A 1935 poster, on a postcard from the Robert Opie collection, purchased from Margaret & John Pearsall (MEP Postcards).
Monthly Archives: June 2011
Eager Walking
“With light step, as if earth and its trammels had little power to restrain him, a young man in gorgeous vestments pauses at the brink of a precipice among the great heights of the world; he surveys the blue distance before him — its expanse of sky rather than the prospect below. His act of eager walking is still indicated, although he is stationary at the given moment; his dog is still bounding. The edge which opens on the depth has no terror; it is as if angels were waiting to uphold him, if it came about that he leaped from the height… He is the spirit in search of experience.”
– Arthur Edward Waite in The Pictorial Key to the Tarot (1910), card designed by Pamela Colman Smith.
Personal Things
“To-night her mind was too full of personal things to permit of strict attention to the text.” From the painting by Gerald Leake, illustrating “Aurora the Magnificent,” from The Century Magazine.
Hopper Post
I thought the postal person riding a pig, which I posted a day or two ago, was amazing, but today, I stumble upon a postal cherub astride a grasshopper.
To Walk Freely
“Being born a woman is my awful tragedy. Yes, my consuming desire to mingle with road crews, sailors and soldiers barroom regulars — to be part of a scene, anonymous, listening, recording — all is spoiled by the fact that I am a girl, a female always in danger of assault and battery. My consuming interest in men and their lives is often misconstrued as a desire to seduce them, or as an invitation to intimacy. Yes, God, I want to talk to everybody I can as deeply as I can. I want to be able to sleep in an open field, to travel west, to walk freely at night.”
– Sylvia Plath, journal
Greece 1910-1920
At the dump this morning, in the corner of the first building where people drop off things that are unwanted but not without value, I found a copy of The Greece of 1910-1920 by George Benteres; it was in Greek, but the pictures were universal and I thought they should see the light of day one last time.
Every picture tells a story, don’t it.
Pig Post
A Swedish postcard brings a New Year’s wish for 365 lucky days. This is my first glimpse of mail-by-pig.
Mail and Dogs, 1914
What a Lovely Walk
“January 31, 1854 — A walk: the air incredibly pure, delights for the eye, a warm and gently caressing sunlight, one’s whole being joyous. A spring-like charm. Felt to my marrow this purifying, moving influence, laden with poetry and tenderness; had a strong religious feeling of gratitude and wonder. Seated motionless on a bench in the Tranchees, beside the ditches with their garb of moss, carpeted with grass, I felt intensely, delightfully alive.”
– Henri Frederick Amiel, “What a Lovely Walk”
Pen & Ink
What magic there is in simple black and white. Three sketches from Drawing with Pen & Ink by Arthur L. Guptill, the first by the author, on trees, the second by Schell Lewis, and the third by Joseph Clement Coll:
