Without Lifting A Finger

Canterbury Knolls , a photo by lavocado@sbcglobal.net on Flickr. I pass a similar sign on the way to work (going down Florence). Who would've guessed it: Geoffrey got to LA.

Juggling (not juggling) two books at once: Frisch's Stiller and Emily Carr's Journals ( Hundreds and Thousands ). Not juggling because things are going slowly--because of school? because of ____?--but that's life. * Anyway, I've gotten through about half of Stiller , and I have a few "bullets" for you ( I would say "Little Book," but that's Emily Carr): Went to Davos yesterday. It's just as Thomas Mann describes it My greatest fear: repetition Ascona Every word is false and true, that is the nature of words Is there anyone who doesn't wish at times that he could become a monk? We live in an age of reproduction the rest of us swim in a cocktail containing pretty well everything and mixed in the most elegant manner by Eliot a fellow who had the chest and shoulders of a Michelangelo slave

A strange turn of events has found me helping a single 6th grader with her opening days of school. No problem: I can do a little of this and that. So, leafing through an English book I was delighted to see Frost's "The Road Not Taken" (not that I'm a big Frost fan but because it was a poem that everyone is somewhat familiar with, right?). Long story short: I read it aloud to her and then she read it again to herself and answered some questions. In grading the questions (multiple choice), I kept thinking: Do they really understand this poem, and isn't it more complicated than what they say? They didn't and apparently it is. It isn't about "individuality" and "forging your own path," and apparently the big stumbling block is the last two lines: "I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference." The Road Not Taken Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, And sorry I could not travel both And be one t...

Started school this week and things aren't pretty. That partly explains my silence. Just a short passage from Emily's Hundreds (which got some Hogarthian ink) re her relationship with Lawren and theosophy.      I have written to Lawren and told him about things. I think he will be very disappointed in me and feel I have retrograded way back, fallen to earth level, dormant, stodgy as a sitting hen. I think he will hardly understand my attitude for I have been trying these three years to see a way through theosophy. Now I turn my back on it all and go back sixty years to where I started, but it is good to feel a real God, not the distant, mechanical, theosophical one.  I am wonderfully happy and peaceful.

It is a type of "bascule" bridge and it was designed by the same engineer who would later design the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco: Joseph Strauss (1870 - 1938). The Johnson Street Bridge is sometimes called the "Blue Bridge." Apparently, according to our water taxi driver, it is long overdue to be replaced. 

Water taxis (cute little munchkin boats) could be seen in both Vancouver and Victoria. We finally decided to ride one in Victoria (from the Inner Harbor to a stop close to Chinatown). Our driver--a newbie--told us about the water taxi ballet which would take place the following morning (Sunday). He said he wouldn't be in it (he had to be trained on the maneuvers first), but that it was free and well worth seeing. We saw it. 



I saw many of these trees (arbutus) in Victoria, but I didn't know their name until I read Emily's description: "tender satin bark, smooth and lovely as naked maidens." The one at the Empress Hotel was exceptional and very popular with photographers. 

Emily's view of herself and her art: something along the lines of Art = Religion and Artist = Translator of Mute Nature. An entry from 1930: TUESDAY, JANUARY 20TH I have been to the woods at Esquimalt. Day was splendid -- sunshine and blue, blue sky, and two arbutus with tender satin bark, smooth and lovely as naked maidens, silhouetted against the rough pine woods. Very joyous and uplifting, but surface representation does not satisfy me now. I want not "the accidentals of individual surface" but "the universals of basic form, the factor that governs the relationship of part to part, of part to whole and of the whole object to the universal environment of which if forms a part."

Gum Wall, Seattle , a photo by heather on Flickr. My wife found out about this after we returned from Seattle. Sorry we missed it. Apparently it's pretty close to the PIke Market and the famous fish-tossing fishmonger's.

Here are links to the other paintings Emily crits: 1.) A. Y. Jackson's "Autumn in Algoma" did not please her. 2.) On the other hand, Jackson's "Barns" delighted her. 3.) Her conclusion on Arthur Lismer's "Happy Isles" seems somewhat mixed . 4.) J. E. H. MacDonald's "Solemn Land" seems to have impressed her: "very big and powerful and solemn." 5.) MacDonald's "Glowing Peaks" she liked, except for the "brown water" (couldn't find this picture). 6.) She states that she didn't care about A. J. Casson (he apparently joined the group in 1926, after Frank Johnston left), and that his "Dawn" didn't please her (I couldn't find this picture either).

Harris seems to have done many paintings similar to "Mountain Forms," the painting Carr was so taken by in Montreal. Below is an example of his work (I found it on Photobucket but I do not know its title): 

Have set aside Berger's essays for a time (I'm roughly half way through) to pick up a new book: Emily Carr's Hundreds and Thousands (her journals from 1927 to 1941). It begins with her traveling from B.C. to the East (Winnipeg, Toronto, Montreal) largely to meet with the members known as The Group of Seven (I believe she meets with all seven) and to view their work. From 1927, Dec 5th, Montreal: Arrived 11:50 and after lunch went straight to the Royal Canadian Academy. It was a good show. The big room (mostly Group of Seven) was very enjoyable. It was the first time I have been able to sit and take the time over the Group of Seven. I studied them separately and together. There was Jackson, Lismer, Harris, MacDonald, Carmichael and Casson represented -- all except Varley.      Harris's "Mountain Forms" was beautiful. It occupied the centre of one wall -- one great cone filled with snow and serenely rising to a sky filled with wonderful light round it in...

