Christmas Lights

Same as on Giulia Geranium tonight. No pudding recipe yet. Freezing cold here. Cannot decide how much I like the song...maybe it's the balloons & fireworks over London in the video. Actually, I put this up on both sites to say hi to a friend who is seriously downhearted. Cheers! (photograph via Vintage Rose Garden via Pinterest) Thursday Update - here's a link to video playable in Europe.

Reindeer Cheer

Sunday Update (5 Dec 2010) - It's been that kind of week. I hope to be back by mid-week. Meanwhile, please check out Made4Aid, IKEA Soft Toy Aid, & Tina Tarnoff's Etsy shop (here's a Giulia G. post about a beautiful pin Tina sent me this past summer). And of course, check out all my comrades here in the right sidebar & on my profile page. And yes, I have a thing for reindeer. This cute dude is by John the Finn, here. xo/Susan

Change in the Weather

This illustrates what happens when you haven't really done the seasonal clothes rotation. Yet. UK Tights is a good tight-site. If you order enough & get them on the right day, little to no delivery charge from UK to US. Wolford are gorgeous but out of my reach (for now).

Just about everyone I know in the States, Canada, & Europe is trudging around in the snow. Here it's been in the 50s/60s & now zooming to a freeze. The last 15 hours have brought torrential rain, winds, & who knows what this afternoon-into-evening. This is mainly to switch over to December. Strasbourg at Christmas holiday soon, I hope, but things are still rather tangled here. Oops, there flickers zee lights.

Everyone in my sidebar & also on the profile page if I've not linked yet, have some great suggestions for holidays. (Joanna's always-entertaining Cup of Jo Gift Guide has just begun.) Giulia Geranium has ideas for good gifts that help. (photograph via audrey hepburn complex)

O Gattina!

Fussing with the new Giulia Geranium header & colors took a great big bite out of the weekend. Please take a look. I hesitate to say it's finished because that would undermine my as-yet unwritten manifesto on 'things are never finished' (it can get you out of so many jams. And into them, too.). Besides, it's not as though I do this professionally. It's all given me a tremendous headache. Speaking of headaches, of the feline variety....

The carpet above could be mine (same pattern) but mine is currently flecked, nay strewn, with holly berries & bits of sage, rosemary, oregano, & basil from a friend's garden. There are also apples & pears on the carpet. Julie usually goes for all things sparkly so I'm not sure what is up with this vegetal vandalism. That must have been some wild rumpus while I was out walking in lovely autumnal gardens yesterday. The must-do list is woefully lacking "done" ticks & now I have cleaning to do. I'll answer comments & visit people soon. I hope tonight. (A clean carpet via audrey hepburn complex) Update - Tuesday - Or maybe I'll catch up tonight. Oh dear.

PS: Today is the last day to vote for your favorite dress - Shabby Apple Dare to Design Contest. I still haven't decided.

Update - because I can't stand for people not to get a good deal & it's a kitchen sink post: Holiday Vogue Knitting patterns (over 1,300 to choose from) are all $US 2.99/per. Zee email just arrived- here's the link.

Week's End - Walkies

I just watched a video taken while trying to figure out the web camera.* No, I did not know it was recording. I leave for a while, come back with braids undone, wearing a big scarf, coat, & red lipstick. Julie hops up & looks in the lens. Then more of me looking puzzled, biting my lip (stop it!), sighing & rolling my eyes (yes, at me). Score by Bach. No, I am not embedding it here. Julie neglected to take a photo of herself...she just fought me while I held her up to the camera...then proceeded to have an asthma attack. Guilt. I'm going for a walk.

*But, you say...that photo of you & Julie during the snowpocalypse in February, you knew how to take a web shot. Um. I recently realized that it's all fuzzled because I hadn't taken off the, um, protective film.

(plaid coat by laura trevey via rachel follet/lovely clusters)

Every Leaf a Flower

Camus' view of autumn--Autumn is a second spring when every leaf is a flower. How very cheerful, really. (I won't hold that against him, though I'm beyond crabby.) It's still mostly green here, the odd yellow leaf blowing past. This beautiful photograph uses the Orton effect (see here) & was taken in Germany by the generous Olga. I was going to sneak political & social commentary in but Arts & Letters Daily is not making it easy. (I saw something interesting & cannot access it within the minutes I allow self to do this sort of thing.) Oh well. I can whip up & fold in sneaky links any time. (You can enjoy the photograph much more on Olga's flickr stream.)

