The Lovers’ Chronicle 5 October – lost – art by Francesco Guardi – premiere of Christoph Willibald Gluck’s Orfeo ed Euridice

05 October 2023 By Rhett 0 In Love, Poems, Quotes, Random, Songs

Dear Zazie, Here is today’s Lovers’ Chronicle from Mac Tag dedicated to his muse. Follow us on twitter @cowboycoleridge. Rhett

The Lovers’ Chronicle

Dear Muse,

wait, we can do

better than that

once, but now found

arms that hold

desire blooms,

these thoughts

do hold the reins

and pierce my will

yes, please,

continue adagio

all of me, comin’ undone,

more beautiful than any

what i long for in those eyes

yes, but now found

eyes that light

my dreams,

that hold me,

quench my desire,

which thoughts of

does hold the reins

pierce my will,

yes, please,

continue adagio

for clearness does surpass,

all of me, comin’ undone,

more beautiful than any

what i long for in those eyes

set upon
thoughts and dreams
that hold the reins

no longer
conquerable
all chains
cast aside
remorse
carefully secured
for the journey

evidently
gittin’ lost
along the way
was necessary

how else
to make sense
of the rough
and rocky travellin’
and the trail
of broken verse

not exactly sure
the choices made
were justified
by the ends,
but they sure as hell
made it possible

this just in…
there are no guides,
no how to’s,
no damn manuals
for the lost
it is DIY
at it’s best
and worst

s’pose,
doin’ the best you can
is all you can do
sometimes
it was enough
other times,
it was so fuckin’ far
from enough
it was sad

the lucky figure it out
sooner than the unlucky
and the damned
never figure it out

And a poem, original lyrics and a song for you. As you know, I am a lyricist but not a melody maker. So, I wrote these lyrics based on a poem written by the French poet Philippe Desportes, who died on this day in 1606. First the poem, then the lyrics, then the SOD.

Conquest

Those eyes that set my fancy on a fire,
Those crispéd hairs that hold my heart in chains,
Those dainty hands which conquered my desire,
That wit which of my thoughts doth hold the reins:
Those eyes for clearness do the stars surpass,
Those hairs obscure the brightness of the sun,
Those hands more white than ever ivory was,
That wit even to the skies hath glory won.
O eyes that pierce our hearts without remorse!
O hands that conquer more than Caesar’s force!
O wit that turns huge kingdoms upside down!
Then, Love, be judge, what heart may there withstand
Such eyes, such hair, such wit, and such a hand?

Those Eyes

Those eyes that set my thoughts and dreams on fire,
Those winsome lips that hold my heart in chains,
Those lovely legs which conquered my desire,
That wit which of my thoughts does hold the reins

Those eyes that pierce my heart without remorse
Those eyes that conquer my will without force

Those eyes for clearness do the stars surpass,
Those lips make all of my thoughts come undone,
Those legs more beautiful than any lass,
That wit even to the skies has glory won

Those eyes that pierce my heart without remorse
Those eyes that conquer my will without force

Then, Love, what I long for under these skies
Those enchantin’ eyes, those enchantin’ eyes

The Song of the Day is “Those Eyes” by Thirsty Merc

Francesco Guardi
Francesco Guardi portrayed by Pietro Longhi (1764)

Today is the birthday of Francesco Lazzaro Guardi (Venice; October 5, 1712 – January 1, 1793 Venice); painter of veduta, nobleman, and a member of the Venetian School. He is considered to be among the last practitioners, along with his brothers, of the classic Venetian school of painting.

Gallery

“The Island of San Michele, Venice” (1770)

The Bucintoro Festival of Venice (1780–93)

Miracle of a Dominicane Saint (1763), Lugano

Lagoon Looking Towards Murano from the Fondamenta Nuova (1765-70)

Fire in the Oil Depot in San Marcuola (1789)

Frederic Leighton – Orfeo ed Euridice 1864

And today is the premier day of Orfeo ed Euridice (French: Orphée et Eurydice; English: Orpheus and Eurydice); an opera composed by Christoph Willibald Gluck, based on the myth of Orpheus and set to a libretto by Ranieri de’ Calzabigi. It belongs to the genre of the azione teatrale, meaning an opera on a mythological subject with choruses and dancing. The piece was first performed at the Burgtheater in Vienna on 5 October 1762, in the presence of Empress Maria Theresa. Orfeo ed Euridice is the first of Gluck’s “reform” operas, in which he attempted to replace the abstruse plots and overly complex music of opera seria with a “noble simplicity” in both the music and the drama.

The opera is perhaps the most popular of Gluck’s works, and was one of the most influential on subsequent German operas. Variations on its plot—the underground rescue mission in which the hero must control, or conceal, his emotions—can be found in Mozart’s The Magic Flute, Beethoven’s Fidelio, and Wagner’s Das Rheingold.

Though originally set to an Italian libretto, Orfeo ed Euridice owes much to the genre of French opera, particularly in its use of accompanied recitative and a general absence of vocal virtuosity. Indeed, twelve years after the 1762 premiere, Gluck re-adapted the opera to suit the tastes of a Parisian audience at the Académie Royale de Musique with a libretto by Pierre-Louis Moline. This reworking was given the title Orphée et Eurydice, and several alterations were made in vocal casting and orchestration to suit French tastes.

Mac Tag

He loved her, of course, but better than that, he chose her, day after day. Choice: that was the thing. – Sherman Alexie

conquest, cowboy coleridge, francesco guardi, love letter, love lyrics, love poem, love song, muse, philippe desportes, Rhett, sherman alexie, the lovers almanac, thirsty merc, those eyes, twt, Zazie

The Lovers’ Chronicle 4 October – good enough – art by Francesco Solimena, Jean-Francois Millet & Frederic Remington

04 October 2023 By Rhett 0 In Love, Poems, Songs

Dear Zazie, Here is today’s Lovers’ Chronicle from Mac Tag dedicated to his muse. Follow us on twitter @cowboycoleridge. Do you have any love confessions? Rhett

The Lovers’ Chronicle

Dear Muse,

i admit the need,

entangled in you,

i have never admitted

my pretendin’

and posturin’,

nothin’ but bluffin’

i cannot deny

what brings

such satisfaction

to the cravin’ within

therefore, i turn

to face those eyes,

fixed upon me

what can they do

but fill me

as night closes in

admit
what never was
all pretendin’
and posturin’ aside

a longin’
as deep as anything
ever felt by anyone

yet deny i cannot
what my hopeful self
disowns

so i turn my back
and ride away
best let sleepin’
feelin’s lie

as is shall be
good enough

listenin’ to Janis…
i know you are
as i am
to miss you
is to…
i do not laugh
like i did
i do not smile
like it did

a man left lonely
since you have been gone
i remember
those last moments
the way you felt
the way you looked
as you turned to leave

what good is why
at this point
how the hell
will that help
choices made
and not
cowboy up
and live with it
it is what it is

never about pity
no tears in my beer
the verse flows
and good friends
help with gittin’ by
that will surely sustain

still…
with nothin’ left to lose,
i will never fergit
when feelin’ good
was good enough
for you and me

A Confession

I admit the need,
Entangled in her limbs,
I have never admitted
My pretendin’ and posturin’,
Nothin’ but bluffin’,
Nothin’ but coquetry

I long for her, and yet
I cannot deny what
My better self disowns,
For my distraction
Brings such satisfaction
To the cravin’ within.

Therefore I turn my back
On her and ride away
Those questionin’ eyes
That are fixed upon me
What can they do but haunt me
As empty night closes in

The Song of the Day is “Confess My Love” by Leah.

Francesco Solimena
Self-portrait, 1730

Today is the birthday of Francesco Solimena (Canale di Serino, near Avellino; October 4, 1657 – April 3, 1747 Naples); painter of the Baroque era, one of an established family of painters and draughtsmen.

Gallery

Diana and Endymion

The Royal Hunt of Dido and Aeneas

Portrait of a woman
Venus at the Forge of Vulcan, 1704
Madonna and Child
Noli me tangere
The Assumption
The Annunciation
Jacob’s Dream

The Abduction of Orithyia

Jean-François Millet
Portrait of Millet by Nadar. Date unknown.

Today is the birthday of Jean-François Millet (Gruchy, Gréville-Hague, Normandy; October 4, 1814 – January 20, 1875 Barbizon); painter and one of the founders of the Barbizon school in rural France. Millet is noted for his scenes of peasant farmers. He can be categorized as part of the Realism art movement.

In 1841, Millet married Pauline-Virginie Ono, and they moved to Paris. After rejections at the Salon of 1843 and Pauline’s death by consumption, Millet returned again to Cherbourg. In 1845 Millet moved to Le Havre with Catherine Lemaire, whom he would marry in a civil ceremony in 1853.

Gallery

The Sheepfold. In this painting by Millet, the waning moon throws a mysterious light across the plain between the villages of Barbizon and Chailly. The Walters Art Museum.

Woman Baking Bread, 1854. Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo.

The Sower, 1850. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

The Gleaners, 1857. Musée d’Orsay, Paris

The Angelus, 1857–59. Musée d’Orsay, Paris

Hunting Birds at Night, 1874, Philadelphia Museum of Art

The Potato Harvest (1855) The Walters Art Museum.

Portrait of Louis-Alexandre Marolles, 1841, Princeton University Art Museum
Going to Work, 1851–53
Shepherdess Seated on a Rock, 1856
Bringing home the calf born in the fields, ca. 1860, Princeton University Art Museum
Shepherd Tending His Flock, early 1860s
Potato Planters, 1861
The Goose Girl, 1863
The Coast of Gréville, undated National Museum, Stockholm

Frederic Remington

Today is the birthday of Frederic Sackrider Remington (Canton, New York; October 4, 1861 – December 26, 1909 Ridgefield, Connecticut); painter, illustrator, sculptor, and writer who specialized in depictions of the Old American West, specifically concentrating on the last quarter of the 19th-century American West and images of cowboys, American Indians, and the U. S. Cavalry.

Remington married Eva Caten in 1884 and they returned to Kansas City. She was unhappy with his saloon life and was unimpressed by the sketches of saloon inhabitants that Remington regularly showed her. When his real occupation became known, she left him and returned to Ogdensburg. With his wife gone and with business doing badly, Remington started to sketch and paint in earnest, and bartered his sketches for essentials. With financial backing from his Uncle Bill, Remington was able to pursue his art career and support his wife.

Gallery

Remington in the football uniform of the day, canvas jacket and flannel trousers

Arizona cow-boy (1901 lithograph)

Aiding a Comrade, 1890

The Blanket Signal, 1894/1898

Shotgun Hospitality, 1908, oil on canvas, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire

The Stampede; Horse Thieves, 1909. Museum of Fine Arts, Houston

Remington estate ‘Endion’ in New Rochelle, New York. The Gothic-revival cottage was designed by Alexander J. Davis.

