A Basket of Good Things

Weather today has played some dismal notes on my frame of mind. Rain, sleet and finally snow in all its metropolitan inconvenience make me yearn for different scenery, something to brighten and bring warmth to an opposite outward aspect. So I sit recalling the good things of past days, those out of the ordinary tidbits that have made me stop and exclaim, “Awright!”

Fountain Pen and Ink of the Week

Most every day for the past week I have used my Pelikan 200, dripping with the punchbowl red of Caran d’Ache Sunset ink. Please don’t misunderstand my use of ‘dripping’ to mean pen and ink are behaving badly. Both are splendid and just the thing for foul weather days.

A Drawing Much Appreciated These Days

An artist friend of mine told me last time we met to look through a stack of sketches and take one I liked. The nude life study (ten minute pose with a live model) in the photo here is something I found in that stack. I put it in the plainest of black frames with white matting.

Soundtrack: 187

Something I’ve almost worn out with repeated play, this is an oldie from 1997, a movie that starred Samuel L. Jackson. Artists include Massive Attack, Everything But The Girl, Galliano, Jalal and Bang Bang. Listen to some clips here.

Blog Posts Enjoyed More Than Once

Julie at Whatever put up a post on February 15 called, “A Year in the Life of a Tree,” which is a 52 week record of the gradual changes in her Golden Raintree. By all means look at it if you haven’t already. It’s here.

Check out the February 24 post on Inkyjournal with an especially good video from Aurora Pens called, “How to Make a Fountain Pen.” A very interesting five minute video.

Favorite Word of the Week

This is another of those rare and hard to look up words from the 19th century mind of writer Patrick O’Brian. In Chapter 8 of The Ionian Mission, No. 8 in the Aubrey/Maturin series, he writes, “…But what is much more to the point, what a set of clinchpoops we should look, was we to raise Cavaleria before the French.”

‘Clinchpoop’ is defined in the dictionary as: a lout, jerk, clod, boor, slob, boob, fathead, sap, moron and idiot. It also has two other less than pleasant meanings which I will leave out here.

Poem of the Week

“Elegy for the Personal Letter” by Allison Joseph. Read it here. (March 9, 2010 in the archive.)

With this basket of good things, I push away the chill and gloom of a day beset by rain, sleet and snow.