Reminder: Don't forget about this dress design contest. I cannot stress enough: you just have to have a good idea & sketch a bit. You don't have to sew it, make a pattern, etc. Shabby Apple Dresses, Dare to Design. The competition ends Friday, 15 October. Then we'll vote.

Week's End - Can You Hear Me Now?

Thanks to everyone for their good wishes & comments this last week (& always). I've been trying to get through to a friend in Sudan*. (Here's something free to do to help out.) She sent out an email earlier today saying that she wouldn't mind hearing some familiar voices. Everyone on the list must be calling at the same time. So while I'm stopping that for now, I just realized that I've missed coffee infusions, Julie's food supply is sketchy, etc. It's over 90 degrees here & I do not want to go out. Alas, it isn't up to me.

While surfing around, I read a review of Stephen Fry's new volume of memoirs, The Fry Chronicles in The Observer. And while shopping is out of the question, totally, there are some cool products to look at like these retro phones for Skype-ing.

And it is F. Scott Fitzgerald's birthday--happy birthday, dear Scott. Visit DC-area writer & novelist Leslie Pietrzyk at Work-in-Progress to enter a contest for her to buy YOU a literary magazine (there are limits, but as usual Leslie is very generous) in honor of one of our literary idols. You have until Monday, 27 September, 5pm EDT. (I haven't entered because Leslie feels bad if someone she knows doesn't win. Big-hearted Leslie.) Cheers, until later.

(*OK, the latest barking mad thing is going on over there & the Twitter-verse must be consulted.)

Lemon-ism

Can I share with you my worldview? All of humankind has one thing in common: the sandwich. I believe that all anyone really wants in this life is to sit in peace and eat a sandwich.--Liz Lemon (Tina Fey) No. 16 on the funniest Liz Lemon-sims, here.

I had no idea that NBC's website was so amusingly interactive. Probably because MSNBC is trying to draw attention away from the fact that they are fomenting (I love that word) the leftist revolution that they hope to televise. Or something. Someone actually said this within my privacy-bubble-sandwich-consuming space. And I thought getting out to write was a good thing. Criminy.

(photograph of Liz via apartment therapy, she is pondering "decorganizing"; lemon girl by cig harvey via a cup of jo, via little sussy)

Week's End - Strangers in the Night

Well, this works on a few levels. (See previous post, sleep clinics) Have a terrific weekend. There are oodles, yes oodles, of great links on this page, Julie's blog, & just keep on clicking to those blogs. Over & out, cheeky ones. (photographs from Truman Capote's Black & White Ball, 1966/via LATimes & Cup of Jo, second is by Harry Benson)

Saturday update - Liberty London Girl is having a London Fashion Week giveaway that is just wonderful. It doesn't say for UK readers only, so I left a comment. It might be though. There are several lovely Brits who visit here & I thought you would be interested. Cheers. xo

Update - the computer is acting up again . One program says, "A-OK, ma'am." The other is flashing weird red signs & I expect a siren to start up any moment. &^*I*^T^! Anyhoo, if you leave a comment & it doesn't show up, I am not ignoring them. Must take laptop to be spot-cleaned, washed, fluffed & folded on the weekend. Someone invent a Virus-Designer-Dudes-Be-Gone spray. Or something.

Acquainted with the Night

Acquainted With The Night is one of the most famous examples of an American poem written in terza rima. (So says Wikipedia & that happens to be correct.) I haven't been reading Frost lately, who is not a huge favorite. It's just my lazy, quick way to post a title that does not say "Oh my %#$@(*&, I have to go to a clinic overnight for this now." Not tonight but soon. I'm so floopy & weirded out that I probably cannot make it to Carol Gillot's reception this evening (see post below). Mimph. Whine. Snarl. Week's End post that will be, if not hilarious, then somehow funnier. (Tim Walker & yes, I'll find other photographs soon. Vogue UK 2006)

Update already - Breaking news from any number of literary listservs, etc. Oprah just announced that Freedom is her next book club choice Maybe I'll hop in to the Franzenphilia/phobia-festival after all.... No, I don't watch her anymore (in years). Yes, I read The Corrections the day it was published (OK, well it took a week to read & should be cut by 200+pages.) I'll be reading Freedom, too, I can't buy it at the moment.

