Opus has a new philosophy for photographing flowers and the result is stunning. I couldn’t be more delighted to share them with all of you.
…the spring and early summer has been very good for macro plant photography. I have started thinking of these as plant portraits, rather than just macro photography. …Hope you enjoy seeing them as much as I enjoyed capturing them.
Clover, ©Opus, all rights reserved
Wild Carrot, ©Opus, all rights reserved
Barrie, James Matthew, My Lady Nicotine A Study in Smoke, London, Hodder & Stoughton, 1890
A book written by the author of Peter Pan about his love affair with smoking. He had quit smoking when he wrote the book and had become contemptuous of it, but the series of 33 essays speak wistfully of his fond remembrances of the days when he enjoyed his pipe. The essay titles include, “His Wife’s Cigar,” “How Heroes Smoke.” and “The Perils of Not Smoking.”
The Lily Pond, ©voyager, all rights reserved
This is going to be a strange year for Jack and I. Usually, at about this time of year we pack up the car and head down the highway to the east coast where we spend our summers by the sea, but this year we’ve decided to stay home. My mother’s health has been deteriorating and even though she lives in a nursing home I still worry. I’m an only child so I don’t have a sibling to call on for help. I begged for a brother or sister when I was young, but to no avail. Too bad, an extra pair of eyes and hands would be nice at this stage of life.
When we’re down east in Perce we stay with Mr. V’s mum who is 93 and has been living alone. This mum is still a going concern. Well into her 90’s now she still manages everything well and on her own. She shops and cooks and still bakes cookies because who wants store-bought. She also still drives, irons, gardens and has just found herself a rather nice, very old-fashioned and sweet boyfriend who will be spending the summer with her. He’s just a kid at 78. That means just a bit less worry for us. Our east coast mum will have a wonderful summer even if we can’t be there to share it with her.
Jack hasn’t ever spent a whole summer in Ontario so I’m going to see if I can find a few new trails to keep him engaged. Me too. I like to be outside and I don’t what I’m going to do with myself without my annual hunt for seaglass.
(I am currently again in Macedonia, having not even posted all the photos from my last trip, and it is extremely hot and stressful, so here is something short and full of personal pride.)
It’s been a while since the last time I shared some of my art, and this time around, I must say I am disgustingly proud of myself. Because when Inspiration came, it was inspiration for an image quite outside my comfort zone (not the usual cats and horses, is what I mean) and it really felt like a challenge to complete the project as I imagined it.
The initial sketch happened at work, and came quite easily:
© rq, all rights reserved.
And as big a fan as I am of black-and-white ink sketches, I knew this one needed more. It took another two months (I think?) to turn that drawing into the final painting (not that it took two months of painting, but it took two months to finally have enough guts and enough time to do it; some procrastination may have been involved):
© rq, all rights reserved. Acrylic, size A5.
Like I said, I am disgustingly proud of this painting, and yes, I keep using that word, because it almost feels undeserved that it should feel so properly done. I think it’s a bit of imposter syndrome at work, but I also have it on good authority that the painting has been well-received and shall be accordingly framed.
I sent it off with a small story about the official title of the painting, but I will admit that I am still extremely shy about sharing my (fiction) writing. Caine did once share a poem of mine here, and for some reason, that felt very nerve-wracking.
Most of you can probably guess the owner, incidentally – he runs a blog on this network that goes by the title of St Derr (I know, I know, don’t shoot me!), which also happens to be the name of that badger. In a striking case of coincidence, there actually exists a Temple of Derr, most possibly dedicated to the god Ptah, who also happens to be the patron deity of metalworkers.
And I do owe mail to my co-bloggers as well, just don’t expect it within the next 6 months. You all deserve something at least as nice as this.
Public toilets have long been a battle ground of women’s fight for the public sphere: from the fact that back in the 19th century there simply weren’t many public toilets for women, making them dependent on how well they could hold their pee to leave the house, to today’s fight to make sure trans women can safely use the right loo. The very private act of relieving oneself was always very public and very political. Another dimension (no pun intended) is space, and I rarely found a better example of how space is allocated to cis men than today.
I went to a meeting in a public building today, and when it was over I went to the visitor bathroom because I learned that if I don’t go the Autobahn will be closed and I’ll piss myself before I get home. So everybody who drove the same direction should thank me.
The sign at the door said “men, women and disabled”, making me wonder whether disabled people are suddenly no longer men and women, but then I went inside and came upon this:
©Giliell, all rights reserved
Snug, isn’t it? With the bin being so close to the loo and not much space on the other side I had some difficulties to move my butt far enough to the back of the toilet to actually hit the bowl. How this should be managed with a disability is a mystery to me, but if you think “maybe they only had so much space available”, let me tell you, they didn’t. To the right of the toilet is another compartment, about 50% larger than this one, holding two urinals. Hey, at least it had a door so you don’t need to see somebody waving their dick around, I go to Twitter for that kind of thing. Yes, that’s correct: 100% of the facility meet the needs of able bodied cis men, with 60% being reserved exclusively for them, while women, disabled people of all genders and probably most trans men all need to share 40% of the space, which is actually not enough space and which is also available to cis men.
