Boleslawiec Ceramics

Further to my previous post on sentimental muggery, I must express my undying love for Boleslawiec crockery, awesome blue hand-painted Polish ceramics.

I own none of it myself, but have an unhealthy obsession for the large collection of mugs, plates, bowls, jugs and spoon-resters belonging to Roman's family, collected feverishly by his dear mother.

What I really love about these pretty pieces is how obviously hand-crafted they are. They're almost perfectly even and symmetrical but never quite, and the layers of blue ink betray each individual brush stroke used to create them. It makes them all the more delicious to eat from, drink out of and rest upon because they are so obviouslymade with looooooooove.

That and I love the patterns, they're all beautiful. One day I hope to have a collection of my very own.

Things That Are Warm

Clockwise from Top Left: "Day Off" T-Shirt at Threadless.com, Dadaya Mittens and Hat at Etsy.com, Katwise Arm Warmers at Etsy.com, Sparrownestknits Scarf at Etsy.com, DewberryVintage Boots at Etsy.com, and Sonia Rykiel Coat at ASOS.com.

Tea for Two

Hello Strangers,

I was just recalling an anecdote my darling boy once told me.

In the 1920's, the conductor of the Leningrad Philharmonic Orchestra, Nikolai Malko, bet the composer Dmitri Shostakovich one hundred roubles that he couldn't completely arrange and re-orchestrate the Vincent Youmans standard Tea For Two in an hour.

Shostakovich, of course, did it. From memory. In forty five minutes.

If you're interested, the arrangement is called the Tahiti Trot, and after first being performed in Moscow in 1928, has been performed ever since.

Anyway, that's a fun little story that actually has nothing to do with what I want to talk about. Well, very little.

In the winter months (fuck you, Northern Hemisphere readers, your balmy weather reports are not welcome here) I am a tea fiend, especially when I'm staying up ridiculously late for no good reason.

So, today I bring you a post-hibernation reflection on tea. Mmm, deep.

Five Amazing Cups of Tea:

1. Russian Caravan, home-brewed by Dad, with a big splash of milk and a heaped teaspoon of sugar in a purple flower mug.

2. Chai tea with steamed soy milk from the Frisky Goat at Wynyard Station, drunk half-asleep on the bus to uni.

3. English Breakfast with a dash of milk in a Boleslawiec blue mug at Roman's house on a Sunday morning with a good British fry-up.

4. Jasmine tea in a latte glass at Toby's Estate, served with good conversation with a dear friend.

5. Hot lemon and manuka honey tea with a drop of liquid echinacea, the perfect healing potion when one is ailing.

Finally, I'd just like to share an image I have, an image of what I want my life to look like in the indeterminable future - it involves mugs!

Just to have a little house with some mis-matched furniture and a cat or two, a big bed with a nice quilt, and perhaps a blue-eyed man napping in it... and mugs. I can't wait to have a mug that's mine in my own cupboard in my own home.

It'll be special because of the hundreds of times I'll raise it to my lips. Whilst reading a good book. Whilst skritching a cat behind the ears. Over a fierce debate, over comfortable silence, over a murmured "I love you".

Good evening, ladies and gentlemen.

This little birdy is grateful to weheartit for the beautiful photos whilst I am devoid of camera.

Love and Art

The transition between childhood and adulthood doesn't happen suddenly.

It happens over time - first there are hormones, then physical changes, then new relationships and broken hearts and lots of teenage "firsts", and suddenly you've graduated from high school and turned eighteen and you realise that within the next few years you've got to be a Grown Up with all the associated responsibilities.

Things like finding a place to live, furniture to go in it, toasters and kettles and whimsical teacups, paying bills and affording any sort of comfort in your lifestyle... not to mention getting/keeping a job or an education.

And I don't even think that's the most difficult part of becoming an adult. I think what's hard is breaking free of the protective shell that is your family home and going out into the "Real World" to be independent and in a lot of respects, alone for the first time.

Roman and I have a little dream about buying a theatre together and living in the back of it with a cat called Claude (as in Depussey) who can help with the rigging and keeping us warm together when we're in bed in a little room behind the stage.

It's that little projection that makes me realise that however hard being Grown Up is now, I will grow up and as long as I always hold my love and my art in the highest regard, my life will be full and rich.

Claude...

Grateful

In a week that has so savagely filled me with vitriol towards some repulsive, disappointing and downright euthanasia-worthy excuses for human beings, I feel I should depart from my regular blogging pursuits (as infrequent as they are at the moment) to express my gratitude to people who are endeavouring to not be fucktards in my face.

Cecilia - I wish I could be as patient and kind as you. If someone slept with your husband and ran over your cat after stealing from your house on the way out, you would just feel sorry for them because they're obviously "not in a very good place right now". I love you dearly, thank you for your kind and patient friendship.

Tristan - You and I are kindred spirits, except that you are way more awesome. Thank you for making it okay for me to love nerdy things like lolcats and corsets, for being a lovely friend and not disowning me for the Week of Accidental Tristan-Beating.

Hugh - Your beard is extra luscious and I just adore you. let's start a band.

Emily - Your blog still inspires me to be creative and worship gently and lovingly throughout this time of trial for me. Thank you for being so inspiring.

Minna - You're an angel. We've been together since the beginning of uni and you're the only person who has been there so constantly in that time. You are beautiful and talented and well adjusted. I can't tell you how much I appreciate it.

Captain Pants - I look up to you more than anyone else in our age group. You're super intelligent, inspiring, and yet so easy to get along with. What a gift that is - thank you.

Roman - You have the patience of Atlas. You are solid, dependable, but always entertaining and quite the bunk-buddy... And thank you for letting me post crude references to our relationship on my blog. I love you.

