Northern Liberties

I am spending this rainy Saturday in the suburbs with Cy Twombly grilling corn on cob.

The Horse's Mouth

I am rereading my favorite book, Joyce Cary's "The Horse's Mouth", the third part of a trilogy about fictitious painter Gulley Jimson. I had to post two quotes.

First, when Gulley realizes his art needs to change:

"I could turn you out a picture, all correct in an afternoon...but it was just a piece of stuff. Like a nice sausage. Lovely forms. But I wasn't looking for any more than a sausage machine. I was the old school, the old Classic, the old church. I even sold some pictures...but one day I happened to see a Manet. Because some chaps were laughing at it. And it gave me the shock of my life. Like a flash of lightning. It skinned my eyes for me, and when I came out of it I was a different man. And I saw the world again, the world of color. By Gee and Jay, I said, I was dead and I didn't know it."

The second is when Gulley's buddy Planter tells a crowd that artist's are around to make the rest of us see the beauty in the world. Gulley responds:

“Well, what is art? Just self-indulgence. You give way to it. It's a vice. Prison is too good for artists- they ought to be rolled down Primrose Hill in a barrel full of broken bottles once a week and twice on public holidays, to teach them where they get off."

TIME LAPSE

when I was 18 I started this garden...

now I'm old and everything is HUGE!

I love this minature and faceless bear who lives under the pine trees.

And the cement racoon who sits and watches the real live frogs on the lily pads in the pond.

Check out this Go Green sign I snagged for free after school let out.

So Mirella, a 4th Grader at my mom's school left this beauty behind after school let out last week. She had hung it above the drinking fountain. There is a lot of good artistic supplies and ideas floating around an empty elementary school in the summer.

Cy Twombly meet Cy Twombly

For those of you who don't know, I have a dog named Cy Twombly- named after the this guy above. He is a bit much at times, but sweet. He looks like a bat in the face sometimes I think. And he sits like a frog with his hind legs spread out, but he is 100% dog. He has a million names and nicknames, I will list the ones I can remember below:

CC

CC. B. Moore

Cy

Mr. Twombly

Mr. Twombles

Scientist

Scientologist

Psychologist

Cyborg

CY TWOMBLY!!!!!!!!!

Airports

I have spent a lot of time in airports lately. I love them. The music that I would never listen to, and people I would never otherwise talk to, and stores I would never go into are all there to help me waste time getting somewhere really fast but, in a sense, very slowly. There are a lot of “I love you” conversations to overhear. And my favorite: the “set up a meeting for Tuesday” conversation. The views from the plane are great too. Flying into Cleveland, I saw a heart shaped pond on someone’s farm.

But the best of all things is flying and the quiet, meditative state that people seem to have. Especially when they take off. It feels so spiritual, a compressed group of strangers all thinking about whether they are about to die or not. At least that’s what I am thinking about.

The Stewardess yelled at me as I got off the plane for taking this picture.

HOME

Alinea- I want this yuppy cookbook

I thumbed through this the other night at a graphic designer's party, I feel like that is an important detail. Alinea is a fancy restaurant in Chicago that I have never had the chance (money) to experience. It is a bit much, but all the recipes looked so impressive and small and expensive. Its by Grant Achatz. http://www.alinea-restaurant.com/index.html

On Saturday at 1026 I went to see the Trutheater Theater. It was the best thing I have seen in Philadelphia in a while. It was a play about man and nature and it had a great title "The unbroken circle of broken things." It was low budget but not too low budget. In other words, lots of cardboard, but electric stuff too, which made it economical and intelligent.

Here is a blurb about it:

"A tree, a thief, an alchemist and an albatross match wits in this cycle of parables within parables whose cumulative power unveils a new plane of reality for the weary wanderer to enter upon and leave all worries behind. TRUTHEATER THEATER weaves this all together with their signature blend of transformative costumery, shadow puppets, video projections, electronic music, eerie voices and blacklit magic. THE UNBROKEN CIRCLE OF BROKEN THINGS promises a visceral experience, engulfing each and every audience member in its spell of baffling wonder."

Check out this kitty Cy found. Let me know if you want to own him!