Paradise, and Hell: lost

With head, hands, wings or feet, pursues his way,
And swims, or sinks, or wades, or creeps, or flies.

. . . Hail horrors, hail
Infernal world, and thou profoundest Hell
Receive thy new Possessor: One who brings
A mind not to be chang'd by Place or Time.
The mind is its own place, and in it self
Can make a Heav'n of Hell, a Hell of Heav'n.

John Milton was born 400 years ago today. When Milton began writing Paradise Lost in 1658 at age 50, he had been blind four years. Then for the next five years he recited the entire work to a series of assistants who wrote it down for 40 minutes every morning. Apparently he became quite annoyed if they were late. "Milton was said to have grumbled around the house, 'I want to be milked. I want to be milked.'" (Read or hear more surprising facts about Milton in National Public Radio's little piece played Sunday.)

I never read Paradise Lost, or any other Milton, but as a kid I looked through my dad's oversized 1865 copy of the book again and again, at the illustrations of Gustave Doré shown here. (Another book I got, lucky me.) Embedded in my brain are pen drawings of Lucifer - Prince of Heaven - falling from grace (example above), and of Adam and Eve being cast out of Paradise (example below). I remember feeling awed by the beauty and depth of the drawings while at the same time being stumped that God would - or could - be threatened by anyone and have to cast them out. Yet the power of the drawings pointed at the power of God, and somewhere in those batlike wings of Lucifer and in the soft vulnerability of Eve, the story did its job. I was a very obedient girl.

Some natural tears they dropt, but wiped them soon.

Hell lost

If you are interested and have time, there was a related (in my mind) story that was also on NPR earlier, on Ira Glass's "This American Life," about Carlton Pearson, pentecostal pastor of 5,000 who fell from grace when he declared that God told him there is no Hell. When he began preaching that new theology, he was of course declared a heretic by the likes of Oral Roberts, Billy Graham and the whole evangelical community, and his congregation dwindled to 200. Makes me wonder which is more costly: Loss of Paradise, or loss of Hell?

That to the highth of this great argument
I may assert Eternal Providence,
And justify the ways of God to men.

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Today's ornaments:

Peter just arrived back from his band's cruise ship gig in the Caribbean, bringing these stunning etched gourd ornaments - a pair of owls for me, a hummingbird for Don - crafted by an artisan in Bonaire, a Dutch island colony still quite untouched. They reminded Pete of the gourds his dad grows on the farm. It's time to do some etching!

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Pygmalion, Cinderella & Guess Who's Coming to the Ball?

Isaac Mizrahi's design for Malia, Michelle and Sasha Obama

While Women's Wear Daily published sketches of designer ball gowns for Michelle Obama to wear Inauguration night (she will likely choose a different designer, what WWD and the designers did there was just for fun), a U.S. businessman named Earl Stafford was conjuring up his own inaugural ball. Prompted by the Washington Marriott's $1 million Build Your Own Ball offer, he decided to throw a People's Inaugural Ball for 1,000, one third of whom will be homeless folks, battered women, disabled soldiers, and terminally ill patients. Stafford heads the Stafford Foundation, which is committed to the underserved, marginalized and distressed.

The people will be pampered in a luxury hotel for 3 days, and provided with tuxedoes and ball gowns, hair dressers and beauticians for the event.

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It's easy for me to start an argument with myself over this.

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"Balls are silly."

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"Yeah, but this is an important milestone in history, and it should be marked with a grand celebration."c-

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"Michelle will make a statement with the designer she chooses."
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"Who cares?"

"Me, maybe."
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"There are better ways to spend $1million (not these). And how will those people feel going back to their misery?"
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"Well, Mr. Stafford does head a foundation to help them. Maybe their lives will improve with his help, beyond 3 nights. And wouldn't you love a chance to do what Earl Stafford is giving these people a chance to do?"
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"Um, I dunno, wearing an uncomfortable dress, and having to talk to people I don't know for 3 or more hours?"
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"Yeah, but maybe Michelle and Barack will stop by." -

Mr. Stafford said: The People's Inaugural Project offers the underprivileged in our society a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to come to our nation's capital and join in the watershed inauguration of President-elect Barack Obama. It's a historic investment for our foundation.

Illustration for Charles Perrault's Cinderella from Histoires ou Contes du Temps passé: Les Contes de ma Mère l'Oye(1697). Gustave Doré's illustrations appear in an 1867 edition entitled Les Contes de Perrault. Second of three engravings (from wiki commons)

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Today's ornaments:


Lesley and Peter made these from yellow construction paper when we lived in İstanbul in the late '80s. The yellow has faded in these past 20 years, and some glitter has worn off. Like Turkish carpets, they have grown more valuable with age.

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new header, again

Yep. I changed my header again. Whenever I opened my page, the last one just didn't say to me, "yeah, that's it." And because I love play-play-playing, I made a new one. I plan to keep this one here for the winter.

I think.

If you're like me, you like change. If you're not - sorry to change things up so fast. I kept my curious little girl standing at the side, looking on. I think she needs to stick around.

But hey, this kind of change is free! And there's no waste piling up in a dump.

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clothing, like part of your skin

I don't remember where I saw or heard it recently, someone wrote nostalgically about how clothes used to be worn like part of your skin: worn in.

