Another post of my DC photos. It is always interesting

to see an actual work of art rather than a reproduction.

Certainly looking at this painting you realized what

a great artist da Vinci was and how far ahead of most

of the other artists he was at depicting people.

Because the gallery was arranged chronologically

we could see it would be 100's of years, in our minds,

before people were depicted as people and not the

rather chubby personifications of classical myths or

biblical stories.

 Ginevra de" Benci

 by

Leonardo da Vinci

  

The next group we really enjoyed were the Northern Europeans.

I love the little crowds amid the winter landscapes. It is such

a romatic image everyone dressed up, no cold.

Sorry the photos an pretty bad but

I could not resist.

details from Adam van Breen (ca.1585-1640)

Skaters on the Amstel with a View of Amsterdam

"After the brief bivouac of Sunday,
their eyes, in the forced march of Monday to Saturday,
hoist the white flag, flutter in the snow-storm of paper,
haul it down and crack in the mid-sun of temper.

In the pause between the first draft and the carbon
they glimpse the smooth hours when they were children--
the ride in the ice-cart, the ice-man's name,
the end of the route and the long walk home; "

The Stenographers

P.K. Page

 

Detail of the interior of a Gothic Church

 Dirck van Deelen

He seemed to do a lot of church interiors.

"Walking sometimes in the streets of the town
I live in and thinking of the people who
lived here once and fill the space I fill —
If they'd painted white trails on the sidewalk
everywhere they went, it would be possible
to see them now."

                              Method for Calling up Ghosts

Al Purdy

I have blogged a photo of the yellow board

that covers this garage window a few blocks away

before. Now the dissolution of the entire garage

has become an object of some interest for me. The

roof has seen better decades the stucco is flaking and

even the faithful yellow board is cracking.

Is this the end?

 

This is the way the world ends

This is the way the world ends

This is the way the world ends

Not with a bang but a whimper.

The Hollow Men

T.S. Eliot

It isn’t necessary to imagine the world ending in fire or ice

 — there are two other possibilities: one is paperwork,

and the other is nostalgia.

Frank Zappa

"I heard the flowers in the breeze make conversation with the trees
Believed to leave reality behind me
With my commitments in a mess my sleep has gone away depressed
In a world of fantasy you’ll find me.

I’m just sitting watching flowers in the rain
Feel the power of the rain making the garden grow,
I’m just sitting watching flowers in the rain
Feel the power of the rain keeping me cool"

                                        Flowers in the Rain

                                                     Electric Light Orchestra

Small Worlds

  "The Seasons revolve and the years change
With no assistance or supervision."

Another Spring

                        Kenneth Rexroth

 

" If I moved, Basho's frog

Would splash in the pool.

Empty Mirror

                    Kenneth Rexroth

"As long as we are lost

In the world of purpose

We are not free."

Empty Mirror

                     Kenneth Rexroth

"Everything that slows us down and forces patience,

everything that sets us back into the slow circles of nature,

is a help. Gardening is an instrument of grace.”

                                                                                  May Sarton

This weekend we weeded and set up the fountain

in the pond. We are trying to introduce for native

plants around the pond so this weekend we added

some small native columbines and shooting stars.

"I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,

And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made;

Nine bean rows will I have there, a hive for the honeybee,

And live alone in the bee-loud glade.

And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,

Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;

There midnight's all a-glimmer, and noon a purple glow,

And evening full of the linnet's wings.

I will arise and go now, for always night and day

I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;

While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements gray,

I hear it in the deep heart's core. "

The Lake Isle of Innifree

       William Butler Yeats

As I trundled thru the house getting ready for work

I heard the sound of the finches up and singing  with

the dawn. It is for me a happy sound

Later I read an article that appeared as a link on aldaily.com

from the New Republic, Happyism The creepy new economics 

of pleasure by Deirdre N. McCloskey. She touched all

the basics pleasure vs happiness, the hedonic treadmill,

economic theory, surveys etc. and while I found it

interesting if long I was also distracted more and more by the

thoughts of what make me happy. I also realized that one thing
that I enjoy when I read is the authors attempts to capture the

moment when they are overwhelmed by joy, revelation,
fuifillment, what ever you choose to call it.

One of my favorite descriptions of this experience follows.

“I feel as though I stand at the foot of an infinitely

high staircase, down which some exuberant spirit

is flinging tennis ball after tennis ball, eternally,

and the one thing I want in the world is a tennis ball.”

from

Pilgrim at Tinker Creek

Annie Dillard

-----------------

A rare visitor to the yard.