The Lookout

A New Year on the Cimarron, 1903, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston

The Mier Expedition- The Drawing of the Black Bean, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston

The Smoke Signal; 1905; Oil on canvas; Amon Carter Museum of American Art, Fort Worth, Texas, Amon G. Carter Collection; 1961.250

The Emigrants

The Flight

“The Right of the Road” — A Hazardous Encounter on a Rocky Mountain Trail; 1900; Oil on canvas; Amon Carter Museum of American Art, Fort Worth, Texas, Amon G. Carter Collection

The Hunters’ Supper
The Outlier
The Parley
Fight for the Waterhole
Indians Simulating Buffalo
The Scout: Friends or Foes?, 1902–1905, oil on canvas, Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, Massachusetts
Remington’s Ridden Down (1905–1906) depicts an Indian in defeat with his horse exhausted, stoically calling the spirits while awaiting his fate
Episode of the Buffalo Gun
The Hussar
The Gendarme
Mounted Indian Scout
Uhlan
Scouts Climbing a Mountain
The Old Stage-Coach of the Plains, 1901
A Map in the Sand
A Dash for the Timber, 1889, depicts cowboys in the Southwest shooting at Apaches in the rear. One of the eight riders is already wounded but remains on his horse.
His First Lesson, 1903
The Call for Help

Mac Tag

a confession, confess my love, cowboy coleridge, francesco solimena, frederic remington, jean-francois millet, leah, leah mchenry, love letter, love poem, love song, muse, Rhett, the lovers almanac, twt, Zazie

The Lovers’ Chronicle 3 October – tides – art by Henry Lerolle, Gustave Loiseau, Pierre Bonnard, & A.Y. Jackson – birth of Thomas Wolfe

03 October 2023 By Rhett 1 In Love, Random, Songs

Dear Zazie, Here is today’s Lovers’ Chronicle from Mac Tag dedicated to his muse. Follow us on twitter @cowboycoleridge. Are you fallin’ or flyin’?

Special shout out to my friend Karen D. Lioness @DeadLioness for inspiration.

Rhett

The Lovers’ Almanac

Dear Muse,

goin’ where i should

doin’ what i should

bein’ who i should be

a story tellin’ me

it is all right

missed feelin’ free,

quit actin’ like i

thought i should,

back to bein’ me

never saw it comin’

till it was here

it happens

when it should

what was denied

was only delayed

goin’ where i should not go

doin’ what i should not do

bein’ who i should not be

a voice told me it is all wrong

another, told me it is all right

funny how fallin’ feels like flyin’

missin’ feelin’ that i am free,

quit actin’ like i thought i should

went on back to bein’ me

never meant to hurt no one

just had to have my way

such a thing as too much fun,

this must be the price to pay

funny how fallin’ feels like flyin’

never see it comin’ till it is gone

all happens for a reason

even when it is wrong,

especially when it is wrong

sing us a song
with echoes
of a forgotten time
now hungered for

sing us a song
overwhelm us
with the sights
and sounds…

all dressed up
for cocktail parties,
sidewalk cafes,
così fan tutte,
walkin’ through
the marble halls
of forever

sing us a song
to remind us
that we can go back
that what was denied
has only been delayed

that the tide comes back

thanks Karen

it is not a matter
of lookin’
in the wrong place
it is the fallacy
of ever havin’ looked
in the first place

“Would you dive head first
into what could actually be,
or still do nothing?
I’m just wondering.”

oh my dear deadlioness,
that is the great question
i ebb and flow on the answer
right now, i am ebbin’

“The tide comes back
to land eventually, Mac Tag!”

indeed they do
and always have
but it seems like
the time between
the ebbs and flows
is gittin’ longer

Fallin’ in love with you
sure felt like flyin’
Now fallin’ is all I feel

Today lyrics and a song for you. This was inspired by my friend Jett. This is one of his theme songs. Lyrics by Stephen Bruton and Gary Nicholson from the Crazy Heart soundtrack.

Fallin’ and Flyin’

I was goin’ where I shouldn’t go
Seein’ who I shouldn’t see
Doin’ what I shouldn’t do
And bein’ who I shouldn’t be
A little voice told me it’s all wrong
Another voice told me it’s all right
I used to think that I was strong
But lately I just lost the fight

It’s funny how fallin’ feels like flyin’
Even for a little while
Funny how fallin’ feels like flyin’
Even for a little while

I got tired of being good
start missing to feel that i am free
Stopped actin’ like I thought I should
Went on back to bein’ me
I never meant to hurt no one
I just had to have my way
If there’s such a thing as too much fun
This must be the price to pay

It’s funny how fallin’ feels like flyin’
Even for a little while
Funny how fallin’ feels like flyin’
Even for a little while

Never see it comin’ till it’s gone
It all happens for a reason
Even when it’s wrong
Especially when it’s wrong

It’s funny how fallin’ feels like flyin’
Even for a little while
Funny how fallin’ feels like flyin’
Even for a little while

I was goin’ where I shouldn’t go
Seein’ who I shouldn’t see
Doin’ what I shouldn’t do
And bein’ who I shouldn’t be

The Song of the Day is “Fallin’ and Flyin'” sung by Jeff Bridges

Henry Lerolle (1895) by Pierre-Auguste Renoir

Today is the birthday of Henry Lerolle (Paris; 3 October 1848 – 22 April 1929); painter, art collector and patron. He studied at Académie Suisse. His work was exhibited at the Paris Salon in 1868, 1885, and 1895. Lerolle was made a Chevalier, Légion d’honneur in 1889. Lerolle’s paintings are in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, the Musée d’Orsay and the Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco.

Gallery

20221003_201425

Toilette

Bagneuses

The Organ Rehearsal (1887)

femme affichant une lettre

***************************************************************************

Gustave Loiseau

Port de Dieppe (1926)

Today is the birthday of Gustave Loiseau (3 October 1865 in Paris – 10 October 1935 in Paris); Post-Impressionist painter, remembered above all for his landscapes and scenes of Paris streets.

Galerie

Œuvres attribuées à Gustave Loiseau
Portrait d’Émile Jourdan (vers 1900), localisation inconnue.
Rochers dominant la mer en Bretagne (vers 1906), localisation inconnue.
Port d’Henri IV, Paris (1918), localisation inconnue.
La rue de village, Saint-Cyr-du-Vaudreuil (1923), localisation inconnue.
Le Port de Dieppe (1926), localisation inconnue.
Paris, Place de l’Étoile, Avenue Wagram (1929 ou 1930), localisation inconnue.
Vue de Pont-Aven, localisation inconnue.
Rue de village avec charrette, localisation inconnue.
Le 14 juillet sur la rue de Clignancourt à Paris, vers 1925, musée Thyssen-Bornemizsa (Madrid).

Pierre Bonnard
Portrait photograph of Pierre Bonnard, c.1899, Musée d’Orsay

Today is the birthday of Pierre Bonnard (Fontenay-aux-Roses, Hauts-de-Seine; 3 October 1867 — 23 January 1947 La Route de Serra Capeou, Le Cannet, French Riviera); painter and printmaker, as well as a founding member of the Post-Impressionist group of avant-garde painters Les Nabis. Bonnard preferred to work from memory, using drawings as a reference, and his paintings are often characterized by a dreamlike quality. The intimate domestic scenes, for which he is perhaps best known, often include his wife Marthe de Meligny.

Gallery

Illustration for a poem by Paul Verlaine, 1900

Claude Terrasse vers 1895, par Renoir (huile sur toile, coll. privée).

Andrée Bonnard avec ses chiens (1890, huile sur toile, 180 × 80 cm, coll. privée).

Autoportrait (1889, huile sur bois, 21,5 × 16 cm, coll. privée).

Portrait d’Édouard Vuillard par Vallotton (1893, huile sur panneau, coll. privée).
- « Le Talisman » de Sérusier.
Bonnard est très frappé par la Vision après le sermon de Gauguin (1888, huile sur toile, 72 × 91 cm, Galerie nationale d’Écosse)²⁰.

L’Exercice (1890, huile sur toile, 23 × 31 cm, coll. privée).

La Partie de croquet (1892, huile sur toile, 130 × 162,5 cm, Orsay).
- Paravent (1889, détrempe sur coton teint, panneaux de 160 × 54,5 cm, coll.privée).
- Deux chiens jouant (1891, 36 × 39,5 cm, musée de Southampton).
La Revue blanche (1894, lithographie, 80 × 62 cm, coll. privée).

Le Corsage à carreaux (1892, huile sur toile, 61 × 33 cm, Musée d’Orsay).

France-Champagne (1891, lithographie, 78 × 50 cm, coll. privée).
- Scène de famille (1893, lithographie, coll. privée).
- La Femme au parapluie (1894, lithographie, 32,5 × 25 cm, coll. privée).
- La petite blanchisseuse (1896, lithographie, 30 × 19 cm, coll. privée.
- Le Boulevard (1896, lithographie, 17 × 43 cm, coll. privée).
- La Promenade des Nourrices (1895-1897, panneaux lithographiés, 150 × 200 cm, National Gallery of Victoria).
L’Omnibus (1895, huile sur toile, 59 × 41 cm, coll. privée).

La Fenêtre (1925, huile sur toile, 88,5 × 108,5 cm, Tate Modern).
- La Baignade (1893, huile sur toile, 35 × 27 cm, coll. privée).
- Femme remontant ses bas (1893, coll. privée).
- L’Indolente (1899, huile sur toile, 92 × 108 cm, Orsay).
Le Repas des enfants (1895, huile sur carton monté sur bois, 60 × 74 cm, Metropolitan Museum of Art).

Le dessin ornant ce poème de Verlaine fait écho à L’Indolente.

La Femme au perroquet (1910) condense des visions du Maghreb et de la Côte d’Azur⁸⁶ (huile sur toile, 104 × 122 cm, coll. privée).

La place de Clichy vue de l’intérieur de la brasserie Wepler (1912, huile sur toile, 139 × 205 cm, musée de Besançon).

Marthe sur La Terrasse à Vernon (1923, huile sur toile, 120 × 105 cm, coll. privée).

L’Homme et la Femme (1900, huile sur toile, 115 × 72 cm, Musée d’Orsay).

La Cheminée (1916, huile sur toile, 81 × 111 cm, coll. privée).

Jeunes femmes au jardin (Renée Monchaty et Marthe Bonnard) (1921-1946, huile sur toile, 60,5 × 30 cm, coll. privée).
- Le Pont des Arts (1905, huile sur toile, 55 × 70 cm, coll. privée).
- La Loge (1908, huile sur toile, 91 × 120 cm, Musée d’Orsay).
- La Glace du cabinet de toilette (1908, huile sur toile, 120 × 97 cm, Musée des Beaux-Arts Pouchkine).
- Le Balcon bleu (1910, huile sur toile, 31,5 × 43,5 cm, Courtauld Gallery).
- Le Jardin au crépuscule (vers 1901, huile sur toile, 37 × 44 cm, coll. privée).
- La Terrasse à Grasse (1912, huile sur toile, 125 × 134 cm, coll. privée).
La Symphonie pastorale (1916, huile sur toile, 130 × 160 cm, Orsay).

Assiette de fraises (1922, huile sur toile, 29 × 39 cm, coll. privée).

Étienne Clémentel, Monet dans son jardin, vers 1917.

La Porte-fenêtre au chien (1927, huile sur toile, 107 × 63 cm, coll. privée).

