Tiny Fragile Animals

I could not resist these. When I saw the second photograph (& more on Nonesuch via swissmiss), I thought of a line in a Leonard Cohen poem: /because your eyelashes/are the spines of tiny fragile animals.

That's all. But hop over to the link & see the other lashes. Very cool. (Jean Shrimpton by Brian Duffy via We Heart Vintage. More here on a GG post last month)

Lying in Wait for Happiness

I'm behind in plans to post regularly. I've turned off comments to avoid appearance of blog-begging, similar to Twitter-begging - which I loathe. (That's shilling for sympathy, comments, followers, etc.) Yehuda Amichai is the author of the title & poem. I finally found it online, here. (It's in the volume Poems of Jerusalem and Love Poems) Lovely photograph is by Virginia Gálvez. Back soon...

Update, 8 June - I'm working on some essays & posts for later this month. In the interim, pls follow me over to Twitter @juliethecat. I could use the company. I can't promise you a great time but there will be silliness. xo

Revolution of Snow

Today we woke up to a revolution of snow,

its white flag waving over everything,

the landscape vanished,

not a single mouse to punctuate the blankness,

and beyond these windows...Snow Day, Billy Collins

Update - Saturday, 5 Feb 2011. Twitter re: Egypt. Feeling way under-the-weather. Even quite ill. Oof.

If you don't have access to Al Jazeera English (very rare in the States - though I can access it just fine), watch here.

Look at That Face

Look at that face -
Just look at it,
Look at that fabulous face of yours.
I knew first look I took at it,
This was the face that the world adores.

Look at those eyes -
As wise and as deep as the sea.
Look at that nose -
It shows what a nose should be.--The Roar of the Greasepaint --the Smell of the Crowd*

(*lyrics & music by Leslie Briscusse & Anthony Newley)

I want to get September started. Unwisely, I began by reading September 1, 1939 by WH Auden. (A poem he came to loathe & caused all manner of fuss about--something he was quite good at. Poets are such pains in the rear sometimes. I'm a pain in the rear. Haven't you noticed?) It's a poem included in many services, secular (yes, there are those kind) & otherwise, after September 11, 2001. I read it at one. I defended my clichéd choice on the following grounds: "It's only been a few days. There's still smoke in the freaking air. I can't think of anything else & five people are arguing in the corner about who gets to read "The Second Coming".

With all of that swirling in my head, plus Hurricane Earl chugging up the coast, I thought cute cat faces from this slightly altered Giulia Geranium post would be fun. As if on cue, a big wet pink feline nose is nudging me to hurry up already.

[images here, here, here, & here via we heart it]

The Interrupted Concert

It was on this day in 1936 that the 38-year-old Spanish poet Federico García Lorca was executed, a few weeks after the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War. In those first weeks, people on both sides — the leftist republicans and the right-wing nationalists — were rounded up and killed, as many as 50,000, with particularly heavy casualties against the republicans. Lorca was a leftist sympathizer, an open homosexual, and a writer who wrote about oppressed people like gypsies, so he was an easy target for the nationalists.--The Writer's Almanac

"Seventy years after his death, his voice is just as alive as on that 19 August night when bullets tried to silence it." --conclusion to this 2006 article, Poet's Death Still Troubles Spain.

Here is the link to the bilingual Fundacion Federico García Lorca (in Madrid) created by Lorca's sister, Isabel. BBC link of Lorca's life in pictures, here. I can barely write a thing as this horrific murder makes me weep.

The Interrupted Concert

The frozen sleepy pause

of the half moon

has broken the harmony

of the deep night.

The ditches, shrouded in sedge,

protest in silence,

and the frogs, muezzins of shadow,

have fallen silent.

In the old village inn

the sad music has ceased,

and the most ancient of stars

has muted its ray.

The wind has come to rest

in dark mountain caves,

and a solitary poplar—Pythagoras

of the pure plain—

lifts its aged hand

to strike at the moon. (trans. W.S. Merwin)

Arms Akimbo

...Their guild is giving money to the poor.

The worthy poor. The very very worthy

And beautiful poor. Perhaps just not too swarthy?

perhaps just not too dirty nor too dim

Nor—passionate. In truth, what they could wish

Is—something less than derelict or dull.

Not staunch enough to stab, though, gaze for gaze!

God shield them sharply from the beggar-bold!

The noxious needy ones whose battle’s bald

Nonetheless for being voiceless, hits one down.

But it’s all so bad! and entirely too much for them.

From The Lovers of the Poor by Gwendolyn Brooks. Entire poem, here.

