Ideas as fall approaches

As fall approaches, be sure to drive out to apple orchards--if not to pick any, then to at least see them, be out in nature and grab a bag of fruit.

Make sure to get some apple cider when it starts being made locally, and enjoy the quick moments of cold that sneak up on us this early.

Start re-reading or exploring [or introduce a young person to] Poe, Hawthorne, M.R. James and Lovecraft's short stories. Reading them with a chill in the air makes them way more compelling. And spooky.

Another thing that helps people enjoy the season, and nature itself, is to look at curated collections of photographs on pinterest or tumblr. There are many about eerie autumnal scenes, or cheery fall barn/farm scenes with beautiful orange leaves everywhere. At night or in the morning, when you don't have time to get outside, looking at a focused group of images can really connect you to nature. You find yourself looking forward to being out in the forest.

The image is from the film 'Blade'.

Lefebvre

Art is such a beautiful part of life, and an essential part of being educated, which is a lifelong process--one great painting is French Jules Joseph Lefebvre's [1834-1912] "Portrait of Julia Foster Ward", as seen below. Also check out his famous "Ophelia", "Japonaise", his "Springtime", his Egyptian style "Servant" portrait, and his creepy yet beautiful "Morning Glory".

Photos

One great set of photos to leaf through for fun is the impeccable collection of tea sets master: Clara Bows. The tea sets are really lovely, which is rare to see. I love a good tea, especially at a unique teahouse.

Here is her blog for more pictures. Most err on the side of poor colors, poor design, etc, but these cups are amazing. Here's an example photo of her's, one of my favorites--I really want this green-gold set, and quite a few others:

Cowper

The famous English pre-Raphaelite artist Sir Frank Cadogan Cowper [1877-1958] is a very versatile painter--his large collection of works appeals to many moods and tastes [see more of his work here on pinterest].

His most famous and best works are perhaps "The patient Griselda", "La belle dame sans merci", "The legend of Sir Perceval", "Lancelot slays the Caitiff Knight Sir Tarquin", "The four queens find Lancelot sleeping", the Madonna painting "Our Lady of the fruits of the earth", "Molly, Duchess of Nona", "The blue bird", and "Vanity".

His piece "Mariana in the South" below [interesting Christies info; the painting is based on the two Mariana poems by Tennyson] is one of my favorites. She is lamenting being abandoned by her lover. The red Renaissance style wood couch, the red cloth of it, her dark green/turquoise robe, her groundhound type dog, her odd clog shoes on the tiles floor, how she looks into the distance, the green spring of something like olive leaves by the reflecting mirror, the little abandoned note by the back of the dog:

St Olga

St Olga of Kiev [b.c. 890-969] is a very unique saint. She ruled the Kievan Rus as a regent after her husband died. She avenged him spectacularly: she burned the enemies alive, several times, even tricking people and locking them into buildings first. Many saints have extremely interesting stories--the tie between the 'new' Christian world and the old pagan world is a strange one. It is a slow process, realizing how little changed after religion changed. Old things evolved, old symbols and rituals, everything really.

This famous art piece by Russian, Symbolist painter Nesterov [ie. Не́стеров], who lived 1862-1942], is a great illustration of her. His other paintings are incredible, like his "Girls on the Banks of the River".

Songs

After resisting the band Animal Collective based on some reviews, I have to take back what I thought--they have an interesting, chaotic ambient sound. Try 'Visiting Friends' or 'The Softest Voice'. I love the idea of playing them on the sound system while driving cross country on a meandering trip.

A lot of ambient music reminds me of the first Silent Hill video game. It had a great ambiguous, eerie backdrop of sound/noise. The tv show Hannibal's composer Brian Reitzell writes great music in this vein--like his 'Wendigo Quintet'.

Though the soundtrack/score of the 2006 Peter Mayle's book-based film A Good Year was more upbeat and French, there are some parts with slow, rainy music.

Art

St Joan of Arc is a timeless figure, a modern Boudica. It's interesting to look at the art created featuring her: the statues all over the world, the paintings. There are different interpretations of her banner, her clothing, her stature. Looking at how a subject is portrayed over time is very interesting--look at biblical figures, Greek and Roman myths, Shakespearean characters, medieval heroes and villains. 

