Let there be Solitude

There is a pleasure in the pathless woods,
There is a rapture on the lonely shore,
There is society, where none intrudes,
By the deep sea, and music in its roar:
I love not man the less, but Nature more,
From these our interviews, in which I steal
From all I may be, or have been before,
To mingle with the Universe, and feel
What I can ne’er express, yet cannot all conceal.

-- Childe Harold, Canto iv, Verse 178

Blind as a Bat, Cool as a Cat

New specs, can't wait

(Pictures from: Ms Pandora, Garance Dore, Wendy Beavan's Portfolio, Jak & Jil and last but not least, a picture of the wonderfully neurotic Annie Hall)

Sisters

Happy Birthday!

New York New York

New York, the unhappiest state?

At least according to this.

This is where I betray the fact of my non-American citizenship, but to me New York the state and New York the city are intricately linked. Or perhaps it is really more accurate to say that to most of the world at large, New York is New York City. I am not sure how sacrilegious this is to the New Yorkers out there but this is the burden to bear for being one of the dream cities of the world, alongside Paris and London.

As a kid growing up on the other side of the world, New York City was symbolic of a lifestyle to be desired and experienced. I remember my first trip to the Big Apple after college graduation. There we were, 3 scruffy starry-eyed young adults barely out of our teens, who arrived and expected the city to razzle and dazzle us. But every turn we took we were exposed to dust and filth and even worse, crazy tourists in Time Square buying M&M shaped pillows. It was all simultaneously so cheesy and grime that inwardly we all thought we were going to cry while wandering around with a determinedly fixed grin on our faces and the obligatory, "Wow!! Oh how…nice. Let's take a picture".

But New York City grows on you. Lying on the grass in Central Park may seem terribly unoriginal but what a wonderful way to be unoriginal. The museums, the restaurants, the people. And perhaps, more importantly, who can ever forget the city seen through the eyes of one's inexperienced youth; where every revelation was like raising up another set of blinds to reveal the world of possibilities beyond.

Ahh, Trader Joe's!

In the words of Calvino:

" … the city which can not be expunged from the mind is like an armature, a honey-comb in whose cells each of us can place the things he wants to remember…"

This Xmas, thinking of New York City, fondly.

(All black and whites from here, a loving homage to the City)

(Christmas display windows from Bergdorf and Barneys from here)

Knocking on Heaven's Door

Death is just an open door, I have only slipped away into the next room

RIP. Craigie Aitchison

Ho Ho Ho

"At Christmas, which should be a pause, and which should have nothing to do with how much you can spend and eat and drink, there is a little crack in time for meditation and contemplation, to be with friends and to be alone – yes always to be alone, for only in that alone space can we drop down to deepest peace. It is not about being lonely, and it isn’t about being a hermit, but time with yourself is time with past present and future, and Christmas is about all time being present, and perhaps above the surface of our minds, when usually we are sunk in it – time passing but not being noticed as time, only as events in time, but time itself, when felt, is mysterious. It can only be felt alone."

-- Jeanette Winterson, read rest of article here


(Picture from the excellent Dossier)

In the mood for yellow

(Picture by Julia Galdo, more here)

(Tulle skirt by Ouma Clothing)

(Photo by ellemoss)

Chasing Cars

If I lay here
If I just lay here
Would you lie with me
And just forget the world?

--Snow Petrol

Rudolph

"Rudolph with your nose so bright, won't you guide my sleigh tonight?"

Are you in the Christmas mood yet?

(picture from here)

Vacant Look

(by Edward Hopper)

I rest my gaze on the screen
My mind on the horizon beyond
The keyboard clicks incessantly
But the wanderings have begun

Aka -- Sitting in the office pre-vacation

(Pictures from ffffound!)

Kraving for Kron

Why was it this did not come to my attention when I was in Iceland?

I like to think it was because I was so awed by the magnificence of my surroundings that shopping was not a part of my frame of mind at all. Humor me. Actually, just darn.

Thank goodness for online shopping. The beauty of connectivity. Never fear, in this day and age, wallets can always be emptied :p

(more from kronbykronkron website)

Celebrate

"Cherish forever what makes you unique, cuz you're really a yawn if it goes."

-- by the divine Miss M

the mad genius of Marchesa Luisa Casati

In Suspension

Someone I am waiting for

What is the colour of longing

Or maybe not so much a colour but a haze

The days flit by