat singing. There is a drink with mint leaves in my hand.

I'm like, only in California, and then on New Years Day, everyone is in a meadow amongst wise oaks and rolling hills and taking their tops off, even the women and I'm glad to be in California again with, you know, expressive types and lesbians who make their own pickles. And later, on the patio over Bloody Marys, one says, Do you think this is what your friends in England imagine California to be like? And I'm thinking, actually, I guess they picture, you know, Beverly Hills. Not really so much this moment.

The night before, there was hip hop and howling. We were in a ranch on a wildflower preserve. This sounds peaceful, and it was, but on New Year's Eve, this particular ranch was on fire with the echoing gaiety of queers. I waited by the side of the dance floor for ages, a wallflower. The dancing was so good, it was like the dancing from the original Fame! When I finally got up the nerve to join in, the bassy booty song ended and a slow song came on and someone pushed me to dance with a handsome man with a big beard and suddenly it was a slow dancing game called Snowball where everyone had to slow dance and switch partners when someone shouted "snowball." Yes, there was a moment just a couple switches in, where I was the odd man out, in the centre of the floor. Surely this is a cliche scene from a half dozen sitcoms. It was my Charlie Brown moment.

Later, I attempted a shameless return for more, when "Real Love" by Mary J. Blige, but Jamie wouldn't budge when I tugged. And I got hurt feelings and had a strop. Suddenly I was out in the dark at the edges of the property, along the road, having a pee. Cars are terrifying in a silent black night: The people in cars that passed me must have thought I was crazy. I didn't realise they were driving so fast because it was so close to midnight. It happened to be just before the countdown that I found my way back to the house, and in the middle of kissing couples Jamie kissed and (I think) forgave me.

A few days after New Year, we were in Santa Cruz, the beach town where they filmed The Lost Boys. We went on the Monarch trail but only spotted a few butterflies. Smelled the Eucalyptus. Saw the sea, and a boy riding his bicycle backwards. We went to a Brazilian cafe and all the waitresses were Brazilian hotties with beach bods.

Things we ate in California include: Homemade pickles, peanut butter pretzels, tacos, burritos, lashings of Chinese food, sushi, margaritas, cinnamon bears, west coast ales, Burmese samosa soup.

In the glare of the sun, fat from food, I wondered if I wanted to go home.

But it's funny, arriving back in London always feels like coming home. More than coming back to San Francisco ever did when I lived there. We circled above central London as I never have before, at least not on a clear sky. I was besotted. We were in one of those seat rows that's kind of between windows. So we strained. And still, I yelped like a puppy at the sights. Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament! The London Eye! Tower Bridge! St. Paul's! It looked amazing and unreal, like the board for some magical board game called LONDON!

We were tired and smelled like airplane and we were hungry after not eating very much plane food. But I felt ready to play the game.

Our first evening back, I was putting the stuff in our suitcases away. Everything smelled like airplane. Then, bitten by the new year bug, Jamie decided we needed to rearrange all of our furniture.

It looks much better now, so please come over and make yourself at home. We dropped a speaker, though, and we've got an unfixable fuzz if things go very high or very low. So forgive me while I fuss now and again with the sound.

But do come over, I'm sure we haven't told you everything about California.

walls

noreply@blogger.com (Jeremy) — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 23:46:00 +0000

A large piece of watercolour paper, a sharp-tongued and lazy Yucca plant, a fantastic painting by Virginia Phongsathorn. (Hurry home from Paris, Virginia!)

At home now near midnight with Tom Ravenscroft on the radio. Jamie's wearing his hat on in the flat; it's getting colder. Earlier tonight, Mur Murs at the Barbican went down a treat! (I love you, Agnes Varda, I love you, Los Angeles.)

two teenagers

noreply@blogger.com (Jeremy) — Tue, 22 Nov 2011 19:22:00 +0000

In the middle of the night, I'm thinking about being a boy and at Sara's house. And her teenage brother who was very cool and had thick spectacles was sitting in the backyard in shorts with his legs crossed, playing with his leg hairs. And I said, your brother is counting his leg hairs!

And then I'm thinking of another cool teenager, and he played Peter in the play of The Diary of Anne Frank. And the Frank sisters both loved him and so you felt he was the type to fall in love with. He was stoic and I remember he wore a necktie as a belt, the length of it dangling at the side of his thigh, and he wore smart sweaters and was handsome and was reading a paperback of The Clan of the Cave Bear, which was popular at the time. That was in the moment that I passed him in the lobby of the theater, and I swear he smiled at me. I wouldn't even have thought that someone like that knew I existed!

