HIGH UP IN THE TREES

A real find.

{Taking the indirect route.}


{A possible shortcut is considered.}

I had finished work with enough time to make my way to the other end of the city. As it was not raining, I walked and I followed a path determined by the interesting characters I saw and green traffic lights. It felt good to lose myself in the crowd of people toing and froing, having been working in a room on my own all of the morning. With a red scarf wrapped high around my neck and a large bag on my shoulders relatively empty, I finally made it to the City Basement Books. Small signs heralded its presence. Handwritten, they announced a sale: “All books $1.” Down the stairs I went and the sight inside filled me with warmth: there at a little after two, a mass of the bookish slowly rifling through the rows of books still left on the shelves and the random piles on the floor. Pipes above the store, exposed in the ceiling, gurgled, and a bucket full caught the drips. The shelves creaked as I reached up high to extract a book on Australian birds and the fans kept the air of this underground damp city more bearable though in truth they seemed to provide pleasant sound more than anything. Students, well shod men with silvered hair, all sorts, all sorts and me, lost in a maze of bookshelves, trying to find treasure or to rescue a book. People silently sifting, one arm doing the leafing, the other carrying a pile close to chest, it was an enchanting sight even if a sad end for a bookstore favoured by many though perhaps not enough.

 

Somewhat overwhelmed, I scanned the shelves for books to rescue and tuck under wing. I found an illustrated encyclopaedia of predators, a catalogue from Sotheby’s of Islamic works of art to be auctioned on Monday the 22nd of November 1976, Racine et Port-Royal, Elbert Hubbard’s A Message to Garcia (selected for similarity to own name), a small copy of Blackie’s German Classics in German (I liked how it looked), Newnes’ Select Balzac, A Picture Book of English Embroideries from the V&A, a handbook for identifying corals, and a few others selected for either reference or beauty. I paid my $16 and made most of the emptiness of my bag. I’d come prepared as a tomb raider. In went Fables and Satires with its curious line drawings by Helen Kapp, Deer in Australia, The Magnetic North, and Exploring Between Tidemarks (with a starfish on the cover).

 

+ The sale ends today when the shop closes for good at 6. It is to be relocated.

Shh. I am not here. I am reading.

{They had returned.}


{Back to the beginning.}


{With a joy hard to contain.}

Yesterday I spent the day reading. I began early, the room suffused with soft light, and all I needed by my side on the Japanese packing chest. I finished Andreï Makine’s Le Testament Français and the scenes drawn of Paris before the Great War, of the Soviet Union under Stalin and WWII, of a life lived behind the Iron Curtain all seemed so clear in their description that I am sure they were my actual memories too. From the consistency and comfort of familiar objects to the sky above described in various scenes, from the mirrored black pools of the eyes of an animal as it slowly dies, to hoar-frost that covers all, and knives brandished in the mouths of mutilated soldiers who without their legs resemble samovars. These images remain in my mind as if I saw them with own eyes that very morning.

 

A shift of the pillow behind my head and a stretch of the arms, I picked up Herta Müller’s The Passport and read it in one largely unbroken sitting as befits her poetic text, her frankness. A brief scene describing a goat skinned alive made me gasp aloud and with heart hammering against chest confines I raced to the end. An apple tree that eats its own apples, owls and superstitions, bribery and a surreal picture shaped of a German village in Romania, I was travelling far. And then, then, at book’s conclusion, I picked up Tolstoy’s War and Peace. A day spent reading, a whole day. It was just what I needed.

It was in picturing this woman's handbag amidst the crosses, under the Siberian sky, that I began to have a feeling for the incredible destiny of things. They travelled; beneath their commonplace exterior they accumulated all the phases of our lives, linking moments that were very far apart.

(Le Testament Français, Andreï Makine)

+ (An evening edit) A library of books.

Loosely grouped together for a moment.

{In the cabinet, treasured things sent from near and dear. On the shoulder, Cilla rests.}

Sometime ago now I was planning to change from seasoned night owl to morning lark, and on this beautiful morning, I think I have been successful in pulling off this shift in personal pattern. I wake early. My mind awaits coffee and I set to work, the house suffused in light. A group show is on the horizon (in August) and work is underfoot. Louise is trying to make elements of our next artists’ book ‘pop out’ of the page with aid of folds and clever cuts with the blade, and I am on my way to the library, confident of the treasure I will surely find.

{Scenes from this week. Scenes from long ago. With handmade Thelma's pins and a postcard of Fanja's in my hand.}

 

+ We’re taking small part in the Emerging Writers’ Festival again this year. More soon.

+ We've added five new concertina journals to our online store.

Bright light. Indoors.

{How it looks. Some of the time.}

We followed the afternoon sun, and by early afternoon, we were camped by door ajar, lying just inside, the breeze warm on our faces. On the carpeted floor, patterns were created, shadows drawn of the curled flourishes of the mesh screen door. Omar lazed, head propped on the woven door snake, and Olive sat like a plumped out sphinx, watching the world from safe vantage point, ears alert. I have my third coffee, cool. I hear autumn leaves blowing down the street, and a car or two passes. I wish moments like this could last but realise quickly that that is why they are so wonderful, because they do not last; they are fleeting, like sun patches in our house. In an hour it will pass. Maybe sooner. Maybe the sun will become hidden by clouded mass. Maybe something will beep from the other room and I will remember all the emails I need to reply to, the phone calls I need to make. Those who live in the present are masterful, I’m sure of it. It is a skill to think only of this moment, this hour, this day. I am working on it.