Le Débarcadère (vers 1934, huile sur toile, coll. privée).

Paysage de la Côte d’Azur (1943, huile sur toile, coll. privée).

Baigneurs à la fin du jour (1945, huile sur toile, 48 × 69 cm, Le Cannet, Musée Bonnard).
- Le Boxeur (1931, huile sur toile, 53 × 74 cm, coll. privée).
- Autoportrait au col ouvert (1933, huile sur toile, 53 × 36 cm, Fond. Bemberg).
- Autoportrait dans la glace (1939, huile sur toile, 56 × 68,5 cm, coll. privée).
- Autoportrait (1945, huile sur toile, 55 × 46 cm, Fondation Bemberg).
Le Cheval de cirque (1936-1946, huile sur toile, 94 × 118 cm, coll. privée).

L’Amandier en fleur (1946-1947, huile sur toile, 55 × 37,5 cm, Musée national d’Art moderne).

La villa Le Bosquet, aujourd’hui classée monument historique.

Marthe a soixante ans quand est peint ce Nu à la baignoire (1931, huile sur toile, 120 × 110 cm, Musée national d’Art moderne).

Iris et lilas (1920, huile sur toile, 57 × 63 cm, Fond. Bemberg).
- Femmes au chien (1891, huile sur toile, 40 × 32 cm, Clark Art Institute).
- La Table de toilette (1908, huile sur panneau, 52 × 45 cm, musée d’Orsay).
- La Terrasse (1918, huile sur toile, 159 × 249 cm, The Phillips Collection).
- Corbeille et assiette de fruits sur la nappe à carreaux rouges (1939, huile sur toile, 58 × 58 cm, Chicago).
- L’Atelier au mimosa (1938-1946, huile sur toile, 127 × 127 cm, musée national d’Art moderne).
- Nu dans le bain au petit chien (1941-1946, huile sur toile, 123 × 152 cm, Carnegie Museum of Art).
Vision mobile

La Lampe (vers 1899, huile sur bois, 54 × 70,5 cm, FIA, Flint, Michigan).

Nu à contre-jour (1908, huile sur toile, 125 × 109 cm, Musées royaux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique).

La Fenêtre ouverte (1921, huile sur toile, 118 × 96 cm, The Phillips Collection, Washington, DC).

La Sieste (1900, huile sur toile, 109 × 132 cm, Melbourne, National Gallery of Victoria).
- Daphnis et Chloé (coll. privée).
- Effet de glace (1909, huile sur toile, 73 × 84,5 cm, coll. privée).
- Nu accroupi au tub (1918, huile sur toile, 85 × 74 cm, Musée d’Orsay).
- Nu rose à la baignoire (vers 1924, huile sur toile, 106 × 96 cm, coll. privée).
- Le Bain (1925, huile sur toile, 120,5 × 86 cm, Tate gallery).
Le Compotier (1924, huile sur toile, 74 × 31 cm, coll. privée).

La Salle à manger à la campagne (1935, huile sur toile, 127 × 135 cm, Musée Guggenheim).
- La nappe à carreaux rouges (1910, huile sur toile, 83 × 85 cm, coll. privée).
- Intérieur (1913, huile sur toile, 56,5 × 63 cm, coll. privée).
- La Table (1925, huile sur toile, 103 × 74,5 cm, Tate).
- Intérieur blanc (1932, huile sur toile, 109 × 162 cm, Musée de Grenoble).
- Nu dans un intérieur (1935, huile sur toile, 134 × 69 cm, National Gallery of Art).
- Paysage avec saule et trois personnages (1912, huile sur toile, 73 × 69 cm, coll. privée).
- La Sieste ou Soir (1914, huile sur toile, 84 × 113 cm, Musée des Beaux-Arts de Berne).
- La Palme (1926, huile sur toile, 114 × 147 cm, The Phillips Collection).
- La Côte d’azur (1924, huile sur toile, 79 × 76 cm, The Phillips Collection).
- Paysage d’automne (1932, huile sur toile support carton, 43 × 66 cm, coll. privée).
- Le Jardin à midi (1943, huile sur toile, coll. privée).
- La Salle à manger à la campagne (1913, huile sur toile, 165 × 205 cm, Minneapolis Institute of Art).
- La Porte ouverte à Vernon (1921, huile sur toile, 114 × 112 cm, The Phillips Collection).
- La salle à manger sur le jardin (1930, huile sur toile, 159 × 114 cm, Museum of Modern Art).
Portraits et autoportraits

Autoportrait de l’artiste par lui-même (1930, crayon et gouache sur papier, 65 × 50 cm, coll. privée).

Portrait de Misia Godebska (1908, huile sur toile, 145 × 114 cm, Thyssen-Bornemisza).
- Petite fille au chat (1899, huile sur carton, 50 × 49 cm, coll. privée).
- La Lettre (1906, huile sur toile, 55 × 47,5 cm, National Gallery of Art).
- Femme accoudée avec chien et nature morte (1917, huile sur papier marouflée sur toile, 61 × 50 cm, coll. privée).
- Les Frères Bernheim jeunes (1920, huile sur toile, 166 × 155 cm, Orsay).
- Portrait d’Ambroise Vollard au chat (1924, huile sur toile, 96,5 × 111 cm, Petit Palais).
Affiche de 1891 pour France-Champagne.
- Maison dans la cour (1899, Quelques aspects de la vie de Paris, musée Van Gogh).
- Coin de rue (1899, Quelques aspects de la vie de Paris, musée Van Gogh).
- Rue, le soir, sous la pluie (1899, Quelques aspects de la vie de Paris, musée Van Gogh).
- Le Marchand de quatre saisons (1899, Quelques aspects de la vie de Paris, musée Van Gogh).
- L’Arc de triomphe (1899, Quelques aspects de la vie de Paris, musée Van Gogh).
Eau-forte illustrant Dingo d’Octave Mirbeau (1924, Metropolitan Museum of Art).

Couverture d’une chanson (1898, Metropolitan Museum of Art).

Une page de Daphnis et Chloé (1902, MET).

Coin de table (1935, huile sur toile, 67 × 63,5 cm, Musée national d’Art moderne).

Couverture du Petit Solfège de Claude Terrasse (1893, lithographie, coll. privée).

Le Verger (1899, lithographie).

Avenue du Bois (1899, lithographie).

Maurice Denis, Hommage à Cézanne (1900) (De gauche à droite : Redon, Vuillard, Mellerio, Vollard, Denis, Sérusier, Ranson, Roussel, Bonnard et Marthe Denis).

*********************************************************************************************************************************************************

A. Y. Jackson
Jackson at work in Studio Building in Toronto

Today is the birthday of Alexander Young Jackson (Montreal; October 3, 1882 – April 5, 1974 Kleinburg, Ontario); Canadian painter and a founding member of the Group of Seven. Jackson made a significant contribution to the development of art in Canada, and was successful in bringing together the artists of Montreal and Toronto.

Gallery

A Quebec farm,

Red Maple (1914), by A.Y. Jackson

Group of seven artists: Frederick Varley, A. Y. Jackson, Lawren Harris, Fairley, Frank Johnston (artist), Arthur Lismer, and J. E. H. MacDonald

Cathedral at Ypres, Belgium
House of Ypres
Gas Attack, Lievin
Vimy Ridge from Souchez Valley
The Pimple, Evening (1918)

Thomas Wolfe
1937 portrait by Carl Van Vechten

Today is the birthday of Thomas Clayton Wolfe (Asheville, North Carolina; October 3, 1900 – September 15, 1938 Baltimore, Maryland); novelist of the early twentieth century.

Wolfe wrote four lengthy novels as well as many short stories, dramatic works, and novellas. He is known for mixing highly original, poetic, rhapsodic, and impressionistic prose with autobiographical writing. His books, written and published from the 1920s to the 1940s, reflect on American culture and the mores of that period, filtered through Wolfe’s sensitive, sophisticated, and analytical perspective.

After Wolfe’s death, contemporary author William Faulkner said that Wolfe may have been the greatest talent of their generation for aiming higher than any other writer. Wolfe’s influence extends to the writings of Beat Generation writer Jack Kerouac, and of authors Ray Bradbury and Philip Roth. He remains an important writer in modern American literature, as one of the first masters of autobiographical fiction, and is considered North Carolina’s most famous writer.

He sailed to Europe in October 1924. From England he traveled to France, Italy and Switzerland. On his return voyage in 1925, he met Aline Bernstein (1880–1955), a scene designer for the Theatre Guild. Twenty years his senior, she was married to a successful stockbroker with whom she had two children. In October 1925, she and Wolfe became lovers and remained so for five years. Their affair was turbulent and sometimes combative, but she exerted a powerful influence, encouraging and funding his writing.

Of Time and the River (1935)

His own power and magic — overwhelmed him for a moment with a feeling of the purest, highest, and most glorious happiness that life can yield — the happiness that is at once the most selfish and the most selfless — the happiness of the artist when he sees that his work has been found good, has for itself a place of honour, glory, and proud esteem in the hearts of men, and has wrought upon their lives the spell of its enchantment. At that instant he saw, in one blaze of light, an image of unutterable conviction, the reason why the artist works and lives and has his being — the reward he seeks — the only reward he really cares about, without which there is nothing. It is to snare the spirits of mankind in nets of magic, to make his life prevail through his creation, to wreak the vision of his life, the rude and painful substance of his own experience, into the congruence of blazing and enchanted images that are themselves the core of life, the essential pattern whence all other things proceed, the kernel of eternity.

Play us a tune on an unbroken spinet, and let the bells ring, let the bells ring! Play music now: play us a tune on an unbroken spinet. Do not make echoes of forgotten time, do not strike music from old broken keys, do not make ghosts with faded tinklings on the yellowed board; but play us a tune on an unbroken spinet, play lively music when the instrument was new, let us see Mozart playing in the parlor, and let us hear the sound of the ladies’ voices. But more than that; waken the turmoil of forgotten streets, let us hear their sounds again unmuted, and unchanged by time, throw the light of Wednesday morning on the Third Crusade, and let us see Athens on an average day.

They belonged to that futile, desolate, and forsaken horde who felt that all will be well with their lives, that all the power they lack themselves will be supplied, and all the anguish, fury, and unrest, the confusion and the dark damnation of man’s soul can magically be healed if only they eat bran for breakfast.

You Can’t Go Home Again (1940)

His enemy was time. Or perhaps it was his friend. One never knows for sure.