He wound up shooting himself in the head. I was maybe 12 years old and none of us could fathom that. Especially when someone said, just think, his poor parents, when you do that, someone has to clean up the mess, because your head splatters on the walls. I guess his dad had a gun? I had friends who were crying and hugging each other but I didn't know him so I wasn't meant to cry and hug, so I just thought about it. And someone else said on his wall he had a Smiths poster, "Shoplifters of the World Unite," I think.

I've written this down before, I'm thinking, but it keeps coming back into my head. The waste, and that he must have been a beautiful person. And that my memory of him ends the same time as everyone else's. Never even went to college, let alone go bald or do something adventurous, or make a thousand more mistakes.

jean and jenny

noreply@blogger.com (Jeremy) — Mon, 14 Nov 2011 19:35:00 +0000

I used to take their names for granted, Jean and Jenny, my mum and sister, respectively. I guess I thought they were common, plain even. As I grew older and my attentions turned focus on simpler things, I realised they were two of the loveliest names. So Scottish sounding; indeed, both are heroines of Belle and Sebastian songs. Names like sans serif fonts: Without unnecessary flourish, letting the true character of the named fill in the design. Soft but almost handsome names, authentic and modestly sweet. I came up with the idea of tattooing one name each on my wrists, but they were a bit like, more tattoos? So I keep their names close to me in blood and not ink. "String Bean Jean" and "Photo Jenny." How proud I am of the women in my family, and deeply am I cherishing their gentle names.

play of the week

noreply@blogger.com (Jeremy) — Sun, 13 Nov 2011 10:01:00 +0000

Jamie found this little gem. It has some wonderful moments, and is worth a viewing.

we live here for the music

noreply@blogger.com (Jeremy) — Tue, 08 Nov 2011 20:54:00 +0000

People are always asking me, why do you live in the UK? I finally thought of an answer: We live here for the music.

houses

noreply@blogger.com (Jeremy) — Fri, 04 Nov 2011 21:51:00 +0000

Peter Aldington is a British architect whose Modernist houses subtly uplift, rather than negate, the villages in which they are situated.

It is a difficult quality to quantify, and I was most positively reassured when Jamie came across books on Aldington's work at Mark and Martina's house. He looked at the pictures and plans for ages and proclaimed, "these are my dream houses."

For weeks, I had been gazing at a book on Aldington Craig and Collinge at work, and pretending the calm interior on the cover was the home I would be returning to at the end of the day. I had been wanting to show them to Jamie, to see if he agreed.

The houses bring a warmth to Southern England housing, without imposing something out of place. There is almost a hint of the Californian about them, but they still feel perfectly British. Like you'd be listening to Nick Drake inside, with a pint of a cask ale.

autumn in the kitchen

noreply@blogger.com (Jeremy) — Fri, 04 Nov 2011 20:56:00 +0000

A wooden spoon dyed turmeric
Like outside the window, leaves dropping
Yellow is determined
To stain the year with season.

saturday sun, pt. 2

noreply@blogger.com (Jeremy) — Sun, 30 Oct 2011 22:21:00 +0000

This Saturday, on the River Colne at high tide, with a view of the lovely Wivenhoe.

Impressive fireworks over the bank of the river after nightfall.

saturday sun, pt. 1

noreply@blogger.com (Jeremy) — Sun, 30 Oct 2011 21:48:00 +0000

A Saturday walk on the heath, under a bright autumn sun and atop very crunchy leaves. Jamie said it's like walking in a bag of crisps. We stopped by the Keats House first, felt like we were in that movie.

A Sunday afternoon of Edward McKnight Kauffer posters at the Estorick Collection. We walked there with Jimmy, Lucy and Pete via the New River, a hidden gem.

wuthering heights

noreply@blogger.com (Jeremy) — Fri, 14 Oct 2011 20:37:00 +0000

When I was a schoolboy, this book changed my world. It made me realise England as a bigger place than the cities I listened to in Smiths songs; it made me daydream in terms of heartache and candlelight and ghosts and damp and the moors. I took from it a woman's perspective that felt honest and rich and unhindered by the expectations of a woman's "proper" place and point of view. It felt outsider. It was a book I felt I could smell. And I would think about Heathcliff, what it would mean to be him or to love someone like that. I am feeling incredibly optimistic about a film version that is raw and hand-held and draws from the elements of nature. I am very much looking forward to seeing this new take on a "period film." It has been described as being like a kitchen sink drama set on the moors. I have high hopes that this film might help define my winter.