We have been in this house close to twenty years.

After we had been here a few years we heard

the beautiful song of the male House Finch a

bird we were not familiar with here. He would

(we assumed it was the same bird) appear every

Spring but never seemed to get an answer. Eventually,

I can not tell if it was in time for our lone swain more

finches appeared. Now they outnumber house sparrows

at our feeder. And at present they are both bringing their

young to feed and the food is disappearing from the new

Squirrel proof feeders at an alarming rate.



"In trees still dripping night some nameless birds
Woke, shook out their arrowy wings, and sang,
Slowly, like finches sifting through a dream."

From

Morning in a new land
Mary Oliver



The House Finches do seem to spill enough

food that the squirrels while in danger of

frustration are not in danger of starvation.

Leopard's Bane the first non-bulb to flower in our

garden each year.

"Suddenly I realize

That if I stepped out of my body I would break

Into blossom."

from

A Blessing

   Jame Wright

The last post from our trip to the Calgary Zoo.

This trip we found ourselves knee deep in Peacocks

I never did figure out how many they had, they

seemed to be everywhere.

So a post in memory of Argus faithful servant of

Hera tasked with watching Io daughter of Inachus

( changed by Zeus into a heifer to fool his wife )

After Argus is slain by Hermes Hera places his

one hundred eyes into the tail of a peacock.

What I really tried to capture was the

variety of the feathers and the sheer size

and weight, a lot to carry.

And the object of everyone's affection.

"And I remembered the cry of the peacocks.

The colors of their tails
Were like the leaves themselves
Turning in the wind,
In the twilight wind.
They swept over the room,
Just as they flew from the boughs of the hemlocks
Down to the ground.
I heard them cry -- the peacocks."

from

Domination Of Black

              Wallace Stevens

“The real and proper question is: why is it beautiful?”  

Pilgrim at Tinker Creek

Annie Dillard
 

The Calgary Zoo announced a few months ago that they

are looking for a new home for their small group of

Asian Elephants. It is felt they would be better off as

part of a larger social group and hopefully they would

have a larger area that a couple of small dusty paddocks.

We noticed when we went to the DC zoo the elephants

had a huge area by comparison with lots of room to roam.

The search is expected to take several years to find an

accredited facility to take them. Even knowing that it

will take years I felt I was saying goodbye. And while

it is better for them, a bit of wonder will be lost from our lives
when we can no longer see them in the flesh.

“Sometimes I need
only to stand
wherever I am
to be blessed.”

                  

from                  

                  Evidence

                       Mary Oliver

“We are cups, constantly and quietly being filled.

 The trick is, knowing how to tip ourselves over and 

let the beautiful stuff out.”

 Ray Bradbury

I learned yesterday that a favorite author

Ray Bradbury had died. Ray wrote beautifully

and for me often captured the wonder and terror

of everyday life. Last night I watched The Beast 

from 20,000 Fathoms a film loosely based on 

Bradbury's story the Foghorn with the monster

created by his friend Ray Harryhausen. Since

I am travelling I would like to offer some quotes

from the internet with photos from my earlier blogs.

All the quotes below come from Bradbury or

his works

"The sun burnt everyday. It burnt Time. 

The world rushed in a circle and turned on its axis 

and time was busy burning the years and the 

people anyway, without any help from him. So if he burnt 

things with the firemen and the sun burnt time, 

that meant that everything burnt."   

Fahrenheit 451

Montag

"Yet this train's whistle! The wails of a 

lifetime were gathered in it from other 

nights in other slumbering years; 

the howl of moon-dreamed dogs, 

the seep of river-cold winds through 

January porch..."

Something Wicked This Way Comes

“Bees do have a smell, you know, and if 

they don't they should, for their feet are 

dusted with spices from a million flowers.”

Dandelion Wine

“Way out in the country tonight he could smell 

the pumpkins ripening toward the knife and the

 triangle eye and the singeing candle.” 

Dandelion Wine

“Why the Egyptian, Arabic, Abyssinian, Choctaw? 

Well, what tongue does the wind talk? 

What nationality is a storm? What country do rains 

come from? What color is lightning? Where does 

thunder go when it dies?” 

Something Wicked This Way Comes

"I have never listened to anyone who criticized 

my taste in space travel, sideshows or gorillas. 

When this occurs, I pack up my dinosaurs 

and leave the room.” 

Ray Bradbury 

Thanks Ray