telling myself, I was impressed, had to be some impression in it
Impressions of Sunrise over Hilton Head, 11/20/2205
Impression I was certain of it. I was just telling myself that, since I was impressed, there had to be some impression in it — and what freedom, what ease of workmanship! A preliminary drawing for a wallpaper pattern is more finished than this seascape.
Louis Leroy’s review of the painting, Impression, Sunrise, was printed in Le Charivari on 25 April 1874.
Claude Monet, Impression, Sunrise (1872)
According to Wikipedia, While the movement and the painting initially garnered controversy, Monet’s Impression, Sunrise gave rise to the name and recognition of the Impressionist movement, arguably exemplifying more than any other work or artist the Impressionist movement as a whole in style, subject, and influence.
Driving to work this morning I could see the sunrise.
I was just telling myself that, since I was impressed, there had to be some impression in it.
dolphins had always believed far more intelligent for the same reasons
Sunrise over Skull Creek with dolphins mucking about unseen – but I know they’re there.
Adapted from the passage:
“For instance, on the planet Earth, man had always assumed that he was more intelligent than dolphins because he had achieved so much—the wheel, New York, wars and so on—whilst all the dolphins had ever done was muck about in the water having a good time. But conversely, the dolphins had always believed that they were far more intelligent than man—for precisely the same reasons.”
From The hitchhiker’s guide to the galaxy by Douglas Adams (New York : Pocket Books, 1985).
I had a ride to work this morning so instead of defending myself from drivers who are intent on killing me, I was able to look out the window.
When you ride to work in the Low Country of South Carolina you get to look out the window at water.
You get to look out the window at water and look for dolphins.
Sometimes you spot one or two or more as they muck about in the water having a good time.
They have such a good time that just to see them makes you feel better.
And sometimes, when I get a ride to work I can look out the window and see dolphins.
There are worse places to ride to work.
I got to thinking about dolphins.
They do not labor or spin.
They spend the lives not knowing about borders, taxes, politicians, jobs or NFL Referees.
You know what?
I do believe that they ARE far more intelligent than man.
we tend to house our products according to value that we put on them
Yesterday my wife and I drove up to Beautiful Beaufort by the Sea, South Carolina for the Friends of the Beaufort County Library Book Sale.
It was held in the waterfront pavilion in downtown Beaufort.
I have been to and taken part in a lot of Friends of the Library book sales in my day but never one outdoors, along the coast, and in November.
I am at a time in my life when divesting of accumulated books is more on my mind than accumulating more physical books (As I buy more and more tablets to hold more and more e books – and for those who wag a finger, I also have a solar power tablet charger for when my Twilight Zone ‘Time enough at Last’ event happens) but then you just never know what a book sale might have and what I might find.
And what I found was a biography of the great …. MAX PERKINS!
Most likely you have never heard of him which is the way it should be.
He was a book editor and it was his job to remain anonymous while making an author’s writing better.
The author’s Mr. Perkins edited include F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway and Thomas Wolfe.
I got through the first page, just the first page, where the author described the Charles Scribner and Son’s bookstore in New York City.
A bookstore that is no longer around, but it is still remembered as being in the top five of bookstores ever in the world.
Wikipedia writes: “The building opened by May 18, 1913, and became the seventh headquarters of Charles Scribner’s Sons. In addition to the bookstore and offices at 597 Fifth Avenue, Scribner’s had a building at 311–319 West 43rd Street for its printing press. The development of the 597 Fifth Avenue building was described by architectural writer Robert A. M. Stern in 1983 as “sure testimony to the rapid march of commerce to upper Fifth Avenue”. New York Times journalist David W. Dunlap, writing in 2012, said 597 Fifth Avenue was like “the Apple store of its day”. At opening, the bookstore contained shelves of books arranged along both the ground floor and the balconies.”
I went looking online for photographs of the store and came across the blog, Jeremiah’s Vanishing New York which on February 8, 2010, had a post titled, Scribner’s Bookstore, where the Jeremiah discusses the store and its contents.
The author wrote, It’s difficult to imagine anyone in New York today providing such an opulent setting in which to sell books. We tend to house our products according to the value we put on them.
I like that line as I think of the bookstores that are left to us today.
And then I thought about the book sale had just left.
In an open air pavilion.
In a park.
Along the waterfront, 2 miles from the Atlantic Ocean.
Such an opulent setting in which to sell books.
