scat

christmas lights on new year trees and a quote from the awakening.

black cat auditions. hollywood. 1961. life magazine.

vogue:

The Cast of Downton Abbey Photographed for the January Issue of Vogue

(via tylergoodson)

taken the year my grandparents got married and boy does he look like a lilly. he asked santa for a brief case and a paint set. perfect combination of work ethic and sensitivity, so what if i have a crush!

merry christmas, christmas gifts!

barcelona, my favorite christmas present. six months until we go!

Horse and Tree

Everybody who’s anybody longs to be a tree—
or ride one, hair blown to froth.
That’s why horses were invented, and saddles
tooled with singular stars.

This is why we braid their harsh manes
as if they were children, why children
might fear a carousel at first for the way
it insists that life is round. No,

we reply, there is music and then it stops;
the beautiful is always rising and falling.
We call and the children sing back one more time.
In the tree the luminous sap ascends.

—Rita Dove. Grace Notes: Poems. 1989. the same year as me.

oscarprgirl:

we asked photographer @jamesnord to capture old new york for us in all of its december glory. here, the first of his pictures: Jane’s carousel under the brooklyn bridge. 

fun new year’s inspiration

and lucky food (including fish) for january 1st eaters!

http://www.babble.com/best-recipes/dinner/traditional-new-years-food-party-dishes/?page=3

(Source: lovegifs, via jaclynpaige)

“…and it seemed to him that she was better than ever— not because these flowers, this veil, this gown ordered from Paris added anything to her beauty, but because, in spite of all the prepared magnificence of her attire, the expression of her dear face, her eyes, her lips, was still her own special expression of innocent truthfulness…

“For a long time they kept correcting him and were about to give it up— because he kept either taking the wrong hand or taking it with the wrong hand— when he finally understood that he had to take her right hand with his own right hand without changing position. When he finally took the bride by the hand as he was supposed to, the priest went a few steps ahead of them and stopped at the lectern. The crowd of relations and acquaintances moved after them with a buzz of talk and a rustle of skirts. Someone bent down and straightened the bride’s train.  The church became so still that the dripping of wax could be heard.”

Levin’s thoughts on his wedding day. Anna Karenina. Leo Tolstoy. 1873-77. Pevear & Volokhonsky translation. I’d like to go to Russia and see a Moscow wedding, peer through the grates at children carrying idols before the bride and groom. We’d just be able to see them light the long tapered candles and picture the bridegroom’s tears. Then we’d think of them in the country, mowing with muzhiks if muzhiks still mowed, and we’d bury our limbs in heaped tiger rugs, while dreaming of bear hunts and vodka with fish.

mary galloway illustration.

i tried to think of some literary caption, but all i got were berlioz and black bear, black bear, neither of which should be separated from his own illustrations.

nprfreshair:

New York’s Museum of Modern Art is currently hosting the first major Willem de Kooning retrospective. Critic Lloyd Schwartz says the exhibit traces the development of de Kooning’s entire career, along with the little detours he took along the way.

Woman I (1950-52) is one of the works featured in de Kooning: A Retrospective. The exhibit is on display at the Museum of Modern Art through Jan. 9, 2012.

woman I, aka: riggs’s first wife.

(via npr)

1(a… (a leaf falls on loneliness)

1(a

le
af
fa
ll

s)
one
l

iness 

e.e. cummings 

 petitcabinetdecuriosites:

(via Woodland Floor Rearrangement)

(via crochet)

pretty sure i should have a blog dedicated just to these two.

paul’s letter to joanne on their wedding day:

Happiness in marriage is not something that just happens. A good marriage must be created. In the Art of Marriage, the little things are the big things. It is never being too old to hold hands. It is remembering to say ‘I love you’ at least once a day. It is never going to sleep angry. It is at no time taking the other for granted; the courtship should not end with the honeymoon; it should continue through all the years. It is having a mutual sense of values and common objectives. It is standing together facing the world. It is forming a circle of love that gathers in the whole family. It is doing things for each other, not in the attitude of duty or sacrifice, but in the spirit of joy. It is speaking words of appreciation and demonstrating gratitude in thoughtful ways. It is not expecting the husband to wear a halo or the wife to have the wings of an angel. It is not looking for perfection in each other. It is cultivating flexibility, patience, understanding and a sense of humor. It is having the capacity to forgive and forget. It is giving each other an atmosphere in which each can grow. It is finding rooms for things of the spirit. It is a common search for the good and the beautiful. It is establishing a relationship in which the independence is equal, dependence is mutual and obligation is reciprocal. It is not only marrying the right partner, it is being the right partner.

Douglas moved slowly down the path.  The ravine was indeed the place where you came to look at the two things of life, the ways of man and the ways of the natural world.  The town was, after all, only a large ship filled with constantly moving survivors, bailing out the grass, chipping away the rust. Now and again a lifeboat, a shanty, kin to the mother ship, lost out to the quiet storm of seasons, sank down in silent waves of termite and ant into swallowing ravine to feel the flicker of grasshoppers rattling like dry paper in hot weeds, become soundproofed with spider dust and finally, in avalance of shingle and tar, collapse like kindling shrines into a bonfire, which thunderstorms ignited with blue lightning, while flash-phorographing the triumph of the wilderness.

ray bradbury. dandelion wine. 1946.

i love this picture and will be showing it to whomever our photographer might be. it reminded me of the ravine, the encroaching wilderness…