Few buildings are vast enough to hold the sound of time, and now it seemed to George that there was a superb fitness in the fact that the one which held it better than all others should be a railroad station. For here, as nowhere else on earth, men were brought together for a moment at the beginning or end of their innumerable journeys, here one saw their greetings and farewells, here, in a single instant, one got the entire picture of the human destiny. Men came and went, they passed and vanished, and all were moving through the moments of their lives to death, all made small tickings in the sound of time–but the voice of time remained aloof and unperturbed, a drowsy and eternal murmur below the immense and distant roof.
- Book I, Ch. 5: The Hidden Terror

Perhaps this is our strange and haunting paradox in America–that we are fixed and certain only when we are in movement. At any rate, this is how it seemed to young George Webber, who was never so assured of his purpose as when he was going somewhere on a train. And he never had the sense of home so much as when he felt that he was going there. It was only when he got there that his homelessness began.
- Book I, Ch. 5: The Hidden Terror

To a future world,— inhabited, no doubt, by a less acute and understanding race of men, — all this may seem a trifle strange. If so, that will be because the world of the future will have forgotten what it was like to live in 1929.
- Book II, Ch. 14: Zero Hour

He who lets himself be whored by fashion will be whored by time.
- Book II, Ch. 21: Love is Not Enough

Now they saw it — its newness, its raw crudeness, and its strength — and turned their shuddering eyes away. “Give us back our well-worn husk,” they said, “where we were so snug and comfortable.” And then they tried word magic. “Conditions are fundamentally sound,” they said — by which they meant to reassure themselves that nothing now was really changed, that things were as they always had been, and as they always would be, forever and ever, amen. But they were wrong. They did not know that you can’t go home again. America had come to the end of something and to the beginning of something else. But no one knew what that something else would be and out of the change and uncertainly and the wrongness of the leaders grew fear and desperation and before long hunger stalked the streets. Through it all there was still only one certainty, though no one saw it yet. America was still America, and whatever new thing came of it would be American.
- Book III: An End and a Beginning

His enemy was time. Or perhaps it was his friend. One never knows for sure.
- Book III, Ch. 26: The Wounded Faun

Go, seeker, if you will, throughout the land and you will find us burning in the night.
- Book IV, Ch. 31: The Promise of America

You can’t go back home to your family, back home to your childhood, … back home to a young man’s dreams of glory and of fame … back home to places in the country, back home to the old forms and systems of things which once seemed everlasting but which are changing all the time — back home to the escapes of Time and Memory.
- Book VI, Ch. 44: The Way of No Return

To believe that new monsters will arise as vicious as the old, to believe that the great Pandora’s Box of human frailty, once opened, will never show a diminution of its ugly swarm, is to help, by just that much, to make it so forever.
- Book VII, Ch. 47: Ecclesiasticus

Mac Tag

I have done a heckuva lot of fallin and, oh my, there were times when it sure felt like flyin! – Jett

a y jackson, cowboy coleridge, crazy heart, fallin and flyin, gary nicholson, gustave loiseau, henry lerolle, jeff bridges, Jett, love letter, love lyrics, love song, muse, pierre bonnard, Rhett, stephen bruton, the lovers almanac, the lovers chronicle, thomas wolfe, twt, Zazie

The Lovers’ Chronicle 2 October – as is – photography by mac tag – verse by Wallace Stevens – birth of Graham Greene

02 October 2023 By Rhett 1 In Love, Random, Songs

Dear Zazie, Here is today’s Lovers’ Chronicle from Mac Tag dedicated to his muse. Follow us on twitter @cowboycoleridge. Who do you dream about? Rhett

The Lovers’ Chronicle

Dear Muse,

mactagasis the signs are here
try somethin’ different

as it should be
write some verse,
sing a song for you,
sketch our memories

bein’ lost was necessary
in order to be found

been waitin’ all this time
to write a story

i knew the endin’ and now
i know the beginnin’

shall we begin…

late night
ponderin’,
of as is

sittin’ on the edge of the bed
and let float upon the silence
‘did you let it all slip away,
on purpose, or because
you had no idea
what the hell
you were doin”

‘was the not knowin’
just part of bein’ lost
and was it necessary
to be lost in order
to be found’

tryin’ to write a book
that would not come
i knew the endin’
and i was tryin’
to write to it

took me
a long dang time to figure out
i had to write the beginnin’ first

shall we begin…

sevencross drove on out
to the seven cross
relish the chilly night air
stare at the stars
that never fail
turn the words she said
over and over

the signs are there
plain as day
maybe time to try
somethin’ different,
do nothin’
as opposed
to divin’ head first
into what cannot be

a fallin’ star
streaks across the sky
over the seven cross
make a wish
one never wished before
you cannot be
what you are not

when the sorrow
outweighs the beauty,
best fergit about
saddlin’ that horse again

‘neath the big night sky
over the seven cross
as it should be…
write some verse,
sing a song for you
sketch your memory
accept as is

A poem for you on a theme we love to explore here at TLC. This was inspired by Hamlet’s famous soliloquy from Shakespeare‘s play Hamlet. It is called “To Dream”:

To Dream

Ah, to sleep, perchance to dream
To dream where two can be as one
To dream of the one
To dream of losin’ yourself in lastin’ embrace
To dream of lingerin’…
To dream of somethin’ full
To dream of somethin’ complete and never endin’
To dream of lettin’ go and goin’ places you have never been
To dream of bein’ engulfed in a waves and lettin’ those waves carry you away
To dream of fallin’ asleep in the arms of the one and awakenin’ in those same arms.
To dream of knowin’ you will be caught
Ah yes, to sleep, perchance to dream
May the totem never wobble

Today is the birthday of Wallace Stevens (Reading, Pennsylvania; October 2, 1879 – August 2, 1955 Hartford, Connecticut); Modernist poet. He was born in Reading, Pennsylvania, educated at Harvard and then New York Law School, and he spent most of his life working as an executive for an insurance company in Hartford, Connecticut. He won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry for his Collected Poems in 1955.

In 1904 Stevens met Elsie Viola Kachel (1886–1963, also known as Elsie Moll), who had worked as a saleswoman, milliner, and stenographer. After a long courtship, he married her in 1909 over the objections of his parents, who considered her lower-class. As The New York Times reported in an article in 2009, “Nobody from his family attended the wedding, and Stevens never again visited or spoke to his parents during his father’s lifetime.”

Verse

Peter Quince at the Clavier (1915)

Just as my fingers on these keys
Make music, so the self-same sounds
On my spirit make a music, too.
Music is feeling, then, not sound;
And thus it is that what I feel,
Here in this room, desiring you,
Thinking of your blue-shadowed silk,
Is music.

In the green water, clear and warm,
Susanna lay.
She searched
The touch of springs,
And found
Concealed imaginings.
She sighed,
For so much melody.

Upon the bank, she stood
In the cool
Of spent emotions.
She felt, among the leaves,
The dew
Of old devotions.

She walked upon the grass,
Still quavering.
The winds were like her maids,
On timid feet,
Fetching her woven scarves,
Yet wavering.

A breath upon her hand
Muted the night.
She turned —
A cymbal crashed,
Amid roaring horns.

Beauty is momentary in the mind —
The fitful tracing of a portal;
But in the flesh it is immortal.
The body dies; the body’s beauty lives.
So evenings die, in their green going,
A wave, interminably flowing.
So gardens die, their meek breath scenting
The cowl of winter, done repenting.
So maidens die, to the auroral
Celebration of a maiden’s choral.

Susanna’s music touched the bawdy strings
Of those white elders; but, escaping,
Left only Death’s ironic scraping.
Now, in its immortality, it plays
On the clear viol of her memory,
And makes a constant sacrament of praise.

Death is the mother of beauty

“Sunday Morning”

And today is the birthday of Graham Greene (Henry Graham Greene; St John’s House boarding house of Berkhamsted School, Hertfordshire, England 2 October 1904 – 3 April 1991 Vevey, Switzerland); writer and journalist, in my opinion, one of the leading English novelists of the 20th century. Combining literary acclaim with widespread popularity, Greene acquired a reputation early in his lifetime as a major writer, both of serious Catholic novels, and of thrillers (or “entertainments” as he termed them). He was shortlisted, in 1966 and 1967, for the Nobel Prize for Literature. Through 67 years of writing, which included over 25 novels, he explored the conflicting moral and political issues of the modern world. He was awarded the 1968 Shakespeare Prize and the 1981 Jerusalem Prize.

Greene was an agnostic, but was baptised into the Catholic faith in 1926 after meeting his future wife Vivien Dayrell-Browning. They were married on 15 October 1927 at St Mary’s Church, Hampstead, north London.

In his discussions with Father Trollope, the priest to whom he went for instruction in Catholicism, Greene argued with the cleric “on the ground of dogmatic atheism”, as Greene’s primary difficulty with religion was what he termed the “if” surrounding God’s existence. He found, however, that “after a few weeks of serious argument the ‘if’ was becoming less and less improbable”, and Greene was converted and baptised after vigorous arguments initially with the priest in which he defended atheism, or at least the “if” of agnosticism. Late in life, Greene called himself a “Catholic agnostic”.

Beginning in 1946, Greene had an affair with Catherine Walston, the wife of Harry Walston, a wealthy farmer and future life peer. That relationship is generally thought to have informed the writing of The End of the Affair, published in 1951, when the relationship came to an end. Greene left his family in 1947, but Vivien refused to grant him a divorce, in accordance with Catholic teaching, and they remained married until Greene’s death in 1991.

Greene lived with manic depression (bipolar disorder). He had a history of depression, which had a profound effect on his writing and personal life. In a letter to his wife, Vivien, he told her that he had “a character profoundly antagonistic to ordinary domestic life,” and that “unfortunately, the disease is also one’s material”.

The End of the Affair (1951)

If we had not been taught how to interpret the story of the Passion, would we have been able to say from their actions alone whether it was jealous Judas or the cowardly Peter who loved Christ?

I sat on my bed and I said to God: You’ve taken her, but you haven’t got me yet. I know Your cunning. It’s You who take us up to a high place and offer us the whole universe. You’re a devil, God, tempting us to leap. But I don’t want Your peace and I don’t want Your love. I wanted something very simple and very easy: I wanted Sarah for a lifetime and You took her away. With Your great schemes You ruin our happiness like a harvester ruins a mouse’s nest: I hate You, God, I hate You as though You existed.

