Little Day - Starn

CHRISTENING GOWN,
ACCUSTOMED, CEREMONIOUS

Family Heirloom
Worn by my grandmother's older brother
Great Uncle Harry Louis Heideman
Born 16 June 1887

My Grandson William Aidan McCartney
Born 18 May 2022
Modeling the same gown 135 years later

Swathed in antique handmade lace,
Aidan looked like a modern day Baby Jesus,
so perfect for the Christmas Season,
and just like all the sweet songs:

The Face of Love
For I have seen, the face of love
The grace of God, the face of love . . .

Mary, Did You Know . . .
When you kiss your little baby
You kiss the face of God . . .

. I'm also thinking of The Second Shepherds' Play (c. 1500), a medieval mystery play in which three bumbling but earnest shepherds -- Coll, Gib, and Daw -- come with fun presents for the baby: a cluster of cherries, a bird, and everyone's favorite: a ball!

COLL
Hail, young child! . . .

Lo, he laughs, my sweeting!
A well fair meeting!
I have holden my heting [kept my promise]
Have a bob of cherries.

GIB
Hail, sovereign Saviour,
For thou has us sought!
Hail freely child and flower,
That all thing has wrought!
Hail, full of favour,
That made all of nought!
Hail! I kneel and I cower.
A bird have I brought
To my barn [child].
Hail, little tiny mop!
Of our creed thou art crop.
I would drink on thy cup,
Little day-starn [star].

DAW
Hail, darling dear,
Full of Godhead!
I pray thee be near
When that I have need.
Hail, sweet is thy cheer [face]
My heart would bleed
To see thee sit here
In so poor weed [clothing]
With no pennies.
Hail, put forth thy dall [hand]!
I bring thee but a ball:
Have and play thee withal,
And go to the tennis.

For Aidan, instead of a ball,
a 21st C bubble punch toy!
(And a little bird!)

Hail, little tiny mop!


Hail, darling dear!

Christmas 2020: Ellie in Swaddling Clothes (on the right)
Christmas 2021: Ellie's Concept Costume

********************************


Additional medieval mystery / morality play connection:

These headstones in the old cemetery near our house
seem to me like characters in Everyman (c. 1510)

In the words of Martin Luther's hymn:
"Let goods and kindred go,
This mortal life also . . ." (c 1529)

I can hear them saying,
"No, Everyman! Kindred and Youth
will NOT be stepping into the grave with you!"
Poor Everyman!

I have always felt sorry for Everyman that Knowledge can't go to the grave with him. All the others -- Fellowship, Kindred, Cousin -- I can accept. But it seems such a shame to say farewell to Knowledge after staying awake all those hours in pursuit of it. That will be my next conundrum to overcome -- as soon as I find away to overcome (instead of being overcome by) Sleep -- how to take Knowledge with me to the afterlife.

Next Fortnightly Post
Saturay, January 14th

Between now and then, read
THE QUOTIDIAN KIT
my shorter, almost daily blog posts
www.dailykitticarriker.blogspot.com

Looking for a good book? Try
KITTI'S LIST
my running list of recent reading
www.kittislist.blogsppot.com

Oakleaf Hydrangea

THE OAKLEAF HYDRANGEA,
ACCUSTOMED, CEREMONIOUS

Oakleaf Hydrangea
Still vivid red in mid - December!

The amazing thing about these robust hydrangea leaves is that even on the darkest night of the year, a full week or more after the above photograph, they will still be hanging from the branches. A few might be withered and sad or crumbled on the ground from rough winds, but many will remain to make the offical transition from fall to winter, long after autumn has "rolled down the hillside":
In village stations hamlets, market towns,
Cathedral cities, ends of country lanes
Like this one, where the autumn's rolling down
The hillside, and it wont be very long
Before the leaves are stacked up window-level . . .

~ Martha Grimes ~

Fall, leaves, fall; die, flowers, away;
Lengthen night and shorten day;
Every leaf speaks bliss to me
Fluttering from the autumn tree.
I shall smile when wreaths of snow
Blossom where the rose should grow;
I shall sing when night’s decay
Ushers in a drearier day.

~ Emily Bronte ~

"I don't know why,
but I always love the way
the fall leaves cover my back yard
before they turn brown and brittle."

