Pub Love - The Anglesea Arms

Kensington is like a romantic novel

in an old pub

on a late summer afternoon.

When all of the beautiful people

and all of the toffs

are back from their holidays

in their red velvet coats.

Calendar Girls - Taisho Chic

OK so when I was a little kid, whenever my parents went out of town to somewhere that had a Chinatown, or any kind of Asian groceries, they would have to do a little shopping to pick up those essentials like bags of dow see (fermented black beans) to eat with lobster tail, pickled vegetables to flavor pot roasts, gluten sheets for vegetarian monks food, or giant bags of dried shiitake mushrooms.  In addition to all these things,  they would also ALWAYS bring home a shiny new calendar, with pretty Asian girls smiling coyly out of it.  These calendars quite literally put a fresh face on the year to come.  And since they were hung in the kitchen, they seemed also to gleam with the promises of many delicious dinners to come.  (This certainly seems to be a theme for me, doesn't it?  Have you noticed?)

But NO!  We are not going to talk about food again this time.  This time we are going to talk about art.  And "commercial art" from early 20th century Japan.  Art made for the man on the street, vs. art made for the ruling classes.  Art which could be cheaply produced and marketed to the masses and which the refinement of block print processes particularly enabled.  Popular art that anticipated the calendar girls phenomenon that persists across many cultures, from my childhood kitchen to your garage today.  

The early Japanese block prints that we know became the fascination of the French Impressionists were considered by connoisseurs in Japan and beyond, for a very long time to be "cheap art" and ephemera.  The "floating world" prints called "Ukiyo-e" neverthelesss re-interpreted the "usual" motifs - copying subjects and themes from brush art of the same period 17th - 20th centuries. 

Taisho style, named for era of the Japanese Emperor who reigned between 1912-26 , began instead to incorporate the influence of Western styles both artistic, and in it's renderings, of "modern" ways of life.

These influences (including greater freedom for women, and improved civil rights and social equality)  apparently came on too fast and too strong for what

for so very very long, had been an insular and highly regimented feudal, and male dominated, society.

Ultimately, Japanese society could not withstand the pressure

of these new Western ideas, despite it's ability to so successfully esthetically integrate them into its decorative arts traditions.  Those social tensions, exacerbated by the Great Depression's impact on the Japanese economy and British and American military assertiveness in the Pacific, according to the authors of this beautiful book:

Taisho Chic, Japanese Modernity, Nostalgia and Deco, (published in conjunction with the contemporaneous exhibition at the Honolulu Academy of Art (link here) January - March 2002)

paved the way for "the ultranationalist ideology supporting Japan's wars from 1931 to 1945".

Most of the pieces in the show and shown in the book are part of the Academy's permanent collection.

Here's also a link to the Japan Times for an article about the show when it visited there.   I think it's all so pretty.  Do you?  

Old and On the Way

If you know me at all by now

you know that I am an equal opportunity  enthusiast

when it comes to secret places, hidden spaces, the out of the way and the off the beaten track.

These are right in "the West End" of Central London.

(Can you believe these photos were taken on a Verizon phone?)

I am never disappointed by the quiet places and the slow lane.

Weekend Quick Pic and Delayed Corner View - Seven

Seven Things I have to Tell You About Nature, Human and The Other Kind

1.  October is THE season for intensive gardening in Southern California.  In general, fall is the time for planting and for starting your seeds so that you can over-winter young plants in a gentle, nurturing climate neither too stressingly hot, nor cold, with the rains from time to time to keep them ticking over in a semi-dormant state till Spring.  Which, in case you've noticed, arrives in January.  (Yaaaaaaaaaaay!   I'll say it again, that's why I moved here.)  This year I am really trying to integrate that into my life and with fingers crossed, because it's seems already that I am too much away from home in October when I should be planting and primping seedlings.  I'll try to share in the near term with you some of the seeds I've started.  I'm also going to try to plant a mat of vari-colored sedum next to my garage.

2.  Now.  Can ya believe it?   I STILL don't have a camera.  Hopefully one will have landed inside my gate sometime today via Ebay.   You will have to take "landed" very literally because despite my little pleading notes taped here and there around my "property", and at least one grievous case of breakage and associated meltdown on my part, the delivery guys still find it WAY too satisfying to hear that resounding "plop" once they've slung a cardboard box of SIZE across the top of my pickets.

Now you know.  More camera talk later.

