Self-awareness.

Mono No Aware, Marco Mazzoni. 

“Remember: the time you feel lonely is the time you most need to be by yourself. Life's cruelest irony.” 


Douglas Coupland, Shampoo Planet

"Let the weight of the world drift away instead."

London from space, taken by European Space Agency astronaut Andre Kuipers. 

It's hard to believe I only have a fortnight left in this incredible, lovely, lonely, hectic, most beautiful of ugly cities.*

Then it's home for Christmas, and on to West Africa for three months. 

If there was such a thing as a list of "songs to run away to", or "songs for moving on to the next step in your life", this beautifully mournful Beck track would be pretty high up on mine.

*Qualifying statement: I actually think Tokyo is the most beautiful of ugly cities. But it's hard to contest just how beautiful London is. In any case, I just love that phrase, which is from Florent Chavouet's wonderful graphic novel Tokyo Sanpo; Il paraît que Tokyo est la plus belle des villes moches du monde.

You said it, Sylvia.

Here.

Goodbye, Maurice Sendak.

Here.

10th June 1928 - 8th May 2012.

Where The Wild Things Are will continue to fill my dreams. 

R.I.P.

"It was a queer, sultry summer, the summer they electrocuted the Rosenbergs, and I didn't know what I was doing in New York."

I have a sudden urge to sit out in the spring sunshine (which has finally returned), and re-read The Bell Jar. 

Beautiful photo of Sylvia Plath via the Guardian. 

Literal Literary Hideaway; Miller Lagos.

I feel like I've been stuck in front of a screen forever, and now it's the final push as deadlines are almost here.
I would love to hide myself away inside Miller Lagos' igloo made of books, and be surrounded by pages and spines and paper.

These images are from here. See more of Lagos' work here. 

The Cruellest Month.

APRIL is the cruellest month, breeding

Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing

Memory and desire, stirring

Dull roots with spring rain.

— T.S. Eliot, The Wasteland

Blowing Bubbles Soft & Fine, Joe Sorren.

APRIL is the cruellest mon

Wednesday Wishlist #6 - More mixed; creature comforts.

Eye Chart Silk Screened Cotton Canvas Pillow by Utilitarian Franchise, Anatomy of a Disappearance by Hisham Matar, Adjustable Hand Woven Criss-Cross Bracelet by Dear Dotty, Rainforest Radiance Shampoo by The Body Shop, Pomergranate Noir Home Candle by Jo Malone.

This weeks picks are a bit more varied. Maybe reflecting my slightly stressed state and a need for some creature comforts?

"Feral Princesses"; Justin Duerr.

This evening I am thoroughly enamored of Justin Duerr's dark and detailed damsels.

They somehow remind me of Fuschia Gormenghast; there's so much feeling in their faces.

I do believe Duerr may be a fixation for a while; you can peruse his artwork, music and words (from which I took the title of this post) over on his website.

75 Years Ago...

Here.

Here.

Here.

H.P. Lovecraft died.

"The world is indeed comic, but the joke is on mankind."

Liu Xiaobo - You Wait For Me With Dust.

Here.

Today marks the worldwide reading for Liu Xiaobo, the Chinese writer imprisoned by his own country for publishing works "inciting state subversion."

You Wait For Me With Dust.

for my wife, who waits every day

Nothing remains in your name, nothing

but to wait for me, together with the dust of our home

those layers

amassed, overflowing, in every corner

you’re unwilling to pull apart the curtains

and let the light disturb their stillness

over the bookshelf, the handwritten label is covered in dust

on the carpet the pattern inhales the dust

when you are writing a letter to me

and love that the nib’s tipped with dust

my eyes are stabbed with pain

you sit there all day long

not daring to move

for fear that your footsteps will trample the dust

you try to control your breathing

using silence to write a story.

At times like this

the suffocating dust

offers the only loyalty

your vision, breath and time

permeate the dust

in the depth of your soul

the tomb inch by inch is

piled up from the feet

reaching the chest

reaching the throat

you know that the tomb

is your best resting place

waiting for me there

with no source of fear or alarm

this is why you prefer dust

in the dark, in calm suffocation

waiting, waiting for me

you wait for me with dust

refusing the sunlight and movement of air

just let the dust bury you altogether

just let yourself fall asleep in the dust

until I return

and you come awake

wiping the dust from your skin and your soul.

What a miracle – back from the dead.

Books, beautiful books...

Remember a while back when I posted about beautiful bookshops?

Well, Flavorwire have put forward another selection of beautiful photos which have me seriously jealous on a gloomy day in a distinctly sterile-feeling university library: people's private and personal libraries. I'm in love. For me, my room is never my own unless I have furnished it with my favourite books. I long for a library like one of those pictured above, but the first one is perhaps my favourite (it's in Costa Rica).

Chose yours from the full selection here.

200 Years Ago Today... & Some Beautiful Bookshops.

Paris.

It's the bicentenary of the birth of Charles Dickens - and he hasn't been out of print since the 1830s. So, in honour of one of the country's literary greats, and in lieu of my love of reading, I thought I'd share some of the worlds most beautiful bookshops - all taken from this delightful list over on Flavorwire. I'm lucky enough to have visited both the Milan and the Alnwick ones.

Milan.

Beijing.

Alnwick.

Mon Petit Fantome's Fairytales.

Vasilisa.

Baba Yaga.

While all of Chad Merritt's recent additions to the Mon Petit Fantome etsy store have me utterly entranced, these two papercut prints are particularly amazing.

Evoking images from two of the most frightening fairytales, they're so full of movement and magic.

A world in a book; Guy Laramee.

I am both delighted and distressed by sculptor Guy Laramee's literary landscapes, crafted from books and acting as a comment on our gradual loss of print culture.

