Contemplating mortality

You do not need to leave your room.
Remain sitting at your table and listen.
 Do not even listen.
Simply wait.
Do not even wait.
Be quiet, still and solitary.
 The world will freely offer itself to you to be unmasked.
It has no choice. It will roll in ecstasy at your feet.

Es ist nicht notwendig, daß Du aus dem Haus gehst.
Bleib bei Deinem Tisch und horche.
Horche nicht einmal, warte nur.
Warte nicht einmal, sei völlig still und allein.
Anbieten wird sich Dir die Welt zur Entlarvung,
sie kann nicht anders, verzückt wird sie sich vor Dir winden.

So wrote Franz Kafka as he convalesced from tuberculosis. Ira Byock, "a leading figure in palliative care and hospice in the U.S." quoted this poem - or I guess it's one of Kafka's aphorisms, in his wonderful interview with Krista Tippett. Of mortality, "[h]e says we lose sight of "the remarkable value" of the time of life we call dying if we forget that it's always a personal and human event, and not just a medical one. From his place on this medical frontier, he shares how we can understand dying as a time of learning, repair, and completion of our lives." The rest of the interview is here. Pictures today from 8 & 9.Sept.2012

The least of these

. . . ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.’ Matthew 25:40

 

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The Allure of Art Nouveau

Andy and I have been watching a BBC show called the Sex & Sensibility: the allure of Art Nouveau. While I found their emPHAsis on the erotic a bit off-putting, and the gentleman-scholar schtick of the narrator who would insist on mispronouncing Egon Schiele as ee-gon & completely ignoring the umlaut on Wierner Werkstatte, among other annoyances, the pictures were beautiful & I learned about lots of things I hadn't been aware of before, like the Anderson Collection, the The Watts Cemetery Chapel (which has many more pictures here), and the Horta Museum (which remains closed, apparently due to a dispute among his heirs - so many more pix here). I'm also very excited about the imminent arrival of the catalog for The Cult of Beauty: The Victorian Avant-Garde 1860-1900, a show that, unfortunately, is only at the Legion of Honor museum in the U.S. Other stops include the V&A in London & the Musee D'Orsay in Paris (at least I think that's the same show). I'm adding this to my collection of catalogs of shows that focus on late 19th-early 20th century modernism. Recent entries include Intermezzo from the Musee der Art Moderne in Salzburg (sorry, can't find anything on their site), and Klimt & Hoffmann: Pioneers of Modernism from the Belvedere museum in Vienna. So my photos today are from 6.Sept.2012 & are comprised of neighborhood shots incluiding some stairs to nowhere & a couple o' cats. Off now to tootle, laundry, toddle, & stitch.

Your daily dose of drama

I was going to say now if someone would only do this in Boston, but then decided we probably have all the drama we need.

Off now to get ready to tutor a tooter & then tootle, toddle & otherwise enjoy the day.

Paw de deux

Every Riven thing

OK so I'm going to grab a few minutes to share with you some images that struck me from a recent trip to the MFA that was between an MD visit & an Alexander lesson. I especially liked the new "Allure of Japan" show that explores the influence of Japanese art American artists around the turn of the 20th century. I'd hoped there would be images available on the MFA website to include here, but found only this:



And I never seem to stop finding little crooks & nannies in the museum that I hadn't seen before - or at least don't remember noticing. In one hallway on the way to my favorite galleries of works from the "American Renaissance" I happened upon a work by Alma-Tadema (who knew he was Dutch?) that I loved:



And in those wonderful AR galleries looked closely for the first time @ the photo at the top of this entry, Orpheus by George de Forest Brush, 1855–1941 & to one by another lesser known American artist Elizabeth Lyman Boott, 1846–1888.



I also wanted to share a wonderful poem "Every riven thing" by Christian Wiman, who was interviewed by Krista TIppett recently.

God goes, belonging to every riven thing he's made
sing his being simply by being
the thing it is:
stone and tree and sky,
man who sees and sings and wonders why

God goes. Belonging, to every riven thing he's made,
means a storm of peace.
Think of the atoms inside the stone.
Think of the man who sits alone
trying to will himself into a stillness where

God goes belonging. To every riven thing he's made
there is given one shade
shaped exactly to the thing itself:
under the tree a darker tree;
under the man the only man to see

God goes belonging to every riven thing. He's made
the things that bring him near,
made the mind that makes him go.
A part of what man knows,
apart from what man knows,

God goes belonging to every riven thing he's made.

You can here him explain the origin of & read the poem here:


The transcript of the entire interview, as well as some of his other poems are here.

Teddy Bear's Picnic

I know you'll enjoy this:



Pix today from 5.Sept.2011 - including one more from the aftermath of the storm.

Off soon to tootle, laundry, toddle & stitch.