I love the way that my sister Peg has written a kind of inadvertent, slightly expanded haiku to go along with this photograph of her backyard that she took this month. In one of those perfect coincidences that feature on this blog, one moment I was admiring Peg's current photograph, and a moment later, I just happened to scroll across these wonderful words Peg shared way back in November 2011. Like the autumn itself, Peg's words are timeless:

"I think these beautiful colors of a fall sunset are what makes it my favorite time of year. I even enjoy looking at the trees in my yard as they begin disrobing for winter. The stark contrast of the still-clinging colored leaves, the dark branches, and the ever-changing sky as a backdrop are so beautiful. And there's no sound in the world like the crunching of brittle fall leaves as you walk."

Next Fortnightly Post
Wednesday, December 28th

Between now and then, read
THE QUOTIDIAN KIT
my shorter, almost daily blog posts
www.dailykitticarriker.blogspot.com

Looking for a good book? Try
KITTI'S LIST
my running list of recent reading
www.kittislist.blogsppot.com

Advent Wreath

ADVENT CANDLES,
ACCUSTOMED, CEREMONIOUS

Thanks to my friend Megan
for the card of PEACE

Yesterday was the First Sunday of Advent, the traditional starting point of the season of holiday anticipation. Advent Sunday is always the fourth Sunday before Christmas Day, which is usually the Sunday immediately following Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving always falls between November 22nd & November 28th, with the First Sunday of Advent falling somewhere between November 27th and December 3rd. The charming daily Advent Calendars -- featuring magical doors, tiny surprises, booklets, pictures, chocolates -- always begin on December 1st, but the weekly Advent Candles began (this year) on November 27th. The timing is perfect: another Thanksgiving has been successfully written into the family history, and now begins the the countdown to Christmas!

Ellie says:
Goodbye Thanksgiving. Hello Christmas!

In his classic "Oratorio," W. H. Auden (1907- 73) captures the outsized sense of expectation that we inevitably bring to this time of year:

"For the innocent children who whispered so excitedly
Outside the locked door where they knew the presents to be
Grew up when it opened. . . . "

Similary, Elizabeth Jennings (1926- 2001) compares the pre - Christmas excitement of a child to the post - Christmas reality of deflated expectations. Her poem moves from forethought / build - up to afterthought / let - down; and the concluding realizations ring just as true for adults as they do for children:

Afterthought

For weeks before it comes I feel excited, yet when it
At last arrives, things all go wrong:
My thoughts don't seem to fit.

I've planned what I'll give everyone and what they'll give to me,
and then on Christmas morning all
The presents seem to be

Useless and tarnished. I have dreamt that everything would come
To life—presents and people too.
Instead of that, I'm dumb.

And people say. 'How horrid! What a sulky little boy!'
And they are right. I can't seem pleased.
The lovely shining toy

I wanted so much when I saw it in a magazine
Seems pointless now. And Christmas too
No longer seems to mean

The hush, the star, the baby, people being kind again.
The bells are rung, sledges are drawn.
And peace on earth for them.

by Elizabeth Jennings

Whether or not Jennings was thinking of Advent, I like the way the final stanza echoes the characteristics of the four Advent candles:

the first candle represents hope & prophecy: "The hush"
the second candle represents peace & Bethlehem: "the star"
the third candle represents love & angels: "the baby"
the fourth candle represents joy & shepherds: "people being kind."

If you want to pull together an Advent wreath, there are numerous designs and color combinations to choose from, but all you really need are four candles that you love the look of, such as this Swedish set from my beloved, inspired and inspiring neighbor Virginia:

or this combination from 2018:

In 2016, I incorporated my brother Dave's hand - crafted Aggravation / Parcheesi / Trouble Game Board into my Advent Candle, lending to the medieval wagon wheel effect:

"The Advent wreath -- usually an evergreen wreath, with candles -- came to us directly from winter solstice celebrations when large wagon wheels were decorated with evergreens and lit candles to encourage the return of light" (p 48).

from Treat or Trick? Halloween in a Globalising World
by Malcolm Foley & Hugh O'Donnell

