Job Posting.

 

 

Dear Looking for Work,


Here's a new opening, pussycats:  Get a job as a cat!  Work all day among the flowers for room and board.  I know you will enjoy your new job as a cat, because cats take a lot of breaks, and they generally enjoy life as it comes.  When I grow up, I think I will work in flowers as a cat, too.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

PS 

Are you familiar with these two fabulous Catwomen?  Get to know them better by checking out the Batman TV Series at your local library.  You won't regret it.  When I was a youth, I thought goody-two-shoes Batman's pedantic moralizing was annoying.  Watching the show now, I don't know how I missed the tongue-in-cheek irreverence.  But, all this is good news, because it means, dear reader, that we can go home, we can revisit things, places, and people, and experience them with our new, advanced, state of the art Bat-Utility Belts.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



 



An Immense Iinvitation or, Beauty Undefined!

Dear Hummers and Singers,

Here is a song I hope you will want to whistle with me.  I adore 3/4 time, or perhaps this is 6/8?  I never can be certain from the listening, because I never took the proper course in music theory.  Which leaves me a terribly satisfied dilettante, and a stubborn fool for not just looking it up. 

Helen Keller has written about the beauty of the natural world in her autobiography, The Story of My Life:   

They are always asking:  "What does this beauty or that music mean to you?"  You cannot see the waves rolling up the beach or hear their roar.  What do they mean to you?"  In the most evident sense they mean everything.  I cannot fathom or define their meaning any more than I can fathom or define love or religion or goodness.

At a shore side sunset yesterday, the topic, as ever, of the legendary green flash came up.  Some of our party had seen it, on the internet (where else?!) and the rest of us eagerly requested a link be sent.  After a few seconds, I blue-penciled it, realizing that I wanted to see it the hard way;  some enchanted evening, standing on the sand, looking west. 




I remain, as ever,
your stubborn fool dilettante.







PS
Another version, with piano and frills, and marionettes.  Furthermore, and unnecessarily, this is a song that I look forward to hearing in ten, twenty, thirty years- I will think, I will remember:  this is what it sounded like then; that was the Zeitgeist of then.

Good Day, Sunshine!

Dear Multitudes,

Many of you are already acquainted with the fascinating website Earth Science Picture of the Day. This pinhole photograph, taken by Greg Parker, tracing the sun's path, was yesterday's picture.

Enjoy today then, the warmth of the sun, a link to a poem concerning the advent of summer, and the possibilities of pinhole photography.







PS
Your assignment today, should you choose to accept  it, will be the delightful search for the meaning of 'weejuns.'

Dad will have his Day.

Dear People with Fathers,

Here is a charming book, that I hope you already know and love:  Life with Father, by Clarence Day, Jr.  It makes a fine gift for Dads, if you have a good bookshop handy.  If you are short on spondulicks, you might just read it aloud to dear old Pater, and you can do that right here.  I offer you an excerpt from the first chapter:

I wanted to be a cowboy, I told Father on the way home. He chuckled and said no I didn't. He said I might as well be a tramp.

I wondered if I'd better tell him that this idea, too, had occurred to me, no further back than that very morning. I decided that upon the whole it mightn't be a good day to mention it, just after Father had taken me to lunch at Delmonico's. I did venture to ask him, however, what was the matter with cowboys.

Father briefly explained that their lives, their food, and their sleeping accommodations were outlandish and "slummy." They lived in the wilds, he informed me, and they had practically gone wild themselves. "Put your cap on straight," he added. "I am trying to bring you up to be a civilized man."

I adjusted my cap and walked on, thinking over this future. The more I thought about it, the less I wanted to be a civilized man. After all, I had had a very light lunch, and I was tired and hungry. What with fingernails and improving books and dancing school, and sermons on Sundays, the few chocolate éclairs that a civilized man got to eat were not worth it.

One reason I am convinced that your father will like this book is that your father had a father, too, and he will recognize and appreciate the experience of being a son, a condition he has probably had to endure along with his life as father.

In a Brown Study.

Untitled, 1954. Oil on canvas, 72 x 68 inches (182.9 x 172.7 cm).

