The sirens will be driving if the sirens still exist
My poem "Exposure" has been accepted by Not One of Us. I have little explanation for its arrival last night, but I am glad of it and of this home for it.
We have begun to put up our art on the walls. We can put our art up on the walls of this apartment. They are not overwhelmingly composed of horsehair plaster that crumbles on its own time or cement. Having so many bare walls and so many pictures stacked behind the dining room table for so many years was one of the things that made our former residence feel less and less like a home; I had had more decorated cinderblocks in dorms in college. Much of our art still needs to be sprung from storage and it became apparent to me as we were moving out in the spring that I own quite a lot of art that still needs framing, but everything we moved over in the first weekend is now in situ except for the self-portrait of Richard de Menocal because he fell out of his frame. (Everyone is unharmed, including the glass. I stashed him behind my desk to keep away from curious little cats.) My office now contains the image of Vanth taken on its discovery in 2005 and sent me by![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
selidor in 2009 and my grandfather's photograph of what are now the Czech Memorial Scrolls in Westminster Synagogue in 1969. The scratchboard nautilus that was a Christmas present from my parents when we moved into the old apartment has gone on the wall outside my office, where I am thinking I may finally frame and hang the candid snap of George VI and Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon in Canada that I picked up from a flea market ten years ago for two-thirds off its price because I didn't need to read the penciled and slightly inaccurate inscription on the back of the photo to identify its subjects. The 1905 diagram of tracks and signals from the Boston Terminal Co. which was part of that same spring of 2012 is hanging in the hall beside spatch's shelves; the photo of the iconic storefront of Lyndell's which he gave me for my birthday in 2013 is in the kitchen along with the three-paneled petroglyph print that came home from my family's trip to the Four Corners in 1995. In the bedroom, we have my poster for The Big Broadcast of October 30th, 1938 which I saw on the night in 2009, the plastic-framed print of John William Waterhouse's A Mermaid (1900) which has been a staple of my sleeping spaces since college, and one of Rob's touchstone photos for even longer, in which his tow-headed childhood self sleeps with a cat on his chest. My grandparents' print of Lennie Warren and John Hirsch's Who Will Say Kaddish for Me? (1989) is in the dining room along with a green-haired abstract mermaid that my father brought back from Seattle circa 2000. There are still entire blank walls. My father has anchored our glass-fronted cabinet and we can begin to unpack our fragile things, too.
It has just now—fine and dry, the first of the year—begun to snow.
We have begun to put up our art on the walls. We can put our art up on the walls of this apartment. They are not overwhelmingly composed of horsehair plaster that crumbles on its own time or cement. Having so many bare walls and so many pictures stacked behind the dining room table for so many years was one of the things that made our former residence feel less and less like a home; I had had more decorated cinderblocks in dorms in college. Much of our art still needs to be sprung from storage and it became apparent to me as we were moving out in the spring that I own quite a lot of art that still needs framing, but everything we moved over in the first weekend is now in situ except for the self-portrait of Richard de Menocal because he fell out of his frame. (Everyone is unharmed, including the glass. I stashed him behind my desk to keep away from curious little cats.) My office now contains the image of Vanth taken on its discovery in 2005 and sent me by
selidor in 2009 and my grandfather's photograph of what are now the Czech Memorial Scrolls in Westminster Synagogue in 1969. The scratchboard nautilus that was a Christmas present from my parents when we moved into the old apartment has gone on the wall outside my office, where I am thinking I may finally frame and hang the candid snap of George VI and Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon in Canada that I picked up from a flea market ten years ago for two-thirds off its price because I didn't need to read the penciled and slightly inaccurate inscription on the back of the photo to identify its subjects. The 1905 diagram of tracks and signals from the Boston Terminal Co. which was part of that same spring of 2012 is hanging in the hall beside spatch's shelves; the photo of the iconic storefront of Lyndell's which he gave me for my birthday in 2013 is in the kitchen along with the three-paneled petroglyph print that came home from my family's trip to the Four Corners in 1995. In the bedroom, we have my poster for The Big Broadcast of October 30th, 1938 which I saw on the night in 2009, the plastic-framed print of John William Waterhouse's A Mermaid (1900) which has been a staple of my sleeping spaces since college, and one of Rob's touchstone photos for even longer, in which his tow-headed childhood self sleeps with a cat on his chest. My grandparents' print of Lennie Warren and John Hirsch's Who Will Say Kaddish for Me? (1989) is in the dining room along with a green-haired abstract mermaid that my father brought back from Seattle circa 2000. There are still entire blank walls. My father has anchored our glass-fronted cabinet and we can begin to unpack our fragile things, too.It has just now—fine and dry, the first of the year—begun to snow.
