COMMENT: Feeling low?

Listen to a speaker on Ted.com and restore your faith in human nature.



Ted.com is financed by a non-profit organisation established in 1990 by Chris Anderson

POETRY: Stevie Smith

A salutary lesson - friends take note:

''People who are always praising the past
And especially the times of faith at best
Ought to go and live in the Middle Ages
And be burnt at the stake as witches and sages.''

Stevie Smith (1902-1971), British poet, novelist. The Past, Selected Poems (1962).

SHOPPING: David Linley & David Mellor

Xmas present from Linley?Smart cylinder contains matches to light a gladdening fire www.davidlinley.com

Firewood in basket ..multiple use... from a uniquely good shop: David Mellor.

www.davidmellordesign.com

ART I ADMIRE: The Drawings of Jasper Johns [1930 - ]

Jubilee

Untitled 1963

Flags

Souvenir 1964

CLEARING OUT OF POSTCARDS... with apologies to my friends

LIVING BY DESIGN / BOOKS: Jacques Grange

Un décor de Jacques ne s’explique pas, on y est sensible - Pierre Passebon

Grange epitomises the sophistication of a great designer adept at juggling, matching and mismatching different styles.  He is, in his very essence, a civilised and articulate man...with a Developed Eye.  He has a quintessentially French understanding of opulence, understatement and comfort.

ARCHITECTURE: St. George's Church, Bloomsbury

The portico is modelled on the Temple of Jupiter at Baalbek, the tower influenced by the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus, with sculptures of lions and unicorns - the union of England & Scotland - a Hawskmoor (1661-1736) masterpiece.

Below: The Charles Grant Monument - Chairman of the East India Company [family famous for Grant's Whisky] - a friend of William Wilberforce, the abolitionist.

POETRY: Extract from Alexander Pushkin: TO NATALYA

So it's come to me at last ---

Cupid's such a flighty chap;

Fevered heart, has it fast --

In a trice I'm in his trap!

Vanished is the joyful day

When, not knowing love's dismay

I could live and blithely sing

At the theatre and fête,

Promenade and masquerade,

As a zephyr light of wing;

When I'd laugh at Cupid's spite,

Scoffing satires I would write

On the charming female kind;

But alas, I laughed in vain,

Felt at last his arrow's pain,

Fell myself out of my mind.

Freedom, mirth, wiped of the slate --- oh,

I must take a break from Cato

And assume a lover's part:

Saw the beauty of Natalya,

Lovely votaress of Thalia;

Now --- here's Cupid in my heart! 

LIVING BY DESIGN:

John Stefanidis 

 An Exercise in Luxury - Manhattan, NY

BOOKS: By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept by Elisabeth Smart

Available from Amazon in paperback only

AWESOME - first published in 1945, it is three decades since I first read this extraordinary book and I was, once more, astonished.  A masterpiece of poetic prose.

To quote Brigid Brophy in her Foreword to the book 'Reading the book is like saying a tragic, pagan, erotic rosary'. 

LIVING BY DESIGN: Art Deco is still with us

Cecil Beaton, Loelia, Duchess of Westminster.
She is wearing a diamond tiara by Lacloche, [1930]

Still from Grand Hotel, directed by Edmund Goulding (1932)

Bernard Boutet de Monvel The Maharaja of Indore in Occidental Dress [1929)

Jean Dunand, pair of vases (1931)

CLEARING OUT OF POSTCARDS... with apologies to my friends

ART I ADMIRE: Robert Delaunay

 Robert and Sonia Delaunay were a great influence on design since the 1920s.

POETRY: Derek Walcott: The Prodigal

The Syrian writer, historian and broadcaster Rana Kabbani, with oriental 'savoir vivre', comes loaded with presents whenever she comes to lunch or dinner. Amongst the presents last time was The Prodigal by Derek Walcott, a Nobel Prize winning poet I had never read.

Extract:
I had said goodbye to the beautiful plump soldier
whose hair, when she removed her forage cap,
was neatly parted as a blackbird's wings,
to the berry-red lipstick, goodbye to eyes
that held, I hoped, more than formal affection,
outside the hotel.  Desire flashed from my face
like a weapon caught in sunlight, then she mounted
her lucky motorcycle and glided off, gone
into the turning traffic out of our lives.

LIVING BY DESIGN: More JS Scribbles

ARCHITECTURE: David Adajaye

Keep tabs on the Ghanaian/British architect David Adajaye who designed the new Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington D.C.

Adajaye has also designed a chair for Knoll.

FABRICS: John Stefanidis Archive: SOPHIE

*** Each facet of cubes a Stefanidis fabric design ***

LIVING BY DESIGN: Tony Duquette, Californian designer

Verging on Kitsch - glitz with éclat - fearless invention... Duquette's 'green dining room' and garden at Dawnridge... 

Hollywood comes to Venice 'piano nobile' 

Palazzo Brandolini for Dodie Rosenkrans...

Right: When Elsie de Wolfe died, she willed her 'meuble' to Duquette who placed it in a prominent position in the ballroom of his studio.  

ARCHITECTURE: Hot News

Thomas Heatherwick has conceived a garden bridge across the Thames. Google it and see how great it could be. According to the London Evening Standard: Private donors have pledged £150million, now the Chancellor should find the rest. IT MUST BE BUILT AND FAST, IT IS A GREAT IDEA.

POETRY: Reason & Love by Alexander Pushkin

Young Daphnis, chasing Chloe, cried:
"My beauty, wait! Don't run away!
Just say: I love you - don't go hide,
I swear by Venus, I won't stay!"
"Be silent!  Reason coldly said;
"Say: I adore you!" Eros replied.

"Adore you!" sang the maiden sweet,
And love set both their hearts ablaze,
And Daphnis fell before her feet,
And Chloe dropped her flaming gaze,
"Oh flee! O flee!" cold Reason cried.
While crfaty Eros "Stay!" replied.

She stayed,  And, trembling with his love,
The happy shepherd made his plea:
"O look, he said, "that downy dove
Has kissed his mate beneath the tree!"
"Oh flee!" cried reason once again;
"They'll show you how!" said Eros then.

DOCUMENTARY: The History of Art in Three Colours

Not Lord Clark of 'Civilisation' but nevertheless very good watchable TV and erudite: James Fox eloquent, far-fetched but pleasurable.

'The History of Art in Three Colours' - GOLD / BLUE / WHITE. 

No longer available on BBC Iplayer but full episodes can be found on You Tube.