the new emotional blackmailer's handbook

Monday, May 20, 2019

Now that summer is almost here ... Fêtes galantes ... Antoine Watteau

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F%C3%AAte_galante

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-Antoine_Watteau

and watteau's double panel of a picture shop ...

and cochin's fabulous engraving after watteau ...

and a portrait of watteau ...

and a drawing by watteau ...

Sunday, May 19, 2019

i've always loved maps without ever being able to grasp the complexities of making them ...

the africa map turned up on the facebook page, "nigel atoxic" ... i don't know who drew it first

Saturday, May 18, 2019

margaret cavendish ... a bright star

praised in today's guardian by siri hustvedt ...

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/may/17/siri-hustvedt-books-that-made-me

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_Cavendish,_Duchess_of_Newcastle-upon-Tyne

philosophy ...
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/53679

and fiction ...
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/51783

Sunday, May 12, 2019

on raglan road ...

On Raglan Road on an autumn day I met her first and knew
That her dark hair would weave a snare that I might one day rue;
I saw the danger, yet I walked along the enchanted way,
And I said, let grief be a fallen leaf at the dawning of the day.

On Grafton Street in November we tripped lightly along the ledge
Of the deep ravine where can be seen the worth of passion's pledge,
The Queen of Hearts still making tarts and I not making hay -
O I loved too much and by such and such is happiness thrown away.

I gave her gifts of the mind I gave her the secret sign that's known
To the artists who have known the true gods of sound and stone
And word and tint. I did not stint for I gave her poems to say.
With her own name there and her own dark hair like clouds over fields of May

On a quiet street where old ghosts meet I see her walking now
Away from me so hurriedly my reason must allow
That I had wooed not as I should a creature made of clay -
When the angel woos the clay he'd lose his wings at the dawn of day.