'Man is a beast of prey,' I said in a general sort of way. 'That's the truth, Knobel, and all the rest is humbug.' *** You can put anything into words, except your life. *** God is a deposit! He is the sum of real life, or at least that's how it sometimes seems to me.   

Only problem is: other than the hibiscus I don't know their names.    



Am I the only one who thinks this way: In re-reading Frisch's Stiller I am amazed how much I'd forgotten, and consider it as a positive that it feels like I'm reading the novel for the first time. Having re-read Homo Faber again recently I am surprised (intrigued, delighted) by the Mexican motif in Stiller . In Faber the protagonist's plane crashes in a Mexican desert; in Stiller Stiller (Not Stiller, White) has just come into Switzerland from Mexico. The only lines I've underscored in my Kindle thus far (have I subconsciously decided to curtail my underscoring?) has to do with a little poke Frisch is giving the fatherland = Switzerland: We have both come to the conclusion that physical hygiene in Switzerland is in remarkable contrast to the rest of their obsession with cleanliness. He told me that where he lived in the town he was only allowed by contract to take a hot shower at week-ends, as in the prison. Then we march off to our cells one by one with...

We stumbled onto the Buskers Festival in Victoria. We arrived on the afternoon of July 27th and departed on the 29th (the last day of the festival). It was a pleasant surprise (diversion). We saw many of the performers on the following webpage, but perhaps our favorite (we saw bits of her act at least 3 times) was Sharon from Canada (aka Miss Tallulah). http://victoriabuskers.com/performers/ *** 

In 1614 a sequel to Cervantes ' Don Quixote was published under the pseudonym Alonso Fernández de Avellaneda . The identity of Fernández de Avellaneda has been the subject of many theories, but there is no consensus on who he was. One theory holds that Avellaneda's work was a collaboration by friends of Lope de Vega. [ 1 ] Critical opinion has generally held Avellaneda's work in low regard, [ 1 ] and Cervantes himself is highly critical of it in his own Part 2. However, it is possible that Cervantes would never have completed his own continuation were it not for the stimulus Avellaneda provided. Throughout Part 2 of Cervantes' book Don Quixote meets characters who know of him from their reading of his Part 1, but in Chapter 59 Don Quixote first learns of Avellaneda's Part 2, and is outraged since it portrays him as being no longer in love with Dulcinea del Toboso. As a result of this Don Quixote decides not to go to Saragossa to take part in the jousts, as he ...

We stayed way out on Hastings and had to drive in several times to go to Gastown and a few other venues. We were initially shocked (was the shock dulled through repetition?). The place selling Slurpees and chicken legs was a laugh amid the Tableau of Despair.

In my brief wanderings I rubbed up against the term "The Group of Seven" in conjunction with Emily Carr. Apparently she is not considered to be one of the original seven. Here's Wiki's take: The Group of Seven — sometimes known as the Algonquin school — were a group of Canadian landscape painters from 1920 to 1933, originally consisting of Franklin Carmichael (1890–1945), Lawren Harris (1885–1970), A. Y. Jackson (1882–1972), Frank Johnston (1888–1949), Arthur Lismer (1885–1969), J. E. H. MacDonald (1873–1932), and Frederick Varley (1881–1969). Two artists commonly associated with the group are Tom Thomson (1877–1917) and Emily Carr (1871–1945). Although he died before its official formation, Thomson had a significant influence on the group. In his essay "The Story of the Group of Seven", Lawren Harris wrote that Thomson was "a part of the movement before we pinned a label on it"; Thomson's paintings "The West Wind" a...

I hardly care whether it's Canada or Canadian, though perhaps a true Canuck would. (According to Wiki "Canada Goose" has chronological precedence, dating back to 1772.) 

Canadian mailboxes: 



 

An inuksuk (plural inuksuit ) [ 1 ] (from the Inuktitut : ᐃᓄᒃᓱᒃ, plural ᐃᓄᒃᓱᐃᑦ; alternatively inukshuk in English [ 2 ] or inukhuk in Inuinnaqtun [ 3 ] ) is a stone landmark or cairn built by humans, used by the Inuit , Inupiat , Kalaallit , Yupik , and other peoples of the Arctic region of North America . These structures are found from Alaska to Greenland . This region, above the Arctic Circle , is dominated by the tundra biome and has areas with few natural landmarks. The inuksuk may have been used for navigation, as a point of reference, a marker for travel routes, fishing places, camps, hunting grounds, places of veneration, drift fences used in hunting [ 4 ] or as a food cache. [ 5 ] The Inupiat in northern Alaska used inuksuit to assist in the herding of caribou into contained areas for slaughter. [ 6 ] Varying in shape and size, the inuksuit have longtime roots in the Inuit culture. Historically, the most common type of inuksuk is a single stone positioned in ...