I've started to feel sorry & concerned for Franzen's mental health now. Another reason for not sleeping. Oprah--how dare you? Couldn't you have consulted me & waited until next week? (For Antipodean pals...I don't know if it's published there yet, though it has been in UK. BTW, it cannot have gone unnoticed that The Oprah is on her way to Australia. Hold onto your hats. Oy.)

The Harmless, Necessary Cat

Julie the Cat's address is Giulia Geranium. Update--I'm going to switch this & make J the Tuesday poster cat. (Cheesed off at self that I didn't do that in the first place.) Then, I finally can go flip through September Vogue. Which was late--but not this late. ciao

In Moments of Quiet

“Now, it isn’t that I don’t like you, Susan because after all, in moments of quiet, I’m strangely drawn towards you… but there haven’t been any quiet moments.” -Cary Grant as Dr. David Huxley, Bringing Up Baby, 1938

Several boyfriends know just how Cary feels. (They're still my friends, though. I think that speaks well of me. And Julie is nothing like that naughty Baby.) Only Cary could look handsome wearing Kate Hepburn's clothes.

I had photographs of people running, but nothing quite does it today. I'm running only in my mind. I was an unofficial cop (again!) on Saturday, feeling tottery, & in clothes not fit to be seen - maybe even by Julie the Cat. I stayed up too late rereading Enduring Love because Marie-Laure at AUREA is reading it & I wanted to discuss it with someone. This completely undid the relaxation of re-watching Annie Hall.

And (her voice rising), I'm being tempted by a friend: Do you want your birthday gift on Wednesday or on your birthday? Oh no. Decisions. Could you resist this? "I battled Huns, Goths, Mongols, Vikings, Zulus, Picts, and Celts...at...to...obtain.."

So, I'm posting dumber stuff than usual for a week if you want to skip checking in. I need to maintain a schedule & this is why I'm not 'gone fishing'. As always, there are good links here & on Giulia Geranium. I've seen so many good posts today & over the weekend that if I link to them, the feedburner thingy will blow up both blogs.

(But I recommend checking out the Truthiness Rally - or Operation Strike of Truthiness--this is a fluid story-- by Stephen Colbert fans. It really does help to laugh. Aussie & European friends, it really is funny & not just American. Friends in Turkey & elsewhere who can't understand English, if you're translating this, facial expressions are funny, too. As evidenced by the film stills above.)

Cheers & I'll do better tomorrow. Really.

[photograph via many tumblrs, here]

Life Creeps Up

However smart we may be, however rich and clever or loving or charitable or spiritual or impeccable, it doesn't help us at all. The real power comes in to us from the beyond. Life creeps up behind, where we are sightless, and from below, where we do not understand. -D.H. Lawrence

Life creeps up & so does bang (fringe) creepage. It will take all my will & strength to make it across town to cure this unacceptable state of hair-affairs. It's a welcome gray, cool day here today. Don't agree (entirely) with the Lawrence quote, but it's how life feels nowadays.

[photograph by Amanda Mason/all rights reserved/via Audrey Hepburn Complex tumblr]

Odour of Chrysanthemums

The short story title popped into my muddled mind a few hours ago. Snipping herbs & flowers, snapping off a few small vegetables (where I'm house/cat sitting), I sensed a change. Of course, it is late summer & it will be too hot for some time yet. I usually welcome the nearly imperceptible shift, the flip of the switch, to a new season. Not today, though, for all sorts of complicated reasons.

But what-ho? (Too much Jeeves & Wooster this summer. I'll be saying 'pip pip' soon.). A new mini-crisis on the literal horizon to divert me. (That's a good thing.) The entertaining birds in the back garden have cleverly timed the emptying of their feeders for this very moment--oh thanks les oiseaux. Now I'll be awake all night if I can't fill them before I collapse from fatigue (which I am about to do). Oh woe.

Strasbourg-of-the-past is what this twaddle above is about. Some of it anyway. Can you see why I drone on about the-rest-of-France & I-love-Alsace, just from that photograph? I hope so. Paris is grand, yes, but it is not the whole country.

