Memorial Day: remembering WW2 with my mom

My techie mom learned how to use a record-recording machine when she was a teenager. In addition to recording herself singing alone in her bedroom, she recorded family parties. It was during World War II and her family was suffering terrible loses, including her brother. And yet there was all this hilarity. In 2005, we […]

Courage to live on the edge

I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that, for the past month, every time I hear a wave crash against our eroding shore, I flinch. I’m hypervigilante and my brain rushes to worst-case scenarios. Is beauty really worth the agita? Can I take another month of cursing the wicked wind of the west? As a […]

The tau tau and storytelling

Everything sooner or later turns into a story. Maybe in God-time the Word becomes Flesh. But in my experience Flesh fades into Word and the Word becomes Story. Yeah. People loved hanging out with my Irish-American parents, because any disaster could be neutralized by turning it into a story and having a good laugh. It […]

Japan #1847: drawing, calligraphy, oh my

This is a marvel: a hand-drawn manuscript for a small Japanese book by Utagawa Yashitora, an ukiyo-e print artist who (among other things) published over a hundred books during his active years, 1850-1880. With brush and ink, the artist tells his story of “Revenge at Igaguye” on 5 x 7 in. pages of rice paper. […]

#1850 Japanese Album

About four years ago, when I thought I’d finished inventorying and cataloging Jim’s better collections, we opened one last drawer in his study — the drawer where he kept trinkets and curios he used for gifts. Beneath the parrot brooches and the scuba-diver toys, we found a few “lost” treasures, including this one — 25 […]

Semi-organized

I am organized, but not obsessive. Get get intense about something. And then it’s put away “for another day.” I’m working on our “stuff” this week, preparing for another round of “tidying up” — a.k.a. selling off. I have a square, metal-mesh file box (image above) full of folders labeled “to do,” all about Jim’s […]

Thoughts on knives

First thought: guy stuff. Keep it in the man cave. Second thought: useful tool. Where would civilization be without sharp-edged tools for cutting, chopping, slicing, carving, etc.? Third thought: power object. This gallery of Jim’s collection shows knives, daggers, and swords that are as beautiful as they are useful. They are the product of centuries […]

Mergansers on Lake Ontario

I think of days like today as “white days,” when the sky is bright but overcast and the horizon disappears. Everything is calm and pale-pearly gray. The mergansers (diving ducks) dot the waters. Boy mergansers are still chasing and showing off for the girl mergansers. Soon, with the onset of boat traffic, they’ll migrate to […]

Doodling my way to…

In February, I decided to try a week’s worth of doodling a single sheet of marker paper. That lasted a few weeks and yielded some new motifs for my fabric designs. Now, after finding an old 3×5-ish moleskine notebook, I decided to take another stab at one or more doodles a day. Dilemma: Use doodling […]