Crystaldish

Coming back on the train, it is warm, and the windows are kept open. I try to read a book but insects of all kinds keep alighting upon the page. I blow them off but new ones keep appearing. I compare the intricacy of the little black insects with the simplicity of the letters of the alphabet lined up on the page. Could we but learn the infinite alphabet of nature and read her words upon the page then our understanding would be as the Gods.

I shall be offline and on holiday for a couple of weeks.

From: In Memoriam A.H.H.
By: Alfred Lord Tennyson (1809 - 1892)


Oh, yet we trust that somehow good
Will be the final end of ill,
To pangs of nature, sins of will,
Defects of doubt, and taints of blood;

That nothing walks with aimless feet;
That not one life shall be destroy'd,
Or cast as rubbish to the void,
When God hath made the pile complete;

That not a worm is cloven in vain;
That not a moth with vain desire
Is shrivell'd in a fruitless fire,
Or but subserves another's gain.

Behold, we know not anything;
I can but trust that good shall fall
At last--far off--at last, to all,
And every winter change to spring.

So runs my dream: but what am I?
An infant crying in the night:
An infant crying for the light:
And with no language but a cry.

The New Vestments
By Edward Lear (1812 - 1888)

There lived an old man in the kingdom of Tess,
Who invented a purely original dress;
And when it was perfectly made and complete,
He opened the door, and walked into the street.

By way of a hat, he'd a loaf of Brown Bread,
In the middle of which he inserted his head;--
His Shirt was made up of no end of dead Mice,
The warmth of whose skins was quite fluffy and nice;--
His Drawers were of Rabbit-skins, -- but it is not known whose;--
His Waistcoat and Trowsers were made of Pork Chops;--
His Buttons were Jujubes, and Chocolate Drops;--
His Coat was all Pancakes with Jam for a border,
And a girdle of Biscuits to keep it in order;
And he wore over all, as a screen from bad weather,
A Cloak of green Cabbage-leaves stitched all together.........................................

But all does not go well as perhaps you had anticipated and the poem ends.....

And he said to himself as he bolted the door,
'I will not wear a similar dress any more,
'Any more, any more, any more, never more!'

Inner Space
By Paul San Casciani (1935 - )




This unusual example of stained glass is based on an electron microsope image of a small organism called a hydra

Derrida Queries De Man
By Mark Tansey (1949 - )



Paul de Mann and Jacques Derrida were friends and philosophers who discussed literary theory. They were not always in agreement and this picture shows them fighting like Sherlock Holmes and Moriarty upon cliffs made of words.

Tansey didn't like people who analysed art and literature for a living and this was his way of getting back at them.

Fiori di Como
By Dale Chihuly (1941 - )



The Fiori di Como decorates the ceiling of the Bellagio Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas. The glass sculpture is unique in scale and required a team of glassblowers, architects and engineers to make and install.

Chihuly says 'color is one of the great properties of glass and is more intense in glass than any other material. I wanted to use a lot of color but ended up utilizing only about 40 of the 350 colors in my palette. I made the color appear random, yet organized as you might find in nature."

Crimson Plum Blossoms
By Ki no Tomonori (c 900)

If not to you,
To whom might I show
These plum blossoms?
Their colour, their scent,
Is known only by the knowing.