[Strasbourg by thexmunichxromance via deviantArt & for good measure, another flower lady via style(dot)com archives]

The Idler's Academy in Port Eliot, Cornwall

They’re singing sea shanties. I’m at a festival where the lineup includes Jarvis Cocker, Luella Bartley, and Diana Athill and here is a Cornish men’s vocal group singing a capella sea shanties. The crowd— a mix of people my age, my parents’ age, and children— lap it up. This is either the weirdest or most brilliantly eclectic festival out there. I have fallen down some kind of rabbit hole into an alternate British universe without irony or hipsters. I am so confused.-Lauren Elkin

I've been musing with a friend about a Bath-Wales-Cornwall trip when I'm feeling better & have the wherewithal. When I saw Lauren Elkin's Maîtresse post, You haven't lived until you've seen an English field full of teepees at twilight, I thought, aha Port Eliot. Yep. You can read Lauren's Letter from Cornwall: the Port Eliot Festival on Bomb . It's pretty inclusive. (I would've loved the Persephone tent arranged as Vanessa Bells's Bloomsbury sitting room. I don't see any photographs but I shall pursue. Here's the Persephone blog.)

Teepees are OK but I'm the Gypsy Bowtop Caravan type. Enough tents in my lifetime, thanks. The kids atop a bovine is not from the festival. I'm looking for decently priced rainboots. (To everyone who will email: Hunters, yes I know. The prices are out of the question presently & for the abstract future. Update--I forgot to say that they're now made in China. So, ugh.) I had wet feet most of last winter. Plus, it's so hot out, that I need to look at something green. My paternal grandparents had a cow* that I don't remember riding but I choose to believe that I did. And if I'm not mistaken, some time ago my father either bought a cow-out-to-pasture for hanging out or he meant to. Anyway, I've done this, yes.

From the website: This year the Idler’s Academy of Philosophy, Husbandry and Merriment opens its doors for the first time. Tom Hodgkinson, editor of cult magazine The Idler, has established the Academy as a resource for these three valuable but generally neglected disciplines. This year’s curriculum includes Latin grammar, scything, woodwork, education theory, poetry and, of course, lashings and lashings of fun...

Bring on the rest of the weirdness.

[photograph of teepees by Bill Bradshaw; Gypsy Caravan via Port Eliot site; *bulls & asst. cattle are still bovine]

Circus in Three Rings

Circus-y things. Pignouf's lovely Vintage Poster site (in French but you'll get it, really you will). Also Vintage Circus tumblr, is here. An intriguing post at The Clever Pup (August 2009) about Carnivàle Lune Bleue. Highly recommended reading. Note new film starring Jane Birkin & Sergio Castellito, Around a Small Moutain...opening soon near you.

Now, to creep across town to hair rescue center...wearing frizzy Heidi braids. As always, I'll run into someone I know on the way. On the way back? Are you kidding? Nope. Here's hoping I can commune with the Itinerant Poetry Librarian, here; or somehow celebrate Bastille Day with a sister who is celebrating (or not?) her natal day. Or...I have no idea. It is a circus here now.

Update - Thursday afternoon. The circus continues & I actually have things to report, photographs to post. Alas. So if you see photographs/posts later & think, no way. I was over here & these weren't here then. You will be correct, not mad. (Well...) Anyway, I'm going to post-date some things...playing with & for time. It makes one feel free & powerful (though it be a false notion).

[circus images in Freiburg by Thomas Totz; Solveig Dommartin in Wings of Desire, via tumblr]

Sunday Shopping - Of Swim Suits, Kaftans, & Muu-muu-ness

As I am a water baby, I have several swim suits. I can't find a photograph of my two favorites--a navy & white polka-dot maillot & a black & white dotted halter with short swimming skirt (no, I had nothing to hide when I bought it in, of all places, a tiny chic shop in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania on some road trip or other). Before you think, oh what a bore (about bathing suits anyway), so many people stopped me on a trip to Greece about those suits that it was weird. It isn't always easy, finding that simple well-made something. I tried to help. This also happens with hats; again, I help or try to. I do not say, Oh I couldn't possibly remember or It was a gift. (Unless, indeed, it was.) That's so mean-spirited.

What I really need as I cannot wear these suits, currently, is a caftan/kaftan. À la Elizabeth Taylor when she had "the chubbies." Gawd. It's too late to order one /shop for one --it's 100+ degrees out; it's too late to sew one. So indulging self in vintage bathing suit pix, & a few kaftans, links.

