I had this image on my hard drive but lost it somehow.
Just found it again in Gammagoblin's blog. Who got it from here
Thank you to Gammagoblin for putting it in an iFrame.
Apparently the i-Frame doesn't work in some browsers. Apologies to those affected, click on the image for an enlarged version.
There are more stunning photos of Paris here.
Wednesday 29 September 2010
Thursday 23 September 2010
Hello Blog
Waves from a distance. Will be back soon when the computer is behaving itself.
There now follows a brief intermission...
Wednesday 15 September 2010
St Ives
My computer needs sorting out, it's a bit cranky. That's why I haven't been here so often. Hope to get it sorted soon.
Just to have a presence here I have decided to upload some pics I took of St Ives in June.
The weather was perfect, brilliant light. This is the reason why artists came here to form the St Ives School.
The sea was a beautiful turquoise.
The Island, taken on a different occasion.
Where else can you stand on a platform waiting for a train and that's the view!
Just to have a presence here I have decided to upload some pics I took of St Ives in June.
The weather was perfect, brilliant light. This is the reason why artists came here to form the St Ives School.
The sea was a beautiful turquoise.
The Island, taken on a different occasion.
Where else can you stand on a platform waiting for a train and that's the view!
Sunday 12 September 2010
Thursday 9 September 2010
My cabinet of curiosities revisited
Realised I hadn't included an image of the bottom shelf. a slightly different theme.
Another example, with a short article.
Cabinet of Curiosity
May 17, 2008 in Science & Society
“Cabinets of curiosities (also known as Wunderkammer) were encyclopedic collections of types of objects whose categorical boundaries were, in Renaissance Europe, yet to be defined. Modern science would categorize the objects included as belonging to natural history (sometimes faked), geology, ethnography, archaeology, religious or historical relics, works of art (including cabinet paintings) and antiquities. “The Kunstkammer was regarded as a microcosm or theater of the world, and a memory theater. The Kunstkammer conveyed symbolically the patron’s control of the world through its indoor, microscopic reproduction.”
“A found object, in an artistic sense, indicates the use of an object which has not been designed for an artistic purpose, but which exists for another purpose already. Found objects may exist either as utilitarian, manufactured items, or things (including, at times, dead bodies) which occur in nature. In both cases the objects are discovered by the artist or musician to be capable of being employed in an artistic way, and are designated as ‘found’ to distinguish them from purposely created items used in the art forms.’
‘Found object’ can also refer to a small object found by chance which, though usually of little monetary value, captures the imagination of the finder and is therefore kept as a keepsake. Perhaps it is a penny or an unusual stone or even a pretty piece of metal. Often found just “on the ground,” it is kept as a curiosity or even a good luck charm. They are often associated with a trip or a special memory or an important time in a person’s life. The connotations of mystery about where it came from, the feeling that it is a lucky or providential occurrence, and the sense that it is simply a ‘free gift from the world’ or “from nowhere” can add to the sense of wonder or magic surrounding a found object. A ‘found object’ may stand alone or may form the basis for a collection.”
Link It has the links to the Wiki pages
Another example, with a short article.
Cabinet of Curiosity
May 17, 2008 in Science & Society
“Cabinets of curiosities (also known as Wunderkammer) were encyclopedic collections of types of objects whose categorical boundaries were, in Renaissance Europe, yet to be defined. Modern science would categorize the objects included as belonging to natural history (sometimes faked), geology, ethnography, archaeology, religious or historical relics, works of art (including cabinet paintings) and antiquities. “The Kunstkammer was regarded as a microcosm or theater of the world, and a memory theater. The Kunstkammer conveyed symbolically the patron’s control of the world through its indoor, microscopic reproduction.”
“A found object, in an artistic sense, indicates the use of an object which has not been designed for an artistic purpose, but which exists for another purpose already. Found objects may exist either as utilitarian, manufactured items, or things (including, at times, dead bodies) which occur in nature. In both cases the objects are discovered by the artist or musician to be capable of being employed in an artistic way, and are designated as ‘found’ to distinguish them from purposely created items used in the art forms.’
‘Found object’ can also refer to a small object found by chance which, though usually of little monetary value, captures the imagination of the finder and is therefore kept as a keepsake. Perhaps it is a penny or an unusual stone or even a pretty piece of metal. Often found just “on the ground,” it is kept as a curiosity or even a good luck charm. They are often associated with a trip or a special memory or an important time in a person’s life. The connotations of mystery about where it came from, the feeling that it is a lucky or providential occurrence, and the sense that it is simply a ‘free gift from the world’ or “from nowhere” can add to the sense of wonder or magic surrounding a found object. A ‘found object’ may stand alone or may form the basis for a collection.”
Link It has the links to the Wiki pages
Saturday 4 September 2010
Another bookshop
This is Rod's books on the Barbican in Plymouth. I have to say it is the most chaotic bookshop I have ever visited.
