More literary generosity

Ottawa is not the most glamorous city in the world, sometime (particularly in late winter) is almost unbearably unsightly.
But in the summer, explodes with good greenery and things are rather great.

There is one thing that I am beginning to appreciate this town for:
this is so far the best place for finding great free read, just in a cardboard box, right on a curb or the edge of wooden stairs with a Free note.

Earlier this year some discarded (unfortunately spineless and damaged) books became my little Found Library, last year some good books on the history of ancient Rome or Art History of Early Christianity were also a prized additions to my home library.

But recently, the find was really abundant.
A stack of books from someone's collection suggests keen, if not scientific interest in Feminist studies.


With such a substantial collection of iconic feminist literature pieces such as "The Second Sex" and the correspondence between Simone de Beauvoir and Sartre.

Since only some of the books are in English, I guess my French will need to be improved a bit to crack such stuff. Hmmmm.
Oh well - we live, we learn.











One of the most pleasing
books is the one of women
artists by G.Greer.

I am very pleased to catch up
on the women lib and stuff!
This little collection of free read
will be called the Femme Library....
Love it love it!

More Summer Bounty

I am enjoying the nature's and culture's generosity again...
Recent trips out of town for an outdoor graphic installation and given me massive suntan, but also a chance to view and listen to the life of the land, the meadow and the woods.

The country roads are so beautiful now, with rich borders of wildflowers.
Having no time to take photos I had cut some of those gorgeous flowers and enjoyed them in the evening on our small terrace.



> Goldenrod (Solidago) is
a brilliantly yellow, important
medicinal plant.

> The brilliant purple stalk is that of
a Purple Loosestrife.
I am so sorry to learn that it has
become invasive - looking so
desirable...

> This exquisite while flower is
Queens Anne's Lace, or simply
Wild Carrot.

The flowers in the bottom left corner
are showing the amazing architecture of it's
inflorescence.* ------------------>

* An umbel is an inflorescence which
consists of a number of short flower
stalks (called pedicels) which
spread from a common point,
somewhat like umbrella ribs.
(Wiki)

Heat, patterns

It is still very hot, storms in the forecast.
Another report on patterns I am wearing this time, as opposed to the previous report on Rush, patterns

Those are Heat, patterns:
 

Distinctly summer

Market, Home, Studio... After stormy weeks, quiet at last...
Take a look of some inspiring tidbits in my scrapbook

Helmut Winkler

Someone said "all good things come to an end" or something equally profound.
As if bad things were coming with a badge of immortality.
But I cannot get over Herbert Winkler is no longer the art director of Wallpaper.
I loved this magazine and everything about it.
I had retained several beautiful copies from the period of his design, but after lending them so people, I am down to ONE and holding on to it as if it were a proof that once upon a time we were smart, organized, finessed...

The tides of marketing, I don't know. It really sucks.
His work influenced so much, his organization and precision were amazing.
It brought clarity and excitement together. Orndung und culturen, forgive my Spanish.






 Design Literacy (Continued): Understanding Graphic Design
 By Steven Heller  



That's what I mean. Even though I loved overlapping type in terribly many instances, he could do without stuff like that. He was pure structure.

Life was sooo good with him at the old
  (didn't have the cursor back then...)

This is Colette.

And this is her book.







 







This is the original front cover of 1st edition Claudine a l'école, 1900, published in Paris by Société d'Editions Littéraires & Artistiques, Librairie Paul Ollendorff, Chaussée d'Antin. And this cover sucks. Claudine looks like a tramp.

But that was still belle époque (shabby chic incarnated) and Claudine even at 15 was good looking and sexy. She was falling in love easily - with women and the sky did not fall.

I was about 12, the book belonged to my mother and I've  read it five times over in one summer (of course).

The edition I read was plain-covered (thanks God).
I read several from the Collette series but my favourite will remain the first one, Claudine à l'école.
I still like the memory of pleasure reading the well crafted narrative and a little erotic thrill coming from the story. The sun was always up, the linen were all white, the living was slow.
As if the belle époque summer was never ending.
When you look at it - lesbian relationships in literature ca 1900 ?!?!


Collette was a revolutionary.  Once scandalist, or controversial at best she died revered at 81, the officer of the highest honours, including Legion of Honour, received the state funeral and is interred at Pearle La Chaise cemetery, where so many of the stars live.

Nostalgia for ionized rays

Nearly two weeks after his discovery, William Roentgen took the very first picture using X-rays of his wife Anna Bertha's hand. When she saw her skeleton she exclaimed "I have seen my death!" ^(Wiki)
 

The hand of Mrs. Wilhelm Roentgen: the first X-ray image, 1895
In Otto Glasser, Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen and the early history
of the Roentgen rays. London, 1933. National Library of Medicine.