Little Augury has a particularly pretty kaftan love post from last summer (including modern & vintage photographs). If only I'd seen her post a month ago. You'll enjoy nosing about her blog. Also, Sasha at Liberty London Girl (always interesting & fun), recently posted on Tallulah & Hope silk kaftans. I just cannot afford these but it's nice to look. With my background in the Maghreb & Middle East & rest of the Mediterranean-bleeping-Basin, one would think I'd have an emergency kaftan on hand. (I gave a good one away some years back.)

Muu-muus, anyone? I called every garment my stylish grandmother put on (after proper company left) a "muu muu." She did not correct me as it was the "moooo" sound that I so wanted to use. (I mean no disrespect to Hawaiians. Some friends sport those prints fabulously. It sounds counter-intuitive, but I'm too small to wear them well, no matter what my weight. I did not realize the possibility of the toned-down muu muu before today. )

On the way to the beach, I might buy a half-bolt of gauzy fabric & wrap self in it. A gigantic bandage sitting under a large market umbrella, that could be me. (I'm too young to be terribly eccentric! What will my excuse be later on in life?) Otherwise, as the sun sets on those off to drinks-before-dinner, I'll be patrolling the shore in a long white nightgown. I think that's the hour when the first victim became dinner in "Jaws." Uh oh.

[some images via myvintagevogue (the website is looking spectacular); some via LIFE Archives; & Elizabeth & Richard by the great Henry Clark via Retro Vintage Mod Style]

Le Regard Bleu/The Blue Look

Une Histoire de Bleu / From A Story of Blue by Jean-Michel Maulpoix [From Poetry, October 2000]

Nous connaissons par ouï-dire l'existence de l'amour.

Assis sur un rocher ou sous un parasol rouge, allongés dans le pré bourdonnant d'insectes, les deux mains sous la nuque, agenouillés dans la fraîcheur et l'obscurité d'une église, ou tassés sur une chaise de paille entre les quatre murs de la chambre/

************
We know through hearsay that love exists.

Seated on a rock or under a red parasol, lying in the field buzzing with insects, our hands clasped behind our necks, kneeling in the cool darkness of a church, or settled on a straw chair within the four walls of the bedroom/(continued)

Four walls of bedrooms (chambres) via Marie Claire Maison. Yes, still looking at these (& rewriting). I loved this prose poem in the October 2000 Poetry & still do. It fell off the shelf today & so it's come to this: books or journals that fall on my feet (or head) due to lack of housekeeping (or space), that's a post. That's what happens with writing, as well. It's not as dumb as it sounds or seems. (She said to herself.)

On the Phone - Charmed, I'm Sure

I will call, just a moment. Keep repeating to self: Go to the party, you idiot cow. What is wrong with you?" Oh, I should be kinder to self? As in, I never speak to people the way I speak to myself. Right. What could be so scary? You've done this most of your life. Why didn't I read the book beforehand? Shall not pretend to have done so. Shall remain calm in manner of Bridget...oh no, that wasn't charming. Funny, yes. Goal: no funny business (tonight). Especially no unintentional slapstick. No, you absolutely cannot go in nightgown & ballet slippers. Only maniacs, people under 20, & Julian Schnabel wear their pajamas at public events.

Oof.

[images of AH (except AH reading book) via Lia Chang's Backstage Pass blog. A new-to-me scanner/printer sits just where it did more than 2 weeks ago when a friend dropped it off. Of course it does. AH reading book by Mark Shaw; in pjs, by Alfred Eisenstaedt, both via LIFE Archives]

Hardwired for Blue

I am, that's for sure. Here are some random images with/of blue from a folder; but not the monochromes of Yves Klein, currently on exhibition in Washington, DC at the Hirshhorn. Here are two related Washington Post articles (with illustrations) about Yves Klein, his blue, & other blues. I am beyond tired...so I look at blue(s). It's not even a choice, really. I'm waiting for the crowds to clear out (ha) before I go to the exhibit.

I was going to put in links to tumblr & other image sites using blue hues...wow. Too many to check out tonight. Read up on Yves & yes, I know the top shot has a lot of violet in it.

[images backward (!): sunbrella by Olga; blue (with green) room, blue window, gull take-off, & diptych on deviant art, via we heart it.