Sunday, 30 December 2012
Saturday, 29 December 2012
"Life is largely a process of adaptation to circumstances in which we exist. A perennial give and take has been going on between one living being and another ever since the dawn of life in prehistoric oceans. The secret of health and happiness lives in successful adjustment to the ever changing conditions on this globe. The penalties for failure in this great process of adaptation are disease and unhappiness"
--Hans Salye - The Stress of Life
Thursday, 27 December 2012
Tuesday, 25 December 2012
By the time we had placed the cold, fresh-smelling little tree in a corner of the sitting-room, it was already Christmas Eve. After supper we all gathered there, and even grandfather, reading his paper by the table, looked up with friendly interest now and then. The cedar was about five feet high and very shapely. We hung it with the gingerbread animals, strings of popcorn, and bits of candle which Fuchs had fitted into pasteboard sockets. Its real splendours, however, came from the most unlikely place in the world--from Otto's cowboy trunk. I had never seen anything in that trunk but old boots and spurs and pistols, and a fascinating mixture of yellow leather thongs, cartridges, and shoemaker's wax. From under the lining he now produced a collection of brilliantly coloured paper figures, several inches high and stiff enough to stand alone. They had been sent to him year after year, by his old mother in Austria. There was a bleeding heart, in tufts of paper lace; there were the three kings, gorgeously apparelled, and the ox and the ass and the shepherds; there was the Baby in the manger, and a group of angels, singing; there were camels and leopards, held by the black slaves of the three kings. Our tree became the talking tree of the fairy tale; legends and stories nestled like birds in its branches. Grandmother said it reminded her of the Tree of Knowledge. We put sheets of cotton wool under it for a snow-field, and Jake's pocket-mirror for a frozen lake.
Willa Cather, My Antonia.
via evencleveland
Sunday, 23 December 2012
Friday, 21 December 2012
Thursday, 20 December 2012
Small Worlds
Small Worlds: the Art of the Invisibleat the Oxford Museum of the History of Science was an exhibition of the miniature world of microscopic specimens, revealing the strange and wonderful contents of the Museum’s collection of some ten thousand slides.
I love borders. August is the border between summer and autumn; it is the most beautiful month I know.
Twilight is the border between day and night, and the shore is the border between sea and land. The border is longing: when both have fallen in love but still haven't said anything. The border is to be on the way. It is the way that is the most important thing.
― Tove Jansson
Twilight is the border between day and night, and the shore is the border between sea and land. The border is longing: when both have fallen in love but still haven't said anything. The border is to be on the way. It is the way that is the most important thing.
― Tove Jansson
Moomin Tales: The Life of Tove Jansson
I've got my Boxing Day TV watching sorted! I find Tove Jansson's work incredibly inspiring. If you haven't read The Summer Book then I highly recommend it!
