Let me justify my want

It is no different from yours.

Vladimir Kezerashvili's Canal in Bruges

I'm not greedy just wantful

I want holiday in an undiscovered land so I may flaunt my superiority in front of my trendy, vapid friends.

I want fortune great enough to still allow me access to a normal life and fame enough to allow me the best table at the trendiest spots.

I want well-behaved children, with nigh genius intellect.

I want passion that is likened to rapture and for that passion to be with no one less than a Brad Pitt look-alike.

I want to be youthful, with a flawless figure and perfect skin until the day of my death at 101.

I want to turn out a better pie than Martha Stewart.

If I can't have all of that, I insist on having a lotto jackpot for no less than ten million.

Oh and St Bartelemy in the spring and Bruges in Autumn

Kezerashvili's Alley in Bruges

All I want is to be happy as fortune allows... that and true love.

My love my care,

Simone 

Somewhere near the middle of the year

Tara Delk understood well the white rabbit and now so do I.

The Siesta by Frederick Arthur Bridgeman

Time

Save it,
Savour it,
Can't spare it.

I am a time-aholic.
Don't scorn me
Because I am sensible.
It is important to me.

Four Zones.
Is it noon?
Is it midnight?
Always subtracting,
Racing,
Eluding.
Where does it go?

My mind is the hand of the clock,
Running away from me
Until there is no
More
Time.

Here is to time well spent,

Simone

The greatest of these...

And other splendid things.

John Collier's Lady Godiva

Oh I love thee


I see now you were fine until I tried to fix you

Suturing your orifices without anaesthetic

Insisting you haemorrhage to appease my vanity

Vulnerable and wounded you escape in the dead of night with want for safe shore

I let you go for I know you won’t make it far with your injuries

Your blood is in the water and the piranhas are ravenous

For what it is worth, I love you,

Simone

Humphry Repton

English author, landscape designer and architect John Nash design partner. Humphry Repton was a minor squire who had worked in business and as a farmer. In 1788, at the age of 36, he decided to take up the profession of landscape gardener. A series of commissions led Humphry Repton to publish a book of Sketches and Hints on Landscape Gardening in 1795.

Repton was called upon to offer his services as an ‘improver of the landscape’.

As a result he soon had a steady flow of work. Repton returned to England determined to become a worthy successor to Lancelot 'Capability' Brown. Repton’s style continued on from Brown’s as he included a vision of the house and how it was placed with relation to the landscape surrounding it.


 
Repton saw gardening as an art form with the landscape as his canvas, his ideal being natural beauty enhanced by art.

Repton carried on the landscape gardening skills developed by Brown, introducing terracing as important to the foreground and gravel walks. He also reintroduced the flower bed and separate flower gardens.

Repton outlined his principles of landscape gardening in his book ‘Observations on the Theory and Practice of Landscape Gardening’ -

“The perfection of landscape gardening consists in the four following requisites. First, it must display the natural beauties and hide the defects of every situation. Secondly, it should give the appearance of extent and freedom by carefully disguising or hiding the boundary. Thirdly, it must studiously conceal every interference of art. However expensive by which the natural scenery is improved; making the whole appear the production of nature only; and fourthly, all objects of mere convenience or comfort, if incapable of being made ornamental, or of becoming proper parts of the general scenery, must be removed or concealed”.

Repton also published a book called ‘Sketches and Hints on Landscape Gardening’(1795). These books were based on his findings during his prolific career. For every client Repton would keep a record in a red leather bound book detailing proposals for changes, maps, plans, drawings, watercolours and before and after sketches. These became known as his famous Red Books some of which survive, leaving a legacy of innovative ideas and helping to shape a new ideology which remains a part of modern day landscaping practice.

Repton undertook over four hundred commissions during his thirty year career working on many important stately homes. One Repton garden, largely unchanged, can be viewed at Betchworth House in Surrey .

Repton was brilliant at taming and cultivating nature into functioning art but more than that was his ability to maximize the natural assets of the space that his genius inhabited.

My love my care,

Simone

Here is to Lovely Sundays

Pam Wesely's wrote well of writing and her words fit well my mood.

Kate Elizabeth Bunce's Melody

How to Write a Poem

She knows how to write a poem.
In her lonely lamplight, she scratched down some pointers.

"The subject can be anything, but it must be love.
Victorian love,
forced love,
unrequited love,
lost love,
unparalleled love.
All good poem must be about love.

Then, you get a technique.
Of falsified emotions,
of fabricated passions,
of lacy synonyms,
of flowery adjectives,
of repeating prepositional phrases,
of alliterations.
Everyone needs a technique.

You write like a Dickens.
You avoid dumb chiches.
You emulate Frost, Byron, Shakespeare.
You drop names."

She knew how to write a poem.
She just wondered why no one listened to her.

A lovely Sunday to you all,

Simone

John Nash the Prince Regent's Architect

John Nash understood the simplicity of design and was strongly influenced by classic architecture and gothic design. His lines were elegant and sweeping without being grotesque or overly showy. It's for this reason, his work is still relevant today.

