Peter Kravitz

“Constitutionally, England has vanished. But it still has a flag…a flag that makes British governments twitchy. They know it appears when there is real anger and grief, when there’s an overflowing sense that ‘those in charge’ have lost touch with the deep feelings of the people.”

Five star lucid.

“You only have to be in any of those kind of situations. Being in love, being angry, being jealous.”

Then she goes straight in to Sonnet 29…

m.youtube.com/watch?v=t_X1...

RIP Frank Gehry 1929 - 2025

Those of us in Scotland are lucky to have his building for Maggie’s Cancer Caring Centre in Dundee, which was in part modelled on indigenous but ‘n ben houses.

For his own place in Santa Monica, he “was trying to use the dumb, normal materials of the neighborhood.”

Before which, according to Ryokan’s diary, he said to the thief “Please take my clothes as a gift."

The thief was bemused, taking the clothes and slinking away.

Sitting naked, watching the moon, Ryokan thought “Poor fellow I wish I could have given him this beautiful moon."

These paintings are not made to appeal only to the eyes. Beyond illusion, beyond simple description, they intensify the senses so that the world outside the gallery is changed through the act of laying pigment upon a surface.”

Laura Cumming on top form.

Plato makes the case against writing in Phaedrus: 'If men learn this, it will implant forgetfulness in their souls. They will cease to exercise memory because they rely on that which is written, calling things to remembrance no longer from within themselves, but by means of external marks.'

“He became someone who really cared about—or deeply didn’t care about who I was. Therefore, who I was began to wither. And the less I was of who I was, the better I felt.”

Leonard Cohen on his his teacher, Joshu Sasaki Roshi

“I write twelve pages to get one page, and I cut all the time. Unless a writer is superb, I don’t think it’s enough just to go wuffling on.”

A fine choice by Zinovy Zinik. Pop a copy of Greyhound in your loved one’s stocking. His TLS piece on the Russian translators of Dickens is a beauty

www.the-tls.com/regular-feat...

“he was there on the heavily patrolled red carpet, and then far away on the stage, and then at the after-party in the VIP room behind a curtain. I got some curious looks and a woman asked me if I was Billy Bob’s father and I drank three margaritas and came home.”

Nice.

‘Oregon’s pilot program, called “Direct Cash Transfer,” and a similar initiative in New York City, have shown signs that the cash helped youths, ages 18 to 24, move out of shelters’

Superb writing on these stories.
You might have to do a quick, little book of them

Some great writing in the Alt Text of these eerie Ladybird stories:

‘perplexing humans, cattle and horses with his antics, probably while high on food containing artificial additives, the Gingerbread Boy gets a lift across a river while balancing on a fox’s nose…’

This Book Traces One Author’s Bus Trip Across America’s Troubled Highways In her captivating new memoir, Joanna Pocock undertakes the journey from Detroit to LA by Greyhound bus, following in the footsteps of women writers who’ve chronicled epic road trips. Read an exclusiv...

Read an excerpt of the forthcoming GREYHOUND by Joanna Pocock in @anothermag.com: www.anothermag.com/design-livin...

When I cull
There’s a lull
Then room for plenty more

A moment, please, to consider the absolute majesty of Daphne Oram's unbelievable score to this. A pitch shifted, time stretched, frequency agile glimpse of the future of music production; a liberty-taking all analogue remix of Sandy Nelson's Teen Beat realised in real time with the visuals.

A lovely furry bench in Manaton, Dartmoor

There are over 18,000 types of lichen in existence. My personal favourite is ‘village bench lichen’, which devotes its entire existence selflessly to gradually making communal public seating more furry and comfortable.

And great Closet Picks with Ira Sachs here:

www.criterion.com/shop/collect...

Remembering Rachel Cooke | The Observer

Terrible news: Rachel Cooke has died. She was 56.
When I was lucky enough to commission her at The Observer, I wanted her to write everything. She was seriously witty and crystalline in her argument when being serious, which she was on a dazzling range of topics. observer.co.uk/news/nationa...

It’s practice & theory…

“I am not a ‘nice’ Buddhist. I’m more interested in a plain rice, ‘get down in the street and get dirty’ Buddhism.”
Joan Halifax

Sane rubric:

“In consumerist cultures, relatable animals are sold to us as scheming foxes, Stetson-wearing bunnies and cute, wise-cracking pandas, all-too-human caricatures dressed up in animal skins. Rather than entering their world, we force them into ours.”

Muriel Spark on the front page of the Edinburgh Evening News

Today.
Edinburgh.
Muriel Spark.
The front page.
Photographed on 25th May 1960.

Distressed loudspeaker at Leytonstone station. An almost Kleinian blue.

#londonunderground #lookup #loudspeaker #london #peelingpaint

Salon cartography and choreography at the Queere Moderne exhibition at Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen in Düsseldorf, with artists including Lotte Laserstein, Ludwig von Hofmann (whose painting ‘The Source’ Thomas Mann took with him into exile) and British artist Gluck (born Hannah Gluckstein).

She captures the movement in work and a burdensome urgency, whilst keeping a sense of grace.

Mary Robinson rewrites Paul Simon…

Worth digging deep into this piece on Gathered Meeting. It includes principles which will be needed to re-civilise politics over the next decade or so…

Epping Forest magic this afternoon with views over London from Loughton.

#eppingforest #autumn #light #treebathing #london