ALWAYS WEAR WHITE so the train can see you

Second piece of advice when posing on a train track, always make sure you do it on a turn so that the engineer has plenty of time to blow the whistle.


Click on image to see it larger. Anyone care to listen to Dylan's Blood on the Tracks?
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Tattered and Lost: The Quiet Art of Reading

TOM and BECKY

It really is summer. Sometimes I don't seem to find the time to really enjoy summer. If I get the opportunity to go swimming I can sometimes catch a glimmer of childhood and what it was like to just float without a worry in the world.

The other day while waiting for a medication to be filled at a pharmacy I wandered around wasting time looking at all the junk they had and I came across the toy aisle. It was full of junk from China, but amongst all of it I saw a package of brightly colored plastic boats. It was one of those moments when a spark from the past flickers by. I wanted those little plastic boats. I wanted to sail them down the street gutter following a rain storm. I wanted to put them in the little lake I'd made in my sandbox until the water seeped away leaving them high and dry in the desert. Yes, those stupid little plastic boats reminded me it was summer.

It's that time of year when I should be reading Huckleberry Finn; traveling down the Mississippi watching the lights at night flicker along the shoreline.

I love summer when I remember to enjoy it.

LITTLE GIRLS with PARASOLS

A lot of little girls like parasols. They make them feel special. I think they also help to define their physical space. Beneath the parasol is their world and you may only enter if invited.




(SOURCE: Mother Goose, illustrated by Kate Greenaway)

To see more parasols visit Lost Gallery.

PARASOLS, like I said...THEY'RE A CATEGORY

There's just something about a parasol that makes the person holding it smile when their photo is taken. The lovely paper parasols decorated with delicate images are something to smile about. The perfect accessory on a warm day.


Click on image to see it larger.

So why haven't parasols been made with collapsable handles like umbrellas? There are times each year when I go to some event and take along an umbrella because I just can't stand the sun; we don't get along at all. Too often umbrellas draw heat instead of dissipating it. A parasol would be so much nicer. And in my case I want a paper parasol, not fabric. I want something a Geisha would be happy to carry. I won't go into it, part of my childhood.

I declare today BBP day! BRING BACK PARASOLS!

Oh sure, watching some idiot walking and texting while trying to control a parasol is just courting disaster so perhaps people should be licensed to carry a parasol. Just something to think about.

PARASOLS, they're a category

At the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th, parasols were common in photos. They were the fashion accessory of the time and for good reason; women's complexions were to be pale, not tanned. Pale skin showed you were upperclass, tanned scan was for the working class.

I'd love to be able to collect antique parasols, but rarely see them. They often look to be Asian, but perhaps there were companies in the US manufacturing them to look Asian. I haven't a clue. I do know that they are a category, a vernacular photography category.


Click on image to see it larger.

Visit this site to see some lovely impressionist paintings of women with parasols by American artist Frederick Frieseke.

IT'S RAINING, IT'S POURING...oh wait...

I've said it before and I'm saying it again...the Kodak Brownie changed women's lives. They were free to be themselves if even for just a moment.

APRIL SHOWERS may come your way

I'm in an April Showers kind of mood, both here, and at my ephemera blog where I feature a Langston Hughes poem.

Click on image to see it larger.

April Showers

Life is not a highway strewn with flowers,

Still it holds a goodly share of bliss,

When the sun gives way to April showers,

Here is the point you should never miss.

Though April showers may come your way,

They bring the flowers that bloom in May.

So if it's raining, have no regrets,

Because it isn't raining rain, you know, (It's raining violets,)

And where you see clouds upon the hills,

You soon will see crowds of daffodils,

So keep on looking for a blue bird, And list'ning for his song,

Whenever April showers come along.

And where you see clouds upon the hills,

You soon will see crowds of daffodils,

So keep on looking for a blue bird, And list'ning for his song,

Whenever April showers come along

--Music by Louis Silvers, lyrics by B. G. De Sylva