Reflections on Ice-Breaking, Ogden Nash

Candy

Is dandy,

But liquor

Is quicker.

Salvage Yard

A while ago, I went to the salvage yard. There wasn't much to salvage there, and most of it was old loos that were beyond repair. But I managed to take a couple of photographs. The top one is probably the most thought-provoking. It made me wonder about how nature will ultimately conquer man, and how resilient life can be. It also reminded me of the film       Wall-E, where the sweet little eponymous robot finds a plant growing in a shoe on a barren heap of rubbish.

The bottom photograph is a lot funnier, and somehow reminded me of a musician who stays cool no matter what. Maybe he's some kind of jazz musician. I don't think he actually exists but he's an idea in my mind.

So the trip to the salvage yard was actually more productive than it seemed at the time.

Postcards

I bought these postcards at a flea market a while ago, but only decided to share them with you now. I like to look at the photographs and wonder about the stories behind them. Who were the children? Where were they from? Who made their photographs into postcards? Why?

Girls in the Windows, Ormond Gigli (1960)

This is such a great image. Apparently the phtographer came across the  building –which was to be demolished the next day– and had to organise the shoot very quickly. Doesn't that story add to the image, it only exists out of sheer luck, and it seems the more exciting for it.

Baubauhaus

The designs on this website are fun and thoughtful and interesting and relevant and irreverent. Why don't you have a look? I'm glad I did.

Bugs

Hey there, here are some bugs: a wasp and a ladybird. You know I love a good insect. And so I've also been looking through my Nature Encyclopedia, and have found out that:

-There are over 150,000 species of bees and wasps.

-Most wasp women have an egg-laying tube called an ovipositor. It can drill through wood and deposit the eggs inside, as this is safer. In parasitic species this can also be used to bore the host animal's skin. And in some, the ovipositor has evolved into the insect's sting. 

Lovely.

Inside and Out

I have had this song in my head all day. I like it a lot, hope you do too.

Pigeons

I found some photographs of pigeons, which I took a while back. I then started thinking about them. They are like opals. 

And I found out a fact or two about pigeons. Apparently the reason that they bob their heads is for depth perception. I have no idea if that's true, but it's so fab that I had to include it. Also they are among the most intelligent birds on the planet, apparently. Pretty interesting.

Disappointment

Disappointment sulking in the shadows of my brain
It stumbles forward when I wait.
Seeps through when there is rain.

Grumpiness and petulance are at the sulker's side
And when they are unbearable,
I read and think and hide.

Disappointment stamps his foot and ruins all that's true,
And stomps all over happiness,
There's nothing I can do.

Armistice Day

At the eleventh hour, on the eleventh day of the eleventh month we are silent. For two minutes we think of the lives and deaths that war has affected. This idea was introduced shortly before the first anniversary of the Armistice by Sir Percy Fitzpatrick. King George VI, who approved the suggestion, wrote in the national newspapers that ‘there may be for the brief space of two minutes a complete suspension of all our normal activities’. This silence is held each year, and is a significant event in the national calendar. In the two mute minutes we are able to sharpen our focus on the suffering caused by war, and our silence is also symbolic of the silences left by war.

Obama for the win

Well that's a relief, Barack Obama's still in power (no offence Mitt).

Image Courtesy of: http://hyperallergic.com/59844/and-obama-wins/

Fashion

'Fashion is derived from facio to make... Hence it is that a man is fashioned by his tailor.'

John Scott & John Taylor, The London Magazine, 1825

Images by Richard Hamilton, Courtesy of:

http://www.wikipaintings.org/en/search/fashion/1#supersized-search-243838

Morocco

I realised that I never shared the photographs that I had taken in Morocco. And so, although I know it is dull to look at holiday snapshots, here are four of them (four happens to be my lucky number).

The dreams of the blind

In the lead up to the anniversary of Armistice day, I thought it would be appropriate to mention Isaac Rosenberg, whose poem, Returning, We Hear the Larks, I have been reading:

Returning, We Hear the Larks

Sombre the night is.
And though we have our lives, we know
What sinister threat lurks there.

Dragging these anguished limbs, we only know
This poison-blasted track opens on our camp-
On a little safe sleep.

But hark! joy-joy-strange joy.
Lo! heights of night ringing with unseen larks
Music showering on our upturned list'ning faces.

Death could drop from the dark
As easily as song-
But song only dropped,
Like a blind man's dreams on the sand
By dangerous tides,
Like a girl's dark hair for she dreams no ruin lies there,
Or her kisses where a serpent hides.

When reading the poem, my mind went off on a slight tangent, because of the line 'Like a blind man's dreams on the sand'. I began to wonder, and thought that you might like to read this article about an investigation into the dreams of blind people in comparison to the dreams of sighted people. I have no idea whether the article gives us an accurate interpretation of people's dreams, but I found it fascinating to read.