Friday, July 30, 2010

A silly creature and her perfect friend

I had lunch today with one my dearest friend. She will be celebrating her fortieth birthday, twenty-first wedding anniversary and her youngest going off to university in the next little while, which of course filled with me with all sort of conflicting emotions. Jealous being the most prevalent and not for the reasons one would think either. You see, she is at peace, sort a like a Buddhist monk.

Hold Everything by Gil Elvgren

She kept telling me things have a way of working itself out and I shouldn’t worry so much and try to relax more. I tell you it truly is a strain having lunch with her, me there trying to hold it altogether and she there mocking my manic list making and fractured five year plan. Now, you may not know this but by nature I’m a frantic emotional perfectionist so naturally all this fills me with anxiety. I do love her though for she is the one person I can count on supporting my every fancy no matter how foolhardy then make me chocolate soufflé and holding my hand should said fancy fall apart.

Besides with her I'm able to laugh at myself.
A lovely weekend to you all,
Simone

Thursday, July 29, 2010

Counsel that left an impression

I volunteered at a home for the aged in my twenties while there I met a lady who imparted to me this, be kind to the one you share your life with. She kept telling me how very easy it was to be cruel and how easy vindictive scorn follows. In honour of her I try to live my life with this advice in mind and you know I see now a kindness done is usually a very small a thing.

Maria by Théo Van Rysselberghe

Not the saddest thing

Dita roams the halls of her retirement home, scolding the son she sacrificed all for only he is not there to hear her. She chants her disappointment with unyielding resentment but only the chiropodist understands her broken German. He examines her feet and coos his sympathy before saying I will see you in a month. She smiles and appears lucid then she replies as always I pray I will be dead between now and then. He takes her hands for a gentle squeeze then moves on to the gentleman in the other room.

My love my care,
Simons

Tuesday, July 27, 2010

Full Moon

On nights when the moon is full and clear I fret we have upset without understanding a delicate balance but then I switch on my computer, Google my heart’s desire and soon all I’m able to do is whisper my gratitude. Thank you, Moon. I would gladly devote a full night in honour of all you have added to my life.

Moonlight by William Shih-Chieh Hung
Praise the moon

Luna tell me your secrets
Whisper in my ear all you have seen
Explain to me the purpose of Stonehenge or the mystery of Atlantis and the Bermuda triangle
Confide in me your thoughts on humanity for I often wonder how much you mind us visiting without invitation or if you resent our open ingratitude for your illumination
My love my care,
Simone

Saturday, July 24, 2010

Summer madness

High humidity, seems just the thing here in the heart of summer and so naturally I dread the rains that signal the end.


Théo Van Rysselberghe's The Model's Siesta
Impatient

Two weeks is not so very long if one is happily waiting.
Only for me it is no less than the torment of being trapped beneath the rubbles while fatigued rescuer surrender hope.
I grow certain you will not return with me in mind and the ruins become my grave.
All your postcards arrive with the hostile doom of a telegram.
I pray the phone will ring, it doesn’t.
The house is silent in a sort of respectful observation of our end.
I look at the calendar and lament for it as only been days.
I discover your note that says simply, “You’re mad. You have my heart. I’m coming home.”

My love, my care,
Simone

Wednesday, July 21, 2010

One of those ladies from the Regency

Laure Junot, Duchesse d'Abrantès was a historian and wife of French general Jean-Andoche Junot. After her father died in 1795, Laure lived with her mother, Madame Permon, who established a distinguished Parisian salon that was frequented by Napoleon Bonaparte. It was Napoleon who arranged her marriage to Junot who was his aide-de-camp in 1800. Laure accompanied her husband to Portugal, where he was ambassador for a year. The marriage was unhappy, and Laure had a three year affairs with Prince Metternich, Austrian ambassador to Paris and, later, with a Royalist aristocrat named Maurice de Balincourt.

She later had an affair with Honoré de Balzac with whom she produced her spirited but somewhat spiteful Memoirs. The memoirs were published at Paris in 1831-1834 in 18 volumes. Many editions have since appeared. Of her other books the most noteworthy are Histoires contemporaines (2 vols., 1835); Scènes de la vie espagnole (2 vols., 1836); Histoire des salons de Paris (6 vols., 1837-1838); Souvenirs d'une ambassade et d'un séjour en Espagne et en Portugal, de 1808 & 1811 (2 vols., 1837).

Since, these things seldom last it was only time until this once well received in all the gaieties of Paris, and noted for her beauty, caustic wit, and extravagance was being ridiculed by Théophile Gautier, who dubbed her "Duchess of Abracadantès." With the passing of the years she fell into poverty and out of vogue, she died in a nursing-home in 1838 but her fascinating memoirs live on.

My love my care,
Simone

Monday, July 19, 2010

The ravenous artist

This studio inspires in me want for an afternoon spent wrapped in its charms.

A Corner of William Merritt Chase's Studio
Love’s toll

I’m not able to conceive of it and still I think of little else,
but then it is no more than infatuation for my love is no more than coloured lights.
Ever fleeting rainbows or distant Auroras.
I tell you I cannot imagine our futures and yet I hold no dream dearer for you are music and magic,
but not love for to me it is as miracle for the nonbeliever.
Reduced to falling frogs and water for wine.
You laugh at my foolishness holding me above paradise and time in that place of eternal bloom.
I grip tight terrified you will let go before I’m able to master the wings your love has allowed me.

All is before you.
My love and care,
Simone.