The announcement (...) was hailed as one of mankind’s greatest technological accomplishments, an invention that would revolutionize every aspect of human existence.












 
There is something undeniably poignant in the image of the old cameras, almost esoteric, as if the devices and processes that were used to capture our transience possess some ability to reconstruct, re-project the secrets, the mysteries of our lives.

When Thomas Mann was writing his Magic Mountain, starting in 1912 the science of imaging with ionized radiation against barium platinocyanide coated plate has not been common yet well known and making incredibly strong impression on self-reflective minds of the day.

My personal copy of a pre-war edition of das buch:  American edition but with distinctly Germanic "gothic"-flavoured spine. Wonderbuch.
Clavia's love story comes up almost marginally but with massive effect the depiction of the X-raying session and the story becomes memorable.
It confirms the steady built vision of a sanatorium as a no longer "real" place, a neither land, a place where one transcends the boundaries of life and death. Into the realm life beyond life where time does not exist in the same form as anywhere else. Thoughts arise in the air thinner of oxygen. Bodies become inert among other than earthly matters.
Illness is not an affliction, but almost a merit. Or perhaps a salvus conductus that exludes one to this state of being.

The keywords given to Der Zauberberg (The Magic Mountain) in the "review from the medical perspective") by the NY University Literature, Arts & Medicine Database are full of cool thrill:

Acculturation, Caregivers, Death and Dying, Disease and Health, Doctor-Patient Relationship, Euthanasia, Freedom, History of Medicine, Illness and the Family, Infectious Disease, Institutionalization, Medical Testing, Mourning, Obsession, Patient Experience, Physical Examination, Psycho-social Medicine, Psychosomatic Medicine, Psychotherapy, Religion, Science, Sexuality, Society, Suffering, Time, Tuberculosis,

X-ray imaging is not included in this list, while it seems to me one of the almost central to the metaphysical moment in this novel.
By the way, I had no idea what acculturation meant (until today - see the date of this post to mark my word). But it has changed. I now am a proud owner of at least approximate  understanding what this really coolly written word (you wish it were occultatation - huh?)
This term was coined or just disseminated in the sixties and it means roughly: adoption and assimilation of cultural norms and behavioral patterns of the majority group.
Look, it is not the same as just assimilation ok?
So I don't know - sick Mr. Castorp commits; no. undergoes acculturation; no, experiences.... Hmmm, Thomas Mann had no idea what he did to this poor sick bloke.



50watts:

George Wilson, painting for cover of Man With the X-Ray Eyes, 1963 (via Gold Key Comics)

The image above and a tonne of absolutely super unnatural, freakish, steam-punk, humour-occultist are channeled from a smilingly inexhaustible source of sometime truly historic images - the Wunderkammer. This site attests to the long and rich history of humanity as seriously messed up, obsessive species.

Australia - reclaimed metals

I love destroying me some hardware!
Remember Max 2 aka "The Road Warrior" - OMG, this was such fun movie.
I am including it in my diary for the reasons explained in the earlier post (Alzeimer or temporary memory loss need something for a kick-start)
To cut to the chase, dialogues have been removed - Final Pursuit, The Chase Maximum!

Somebody (perhaps) Ebert or the film director himself likened the massive chase segments to Buster Keatons General.
Ohhh, me love Buster Keaton!
Oh, and The Feral Kid:

Little Prince on Obsolete

A close colleague of mine (someone who usually be called a friend these days, but since the English language is not my first, nor even a second language, I am trying to be "judicious" with wording, hmmm - I know, occasionally with completely adverse effect) reminded me of The Little Prince.
I did not grow up on the Little Charmer, I grew on the Hans Christian Andersen's tales, but I know of him, read some of it, saw the illustration and saw how my son was charmed when watching animated film.

So if I had to put a face (I know he is widely known by the original watercoloured illustrations and countless animations afterwards) to His Little Highness, it would be this one.

This item comes from another indispensable source of magic: obsolete.com



They are sophisticated sellers of aromatic treats for the sophisticated decorator.
This is a head of a little Italian hand-carved mannequin intended to represent a saint.
Just to add to the saint's venerated allure his marionette-like features permitted the movement of the body: the wooden hands could me made into certain gestures, head tilted, the body tilted.

The flower had once seen a caravan passing.
“Men?” she echoed. “I think there are six or seven of them in existence. I saw them, several years ago. But one never knows where to find them. The wind blows them away. They have no roots, and that makes their lives very difficult.”

Further down the mechanics of the image of divinity:
The Obsolete allows a glimpse into that by showing the details of the fixtures of the 4ft figure. It must have been the statue of Saint Anthony, the hook on the figure'arm was probably to help the arm hold the figure of a baby Jesus.
Anyway, marvelous stuff.



Super site on Saint-Exupery is here:
http://www.antoinedesaintexupery.com