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How careless of him!
It's wonderful hearing all the history in the images you hang.
My wild rabbits and a few of my own angels are now in frames, though seeing them there mostly makes me wish I had bought better frames. Now to work out how to hang them. Until then, they form a sort of improvised altar at the foot of my bed.
I am so happy that you have all these walls of your own.
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He was wild when he was younger!
(In midlife he spent about a decade in holy orders and after he got out of them became known for formal still lifes, but at the time of the self-portrait as estimated by the appearance of the person in it, he was still working as a commercial artist in New York, drawing illustrations for The New Yorker, dressing windows for Lord & Taylor, and designing costumes for Radio City Music Hall. He was born and died in Cambridge, MA and lived for a while in between in Brazil. Before me, I was told when I bought the picture, it belonged for years to a gay couple who lived on Cape Cod. I was able to find weirdly little information on de Menocal in 2012 beyond what it said on the back of the painting and the website for the Smithsonian American Art Museum, but I feel the chances of him having been straight are slim to spit-take.)
[edit a] It is not the most flattering light—he's a little washed out—but this is the self-portrait carefully retrieved from behind my desk and held in its frame with the hand that isn't taking the picture. You can actually see my grandfather's photo of the Torah scrolls reflected in its glass.
[edit b] Definitely not straight:
"Dickie gave Sam several little sketches, among them a bugler boy, a sensitively rendered nude male, and an intricate watercolor of a house, the last with a scrawled note below it: 'Please write soon. Hope its shoulder is out of its cast by now. This is a sketch of an old house here in Bahia. Much love, Mouse.' (Mouse was Sam's nickname for Dickie; Mouse called Sam 'Moose.') There are also several slips of torn paper: On one is scrawled: 'I love you, Sammy—M'; on another scrap is a note that says, 'Dear Sam, I forgot tomorrow was a holiday. If you want to spend the night here, bring some breakfast. I'll be back from the theater not too late. M'; and on yet another, 'Thursday—Sammy, Miss you very much, indeed. M.'"
I really hope "Fifteen Drawings Based on the Writings of Truman Capote" still exists.
[edit c] What do you mean his sister was an absolute legend who died in 2019? And looked like her brother, too, or vice versa.
I had no idea he was famously connected. I just saw him in a consignment shop and liked his face so much that I took him home, which I now gather happened to him when he was alive, too.
It's wonderful hearing all the history in the images you hang.
Thank you. I am sure there will be pictures as we unpack them where all I can remember is "grad school" or "my cousins" or "seemed like a good idea at the time." And I will have to ask
My wild rabbits and a few of my own angels are now in frames, though seeing them there mostly makes me wish I had bought better frames. Now to work out how to hang them. Until then, they form a sort of improvised altar at the foot of my bed.
I hope you can hang them to your satisfaction, but an improvised altar does not sound like a bad thing. The glass-fronted cabinet in its previous incarnation served similarly. I took pictures so that we could reconstruct it, but it will no doubt change no matter what.
I am so happy that you have all these walls of your own.
It's kind of amazing. I don't want to crowd them—and we still need room for more bookshelves—but I want to make constellations. Thank you.
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As usual this time of year, I have snow envy (though at least we're getting rain).
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*hugs*
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Thank you!
As usual this time of year, I have snow envy (though at least we're getting rain).
Will it make it better or worse if I post the pictures I took of the snow?
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There's really something about personalising your place with art to make it feel like home. Which reminds me that I have to some day have someone come to my place and hang a heavy, framed art print that's been wrapped in bubble wrap and leaning between two bits of furniture in my flat for years.
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Done! Apologies for the delay.
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Thank you!
There's really something about personalising your place with art to make it feel like home. Which reminds me that I have to some day have someone come to my place and hang a heavy, framed art print that's been wrapped in bubble wrap and leaning between two bits of furniture in my flat for years.
You should! What is it a print of?
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That's great.
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Congratulations!
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Thank you!
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Thank you!
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Art is important!