London Planes

noreply@blogger.com (Jeremy) — Fri, 14 Oct 2011 08:01:00 +0000

We're back in London and Jamie's got his boots on and the soles are wooden and they clack down the pavement and Jamie says, That's such a satisfying sound. Isn't it? But you probably don't realise the full of it, making the sound is how you get the real satisfaction.

We were on a balcony on the 25th floor in dazzling Hong Kong, and we were talking about the mighty skyline. The buildings are designed using feng shui principles, spiritual balance mixed with a bit of money grubbing and showmanship. IM Pei's elegant tower has spikes on top that pierce the clouds of the money gods. Only slightly more practically, Norman Foster's HSBC building can be broken down into 12 parts and shipped back to London. (It was built during the changeover amidst speculation of financial uncertainty.) Towards the south of the island are the towers with large holes in the middle. Several floors in each are hollowed out. This design sacrifices valuable real estate, in order to allow the dragon to move through, from the mountain into the sea.

Back in London, we're riding the overland through a sprawl of brick and leaves to Richmond Park. We're heading to spot trees. We're mapping it out, guided by The Great Trees of London book.

We've been waiting for a crisp and clear autumn day, Jamie calls that kind of day clement; they're due but there's a lingering wave of summer heat. Which is making everyone jolly but secretly I'm ready for clement.

Our chosen day is right for it. A grey sky cracks open and a bright sun shines through. But at the same time, it's cool enough to wear a wool jacket. Richmond is a postcard, a stately village moist from the waters of the West Thames.

We find thousands of great trees and four official Great Trees. The first is a Stone Pine called The Maids of Honour, a rare species around here, peeking over a wall on the grounds of the former Richmond Palace, off the southwestern corner of Richmond Green. We walk through the palace grounds, now posh housing I suppose, and a kindly sign points us towards the Thames politely. It is only around the bend that we spot the Asgill House Copper Beech, again viewed over a wall, described on a plaque as a perfect tree. It would be nice to be 200 years old and perfect.

Just a bit further along, growing through the deck of a badly decorated restaurant, is the awesome Riverside Plane. The species makes up some half of London's tree population, but they are anything but common. They were brought into the city as resilient warriors of green; their large, shiny leaves wash off the grime of pollution easily in the rain, and their camouflage-like bark peels itself off in chunks in order to keep fresh. The Riverside Plane is the tallest of its kind in the city. "The kind of tree that makes you giddy to look straight up the trunk into the heart of it," says our book. "...You get the feeling this tree could just keep going on and on."

It's impressive without feeling overbearing, incredibly tall and unassumingly handsome. Surely an architect would strive to create a skyscraper with that kind of effortless grace.

Into the park and we march along to what must be our favourite find, the Richmond Royal Oak. For one thing, you can climb inside. You look up through holes in the trunk and it's a wonder. It is short and fat, with a view over a heath and two ponds. It's a storybook tree, a gatekeeper at the edge of a forest, a wise and modest character who imparts warning about the dark secrets ahead, a secret keeper, a friend. There's a bench nearby and when we sit on it together, close and alone on this day, this clement day, I wouldn't rather be anywhere else.

The day rolls on; rooibus tea and veggie pies, even. In the heart of Richmond Park, with its wide vistas and gnarly trunks, you could be on top of the Sierras. But there's signs of flatness, of urbanity along the borders, of Britishness. There's the White Lodge, home to the Royal Ballet School, begging to be used in a horror film.

And I've never seen the Red Deer before. Magnificent; the adult males are ready to rut. Their full antlers and puffed up chests keep us at a distance. A boy crouches in the weeds taking pictures; I hope he isn't too close. He seems to be having a stare down with a powerful patriarch. The stag is sat slightly apart from his grazing herd. The boy seems to be having a moment, a primal feeling perhaps. Surely he's got enough photos by now. Maybe he's waiting for the two stags sat down the hillside to gather up strength for a proper battle.