And you want to hear the joke? The public building was a youth office, where the overwhelming majority of visitors is female…
Lang, Andrew. The Book of Romance. New York, Longmans, Green & co, 1902
This is one of the best-loved book of stories about the Legend of King Arthur. The cover is gorgeous, but there are some pretty sweet interior plates as well. The whole book is available at the link below if you’re interested.
via: The Internet Archive
Our tree his week is a bit odd, but I like that in a tree and, obviously, so does Avalus.
The Corkscrew, ©Avalus, all rights reserved
©voyager, all rights reserved
It’s been an overcast and humid day here, but at least it didn’t get overly hot. Still, neither Jack nor I like the humidity so we went out early to avoid the warmest part of the day. We just went to our familiar forest, but a pack of 4 shaggy, black and white springer spaniels livened things up a bit. They bounded up at us from behind, ran a few circles around Jack – all going in different directions and then bounded off down the path without stopping to take a breath. It all happened so fast that Jack didn’t get a chance to say Hi or Bye and he loves to say both. I think he felt cheated so I gave him an extra milk-bone and soon enough the world was right again and off we went.
Today’s book comes from Anne, Cranky Cat Lady and it’s absolutely charming. I’m pretty sure it’s a rare first edition and it looks to be in good shape for a book that’s 119 years old.
James Gall. An Easy Guide to The Constellations With A Miniature Atlas of The Stars. Gall and Inglis, London, 1900.
Mondays are always better with flowers and Avalus has sent us some gorgeous Iris to help us start the week.
There was a beautiful patch of irises that attracted many visitors.
©Avalus, all rights reserved
©Avalus, all rights reserved
Like this bumblebee, just caught while taking off…
©Avalus, all rights reserved
And this leaf bug.
©Avalus, all rights reserved
Moses Wolcott Redding. Standard Ahiman Rezon and Blue Lodge Guide. New York : Redding & Co., 1889 — Source.
I am still in a prolonged battle with my garden and my workshop, but it seems I am ever so slowly reaching a level of order that allows an actual work to be performed again. The whole workshop, the garden shed and essentially the whole garden were a huge mess whose cleaning took me the better part of my free time for, by now, a whole month. And I need to clean it up because I need to get to making knives pronto. I got my first commission.
I have sent the potential customer pictures of my past work and they chose a design, with a few requests for changes. It is, in fact, the sixth knife I have ever made and one that I am using personally until today – you can see it in the article “Knifesharpenophobia”. I think it is a good design for an all-purpose camping knife but also exactly because of that long time of me using this knife personally, I thought that the blade geometry can be improved, so I did exactly that – the blade is a tiny bit slimmer and the point is more centered and pointy than in the original.
I have drawn a sketch in photoshop, with two different wood variants. Then I made a pretty pdf and sent it to the potential customer to look at and, of course, a price list for the variants portrayed.
They chose and ordered a knife with stainless steel handguard and pommel, peened, full tang and a simple leather sheath. The grip from cherry wood, leather colored accordingly.
©Charly, all rights reserved. Click for full size.
I hope to do it justice. This blade has somewhat complex geometry and it was not exactly easy to make it back when hand tools were all I had. Making it on a belt-grinder should be faster, but it also allows for easy mess-up. So I will probably start making two blades and if two knives come out of it, good. I need at least one top-notch blade. And if I get two blades out of it, the second one will be fitted differently and sold in an auction for the Richard Carrier defense fund.
As a result, of course, I do not expect to meet the manufacturing time that I used for price calculation – I have used the expected time after I get some more experience under my belt, and the offer alone took several hours to draft because I had no templates for calculating the prices or drawing the designs. But right now it is not about making enough money to live by, right now it is about getting more experience, getting better acquainted with my tools, optimizing my manufacturing processes and getting some satisfied customers. We’ll see what comes out of it.
Old French Fairy Tales by Comtesse De Segur; illustrated by Virginia Frances Sterrett; 1920; The Penn publishing company, Philadelphia.
I’m not sure why, but Saturdays seem like a good day to showcase Fairy Tales. Perhaps because I spent every Saturday with my grandparents when I was young and my Opa loved to tell me stories.
Today’s story book is a classic of the Art Nouveau period and was illustrated by the incomparable Virgina Sterrett. Sterrett was only 20 when she received the commission to illustrate Old French Fairly Tales and the art she created is rich and full of colour and delicate details. Sterrett was diagnosed with tuberculosis shortly after the completion of this book and her failing health limited her ability to work. She did go on to complete the illustrations for two other books before her death at the age of 30. I will be showcasing those books over the next 2 Saturdays so make sure to tune in. But now, let’s just enjoy a few of the wonderful illustrations of Sterrett’s first book, Old French Fairy Tales.
The book comes to us from the Public Domain Review, but the entire book can be accessed at The Internet Archive.
Roslie saw before her eyes a tree of marvellous beauty
She threw her arms around the neck of Bonne-Biche
They were three months passing through the forest
A part of the wall crumbled with a terrible noise
They walked side by side during the rest of the evening
“Ah, ha! you are at last in my domain, little fool!”
Violette consented willingly to pass the night in the forest