Thank you all for helping me deal with the mess of feelings I've been trying to battle in recent days. It seems like a weird thing to post so publicly (although I garuntee that you guys and my dad who inexplicably checks this blog will be the only ones who read it) but I just want you to know how grateful I am for the amazing people and strong friendships I have.

In other news, here's a picture of fat people in tie-dye.

(Source - pictureisunrelated.com. Another perfectly whimsical Tristan recommendation.)

Bummer.

A spider bit me on the face.

My cheek and my lip are now all swollen.

I look like that munted guy from 300 who limps around Leonides until he gets rejected and then goes and helps the Persians breach Thermopolae...

Worst Sunday Ever.

Random Thought Friday!

The concept of seasonal produce hurts my brain.

This, friends, is not because I am retarded or somehow incapable of associating fruit with weather, but because I live on that funny little island down the bottom of the world.

Raspberries and strawberries in summer, in England, makes sense. Because berries happen in summer, in England.

Berries are not from Australia.

So what are the poor little strawberry brains supposed to do - keep bearing fruit in June, or skip forward six months because it's too chilly out?

Think about it.

And then there's the whole issue of how strawberries got over here in the first place... Were there garden boxes on the First Fleet? I like that idea...

Now you are pushed to your feet every day,
Kicked in the ankles to force each foot forward.
You have always been told to kick yourselves,
But you've always had each other for that.

Now you are the points of a compass,
Destined to point your separate ways,
Told that your paths must divide,
But fighting tooth and fucking nail to cling together.

Now you are broken shards,
Of something never quite whole,
You're not healing the way you used to,
But you don't know quite why the stitches don't hold.

Now you are stupid,
No - you always were stupid,
Foolishly idealistic, with foolish faith in each other,
But your hearts fit back together and your scraped knees healed.

Now it does not come so easily.
Now you point to different corners.
Now there is space.
Now there needs to be space.

Now you are Men and Women.

Above My Bed

My beautiful goddess card collection spreads over my head. It's pretty cool and it brightens up my grey little room.

It's fitting on a Sunday...

.. to talk about George and Dot.

George is my other love...

George is very special.

Dot is very special too... Have you ever seen a character and just thought...





"She is me."...?





I have.

Nothing seems to fit me right.

The less I wear, the more comfortable I feel.

More rouge...

George is very special.

Maybe I'm just not special enough for him.

If my legs were longer.

It my bust was smaller.

It my hands were graceful.

If my waist was thinner.

If my hips were flatter.

If my voice was warmer...

She sings with my voice... or do I sing with hers?





And George sings with a voice that's unlike anything else I've ever heard.

Mapping out a sky.

What you feel like,

planning a sky.

What you feel when voices that come

Through the window

Go...

Until they distance and die,

Until there's nothing but sky

And how you're always turning back too late

From the grass or the stick

Or the dog or the light,

How the kind of woman willing to wait's

Not the kind that you want to find waiting

To return you to the night,

Dizzy from the height,

Coming from the hat,

Studying the hat,

Entering the world of the hat,

Reaching through the world of the hat

Like a window...

George is an artist, Dot a work of art. They are my greatest inspiration.





I don't think you, reader, could possibly understand the power of this poetry until you hear it sung through George's lips.





If there is one new thing you listen to this week let it be Sondheim's aesthetic masterpiece Sunday in the Park With George.





This is what perfection sounds like.

Smoke in the Sky

This weekend is a very sad one.

In Victoria and New South Wales, bushfires continue to claim property and lives, with 35 now confirmed dead and many more missing and assumed dead.

Bushfires are part of our national identity, and not a summer goes by where they don't cause destruction all over the country. I vividly remember a week summers and summers ago, I might have been twelve or thirteen at the time, when we were sitting outside our Sydney home, watching the sky turn sludge brown in the 40 degree heat.
By mid-afternoon the sun was almost completely blacked out by the smoke in the sky, and the light was like nothing I'd ever seen before. It was like looking at the world through red-tinted glasses, still daylight but strangely coloured.
Ash started to fall. Big white flakes all over our balcony railings, carried from the fires in the bush straight to us.
My next door neighbour kept the most beautiful roses, perfect, enormous blood red blossoms. That's the image I remember. White flakes of ash on blood red roses.

I remember exactly how I felt then, and still feel now. There's a very perverse beauty in a fire. It's an exquisitely beautiful assertion of nature's phenomenal power. It reminds us that we are mere mortals and that nature can still trump us on every account. It's hostile and violent but even in our fear and anger towards its seemingly pointless destruction we have to feel a certain reverence for it.

Even as I say that, there is still incredible sadness in our hearts today as we hear more and more reports of destruction and loss of life in Victoria and New South Wales.

Please, keep your thoughts and hearts with the 500 firefighters that have been working 16 hour shifts overnight, trying to combat the 50 or more blazes that speckle the East, as well as with those who have lost their homes and loved ones overnight.

Please, if you are in Australia (or in fact anywhere around the world) you can lend your support in the following ways:

- Donating to the Rural Fire Service (http://www.bushfire.nsw.gov.au/) or via the Victorian Fire Hotline (180 2211 180 2211)
-Sponsoring NSW Fire Brigades.
- Encouraging and supporting volunteer fire fighters and becoming a volunteer fire fighter yourself.
- Donating to State Disaster Relief in Victoria and NSW.
- Donating blood as soon as possible if you are a registered donor.
- Observing the TOTAL FIRE BAN, including not smoking or chucking your butts outside.

Volunteer fire fighters have gone out into fire zones after losing their own homes and loved ones. Would that we could all show such selflessness and bravery.

Please keep residents and fire fighters in Rural Australia in your thoughts and prayers.

Towers and Trees

Once upon a time our cathedrals were the trees. We worshipped with our knees in the earth and our eyes on the sky.