I'm just as guilty, by the way. But I fight it. (Hint. The labels on my blogs are commentary, as well as a way for me to keep track of things undone, unsaid, incomplete. Ongoing projects, etc.) Something funnier, no doubt, later. Like running down the street at ungodly early hour, after garbage collectors. In robe & nightgown. (I was wearing the nightgown/robe.)

As Julie's blog is on break (though I might take it off break, so much is happening), here is a link to the lists of places to send help to Pakistan.

Update on Thursday evening. Wow, I'm infuriated by the news. Here's another list of places to help Pakistan. As I say on the other blog, some enlightened self-interest is a good thing. So even if you don't care about 20 million people, you might want to prevent some pretty bad blow-back. Just saying.

[Joan Bennett, arms akimbo via Stars of Yesterday tumblr]

A Tiny Cat of Rome

This was gruesome--fighting over a ham sandwich

with one of the tiny cats of Rome, he leaped

on my arm and half hung on to the food and half

hung on to my shirt and coat. i tore it apart

and let him have his portion, I think I lifted him

down, sandwich and all, on the sidewalk and sat

with my own sandwich beside him, maybe I petted

his bony head and felt him shiver. (rest of poem) from Another Insane Devotion, Gerald Stern

So you couldn't have found something pretty to write about a pretty Roman gatto? No, I'm feeling devilish tonight. Besides, I love this poem by Gerald Stern. (He was born in Pittsburgh, by the way.)

Thank you so much to Julie of Being Ruby for sending me a new version of the Coliseum Cat. She included an earlier version in a package last autumn, along with a beautiful handbag that I won on her blog. Julie publishes beautiful photographs of her travels & of her Sydney. This print sits patiently with many other things-I-love, ready to be placed just-so on a wall above the desk. If, when, if, when the wall is painted. Soon, soon. So I am told.

I love the nerve of this cat but I worry about him (or her), too. Don't blame the big cats for the hideous goings on at the Coliseum. Man invented it. Cats kill to eat, not to entertain themselves & others.

[photograph by Julie Newcombe/Being Ruby/all rights reserved]

Storm Warnings

I draw the curtains as the sky goes black
And set a match to candles sheathed in glass
Against the keyhole draught, the insistent whine
Of weather through the unsealed aperture.
This is our sole defense against the season;
These are the things we have learned to do
Who live in troubled regions. -Adrienne Rich

Not Again. Yes. Again.

(lovely photograph by Virginia Gálvez)

NB--Power didn't go out during a storm; oh no. It went out at 12.03am when all was as quiet as a mouse. I intend to mount a public campaign to force Potomac Electric Power Company to reduce bills, issue reimbursement vouchers for perishables, especially for those of us on fixed incomes. Also to reimburse diabetics, & others who must use refrigerated medicines. I shall think of my opening gambit tomorrow afternoon. I shall spend all of August on it, if need be.

Fifteen+ years of unreliable service is enough. Hurricanes, etc. yes. I understand; but if the basic integrity of the structure is not maintained, this is what we get. Unacceptable. This is war. Power companies should not make profits; they cannot be responsible to shareholders & public safety simultaneously. I have finally convinced a few former colleagues of this FACT. The fact that I live in liberal Maryland might help. Watch out PEPCO--you finally snapped my last nerve. Just now.

Poppies in July

(Photograph by Olga via flickr)

Update - and now I can't OK comments. It just won't work, so thanks. I'm sorry. Let's see how long Blogger takes to fix it. If ever.

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.)

Week's End - For Daphne on the Beach

...who got away & did not turn into a laurel tree, after all.

A toe touched the tip of North Africa & I took off, ran, ran, ran along the beach,* shouting over loud waves, too loud for the Med, really, about finally getting to the continent. Possibly I was shouting in my head. Only recently 18, one would've thought I'd journeyed that long to get there. I knew it would be a long haul to get from there to the rest-of-there. Must always remind people, "Africa is a continent, the largest."

Three companions & the beach caretaker (who became a self-appointed guardian & two-week Arabic tutor), maybe they were rolling their eyes. It was the far end of dusk, so I didn't see & for once I didn't care what anyone thought about my exuberance.

*I love these photographs by Rengim Mutevellioglu. They remind me of the eastern Mediterranean shore (the top one is marked as 'Beirut' here, but not on RM's CV, nor on Kropp Creative Database). Definitely check out Rengim's portfolio - a 19-year-old Russian living in Paris.

NB: re pix & labels. I know Lebanon is not in Africa, people, but I was near Carthage & that means something to me, if no to one else. Additionally, that first NA trip coincided with the beginning of the Lebanese civil war...the story of begging an unaccountably smitten young English diplomat in Tunis to get me, g-damn it, on a plane to Beirut or Damascus is for another time. (I've possibly said too much already & have to check.) I conflate those two places because they conflated & collided simultaneously in my life & in other people's lives, many whom I'd yet to meet.

