Necessities

It would be untruthful to say there are only a handful of books that have changed the way I see the world around me. Yet, it is with absolute honesty that I can say there are only a handful of books that have changed the way I think about how I see the world around me. I'm not sure where exactly it lies, but Letters to a Young Poet is without question within reach. 

In the early 1900s a young German poet sent his work to Rainer Maria Rilke, asking him for advice on how to mold himself into a writer. For the next five years, Rilke sealed his wisdom and his heart into envelopes addressed to the young poet. After Rilke's death, the letters were bound and published, leaving us to crave letters of such honesty and beauty addressed to us. 

In one of his letters, Rilke talks about the futility of a life lived without passion. With words alone, he drops us into a world that necessitates throwing every piece of ourselves into something. For the young poet, it is the desperate, unending passion for his work. For Rilke, it is making clear the power and pleasure of love. It is left to us alone to mold of head and heart passions to call our own. The subject and context are not important -- the presence of passion is indispensable:

"Believe that with your emotions and your work that you are taking part in the greatest." 

It is impossible to deny that there is something inherently entrancing about people who have conquered the manifestation of passion within themselves. So many of my brilliant and beautiful friends have found what it is that drives them, or, perhaps just as importantly, lent thought to the cognition of living passionately. I adore them. I'm addicted to every moment of conversation that comes with brightly lit eyes and words spilling faster than our mouths can organize. I want to know every heart that beats wholly with the passion that keeps it from crumbling. Please teach me your mind -- how does it work?

Metacognition is a big word for a simple idea: knowing about knowing. It's a dangerous idea -- thinking about thinking. The risk of getting lost is great, and overwhelmed greater. Still, it seems the risk carries a weight far more enticing than the safety of a mind left unexplored.  

The Only Question That Matters

I saw this written on the T.

Yann Tiersen and Elizabeth Fraser "Kala"

{I can't believe I didn't know this duet existed until tonight, but I'm happy it found me.} 

There are nights when the chords hum right, and the light from the building next door falls slanted into my room -- pivoting around a midnight moon as shadows of cars pass on the street. A gentle song swathes me to sleep. And oh how I sleep. Until gravity feels safe again and the city sings softly and I slip into something of myself by morning.  

The Daughters of Edward Darley Boit

In their lifetime, these four little girls saw more of the world than any other little girls could have possibly hoped. American princesses collecting shell tiaras from their Rhode Island vacation home, the daughters of Edward Darley Boit lived lives of uninhibited wealth and travel. The blue and white vases, standing tall in their portrait, traveled with the family -- packed and unpacked like familiar faces in crowded rooms of people speaking languages foreign to the girls' well cleaned ears.  

If you visit the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, you'll find John Singer Sargent's portrait of family and youth humbly hung, but powerfully flanked by the actual vases standing like old friends in Sargent's painting. Gallery whispers tell us that when the MFA acquired the vases, they tipped them about for a good cleaning, spilling out a few long-lost toys the younger girls had tossed into the vases' open mouths. 

It's a beautiful intersection of history and family and art -- leaving us to wonder where one begins and the other ends. And if at the end of it all, when hung on the quiet wall of a museum, the boundaries we've drawn between the intersections of our segmented lives mean anything at all. 

Marni: The Modern Day Diary of Princess Margarita Theresa of Spain?

Perhaps it is because I was studying into the wee hours of the morning for my Art History exam during Fashion Week, or perhaps it is because my brain tends to organize fashion and art in the same pile of creative cultural records in my head, but I cannot help but notice the uncanny, yet delightful, similarities between the Fall 2009 Marni collection, and the elaborate wardrobe of Princess Margarita Theresa of Spain. 

Our visual record of Princess Margarita is almost entirely through Spanish Baroque artist Diego Velazquez's work. In the mid-1620s, Spain's King Philip IV named Velazquez the official court painter. Princess Margarita, Philip's favorite daughter, quickly became the focus of Velazquez's efforts. When she was born, the Princess was promised to her cousin, a member of the Austrian royal family. In a grand romantic gesture of arranged marriage, King Philip arranged for Margarita's portrait to be painted as gifts for her young Austrian fiancé.

The Baroque period in Spain was a time of drama and ornate details -- the fabrics heavy, the colors rich. The Spanish Empire was almost unbelievably powerful. Pockets were deep and elaborate clothing was becoming increasingly more accessible. Dresses made of metallic thread, heavy tapestry-like cloth, and jeweled details were the prize of royal closets. 

It is without question that pieces from the Marni collection are strikingly similar to some of Velazquez's most famous portraits of Princess Margarita Theresa. I'm not yet sure what the similarity means, if anything at all, but I do know that there's something antique, something lavish, and something opulent about it all. 

Infanta Margarita Theresa in a pink dress, Velaquez. 1654.

Marni Fall 2009

Queen Margarita on horseback, Velazquez. 1634-35.

Marni Fall 2009

Sweet Bobby Zimmerman at His Most Charming

This is the most delightfully endearing video I've ever seen of my dear Bob Dylan. The world would be a much different place without him.

Waiting for the 1 Bus

Yesterday while waiting for the 1 Bus on Mass Ave, I turned around quickly when something behind me made a loud crash. Finding that the noisy commotion was nothing more than the quick closing of a store front gate, I turned back to the street. Despite the cold in my eyes, I was halted by a small, white address label stuck to the bus stop shelter. 

The label looked like one of these. 

On it, in small, plain, left justified font, it said:

The first time someone shows you who they are, 

believe them. 

And I'm not entirely sure what that means.

I mean, obviously, I know what the words mean, but I think here, the meaning is buried entirely in what the writer meant. Which now that I'm thinking about it, might always be the case. 

Either way, I know it's important. And it changed my day yesterday. And it changed my day today. And tomorrow starts in 36 minutes, so it might change my tomorrow too.