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Posts from July 2014

The summer may go by

Outside5A tree is cut down letting the rays of sun bathe the bayberry which suddenly blossoms into fragrance / NJ, 2014

"The seasons do not cease a moment to revolve, and therefore Nature rests no longer at her culminating point than at any other. If you are not out at the right instant, the summer may go by and you not see it."

~ Henry David Thoreau (The Writings of Henry David Thoreau: Journal, ed. by Bradford Torrey, 1837)


The eternal symphony of old Ocean

NYTimes_Jul-15_1952bAdvertisement in the New York Times for bus service to Atlantic City; 10 trips daily and extra weekend service / July 15th 1952

"How many claims has Absecon Beach upon the inhabitants of the Middle States, and more especially upon the people of Philadelphia. There, beneath the exhilarating influence of the saline air and surging surf, we take our summer's salty solace, and shuffle off the accumulation of fatigue under which a winter's weary work has made us suffer. There, too, we meet our old accustomed friends, not to buy and sell—not to talk horse, grain, or iron with them—not to waste the day in wordy wrangle with them about stocks, bonds, and the fluctuations of the gold market—but we meet them to read, convulsed with laughs, the funny bill of fare of an enterprising hotel keeper, who loves to make amusement for his friends by providing them with food for their risible, as well as for their corporeal appetites, and also by providing them with the true pleasure ever experienced in the poetry of motion at the gigantic hops, where the dancing toe keeps step alike, to the music of the band and the eternal symphony of old Ocean."

~ an excerpt from "Atlantic City: Its Early and Modern History," 1868, by Carnesworthe


Zipping around in mid-air

BirdsLook for the birds...

"Why do birds fly? First, that's how they look for and procure food. Second, when seasons change and the weather grows cooler, they may migrate to warmer areas where there's more to eat. Third, zipping around in mid-air is how birds locate the materials they need to build nests. Fourth, it's quite helpful in avoiding predators. But ornithologists believe there is yet another reason: Birds fly because it's fun. In fact, up to 30 percent of the time, that's their main motivation. ... I invite you to match the birds' standard in the coming weeks. See if you can play and enjoy yourself and have a good time at least 30 percent of the time."

~ Rob Brezsny


The way she had been feeling

Meet-her-footDancing above and around the earth / The Magic Garden

"she had grown wary" ... "Assumptions that the earth would be there to meet her foot when she put it down, or that her body would remain upright without expressly willing it were no longer certain, & she found herself hesitating more than she used to, as though to give the world a chance to announce its true intentions."

~ an excerpt from the story "Leap" in the book "Alone With You" by Marisa Silver (via Mitza)


The poetry of hands and walking feet, 56

Poetry-of-hands-feetClay "feet" walking up a mosaic wall / Philadelphia

Solvitur Ambulando: it is solved by walking

"It is the best of humanity, I think, that goes out to walk. In happy hours all affairs may be wisely postponed for this."  ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson, Country Life, 1857

“Your true kingdom is just around you, and your leg is your scepter. A muscular, manly leg, one untarnished by sloth or sensuality, is a wonderful thing.”  ~ Alfred Barron, Foot Notes, Or, Walking as a Fine Art, 1875


Books are the sign-posts

Main_avenueMosaic street sign-post in Ocean Grove, NJ

"... I forgot that we are no longer children: you cannot guess how much we men, and more than all, perhaps, we writers whose task it is to unravel the web of human actions, owe even to our own past errors; and if we learned nothing by the errors of others, we should be dull indeed. We must know where the roads divide, and have marked where they lead to, before we can erect our sign-post; and books are the sign-posts in human life."

~ an excerpt from "My Novel; Or, Varieties in English Life, Part 2" by Edward Bulwer Lytton


Fragment by fragment

Girl_on_the_rockPaulo's mosaic of Delaware River stones, Atlantic Ocean seashells, colorful tesserae, and found objects including the girl on the rock / June 2014

The mosaic art is one of the earliest known, and belongs quite to the infancy of civilization. The Chinese possess it with their other stationary arts from time immemorial; it was found among the primitive inhabitants of America, and in a more or less rude form among the earliest remains of nearly all nations. Some authors think it was invented by the Persians, ... After them the Assyrians are supposed to have taught this art to the Egyptians and the Greeks, from whom it passed to the Romans, who unquestionably used it with the greatest profusion, and carried it with them into all their provinces, including Gaul and Britain, as is abundantly proved by the innumerable examples which are found on the site of every Roman station or villa.

~ an excerpt from "Mosaic pictures in Rome and Ravenna: briefly described" by John Henry Parker, 1866