Thursday, July 15, 2010

Male apparel

Yesterday afternoon I had lunch with a thirty-something real estate agent wearing a white belt. Now, I know you are thinking, ‘what a snob this Simone girl is turning out to be,’ and I may well be but you must also take in account the matching white shoes and his showcase of jewels (A diamond stud in each ear, watch, three rings, bracelet and chains). Here, it gets better for he drives a Mercedes-Benz convertible also in white. Oh and that was not the most ridiculous for you see there was also a white fedora and his cologne which I assume was very expensive only he used it in such a manner it read as cheap.

Portrait of Bonifacius Amerbach painted by Hans Holbein the Younger

Now you mustn’t think me cruel when I tell you I felt nothing but shame at being seen out in public with this absurd creature but I tell you something else beneath all this madness was a brilliant real estate agent and a charming conversationalist. Proving once more that old adage about books and there covers.

My love and a laugh to you,
Simone

Tuesday, July 13, 2010

A romantic end

Allow me a charity my love and I will amputate with precision the bits of me that stubbornly cling to your selfish flesh then we will be as tragic constellation set to burn until consumed by dark void. Made happy in the nothingness, absent from all light.
                                                       Engulfed,
                                                                    Free.

James Tissot's A Little Nimrod

No more than child's play...
The death of a character is an inevitability for a writer but mind now for a romance novel one is required to apply asp to bosom, poison on lips, blade at heart in place of the civil passing in sleep affair. While for a truly epic tale the end demands crucifixion, firing squad, suicide, guillotines, bloodletting in iron maiden or my personal favorite the old hanged, drawn and quartered.
My love my care,
Simone

Monday, July 12, 2010

Idle ideal

I have infuriated my loved ones for rather than going on holiday this year I have with the money saved purchased pearl earrings, bed linens, a handbag and a bottle of my favourite perfume. Silly, perhaps but I simply could not bring myself to book a trip when the weather here is so lovely and the garden is doing so well. I know they fret I will regret it come the winter but I think I’ve made the right decision. Besides, I’ve booked a few hours at a local spa and will take a few days off to read in the warmth of the sun.

Julius LeBlanc Stewart's Reading Aloud

Friday, July 9, 2010

Let's

Come see me.

Edgar Hunt's A Hen, Chicks And Pigeons

Spite

Domesticated as spouse and fowl.
Made useful for consumption.
Tamed free of wild desires.
Broken of natural nature and bridled into civility.
Petted to conform only to be.
Pent-up and denied flight.
A lovely weekend to all,
Simoneq

Wednesday, July 7, 2010

To be said in one breath

But mind now for this only works if you are resolved to say it all in one go.

Everett Shinn's Nude

First take a breath

I love you so much I can hardly stand it yet still I’m unable to see to your happiness for long before you came along I squandered all I was allotted so here now all that remains is my desired hope for you to stay awhile because I haven’t the faith to will you stay forever so please understand take my hand and know I will always love you.

My love my care,
Simone

Sunday, July 4, 2010

Catherine Breillat one of the 100 women that inspires me

"There is no masculine psychology in my cinema. There is only the resentments and desires of women. A man should not attempt to recognize himself in my male characters. On the other hand, he can find [in the films] a better understanding of women. And knowledge of the other is the highest goal."

The brilliant Catherine Breillat

Author and filmmaker Catherine Breillat has garnered a reputation as one of the most controversial women in film and literature. Her works primary focus is on female sexuality and is told always from the woman's perspective.
At 17, she published her first novel, “L'homme Facile,” which became a cause célèbre for its blunt language and open depiction of sexual subject matter. The controversy generated by L'homme Facile gave Breillat enough recognition that she was able to pursue a career as a writer.

her prettiest film

In 1975, she directed “Une Vraie Jeune Fille,” which was adapted from one of her novels. The film focused on the unusually explicit depiction of the sexual obsessions of an adolescent girl, it generated a certain amount of controversy and was further hindered by financial problems on the part of the film's producers, which prevented it from receiving a proper launch at the time.
After directing two films that received plenty of hostile press but very little money, her career as a director was put on hold. She continued to write screenplays but it wasn't until 1988 that she was in charge of another feature, “36 Fillette.” Depicting the burgeoning sexuality of a 14-year-old girl hell-bent on seducing a middle-aged man. This one fared well enough at the box office to allow her to make another film.

her fairy tale "Bluebeard"

Her real international breakthrough, came in 1999 with the success of “Romance,” about a schoolteacher whose relationship with her boyfriend has gone sour, leading her into a variety of sexual liaisons with other men, it was one of her first films to play in mainstream cinemas across Europe and the United States though it clearly depicted explicit intercourse and fellatio, as a result it generated a great amount of press attention.
Romance also spawned a number of positive reviews and think pieces in major newspapers and magazines, and finally confirmed Catherine Breillat status as a major filmmaker outside her native France.

This thing she said and I love, "The problem is that censors create the concept of obscenity. By supposedly trying to protect us they form an absurd concept of what is obscene."

My love my care,
Simone

Thursday, July 1, 2010

Gemini


The Artist's Sisters by Théodore Chassériau

She had made an error at forty that even her youngest at thirteen had found laughable and still she could not have gone forth without having loved him.

I had instead a go at fortune the kind found in twelve hour days and smart parties with clever people.

She swam by moonlight in her best frock then tossed it aside to make love in filthy sand

I got promoted and learned how to golf with the bright young things

She chases the sun to shop in open markets in distant land without worry for her retirement fund

I’ve decided to use my vacation fund to enrol in Mandarin for business executives

She drives me mad with her incessant I haves

I make her crazy with my I wills

My love my care,
Simone