collapse and delight

waiting for his wings

09_0125_swallowtail

I’ve been thinking, somewhere in the way back of my brain, about everyone’s favorite oversimplified metaphor: the caterpillar becoming a butterfly. Do you ever wonder if the butterfly ever yearns for its caterpillar days? Or how it feels about the change as it sets in? Anyway, I just came across this great post at Open Salon — with magnificent photos — and was struck by this line: “Because he’s waiting for his wings to be ready, he’s immobile.”

if you’ve ever seen anything cooler than this, please share

This great post about a poor Chinese farmer who makes crazy-great robots reminded me of one of my all-time favorite inventor-artists: Theo Jansen. The video above is his TED presentation, which is fantastic. Unfortunately, the really exquisite little film about his work that used to be on the web appears to have been scrubbed. I think it must have been part of the 30-minute documentary, Strandbeesten, which I hope to get to see someday. You can get another glimpse of the pieces in motion here.

japhy ryder’s recommendation

09_0114_dharmabums

Flipping through a brittle old notebook, I’m wondering if this is the first mention I ever saw of The Book of Tea. I know I read it after seeing several mentions in a short span of time, but this roundabout recommendation by Gary Snyder might well have been the first. Funny that it’s incidental to my having included this spread — I saved it for the description of Japhy’s little hut-house. (Doesn’t sound like Kerouac ever read it, does it?)

And now I’m feeling extremely nostalgic about The Dharma Bums. Will have to reread.

“how to murder your wife,” the townhouse

I can’t remember where I first heard the reference to Jack Lemmon’s 1965 film “How to Murder Your Wife.” It is a not a very good movie, but I’ve watched it several times in the past year or so (with the sound off all but the first time) just for the townhouse, which really is the central character of the movie. The chief threads that run through the place are white lacquer cabinetry and bentwood chairs — a combination I always love. And there's a fantastic long hall of cabinets (in which the butler stores the stilettos and such of the bachelor's overnight guests). It’s amazing how little you’d have to change (the bed, some curtains, the prop styling) to make the place feel completely current. But what’s amusing is that this, in 1965, was presented as the ultimate bachelor pad.

learning from melville’s experience

In this funny piece about searching for a kind of kinship with Melville aboard a cruise ship, this paragraph stuck out at me:

I did manage to make a list of what he and I shared and where our experience differed. I’d booked an inside cabin on the Star Flyer’s bottom deck, hoping to approximate his berth on the Acushnet. I had a gimpy left leg on the trip, just as Melville had as he struggled through the Marquesan jungle; it made me feel close to him. I was mutinous, refusing to snorkel. That was about it. He had had no sunblock, no mosquito repellent, no sorbet course, no piano bar, no steward to turn down his bedspread (no bedspread), no chocolates on his pillow. And yet he produced two bestsellers.

We do have a way of getting in our own way.

puzzled by the vogels

Picture_8

I just posted at Readerville about this amazing story — The Vogel Collection: thoroughly modest Medicis. And it is thoroughly amazing. But the thing I can never understand about a story like this — as a person whose mood and, er, sense of well-being are deeply impacted by my surroundings — is how people with such a finely honed aesthetic sense could live in this room. No snark intended; I truly can't reconcile that.