2007 January

Entries from January 2007

Punts, etc

January 26th, 2007 No Comments

Kerala pics have been flickr’d

Went to Tuesday night’s talk on ‘The Whale’ (known to its keepers, even conversationally, as the above*) which swam up the Thames last January. Richard Sabin, curator of mammals at the Natural History Museum, was in conversation with The Guardian’s Ian Katz. There was something bordering on macabre about sitting next to the glass encased [...]

Tags: river stories

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January 19th, 2007 5 Comments

Back from India and slowly picking up the pieces. I wanted to welcome myself back with a pic of a punting fisherman silhouetted by a shimmering sunset over the backwaters of Alleppey. But that’ll have to wait, at least until tomorrow…

Tags: excuses

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Briliant!

Dave Brubeck with young Russian violinist

“During a visit to Moscow in the 80’s, Dave Brubeck met the faculty and students in Moscow Conservatory. While he was improvising on a “Ei, uhnem”, a Russian folk song, a young man downstage stood up to play Stéphane Grappelli-style violin jazz with him.”

(by afahsu)

via @openculture

(via Ai Weiwei Piles 1,200 Bikes On Top Of Each Other, For Dazzling Effect | Co.Design)

Infographic: The Changing TV Landscape

(via Iconic Photographs With Their Subjects Removed)

“I have only my talent for drawing, so I drew.”

austinkleon:

Ronald Searle, Les Très Riches Heures de Mrs Mole

47 jewel-like drawings by Ronald Searle made for his wife, Monica, each time she underwent chemotherapy. On New Year’s Eve 1969, Monica Searle was diagnosed with a rare and virulent form of breast cancer. Each time she underwent treatment, Ronald produced a Mrs Mole drawing ‘to cheer every dreaded chemotherapy session and evoke the blissful future ahead’. Filled with light and illuminated in glowing colours, the drawings speak of love, optimism and hope. Like the mediaeval illuminated manuscripts such as the 15th-century Les Tres Riches Heures du Duc de Berry, to which the title of this book refers, the 47 drawings are on an intimate scale and were never intended for publication.

When asked about the drawings, Searle said, “I have only my talent for drawing, so I drew.” Here’s a little more about them:

Prior to the cancer shock the couple had bought a decrepit house in the south of France and, despite her illness, Monica continued to devote her time making this house a home.

Devastated with his wife’s diagnosis Ronald did the only thing he knew how to do to cheer her up. .. draw.

Before every chemotherapy session he gave his wife a painting. Monica was depicted as a mole, a very happy mole celebrating life in their new home. (The Mole idea came after their discovery of a large celler that they made into a cosy room)

‘Everything about them had to be romantic and perfect,’ says Ronald. ‘I drew them originally for no one’s eyes except Mo’s, so she would look at them propped up against her bedside lamp and think: “When I’m better, everything will be beautiful.”

Searle died last week at 91.

(Images via bluedoorbooks)