We're not rutting today ourselves. We're getting on fine. We end the walk with a pint, of course. Ale, outside where you can see the water. The Thames sits elegantly. A week ago, we were looking out on the choppy waters of Victoria Harbour in a near-typhoon. We made it home despite, to this river flowing steadily, almost imperceptibly, through London.

zoo kid and charlie brown

noreply@blogger.com (Jeremy) — Sat, 17 Sep 2011 08:28:00 +0000

Carl and Kate said he reminded them of an Atherton Lin character. It's lovely to know, because we never reveal our characters' faces, people have their own face types in mind. I see Atherton Lin kids all the time. Sometimes it's the hat or the walk, but sometimes it's a face. Sometimes, a face will really surprise me as to how much it fits my imaginary world.

The characters, originally invented as an homage to Peanuts, are barely visible in the 2012 calendar. But we hope you feel their presence. We could never decide how to draw their faces, so we decided to hide them. Now they're hidden even a bit more, and the world we have created has to do with a perspective and a point of view.

The song gets more beautiful the more you play it. Zoo Kid is reminding me of Slits, early Specials or Clash and a bit of Billy Bragg, and it's exactly what I want to hear right now.

And here, a man who really knew how to draw a face.

sunday reading list

noreply@blogger.com (Jeremy) — Sun, 21 Aug 2011 19:33:00 +0000

Our combined reading list, indulged in lazy pieces after the obligatory summer swim and visit to Columbia Road Flower Market:

Cabinet, two most recent issues
Flash Art, latest issue
What Am I Doing Here? by Bruce Chatwin
Mi Won Kwon's beautiful essay about Felix Gonzalez-Torres
The Vegetable Book by Jane Grigson for dinner preparation
Writing Home by Alan Bennett (Today on Columbia Road, I found the same paperback edition which Jamie was reading when we met)
Wildwood by Roger Deakin

In the afternoon, rooibus tea was taken with homemade savoury scones flavoured with cheese and rocket pesto, delightful!

Song of the day: "Lay Down (Candles in the Rain)" by Melanie and the Edwin Hawkins Singers

We hope that you had a good Sunday, too.

a donkey on the canal

noreply@blogger.com (Jeremy) — Fri, 08 Jul 2011 07:43:00 +0000

Archival photo from the wall at the Canal Museum, near King's Cross.

armchair travels part two

noreply@blogger.com (Jeremy) — Wed, 06 Jul 2011 17:53:00 +0000

Sitting on the floor at Daunt Books, looking at the less browsed titles piled up on windowsills and on the bottom shelves, I came across this. Jamie and I are both drawn to books that were published right around the time we were six or eight years old. Surely, this is a very literal recollection of the picture volumes we were looking at as children. But it was a handsome era for books like this. You can imagine the kind of subtle shifts in typeface and layout that followed in the next generation of such books: a kind of wispy quality that made the publications seem noncommittal. Anyway, this book of evocative large format photography was in perfect condition and I couldn't resist bringing it home.

Coincidentally, I recently read a Bruce Chatwin story that references Wales which cracked me up. It has that oddball delightfulness that Chatwin does so well.

At dinner with Diana Vreeland

Her glass of neat vodka sat on the white damask table-cloth. Beyond the smear of lipstick, a twist of lemon floated among the ice-cubes. We were sitting side by side, on a banquette.
'What are you writing about, Bruce?'
'Wales, Diana.'
The lower lip shot forward. Her painted cheeks swivelled through an angle of ninety degrees.
'Whales!' she said. 'Blue whales!... Sperrrm whales!... THE WHITE WHALE!'
'No... no, Diana! Wales! Welsh Wales! The country to the west of England.'
'Oh! Wales. I DO know Wales. Little grey houses... covered in roses... in the rain...'

armchair travels part one

noreply@blogger.com (Jeremy) — Wed, 06 Jul 2011 17:36:00 +0000

I've only left the house today once, to take the recycling out. I dipped into a few letters by Rimbaud, what a brat. But mostly I've been reading about the Great Bardfield Artists all afternoon, and wanted to encourage you to pay a virtual visit to Saffron Walden to drop in on Edward Bawden, Eric Ravilious, Kenneth Rowntree and the rest. I feel I've got to better educate myself on the creators of 20th Century British aesthetics, including of the great murals and tiles of London's tube stations. And Rowntree's bucolic dusks make me weepy. So the Fry Art Gallery is a future destination, certainly, along with Kettle's Yard in Cambridge (which will conjure an image of Kettle Chips in my head until I've actually been there to see the real thing). Jamie's wanderlust is more far flung.