Pop goes the vintage: Pop-Up Shop SE1 Sat 9th April

Hurrah, another new vintage event!

We'll be there with the lovely ladies from Frocks That Rock: come along and see us!

Taking wing

'Fly bird fly' image originally uploaded to Flickr by deannabeth.

Ruskin takes wing. One of the most beautiful passages in English prose:

The charts of the world which have been drawn up by modern science have thrown into a narrow space the expression of a vast amount of knowledge, but I have never yet seen any one pictorial enough to enable the spectator to imagine the kind of contrast in physical character which exists between Northern and Southern countries. We know the differences in detail, but we have not that broad glance and grasp which would enable us to feel them in their fulness. We know that gentians grow on the Alps, and olives on the Apennines; but we do not enough conceive for ourselves that variegated mosaic of the world’s surface which a bird sees in its migration, that difference between the district of the gentian and of the olive which the stork and the swallow see far off, as they lean upon the sirocco wind.  

Let us, for a moment, try to raise ourselves even above the level of their flight, and imagine the Mediterranean lying beneath us like an irregular lake, and all its ancient promontories sleeping in the sun: here and there an angry spot of thunder, a grey stain of storm, moving upon the burning field; and here and there a fixed wreath of white volcano smoke, surrounded by its circle of ashes; but for the most part a great peacefulness of light, Syria and Greece, Italy and Spain, laid like pieces of a golden pavement into the sea-blue, chased, as we stoop nearer to them, with bossy beaten work of mountain chains, and glowing softly with terraced gardens, and flowers heavy with frankincense, mixed among masses of laurel, and orange and plumy palm, that abate with their grey-green shadows the burning of the marble rocks, and of the ledges of porphyry sloping under lucent sand. 

Then let us pass farther towards the north, until we see the orient colors change gradually into a vast belt of rainy green, where the pastures of Switzerland, and poplar valleys of France, and dark forests of the Danube and Carpathians stretch from the mouths of the Loire to those of the Volga, seen through clefts in grey swirls of rain-cloud and flaky veils of the mist of the brooks, spreading low along the pasture lands: and then, farther north still, to see the earth heave into mighty masses of leaden rock and heathy moor, bordering with a broad waste of gloomy purple that belt  of field and wood, and splintering into irregular and grisly islands amidst the northern seas, beaten by storm and chilled by ice-drift, and tormented by furious pulses of contending tide, until the roots of the last forests fail from among the hill ravines, and the hunger of the north wind bites their peaks into barrenness; and, at last, the wall of ice, durable like iron, sets, deathlike, its white teeth against us out of the polar twilight. 

And, having once traversed in thought its gradation of the zoned iris of the earth in all its material vastness, let us go down nearer to it, and watch the parallel change in the belt of animal life: the multitudes of swift and brilliant creatures that glance in the air and sea, or tread the sands of the southern zone; striped zebras and spotted leopards, glistening serpents, and birds arrayed in purple and scarlet. Let us contrast their delicacy and brilliancy of color, and swiftness of motion, with the frost-cramped strength, and shaggy covering, and dusky plumage of the northern tribes; contrast the Arabian horse with the Shetland, the tiger and leopard with the wolf and bear, the antelope with the elk, the bird of paradise with the osprey: and then, submissively acknowledging the great laws by which the earth and all that it bears are ruled throughout their being, let us not condemn, but rejoice at the expression by man of his own rest in the statutes of the lands that gave him birth. 

Taken from 'The Nature of Gothic' in The Stones of Venice (Vol II)

I feel exhilarated, as if I have been swooping and gliding at dizzying heights with the birds.

[http://www.thisbutterflymind.blogspot.com]

Blossom and Scent

Bright blue sunshiny skies, and the plum tree is an explosion of blossom and delicate scent.

Doesn't it just make you think of Anne Shirley, "all spirit, fire and dew" and her "White Way of Delight"?

