note to self no. 2
Wherever you find wisdom, snatch it up. I was watching Downton Abbey, the Julian Fellowes series about England at the turn of the 2oth century when, Anna, a lady’s maid, rebuked a colleague for meddling. “The trick in business is to mind your own.” It’s a statement that makes sense in so many different circumstances. I had it on post-it on my computer for months and now I’m sharing it with you. The time we spend talking about what others are doing wrong we could use to do something right. This banner encapsulates that idea. It’s so simple and yet so true.
Maids say the wisest things. I doubt it but if you haven’t seen Downtown Abbey and you’re wondering why a church has a lady’s maid…It’s a historical drama about a family and its staff of house servants. The pith of the plot is familiar because it’s like a Jane Austen book. A noble gentleman has three daughters to marry. But to whom? He is too good-hearted to make them marry just for money and they are all strong-willed girls. One of them is even wearing pants! There’s sex out of wedlock, love that defies class boundaries, World War I, which is still a very romantic era in English art and literature, servant gossip of course, people seeing things they should not, an American far from home – but she has enough money to make up for her breeding – and many more quainteries* to amuse.
*This word does not exist; I made it up. But it should, right?
*This word does not exist; I made it up. But it should, right?
Cheers to your business, whatever it may be.
week-ender
The smell of clothes dried in the sun. I’m going to suggest that menial tasks are fun. Maybe it’s all the bursting brights of summer clothes that have turned the chore into play. Or, that I remember the grunt of washing towels by hand. Either way, I’m enjoying it. It’ll definitely miss it in the Fall. May summer last a hundred days. Happy Week-end.
seen & heard
Eduardo Galeano. I’m in love with your writing. Thank you for writing about Haiti every time you talk about Latin America/Caribbean.
Fabada, a Spanish bean soup. Let one cup of dry Cannellini beans soak in water for two days. Change the water every morning. Boil the beans in enough water to cover them. Add water as it dries up if beans are not yet soft. When they are soft, turn the fire down. Slice finely: two large teeth of garlic, one carrot, onion. Fry in a shallow pool of olive oil. Cut up one large turkey sausage and let it cook with the vegetables. Bring a pot of water to a boil. Add 1/2 of a cube of Maggi and then pour in the beans, sausage, and vegetables. Cut up three branches of fresh parsley with scissors (because it’s easier) and sprinkle on the soup. Let it simmer on medium heat until the broth thickens. Taste and adjust flavors as desired (more salt, pepper, parsley?) Pour into a bowl and enjoy!
Monocle is aptly named. Each article feels like it’s narrowed the field of vision so that it can focus on depth. I feel like I learn something with every page I read. It’s a great travel companion because it has a wide panoply of topics to choose. At the same it’s like a book because I could invest entire days ingesting all the information, recommendations, references that lead to other discoveries. Monocle, the world through a new lens.
Interest in fashion tends to get retailed to “who’s wearing what” but watching these students from the Antwerp Royal Academy’s Fashion Department work and talk about their research made me realize that it can say something more. My favorite of the 2012 class was Marius Janusauskas who had worked out some lovely gowns around the idea of the undead – a delicate degradation in soft white or pastel fabric, woven with blood-red thread.
Day by Day from the group, Taken By Trees. This song. This song sounds like a Michael Ondaatje paragraph from that lush, summer-must read, Running in the Family.
Scientists discovered the Higgs Boson, a particle that supposedly helps explain the creation of the universe. I had to look up boson because to me it sounded like a fruit to me. The Telegraph wrote a great article splitting the atom for us so we could get to the nucleus of the discovery: What exactly does the Higgs Boson do and does it have any practical applications today?
