mugs

The quest for the perfect mug wasn't something I thought about before I came to England, but then a very neurotic Englishman, an acquired habit of tea-consumption, and time enough to start collecting objects again conspired to make me think about what I like in a mug.

I like a mug to hold enough tea, but not too much. No oversized IKEA fancies for me, please. I like thin china, but nothing precious. I like mugs that feel good in my hands and I like mugs that fit in, roughly, with my other things. (I don't have any matching dishes, but I like it all to hang out together happily.)

My longtime favorite mugs have been a blue Tams Ware one I, er, borrowed from the back of the staffroom cupboard a while back and a Marimekko one with a bright green pear on it that I bought in a Scandinavian design shop in Oxford. But then I went to John Lewis (one reason not to leave England) the other day and saw this:

...of course, it had to be mine.

John Lewis also has a lot of really lovely Orla Kiely mugs (you can see them here), all of which are bone china, so they're really nice and light. The handles are a good shape, too.

When I was at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park about 18 months ago, I found an Orla Kiely mug with cars printed all over it--ohhh nice. But this one, from Fiona Howard, is even nicer:

You can see more of their stuff here. Although perhaps it's better not to look, even. The collection of a thousand mugs begins with a single set. Or something like that.

this joy+ride

Some poems have been taken by This Joy+Ride, and you can see them there from today (March 15th) til the end of the month. Thanks, Shari and Sheri, for picking me.

airmail

Girl of the future, I'm sending you a crown airmail...

If you are waiting for an email about your public transit tickets and your cameras, please wait a little more--it's coming. I've been working on this, haven't had time for much else. But I haven't forgotten. If you're still interested but haven't gotten in touch, please email ohbara at gmail dot com. The project will entail you receiving something in the post, taking a high-quality digital photograph (I'll specify what), then sending me back the photo (via email) and a public-transit ticket of any kind from the place it was taken.

Recently: Benoit P.'s photos. Kyoto Chirimen Museum. Magritte's house is a museum, too. A short video (not new, but still funny) about art school.

And more good mail. (Thanks, Gracia & Louise! Poems soon.)

paris, a very small tour.

From Butte Montmartre. One of my favorite places because you can sit and watch all the people getting to the top, completely tired from all the steps, and then see them turn around and see Paris like this. I like to walk back down behind the basilica and then (if it is daytime and they are open) go into the many fabric shops. That's where I got the printed cotton with flying geese on it (with my mom when she came to see me).

A small Jewish grocery in the Marais, selling glazed fruits in these bins. The walls are lined with every possible kind of alcohol you could imagine, all different bottles reflecting all different kinds of light. This is where I found a bottle of Izarra for my dad. Right down the street from many little shops, including Petit Pan and many shops selling Japanese goods.

The herbs and plants in my friend's kitchen. Her window looks out on the court but it is the 5th floor, so there is lots of light.

The view from her window. I loved the neighbors' geraniums and the zinc-colored pipes and drains. Even though I remember how miserable living in those old buildings could be, I recognise their beauty (and hope I did, then, too). And the grey sky, against which the buildings of Paris are particularly beautiful, although they are stunning against the bright blue, too.

See? They're just made for that. The colors are so elegant and understated, and then all of a sudden they're right in front of you and you realise how well-planned they are, how they are just made to go together. The shades and shadows the different angles make. That gold dome!

Speaking of exclamation marks, here's one in the Jardin des Plantes, a botanical garden founded in the 17th century. Those trees are so Parisian as to be a cliché, aren't they? But they exist. I sat in this garden many times drawing.

Drawing these bean-poles, specifically. And watching the people. And listening to them talk.

This is Mélodies Graphiques, also in the Marais, very near the Ile-St-Louis. I bought a tiny card (about 1.5" by 2") that had had a pattern burnt out of it: flowers and leaves in an arbor. He collects the beautiful mail his customers send him. I promised to send something, but haven't. Maybe this year.