More Advent Ideas

More Poems by Elizabeth Jennings
This Colorful Friday
The Falling Fruit, The Certain Spring
Childhood Autumn
When I Said Autumnal Equinox
Secret Garden

More by Auden

2023
Next Fortnightly Post
Wednesday, December 14th

Between now and then, read
THE QUOTIDIAN KIT
my shorter, almost daily blog posts
www.dailykitticarriker.blogspot.com

Looking for a good book? Try
KITTI'S LIST
my running list of recent reading
www.kittislist.blogsppot.com

The Soul Shrinks: Wilbur & Whyte

FURTHER CONNECTIONS,
ACCUSTOMED, CEREMONIOUS

" . . . a small opening into the new day . . . "

1. Scroll back eleven years
to Richard Wilbur's dreamy poem
"Love Calls Us to the Things of This World":

"The eyes open to a cry of pulleys,
And spirited from sleep, the astounded soul
Hangs for a moment bodiless and simple
As false dawn. . . .

The soul shrinks

From all that is about to remember,
From the punctual rape of every blessed day . . ."

&

2. Now go back five Thanksgivings
to David Whyte's tender reminder of
"What To Remember When Waking":

"In that first hardly noticed moment in which you wake,
coming back to this life from the other
more secret, moveable and frighteningly honest world
where everything began,
there is a small opening into the new day
which closes the moment you begin your plans. . . .

To be human is to become visible . . .
To remember the other world in this world
is to live . . . "

In very similar ways, these two poems describe the first few seconds of consciousness after a deep forgetful sleep. Whyte says the world of dreams is frightening; Wilbur finds the waking world astounding, and not always in a good way -- which is why the soul shrinks from it. Waking up is hard! It's all about remembering and starting over again, every day.

Nowhere is this daily repetition more vividly demonstrated than in the morning routine of Roy Scheider / Joe Gideon / Bob Fosse, as portrayed in the 1979 movie All that Jazz. He washes his face, puts drops in his eyes, takes a handful of meds, smacks his cheeks, looks in the mirror, and -- miraculously -- his soul appears, ready to accept the punishing reality of his relentless schedule: It's showtime!

Wilbur imagines the soul beginning each day "bodiless" before its descent and reunion with the physical body. Similarly, Whyte suggests the soul's movement from one state to another: "To be human is to become visible." However mystical and enriching our sleep may be, we are perpetually required to make the jagged transition from dreams to reality, to apply ourselves, to get back to work again, gathering our desires. It' showtime!

The morning light illuminates the "hunks and colors" and "shapes" of our earthly life, all those bulky obligations and responsibilities, all that quotidian laundry.

For Wilbur,

" . . the sun acknowledges
With a warm look the world's hunks and colors,
The soul descends once more in bitter love
To accept the waking body . . . "


For Whyte,

"Now, looking through the slanting light of the morning window
toward the mountain presence of everything that can be
what urgency calls you to your one love?
What shape waits . . . "

In both poems, it is love, bitter or not, that calls us to the things of this world. Each narrator reveals a strategy for how to keep on loving the world, participating in the panorama, and writing about it. Whyte says, have a big plan, not a small plan; try not to feel uneasy; you belong here! Wilbur says, no it's not easy keeping our balance; it's difficult but also -- as he describes the laundry animated by the breeze -- joyful, angelic, delicate.

Photos of November Foliage
West Sussex, England

Next Fortnightly Post
Monday, November 28th

Between now and then, read
THE QUOTIDIAN KIT
my shorter, almost daily blog posts
www.dailykitticarriker.blogspot.com

Looking for a good book? Try
KITTI'S LIST
my running list of recent reading
www.kittislist.blogsppot.com

Harvest Home

RAISE THE SONG OF HARVEST HOME,
ACCUSTOMED, CEREMONIOUS

Over The Garden Wall

Charming Animated Series of
Vintage Pumpkin Heads

Click to watch:
Hard Times at the Huskin' Bee & Tome of the Unknown
On Facebook

Come, ye thankful people, come,
Raise the song of harvest home!
All is safely gathered in,
Ere the winter storms begin . . .