Collection of the Joan Mitchell Foundation, New York. - See more at:

Joan Mitchell Foundation.

Dear Reader,

I must meet you, and soon. I have a plan.  We can meet in a place I will call The Brown Study.  At the dark end of the street.  It will be small, but there will be space for you, and welcome. 

I read this article by Ann Patchett, and I saw clearly what I must do, just as I was compelled to write to you here, to try to persuade you to read and see and taste and try certain wonderful things in the world, I must open a bookshop where I can put some of these wonders directly into your hands. 

When you visit The Brown Study we will greet you quietly, wait a respectful number of minutes before we ask if you would like some help or recommendations, and should you purchase a volume,  we will lovingly wrap it up for you, in kraft paper and string.

We will only have the good ones, of course, and there will be plenty of used books, and they will lie together on the shelves, in good comradeship, like you and I.  If you are looking, though, for electronic books, we will have to shake our heads in pity and sorrow, because we will not carry those. 



See you soon, my dears!






PS
This link, will paint you a fascinating picture of what has been meant, throughout written history, by the word 'brown.'  Do not miss the links for part two, and three.


PPS
Where did I say the shop will be, again?  Here, and here, and right here.

Little Red.

Dear Owners of Red Automobiles,

This short, fiery film is offered as a sort of counter-point to the previous, tranquil, blue post.  I know you loathe being told what to do, but please, note the proportional fabulousness of this glorious  machine:  If you wanted to make a toy race car, this is how it would look- plenty of room for vrooom.  It is like a small boy's drawing delightfully come to life!  Also, this film gives you a kinesthetic taste (can you have a kinesthetic 'taste,' I wonder?) of what a ride in the Ford Tri-motor is like.












PS  Care for a little more information on The Beast of Turin?  Plus, just one song, don't you think?

Martian Blue Sunset.

Blue one,

two,

three,

four,

five,

six.


Heard enough?  Time to sing and play it yourself, my dears: 


My Blue Heaven

C
When whippoorwills call and evening is nigh
  A7       D7   G7     C     
I hurry to my   blue   heaven
G7              C
You turn to the right a little bright light
A7                D7   G7     C
That leads you to my   blue   heaven
              F            A7          Dm
You’ll find a cozy place a fireplace a cozy room
  G7                                 C         
A little nest that nestles where the roses bloom
G7             C                 
Just molly and me and baby makes three
A7          D7   G7     C
Be happy in my   blue   heaven

When whippoorwills call and evening is nigh
  A7       D7   G7     C     
I hurry to my   blue   heaven
G7              C
You turn to the right a little bright light
A7                D7   G7     C
That leads you to my   blue   heaven
              F            A7          Dm
You’ll find a cozy place a fireplace a cozy room
  G7                                 C         
A little nest that nestles where the roses bloom
G7             C                 
Just molly and me and baby makes three
A7          D7   G7     C
Be happy in my   blue   heaven
             
Written by Walter Donaldson with lyrics by George A. Whiting.



PS  One more Blue Heaven.

The Near Shore.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Does your boat float?

Dear Builders,

If you have finished your boat, you are now enjoying the untrammeled sands of  the far shore.  So beautiful!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

it's a bird, it's a plane, it's a plastic model kit.

 

 

 

 

Hello All,

Have you thrown a Model Party?  It is easy, and you don't need to know anyone whose been on the cover of Vogue.  It might be more concisely called a Model Kit Party.

We have had two- the first had everyone building the same plastic kit model- a model T, with nice rubber tires.  It  was fiddly, and a pain, like plastic model building always is, but when you have a Model Party, you can pool your resources and skills.  Also, something more gets shared, and I am not sure what to call this frisson that you feel from making things with others.  It isn't the same as the fun of intently focusing in isolation in your studio, with Philip Glass playing softly, but it is fun, and it is edifying in surprising and subtle ways. 

Here is what you will need to throw a model party:  Guests, models, paint, glue and tools, a work surface; also food.  You won't need too many tools, because everyone will bring some to share.  The same could go for food, but in our case the host house provided all comestibles. 

The model pictured came from Model Party #2:  The Golden Age of Flight.  In this party, guests chose their own plane from the given era, instead of everyone building the exact same kit.