Month: August 2012

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Perfect

“Catesby knew that the footpaths of Weald Park were well marked. He often stopped there for his sandwiches when driving between London and his home in Suffolk. The landscaping of the estate, including the lake and deer park, had been carried out in the eighteenth century in the style of Capability Brown. The result was a setting of exceeding beauty and peace — the perfect place to dump a body.”

— From The Midnight Swimmer (2011) by Edward Wilson, with thanks to David Aureden; portrait of Lancelot (‘Capability’) Brown by Nathaniel Dance, d. 1811 from the National Portrait Gallery, London

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Tea Sense

Always looking for postcards relating to tea, I came across one that was part of a series on “the five senses,” with a young lady demonstrating the sense of taste with a tea cup. The postcard is from Berlin, and the series included the card below, showing the sense of touch…

I wondered if others did “the five senses” and found it to be fairly universal.

Here’s “taste” from a series in England.

And France.

And the United States.

And even the entire series — taste, hearing, smell, seeing and touch — which can still be found matted and framed, by American artist Bessie Pease Gutmann, one of my favorites.

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Annette in Wyoming

This morning at the Swap Shop of the Skaneateles village dump, I scored a copy of Annette: Mystery at Medicine Wheel (1964) by Barlow Meyers, illustrated by Robert L. Jenney and Maxine McCaffrey. Since I missed this title the first time, and thought that might be the case with others, I include a few excerpts to share the flavor of the tale. We join Walt Disney’s Annette after she has been sent to her second cousins’ ranch by her uncle for buying an overly expensive prom dress.

“‘Hold down your skirt and get acquainted with the little bay mare at the end,’ Sophie told her. ‘She’s your mount for the summer.'”

“Annette, struggling to drag air into her lungs, sat up dazedly. She shook her head to clear it. Mary pushed her back, held her down firmly. ‘Lie still. Let’s see if anything’s broken.'”

“One day Annette decided that instead of riding, she would put on her bathing suit and follow the creek across the pasture… Beyond the big cottonwood, she found a place where the water, in turning a bend, backed itself into a waist-deep pool in the shade. She hung her jeans and shirt across a protruding root, and waded into water still cold from mountain snow. When she was used to it, she floated on her back and watched the clouds.”

“Kevin grunted when he hit, and then the two were rolling over and over, pummeling and striking.”

“For a moment Annette felt paralyzed. He was six feet from her, level-eyed and unmoving. He was also unsurprised. His thin lips widened into a chilled amused smile as she stood still gasping for breath from her run. “

It would be unfair of me to reveal the ending.