Ambient

When you're in the mood for ambient/'noise' music, it's hard to find what you're looking for. There are recordings of jungles, bird calls, thunderstorms, rivers, waterfalls, fires crackling, etc, and more man made, white noise type music: the type that seems to have evolved from the noise edges of the Kid A album or Bjork's work.

One great piece in the latter category is Of - Aerial Cisterns by the Jewelled Antler Collective in their compilation 'Heat and Birds'. Another, more vocal, from them is their 'The Famous Boating Party - White Butterfly'.

They have a more soothing background/mostly instrumental piece in 'The Muons - Little Star'. A lighter True Detective sounding piece is 'Rover - Encyclopedia #3 - untitled', or this eponymous similar one, or this one.

Music

Brightblack Morning is a really interesting group for those who like ambient/modern ['modernist'/minimalist] music--try their great song 'Star Blanket River Child'. They are kind of reminiscent of the world/new age group Enigma.

More in the vein of Psapp and The Skygreen Leopards are The Bird and the Bee, I love their song 'Come As You Were'. Similarly, be sure to try Swedish-Zimbabwean Pauline Kamusewu's songs 'Loving You', 'Happy People', 'Give me a call', 'Answer', etc.

In a more French vein, but within the broader category, also try 'Retrolectro Hottie XI (Fame Dance with Dimie Cat - Glam Remix)'-- early 1900s styled and focused Dimie Cat is a perfect French, classic song chanteuse. She also did a selection of disney theme songs in swing style, like this one [it's 'Once upon a dream'].

She's like a European version of the American Puppini Sisters [their song 'Spooky' is great, it was featured in the BBC show 'Jonathan Creek' once]. Their version of 'Diamonds are a girl's best friend' is great.

Read

I really like the Irish Farmette--it has a mystical feel to it, a lost in the magical woods scenario that you want to find yourself in.

I love the poetry and photos of HerriottGrace, it almost makes you think of the most brilliant poems of e.e. cummings.

I love to scroll through the famous SmittenKitchen and VickiArcher, it's like a glossy magazine to think about. And CupofJoe is fun to read, they have great links. Katie'sPencilBox is really fun to look through, it's like a real life, bright Eloise style art-focused pottery barn catalogue but with even better photos, lovely.

For a buy-able pottery barn read, try Coco+Kelley, which is great, you get to see so many options--it's like reading multiple aesthetics at once, a real time saver [and fun to see!]. In the interesting reading vein, RueRude is a look at France that's neat because it's on things you wouldn't guess about daily life.

Montreal Travel

On the East Coast, there are only a few options for high intensity city vacations: NYC and Montreal. For the outdoors types, there's Maine. While reading the big Paris blog and the Médoc blog are a must, don't forget your required reading before crossing the border" F---NoMontreal.

I love the racing flags strung up between buildings in Old Montreal [as in below from here], though it's hard to just slow down and walk slowly through any part of Montreal.

Be sure to go to:
--Au Kouign Amann for the incredible raspberry fruit mix drink, sold in little cups
--Big in Japan bar on St Laurent for the Jamaican mule after going to Patata Patati for poutine or a slider
--McGill Music school free concerts
--Chai Tea Lounge on Parc for the raspberry scones and poppy flower extract macarons [called coquelicot in French, a rather unique thing to the culture]
--Wilensky for their famous sandwich and homemade cherry cola
--To see churches like Notre Dame, Mary Queen of the World, St John the Baptist, St Michael's Polish Byzantine church
--Go to the museum by the water for changing exhibitions on ancient world artifacts and the see the Paul Peel painting in the Museum of Fine Arts while you look through which exhibits are on currently
--Mamie Clafoutis by MetroSherbrooke for its apricotine, Breton canelé, pistachio-choc croissant and clafoutis
--Going through the vintage stuff at Eva B
--Getting an almond cookie in Chinatown, looking at the Kawaii store and the Chinese clothes/tea set/statue stores, getting a watermelon bubble tea, going to the new fancy Chinese pastry place for coconut-filled 'melon pan' buns, seeing the downstairs fish tanks and great little altar at the fish store
--Looking at the many Asian statue/decor stores in Old Montreal
--Getting a rosemary bagel at St Viateur Bagels
--Get cucumber sandwiches and a scone at Salon Cardinal Tea Room

Modern music

One of the really great artists in music right now is Iceland’s Finnbogi Pétursson--check out his piece ‘Conversation’ and be blown away. It’s like the tv show Hannibal’s aesthetic with an even more human edge.