And this is Austerlitz Station (Gare d'Austerlitz), to which I had a fond connection because of W.G. Sebald's book Austerlitz, which you can read about here. And here. And here. And here. The Métro trains going in are bright turquoise, which is brilliant against the gray stone and glass, and echoes the faded turquoise paint on the façade (you can see a hint of it in the mullions of the window in the lower left corner of the photograph).

return to the archive

Wow, it's been a long time since I wrote about Derrida. Well, let's change that. I'm re-reading The Postcard for the chapter I'm writing right now and it makes me remember exactly why I love Derrida. He is so materially romantic. The archive? Yes, it's the part of memory work that contains the trace of the past, and it's an important theoretical trope. But it's also a material love story for Derrida, who caresses his distant beloved via his careful treatment of the things around himself. He notices everything. The book is full of trains, photomatons, houses of cards, pots of growing myrtle, books, letters, postcards, photographs, traces of the beloved and the disappearance. And throughout it there is the insistence on the burning of the archive--let's destroy it as we go, let's start over, Derrida (or 'Derrida', because as readers we're not meant to be sure of who we are reading, I don't think) says. Let's build this record of all the things that I love and you love and then if we need to let's leave it all behind, poems and libraries and Purim cakes and telephones and hands and cut-paper flowers.

H.B.

A public service announcement: how wonderful it is to have someone in your life who supports you and makes space for you and wants to find out about what you love, and resists you when resistance is necessary, and talks with you honestly, and takes you places when you're blue, and drives a long way to see you, and meets you at stations, and brings you flowers, and gives mean-nice presents, and talks easily with all your friends, and introduces you to his family, and makes you feel welcome, and takes care of you when you have a 101° fever, and puts up with your incessant punning, and teaches you stuff you didn't know you needed to know, and drives through blizzards when your plane is rerouted, and gets you to like cats, and speaks other languages with you, and is just generally kind and smart and fun and funny, and lets you be happy, and helps you be happy!

Peaks

One thing I love about the small scale of the UK is that these landscapes are just a couple of hours from me by bus. I'd like to go back to the Peaks alone and stay somewhere for a week. Seems like a place that could be really good for writing.

changed priorities ahead

In about two weeks, the ftp service I use through Blogger is going to end, and I'm not sure what will happen to this space, or to the posts I've made here for the last three years, at that point. I'm looking at my options right now, but the ones I've found aren't ideal.

I'd like to keep control of how my space looks, and I don't want there to be ads. I'd like to keep my archives accessible. I'm looking at Movable Type, but I'm not sure I have the energy and time that switch would take.

I really like how sites like Martha's new workbook and Delphine Doreau's sketchbook work, and I've been wanting a way to make my site more integrated and less linear.

Any ideas/recommendations/help?

On an aside that may be interesting only to me, I just realised (prompted by a comment from Nadia) that something like the past ten posts have had pictures of buildings in them.

interim

In the interim, I have taught a lot of classes where I got to talk about surrealism, feminism, poetry, the semi-colon (also known as the king of punctuation marks), why women in the 18th century used lead to powder their faces, how to construct a thesis statement, why René Magritte is the most excellent painter of them all (this may be subjective).

I have thought about my thesis and had a very successful meeting with my supervisor. I've called home and called Z. and written emails and letters. I've written poems. I've written part of a film script. I've written some thesis. I've gone to a couple of workshops. I've made travel plans (Paris in May!).

I've gone to Bakewell and Buxton by bus, and watched the stunning beauty of the Peak District roll by the window. I've had tea with the Birdwoman. I've been so even-keel. I've enjoyed watching the light change now that it is late winter. I caught it just as I like it--light from the west, dark in the east, bright blue above, red-orange bricks that typify this city--the other day.

playlist

Ideal playlist for singing (links to videos):

1. Quelqu'un m'a dit, by Carla Bruni.
2. Gatekeeper, by Feist.
3. Ta p'tite flamme, by Amélie-les-Crayons.
4. La noyée, by Serge Gainsbourg.
5. Casimir Pulaski Day, by Sufjan Stevens.
6. To Build a Home, by The Cinematic Orchestra.
7. Amen, by Jolie Holland.
8. Don't Watch Me Dancing, by Little Joy.
9. The Littlest Bird, by the Be Good Tanyas, but ideally with someone to sing the harmony.
10. Hallelujah, by Leonard Cohen, but maybe a bit closer to this K.D. Lang version.
11. Say a Little Prayer for You, by Aretha Franklin.
12. Winter, by Tori Amos.

color to end the month

After several weeks of grey it was finally bright this weekend. On Friday I taught in Leicester, then took a walk and went to the printshop. Beeston was also bright in the sun.

St. Verde.

Angela Liguori.

a people's history

I read Howard Zinn's book A People's History of the United States while I was living in France. It was so absorbing I had to consciously pace myself so I wouldn't finish it too quickly. By the end, I knew I wanted to study for a PhD, because I wanted to make work that would make other people feel like that book made me feel: alive. Hopeful. Powerful. I felt an immense love for the strikers who were brave enough, unarmed, to call out 'Cowards!' when the police charged them; the people who risked humiliation, violence, harm, and death to change the way our political system works. And I felt despairing that those things felt like history sometimes. I am not always good at sticking up for what I think is just but that book made me want to be better.