A story has no beginning or end: arbitrarily one chooses that moment from which to look back or from which to look ahead.
- Bk. 1, ch. 1

To me comfort is like the wrong memory at the wrong place or time: if one is lonely one prefers discomfort.
- Bk. 1, ch. 1

Sometimes I see myself reflected too closely in other men for comfort, and then I have an enormous wish to believe in the saints, in heroic virtue.
- Bk. 1, ch. 1

I was trying to write a book that simply would not come. I did my daily five hundred words, but the characters never began to live. So much in writing depends on the superficiality of one’s days. One may be preoccupied with shopping and income tax returns and change conversations, but the stream of the unconscious continues to flow undisturbed, solving problems, planning ahead: one sits down sterile and dispirited at the desk, and suddenly the words come as though from the air: the situations that seemed blocked in a hopeless impasse move forward: the work has been done while one slept or shopped or talked with friends. But this hate and suspicion, this passion to destroy went deeper than the book – the unconscious worked on it instead…
- Bk. 1, ch. 2

And all that time I couldn’t work. So much of a novelist’s writing, as I have said, takes place in the unconscious: in those depths the last word is written before the first word appears on the paper. We remember details of our story, we do not invent them. War didn’t trouble those deep sea-caves, but not there was something of infinitely greater importance to me than war, than my novel – the end of love. That was being worked out not, like a story: the pointed word that sent her crying, that seemed to have come so spontaneously to the lips, had been sharpened in those underwater caverns. My novel lagged, but my love hurried like inspiration to the end.
- Bk. 1, ch. 6

The sense of unhappiness is so much easier to convey than that of happiness. In misery we seem aware of our own existence, even though it may be in the form of a monstrous egotism: this pain of mine is individual, this nerve that winces belong to me and to no other. But happiness annihilates us: we lose our identity.
- Bk. 2, ch. 1

As long as one suffers one lives.
- Bk. 5, ch. 1

Mac Tag

cowboy coleridge, dreams, fleetwood mac, hamlet, love letter, love song, love story, muse, Rhett, shakespeare, soliloquy, the lovers almanac, the lovers chronicle, to dream, twt, wallace stevens, Zazie

The Lovers’ Chronicle 1 October – or not – art by Nicolaes Pieterszoon Berchem

01 October 2023 By Rhett 0 In Random

Dear Zazie, Here is today’s Lovers’ Chronicle from Mac Tag dedicated to his muse. Follow us on twitter @cowboycoleridge. Rhett

The Lovers’ Chronicle

Dear Muse,

could be or

everything remembered

walkin’ towards long ago

the heart aches where it was broken

and the hurt remembers its scars

but the body remembers the dance,

and the arms remember holdin’ on

and you remember the reason

you cared, gave so much

so you walk towards this

well, or not
for sure

lookin’ back
it was kinda like
a homecomin’
and a farewell tour

i think i understand
what TW meant

too much has changed
……

(your voice)
i was touched
and felt everything

lost, for certain
without any idea
what i was doin’

not sure why
i kept searchin’
just glad i did
because now
i am found
here with you

another mixed emotions trip
passin’ by landmarks
of birth and death
memories, both
happy and tragic,
compete for attention

affirmation, with a hug
and an i love you,
of a lifelong friendship
and new friendships
born of good whiskey
and keen conversation

evenin’ comes
with the tappin’ of kegs
and the band tunin’ up
cowboys two-steppin’
and twirlin’
their pretty women
across the floor

as the last tune fades
and the cowboys escort
their darlin’s to their trucks
to home, to love, to sleep
a solitary figure walks alone

the day closes
with the same question
with the approach of sleep,
soothin’ yet unsettled
so many spirits inhabit
this beloved place

but the question
that comes and haunts
this solitude
to do or not
to be or not

An Italian evening scene

Today is the birthday of Nicolaes Pieterszoon Berchem (Haarlem; 1 October 1620 – 18 February 1683); Dutch Golden Age painter of pastoral landscapes, populated with mythological or biblical figures, but also of a number of allegories and genre pieces. He was a member of the second generation of “Dutch Italianate landscape” painters; artists who travelled to Italy, or aspired to, in order to soak up the romanticism of the country, bringing home sketchbooks full of drawings of classical ruins and pastoral imagery.

Gallery

Jupiter Notices Callisto

Jupiter disguised as Diana seducing the Nymph Callisto

A View of Burg Bentheim (c. 1656)

A Southern Harbour Scene
A Moor Presenting a Parrot to a Lady
Paul and Barnabas at Lystra

Mac Tag

Nicolaes Pieterszoon Berchem, the lovers almanac

The Lovers’ Chronicle 30 September – moments – premier of The Magic Flute & Les pêcheurs de perles – birth of Truman Capote – art by Anthony Green

30 September 2023 By Rhett 0 In Random

Dear Zazie, Here is today’s Lovers’ Chronicle from Mac Tag dedicated to his muse. Follow us on twitter @cowboycoleridge. Rhett

The Lover’s Chronicle

Dear Muse,

mactagmomentsnature-wallpapers-hd-landscape-images-view-mac-desktop-images-free-nature-images-download-nature-wallpapers-gorgeous-views-download-images-1414x1128 (2)

to find

where i belong

or more importantly,

where i do not

moments

in your eyes

i could go

on and on

but you know

how i feel

about that

suffice with this

in your eyes,

if you beckon

i will come

unafraid,

without hesitation

and we will have

what was long

thought denied

beckons, shinin’,
if that could be so,
and i know i must be

unafraid, not hesitatin’,
pausin’ only as though
somethin’ forgotten,
lookin’ back at all
that was left behind

as you know my dear,
so few things are fulfilled
let us not let this be
an incomplete episode

followed the heart
without regard
to geography
or boundaries
and why not
how else to find
where you belong

or perhaps
more importantly,
where you do not

i know
few things were fulfilled
and most of the episodes
were never completed
but oh my,
there were some moments
that shine through the darkness
……

in your eyes…

i could go
on and on
but you know
how i feel
about that

suffice with this

in your eyes
the only truth
i have ever known
……

if you beckon
i will come
unafraid,
without hesitation
and we will have
what was long
thought denied

On this day in 1791 – The first performance of The Magic Flute, the last opera by Mozart to make its debut, took place at Freihaus-Theater auf der Wieden in Vienna, Austria.

The Magic Flute (German: Die Zauberflöte), K. 620, is an opera in two acts set to a German libretto by Emanuel Schikaneder. The work is in the form of a Singspiel, a popular form that included both singing and spoken dialogue. The work premiered just two months before Mozart’s premature death.

In the opera the Queen of the Night persuades Prince Tamino to rescue her daughter Pamina from captivity under the high priest Sarastro; instead, he learns the high ideals of Sarastro’s community and seeks to join it. Separately, then together, Tamino and Pamina undergo severe trials of initiation, which end in triumph, with the Queen and her cohorts vanquished. The earthy Papageno, who accompanies Tamino on his quest, fails the trials completely but is rewarded anyway with the hand of his ideal female companion Papagena.


The arrival of the Queen of the Night. Stage set by Karl Friedrich Schinkel for an 1815 production

Emanuel Schikaneder, librettist of Die Zauberflöte, shown performing in the role of Papageno. The object on his back is a birdcage; see below.

Playbill for the premiere, 30 September 1791.

Baritone Markus Werba appearing as Papageno. He wears his pipes and carries his magic bells; both instruments are essential to the plot.

The arrival of Sarastro on a chariot pulled by lions, from a 1793 production in Brno. Pamina appears at left, Papageno at right. In the background are the temples of Wisdom, Reason, and Nature.

Tamino and Pamina undergo their final trial; watercolor by Max Slevogt (1868–1932)

Today is the premier date of Les pêcheurs de perles (The Pearl Fishers), an opera in three acts by composer Georges Bizet, to a libretto by Eugène Cormon and Michel Carré. It was premiered on 30 September 1863 at the Théâtre Lyrique in Paris, and was given 18 performances in its initial run. Set in ancient times on the island of Ceylon (Sri Lanka), the opera tells the story of how two men’s vow of eternal friendship is threatened by their love for the same woman, whose own dilemma is the conflict between secular love and her sacred oath as a priestess. The friendship duet “Au fond du temple saint“, generally known as “The Pearl Fishers Duet”, is one of the best-known in Western opera.

At the time of the premiere, Bizet (born on 25 October 1838) was not yet 25 years old, and he had yet to establish himself in the Parisian musical world. The commission to write Les pêcheurs arose from his standing as a former winner of the prestigious Prix de Rome. Despite a good reception by the public, press reactions to the work were generally hostile and dismissive, although other composers, notably Hector Berlioz, found considerable merit in the music. The opera was not revived in Bizet’s lifetime, but from 1886 onwards it was performed with some regularity in Europe and North America, and from the mid-20th century has entered the repertory of opera houses worldwide.

Truman Capote
Truman Capote, 1980

Today is the birthday of Truman Garcia Capote (born Truman Streckfus Persons, New Orleans, September 30, 1924 – August 25, 1984 Bel Air, Los Angeles); novelist, short story writer, screenwriter, playwright, and actor. Several of his short stories, novels, and plays are literary classics in my opinion, including the novella Breakfast at Tiffany’s (1958) and the true crime novel In Cold Blood (1966), which he labeled a “nonfiction novel”.

Capote rose above a childhood troubled by divorce, a long absence from his mother, and multiple migrations. He had discovered his calling as a writer as a child and for the rest of his childhood he honed his writing ability. Capote began his professional career writing short stories. The critical success of one story, “Miriam” (1945), attracted the attention of Random House publisher Bennett Cerf, and resulted in a contract to write the novel Other Voices, Other Rooms (1948). Capote earned the most fame with In Cold Blood, a journalistic work about the murder of the Clutter family in their home. Capote spent four years writing the book aided by his lifelong friend Harper Lee, who wrote To Kill a Mockingbird (1960).

Capote photographed by Carl Van Vechten, 1948

in 1959

One of his first serious lovers was Smith College literature professor Newton Arvin, who won the National Book Award for his Herman Melville biography in 1951 and to whom Capote dedicated Other Voices, Other Rooms. However, Capote spent the majority of his life until his death partnered to Jack Dunphy, a fellow writer. In his book, “Dear Genius …” A Memoir of My Life with Truman Capote, Dunphy attempts both to explain the Capote he knew and loved within their relationship and the very success-driven and, eventually, drug- and alcohol-addicted person who existed outside of their relationship. Although Capote’s and Dunphy’s relationship lasted the majority of Capote’s life, it seems that they both lived, at times, different lives. Their sometimes separate living quarters allowed autonomy within the relationship and, as Dunphy admitted, “spared [him] the anguish of watching Capote drink and take drugs.”

Capote was well known for his distinctive, high-pitched voice and odd vocal mannerisms, his offbeat manner of dress, and his fabrications. He often claimed to know intimately people whom he had in fact never met, such as Greta Garbo. He professed to have had numerous liaisons with men thought to be heterosexual, including, he claimed, Errol Flynn. He traveled in an eclectic array of social circles, hobnobbing with authors, critics, business tycoons, philanthropists, Hollywood and theatrical celebrities, royalty, and members of high society, both in the U.S. and abroad. Part of his public persona was a longstanding rivalry with writer Gore Vidal. Their rivalry prompted Tennessee Williams to complain: “You would think they were running neck-and-neck for some fabulous gold prize.” Apart from his favorite authors (Willa Cather, Isak Dinesen, and Marcel Proust), Capote had faint praise for other writers.

In July 1973, Capote met John O’Shea, the middle-aged vice president of a Marine Midland Bank branch on Long Island, while visiting a New York bathhouse. The married father of three did not identify as homosexual or bisexual. Apparently, O’Shea found Capote’s fortune alluring and harbored aspirations to become a professional writer. After consummating their relationship in Palm Springs, the two engaged in an ongoing war of jealousy and manipulation for the remainder of the decade. Longtime friends were appalled when O’Shea, who was officially employed as Capote’s manager, attempted to take total control of the author’s literary and business interests.

Truman Capote’s marker at Westwood Village Memorial Park

Truman Capote and Jack Dunphy stone at Crooked Pond in the Long Pond Greenbelt in Southampton, New York.

Capote died in Bel Air, Los Angeles, on August 25, 1984, age 59. According to the coroner’s report, the cause of death was “liver disease complicated by phlebitisand multiple drug intoxication.” He died at the home of his old friend Joanne Carson, ex-wife of late-night TV host Johnny Carson, on whose program Capote had been a frequent guest. Vidal responded to news of Capote’s death by calling it “a wise career move.”

