Wednesday, December 29, 2010

Rush forth with purpose

Or resolve to laugh more but make it count.

An Old Warrior - Patara Te Tuhi by Charles Goldie

Hold Dear

You share with me, those who came before and the ones that will follow, mortality’s fleeting legacy. Ah, but time marks no more than our imprint on the tapestry and on this fine work of art our mistakes are as valuable as our triumphs so don’t you be timid, or unwilling. Embrace this new year with the knowledge that age does wicked things to the body, but understand, it also bring urgency and wisdom. Have courage enough to leave bold mark on the canvas even if it is no more than your defeated blood, sweat and tears.

Never forget for a moment that we are all in it together.
My love, my care,
Simone.

Friday, December 24, 2010

Silent Night

And heaven on earth. Everyone here is shopping on foot by the metro and counting calories in order to avoid the Christmas season seven pounds weight gain. I miss the gluttony and the two hours in the car listening to the radio running from shop to shop. I'll bake some, see some of my family and most all my friends. It will be a good enough Christmas. I wish you all a lovely Christmas Day.

Thomas Moran's The Autumnal Woods
All my love,
Simone

Sunday, December 19, 2010

Remember summer

A Sign

Give me a sign.
I am certainly not the first to make this plea,
Head bent humbly, legs weakened and
Nearly on my knees with despair.
I am certainly not the first to wish this in the
Solemnity of the night or the brilliance of day.
But maybe I am the first to make this plea
At your altar. Maybe I am the first to worship
This sadistic deity. How low must I be brought
Before I am worthy of a boon?
How far must I fall from grace before you
Lift me up and bring me into your sinful light?


Frederick Carl Frieseke's Lilies
I love you all,
Simone

Wednesday, December 15, 2010

Melodrama

A moment ago, I would have song for you
At Carnegie hall
In the nude
Under unflattering light
For critics more brutal than Cowell
Me tone deaf and without music
My voice off-key and out of time
But that was all before you ate the last slice of pie and the cupcake too.

Pierre-Auguste Renoir's Two Girls in Black

Alright, I'll admit to overreacting to the lost of the sweet but who amoung us haven't gone a tad mad where delightful treat was concerned.
My love my care,
Simone

Friday, December 10, 2010

Associated with bad news


There is a stark viciousness that leads itself to a telegraph that most all other forms of communication lack and I dig it. Not because I’m particularly vindictive or revel in the notion of brutally delivered heartbreak but simply for the fact it is a medium with a life all its own.

Telegram

I love you (Stop) I can’t be without you (Stop) You are cruel with your kindness (Stop) Hurry back to me (Comma) or rather (Stop) Stay where you are and allow me to continue (Stop)

Isaak Brodsky's Fairy Tale

...then again there is the dreaded facebook wall, all public and potentially awful.

Murray,

You love in me things imagined made possible by my genius at strategy and all per your request.
It’s all fog and mirrors my virtue and humanity.
Why, for you I’m without tears or tender emotion.
I’m quiet, always poised...
Palatable even if not often pleasant and still you are baffled by my vexation at request for my hand.

My love my care,
Simone

Tuesday, December 7, 2010

Snow, I don't mind

Shovelling it, now that I can't stand.

Peter Paul Rubens' The Union of Earth and Water

Let Me

I want to give.
And I need you to take,
My every thought,
My only desires,
My very last breath,
Until the only thing left is
A vague memory of my existence.
And even as I lay bleeding,
Dying from your vicious wounds,
I will revel.
I will rejoice as you dance.
I will smile to see you ignore my anguish.
Knowing that you have everything
I can give.
All my love
Simone

Thursday, December 2, 2010

December?

A Most Appetizing Repast

Dinner.
 I made it just for you.
After all these years, I still
Remember the way you like it.
But I’ve changed the recipe a little bit.
To give it delicate authentic flavour, you understand.
I added some truth to the vegetables,
So forgive me if they’re a bit tough
To swallow but take solace in the fact
That I grew them in a garden
Cultivated in the soil of my grief
And nurtured with the water of regret.
I got the meat from the butcher
Down the road, who swears that he
Treats the animals as well as you ever
Treated me. Then I seasoned the meat
with spite and the bitterness of sorrow.
I sautéed everything together in the
Remaining oil of your lies and the
Burgeoning heat of my anger.
It should be delicious. I made it
To remind you of our time together.
I expect that you will shed tears at
The fullness of the taste.
I imagine that no meal, even your last
Will ever invoke such sensation.
But I hope, with everything in me,
That you choke.


