Letters of York

A vintage post-office display from the Railway Museum in York, featuring two of my favorite tropes, numbers and series of objects.

In the Future

This week's somewhat mindbending theme is Future. Herewith, the Basilica of Santa Maria Novella, Firenze, Italia, completed in 1360. And here we are in the future that none of the Dominicans involved in its building could have foreseen, restoring it to the condition it had in the past.

Flood Tide of Shadow

A sun-dappled morning in Locke Park, Barnsley, Yorkshire. Careful, don't get your feet shady!

Capri

One of my favorite spots in Italy is the island of Capri. Part of the attraction is that I'm a huge Graham Greene fan, and he spent much of his life here. But it's a lively place with many warrens of lanes across the hillside. I spent only one brief but memorable afternoon there in 2005. It's a great place to stock up on limoncello, I might add.

I love the shapes of this church in the main village.

Sweet

Mister Softee meets Mister Death in Haworth, Yorkshire, 2005.

Raise from your bed of languor
Raise from your bed of dismay
Your friends will not come tomorrow
As they did not come today

You must rely on yourself, they said,
You must rely on yourself,
Oh but I find this pill so bitter said the poor man
As he took it from the shelf

Crying, O sweet Death come to me
Come to me for company,
Sweet Death it is only you I can
Constrain for company.

- Stevie Smith

Featured Novice: Piper Bentley

I was going through my folders of photos and remembered how much I liked the ones taken by my daughter Piper (then barely 10) while we were in Italy in 2007. So I thought I'd share them.

Hillclimb

We spent many hours and calories trudging up and down ancient staircases throughout Tuscany and Umbria. I'm not sure where this one is.

L'ucello

Here too I'm unsure of the location, but I love Piper's eye for shape and composition. Although swallows were ubiquitous, I like to think she intentionally captured this one.

Perugia (before)

We walked along an elevated sidewalk in this town, which let us spy on a few apartments. I love the lonely washcloth on the clothesline and its shadow. These pigeons were suspiciously hanging around this window.

Perugia (after)

Soon we understood what they were waiting for.

Randy, at the Molino

The neighbor kitten was a constant companion in our villa and was inclined to try to mate with our feet whenever possible, hence his name). Here his wanton disregard for a house of cards is captured.

Arezzo flea market

A huge and fabulous market for anything old you can imagine.

Cortona

I'm pretty sure this is Cortona, but every town we visited had wonderful doors.

San Gimignano

Piper took my advice to sometimes look up from the pavement.

La strada

This is on the road somewhere. I love the serendipity of the "curve" sign's appearance.

Lucca

Piper won a school award for this one, which she took of an urban stream.

Ostia

One of the few signs of life in this town, which was essentially closed for the winter.

Ostia

Literally, the graffiti means "I and you three meters above the sky." (That is, in "seventh heaven.") It's also a book and movie title.

Event: Pasquale Processione

Theme Thursday and Weekend in Black and White once again: Although I've never been in Italy for Christmas, I've been there twice for Easter. Here are some shots from a night-time Good Friday procession through the streets of Sansepolcro, Tuscany, April 2007. It went on for several hours, with virtually the entire town taking part, bundled up in the cold and slowly walking past stations of the cross staged every couple of streets, with townsfolk and children in costume as Israelites and Centurions. Monks in black peaked robes accompanied us and the parade was led by priests with candelabras; many people carried their own candles.

Looking forward

The Medieval meets the present

Young Catholics doing their best impression of young Jews

We three kings of Orient are

Pieta and fruit

Shorn Christ and an overcome Centurion

Nautilus

Interior Reflexteriors

Semi-abstract trompe-l'oeils done with the aid of mirrors, if not smoke.

Cafe, Sansepolcro, Tuscany 2007

Cottage, Carnlough, Northern Ireland 2004

Cafe, Durham, England 2009

"Treasure"

Ever in search of economical accommodation in Italy, we opted in the Tuscan hilltown of Volterra for the Seminario Vescovile di Sant'Andrea.

We were given a rather Spartan but picturesque room with a window on the garden. Upon opening the bedside drawer we found a "treasure" of autographs from previous tenants...

But that was just a foretaste, because I soon opened a wardrobe to find a trove of ancient manuscripts.

We discovered as we pored through them that they were the bookkeeping records and related correspondence of the monks, dating back to the 18th century.
Not quite equivalent to stumbling on, say, The Voynich Manuscript, but exciting nonetheless.

For more Treasure, visit Theme Thursday!

Alchemical "Gizmotti"

One of the most amazing places we visited in Tuscany was the Aboca Museum in Sansepolcro. There you can see ancient apothecary equipment, preserved herbs, poisons, and other substances (e.g., mummified crocodiles), and fabulous herbalist manuscripts. Well worth a visit! Here are a few shots of some of the rare "gizmos" we saw...

Infrastructure of Thrills

This week's theme is Thrill, and let me say I'm almost as thrilled by struts and wires as by bungee jumping and rollercoasters.

London 2005

Sansepolcro, Umbria 2007

Blackpool, Yorkshire 2005

Birds Real and Unreal

Assisi afternoon

Siena dusk

Figures in Black

Duenna, near Monastiraki, Greece, 2005

Dubiety, near Delphi, Greece 2005

Spectre, Dorsoduro, Venice, 2004

Country

I've missed a few Theme Thursdays and Black and White Weekends, but back into the fray with this rustic offering.

Carrowholly, Country Mayo, Ireland, 2009

Jervaulx Abbey, Yorkshire, 2005

Castleton, Yorkshire, 2005