Flower Bracelets

Michael Ondaatje's The Time Around Scars (If I ever find a link that doesn't have tons of weird pop-ups, I'll include it) is open on a table nearby & for buried reasons, I thought of this photograph already in my cache. But I love gloves, flowers, the facial expression of the woman as she looks at/past the photographer (Nina Leen, via LIFE archives). Lovers of The English Patient should read Ondaatje's extraordinary poems.There are some YouTube links to a few of his readings if you're interested. Marvellous voice. Good night.

A Battle Lost

Van Gogh's Prayer by János Pilinszky (originally published in Poetry, March 2008)

A battle lost in the cornfields

and in the sky a victory.

Birds, the sun and birds again.

By night, what will be left of me?

By night, only a row of lamps,

a wall of yellow clay that shines,

and down the garden, through the trees,

like candles in a row, the panes....rest of poem, here.

It might seem unfair, that title, as it is Van Gogh's birthday, but...it's my blog. Such as it is. Hazel at the Clever Pup has a nice tribute today.

[the first of 3(versions) La chambre de Van Gogh à Arles in VG museum/Amsterdam via French wikipedia; Rami di mandorlo in fiore/Amandier en fleurs is a postcard via my old scanner. Update, nope. Here is a much better link via Arianna at Wikimedia Commons.]

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]

At the Market

How easily happiness begins by

dicing onions. A lump of sweet butter

slithers and swirls across the floor

of the sauté pan, especially if its

errant path crosses a tiny slick

of olive oil. Then a tumble of onions...-William Matthews

The first stanza of Onions. Read it, do. Then, if like me you have a lot of lentils & rice (all kinds) on hand, it's hard to beat Marcella Hazan's Zuppa di lenticchie. The lentil love link is to Champaign Taste, an excellent food blog & since Lisa typed it out all pretty, why do it over? If you're a vegetarian, leave out the pancetta & use water or vegetable broth. If you're vegan, leave out the parmesan, too. No problem. But I beg you--spend the extra money on San Marzano tomatoes. Yes, it really does make a difference.

The photograph is by fave Giampaolo Macorig who was in a Roman market recently. Look at all those rices, grains, & legumes. It's going to rain cats & dogs here soon...so off to make soup.

ciao

Island Iris

[photograph on Mykonos by lovely Miki**]

Week's End - Bird in Jerusalem

From the landscape of endless argument* The neck ribbon diverts one's attention from those talons. Someone needs a manicure. Forgive the pedestrian nature of titles, no words. Perhaps I've used this photograph in another post here. Seem to have wrenched something (not just my brain). Ouch.

Cheers from snowy DC. I wonder what everyone is up to...I shall visit after watching Georgetown v. Duke. (Yes, I watch college basketball.)

*I'm quoting myself (!) & I can't find magazine to scan. Yes, this is called self-sabotage, though it hardly seems important. Today.

Update on Tuesday, 2 February - hibernating but will post suitable photograph when I have energy to find it. Meanwhile, happy groundhog day.

Pear

Believing each simple thing passes from a perception that is less clear/

into one that is, eventually, more clear....Pear by Susan Stewart

[photograph by D Sharon Pruitt/Pink Sherbet Photography Free For All Creative Commons]

Ready or Not

Pack lightly we move so fast --It's a Young Country from World Hotel

The year, the decade begins without a header, a coherent design, etc., as I promised myself last year. Couldn't find the photographs I wanted (what else is new?) for a most amusing -- OK, to me it would be amusing -- post. But I liked this photograph from worldislandphoto's flickr stream (unattributed photographer) a few days ago. Thanks so much to everyone who has left comments &/or emailed the last year & a half (some for GG's blog). I can't take comments on GG but some of you have discovered that you can comment on the Facebook link there. I actually didn't realize that I'd successfully linked it until fairly recently. Yes, I blundered into it. This is perhaps an example of "happy accidents" to which The Clever Pup refers.

Happy New Year to all.

Weather Report

'Now wherefore, thus, by day and night,
In rain, in tempest, and in snow,
Thus to the dreary mountain-top
Does this poor Woman go?--Wordsworth

Only to the post office, actually. Just feeling floopy (e.g., bunny feels floopy, ears go droopy) & Sarah Bernhardt-y.

For excellent suggestions to keeping on track, see Scrap Basket at Work-in-Progress (it can involve wine, if you wish--always a welcome notion.)

[LIFE Archives photographs by Gjon Mili & David Scherman]