"Big Fish":

Maybe we are about to build our way into a great union of souls and minds. Maybe that will be like being a person all together. Maybe that person will need to dream to be whole.
If that's true, I can't think of anyone better to be in charge of that dreaming than Tim Burton.
Big Fish was so full of great acting if it wasn't for Jessica Lange I wouldn't know where to start.
There wasn't a false note in it, anywhere. Including the incidental music. Billy Crudup, so perfectly nuanced and believable if I hadn't seen him in anything else I would have thought he was just a one-note playing on his looks, and Marion Cotillard going from almost jarring normality to the distilled essence of beauty. Helena Bonham Carter was bewitching, lovable, and real. Steve Buscemi's frenetic slapstick turnabout outside the bank, Deep Roy's reluctant gun hand, DeVito's naked back, Matthew McGrory every time so perfect and real, and the two poles of Albert Finney and Alison Lohman holding the entire world in balance.

St. Sebastian (detail)
Pietro Vanucci
Illuminated Manuscripts
British Library
-
Judas
-
Tree of Life
-
Tree of Vices
-
Isaiah and The Tree of Jesse
-
bees, the perindens tree, a serpent and a dragon
-
a knight killing a griffin
-
Gawain and the beheaded Green Knight at Arthur's court
-
a giant knight

Philip Pullman interview at Third Way

PP: And this, incidentally, is one of my quarrels with Lewis: the children in the Narnia books who have gone through all these experiences aren't allowed to stay in the world and make it better for other people - they're whisked off to heaven. That's not a Christian attitude.
I: They spent quite a long time in Narnia, didn't they, as kings and queens, bringing peace and justice?
PP: Not in this world. They're still children. They're off on holiday with their parents and they're all killed in a train crash. That's grotesque.
I: Maybe it's an artistic flaw?
PP: It's a bloody great big one.
I: It seems to satisfy a lot of people.
PP: It disgusted me when I read it.
Lewis is a contradictory sort of character for me. I loathe the Narnia books, and I loathe the so-called space trilogy, because they contain an ugly vision. But when he was talking about writing for children, and about literature in general, Lewis was very, very acute and said some very perceptive and wise things.

Pages from the Illuminated Manuscripts collection
at the British Library
(images with magnifier/+ cursor will expand on left click)

The creation of animals, by God
-
King Laomedon of Troy confonts the Argonauts
-

The green lion devours the sun
-
Beatus
King David harping (Beatus detail)
-
St. Jerome (what's in those bottles?)
-
St Mark
-
David in Penitence
-
Angel calling birds; beast and false prophet cast into the pit
-
Blinding of Tobit, and Tobias entering the house with Raphael
-
St Francis preaches to the birds
-
Solomon and Rehoboam, and the Judgement of Solomon
-
Dedication of Samuel
-
Samson carrying away the gates of Gaza
-
Sleeping couple
-

January detail
-
Vainglory
-
Gluttony
-
God creates a soul
-
Antichrist
-
Opening marking the beginning of the Gradual Psalms from the Book of Hours of Laudomia de' Medici
(Stunning pages)
-
Virgin and Child
-
Pentecost
-
Execution of Amerigot Marcel
detail 1, detail 2, detail 3
-
Charles VI and the Emperor Wenceslas
-
Knights and Ladies riding to London tournament 1472-3
detail
-
Musical grotesques
-
The Fool
-
Psalm 52
-
yo
-
The creation of the animals

Instant Time Machine!
A mess is comprised of useful things which have not found their time. They make me feel uncomfortable because they literally tie time in knots, the only time I've got, subjective time. Objectively, or so I grasp, there can be no such thing as a mess, only degrees of chaos relative to my trained or instinctive expectations of order. Trash is comprised of non-useful things which can be disposed of without regret. In ordering a messy room, it is first essential to dispose of trash. A new order will appear which is less of a mess. The nest step is to put a few items where they belong. Some, not all: that is too much to bite off and is demotivating. Enter psychology. I can at least put all my flatpicks and fingerpicks in a box. Then put more things where they belong until you reach a point where you discover the things that don't have a place they belong. Things that don't belong but are useful are called Junk. Heap them together. Put them in a box or trunk and store it in back of the closet, basement or attic. Shake out the rugs and curtains. Sweep, dust and mop. Leave one item glaringly out of place as a convenient focal point for the next mess. Messes are the leading cause of fire, other than insurance.

Robert Hunter, troubador, lyric hero, scribe, bard, ecstatic conspirator

Danny Gregory on MLK

Reliquary of Saint Martina
Stefano Fideli
-
Old Man With A Beard
Leandro Bassano
-
Goldsmith
Harald Busch
-
La Belle Limonadiere
Busset
-
Job
Wilhelm Martin Busch
-
Spendenaufruf & Plakat
Busse
-
Crucifixion 1586/1600
Marten de Vos
-
Farmer On The Way To Town To See A Lawyer 1613
Johan Bussemacher
-
Siamese Twins
Johann Bussemacher

Siamese Twins
Effigies
Cambridge Galleries
Catherine Heard


Allegories
Hamilton Artists Inc.

detail

women enjoying tea at a balcony
Ogawa, Kazuma
Photographs, Bakumatsu-Meiji Period
Nagasaki University Library

woman washing her hair
Ogawa, Kazuma
Photographs, Bakumatsu-Meiji Period
Nagasaki University Library

women washing clothes detail
A. Farsari
Photographs, Bakumatsu-Meiji Period
Nagasaki University Library

The Idea of Nothing

...this
meeting of my heart's knock

on nothing's door that
is never answered at all.
And the river of my words
flowing out to nothing's sea

and drowning there...


Sue Owen
Verse Daily Jan.18.04