Henry Alford (1810 – 1871)

Idyll VII. Harvest-Home

Now look, this road holds holiday to-day:
For banded brethren solemnize a feast
To richly-dight Demeter, thanking her
For her good gifts: since with no grudging hand
Hath the boon goddess filled the wheaten floors.
So come: the way, the day, is thine as mine . . .

. . who so glad as we?
A wealth of elm and poplar shook o'erhead;
Hard by, a sacred spring flowed gurgling on
From the Nymphs' grot, and in the sombre boughs
The sweet cicada chirped laboriously.
Hid in the thick thorn-bushes far away
The treefrog's note was heard; the crested lark
Sang with the goldfinch; turtles made their moan,
And o'er the fountain hung the gilded bee.
All of rich summer smacked, of autumn all:
Pears at our feet, and apples at our side
Rolled in luxuriance; branches on the ground
Sprawled, overweighed with damsons; while we brushed
From the cask's head the crust of four long years.
Say, ye who dwell upon Parnassian peaks . . .

As, ladies, ye bid flow that day for us
All by Demeter's shrine at harvest-home?
Beside whose cornstacks may I oft again
Plant my broad fan: while she stands by and smiles,
Poppies and cornsheaves on each laden arm.

Theocritus
Greek poet, born in Sicily
(born c. 300 BC, died after 260 BC)

New College Gardens, Oxford

On this old lawn, where lost hours pass
Across the shadows dark with dew,
Where autumn on the thick sweet grass
Has laid a weary leaf or two,
When the young morning, keenly sweet,
Breathes secrets to the silent air,
Happy are they whose lingering feet
May wander lonely there.

The enchantment of the dreaming limes,
The magic of the quiet hours,
Breathe unheard tales of other times
And other destinies than ours;

The feet that long ago walked here
Still, noiseless, walk beside our feet,
Poor ghosts, who found this garden dear,
And found the morning sweet!

Age weeps that it no more may hold
The heart-ache that youth clasps so close,
Pain finely shaped in pleasure's mould,
A thorn deep hidden in a rose.
Here is the immortal thorny rose
That may in no new garden grow--
Its root is in the hearts of those
Who walked here long ago.

Edith Nesbit (1858 – 1924)

Carpe diem!

Facebook food pics

Veggies & recipes

Next Fortnightly Post
Monday, November 14th

Between now and then, read
THE QUOTIDIAN KIT
my shorter, almost daily blog posts
www.dailykitticarriker.blogspot.com

Looking for a good book? Try
KITTI'S LIST
my running list of recent reading
www.kittislist.blogsppot.com

One Long Staircase

STAIRWAY TO HEAVEN
WHERE ALL'S ACCUSTOMED, CEREMONIOUS

The Golden Stair, 1880
Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones (1833 - 1898)

There would be one long staircase just going up
And one even longer coming down
And one more leading nowhere, just for show . . .

~ from Fiddler on the Roof ~
Believe it or not, we have actually lived in a couple of houses over the years that seemed to have staircases going nowhere, just for show. In our recent Indiana Victorian, for example, the front stairs and the back stairs met at exactly the same spot on the second floor landing, so it was not entirely clear what the extra stairs were for or how they had ever been useful. Yet, as it turned out, we went up and down the back stairs ten times a day, and rarely used the main stairs at all. Turns out the back stairs were incredibly useful and the front were just for show!

We decorated the wall over the front bannister with the above picture of a beautiful, showy staircase. The original hangs in the Tate, but I'm sure we purchased the poster from the museum shop at the Lady Lever Gallery, our favorite haven of Pre-Raphaelite paintings, in Port Sunlight, England. I never glanced at this ethereal painting without thinking of these otherworldly lyrics of the 1970s:

There's a lady who's sure
All that glitters is gold
And she's buying a stairway to heaven
When she gets there she knows
If the stores are all closed
With a word she can get what she came for

And she's buying a stairway to heaven
There's a sign on the wall
But she wants to be sure
'Cause you know, sometimes words have two meanings
In a tree by the brook
There's a songbird who sings
Sometimes all of our thoughts are misgiven . . .