One more than six.

{A conversation took place, unheard by others. A collaborative collage of Louise and mine. The fox featured is a North American Red fox (Vulpes vulpes fulva).}

 

I have been tagged twice over, once by Christine, to reveal seven random facts about myself, and once by Natsumi, with a Sunshine Award. Thank you.

 

1. I love when I hear the local cats run across the rooftops at night before I drift off to sleep and I realise that all the houses are connected, not freestanding. For ten to the left and fifteen to the right, there is a continual rooftop run and they make full use of it. Up there, at night, it must be their paradise. Free, running, full pace. I love the visual it draws to mind. If you drilled a hole through the wall, you’d see next door, and so on and so on. All house joined and separate lives inside.

 

2. So too, I love my morning tasks. I wake and cats need feeding, curtains need to be drawn back, dishes may need doing, and everything feels like a fresh beginning.

 

3. I prefer winter and cooler days to summer and its heat and noise. I always have.

 

4. I like it quiet.

 

5. My new neighbours are not aficionados of quiet. Sometimes I wish they would all contract horrendous disease and move out, leaving me to a silence an urban dweller really ought to cease craving.

 

6. I have read for the first time Capote’s Breakfast at Tiffany’s and found that towards the end I empathised with Holly Golightly more than I thought I would.

7. I love to watch films in the dark, and I love the big expanse of the ocean. The anticipation of a film about to commence and the view of the sea, both make me very happy.

Thanks for tagging me, Christine and Natsumi. I tag anyone who reads this blog and would like to play along. I tag you. Please join in.

+ Camilla’s Makes me happy post makes me happy too.

+ Thank you Fanja, Lumi and Lewis see the sea from this side of the world.

Embracing the seasonal change.

{Limited edition notebooks are here.}

Quiet space seems something I crave more these days now that things turn insular as season dictates. Autumn suits being a bookworm even more than summer I find. The couch once under the open window is now against an internal wall and from new resting spot I can still see the sky but less of it. I can hear the rainfall and the windowpanes rattle. I can hear the baby next-door cry and her mother rush to soothe her. Behind me, I have the world illuminated; a globe with light bulb inside it burns. Kenya is pink, Belgium is green, and China is blue. No sea monsters advancing upon naval ships can I see but I can imagine them there if I choose, like those maps of old. No mythical creatures part-horse part-serpent appear close to port. No heads emerging from cloud mass to blow wind across the globe as seen in those of the sixteenth century.

Should you also be feeling more bookish in your ways, Louise and I have several new notebooks to share with you, and they are only available through our online store and in limited amount. We have eight wrap-around notebooks, bound by Louise, that feature the printed offcuts and artists’ proofs from an artists book of mine, Find your place. There are four in full colour and four available in B&W. They feature animal faces familiar to you, animals atop Rococo chairs and similar.

In addition, there are several new notebooks featuring one of our postcard designs on the cover. Again, bound by Louise, they feature a simple Japanese stab binding that makes them ever so pliable. They will yield to your needs.

+ You can find the limited edition wrap-around eight here.

+ You can find the Japanese stab binding notebooks here.

{New things, ocean side.}

Between Saturday and Monday there is always Sunday.

{From dear Oly.}

Sunday thus far has been a good day for waking early and then taking a mug of coffee with me back to bed, a book tucked under my arm; two morning companions essential: caffeine and something to read. It has been a good day for reading the end of a book of Chekhov’s short stories that for too long I have left near to the end. It has been good for eating lunch earlier than normal, and for doubling garlic quantities in the pot as it simmered and bubbled and threatened to erupt. Good for hand-washing light woollens that throughout week’s activities have piled up and for finding home in altars of ephemera for the treasure and beauty Oly sent with a recent order. I am not alone, I expect, in wishing Sunday would extend its stay.

{With treasure in hand, we headed to the seaside.}

+ In other news, I have just found out from a friend's text message that I am the winner of the Inaugural Zine Prize at the 2010 Libris Awards. I am delighted, there can be no other word.

+ Thanks for the compliment, Frankie.

It's been swell.

{From Good Friday...}

Cat on my lap sounds like a motor. Such steady and consistent purring, and I am looking back at photos taken this Easter past. To me, like a dream the Easter holidays read. With the tables and chairs pulled outside, we sat in the autumn light. On the table, three white rabbits stood guard as we chinked glasses of mint julep cordial. See No Evil, Hear No Evil and Speak No Evil lived true to their name and made a fitting table centrepiece. Rolling into Easter Sunday, the table once more set, we enjoyed further delights home-cooked. We held our own small film festival and watched many of the films of  Jean-Pierre Jeunet and Pedro Almodóvar respectively. Now sated, now rested, now all at ease, I think Easter in autumn is my favourite holiday.

{...through to Easter Sunday.}

+ Gracia Haby & Louise Jennison —  Paper, Prints and Animals

Louise and I make an appearance in Kinki magazine. (We've translated the text with aid of Google and we are more than flattered.)