3.  There was a coyote on my deck last Friday.  Not five feet from me, where I stood in my sunroom.  He took a dump on my deck and when I knocked on the window, opened it, and authoritatively told him to "Better get going Buddy. NOW!!!!"  Off he leapt back into my neighbors' rose bushes.  From whence he had presumably come.  WHAT WOULD YOU DO?  If you had a coyote on your deck.

4.  When I went to the City of Los Angeles Website to find the Department with whom I could consult about said coyote - (see "3.", above) - I typed (of course) "coyote" into the search window.  And what did the website find for me? The Department of "Human Trafficking".  I do know what kind of world we live in.  But that makes me scratch my head.  What about you?  How many more human, vs. four-legged, coyotes do you think there are in L.A.?

5.  I put some groovy wallpaper up in my bedroom while I was on Blog-Hiatus.

6.  I made a groovy bedskirt to cover my sinfully ugly box springs this summer.  I will show you both 5. and 6.  Later, when I get a camera again.  

7.  (Wow.  We got to Seven quick.)  Yesterday.  Sitting in the sunroom, because it IS, the sunniest room.  I saw a grown lady hawk wrestling (she with her beak, he with his wits and much wriggling) with a young squirrel on my electrical wires.  Not eight feet away!  Me.  Now standing in my sunroom.

The young squirrel got away.  (Whew, not looking forward to the carnage, was I?)  While the hawk, befuddled, swinging a little up and down on the wires, and noticing that I had noticed her, wondered what to do next. Once again opening the window, and authoritatively pressing my harmonica to my lips......(I don't have a police whistle or airgun yet, as recommended by my newfound coyote consultant at the City of Los Angeles).....I sounded a few notes of what can only be describe as "alerts".  They were too feeble to be anything else.  The ladyhawk considered a little longer, and little Mr. Squirrel saw his moment and sprinted off across to the avocado tree.  Well, nothing doing now I guess!  I was still standing there and there were so many obstacles between the electric wires and the avocado tree, me not the least among them.  So the ladyhawk lifted her wings and in a flash, was spreading them fast and disappearingly across my neighbors' roof and the hills beyond.  Did she have babies?  Was she terribly hungry?  Or is she young, too, and practicing?  Why is this the second time in two weeks that she has appeared in my yard?

So that's seven things.

And what conclusion can we draw from what I have just shared with you?  HEY!  I NEED a new camera!!!!  To capture all of this.

So listen all, have a great weekend.  I'm going to the Hollywood Bowl again to see Calexico and Ozomatli.  Cause that's L.A. baby!  (Click the Links to listen.)

WHAT WILL YOU BE DOING?

Pub Love London - The Brown Dog

Oops!  I did it again.

Yes.  I did.  I had just been to Paris in July, and what did I do?

As soon as Jury Duty was over, I turned around and got right back on a plane!

There is a "life-story" behind all of this (well several) dear Readers.  But this is not the moment.

This is the moment instead, to put yourself in my place, on a late, light, summer evening

sharing, by candlelight, with your loved one, mashed beet and smoked mackerel on toast with horseradish (yes it IS yummy, and it's true, we do seem to eat alot of pink things, don't we?)

and good old fashioned roast beef with yorkshire pudding

somewhere tucked into a quiet leafy neighborhood (in this case, Barnes, South London)

And just remind yourself: Life is Good!  Your table is Waiting.  Cheers!

L.A. - Colorforms in My Hood Part 2

Since we're all about "The Homecoming" at the moment ("la rentree") thought I'd start my first serious blog moment back with a few little colorful houses.  C-o-l-o-r-f-u-l  H-o-u-s-e-s.  If you were to ask me how to describe myself in two words, those two might just be the right ones.  It comes pretty close to where I live.  In every sense of the word. And these pictures ARE my home, my 'hood, which is looking pretty good to me after a summer of passing in and out of the looking glass it seemed, in every possible way.

Of course when you're talking about color at home in this part of the world you are absolutely

talking about Craftsman houses.

And the dialogue between home and surroundings.

Plantings with powerful forms

and vivid colorings. 

Of course, being gray does not mean that you are not colorful.

Especially when you are rocking the pumpkin yellow trim.

Where I'm At

I'm still warming up a bit.  So I'll just let the pictures speak for me.  

I will add that these pictures were taken in January.  Cause you can do that in L.A.!