Ben Schott for Electric January the 11th

For a description of the Electric January Project, click here.

Let’s just take a minute to look at Schott’s Miscellany, shall we?

Media: Book? Website? Personality?

Length/Location: A Miscellany; Ben Schott himself; the Mind

How I found it & Reason for Sharing: I’ve been into stuff like this my entire life. In fact, my life IS Schott’s Miscellany, only with a different surname. ‘Baalke’s* Miscellany’ sounds pretty good.

*Fun fact: In England our last name is pronounced ‘Balk’ and in America it is pronounced ‘Ball-key’. If we were to name a miscellany after ourselves we would use the British pronunciation.

I’m sharing because I like how well-adapted to the Interwebs this guy is, despite the fact he is a rather traditional sort of bloke. He’s interested in the anti-technological aspect of intellectual life, but seems quite at home in places like Blogs and Online Interviews.

What I love: This is what I imagine the English Eccentric to look and be like. England is known for its eccentrics and eccentricities–Oscar Wilde, Beau Brummel, Queen Elizabeth II, Bowie, the list goes on–and one only has to live here a few months to understand how deeply rooted in tradition are England’s eccentrics.

Here’s the Original Miscellany.

Below are some Supplementary Misc’s. (Click photos for links.)

A Georgian Gentleman’s Living Room.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/09/style/ben-schott-london-sitting-room.html?searchResultPosition=1

Twenty Questions.

https://www.the-tls.co.uk/articles/twenty-questions-with-ben-schott/

Claude monet Painting in his gardens, 1915

Monday 4th of January 2021

Media: Film

Location/Length: YouTube/2 minutes 45 seconds (including extraneous informational material)

How I found it & Reason for sharing:  I do not remember exactly when I came across this film clip but I’ve returned to it many times since then. This footage is over 100 years old. It shows us what we have lost and how far we have come, which may not be that far, in actuality. In an age in which images are ubiquitous (today, now) and we can see whatever we think we want to see, we have, in a way, stopped seeing. This is what seeing really is: intentional, subtle, and somewhat funny.

What I love: I love that it is Monet.

 

Below I have linked the Open Culture web page from which I first discovered this YouTube clip. It contains a modicum of additional information, but nothing vital, or that seems missing from the video and details above. There are two other, shorter films on the Open Culture page, which may be of interest, and so I include it here.

Watch 1915 Video of Monet, Renoir, Rodin & Degas: The New Motion Picture Camera Captures the Innovative Artists

Storing this here for later

Creative People sometimes Make no Sense

If I add this article (click photo and link above) to my bookmarks then it will, quite literally, become one of the hundreds of bookmarks I have added over the years.  I am a book-marker and no bones about it: I love to save a good thing for later.  Be it a compelling website, an inspiring or informative article, a list of the top 50 (or even 500) books/authors/typefaces, I really like the idea of holding on to them and tucking them away for a less inspired, less-informed period of life.

Not to be outdone by the interwebs, I do this with real stuff, too, like storing cards my mom sent me whilst I was in college (or just living in Seattle) alongside the neat-o bulletins from the Episcopal church and the  bar napkin with the finely-crafted logo on which my husband wrote an anniversary haiku.  Okay, the latter example is sentimental for a whole lot of other reasons, but the bulletins and concert tickets and Valentine’s cards are of a piece.

And so, to marry form and function, content and style, I post this entry alongside a list of paradoxes often exhibited by the creative individual (among whom I count myself one).  It’s a coarsely-curated list but it’s more than tolerable as a guide for understanding the oddities of those who aren’t linear or, if linear, inconsistently so.

Ash Wednesday

Remember that thou art dust and unto dust thou shalt return.

For Ash Wednesday I am letting Professor Alison Milbank speak for me in this University of Nottingham Department of Theology and Religion Sacred Calendars video.

This series, Sacred Calendars, sets to explain the church year, the liturgical calendar to people who, like me, did not grow up in a liturgical tradition.  But it does not assume total ignorance, and that, I believe, is its mark of success.

Let us be penitent; let us rend our hearts and not our garments, and let us sing litanies, long prayers to God, and wear the ashes.  On this Ash Wednesday may our petitions for clean hearts and right spirits be made in humility and in genuine love and may our understanding of the ash on our foreheads remind us of the dust from whence we came.

 

Copperplate Engraving

http://gregcookland.com/journal/2011/03/21/printed-in-providence-at-tompkins/picrafteryhermaphroditus/

I was reading the article entitled ‘Illuminated Printing’ by Joseph Viscomi, which is available online here (but which I downloaded and printed from Cambridge Companions for my U Nott course) when I realized I needed a visual.

I have always had a keen respect and a deep interest in printing, such as letterpress, typewriting, even calligraphy, often wondering why I did not pursue more of a degree or education in the classical forms of the letter arts.  I am still drawn to the craft of printing and harbor thoughts of a future in printing presses and a proper education to go with it.

Simply reading about William Blake’s absolute engraving genius was not enough, so I googled and found this video, entitled From Paper to Copper: The Engraver’s Process.  The main reason I post it here is so that I will be able to reference it again myself, without scouring the recesses of my brain to remember where it was and why I liked it.

Spoleto Style

Last year we went to Italy.  Our favorite city turned out to be…

Most delightful Italian City you'll Never find in Rick Steves....

It had everything.  But unfortunately (or not?), it did not turn up in Rick Steves Italy.

Hm. No bother.  We managed quite fine without him.

John in the Golf.  Sweet. Go Volkswagen!!

Driving to Spoleto!!

Yes, the Autostrada, or whatever it is called, definitely called to John.

Look at me! There are flying nuns behind me! I heart Spoleto!

Me in front of the Santa Maria dell’Assunta.

I don’t think we actually called it that when we were there.

We simply referred to it as The Place with the Lippis.

What with all this glorious art....

Is the camera on?

Naturally we were spellbound.

But that is not the whole story.

That one will take years to unwind, and when it is unwound, another decade to retell.

Buona notte!