It's our little secret...
More quality commentary from David MItchell in the Guardian.
There are some beautifully designed gardens for all to see over on Tom Stuart-Smith’s new website. This shot was taken at a private residence in Yorkshire - I’m jealous of course, but maybe I’ll have something similar one day…
I’ve always been fascinated by all things universal and some of the images taken by the Hubble space telescope are truly astounding.
This image is entitled ‘Stellar Demise in Planetary Nebula NGC 6302’. Beautiful.
Cherish
From the window I see her bend to the roses
holding close to the bloom so as not to
prick her fingers. With the other hand she clips, pauses and
clips, more alone in the world
than I had known. She won’t
look up, not now. She’s alone
with roses and with something else I can only think, not
say. I know the names of those bushes
given for our late wedding: Love, Honor, Cherish -
this last the rose she holds out to me suddenly, having
entered the house between glances. I press
my nose to it, draw the sweetness in, let it cling - scent
of promise, of treasure. My hand on her wrist to bring her close,
her eyes green as river-moss. Saying it then, against
what comes: wife, while I can, while my breath, each hurried petal
can still find her.
Raymond Carver
Late Fragment
And did you get what
you wanted from this life, even so?
I did.
And what did you want?
To call myself beloved, to feel myself
beloved on the earth.
Raymond Carver
Cédric Delsaux’s beautiful (yet slightly unsettling) photographs are wonderfully composed, utilising inspired viewpoints and intriguing juxtapositions, giving the most mundane scene an almost otherworldly sheen.
Beautiful animation by Josh Raskin to accompany a 1969 interview by 14-year-old Jerry Levitan. The little scamp skipped school and managed to creep into John Lennon’s hotel room for a chat.
Yet another great find courtesy of It’s Nice that; Matthew Hodson is an illustrator with a nice line in poetry. You can find more here, but this one immediately caught my eye.
Poem 432 by Tim Key. A bit puerile maybe, but made me smile (which says a lot about my sense of humour).
(via It’s Nice That)
If you like octopus, women and painting then look no further than the work of Monica Cook. Her fantastic, hyper-realistic portraits are thrilling and unsettling in equal measure.
Hannah in the Garden of Fine Arts, Kyoto by Tadao Ando. The man’s a genius in my book.
The Guardian published an interesting article recently on the increasing levels of obesity we see all around us. Scary stuff.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2010/mar/13/obesity-salt-fat-sugar-kessler
Bernard Tschumi has recently completed this footbridge at La Roche-sur-Yon. It illustrates nicely how even the most mundane of structures can be made beautiful by skilled craftsmen.
The Other Life
My wife is in the other half of this mobile home
making a case against me.
I can hear her pen scratch, scratch.
Now and then she stops to weep,
then – scratch, scratch.
The frost is going out of the ground.
The man who owns this unit tells me,
Don’t leave your car here.
My wife goes on writing and weeping,
weeping and writing in our new kitchen.
Raymond Carver