Howard Zinn died yesterday. You can see him speaking and others reading from the People's History here. It's about an hour, but it is worth it. So beautiful, stirring. Overwhelming. Thank you, Professor Zinn, for reminding me that just a few people acting together can change things.

on saturday

We went to Rugby (the town, not the sport, although that's where we get rugby). Fran thought I meant rugby when I meant Rugby so she was surprised about halfway there. Oh, that's why you wore those clothes! Ha. We went to the gallery where my work is and then walked around the town. I had been there before, this summer, to see the Museum of Everyday Life.

Earlier that morning, terrible but joyously noisy breakfast with entire Beeston contingent, charity-shop shopping (where I found a really beautiful blue midcentury ceramic pitcher for £3), and walking in the brief sunshine. I love mornings. And my life.

Best part of the day was telling some (12-year-old) kids who tried to harass us that we were from an (imaginary) republic where there were no cars, and confusing them when they tried to explain (or point cars out) by calling them 'cows'. And our names began with a letter that was unpronounceable in English. And that we'd walked to Rugby--but very quickly, on the motorway, so it only took 20 minutes. Also gleaned the valuable information from said lads that ASDA is indeed Rugby's best candy shop. Out of the mouths of babes, folks.

teaching

Tomorrow morning I start the first regular teaching I've had since I left France. This marks the end of the luxurious period of only-reading-only-writing-only-making of the PhD. Where are we going?

I am sure there will still be trains, also the ocean. Paris. Flowers in the spring. And poems, photobooths, the birdwoman, adventures, all the things I like. And things I don't know I like yet, like 18th-century British history, commuting, and grownup clothes. And and and. This is why I like teaching--my students remind me to think about how much there is to know and how exciting it is to start to know it.

grain

The grain guarantees the mediation and points me beyond the representation (the photograph) and to the Real (which, despite all postmodern tendencies, I find I do believe in, in my fashion). This is the moon at 5:15 p.m. today. Still a little light in the western sky; I can't believe how fast winter is going this year. I love this flickr group: The Archival Moon and Waiting.

Tomorrow I go back to the library, where I'm writing about textual ontology and reading books about art history. On Friday I start teaching again, as a lecturer in Leicester. Birds, rabbits, some Dutch, some French, some cakes, and probably lots of photographs in the interim. How are you?

there is a light and it never goes out

I didn't listen to the Smiths in high school. Or university. Or graduate school, the first time. I discovered them in April, after two years in the UK and in the aftermath of a cataclysmic breakup. They are so absolutely English to me. The ennui, the feeling of being caught somewhere small. The 'do I dare disturb'-ness of it (yes, I know Eliot was American). The ironic posturing. The sincerity buried underneath it all. The bleakness. The beauty in the damp, dark, watery, days: there is a light and it never goes out. Listening to this song makes me nostalgic for an adolescence that doesn't belong to me.

beautiful 2009 (12)

I finish a draft of the introduction to my thesis and it feels good. With two other artists, I man an unheated stall in Nottingham for three days, thanking the universe for the invention of hot water bottles. I make a lot of presents. I go home, and then I go to Belgium. There's a lot of light.

beautiful 2009 (11)

November:

I go back to Belgium, where very early mornings prove useful for my thesis: I write thousands of words before noon, and spend the afternoons before the Belgian is off work wandering around Gent with an exceptionally heavy backpack, grunting helplessly when strangers assume I speak Dutch. My Dutch improves incrementally. I hang out a lot with Sue, Sriparna, and Zalfa. We make up our own language. I have band practice, and we write a couple of songs which I then become too bashful to sing. I make Thanksgiving dinner for about 25 people, and the next day come downstairs to find water streaming down the wall wth my books. I observe two minutes' silence on the 11th, anti-papism on the 5th, and the elegant lines of staircases on the university campus.

beautiful 2009 (10)

October:

I sew some patchwork covers for my ugly chairs. A piano arrives, all thanks to the magic of freecycle. Some of my friends help me celebrate my birthday with tea at Lee Rosy's, and I am touched by how thoughtful they are. We see the movie "Rumba" and go out for dinner afterwards. I take another trip to Belgium and meet some mushrooms in a forest. I go home and begin to sew my own. The Beligian comes, there's another Nottingham Poetry Series reading, and I get H1N1.

