Name Day Post

I’m not sure if I have this right, but apparently some people celebrate a kind of birthday on the death date of the saint for whom they were named, and receive presents brought by a happy post boy.

Boating with Goats

I couldn’t wait until New Year’s with this one.

Tinted Tea

Cloud Atlas

I loved this book because I gave myself permission to skip the chapters between pages 181 and 349. The parts I read were brilliant. One favorite passage out of dozens:

“Veronica maintained a vast collection of not-quite-stars’ autographed photographs. She was widely read enough to appreciate my literary wit but not so widely read that she knew my sources. I like that in a woman.”

– David Mitchell in Cloud Atlas (2004)

Upon His Spaniel Tracy (1648)

Now thou are dead, no eye shall ever see
For shape and service, spaniel like to thee.
This shall my love do, give thy sad death one
Tear, that deserves of me a million.

– Robert Herrick

Inspiration

“Oh where ha’e you been, Lord Randall my son? O where ha’e you been, my handsome young man?”

– “Lord Randall,” Child No. 12, Traditional English ballad collected by F.J. Child (1882)

“Oh, where have you been, my blue-eyed son ? And where have you been my darling young one ?”

– Bob Dylan, “A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall” (1962)

Last Post

British author and artist Lance Thackeray died in 1916, but not before doing some lovely postcards.