And as we wind on down the road
Our shadows taller than our soul
There walks a lady we all know
Who shines white light and wants to show
How everything still turns to gold
And if you listen very hard
The tune will come to you at last
When all are one and one is all, yeah
To be a rock and not to roll
And she's buying a stairway to heaven

from Stairway to Heaven (1971)
by Led Zeppelin

Symphony in White, No. 1, 1861 - 62
James Abbott McNeill Whistler (1834 - 1903)

"a lady . . . who shines white light . . . "

Symphony in White, No. 2, 1864-65
James Abbott McNeill Whistler (1834 - 1903)

See also
Symphony in White, No. 3

And
paintings at the Frick

And previous posts:
To See A Fine Picture
Going Barefoot
Kitchen Art
Complication and Plenitude
Next Fortnightly Post
Friday, October 28th

Between now and then, read
THE QUOTIDIAN KIT
my shorter, almost daily blog posts
www.dailykitticarriker.blogspot.com

Looking for a good book? Try
KITTI'S LIST
my running list of recent reading
www.kittislist.blogsppot.com

Complication and Plenitude

LONGING FOR FALL
ACCUSTOMED, CEREMONIOUS

The Dandelion Clock
William John Hennessy (1839 - 1917)

Dandelions . . . or Michaelmas Daisies?
And, in keeping with the observation of Michaelmas
on September 29th, I like to read the following as
"Late September" . . .

"Late August brought with it a longing for fall. By the end of the month the grass was brown, singed by days of heat and no rain. Mirella's impatiens, usually a bright pink and red mound on either side of the back doorstep, were small and lack luster. The air smelled strangely of basalt and car exhaust, and of marine life flung up on the beaches by the tide and cooked by the sun. . . . With so much wanting came all the promise and damage of the world" (295, 298)
*****************
" 'Listen to me, Howard. You and Mirella are adults. The lives of adults are complicated and generally somehow bad.'

" 'Thanks,' said Howard, surprised to find this observation reassuring. . . . somehow in the end everything in his life would still happen to him. (191)

"Mirella wondered if what she herself had been forgetting all this time, for years and years, was that none of this would last very long, that all of this, the terrible desirable, exhausting plenitude of her life -- the children, Howard, this house, her job -- all of her worries and failures and abilities and cares, all of it mattered so dearly, but so briefly, and that it was all in a way nearly over, even the parts of her life that were still to come." (301)

from A Perfect Arrangement
by Suzanne Berne
[see also Longly, Nanny, 2003, Houses]

Also by Hennessy . . . It's complicated . . .

The Pride of Dijon 1879
William John Hennessy (1839 - 1917)

Just when I think I may have finished my review of paintings that we enjoyed every day on the walls of our old Victorian house, I seem to recall a few more favorites. The two above by Hennessy were in our dining room; and the two below were in the kitchen. I don't know how we managed to fit them all in, but somehow we were always finding space in our ever - expanding design scheme of complication and plenitude!

Flower Pots 1887
Paul Cezanne (1839 - 1906)

Hollyhocks, 1911
Frederick Carl Frieseke (1874 - 1939)

Next Time: More Ladies in White Dresses
Previously: To See A Fine Picture
Going Barefoot
Kitchen Art
Next Fortnightly Post
Friday, October 14th

Between now and then, read
THE QUOTIDIAN KIT
my shorter, almost daily blog posts
www.dailykitticarriker.blogspot.com

Looking for a good book? Try
KITTI'S LIST
my running list of recent reading
www.kittislist.blogsppot.com

Kitchen Art

READING AT THE BREAKFAST TABLE
SOLITARY OR NOT
ACCUSTOMED, CEREMONIOUS

At Breakfast 1898
Lauritz Andersen Ring (1854 – 1933)

A few ~ more small prints lost in the diaspora.
I loved seeing these scattered around my kitchen:
contemplative coffee hours, shared teatimes,
and elegant household interiors.

The Morning Paper

Read one newspaper daily (the morning edition
is the best
for by evening you know that you at least
have lived through another day)
and let the disasters, the unbelievable
yet approved decisions
soak in.

I don't need to name the countries,
ours among them.

What keeps us from falling down, our faces
to the ground; ashamed, ashamed?

Mary Oliver (1935 - 2019)
from her book A Thousand Mornings

The Breakfast, 1911
William McGregor Paxton (1869 - 1941)

Every Morning

I read the papers,
I unfold them and examine them in the sunlight.
The way the red mortars, in photographs,
arc down into the neighborhoods
like stars, the way death
combs everything into a gray rubble before
the camera moves on. What
dark part of my soul
shivers: you don’t want to know more
about this. And then: you don’t know anything
unless you do. How the sleepers
wake and run to the cellars,
how the children scream, their tongues
trying to swim away—
how the morning itself appears
like a slow white rose
while the figures climb over the bubbled thresholds,
move among the smashed cars, the streets
where the clanging ambulances won’t
stop all day—death and death, messy death—
death as history, death as a habit—
how sometimes the camera pauses while a family
counts itself, and all of them are alive,
their mouths dry caves of wordlessness
in the smudged moons of their faces,
a craziness we have so far no name for—
all this I read in the papers,
in the sunlight,
I read with my cold, sharp eyes.

by Mary Oliver

Additional Favorites ~ All By Paxton

Tea Leaves, 1909

The House Maid, 1910
~ Previously on Kitti's List ~

The New Necklace, 1910

Next Fortnightly Post
Wednesday, September 28th

Between now and then, read
THE QUOTIDIAN KIT
my shorter, almost daily blog posts
www.dailykitticarriker.blogspot.com

Looking for a good book? Try
KITTI'S LIST
my running list of recent reading
www.kittislist.blogsppot.com

Going Barefoot

GOING BAREOOT OR WEARING SHOES:
WHICH IS MORE ACCUSTOMED, CEREMONIOUS?

Barefoot Prodigy (1963)
Gold Medal of Honor ~ National Arts Club of New York
By Martha Elizabeth Moore (1913 - 1982)

Two weeks ago, my fortnightly blog post featured various paintings and pictures that have been eliminated from our walls due to lack of space. The Barefoot Prodigy is yet another one, gone but not forgotten, and worthy of commemoration. This musically themed piece of art has been in my life for about as long as I can remember, as a 5 x7 cardboard print from the "Royale Academie Collection of Precious Miniatures," which I'm guessing was a way to teach kids about art. Apparently, the series contained numerous other prints, but this was the only one in our house, propped on the piano throughout my gradeschool and highschool years.

Somewhere along the way, two things happened: 1.) I bought a poster-sized print of The Barefoot Prodigy and had it framed; 2.) I retrieved the 5 x 7 print from my mother's house (during her downsizing) and stored it in my piano bench. Our own recent downsizing required us to part with the over-sized Prodigy, but luckily the smaller version from my childhood was on hand and is now once again propped on the piano, reminding us daily to practice our music with the earnestness of this serious, barefoot child.
******************
On another wall of our home hung the print of another barefoot child, Marc Chagall's daughter Ida:

Ida at the Window (1924)
Marc Chagall (1887 - 1985)

These two Chagall prints,
in pastel green and blue frames,
graced our guest room for many years.

Flowers in Mourillon (1926)
Marc Chagall (1887 - 1985)

More Barefoot Connections

1. Beloved coming of age novel
I Will Go Barefoot All Summer For You, Toby Bright
by Katie Letcher Lyle (1938 - 2016)

2. A couple of fabulous songs, Sweet Old World & You Will Be the Light, both of which include searching for truth and going barefoot, not necessarily related themes, but in this case, yes! Whenever I hear either one of these songs, I always think of the other and have to play them both.

You Will Be the Light
You'll never be the sun turning in the sky
And you won't be the moon above us on a moonlit night
And you won't be the stars in heaven
Although they burn so bright
But even on the deepest ocean
You will be the light

You may not always shine
As you go barefoot over stone
You might be so long together
Or you might walk alone
And you won't find that love comes easy
But that love is always right
So even when the dark clouds gather
You will be the light

And if you lose the part inside
When loves turns round on you
Leaving the past behind
Is knowing you'll do like you always do
Holding you blind, keeping you true

You'll never be the sun turning in the sky
And you won't be the moon above us on a moonlit night
And you won't be the stars in heaven
Although they burn so bright
But even on the deepest ocean
You will be the light

