Summer Sandals

These are nearly identical to beloved sandals I had for about 18 years. Up & down countless steps & hills, deserts & cities, seashores & villages. Pulling out of a Metro station two days ago, I saw a woman wearing-- my sandals! (Or close.) Where, where? Did you get them? OK, I thought-yelled it. I do not believe they exist in this world--now--for less than $500 dollars. I don't remember where I bought them (a dust storm was kicking up), but they were in a half-smashed cardboard box. I searched for a left & then a right, paid, & left wearing them, running from that storm. So many people asked me about those sandals. They served me well. Until one day, a cobbler said Not even I, Signorina, can mend these. You must say good-bye. I know it is hard. Much history, yes? Only enough to break your heart. The kind that breaks your heart. [photograph by Nina Leen, LIFE Archives]

Week's End - Streets of Jerusalem

Some of the best (& most surreal, disturbing, intriguing) walks were here. You want material? For writing, for thinking? It's here. Tramping up & down hills, through villages (where I should not have been), everywhere. My scanner is broken* (of course, it is)...& so just this evocative Streets of Jerusalem photograph by Julian Kaseler via we heart it] That's a little girl walking down an inexplicably (to me) empty street. But it happens, that bit of quiet there, yes, sometimes. I wonder where she is now. OK, that's enough from me because I just found a pix of Leonard Cohen in concert in Israel. Oh, too tempting, too tired. It'll be fun just to think of it. Have a peaceful weekend. And feel fortunate for it....(that goes for me, too, yes).

[*Though most of my photographs were destroyed there, I have friends who have wonderful ones & I'm sure they'll lend them to me if I would just ask. So I will. Tomorrow, said Scarlett]

Monday update: resting for today at least. Hope to be back tomorrow. I see many tempting posts just on this site...Cheers all.

Corner Window

It reminds me of a flat I borrowed along the way. The books (none in English) were like that, the corner window, too. I read Bellow in French, Camus in Italian & I thought I was a genius. (Wine was involved). [photograph from pearls and tea (live journal which is not live!, via we heart it]

Walking the Old City

In Jerusalem, and I mean within the ancient walls,

I walk from one epoch to another without a memory

to guide me...-by Mahmoud Darwish

[photograph via we heart it, unattributed from an unidentified tumblr acct. Let me know if it's yours; I'd love a dove hair ornament]

L'eau de Rose/Rosewater

I use a lot of rosewater (in food & otherwise). The last photograph of the Jordanian desert will illustrate why rosewater became essential to my well-being when living there. (OK, not in the desert but working on a dig, it's much the same thing.) It's an affordable tonic.

[photographs from lovely sfgirlbybay; your life, it seems extravagant/tumblr; dizrthymia/tumblr; all via we heart it; Jordanian desert from The Real Israel blog on Wordpress.]

Jerusalem in Sepia

[The Real Israel blog; unfortunately, inactive]

Gyges & Desert Dreams

Promise to find Phil Bray, the still photographer. (photo credit) [Update: 28 June 2009. Here is provisional link to Phil Bray's Credit site.] These are crazy with color & saturation & stuff like that. I did some of it because, again, the photos online are a mess. Might as well make them crazier looking. Feeling hallucinatory anyway. 'night.

Famous Blue Raincoat

Aha. Never trust a writer, particularly one who is underemployed...so no, not 4am, not NYC. Was thinking about Leonard on tour (here a few days ago in DC...of course I couldn't go) & love triangles & so on. And I wanted to get these shots into the archives, & oh well. Cohen isn't satisfied with the lyrics & I understand why. I don't know anyone who is satisfied with most things they do. Here's a quote to BBC Radio, years ago:

"The trouble with that song is that I've forgotten the actual triangle. Whether it was my own … of course. I always felt that there was an invisible male seducing the woman I was with, now whether this one was incarnate or merely imaginary I don't remember, I've always had the sense that either I've been that figure in relation to another couple or there'd been a figure like that in relation to my marriage. I don't quite remember but I did have this feeling that there was always a third party, sometimes me, sometimes another man, sometimes another woman."

That isn't the 'trouble.' By the time you rework some things, you can forget your name, or would like to, or that was the purpose in the first place (if you admitted it). Also one suspects he's like everyone else: who wants to remember?

Still looking for a site for the still photographer listed in TEP credits (Phil Bray). This is also one of those it's-Egyptian-desert-Cairo-but-really-Tunisia deals. It's difficult to believe that I stood not far from where the top photo was shot, some years earlier; that was some taxi ride. Remain fairly obsessed by it (the desert). What is "fairly" obsessed? I don't know. Will edit. Maybe. [photographs are saturated, cropped, detailed, tinted, & sepia-ed by me. They were a mess on original downloads anyway. I think there's an actual making-of book & I'd love to have it. Maybe. Have to look at it first & then win the lottery.]

Off to ultra-scary dentist appointment...& no doubt people arguing about mustard on the Metro. (Yes, I'm talking about people talking about the President's moutarde choice. Criminy.)

[photo credits /Phil Bray]-Update: 28 June 2009. Here is new link to Phil Bray Credits - looking for individual website, still.

Overexposures

...literally.

By Gjon Mili from the LIFE archives. (Mili photos of Françoise Gilot & Henri Matisse are in earlier posts) & here is Picasso drawing a vase of flowers in 1949. The others are from the Stravinsky Festival in 1972. Oddly, they remind me of The English Patient's (film) "fresco scene in Arezzo" with Juliette Binoche & the cute Kip (I know he's on that Lost thing, Naveen Andrews? Not looking it up now.) Spending quite a bit of (unwelcome) downtime figuring out pieces of personal Italian-Tunisian-rest-of-MEastern puzzle. Also preoccupied drawing a version of Matisse's flower-petal letters. This is where fever-pain & lack of calories gets you. Not too far. (Here's a link to a quick Lightwriting from Picasso to Lichtfaktor article; it refers to Mili & Picasso.)

Re: The English Patient (see here for The Clever Pup's excellent post on Theme Thursday "Fire" -- it's what set this whole thing off, really). I noticed in a still shot of Hana's flowered dress...that it's the same (or so close there's barely a difference) pattern as the top I wear almost every day. A French friend gave it to me for what I shall refer to as my period of avoirdupois. It's the most inconsequential (but pretty) top & I am asked quite often "where did you get that? Is it European?!" So funny. Now I know I should say: it's a frumpy floral from the forties. But that would not be nice, so I won't. Honestly, I'm much more polite than I seem on this site.

I would post those TEP photos but I think it's too much for Picasa at moment....& since I'm down for the count, I ought to leave something, anything for tomorrow. Clever Pup is spouting excellent haiku to VVG. All the sites in the right side-bar are doing something interesting. I just can't get to all of them to comment or even download 'til later. [The fun Tina Tarnoff tag can't be done until/unless it receives a bit more thought than I can bring to it now. Fun is serious business!]

bacini

Rosewater

Lame? Well, yes but you try & think of something more clever than "pink" on short notice. Besides, I use rosewater & it came to mind & the blog is bricolage, after all. North African pinks, roses, rose-mixed-with-ochres, are so beautiful. From only alice's Marrakesh set (to which she has added, grazie alice.) ciao.