Learn more from J. L. Schnabel over on Hi-Fructose (where these images are from).

Sir Boast-a-lot.

Image from here.

A heart-in-your-mouth finale for series two of Sherlock with The Reichenbach Fall.

I really do think so much of the beauty of this programme is its brevity - although the ending clearly left room for another three episodes in the future.

I really don't feel I can write about the episode without slipping up and spoiling it... Especially after my first full day back in class. So I'll let the "Watson blog" speak for me; can I just say, the BBC news presenters must have jumped at the chance to create this.

Sunday Soundtrack - 1Q84.

Leoš Janáček - Sinfonietta

Ella Fitzgerald - It's Only A Paper Moon

I have spent this very frosty morning immersed in Book III of Haruki Murakami's 1Q84. In the UK, they have tried to imitate the experience of his original Japanese readers by publishing Books I & II together, and Book III in a separate volume (as it was originally released as a surprise, a year after the first two). I was reading Books I & II while I was in South Africa, and during a trip to a rather amazing bookshop, I noticed they hadn't done that there... I think they've published it all as one volume in the US, too. Something a little strange I've noticed is that Books I & II were translated from the Japanese by Jay Rubin, and Book III by Philip Gabriel. It seems like an odd decision, but while it's noticeable it isn't necessarily jarring. Either way, my essays contributed to my further breaking up the reading experience - what with working on those, and reading another book, I was excited to start Murakami's Book III.

Regardless, I look forward to reviewing it in its entirety soon; and as anyone who has read it will know, the two pieces of music above feature prominently in the narrative. I am utterly engrossed, and can highly recommend this surreal, slightly sinister and carefully crafted story.

H.O.U.N.D.

Image from here.

I loved last night's episode of Sherlock even more than last week's. The Hounds of Baskerville (a tiny tweak to the most famous title) was filled with sublime scenery and serious suspense.

Baskerville, in this update, is not a morally ambiguous isolated family dynasty, but a morally ambiguous isolated animal testing centre... And the hound something far more dangerous and chemical than you would expect.

I want to watch it again already.

I Am SHERLocked.

Image from here.

Last night witnessed the return of Sherlock to television screens, dealing with some compromising photos and some shady state secrets. Since studying them for an entire semester in my second year, I have been a huge fan of Conan Doyle's original stories; one of the reasons I respected the first series last summer was how loyal the writers had been in appeasing the likes of me (super nerds). It's the only adaptation I have ever been remotely satisfied with - in terms of both characterisation and setting.

I have to say that A Scandal in Belgravia (A Scandal in Bohemia, if you want to read the relevant short story) was just as beautiful and brilliantly-paced as Series 1. Benedict Cumberbatch makes an amazing contemporary Great Detective - he has the 19th century attitude and arrogance perfectly attuned to the i-phone era; similarly, Lara Pulver made a suitably slinky Irene Adler.

However, if I could make one complaint, it would be that their relationship was over-romanticised - which I was slighly saddened by as its the temptation all adaptations seem to be unable to resist. Adler only appears in one story, and is significant because she beats Sherlock in sleuthing - she is indeed referred to in other stories as "the woman", but there is little or no romantic undertone to their relationship. All the same, I greatly enjoyed the episode and I'm looking forward to next week's installment.

Today is incredibly gloomy and the world outside my window is wreathed in fog. If I could, I would let my mind run around the streets of similarly murky Victorian London with Sherlock. Instead, I seriously need to get on with my essays. Sigh.

(Oh, and another thing I love - Watson's blog is "real").

The Night Circus.

I have been wanting to write about this novel for quite a while now, so when my brother visited recently I jumped at the chance to use his camera and get a couple of shots of the amazing artwork and black page edges.

This is the UK edition; the US cover, by Helen Musselwhite, is also lovely - and the main difference I would pick out is the presence of the hand holding the circus tents (the significance of which can only be revealed in reading the novel), while the UK cover underlines the romance aspect of the plot. Regardless, this is a rare and beautiful case of a book's cover cohering perfectly with its content - Vania Zouravliov's illustrations are so perfectly attuned to Erin Morgenstern's intricate and imaginative prose.

Aesthetics aside, The Night Circus is one of the best books I have read in a very long time. Even as I begin, I am doubtful I can find the words to do justice to Morgenstern's mastery. The Night Circus is utterly magical, and replete with such intense and original imagery. A botanic garden made entirely of ice, a candle-covered wishing tree, a bonfire ablaze with white fire, a maze made of clouds... And these are all features of the most enchanting and engaging image of all: the eponymous nocturnal black & white circus.

Morgenstern's prose is so wonderfully sensual - the reader is wrapped up in the sounds, smells and sensations of the Le Cirque des Rêves; caramel, autumn leaves, hot cider, candle smoke, the pages of old books... Even the names of the characters feel special when you say them out loud: Celia Bowen, Marco Alisdair, Chandresh Christophe Lefèvre, Lainie Burgess, Tsukiko, Poppet & Widget... They trip off your tongue like strange music.

The novel is a rich tapestry of allegory and imagination, beautifully blurring the boundaries between the "real" world, and one filled with dark and dangerous delights. And, as hinted at above, The Night Circus is ultimately about love; specifically, the love between an enchanter's daughter and a magician's apprentice. There is something eternal about Celia & Marco's story - Morgernstern expresses the all-or-nothing love so integral to so many great stories, suggested by snatches of Shakespeare and wisps of Oscar Wilde.

A little while ago, J.L. Schnabel of Bloodmilk wrote a post about this book, hinting at some jewels in homage to it. I can only dream of what she might conjure up in tribute.

Fold yourself into this disconcertingly tangible and totally delightful fin-de-siècle fantasy. You will not be disappointed.