I had to take these quickly with my mobile camera (which is why one is blurred). But they don't even begin to convey the clutter. The corridor was barely wide enough to squeeze through and the piles were above head height in some places, threatening to tumble on the unsuspecting customer at any moment! God forbid that you should wish to examine a book at the bottom of a stack!
Sadly, Rod's Books is no more. he has closed to concentrate on selling on the internet.
There is also The Book Cupboard
Books, properly organised on three floors. Thanks to Peterphotographic there is a shot of one of the upper floors.
I had to take these quickly with my mobile camera (which is why one is blurred). But they don't even begin to convey the clutter. The corridor was barely wide enough to squeeze through and the piles were above head height in some places, threatening to tumble on the unsuspecting customer at any moment! God forbid that you should wish to examine a book at the bottom of a stack!
Sadly, Rod's Books is no more. he has closed to concentrate on selling on the internet.
There is also The Book Cupboard
Books, properly organised on three floors. Thanks to Peterphotographic there is a shot of one of the upper floors.
Friday 3 September 2010
Bookshops: Paris
The best bookshop in the world (or at least the best I've been to so far) is Shakespeare and Company in Paris.
I read Jeremy Mercer's Books, Baguettes and Bedbugs before a short trip to Paris and resolved to visit it. It was everything a good bookshop should be, crammed with books (thankfully, mostly in English) in a really interesting, quirky building. How many bookshops have an (admittedly dry) well?
I didn't take any interior pictures, I borrowed the image above from Rachael Leow's blog. It shows the section of floor covered by a random assortment of tiles and the epigrams which are scattered throughout the place.
It was a haven for writers in straitened circumstances, as Jeremy Mercer discovered when he left Canada after an episodic career as a journalist. It was possible to find shelter there amongst the books.
Article from the Guardian
Shakespeare and Company, a creative sanctuary. Long after Hemingway and the Beats, the Shakespeare and Company bookshop is still encouraging Paris to read and write
A haven for writers ... Shakespeare and Company bookshop, Paris.
Stephen Emms
I've been to Paris many times. But, while I invariably wind up at La Belle Hortense for a browse over a glass of red, I'd yet to sample the charms of legendary English bookshop Shakespeare and Company.
The first Shakespeare and Company, run by Sylvia Beach at rue de l'Odéon, was the base for Hemingway, Fitzgerald and the gang, but closed in the second world war. In 1951 George Whitman opened his own shop, Le Mistral, in a former 17th-century monastery overlooking Notre Dame. It became the base for Beat generation writers such as Burroughs and Ginsberg. He changed the name after Beach's death in 1962.
I stand outside. Its Seine-side location is idyllic, even on a freezing February morning, with workmen on ladders outside its bottle-green facade, mending the electricals, and a skeletal tree wreathed in a string of bulbs. Summer must be wonderful here: there are empty garden chairs strewn between trays of hardy books.
28-year-old Sylvia Whitman, George's daughter, has agreed to show me round. Signs at the entrance marked "Beat" and "Lost" are a reminder of both stores' heavyweight associations. A wishing well, around which a handful of customers shuffle, glistens with pennies.
Her father, Sylvia says, hoped to work until he was 100 but, forced to retire at 93, now lives on the second floor. He no longer gives interviews. We wander past shelves devoted to fiction, biography, art and French interest. "It's more organised that it looks," she says, with a laugh.
Paperbacks line red wooden steps leading upstairs to what Sylvia calls the "non-commercial" floor: a library in which you could lose yourself, with one rule: books mustn't leave the premises. Here, as on the ground floor, single mattresses lurk between the shelves, and, in the children's section, a bunk bed. It's on these that young authors sleep each night.
"We have six at any one time," says Sylvia, "generally in their early 20s. They come to write from all over the world while doing a couple of hours in the shop a day. Generally they stay a week to a month, but one English poet stayed seven years." Seven years – really? "If someone's reading and writing, we encourage that," she says. "It's a different life after closing time. They all come out of the woodwork! And for us, it's an organic cycle: aspiring writers tapping away upstairs and books being sold downstairs."
Everything here encourages creativity. A tiny enclosed bureau, lined with rugs and a blue painted chair, bears the sign: "Feel free to use the typewriter for your lovely writing/creative ventures." Notes from customers are scrawled in all languages. "A friend told me if I ever felt lonely to come to Shakespeare & Company," one says. Visitors are so effusive that a few years ago George installed what he calls a "mirror of love", where hundreds more scribblings are pinned, from the surreal to the touching: "Dear Granny, I would like you to come to Paris with me", reads one. "Books insulate this nest of wandering dreams", reads another, "there should always be a place where stories reign over commercial enterprise."
We stand in the beamed reading room, the light soupy. George's mongrel, Collette, smart in a red neckerchief, snoozes on a rug lining the stone floor. A white cat arches its back on a desk overlooking the river. Sylvia explains that when it rains the room fills with readers and writers, all jostling for the handful of cushions scattered along the wooden banquette. Her image only sharpens the silence of this morning.