John White Alexander's A Meadow Flower

I had a lovely enough year but the truth is I'm really looking forward to the new year.

All my love,
Simone

Monday, November 29, 2010

Everything a pictures says

It’s just as well it should speak for itself I suppose for I haven’t the words for beautiful and all its synonyms somehow seems wanting.

Frederick Childe Hassam's Sonata

I met a fortune-teller on the train. She sat next to me and asked if she could look at my hand. I smiled politely and removed my glove without word and handed it to her. My callused gardener’s hand was a tad self-conscious being cradled there in her warm elegant palm. The fortune-teller did not seem to mind as she studied the lines of my hand, her brows knitted together in something like deep consideration then she said, “Great fortune, true love and happiness will find you in a very short time.” I thanked her and dug around in the pocket of my coat until I found the five that was meant for my coffee and gave it to her. She smile her gratitude, rose and wished me well.

A lovely week to you all,
Simone

Friday, November 26, 2010

A bit of eden


Where on earth but in the heart of an artist.

Three Beeches by Paul Ranson
You are for me

My capacity for sentimentality is boundless on Sundays, friend.
Ah, but Monday I wilt for want of you.
I can’t bear the hours from here to there and time marks in me an anxiety similar to bereavement.
And in those hours my Sunday, our Eden, is no more than my fear for your leaving.

My love my care,
Simone

Monday, November 22, 2010

Falling in Love Martin Johnson Heade again

Follow this link to his catalogue on museum syndicate.

Martin Johnson Heade's A Spray of Apple Blossoms

suffocated

I’m running now to catch my wicked words carelessly embedded as shrapnel in your flesh.
Still, you are not without fault but then you are by nature charity where I’m devil.
Devil, screaming her distaste until it echoes.
Together we are passion without restraint.
Feeling all and experiencing none and your love so unlike blissful desire though I think it rapture.
We are wrapped in it until we burn.
All my love,
Simone

Wednesday, November 17, 2010

The Regent’s Mother


The Queen Consort by studio of Allan Ramsay

Charlotte Sophia of Mecklenburg-Strelitz (19 May 1744 – 17 November 1818), wife of poor mad king George and mother to our spoilt fat Regent was consider by most her subjects a dull unattractive woman but to her credit she had been a dutiful queen in all the ways that mattered. She was a faithful wife and devoted mother with charm enough to rouse in me affection. I love that she was an advocate for the education of women and that she saw to it that her daughters were educated. She played the pianoforte and was a music enthusiast who vigorously supported the arts.



She had without fanfare founded orphanages, a hospital for expectant mothers and given from her own personal fortune moneys to the Regent in support of his Pavilion. I adore her near selfless carriage and love that she was competent enough botanist to contribute significantly to the expansion of Kew gardens.


I know there are those who would argue that she was an overly affectionate mother who didn’t instil in the rotten Regent and his siblings her sense of duty or even those who would call here pious hypocrite for holding close both faith in God and opiate. To them I would say, her life was her example to her children, she saw to it that they were all educated and there was no doubt she offered each her unconditional support so in that she was above reproach. As for the rest it makes her human.
My love my care,
Simone

Friday, November 12, 2010

So much for a proper post

Oh, but my friends do tax me...
I have but to spend an hour with them to work myself in such a state I’m barely tolerable by other civilized human beings. Eli that toad and ringleader of the band of hooligans I call my dearest friends lured me yesterday for lunch only to insight in me rage so profound I was contentious with all unfortunate enough to cross my path in the hours following.

A Reading by Emile Verhaeren by Théo Van Rysselberghe

This time the quarrel was about their combined belief that the modern medium “the internet” more specifically youtube is a Petri dish for talentless hacks attempting to peddle their wares in hopes of finding fame and fortune. Try as I may to inspire in them reason they would have none of it.
‘The medium is as the individual,’ I urged, ‘Each with an unlimited capacity for fame or infamy.’