In junior and senior high school in the late '60s and early '70s, I sewed many of my own clothes. Then stores like TJMaxx and Marshall's appeared - maybe that was when sweat shops proliferated - and many of us Susie homemakers stopped sewing. Why bother sewing to save money, when you're probably not going to spend less than those bargains? I kept sewing dresses and doll clothes for Lesley, because I enjoyed it. Along with bargain clothes stores came fuller closets and disposable clothes. It didn't seem to matter so much if you bought something, wore it one season, and gave it to Goodwill.

Things had really changed from earlier in the century. When we lived in a big 1920s Arts & Crafts house before moving to the farm, you could see from the tiny bedroom closets how few garments people had when the house was built. They didn't even have rods for hangers. There were just hooks around the three short closet walls. Maybe for two or three dresses? Or two pairs of pants and a couple of shirts? If you had one good outfit, for Sundays, weddings and funerals, that had to stay pretty nice. If you had one or two everyday outfits, those got worn and transformed into a second skin. It isn't easy to find a bargain and the quality of garment that feels good next to your skin, even before it's worn in. I can sometimes find them at thrift or consignment stores. Sometimes I shop new for something well made and designed if I know I'll wear it a while and it's a staple, like good black pants for work. And then I look for sales. But wanting to be less of a consumer I'm just not shopping for new clothes much, trying to recycle from those second hand stores, and I've slimmed my closet way down, though I sure couldn't fit all my clothes on a few hooks. Also, I am wearing clothes longer and allowing them to get a little softer and fuzzier than I used to. I guess that resembles my first skin too, ha.

my sister Nancy picked up this little vintage linen top for a few dollars at an antique store

Apparently resale stores are surging because of the economic downturn (good for those who want to sell their own and for those who want to spend less on clothes), so last week NPR reported on Encore Resale where you can find a "bargain" for $2000 instead of $3500 (for example), where they sell "Chanel, Hermés, Prada, Gucci, Armani, Calvin Klein, Donna Karan, Ralph Lauren, Oscar de La Renta and Judith Leiber as well as many other coveted labels"? I loved hearing one woman say she's not shopping there because she has to save money, but because, well you never know what might happen. I wonder how many people who listened to that report could relate to it.

Lesley, who lives in NYC, told me about Bag, Borrow or Steal, where you can "borrow" - i.e., rent - a designer handbag (and watches, sunglasses, and jewelry too). Are you kidding me? The bargain here is that instead of laying down $1,695 for this leather Prada Cervo Antik Tote, you can "borrow" it for a mere $77/week or $225/month! Now that's some premier, supple skin. Is there another planet people are living on, and no one told me? -

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I'm joining Anet, posting an image of ornaments now till Christmas. Lesley crafted these four 5 1/2" felt doves with vintage buttons. I hung them on Peter's painting "Gurtie" from high school (in the manner of Peter Max).

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Click on image below to see the details.

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angels

Today we opened Christmas boxes and put up the tree. Out of the tubs came my mother, embodied in several angels she had given me, some for the tree and this one, above, my favorite piece of Christmas. She's a holy wood nymph with a candle holder, carved from wood. Mom is all around me today, maybe it is her spirit I celebrate this year.

Lucky me, after my parents passed away, I of all the eight kids somehow managed to get the large Christmas Songs and Carols book we grew up with. (Shhh.) It was published in 1955, the year before I was born, and was illustrated by Rafaello Busoni (1900-1962). See below, more angels in his illustration for an Old French carol arranged by Franz Liszt "L'Enfant Jésus s'endort" ("While Baby Jesus Sleeps"). As a child and until I was an adult with my own children on my lap, I sat at my mother's piano while she played carols from this book. We sang together, and I turned the pages. Turning the pages now evokes every bit of love-music on that bench. See how my dad repaired the broken binding with duct tape. Oh, did my father love duct tape.

Maybe Lesley will play this at her piano in our house in a few weeks, while I turn the pages, and we sing. I play a little, but she plays beautifully.

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thanks go round and round

Thanksgiving Day morning Aunt Ruth needed apples peeled and sliced for pie. So Uncle Don brought out the handy dandy apple-corer-peeler thingy that he just bought and was dying to use.

Chadd and his sister Kaeley watched and helped. Chadd, who is a student of science had to figure out how the corer mechanism worked. Just exactly which blade did what, and how?

Piles of apple peels for the chickens.

Each apple produced one smooth spiral of peel and one smooth spiral of apple flesh, which was then sliced in half in one knife stroke for the pie.

We'll do it again next year.

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open air

Almost every day I read a few lines of Rumi. His words inspire me to be the authority of my own life. Remember when you wrote in school "I think" and your teacher told you to remove that phrase and just say what you think? I tried writing this poem that way, and in the manner of Rumi. I don't mean to compare myself to him, he's incomparable. But I'm happy to be a copyist of what inspires me, like painting students who copy masterpieces in the Louvre. Amazing! I'm not comparing myself to them either.


Open Air


Go outside at night
somewhere with trees.
See how the branches open to the moon.

There is love that is not hot.
Even on the coldest nights
its arms are open.

It is the warmth inside
that keeps you alive.
The sun in your blood as in a leaf
and in the branch
after the leaf turns red
and falls.

Close your eyes. Feel how like love
are the cool fingers of the wind
on your face.


- Ruth M.


Happy Thanksgiving Thursday.

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