Nash's work exemplified regency excess but with the tasteful restraint of one who understood hard work and came from humble beginnings.

Nash understood that architecture could not stand alone and it was for this reason tht he worked with the landscape designer Humphry Repton.

He mastered well grandeur and good taste.

His work was fitting for his time and stood the test of time.

The Brighton Pavillion is his masterpiece. It showed his genius and his ability to marry more than one school of architecture.

Dorothea de Lieven described the Pavilion succintly in a letter to her lover Prince Metternich: "How can one describe such a piece of architecture (as) the King's palace here? The style is a mixture of Moorish, Tartar, Gothic and Chinese, and all in stone and iron. It is a whim which has already cost 700,000 pounds; and it is still not fit to live in."

The Marble Arch is as synonymous with England as the Big Ben.

My favourite thing he has done. Brilliant architecture.

Brighton, Pavilion

My love my care,

Simone

All things bright and bright and beautiful.

My love in a sort of anti-ode to my favorite van Dyck.

Anthony van Dyck's Frans Snyders

LET US

Let us be strangers again as we were in the spring of it all

When it had all been reconnaissance and sweet discovery

Long before the painful dissection turn brutal warfare

Let us talk until our voices go as we did in April

When your every sigh fascinated

Long before we bore with predictable chit-chat

Let us make love with the heady impatient want

When it was about not getting enough of each other

Long before we had thoughts to make sex a part of our to-dos for the week

Let us start over without memory of our failure

When promise was all we had

Long before I disappointed and you let me

All my love,

Simone

As useful as advice from Cosmo

I wrote this after overhearing a woman on the train telling her friend to settle, ‘You are 40,’ she said as if her friend had an awful disease. It made me very sad for the poor dear.

.

Wang Weidong's Still Life with Silk

Good Intention

I vexed wrath with my bounty moving her swiftly to violence for I was excessive in my want for rapture
Plying discord with my woe, putting her to blush until she was forced to demand my tears
Ingratiating myself on fury begging of her courage to storm the castle and rescue the prince
Only pity would lend me an ear but in the end she would only encourage me to settle for the pleasant frog

I wish you all the blessing of wise friends.

Simone

Maria Anna Sofia Cecilia Kalogeropoulou One of the 100 Women that has Influenced Me

Maria Callas was one of the great divas of the 20th century. Both her voice and stage presence are legendary. In 1939, the New York-born Greek made her professional debut at the Athens Olympia Theatre and enjoyed her greatest success at La Scala in Milan throughout the 1950s. Until the mid-1960s, she made numerous appearances at the world’s greatest opera houses. She considered her signature role Norma, which she portrayed almost 90 times, somewhat autobiographical. Callas said, “Norma is in many ways like I am. Norma may appear strong, sometimes even brutal, but in reality she is like a lamb that roars like a lion.”


This was said of Maria by her teacher Maria Trivella

''The tone of the voice was warm, lyrical, intense; it swirled and flared like a flame and filled the air with melodious reverberations like a carillon. It was by any standards an amazing phenomenon, or rather it was a great talent that needed control, technical training, and strict discipline in order to shine with all its brilliance.''

This of her work ethic

De Hidalgo would later recall Callas as "a phenomenon... She would listen to all my students, sopranos, mezzos, tenors... She could do it all." Callas herself said that she would go to "the conservatoire at 10 in the morning and leave with the last pupil ... devouring music" for 10 hours a day. When asked by her teacher why she did this, her answer was that even "with the least talented pupil, he can teach you something that you, the most talented, might not be able to do."

 This she said of her brilliant voice

Yes, but I don't like it. I have to do it, but I don't like it at all because I don't like the kind of voice I have. I really hate listening to myself! I'll tell you something: the first time I listened to a recording of my singing was when we were recording San Giovanni Battista by Stradella in a church in Perugia in 1949. They made me listen to the tape and I cried my eyes out. I wanted to stop everything, to give up singing. I really hate listening to my voice. I do recognise my voice among all the others. I recognize the way I sing. . .It's not even the way I sing; it's the universe that I have, that I bring along when I sing. It's like the way one walks or writes, everybody has his own way, each of them is different. Every voice is unique, don't you think? Also now even though I don't like my voice, I've become able to accept it and to be detached and objective about it so I can say, "Oh, that was really well sung," or "It was nearly perfect."

This she said of her childhood

"I was made to sing when I was only five, and I hated it."

"Children should have a wonderful childhood. I have not had it – I wish I had."

''There must be a law against forcing children to perform at an early age. Children should have a wonderful childhood. They should not be given too much responsibility.''

''I was always too mature for my age - and not very happy. I had no young friends. I wish I could go back to those days. If I could only live it all again, how I would play and enjoy other girls. What a fool I was.''

''My sister was slim and beautiful and friendly, and my mother always preferred her. I was the ugly duckling, fat and clumsy and unpopular. It is a cruel thing to make a child feel ugly and unwanted... I'll never forgive her for taking my childhood away. During all the years I should have been playing and growing up, I was singing or making money. Everything I did for them was mostly good and everything they did to me was mostly bad.''