‘Fame and infamy is the same thing in our modern culture,’ was their argument and soon we were quarrelling about that rather than the medium. Then the subject got move to morality and the responsibility of the public figures to carry themselves with a degree of grace and on and on it went until I was late getting back to work with nothing close to a resolve to that or the original subject of conversation for that matter.
A sort of lovely afternoon so here is to friends that engage, infuriate and delight.
All my love,
Simone

Monday, November 8, 2010

Reunited at long last

How have you been my dears? I've missed you all terribly and now with my computer is safely home there is so much I must do. One takes for granted all that one gets gone with a few clicks. I haven't set forth a proper post in weeks and hope to get one done by week's end but for now it is a quick hello with promises to return with something more substantial.

A Gift by Daniel Gerhartz

I thank you all for your continued support and kind words while my computer was away.
My love my care,
Simone

Thursday, November 4, 2010

Still without my beloved computer

But I'm to have my friend Bunny's till the morrow. She is truly a brilliant friend, my Bunny and I'm grateful to her for this kindness. Here now the art of some poor forgotten artist.


It is so very sad to be lost to time but at least the art survived.
My love my care,
Simone
Golden Decorated Crown artist unknown

Sunday, October 31, 2010

My computer is away being fix

I miss it terribly but I see how necessary it is. This painting is meant to keep your company until I'm able to get to a computer. Till next time. Hopefully it won't be too long now.

Laura No. 1 by Vilmos Aba-Novák
All my love,
Simone

Thursday, October 28, 2010

Disillusioned...

And all due to computer malfunction. I’m taken it now to be looked at by one more skilled than I.
O in Black with Scarf by Robert Henri
I’ve sought value in useless things
Pressing my hands to raw against steel in futile attempt
Kneeling on unyielding ground with something like obedience
Imploring empty sky with sweaty devoted palms pressed together in worship
Having long accepted the senselessness in wishes but prayer I felt certain would effect change
My love my care
Simone

Tuesday, October 26, 2010

Beautiful desire

Or greedy for simplicity? 

Symphony in Red and Gold by Jean Béraud

In an attempt to be happy I’ll given up grand wants for basic needs. So from here out I’ll abandon all frivolous desires in order to live as monk, eating crust of bread and surrendering ambition. Oh and there will be no more chocolate or fresh cut flowers that last but a moment or pretty silk things that I never bother to wear in my rush out the door. Oh, but my perfume stays for it is essential for my peace of mind and for it I’ll set aside the fancy imported teas for the mint growing in the pot on my windowsill. Now if that will do you won’t catch me running round to the shops to see what’s on sale for from here forth I’ll make do with the little I do have.
All my love,
Simone

Saturday, October 23, 2010

Homage to Dali

I’ve been delighting in the apples of the orchard. All of them nearly sweet and fit but not ripe or tender as only an apple can be. Here where the autumn skies hint at winter and laments the summer with shows of fantastic sunsets with brilliant magentas that rivals the trees grand display of stunning yellows, orange, reds, burgundies and sumptuous purples. In these fields I’m able to see the birth of the surrealist, hence my homage to my most revered.

Character Masquerading in Pinning Up a Butterfly by Salvador Dali
A lovely weekend to you all,
Simone

Thursday, October 21, 2010

LOVE, Love love this painting

Superciliousness, her eyes, her lips, her air of arrogance.

Portrait of Maggie Wilson by Frank Duveneck

There is a sort of distance between us and it grows with ever word left unsaid which is funny for we’re forever in conversation. Maybe today I’ll be kind and tell you some truth with the hope you will follow but I’ll more than like not for we are comfortable. Besides, what does it matter now I’ve out grown us.
My love my care,
Simone

Monday, October 18, 2010

Autumn falls

I’ve squandered all I was allotted coveting the light
And on you so much brighter than the sun
For whom I’ve eclipsed all that is light gazing upon
I worship now by moonlight and even there I sense your presence


Hubert Robert's Architectural Landscape with a Canal
All my love,
Simone

Thursday, October 14, 2010

Oh, I don't know... Faiza Shirazi

But I do dig these words.

Gone is forever
Here is not
The golden ringlets of red
Perhaps black
Fastened and primped to fit
the wood box
Dressed in the best
to rest
A world away
Immersed in velveteen and cedar
To see the night through
No other way, No other choice he replies.