We do tend to house our products according to the value we put on them.
nature’s first green is gold, her hardest hue to hold … nothing gold can stay
Nature’s first green is gold, Her hardest hue to hold. Her early leaf’s a flower; But only so an hour. Then leaf subsides to leaf. So Eden sank to grief, So dawn goes down to day. Nothing gold can stay.
Nothing Gold Can Stay by Robert Frost, as published in The Poetry of Robert Frost edited by Edward Connery Lathem. (Henry Holt and Company, New York, 1942)
Ashley River with Pink Grass along the marsh, from the Magnolia Plantation near Charleston, SC.
sea forced us to tell ourselves property here is no longer worth much
In the distance, about half a mile away, you can see the outline of the 400 or so buildings in the village of Miquelon. It sits only 2 metres above sea level on the archipelago of Saint-Pierre and Miquelon. Situated off the Canadian coast to the south of Newfoundland, it is an “overseas collectivity” of France, and the country’s last foothold in North America.
“The constraint of no longer being able to build here – of not being sure that we are sufficiently protected from the sea, with storms that are getting stronger and more frequent – forced us to tell ourselves that our property here is no longer worth much,” he says.
From the article, As rising tides eat away at Canada’s Saint-Pierre and Miquelon archipelago, plans to move the historic village to higher ground have divided friends and families By Sara Hashemi
The islands were an overseas territory of the Nazi-controlled regime of Vichy France after the fall of France in World War II, and were liberated a year and a half later by Free French forces in 1941. After the war, the fishing industry continued to languish, and now fish stocks have fallen so low that fishing is severely restricted. Saint Pierre and Miquelon are now trying to diversify their economy into tourism and other areas.
During the early years of World War II, the United States maintained formal relations with Vichy France. Under the Monroe Doctrine, the US was strongly opposed to any change in control of the islands by force. However, Canada (perhaps due to pressure from Winston Churchill) expressed worries about Vichy forces near Canada. De Gaulle realized that Canada might want to capture Saint Pierre and Miquelon (thereby eliminating French territory so close to Quebec), so he secretly planned its seizure by Free France. On Christmas Eve 1941, Free French forces (three corvettes and the submarine Surcouf, led by Rear-Admiral Émile Muselier) “invaded” the islands. The Vichy officials immediately surrendered.
In the late 1950s De Gaulle offered all French colonies political and financial independence. Saint Pierre and Miquelon chose to remain part of France.
I have long been fascinated with the islands of Saint-Pierre and Miquelon and that a legal part of France was off the coast of Newfoundland.
I remember the old joke of why go all the way to Paris when you can go to Quebec and have people be rude to you.
Of course, I would respond why go all the Quebec when you can shop at Jacobsen’s and have people be rude to you.
But you had to live in West Michigan a long time ago to get that joke.
But there it is, islands, ruled by Government of France, right there 13 miles off the coast of Canada.
It was like after the French and Indian War, those Europeans divvied up all the Risk Cards and someone dropped the Saint-Pierre and Miquelon card on the floor.
Conceivably during World War 2, then Nazis could have staged U Boats out of there, if they could have got there in the first place.
Now they are finding that the Atlantic Ocean is creeping in and that ocean front property, as they say, is no longer worth much.
The constraint of no longer being able to build here – of not being sure that we are sufficiently protected from the sea.
Here I sit in what is called the low country of South Carolina.
The pandemic era WORK FROM HOME concept has caused this area to blow up population wise.
The city of Bluffton, where I live had 900 people living here 25 years ago.
It now has 40,000 and more are moving in every day with new developments both for residents and vacationers.
Houses, Town Homes and Apartments turn up before our eyes.
Vacant marsh land overnight is now a golf course.
But the sea is still a problem for us and it pretty much runs the show.
First off, no one gets to live on the coast.
There is only so much of that.
Second, this is still the low country.
At high tide, 50% of the Beaufort County is under water.
As well as cutting back on available dry land, which pretty much was taken over for roads and railway right-of-ways a long time ago, the amount of fresh water here was maxed also a long time ago.
City and County leaders point out almost every day that the limit for water services and road expansion has been reached.
Then the zoning boards approve another 5,000 homes.
On to of that, the entire area could be wiped off the map by a hurricane.
At some point all of this has to come to smash and the folks here will be forced to tell themselves that their property here is no longer worth much.
No Haiku For You 