Capote was cremated and his remains were reportedly divided between Carson and Jack Dunphy (although Dunphy maintained that he received all the ashes). Carson said she kept the ashes in an urn in the room where he died. Those ashes were reported stolen during a Halloween party in 1988 along with $200,000 in jewels but were then returned six days later, having been found in a coiled-up garden hose on the back steps of Carson’s Bel Air home. The ashes were reportedly stolen again when brought to a production of Tru but the thief was caught before leaving the theatre. Carson bought a crypt at Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery in Los Angeles. In 2013 the producers offered to fly Carson and the ashes to New York for a Broadway production of Breakfast at Tiffany’s. Carson declined the offer. Dunphy died in 1992, and in 1994, both his and Capote’s ashes were reportedly scattered at Crooked Pond, between Bridgehampton, New York, and Sag Harbor, New York on Long Island, close to Sagaponack, New York, where the two had maintained a property with individual houses for many years. Crooked Pond was chosen because money from the estate of Dunphy and Capote was donated to the Nature Conservancy, which in turn used it to buy 20 acres around Crooked Pond in an area called “Long Pond Greenbelt.” A stone marker indicates the spot where their mingled ashes were thrown into the pond. In 2016, some of Capote’s ashes previously owned by Joanne Carson were auctioned by Julien’s Auctions.

(1968)

Other Voices, Other Rooms (1948)

The brain may take advice, but not the heart, and love, having no geography, knows no boundaries: weight and sink it deep, no matter, it will rise and find the surface: and why not? any love is natural and beautiful that lies within a person’s nature; only hypocrites would hold a man responsible for what he loves, emotional illiterates and those of righteous envy, who, in their agitated concern, mistake so frequently the arrow pointing to heaven for the one that leads to hell.

The true beloveds of this world are in their lover’s eyes lilacs opening, ship lights, school bells, a landscape, remembered conversations, friends, a child’s Sunday, lost voices, one’s favorite suit, autumn and all seasons, memory, yes, it being the earth and water of existence, memory.

She beckoned to him, shining and silver, and he knew he must go: unafraid, not hesitating, he paused only at the garden’s edge, as though he’d forgotten something, he stopped and looked back at the bloomless, descending blue, at the boy he had left behind.

But my dear, so few things are fulfilled: what are most lives but a series of incomplete episodes
- Randolf

And today is the birthday of Anthony Green (30 September 1939 – 14 February 2023); realist painter and printmaker best known for his paintings of his own middle-class domestic life. His works sometimes used compound perspectives and polygonal forms—particularly with large, irregularly shaped canvasses. As well as producing oil paintings, he also produced a number of works designed from the start as limited edition prints, which were typically giclée works.

Gallery

Mac Tag

mozart, the lovers almanac, the magic flute, truman capote

The Lovers’ Chronicle 29 September – as is – birth of Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra – art by Caravaggio & François Boucher

29 September 2023 By Rhett 0 In Random

Dear Zazie, Here is today’s Lovers’ Chronicle from Mac Tag dedicated to his muse. Follow us on twitter @cowboycoleridge. Rhett

The Lovers’ Chronicle

Dear Muse,

why you may ask

to say that it has

saved my life

is no stretch

that i can share it

gives it more meanin’,

ensurin’ it will continue

and it will, till i capture

in words how it feels

to be with you

but we both know

that cannot happen

so i look forward

to tomorrow,

and you

as is

flawed till we hold each other

past the view without a sigh
our reflection that we seek,
that we are free, a prelude
of the story untold

the book is open, write it now
we will know how, from awe,
arrive and not miss anymore

from you, all that rises

breathe

no limits
but the imagination

wine, book, and candle
sing away sorrow
cast away care

a fine one for leapin’
without lookin’
lettin’ the best or worst
come as it will

never believed
in raisin’ a hue or cry

to withdraw is not
to run away
to stay is no wise choice
when there is more reason
to reckon with than hope

perhaps i am a fool,
but with limitations known,
i look forward to tomorrow
as is

Miguel de Cervantes
Cervantes (The portrait supposedly by Juan de Jáuregui. It has not been authenticated, and no authenticated visual image exists.)

Today is the birthday of Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra (Alcalá de Henares; 29 September 1547 (assumed) – 22 April 1616 Madrid); writer who, in my opinion, is the greatest writer in the Spanish language and one of the world’s pre-eminent novelists. His major work, Don Quixote, considered to be the first modern novel, is a classic of Western literature. His influence on the Spanish language has been so great that the language is often called la lengua de Cervantes (“the language of Cervantes”). He has also been dubbed El príncipe de los ingenios (“The Prince of Wits”). In 1569, in forced exile from Castile, Cervantes moved to Rome, where he worked as chamber assistant of a cardinal. He then enlisted as a soldier in a Spanish Navy infantry regiment and continued his military life until 1575, when he was captured by Barbary pirates. After five years of captivity, he was released by his captors on payment of a ransom by his parents and the Trinitarians, a Catholic religious order, and he subsequently returned to his family in Madrid.

In 1585, Cervantes published a pastoral novel named La Galatea. He worked as a purchasing agent for the Spanish Armada, and later as a tax collector for the government. In 1597, discrepancies in his accounts for three years previous landed him in the Crown Jail of Seville. In 1605, he was in Valladolid when the immediate success of the first part of his Don Quixote, published in Madrid, signalled his return to the literary world. In 1607, he settled in Madrid, where he lived and worked until his death. During the last nine years of his life, Cervantes solidified his reputation as a writer; he published the Novelas ejemplares (Exemplary Novels) in 1613, the Journey to Parnassus (Viaje al Parnaso) in 1614, and the Ocho comedias y ocho entremeses and the second part of Don Quixote in 1615. His last work Los trabajos de Persiles y Sigismunda (The Works of Persiles and Sigismunda) was published posthumously, in 1617.

Prose

Don Quixote de la Mancha (1605–1615)

Part I

Book I

En un lugar de la Mancha, de cuyo nombre no quiero acordarme, no hace mucho tiempo que vivía un hidalgo de los de lanza en astillero, adarga antigua, rocín flaco y galgo corredor.
- In some village in La Mancha, whose name I do not care to recall, there dwelt not so long ago a gentleman of the type wont to keep an unused lance, an old shield, a skinny old horse, and a greyhound for racing.
  - Ch. 1.

La pluma es la lengua del alma: cuales fueren los conceptos que en ella se engendraren, tales serán sus escritos.

The pen is the tongue of the soul: and the concepts engendered there, such will be written.
- Ch. 16, as translated by Henry Edward Watts (1895).

Nadie nace enseñado, y de los hombres se hacen los obispos, que no de las piedras.

No man is born wise. Bishops are made of men and not of stones.
- Ch. 33.

de todos ha de haber en el mundo (literally, “There must be of all [types] in the world”)
Ch. 6

Caravaggio
Chalk portrait of Caravaggio by Ottavio Leoni, circa 1621.

Today is the birthday of Michelangelo Merisi (Michael Angelo Merigi or Amerighi) da Caravaggio (Milan, Duchy of Milan, Spanish Empire; 29 September 1571 – 18 July 1610 Porto Ercole, Grand Duchy of Tuscany): painter active in Rome, Naples, Malta, and Sicily between c1592 and 1610. His paintings, which combine a realistic observation of the physical and emotional human states, with a dramatic use of lighting, had a formative influence on Baroque painting. Caravaggio trained as a painter in Milan under Simone Peterzano who had himself trained under Titian. In his twenties Caravaggio moved to Rome where there was a demand for paintings to fill the many huge new churches and palazzos being built at the time. It was also a period when the Church was searching for a stylistic alternative to Mannerism in religious art that was tasked to counter the threat of Protestantism. Caravaggio’s innovation was a naturalism that combined close physical observation with a dramatic, even theatrical, use of chiaroscuro which came to be known as tenebrism (the shift from light to dark with little intermediate value). He gained attention in the art scene of Rome in 1600 with the success of his first public commissions, the Martyrdom of Saint Matthew and Calling of Saint Matthew. Thereafter he never lacked commissions or patrons, yet his life was tumultuous. He was jailed on several occasions, vandalized his own apartment, and ultimately had a death sentence pronounced against him by the Pope after killing a young man, possibly unintentionally, on May 29, 1606. An early published notice on him, dating from 1604 and describing his lifestyle three years previously, recounts that “after a fortnight’s work he will swagger about for a month or two with a sword at his side and a servant following him, from one ball-court to the next, ever ready to engage in a fight or an argument, so that it is most awkward to get along with him.” In 1606 he killed a young man in a brawl and fled from Rome with a price on his head. He was involved in a brawl in Malta in 1608, and another in Naples in 1609, possibly a deliberate attempt on his life by unidentified enemies. This encounter left him severely injured. A year later, at the age of 38, he died under mysterious circumstances in Porto Ercole in Tuscany, reportedly from a fever while on his way to Rome to receive a pardon.

Famous while he lived, Caravaggio was forgotten almost immediately after his death, and it was only in the 20th century that his importance to the development of Western art was rediscovered. Despite this, his influence on the new Baroque style that eventually emerged from the ruins of Mannerism was profound. It can be seen directly or indirectly in the work of Rubens, Jusepe de Ribera, Bernini, and Rembrandt, and artists in the following generation heavily under his influence were called the “Caravaggisti” or “Caravagesques”, as well as tenebrists or tenebrosi (“shadowists”). The 20th-century art historian André Berne-Joffroy claimed: “What begins in the work of Caravaggio is, quite simply, modern painting.”

Caravaggio never married and had no known children, and his work is absent any female nudes. Nevertheless, a connection with a girl named Lena is mentioned in a 1605 court deposition by Pasqualone, where she is described as “Michelangelo’s girl”. Lena was reportedly Caravaggio’s model for the Madonna di Loreto. Lena may have been the courtesan Maddalena di Paolo Antognetti, who named Caravaggio as an intimate friend by her own testimony in 1604. Caravaggio also probably enjoyed close relationships with other courtesans such as Fillide Melandroni, of whom he painted a portrait.

Gallery

20220929_200252

Saint Francis of Assisi in Ecstasy (c.1595)

The Musicians, 1595–1596, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

Basket of Fruit, c. 1595–1596, oil on canvas, Pinacoteca Ambrosiana, Milan.

Judith Beheading Holofernes 1598–1599. Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Antica, Rome.

The Calling of Saint Matthew (1599–1600). Contarelli Chapel, San Luigi dei Francesi, Rome.

The Crucifixion of Saint Peter, 1601. Cerasi Chapel, Santa Maria del Popolo, Rome.

Amor Vincit Omnia. 1601–1602. Gemäldegalerie, Berlin. Caravaggio shows Cupid prevailing over all human endeavors: war, music, science, government.

St. Jerome, 1605–1606, Galleria Borghese, Rome.

The Seven Works of Mercy, 1606–1607, Pio Monte della Misericordia, Naples.

Salome with the Head of John the Baptist

Boy with a Basket of Fruit, 1593–1594. Oil on canvas, 67 cm × 53 cm (26 in × 21 in). Galleria Borghese, Rome.