Portrait of a Woman by Miklós Barabás
My love my care,
Simone

Monday, October 11, 2010

Cake...Sweet...Cake

Another Thanksgiving over shared with lovely laughing friends and here now Rozanne Miller's Cobweb Painted Blue.

La Jolla Arbor by Guy Rose
Always imagining,
              Never experiencing
Only allowed to observe,
        Never permitted to touch,
Refrain from feeling.
                                             Crawl in a cobweb,
                                                  a protected cage
                                                           tangled inside my fears
                                                                      of YOU.
Trapped in my secret hiding
place,
Watching you.
           Smelling you,
A faint smile plays upon my lips,
                                        Your eyes,
                                            your smile,
                                                your voice--
                                                                                                                  Your Entire Image--
                                                                                                                   are like watercolours,
                                                                                                                   spreading through my thoughts,
                                                                                                                   blending into my desires,
                                                                                                                   running into my desires,
                                                                                                                   invading my unfuffilled wishes,
                                                                                                                   painting my life blue.                                                          
      Hidden from your knowledge.
Struggling in my cobweb
yearning to be free,
yet loving the protection,
                                   the safeness,
                                         the comfort of
                                                              isolation.
All from a distance
in my cobweb painted blue,
watching
YOU.
All my love,
Simone

Friday, October 8, 2010

I was told there will be cake...

Your loneliness is infectious and soon I’m diseased
Unable to bear your loud silences
While you dread my songs in unpleasant keys
We whisper our agony only they register as incoherent echoes
I hold you without words and in an instant we were both cure

The Music Master by Frank Duveneck

Thanksgiving is upon us Canadians. This year there is to be cake not pies, I'm thrilled.
I hope you are all happy and well,
Simone

Tuesday, October 5, 2010

Love, sacrifice and the...

'Love' my Great-grandfather McQueen told me is to be treated as oil transported in palm, securely cradled but not tightly gripped. This bit of wisdom bothered me something awful, for I thought if it is so precious a thing why not carry it in a proper vessel.

Venus with a Mirror by Titian

Despite my lack of virtue I have your consideration and not due to flawless form or brilliant wit but habit.
This I cannot stomach so here in an attempt to be worthy of this tendre I will put forth effort at virtue.
Now with prudence anew I have decided to be unselfish and will give you up.
My love my care,
Simone

Saturday, October 2, 2010

Working too much and miss you all very much.

Also I've been reading Thomas Moore love this one especially.

Portrait D'une Jeune Femme by Albert Besnard

To ......
           by Thomas Moore

                                      When I loved you, I can't but allow
                                      I had many an exquisite minute;
                                      But the scorn that I feel for you now
                                      Hath even more luxury in it.
                                                                                        Thus, whether we're on or we're off,
                                                                                        Some witchery seems to await you;
                                                                                        To love you was pleasant enough,
                                                                                        And, oh! 'tis delicious hate you!

My love my care,
Simone

Tuesday, September 28, 2010

Fury

Ms Molly Sekera saw fury before I did but I'm certain it was the same face.

Lucian Freud's Man's Head (Self-Portrait)
I saw fury
He was strong and brave
He turned with fierce teeth
And strong muscles
I saw his hot, fiery face
And his ears steaming
And heard his scream
And I felt sorry
My love my care,
Simone

Friday, September 24, 2010

After September's Equinox

I take in my rosemary from the garden and mourn the summer with some delight at the turning of the leaves.
Standing Nude by Guy Rose

I can’t remember your face
Not your soft lips
Or the warm brown of your eyes
Or your smile
The one that made me greedy to kiss you
But that’s alright for who need to remember what haunts
You are necessary friend
As artery to heart
My love my care
Simone

Tuesday, September 21, 2010

Buy and soak raisins in cognac for Christmas pudding

This is a psychological exercise given to me by an armature shrink and dear friend. I’m to think of my latest obsession, the idea of loving said fixation and the thought of forever in its grips then I’m to write down the first ten words/feeling that falls on me. Here are the words but truth to tell I don't see the point of it even if I had a laugh when I saw mother on my list.

Responsibility, old, mother, promise, lips, time, possibilities, want, despair and perfection.