Nostalgic indulgence moment:

Anne of Green Gables, by L.M.Montgomery - Chapter Two 'Mr. Matthew Cuthbert is Surprised'

She came out of her reverie with a deep sigh and looked at him with the dreamy gaze of a soul that had been wandering afar, star-led.
"Oh, Mr. Cuthbert," she whispered, "that place we came through—that white place—what was it?"
"Well now, you must mean the Avenue," said Matthew after a few moments' profound reflection. "It is a kind of pretty place."
"Pretty? Oh, PRETTY doesn't seem the right word to use. Nor beautiful, either. They don't go far enough. Oh, it was wonderful—wonderful. It's the first thing I ever saw that couldn't be improved upon by imagination. It just satisfies me here"—she put one hand on her breast—"it made a queer funny ache and yet it was a pleasant ache. Did you ever have an ache like that, Mr. Cuthbert?"
"Well now, I just can't recollect that I ever had."
"I have it lots of time—whenever I see anything royally beautiful. But they shouldn't call that lovely place the Avenue. There is no meaning in a name like that. They should call it—let me see—the White Way of Delight. Isn't that a nice imaginative name?

I adored this book as a child: even now, something about the power of the imagination and the joy of living sticks with me still.

You can read it in HTML or Kindle format on Project Gutenberg.

Happy days!

[http://www.thisbutterflymind.blogspot.com]

Japan Earthquake and Tsunami

With all the terrible news coming out of Japan, my thoughts and love go out to all my friends in Tokyo and all the Japanese people affected.

And to think we were pretty blasé about the long overdue "big one", when I lived there... thank goodness Japan is so well-prepared.

The British Red Cross is running an appeal: you can donate online.

[http://thisbutterflymind.blogspot.com]

Let particular care be taken

 
There's an intensely moving exhibition 'Threads of Feeling' at the Foundling Hospital at Coram's Fields in Fitzrovia. When mothers left babies to be cared for, a meticulous record was kept of the new arrival. This included details of the baby's given name, baptism status and clothing.  Mothers often also left tokens, in order that they might be able to identify the baby on a future, happier date. These ranged from rings and beads, to letters, to scraps of ribbon or fabric.
 

The sense of thwarted love and hope is almost unbearable.  While some children were reclaimed, thousands weren't. 

This note, with a scrap of printed cotton pinned to it, reads "Florella Burney Born june the 19th: 1758: In The Parish off St. Ann's So Ho. Not baptiz'ed. Pray Let particulare care be take'en off this Child As it will be call'd for again ..."

Heartbreakingly, she was not claimed and was eventually apprenticed to a millner in Barking.

On a happier note, I also saw the 'Evolving English' exhibition at the British Library. This, as well as having the earliest known manuscripts of Beowulf and the Anglo-Saxon Chronicles and Caxton's bible, had some fantastic nineteenth century posters.

This one was posted wherever the Riot Act had been declaimed as a warning to protesters to disperse,

while this one advertises a fantastical sounding circus, complete with a giant rat, a skeleton man and a fat child,

And both were free! The London museums are wonderful things.

[http://thisbutterflymind.blogspot.com]

Ne Me Quitte Pas

There was a whole lot of love for Jacques Brel in the 'Stow last night, where we went to watch the fantastic deadbelgian play at Ye Olde Rose and Crown.

The singer has an intensity of vocal and emotional power that is compelling and we loved the flat-cap wearing, red-wine drinking accordian player, the versatile guy who swapped effortlessly between uke, flute, clarinet and sax, and the wisecracking drummer.

The best bit, though, had to be the collective sigh that ran through the audience when 'Ne Me Quitte Pas' was announced: it certainly lived up to the anticipation, the hairs stood up on the back of my neck. See for yourself on the YouTube vid above - if you can zone out the annoying chatter of the audience. Or you can listen to more songs, including 'Amsterdam' and 'Jacky', on MySpace.

[http://www.thisbutterflymind.blogspot.com]

Cutting and sticking

I do hate throwing away nice glossy magazines, so a bit of collaging was in order this evening.

I like a bit of cutting and sticking! No themes today, just random pretty thing that caught my eye... Yep, it's that unsophisticated!

The fruits of my labours:

[http://www.thisbutterflymind.blogspot.com]