This of she said of her character

I am not an angel and do not pretend to be. That is not one of my roles. But I am not the devil either. I am a woman and a serious artist, and I would like so to be judged.

This she said and I love

''I would not kill my enemies, but I will make them get down on their knees. I will, I can, I must.''


She was tragic to be sure but more than that was her tremendous talent and grace of carriage. I love her dearly and wanted to share her with you using as much of her words as possible for her integrity mattered to her a great deal.

A lovely weekend to you all.

My love, my care,

Simone

The Greatest Wall

Beth Crome thank you for expressing the isolation

.

John William Godward's Sabinella

I have built the greatest wall
Higher than the clouds
Stronger than steel
Thicker than the earth's crust
Surrounds me on all sides
Protects me from those who would destroy me
Yet never did I realize when I built
The greatest wall
I forgot to make a door

And here his 'Sweet Nothing'

I wonder you know if one is able to sense the distance between isolation and loneliness.

You have my love,

Simone

Advice for philandering males

With the hope it will save us all from another naked and vulnerable public unveiling.

Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres Study of a Nude

A Private Indiscretion and the Subsequent Public Outrage

'Impropriety' is often the battle cry of the charmingly unsophisticated in their rush to save those too weak of mind to see the heretics in their midst. It was definitely so during the election season, resoundingly so at the height of Clinton-gate, and it continues to be so with each new disgraced celebrity philanderer.

Judgmental pundits with unchecked fanatical devotion to family values are left to spout, with bias, speculation often of their own making to the seemingly insatiable multitude amongst which you are counted if you do not let your voices be heard.

Rail with your distaste for an establishment that has made marriage the mark of morality and competence to execute public office. Let it be known that you value the humane treatment for this recently outed prodigal who was once a cherished darling. Tell them you will no longer tolerate any indiscreet paramours with their sudden attacks of conscience that benefit naught but their own profit-seeking ends.

It's bad business this.

These women who enter willingly into the affairs with foreknowledge of their lover’s state of matrimony and whom, we assume, vow discretion only to pretend a lapse of judgement once faced with the media scrutiny created by their disloyal utterance.

Certainly, there is plenty profit to be had from this unholy alliance, but it should be negotiated between the women – these days seemingly uglier than the cuckolded wife - and the now dethroned prince of pleasure – substitute name of latest tarnished athlete, politician or actor – long before this most private matter becomes the fodder of pious zealots.

A dalliance is an inevitability for which there aught to be a contingency for every affluent fellow with a healthy sexual appetite. There are long established rules that govern these sorts of arrangements from as far back as the household of the biblical lord Abraham to the decadent court of the England’s fat Prince Regent, and it is advised for the modern gentlemen of means to employ them.

You have fortunes gentleman. Let it pay your way for it does not bode well for our society if prudence in matters of believed immorality are practiced solely by brothers living on the down low and the Catholic Church when covering up the ills of their priests.

You do that and the rest of us rational adults will gage our response accordingly. We will not let it be believed that our protest of your public castration is a sign of our support of infidelity, nor will we subscribe to the notion that your weakness of flesh is a sign of more than your humanity.

My love, my care,

Simone

I've been reading...

This I found very beautiful. It is pure fancy, of a thoughtful tender moment between strangers.

Tamara de Lempicka's Girl with Gloves

Brett Garcia Myhren's ''TELEMARKETER''

I'm reading on the couch when she calls, asks for me by name. I smile at her scripted intimacy, imagine her cubicle with photos of pets, the long bend of light on her lacquered nails.

"Listen to this," I reply," David kissed the soft inner banks of women’s thighs."

"Pardon?"

"Oh, there's more," I say, "Thighs like loamy earth that cup the rivers, or lilies blooming in rose and mint."

"Is this a bad time for you, sir?"

"Is it for you? Tell me something," I insist. "Tell me anything."

A quiet unfolds between us as though we'd spent our breath on withering arguments or lost it in the scented air of sweat.

Finally she says, "I'm in Lincoln, Nebraska. Outside, leaves are turning in the cold."

I wish you happy.

All my love,

Simone

So much more than holiday

Here I've found an ideal place now let you and I go there for a spell.

A Riverside Cottage Louis Aston Knight

Only let’s promise to bring no worries, memories of the way back or want for return.
We will make love in the sun by rushing brook and eat fruit from the tree.
It won’t be holiday it will be pure madness
Me, you and silence with our bodies completely at rest

My love, my care,

Simone

I'm hardly present

I suspect it’s spring fever but it could well be laziness.

Dark Fantasy by John Jude Palencar

Forgive it
For you see my mind she orbits the moon
She refuses reason and pretends not to hear my logic
And though I’ve petitioned Luna for aid I’m certain she has already aligned herself with my stubborn mind
So I beg your patience until her return, which could well be tomorrow but I won’t swear to it for just now I caught her gazing with wonder at Mars.

A lovely week to all,

Simone