Sunrise on the Bay of Fundy by William Bradford
You are for me a strain
I wished you away and still you are for me an unbearable pain to which I’ve gone to the Chinese tea shop and purchased the cure. It was bitter, expensive and gave me heartburn but what else could I do? The hypnosis was not working. I was meant to pull out one strand of hair from the root with every thought of you and was bold my entire body over inside a week. 
My love, my care,
Simone  

Friday, September 17, 2010

I cried the whole train ride home

And wonder now what could have caused her to let go her composure.

Memories by Lord Frederick Leighton

I’d been at the newsstand in Union station two minutes before I noticed the young woman with the blank distraught stare. She was looking at the cover of the Walrus magazine when she took breath and screamed as if her hair was on fire. No one could get her to stop, not the frantic man behind the counter or the lady with the steady voice and nurses disposition nor anyone of the host of increasingly (upset-on-her-behalf-bystanders).  We were on the verge of calling for an ambulance when an unassuming gentleman stepped forward and pulled her in his arms. Saying only, ‘It’s never as bad as all that,’ his tone certain and tender. The poor distresses woman burst into tears and buried her face into his torso. She wept all her agony on to his shirt and one by one we now free of the responsibility of the moment disbursed leaving her to his care.
My love my care,
Simone

Tuesday, September 14, 2010

How much do you believe in luck?

How about destiny?
You now the bit that says what's it all about and what it had all been for?
The Source by Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres

I only ask because lately the two has featured strongly in my conversations with my contentious friends... well those and the perceived rise of female masturbation in popular culture by one who will go unnamed but that one will have to keep until some other time. Here is why, fortune presses on my mind for I believe in luck and this though I’ve courted it to no avail. In fact, I would go so far as to say the evidence of its existence beyond my continued belief that my luck is about to change for the better is minute. Now destiny that I’m sure is a fallacy but that could simply be due to its unwillingness to reveal itself to me.
In the end it was for us more about family, love, fortune and space travel but now I think it's more the arc of the collective human experience.
You have my love here on this day when I'm more rambling questions than proper post.
Simone

Sunday, September 12, 2010

I'd love to call for dinner in this warm kitchen

My gardan is preparing for its winters sleep so naturally, I’m a little heartbroken but only a tad for it has brought me such joy and will return once again in the spring.
So now it is back to the business of writing and the more serious pursuit of wealth or is that fortune.

Glow by Daniel Gerhartz

I am the silly mortal who fell for the summer star
Only it turned out to be no more than a firefly and though the poor dear is more attainable
It seems I was more in love with the idea rather than the source of the light
For here I’ve caught a dozen in a jar to illuminate and entertain
All my love,
Simone

Thursday, September 9, 2010

A familiar sadness


Still, when all was said and done nothing more than our exceptions were shattered.
And even so it becomes more difficult with each failed marriage of dear friends once thought solid to write romance and not believe myself a snake oil salesman. The fact is I'm usually too much of a romantic to ever be truly jaded by the ruins of other peoples marriages and still this one caught me by surprise for they were for my set the ideal.
The Conservatory by Édouard Manet

They were married seventeen years and were brilliant friends.  Though, I had not been as thrown as dear sweet Eli who wept bitter tears and now vows bachelorhood until death I did consider taken a few volumes from a three year old bottle I found in my cabinet. They told us together and had been patient with our invasive questions. I realize now that they had been calm from the retelling while we had reeled with raw emotion for they had already gone through the exercise with their children and individual families.

We will adjust, I suppose thought I suspect this one will take us quite a bit of time.
My love my care 

Tuesday, September 7, 2010

I hate dinner parties in the country

All the fresh air leaves me with a headache and my once urbane friends turn country bumpkins squanders my patience with their melodrama. Not enough is said of too much wine and awful company, or has it?

La Pointe du Rossignol by Théo Van Rysselberghe

It is also in the country where my understanding of heart is reduced to that of an infant and here in this ungodly hour I’m no more than ill-logic or is that ill-will and hard feelings. Some of it due to the bliss that eludes one friend, the happy beginning that another believes he has found and I’m left to fret for they are in the same relationship. My friend Bunny thinks I worry too much and that the two silly creatures will be happily married inside a year. I almost believe her or rather I pray she is wrong and still a weak pathetic part of me hopes for both their sakes she is right.
Be happy,
Simone

Saturday, September 4, 2010

A bit of Westmorland

The two met and shared a passionate kiss and now they are friends of sort...