The Taking of Christ, 1602. National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin. Caravaggio’s application of the chiaroscuro technique shows through on the faces and armour notwithstanding the lack of a visible shaft of light. The figure on the extreme right is a self-portrait.

Supper at Emmaus, 1601. Oil on canvas, 139 cm × 195 cm (55 in × 77 in). National Gallery, London. Caravaggio included himself as the figure on the top left.

Death of the Virgin. 1601–1606. Louvre, Paris.

The Entombment of Christ, (1602–1603), Pinacoteca Vaticana, Rome.

Conversion on the Way to Damascus, 1601, Cerasi Chapel, Santa Maria del Popolo, Rome.

The Denial of Saint Peter (1610), Metropolitan Museum of Art

Nativity with San Lorenzo and San Francesco

François Boucher
Portrait of François Boucher by Gustaf Lundberg (1741)

Today is the birthday of François Boucher (Paris; 29 September 1703 – 30 May 1770 Paris); painter, draughtsman and etcher, who worked in the Rococo style. Boucher is known for his idyllic and voluptuous paintings on classical themes, decorative allegories, and pastoral scenes. He was perhaps the most celebrated painter and decorative artist of the 18th century. He painted several portraits of his patroness, Madame de Pompadour.

Boucher married Marie-Jeanne Buzeau in 1733.

Boucher said that nature is “trop verte et mal éclairée” (too green and badly lit). A licentious style can be seen in his Odalisque portraits. The dark-haired version of the Odalisque portraits prompted claims that Boucher was “prostituting his own wife”, and the Blonde Odalisque was a portrait that illustrated the extramarital relationships of the King. Boucher gained lasting notoriety through such private commissions for wealthy collectors and, after Diderot expressed his disapproval, his reputation came under increasing critical attack during the last years of his career.

Gallery

Léda et le cygne

Portrait of Marie-Jeanne Buzeau, wife of Boucher by Alexander Roslin

Portrait of Marie-Louise O’Murphy c.

The Secret Message

Diana and Callisto, 1759

Young Country Girl Dancing

Self-portrait in the Studio, 1720, Louvre
Putti with Birds, c. 1730-1733, Honolulu Museum of Art
Rinaldo and Armida, 1734
Diana Leaving the Bath 1742
Venus Consoling Love 1751
The Toilet of Venus (1751) typifies the pleasing elegance of Boucher’s mature style.
The Bridge, 1751, Louvre
Madame de Pompadour, 1756, Alte Pinakothek
Saint Peter Attempting to Walk on Water, 1766, Cathédrale Saint-Louis, Versailles
Dreaming Shepherdess
Autumn Pastoral
Vulcan Presenting Venus with Arms for Aeneas

Standing Nude Girl

The Dovecote, 1758

Mac Tag

caravaggio, francois boucher, miguel de cervantes, the lovers almanac

The Lovers’ Chronicle 28 September – wherever – art by Alexandre Cabanel

28 September 2023 By Rhett 0 In Love, Poems, Songs

Dear Zazie, Here is today’s Lovers’ Chronicle from Mac Tag. Follow us on twitter @cowboycoleridge. Do you carry someone’s heart with you wherever you are? Rhett

The Lovers’ Chronicle

Dear Muse,

“I love the way you touch me.”

i was put here for that purpose

“Why do you keep

checking your watch?”

hopin’ i will discover

that time has stopped

desirable, touchable

we are, not forgotten

or passed over

(i have written

an orison for us)

wherever we are

we shall be ours

still, low as can be,
yet thoughts ascend,
in honour of you

were i low or high
with you shall i go
and look upon
the memory
of your eyes
till all else fades

together shine on
(wait, are you sure
this is how it goes)

wherever i am,
wherever you are,

mine shall be yours

i god
so dang wordy
to say what can be said
in three words

as if those words
could be said

once ago
they could be,
and were, frequently
but with no understandin’
of what it meant to be there

ah, just as well
now that twilight is near
may those words rest
wherever they were left

And an old style poem and a song for you, just for you. The Poem of the Day –

Wherever You Are

Were I low as the lowly plain,
And you as high as the stars above,
Yet should the thoughts of me, your humble swain,
Ascend to the stars, in honour of my Love

Were I as high as the stars above the prairie,
And you as low
As the bottom of the sea,
With you my love shall go

Were you the earth and I the skies,
My love should shine on you like the sun,
And look upon you with a thousand eyes
Till the stars went blind and the world were done

Wherever I am, wherever you are,

my heart shall be yours

The Song of the Day – “Wherever You Are” by Terry Ellis.

Alexandre Cabanel
Self-portrait (1852)

Today is the birthday of Alexandre Cabanel (Montpellier; 28 September 1823 – 23 January 1889 Paris); painter. He painted historical, classical and religious subjects in the academic style. He was also well known as a portrait painter.

Gallery

Self-portrait (1847)

Cabanel, ca.1865. Photograph by Charles Reutlinger (?)

The Birth of Venus (1863)

Death of Moses

Fallen Angel (1847)
The death of Francesca da Rimini and Paolo Malatesta (1870)
Echo (1874)
Harmonie (1877)
The daughter of Jephthah (1879)
Phaedra (1880)
Ophelia (1883)
Albaydé (1884)
Cleopatra Testing Poisons on Condemned Prisoners (1887)
Portrait of Countess E. A Vorontsova Dashkova
Napoleon III
Pandora (1873), The Walters Art Museum

Mac Tag

alexandre cabanel, cowboy coleridge, love letter, love poem, love song, muse, Rhett, terry ellis, the lovers almanac, twt, Wherever you are, Zazie

The Lovers’ Chronicle 27 September – aspire – birth of Grazia Deledda – photography by Marcey Jacobson

27 September 2023 By Rhett 0 In Love, Random, Songs

Dear Zazie, Here is today’s Lovers’ Almanac. I asked Mac Tag if I could take one more day at the rein’s of TLC. He graciously agreed. You can follow us on twitter @cowboycoleridge. Does someone watch over you? Do you watch over someone? Rhett

The Lovers’ Almanac

we seek and feel beyond

where we have been

runnin’ my hands

across your hips

as i say your name

i remember everything

that night, i repeated

the sweet words

over and over

then, my lips stop, half-open,

as if to pull the air from the room

tremblin’, where we have never been

walkin’ past the palazzo,
an old woman watchin’
from her window
made herself
the sign of the cross
and moved her lips
……

kept the past locked up
had every intention
of throwin’ away the key
till you came along
……

i remember everything
from that evenin’
mostly, the words
you repeated
over and over

somewhere i go often
one of my favorite places,
that ol’ dance hall
waltzed & two-stepped
myself into a sweat
and drank a lot
of Shiner Bock

fell in love there,
or as near
as i ever came

i remember
everything
about our first night there

the way you looked,
the way it felt
to waltz across
the floor with you,
the words you whispered
in my ear

then later…
the way you moved your hips
your pale lips, quiverin’
half-open,
aspirin’ to somethin’
neither of us
had ever known

I asked Mac Tag if I could have another turn at TLA to address a note that Zazie left here. The note says that men are dogs. Well, we certainly can be and sadly, we can be much worse. But consider this. A man wrote today’s Lyrics of the Day, his brother wrote the music and a man sang the song and a man is sendin’ this edition of TLC out especially for you Zazie. So maybe we are not all bad. The Lyrics of the Day by George Gershwin:

Someone To Watch Over Me

There’s a saying old says that love is blind
Still we’re often told, seek and ye shall find
So I’m going to seek a certain girl I’ve had in mind
Looking everywhere, haven’t found her yet

She’s the big affair I cannot forget
Only one I ever think of with regret
I’d like to add her initial to my monogram
Tell me, where is the shepherd for this lost lamb?

There’s a somebody I’m longing to see
I hope that she turns out to be
Someone who’ll watch over me
I’m a little lamb who’s lost in the wood
I know I could always be good
Someone who’ll watch over me

Although she may not be the one some
Guys think of as pretty
To my heart she carries the key
Won’t you tell her please to put on some speed
Follow my lead, oh, how I need
Someone to watch over me

The Song of the Day is Willie Nelson‘s version of “Someone to Watch over Me” by George and Ira Gershwin.

Grazia Deledda

Today is the birthday of Grazia Maria Cosima Damiana Deledda (Nuoro; 28 September 1871 – 15 August 1936 Rome); writer who received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1926 “for her idealistically inspired writings which with plastic clarity picture the life on her native island [i.e. Sardinia] and with depth and sympathy deal with human problems in general”. She was the first Italian woman to receive this honor.

L’ospite

Suonò l’Ave.
Margherita si fece rapidamente il segno della croce e mosse le labbra.
– Angelus… Angelus…
Non ricordava altro quella sera, perché ella ripeté la dolce parola almeno dieci volte. Poi le sue labbra pallide si fermarono del tutto, semiaperte, quasi ad aspirare il vento che recava, vibrando, i rintocchi dell’Ave.

Today is the birthday of Marcella “Marcey” Jacobson (September 27, 1911 – July 26, 2009); photographer who moved to Chiapas, Mexico in the 1950s, and was best known for her photographs of the indigenous peoples of Southern Mexico.

She died of heart failure at age 97 on July 26, 2009, in San Cristóbal in Chiapas, Mexico. She left no immediate survivors. Janet Marren, her partner, had died in 1998.

Gallery

20220927_194117

Marceyjacobson-400

Parting Glance

Mac Tag

cowboy coleridge, george gershwin, Grazia Deledda, ira gershwin, love letter, love lyrics, love song, marcey jacobson, Rhett, somone to watch over me, the lovers almanac, twt, willie nelson, Zazie

The Lovers’ Chronicle 26 September – another way – art by Théodore Géricault & Albert Lynch – verse by T. S. Eliot

26 September 2023 By Rhett 0 In Love, Poems, Random, Songs

Dear Zazie, Here is today’s Lover’s Chronicle by me as Mac Tag takes the day off. Follow us on twitter @cowboycoleridge. Has someone told you two out of three ain’t bad? Have you told someone two out of three ain’t bad? Rhett

The Lovers’ Chronicle

there is a way,

do you have courage

because you have seen it,

illustrated in lines about us

the destination cannot be described

we will know very little until we get there

but the way leads towards possession

of what we have been lookin’ for

of what is in you, in me

movin’ verse
written day by day
the more given
the more repaid

that i was not, but
bein’, i can again

no longer removed
from those charms

we are never far,
with so lovely eyes

thus it befalls
that though
once so,
in a certain sort,
here we are
never knowin’
anything like this

moved by all things
extraordinary
fancies and whims
that gather ’round
the imaginin’s
of days bygone
and present

no more fear
nothin’
can hurt or heal
now that the moments
of ecstasy and desire
are all past

no shame in not findin’
what was sought
you know,
there is another way

Hey this is Rhett and I am takin’ over the reins on The Lovers’ Chronicle. We have a sonnet inspired by Samuel Butler‘s “Sonnet on Miss Savage”. We do not think he will mind us borrowin’ a few lines, he has been dead for over 300 years. You know how we have a weakness here at TLA for dead poets and sonnets. The Poem of the Day:

Sonnet, She was too kind

She was too kind, wooed too persistently,
Wrote movin’ letters to me day by day;
But I was as unmoved as I could be,
The more she gave, the less could I repay.
Therefore I grieve, not that I was not loved,
But, bein’ loved, I could not love again.
I had lust, but stayed from love far removed;
Hard though I tried to love I tried in vain.
Of beauty and charms, she was never short,
With so lovely eyes. Thus hence it befell
That though I loved her in a certain sort,
Was it then unwise to not love her well?
I want and need you but, do not be sad,
I said, because two out of three ain’t bad.