Songwriter: Donagh Long
Performed by: Dolly, Emmylou, Linda
Also by Dolores Keane
******************
This Sweet Old World
See what you lost when you left this world, this sweet old world
See what you lost when you left this world, this sweet old world
The breath from your own lips, the touch of fingertips
A sweet and tender kiss

The sound of a midnight train, wearing someone's ring
Someone calling your name
Somebody so warm cradled in your arm
Didn't you think you were worth anything

See what you lost when you left this world, this sweet old world
See what you lost when you left this world, this sweet old world

Millions of us in love, promises made good
Your own flesh and blood
Looking for some truth, dancing with no shoes
The beat, the rhythm, the blues
The pounding of your heart's drum together with another one

Didn't you think anyone loved you See what you lost when you left this world, this sweet old world . . .

Music & lyrics by Lucinda Williams
[ More about Lucinda]

3. Play ~ movie ~ television series
Barefoot in the Park
by Neil Simon (1927 - 2018)

Thanks to Nancy!
Next Fortnightly Post ~ Kitchen Art
Wednesday, September 14th

Between now and then, read
THE QUOTIDIAN KIT
my shorter, almost daily blog posts
www.dailykitticarriker.blogspot.com

Looking for a good book? Try
KITTI'S LIST
my running list of recent reading
www.kittislist.blogsppot.com

To See A Fine Picture

WALL ART FOR THE HOME
ACCUSTOMED, CEREMONIOUS

The Blue Vase (1887)
by Paul Cezanne (1839 - 1906)

"One ought, every day at least, to hear a little song,
read a good poem, see a fine picture
and, if possible, speak a few reasonable words." ~Goethe
Moving dilemma: more large windows = lots more light but a lot less wall space. Bittersweet solution: time to bid farewell to some of our favorite wall art.

The deaccessioning began with the brass rubbings (thanks Robert) and the sheet music (thanks Town & Gown). Next came numerous frames and prints suitable for studio use (thanks Artists' Own) and a collection of musically themed paintings (thanks Daniel). The down - sizing continued, with the help of our artistic, literary, and creative friends who were all willing to adopt, re-envision, and repurpose our surplus objets d'art (thanks Beata, Katie, Katy).

Gone from my walls but never forgotten, these pictures (and so many others) will always have a spot in my heart and on my blog:

An Al Fresco Toilette (1889)
Luke Fildes (1843–1927)
[Along with Seurat]

The Cello Player (1896)
Thomas Eakins (1844 – 1916)

The Fifer (1866)
Edouard Manet (1832 – 1883)

Parisian Interior (1910)
Jozsef Rippl-Ronai (1861 – 1927)
&

An Old-Fashioned Garden (1915)
Anne Bremer (1868 – 1923)

One of Gerry's Long-Time Favs
Of Unknown Provenance

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A Tale from the Decameron (1916)
John William Waterhouse (1849 - 1917)

The Enchanted Garden (1916 - 17)
John William Waterhouse (1849 - 1917)

Apple Blossoms (1856- 59)
John Everett Millais (1829 - 1896)
[See also: "Love Is Not All"]

Monet Painting in His Garden at Argenteuil (1873)
Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1841 – 1919)

L’Envoi: Earth's Last Picture

When Earth’s last picture is painted, and the tubes are twisted and dried
When the oldest colors have faded, and the youngest critic has died,
We shall rest, and, faith, we shall need it—lie down for an aeon or two,
Till the Master of All Good Workers shall set us to work anew!

And those that were good will be happy: they shall sit in a golden chair;
They shall splash at a ten-league canvas with brushes of comet’s hair;
They shall find real saints to draw from—Magdalene, Peter, and Paul;
They shall work for an age at a sitting and never be tired at all!

And only the Master shall praise us, and only the Master shall blame;
And no one shall work for money, and no one shall work for fame;
But each for the joy of the working, and each, in our separate star,
Shall draw the Thing as we see It for the God of Things as They Are!
(1896)

by Rudyard Kipling (1865 - 1936)

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Next Fortnightly Post ~ Going Barefoot
Sunday, August 28th

Between now and then, read
THE QUOTIDIAN KIT
my shorter, almost daily blog posts
www.dailykitticarriker.blogspot.com

Looking for a good book? Try
KITTI'S LIST
my running list of recent reading
www.kittislist.blogsppot.com