The Lady with the Veil by Alexander Roslin

Chapter One


“Marry me Claire,” Viscount Westmorland said to the stunning redhead seated across from him in his mother’s grand salon. “I can’t go on like this, another year. One of those ravenous maidens pinched me this afternoon in Harrison’s sitting room.”
“Shall I pour you a lemonade, my lord?” she asked.
“Marriage Claire. With children, grand estates and my eternal gratitude… Doesn’t that sound lovely?”
“And it would have to be you I marry?” she asked, eyes sparking with mischief as she extended a hand with the aforementioned lemonade.
“What keeps me suffering your awful company?”
“Does that mean you no longer wish to marry me?” she laughed.
“Did I tell you how Lady Riley lured me to tea with that sumptuous body of hers then tried to marry me off to her daughter.”
“She’s a lovely girl.”
“It’s perverse Claire. I could be that child’s father.”
“Oh, that’s right. You did court her mother when she was a débutante. Didn’t you?”
“Are you deliberately trying to provoke me?”
“No, my lord, but after a lifetime of knowing you I find I no longer have to make an effort. It just sort of happens.”
“I never liked you.”
“And still you would marry me?”
“Taking joy from my humiliation makes you depraved. You see that, don’t you?”
“Surely you don’t begrudge me my one happiness.”
“I realized something in coming here to see my mother.”
“And what is that, my lord?”
“I don’t like the company she keeps.”
“But I’m not company so much as companion and you pay my keep so you could, I suppose, instruct her to have me behave.”
“You only say that because you know full well she prefers you to me and would have me banished from the premises.”
“Nonsense,” his mother said as she entered, “Now stop bothering Claire and come take my hand. I have wonderful news.”
“I warn you, my dear. If this wonderful news of yours has anything to do with some suitable maiden I won’t be able to bear it,” Henry said as he greeted his mother with kind hand and a miserable smile.
“I’ve given up on finding you a bride and have instead found a husband for myself,” Blanche St John said pertly as she brushed pass her son to sit next to her companion.
“This is new,” Henry said to Claire as his mother settled.
“Have I your blessing, my angel?” his mother continued in spite of his rude dismissal.
“To whom have you decided to marry my dear?” he asked indulgently though he did not believe his mother would, at five and fifty, remarry.
“Lord Philippe Marcel. We are both widowed now and I should like to live out the rest of my days in the land of my birth away from this constant chill here in England.”
“Et tu Maman?”
“This was not done to you my angel,” his mother said defensively. “You’re three and thirty and I’ve dedicated a decade and a half to finding you a wife to no avail. No more. I will return to France at season’s end and you will wish me well.”
“And what of Claire?”
My love my care,
Simone

Wednesday, September 1, 2010

Moving my sister back to school

I miss her already but I'm happy she is settled.

A Winding Stream in Summer by Peder Mork Mønsted

I spent the last five days helping my sister move in to her first flat and it was quite a move too, from Toronto to Montréal. She is glad to be living off campus and I'm jealous of her oh so romantic city. I hope to visit at least once before the year is out.
A lovely week to all,
Simone

Sunday, August 29, 2010

I'll be back in a spell

Boy and girl gazing at the moon by Norman Rockwell

I've gone off for a moment and will be back Wednesday.
My love my care,
Simone

Tuesday, August 24, 2010

On what it means

Little girls with devotion to passion holds for me a place of deep sentiment.

The Audition by Daniel Gerhartz

I have always been fascinated by the life of others and looking at this painting is for me a bit of an obsession. I wonder what is going through her mind. Is it the hours of practice that has brought her to this place or is it the promise of a dream fulfilled?
My love my care,
Simone

Saturday, August 21, 2010

The Sisters by Abbott Handerson Thayer

Every time I see this painting I’m remained how much I really do love my sister.

She is fifteen years younger than I and I still reach of her hands when we cross the street. I drive her mad always trying to offer solutions to her every worry and I beam with pride every time she sing along to anything from the seventies for I know she got that due to my influence. She keeps me sane. I genuinely enjoy her company. I love that she is brilliant- like science smart and people smart too- even if next to her I read as unremarkable.