beautiful 2009 (9)

September:

The Belgian and I spend a happy, magical day walking around London before he gets the train back to Gent for good. We have cake in a café and many serious, funny, and practical discussions. The Eurostar people are concerned by how much I'm crying. I can't explain that this is just my normal reaction to feeling anything, and no, I'm fine, it's all going to be ok. Back in Nottingham, I write a lot of poems about East Anglia and perfect my recipe for banana bread.

beautiful 2009 (8)

August:

I move into my little house, with a lot of help from friends (including Melissa and the Belgian, who commandeer a shopping cart). I go to Leicester some more and print a lot of compound prints. I get offered teaching at the print workshop. The Belgian and I go on lots of walks. He tolerates my eternal taking of pictures. I tolerate his non-tea-drinking ways. I ignore the fact that I now have one year left to finish my PhD, and instead institute poetry meetings at my house once a week.

beautiful 2009 (7)

July:

The garden has lots of basil, lots of parsley, lots of radishes, some poppies, some marigolds, some chard, some tiny carrots, a few zucchini, and a multitude of disgusting grey slugs. The nasturtiums take off beautifully. I go to Latitude festival and have a great time (anyone up for 2010?) even though I miss seeing Lisa Hannigan by about 20 minutes due to a sudden rainstorm. I see Thom Yorke play solo from about ten people back. I see Regina Spektor (mostly hair and a piano) and Nick Cave (mostly swagger and a piano). I teach a poetry course where I meet people who will become my friends and fellow poets.

beautiful 2009 (6)

June:

I go to a conference in London, ditch it halfway through, and go hang out with poets on the South Bank. We walk around, get sunburnt, bother folks in the Poetry Library, then go home (their home) and make dinner and cake. I go to Belgium for the first time. I like the train. I like the seaside. Wow, the ocean is cold. The Belgian obligingly takes me to Ieper, Brugge, Oostende, and Gent. I eat the obligatory waffle. I like fritkot better.

beautiful 2009 (5)

May:

With my amazing friends, I build a garden. Working outside makes me feel so much happier. I go to Leicester a lot. I find Roman baths, a really beautiful cathedral, and a lot of nice places to spend my money. The Nottingham Poetry Series has its first reading, and it is a great success. I like. I meet the Belgian and suddenly the flowers:year ratio goes through the roof.

beautiful 2009 (4)

April:

I book a ticket to Bergen, Norway, to visit a friend. This turns out to be one of the best trips I go on--ever. Norway is beautiful, and there is so much light already (until 10 p.m.!). The houses are wooden and feel like home. No one bothers me. I walk around the very expensive grocery stores, touching produce. I learn to use a camera, and clear up the eternal mystery of the F-stop. Dave and I go out into the fjords, we walk around town, we talk about art, we make plans, we gossip, we take photos. The birdwoman comes, too.

beautiful 2009 (3)

March:

March is the cruellest month. Isn't that what Eliot said? On the 29th, the clocks move forward for British Summer Time, and finally there is light.

beautiful 2009 (2)

February:

I'm in Kent with friends when it finally snows. We go outside and have a snowball fight at midnight. The next day, driving back to Nottingham via central London, I see kids playing on roundabouts. Red jackets, snow up to their waists. I fly home for a conference, remember what a wimp I am when it comes to real winters, give a poetry reading, and take two 8-hour train rides in the span of 4 days.

beautiful 2009 (1)

January:

So far north, once it starts getting lighter it gets lighter very quickly.

Looking back, I realise how much harder, longer, and darker early winter was a year ago. I remember taking this photo in January and thinking how unbelievable it felt that there was light until 4:30 in the afternoon.

I love the color of the streetlights here. They're a bright red when they first come on, and then turn orangey-yellow. The specific greys and yellows and oranges of English light are things I won't ever forget--light of foggy days and overcast days, the streetlights, the light just before or after a storm.

with / advent II

I think about you every day. Sometimes I forget to write or call because I think of you so much that I assume you are with me too or know I am with you. Occasionally it is shocking to think about how distant the people are to whom I feel so close.

Tomorrow there will be some mushrooms and hearts and prints here for sale until Wednesday. The last posting date for the US is the 10th (Thursday).

fuchsias

How differently would I see things if I kept in mind the possibility that I might not see them again after this year?

