Fireflies

Being a self-respecting fashion photography obsessive, I love Tim Walker. Click here for a short Vogue Italia film. What self-restraint--only one photograph. It's like being on a diet. Just playing around, I can't do much at moment. Julie the Cat & I have been moon watching. In other night light news, I am happy to report that the annual festival of fireflies is lighting up a pagoda-shaped pine out back. I wait for it every year. Julie is still on a chair looking out, but her mewing-reportage has subsided so I think the show is over.

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]

Amaryllis & Paperwhites

There's still time to start amaryllis & paperwhites for the holidays. There are newish varieties of paperwhites that don't scent-offend about 50% of the population. (That would be 'Ziva' who so annoys.) If you can still get your hands on the 'minor' bulbs (e.g., muscari) or smallish narcissus, tulips, & so forth, do so, pop into the fridge & follow directions, here. It makes you feel like a genius when they bloom & bunches of tulips are at a premium.

Here's a link to Persuading the Paperwhite, godawful pix & all, from Giulia Geranium blog last winter. For containers, look around the house or apartment before buying a thing; I've forced flowers in just about everything not porous; when done, bowls & so on go straight into the dishwasher & serve as food vessels again. (For near-instant gratification, grab one of the amaryllis or paperwhite kits on sale in food markets right now & water. But do pop in & find some other bulbs for later in winter.)

[Flower photographs via White Flower Farm. Image of Amaryllis via artmagik]

Leaving the Station

I do miss Strasbourg & all Alsace, especially this time of year. Powerfully.

[photograph by Louis Faurer - 1960s originally via myvintagevogue flickr/no longer available; here is another link]

Week's End - To Autumn

Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?/ Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,

--John Keats, complete poem...

Oh no, another Keats post? You bet. Thank you, Jane Campion, for your new film Bright Star. I heard high school students talking this afternoon & the word 'Keats' floated through the air between them. This wasn't in a school building.

Keats arrived in Rome (via Naples) 21 October 1820; the ship was quarantined & he did not arrive in Rome until 15 November. Though he did not write poetry in what were to be his last months, he wrote one letter, to his friend Charles Brown. It's heartbreaking, especially the last two lines. "...I can scarcely bid you good bye even in a letter. I always made an awkward bow."

The photographs are from the Keats-Shelley House near the Spanish Steps; the salon & Keats' bedroom. In these very rooms & at the Protestant Cemetery, I have disgraced myself several times with squeaky sniffs. Once, I embarrassed a younger sister & have not yet been forgiven. Ever after, I have visited alone.

A lovely weekend to all. (Sniff.)

Lungo Tevere by Giampaolo Macorig via flickr; Keats-Shelley House photographs by frattaglia via flickr; Protestant Cemetery, Keats' grave by Piero Montesacro via wikimedia commons.

Snowdrop love

Oh thank goodness, they're here! (photographs by John Crillan via floralimages.uk)

Pretty Purple Finch

So far behind this week (typical for une bricoleuse). One can do much worse than go look at Tom Grim's gorgeous flickrstream.