Abbott Handerson Thayer's The Sisters

We have most all in common and somehow we read as ice and steam. We each have strong opinions about everything and as a result row often but we laugh a hell of lot more. Talking to her after an awful day allows me sleep. I don’t just love my sister she is necessary for my happiness and without her I would be no more that a masterpiece lit by a match.
My love my care,
Simone

Thursday, August 19, 2010

March Madness in August

Five dear friends cram into an automobile at a most ungodly hour and on a work day no less, in hope of getting designer shoes for pennies. There was sheer elation and girlish squeals at the prospect of getting a pair of Louboutin, Choo, Blahnin or Balenciaga for a faction of the regular price. So much so it did not occur to any of us that hundreds of other women and their dearest girlfriends would have heard of the sale and like us would have rouse with the sun to piss away a small fortune.

The Ship of Fools by Hieronymus Bosch

Now just you imagine it, a horde of female all without their morning coffee or make-up hopped up on the prospect of getting brand name gear for up to seventy percent off retail. We laugh now but there in those desperate hours all anyone saw or care to see was the red at the sole of that most coveted instrument of madness.

A lovely day to you all,
Simone

Monday, August 16, 2010

With pen in the garden

It is already Mid-August, but I do not despair for it has been a lovely summer thus far.

Charles Gleyre's Le Coucher de Sapho
Forget-me-not

Hard won confidence is in the presence of unrequited love subject to questions and demons long believed conquered. Turning the mirror that asset of beauty into no more than a faithless Judas, which shows awful truths by unfeeling light. Then it is seldom noted for one has long sat shivah for the bits that died pursuing a futile end and still that girl, the foolish hopeful one that lives deep in your heart holds dear the idea. That no one but he will do.

All my love,
Simone

Friday, August 13, 2010

I can't believe we were ever so young...

It had been a brilliant summer the year I turned twenty and this painting puts me in mind of it.

House At Rueil by Édouard Manet

And even in that I had been practical

On your face I see the mark of time that passed too quickly
There in lines of anguish and bliss
Along eyes and smiling lips
With shaking hands I reach out hoping to erase the sorrow and you bury your face in my palm
Pressing your lips and forehead with tendre against my touch before taking hold my hand to sink your teeth in my flesh
You’ve left a wound but it like pain is soon dulled and all that remains is the memory of the warmth of your face against my hand.
My love my care,
Simone

Wednesday, August 11, 2010

I've been delighting in William Mason Brown's painting

His work makes me want to walk barefoot in the orchard of his nostalgia.

Here his Fruits of Summer

I beg you eat me now I’m ripe if only to save me maturing to decay
 Sink your teeth in the tendre rouge flesh set in place by my season in the sun
Delight in my juice and consume with glut my full offering
Then with thought I pray you lay my core in fertile soil so I may be resurrected with full knowledge of thy
appetite

And his Still Life with Peaches and Marble Vase
My love my care,
Simone

Monday, August 9, 2010

Four More of the 100 Women that Inspire Me

The Peer from her I learned to feed my soul, eat often with friends, family and those you value. Her cookbook "Miss Dahl's Voluptuous Delights" is a feast for the senses and is ripe with lovely recipes.

Sophie Dahl

The Ideal because of her I've embraced my appetite for one can't but revel in life’s bounty with her as role-model. Set the table and take care to present it well. Her cookbook "Feast" encourages one to taste everything and I flip through its pages often for inspiration.

Nigella Lawson

The Apostle thought me that I too can bake well with confidence. To her and her cookbook the Cake Bible I owe a tremendous death of gratitude. This I learned from her and pass on to you: Baking is a science so every baker should invest in a scale for the correct measurement is key to the perfect cake.

Rose Levy Beranbaum

The Joy with her I think all is possible in the kitchen. Drink the wine and share a laugh. Her cookbook Very Simple Food is truly stunning but more than that it is foolproof. Oh and she is the Times Cook in London, so like the best job in the world.  

Jill Dupleix

The Sheer Joy of simple food
The Bounties of Nature's William Mason Brown
My love my care,
Simone