Pynchon's holiday

Joyce has Bloomsday on June 16th, but there's another literary holiday: get ready for May 8th's Pynchon in Public day! To celebrate the 'reclusive' high modernist/post-modernist writer Thomas Pynchon, people read in public and leave signs and stickers in publics spaces of Pynchonian symbols, like the W.A.S.T.E. muted trumpet or horn from The Crying of Lot 49. 

The American Pynchon [b. 1937] wrote: V., The Crying of Lot 49, the famous Gravity's Rainbow, Vineland, Mason & Dixon, Against the Day, Inherent Vice [now a 2014 movie!], and Bleeding Edge. 

Many people have the trumpet as a tattoo, or stuck on a phone as a sticker. The new 2nd season of True Detective has been hinted to draw inspiration from CL49, and hopefully it's as great as the first season. Here's a list of Pynchonian links and sites to read more, and you can read/join the Pynchon mailing/discussion list.

Below, here's a great piece of graphic art for CL49, it's from here by Andrey Belikov!

Film

Film costuming and clothing history in general are a great way to start learning and appreciating history--both historical events, people, cultures, languages and raiment. In the cinema, clothing design is something really fun and unique. I love to scroll through the thousands of photos at FilmCostumes and the very interesting images of RecycledMovieCostumes, and of course the great, well-known Non-WesternHistoricalFashion.

Also I love FripperiesandFobs, FashioninHistory, FashionsfromHistory, the excellent OldRags and of course many auction houses--one with great photos is WhitakerAuctionCo.

There's ClothesonFilm and VintageFilmPropsandCostumes. PeriodWardrobe is a neat look at homemade historical costumes. The FIDM Museum of couture and textiles has a great blog of both photos and information.

Another great place to look through pictures is PeriodMovieCaps. For all areas of the world, there's a very long list of links at FilmCostume.

The painting below is British Frederick Goodall's [1822-1904] "A Dream of Paradise".

Art

Sometime reading gets you through the winter months -- and some great blogs on art [with tons of photos of some of the best art in history] are:

DantisAmor [Latin: Dante's Love] -- intense, lovely articles with tons of photos and academic discussion, excellent and very long

ByronsMuse -- a more accessible, shorter blog but similar to the blog above; discussion of paintings

TheOrientalistGallery -- incredible mid-1800s art of the Orientalist fad [non-European world painted by Euros]

MedievalChurchArt -- both art, discussion and very immense in knowledge

BeyondBordersMedievalBlog -- tons of articles and academic discussion

If you need more, you can read PreRaphaelitePaintings and of course, for a lighter time watch 30 Rock all over again. A great film to watch in the romantic, gothic vein is Onegin, it always bears a rewatch! It has Ralph Fiennes and Liv Tyler in the Russian, classic Pushkin epic poem 'Eugene Onegin' [Евге́ний Оне́гин].

Food

Since famous Paris food blogger/chef David Lebovitz doesn't update daily, an intellectual food lover can yearn for more--and I've found that the blog EatingAsia really fills the gap. It has tons of fascinating descriptions, you learn a lot, and the photos are amazing.

The food it covers is unique and really broadens your horizons if you haven't eaten a lot of Asian food. The diversity of Asian food is amazing! In that vein, there is the Malaysia Food & Travel site. It's similarly great. There's also the really broad, big site FoodRepublic if you are in the mood to read the NYT of the food world; I love the diversity of the articles and focii.

Of course, the same applies to Mimi Thorisson, who lives in rural France--she's got an incredibly interesting, beautiful, professional blog that appeals to nature/photography lovers and food lovers. Her anecdotes are always interesting, and it makes you want to immediately travel to a rural countryside and just go on a walk. Some of the photos are NationalGeographic level work, highlighting the true beauty and variety of nature.

Carnival

From Venice to New Orleans, Carnival has begun. The holiday is pre-Lent, so it takes place mostly in late January and in February.

One great painting of the long festival is by Frenchman François Flameng [1856-1923]. I love to read NolaDefender for all the interesting New Orleans news. There are some really funny pieces as well, and a great King Cake review piece.