The Song of the Day is “Two Out of Three Ain’t Bad” by Meatloaf we do not own the rights to this song. no copyright infringement intended.

Théodore Gericault
by Alexandre-Marie Colin, 1816

Today is the birthday of Théodore Géricault (Jean-Louis André Théodore Géricault; Rouen, Normandy; 26 September 1791 – 26 January 1824 Paris); painter and lithographer, known for The Raft of the Medusa. Although he died young, he was one of the pioneers of the Romantic movement.

A trip to Florence, Rome, and Naples (1816–17), prompted in part by the desire to flee from a romantic entanglement with his aunt.

Gallery

Leda e il cigno

The Charging Chasseur, 1812

Study of the Head of a Youth

The Raft of the Medusa, 1819

Bust of a Black Man, 1808 (Ajuda National Palace)
Wounded Cuirassier Leaving the Field of Battle, 1814
Horse Head, 1815
Riderless Racers in Rome, 1817 (The Walters Art Museum)
The Capture of a Wild Horse, 1817
Portrait of Laure Bro, 1818
Heroic Landscape with Fishermen, 1818
Portrait Study of a Youth, ca. 1818–1820
Horse in the Storm, 1820–1821
The Derby of Epsom, 1821
The Kiss, charcoal, sepia wash and white gouache on paper, ca. 1822
White Arabian Horse, before 1824
Nude, Musée Bonnat (Bayonne)

Portrait of a Kleptomaniac, 1822 (Museum of Fine Arts, Ghent)
The Woman with a Gambling Mania, 1822 (Louvre, Paris)
Man Suffering from Delusions of Military Rank, 1822 (Collection Oskar Reinhart am Römerholz, Winterthur)
La Monomane de l’envie (Insane Woman), 1822 (Museum of Fine Arts of Lyon)
A kidnapper, 1822–1823 (Museum of Fine Arts, Springfield, Massachusetts)

Today is the birthday of Albert Lynch (Alberto Fernando Lynch; Gleisweiler, Kingdom of Prussia (Germany) 26 september 1860 – 1950 Monaco); painter and illustrator of Peruvian/German ancestry.

The women of his time were his favorite subject to paint and he preferred pastel, gouache and watercolor although he occasionally worked in the oil technique. His work maintained the spirit of the Belle Époque. He illustrated such books as Lady of the Camellias by Alexandre Dumas, fils, Le Père Goriot by Honoré de Balzac and La Parisienne by Henry Becque.

Lynch moved to Monaco in 1930, where he died, survived by his wife Marie Anna Victoria Bacouel, who he had married in Paris on 28 October 1896.

Gallery

T. S. Eliot
Eliot in 1934

And today is the birthday of T. S. Eliot (Thomas Stearns Eliot; St. Louis, Missouri; 26 September 1888 – 4 January 1965 Kensington); essayist, publisher, playwright, literary and social critic and in my opinion, one of the twentieth century’s major poets. He moved to England in 1914 at age 25, settling, working and marrying there. He was eventually naturalised as a British subject in 1927 at age 39, renouncing his American citizenship.

Eliot attracted widespread attention for his poem “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” (1915), which is seen as a masterpiece of the Modernist movement. It was followed by some of the best-known poems in the English language, including The Waste Land (1922), “The Hollow Men” (1925), “Ash Wednesday” (1930) and Four Quartets (1945). He is also known for his seven plays, particularly Murder in the Cathedral (1935). He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1948.

Before leaving the US, Eliot had told Emily Hale that he was in love with her. He exchanged letters with her from Oxford during 1914 and 1915, but they did not meet again until 1927. In a letter to Conrad Aiken late in December 1914, Eliot, aged 26, wrote: “I am very dependent upon women (I mean female society).” Less than four months later, Thayer introduced Eliot to Vivienne Haigh-Wood, a Cambridge governess. They were married at Hampstead Register Office on 26 June 1915.

After a short visit, alone, to his family in the United States, Eliot returned to London and took several teaching jobs, such as lecturing at Birkbeck College, University of London. The philosopher Bertrand Russell took an interest in Vivienne while the newlyweds stayed in his flat. Some scholars have suggested that she and Russell had an affair, but the allegations were never confirmed.

The marriage was markedly unhappy, in part because of Vivienne’s health problems. In a letter addressed to Ezra Pound, she covers an extensive list of her symptoms, which included a habitually high temperature, fatigue, insomnia, migraines, and colitis. This, coupled with apparent mental instability, meant that she was often sent away by Eliot and her doctors for extended periods of time in the hope of improving her health. And as time went on, he became increasingly detached from her. The couple formally separated in 1933 and in 1938 Vivienne’s brother, Maurice, had her committed to a mental hospital, against her will, where she remained until her death of heart disease in 1947.

Their relationship became the subject of a 1984 play Tom & Viv, which in 1994 was adapted as a film of the same name.

In a private paper written in his sixties, Eliot confessed: “I came to persuade myself that I was in love with Vivienne simply because I wanted to burn my boats and commit myself to staying in England. And she persuaded herself (also under the influence of [Ezra] Pound) that she would save the poet by keeping him in England. To her, the marriage brought no happiness. To me, it brought the state of mind out of which came The Waste Land.”

By 1932, Eliot had been contemplating a separation from his wife for some time. When Harvard offered him the Charles Eliot Norton professorship for the 1932–1933 academic year, he accepted and left Vivienne in England. Upon his return, he arranged for a formal separation from her, avoiding all but one meeting with her between his leaving for America in 1932 and her death in 1947. Vivienne was committed to the Northumberland House mental hospital in Woodberry Down, Manor House, London, in 1938, and remained there until she died. Although Eliot was still legally her husband, he never visited her. From 1933 to 1946 Eliot had a close emotional relationship with Emily Hale. Eliot later destroyed Hale’s letters to him, but Hale donated Eliot’s to Princeton University Library where they were sealed until 2020. When Eliot heard of the donation he deposited his own account of their relationship with Harvard University to be opened whenever the Princeton letters were.

From 1938 to 1957 Eliot’s public companion was Mary Trevelyan of London University, who wanted to marry him and left a detailed memoir.

On 10 January 1957, at the age of 68, Eliot married Esmé Valerie Fletcher, who was 30. In contrast to his first marriage, Eliot knew Fletcher well, as she had been his secretary at Faber and Faber since August 1949. They kept their wedding secret; the ceremony was held in St. Barnabas’ Church, Kensington, London, at 6:15 am with virtually no one in attendance other than his wife’s parents. Eliot had no children with either of his wives. In the early 1960s, by then in failing health, Eliot worked as an editor for the Wesleyan University Press, seeking new poets in Europe for publication. After Eliot’s death, Valerie dedicated her time to preserving his legacy, by editing and annotating The Letters of T. S. Eliot and a facsimile of the draft of The Waste Land. Valerie Eliot died on 9 November 2012 at her home in London.

Verse

I am moved by fancies that are curled
Around these images, and cling:
The notion of some infinitely gentle
Infinitely suffering thing.

“Preludes” (1917), § IV

I was neither
Living nor dead, and I knew nothing,
Looking into the heart of light, the silence.

The Waste Land (1922) Line 39 et seq.

Who is the third who walks always beside you
When I count, there are only you and I together
But when I look ahead up the white road
There is always another one walking beside you

The Waste Land Line 359 et seq.

In this decayed hole among the mountains
In the faint moonlight, the grass is singing
Over the tumbled graves, about the chapel
There is the empty chapel, only the wind’s home.

The Waste Land Line 385 et seq.

The Hollow Men (1925)

We are the hollow men
We are the stuffed men
Leaning together
Headpiece filled with straw.

Those who have crossed
With direct eyes, to death’s other Kingdom
Remember us — if at all — not as lost
Violent souls, but only
As the hollow men
The stuffed men.

Between the idea
And the reality
Between the motion
And the act
Falls the Shadow

For Thine is the Kingdom.

Between the conception
And the creation
Between the emotion
And the response
Falls the Shadow

Life is very long.

Between the desire
And the spasm
Between the potency
And the existence
Between the essence
And the descent
Falls the Shadow .

This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.

The Cocktail Party (1949)

It will do you no harm to find yourself ridiculous.
Resign yourself to be the fool you are.

You will find that you survive humiliation
And that’s an experience of incalculable value.

That is the worst moment, when you feel you have lost
The desires for all that was most desirable,
Before you are contented with what you can desire;
Before you know what is left to be desired;
And you go on wishing that you could desire
What desire has left behind. But you cannot understand.
How could you understand what it is to feel old?

You will change your mind, but you are not free.
Your moment of freedom was yesterday.
You made a decision. You set in motion
Forces in your life and in the lives of others
Which cannot be reversed.

It’s not that I’m afraid of being hurt again:
Nothing again can either hurt or heal.
I have thought at moments that the ecstasy is real
Although those who experience it may have no reality.
For what happened is remembered like a dream
In which one is exalted by intensity of loving
In the spirit, a vibration of delight
Without desire, for desire is fulfilled
In the delight of loving. A state one does not know
When awake. But what, or whom I love,
Or what in me was loving, I do not know.
And if all that is meaningless, I want to be cured
Of a craving for something I cannot find
And of the shame of never finding it.

There is another way, if you have the courage.
The first I could describe in familiar terms
Because you have seen it, as we all have seen it,
Illustrated, more or less, in lives of those about us.
The second is unknown, and so requires faith —
The kind of faith that issues from despair.
The destination cannot be described;
You will know very little until you get there;
You will journey blind. But the way leads towards possession
Of what you have sought for in the wrong place.

Rhett

cowboy coleridge, love letter, love poem, love song, meatloaf, Rhett, sonnet, t s eliot, the lovers almanac, theodore Gericault, two out of three aint bad, twt, Zazie

Conquest

Those Eyes

Gallery

A Confession

Gallery

Gallery

Gallery

Mac Tag

Gallery

***************************************************************************

Gustave Loiseau

Galerie

Gallery

Vision mobile

Portraits et autoportraits

Gallery

Of Time and the River (1935)

You Can’t Go Home Again (1940)

Verse

Peter Quince at the Clavier (1915)

The End of the Affair (1951)

Gallery

Other Voices, Other Rooms (1948)

Prose

Don Quixote de la Mancha (1605–1615)

Part I

Book I

Gallery

Gallery

Wherever You Are

Gallery

L’ospite

Sonnet, She was too kind

Gallery

Gallery

Verse

The Hollow Men (1925)

The Cocktail Party (1949)

Subscribe by email

Topics

What’s for tea?