If I have to go back to the US next year, I am going to scrape the money together to travel for a few weeks within the UK and go places I have wanted to go but haven't. I'd like to go to Ely, York, and Lincoln to see the Cathedrals. And to Glasgow. I'd like to go to Wales and Devon, to Brighton, and to Cambridge. I'd like to go to the Lakes and the Peaks. And if I stay I think I will try to do the same trips, but over more time.

very pleasing

To see all my friends' shoes and coats in my hallway on Thanksgiving. I made turkey, stuffing, and pies. They brought everything else: beans, corn, carrots, squash, whipped cream, pickles of all varieties, rolls, butter, cranberry sauce, truffles, salad, wine, juice, etc., etc. It was a really happy night. Near the end of it I took this, sitting on the stairs next to Fran.

* * *

Today's the last day! If you're in Nottingham, stop by and see my kiosk. It's on Pelham Street, across from Homemade Café, just up from Zara. You can see some things I've made here. We're open Tues-Weds-Thurs this week (1-2-3 December) from 10-6 T/W and 10-5 Th.

dr. guislain

inmates' sinks

Last time I was in Belgium I spent my Friday afternoon searching for and then walking slowly through the Museum Dr. Guislain. If you are in Gent, take the #1 tram to Guislainstraat; the museum is just around the corner.

Jozef Guislain changed the way psychiatric patients were cared for, and, with the Brothers of Charity, began a new institution for their care. The hospital is now a museum and teaching facility. I think there is still a working psychiatric facility as well.

Besides the featured exhibition (while I was there, it was UIT HET GEHEUGEN: over weten en vergeten, or FROM MEMORY: on knowing and forgetting), there was a show of outsider art, a permanent collection of artifacts pertaining to psychiatric care from the 1700s to the present, and (tucked away in a trio of back rooms) a collection of curiosities: wax models of well and diseased bodies; a calf with two faces; babies in formaldehyde; skeletons; a photograph of a baby with two heads; a bearded lady. (I had seen some of this at the Wellcome Collection when I ws there for the Exquisite Bodies show in October, and that's what sparked my interest in the museum.) But while I was actually there I was really struck by the ways that humans have tried throughout the centuries to understand the mind and bring its essential incomprehensibility into some smaller scope...to fit it into the parameters we understand, whether those are chemical or religious or magical.

wax models of bodies and parts of bodies

* * *

And--just a reminder that if you're in Nottingham, you can stop by and see my kiosk today! It's on Pelham Street, across from Homemade Café, just up from Zara. You can see some things I've made here. We're open Tues-Weds-Thurs this week (1-2-3 December) from 10-6 T/W and 10-5 Th.

re-arrange

Friday after Thanksgiving I came downstairs to find water running down the wall with the shelves that all my books were on. After a big panic and a lot of running back and forth shoving books against radiators, I got everything moved and now I have a new place for my books, in the living room. I can't work on the buffet that I'd been using as a desk anymore, so I got a table from freecycle and work in the living room now, too. We'll see how it goes.

Here are my dishes in their new home, and jars of art supplies above. I didn't like it plain, so I made an easy garland of some old Christmas ornaments I found in Leicester on Thursday morning. Just tie a pretty string through the tops, and voilà.

And my books. I like them much better in this bookcase than I liked the dishes in it. It used to stand in the dining room and always looked cluttered. I'm not much for the style, either (kind of shabby-chic). But with the books in it, it's nice. Not too tall, so it doesn't lean away from the wall. And because it's openwork, it feels airy. Rachel brought me the plant and it is a really pleasing addition to the room.

* * *

If you're in Nottingham, stop by and see my kiosk. It's on Pelham Street, across from Homemade Café, just up from Zara. You can see some things I've made here. We're open Tues-Weds-Thurs this week (1-2-3 December) from 10-6 T/W and 10-5 Th.

* a * r * n * a * u * d *

His name is Arnaud, and he is the last of les Champignons de Paris. (You can find them here, along with many other mushrooms I have made or found.) With the others, and with ornaments and prints and bobêches and necklaces and patchwork bags and pretty things, he will be at the KiosKiosk in Nottingham where I'll be part of a shop. We're just up the way from the main Christmas market, so get a mug of mulled wine and come say hi.

If you're in Nottingham, stop by and see me. The KiosKiosk is on Pelham Street, across from Homemade Café, just up from Zara. You can see some of the things I've made here. We're open Tues-Weds-Thurs this week (1-2-3 December) from 10-6 T/W and 10-5 Th. I'm with Amy Blackwell and Hollie Brown.

If you're not in Nottingham, some things will be up for sale on Monday, December 7. Check here for details.