the onion

just had to share this giant onion i sliced up today.

some perspective -

yes, half of it is the size of that large coffee mug...

winslow homer, black+white+brown

fisher girl with net, 1882

 flamborough head, england, 1882

 girl seated, 1880

going berrying, 1879

life goal number....eh, i've lost track already

yes, i still want to own a vespa when i grow up.

never mind the fact that i still don't know how to drive, much less ride a motorbike, much less ride a bicycle without being just a little bit wobbly (i imagine that might be a bit of a deterring factor).

i love the lines!  besides, it's so fun just to go around saying "vespa."  like reese witherspoon in the movie, penelope.

i snapped this photo from the top of one of barcelona's "bus turistic" last summer - mostly because i liked her bag.

not a vespa, it would appear, but she still looks rocking cool.

kinda creepy?

Well, I still can't remember the name of that one painting that I was thinking about in my ordinary day
 post a while back.

But I did come across this painting by George W. Bellows, an American artist (1882-1925).  It is of the artist's wife - but I find her expression and pose vaguely unnerving.  Not only because her face looks so...well, blank, there's absolutely nothing hiding behind her eyes..., but because I feel like everyone looks like that at least once in a while, when they're really tired.  Oh goodness, I hope I don't look like that too often...

Emma in a Purple Dress, 1920-1923

intriguing.

one of my faves at boston's mfa - 

john singer sargent
the daughters of edward darley boit

collage #1 in below the surface

This is what I came up with.

That's right, Keira Knightley's head has been replaced with a suit of armor helmet.

I felt bad cutting off her head.  The whole Oscar ensemble was rather nice.

Can you spot it? (the head, that is).

Oh, and after looking through all those magazines I was left with a moderate amount of mess in my room...

how lovely.

Conclusion: either MIT has been messing with my head way more than I realize, or this chemistry lab is driving me mad.

skeletons in the closet

omg i seriously want a shirt like this....

i have a lungs shirt, gray's anatomy style, but it's kid-sized.  the shirt fits me but the size of the lungs is mildly ridiculous.

http://lookbook.nu/look/887177-casual-mint-green

i shall call him squishy

"have some fish n' jelly"

http://fuckyeahmoleskines.tumblr.com/page/33#719036696

this is awesome.

http://fuckyeahmoleskines.tumblr.com/page/26#643885010

i like.

knights and ladies, ladies and lords

Vision of a Knight, Raphael

A Pavane, Edwin Austin Abbey

the pros of chemistry lab

 see, good things can come from chemistry.

like lab. when you're not avoiding skin contact with half the solutions.

copper(II) sulfate

tetraammine copper(II)

the colors are so gorgeous!

the naked lady post and revelations on album cover photography

(to put it bluntly).

in my defense, this post only has one nude lady in it.  and it's for the sake of art.

this morning, a name popped into my head - ingres. jean auguste dominique.  who had a mastery of capturing the very feel of the fabric he painted.  here's what i mean:

princess albert de broglie, 1853

anyway, that's not the point.  the point is, i was reminded of his painting, la grande odalisque (1814).

i'm thinking that this may have been the painting that i thought of when i saw madeleine peyroux's album cover for half the perfect world - in my on music post.  hmmm.  now that i see them together they don't look particularly similar.  not even the pose, as i had originally thought.  maybe it was the colors?  maybe i am thinking of a different painting?

more serpentine gallery

this time from 2008, by frank gehry.

it looks kinda like a half-built wooden roller coaster. or something.

whimsy+england red

10th serpentine gallery pavilion, jean nouvel

i'm not sure how much this red reminds me of the england that is red telephone booths, red double decker buses, and red post boxes...to me this brings to mind a fantastical fairy house. or kites and chinese dragons.  or something.

---

 When most I wink, then do mine eyes best see,
For all the day they view things unrespected;
But when I sleep, in dreams they look on thee,
And darkly bright are bright in dark directed.
Then thou, whose shadow shadows doth make bright,
How would thy shadow's form form happy show
To the clear day with thy much clearer light,
When to unseeing eyes thy shade shines so!
How would, I say, mine eyes be blessed made
By looking on thee in the living day,
When in dead night thy fair imperfect shade
Through heavy sleep on sightless eyes doth stay!
All days are nights to see till I see thee,
And nights bright days when dreams do show thee me.

sonnet #43

clever.

two words, a world of difference - complaining vs. moaning.

"Visitors to Britain are rarely able to grasp – sometimes after decades of residency – the vital distinction its inhabitants make between complaining and moaning. The two activities seem similar, but there is a profound philosophical and practical difference. To complain about something is to express dissatisfaction to someone whom you hold responsible for an unsatisfactory state of affairs; to moan is to express the same thing to someone other than the person responsible. The British are powerfully embarrassed by complaining, and experience an almost physical recoil from people who do it in public. They do love to moan though."


-john lanchester, "party games" (the new yorker, 7 june  2010)