My Heart Belongs to the Sea

Rustic Porch by New York Interior Designers & Decorators Thom Filicia Inc.

Abigail Washburn

A Lovely Short Film

"If you repeat the word 'fly' for long enough it sounds like you're saying 'life'. This is of no help to Peter. His answers lie in the brain of a beetle." - director Mikey Please on The Eagleman Stag


http://www.mikeyplease.co.uk/

A moment for Edward Lear

     One hundred and twenty four years ago today Edward Lear died in his winter home in Corfu. Lear was most remembered for being the father of nonsense literature. Founding a genre which deals in the absurd, Lear created a sort of new abstraction from which he could create emotional illusion and play out miniature drama in a silly yet serious context. Reading Lear is not for the faint of heart... it it can be at times violent or bleak, but a child's wonder seeks to know the nature of the world which includes the mysterious regions of the grotesque.

There was a Young Person of Smyrna,

Whose Grandmother threatened to burn her;

But she seized on the Cat,

And said, "Granny, burn that!

"You incongruous Old Woman of Smyrna!" 

There was an Old Man of the Nile,

Who sharpened his nails with a file;

Till he cut off his thumbs,

And said calmly, "This comes--

Of sharpening one's nails with a file!" 

There was an Old Man of Cape Horn,

Who wished he had never been born;

So he sat on a chair,

Till he died of despair,

That dolorous Man of Cape Horn. 

Perhaps only those who relish the occasion to ask, "why?" or delight in the endless possibilities of the world would get a kick out of reading Edward Lear's nonsense. I found a particular kinship with Lear outside his literary contributions which are surprisingly similar to my own endeavors. He was a painter first and foremost, aviary illustration was a fascination, and children's poems were a hobby. He traveled often as he could to develop his portfolio, but it was said that he lost a large amount of appealing gesture in the grander attempts in his studio. His designs to be a great landscape painter were never realized.

                                                            here is one of his landscapes

                                                             and here is one from his
                                                               book of bird prints

more ornithological prints here...
http://www.audubonart.com/02_gall_OFMLE1.asp

This is a great rendition of Lear's poem The Dong with the Luminous Nose.

For the rest of the recording go to http://www.neokitsch.com/.

Snore & Guzzle Radio Hour #23 by snore_and_guzzle

This is a site that I found a while back that's dedicated to creating fantastic playlists composed of a broad spectrum of music. They hub out of Portland and have a knack for finding very good—often obscure—music. There are some tracks on their playlists that I haven't been able to find anywhere else one the web.

Tom Sachs

Tom Sachs, A Selby Film from the selby on Vimeo.