As I leave, the western facade of Notre Dame is noisy with tourists. I cross the square, haunted by one of the messages tacked to the mirror. Hand-written by the mother of a 21-year-old bipolar man who killed himself by jumping off Brooklyn Bridge, it read: "I've spent the last hour trying to decide if I should end my life. If he could have discovered your bookshop, perhaps he would have survived. I want to thank you for this place and the hope it gives." Not only does that seem to underline the redemptive power of literature, but also something less tangible: the balm of environment.
Another article.
Will I ever go back? Would like to think so...
I read Jeremy Mercer's Books, Baguettes and Bedbugs before a short trip to Paris and resolved to visit it. It was everything a good bookshop should be, crammed with books (thankfully, mostly in English) in a really interesting, quirky building. How many bookshops have an (admittedly dry) well?
I didn't take any interior pictures, I borrowed the image above from Rachael Leow's blog. It shows the section of floor covered by a random assortment of tiles and the epigrams which are scattered throughout the place.
Photo by Lui Brandt
It was a haven for writers in straitened circumstances, as Jeremy Mercer discovered when he left Canada after an episodic career as a journalist. It was possible to find shelter there amongst the books.
Article from the Guardian
Shakespeare and Company, a creative sanctuary. Long after Hemingway and the Beats, the Shakespeare and Company bookshop is still encouraging Paris to read and write
A haven for writers ... Shakespeare and Company bookshop, Paris.
Stephen Emms
I've been to Paris many times. But, while I invariably wind up at La Belle Hortense for a browse over a glass of red, I'd yet to sample the charms of legendary English bookshop Shakespeare and Company.
The first Shakespeare and Company, run by Sylvia Beach at rue de l'Odéon, was the base for Hemingway, Fitzgerald and the gang, but closed in the second world war. In 1951 George Whitman opened his own shop, Le Mistral, in a former 17th-century monastery overlooking Notre Dame. It became the base for Beat generation writers such as Burroughs and Ginsberg. He changed the name after Beach's death in 1962.
I stand outside. Its Seine-side location is idyllic, even on a freezing February morning, with workmen on ladders outside its bottle-green facade, mending the electricals, and a skeletal tree wreathed in a string of bulbs. Summer must be wonderful here: there are empty garden chairs strewn between trays of hardy books.
28-year-old Sylvia Whitman, George's daughter, has agreed to show me round. Signs at the entrance marked "Beat" and "Lost" are a reminder of both stores' heavyweight associations. A wishing well, around which a handful of customers shuffle, glistens with pennies.
Her father, Sylvia says, hoped to work until he was 100 but, forced to retire at 93, now lives on the second floor. He no longer gives interviews. We wander past shelves devoted to fiction, biography, art and French interest. "It's more organised that it looks," she says, with a laugh.
Paperbacks line red wooden steps leading upstairs to what Sylvia calls the "non-commercial" floor: a library in which you could lose yourself, with one rule: books mustn't leave the premises. Here, as on the ground floor, single mattresses lurk between the shelves, and, in the children's section, a bunk bed. It's on these that young authors sleep each night.
"We have six at any one time," says Sylvia, "generally in their early 20s. They come to write from all over the world while doing a couple of hours in the shop a day. Generally they stay a week to a month, but one English poet stayed seven years." Seven years – really? "If someone's reading and writing, we encourage that," she says. "It's a different life after closing time. They all come out of the woodwork! And for us, it's an organic cycle: aspiring writers tapping away upstairs and books being sold downstairs."
Everything here encourages creativity. A tiny enclosed bureau, lined with rugs and a blue painted chair, bears the sign: "Feel free to use the typewriter for your lovely writing/creative ventures." Notes from customers are scrawled in all languages. "A friend told me if I ever felt lonely to come to Shakespeare & Company," one says. Visitors are so effusive that a few years ago George installed what he calls a "mirror of love", where hundreds more scribblings are pinned, from the surreal to the touching: "Dear Granny, I would like you to come to Paris with me", reads one. "Books insulate this nest of wandering dreams", reads another, "there should always be a place where stories reign over commercial enterprise."
We stand in the beamed reading room, the light soupy. George's mongrel, Collette, smart in a red neckerchief, snoozes on a rug lining the stone floor. A white cat arches its back on a desk overlooking the river. Sylvia explains that when it rains the room fills with readers and writers, all jostling for the handful of cushions scattered along the wooden banquette. Her image only sharpens the silence of this morning.
As I leave, the western facade of Notre Dame is noisy with tourists. I cross the square, haunted by one of the messages tacked to the mirror. Hand-written by the mother of a 21-year-old bipolar man who killed himself by jumping off Brooklyn Bridge, it read: "I've spent the last hour trying to decide if I should end my life. If he could have discovered your bookshop, perhaps he would have survived. I want to thank you for this place and the hope it gives." Not only does that seem to underline the redemptive power of literature, but also something less tangible: the balm of environment.
Another article.
Will I ever go back? Would like to think so...
Thursday 2 September 2010
At the dentist
Source
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