strange flight

This morning. to Sheffield City Library and the Graves Gallery, on the top floor - the two joined by this mobile of birds (that seem to be made out of folded dish-wipes) that tumbles down all three floors.  It was a good place not just to shelter from the steady thick rain, but to see some minor masterpieces I'd never seen at first hand before, including this terrific WW1 piece by C. W. Nevinson, Ypres after the first bombardment, 1917.

the impossible assignment

So ... my father, understandably not feeling up to traveling to the wintry north to attend his sister-in-law's funeral, sends me off with instructions to take pictures.  "People take photographs at birthdays and weddings," he reasoned, so "why not funerals?"  I can think of a lot of answers to that, thinking, for a start, about how uncomfortable Annie Leibowitz's photographs of her father's funeral make me feel (not that I am AL; not that I would publish any such pictures, even here - but then, I wouldn't take them in the first place... ).  But at the same time, my father has a point: how does one honor the occasion?  Luckily, happily, the weather did that for me - first at the crematorium in Sheffield, then at the beautiful country church in the village of Eyam, and the ceremonies in both places were wonderful, and touching, and I am so very glad that I came.

And it was terrific to see my cousins, and extended family - their children, one grandchild, their cousins ... quite probably this is what my father wanted, some kind of commemorative family picture - and indeed, these give the impression of a pretty good party.

I know that it would have made Nancy very happy to have seen us all gathered together, and to have heard all the warm and loving tributes that were paid to her.

Festive cheer in Sheffield

I experimented, of course, with flipping this so that the signage was fully legible in these multicultural greetings hanging above the winter market in Sheffield, but then the architecture would have been wrong.  However, the multiculturism is unquestionably a defining presence, as witnessed by the number of women wearing hijabs (without anyone, perhaps it's superfluous to say, paying the slightest bit of notice).  I'm heartened by all the anti-Trumpism in England, which hovers on the edge between ridicule (and through it, America gets ridiculed too) and political call-out for the fascist, racist hatred (coupled with sheer nauseating opportunism) that it is.  

Heartened why, though?  Because I'll be able to return somewhere sane should the worst happen? That's hardly n the cards, until the camps start.  Not with a wife who doesn't want to live here (quite understandable, given the chilly bleakness of Sheffield in December when one compares it with Los Angeles) and a houseload of dysfunctional cats who probably feel the same way.

And if a cart of roasted chestnuts, smelling like they always have done on English winter streets, pulls my own heart in one direction,

there's quite a lot about the Sleigh Bar, in the Winter Market, that most certainly doesn't (I here channel my inner Martin Parr.  Without, for the record, his use of flash.)

Rothko, meet air travel (for Dec 9th)

Coming in to land at Chicago - the sky, for about a minute, turned an extraordinary luminous pink.

tidying drawers

A day back in LA - and because of a complicated travel schedule, I won't have another chance to make my parts of the house more-or-less respectable before various sets of friends are staying here over the break.  So (especially mindful of my own experiences as a renter, even though it's not quite the same thing), I've been super mindful of leaving empty or extra-tidy drawers, surfaces, spaces. Only - it's hard tidying drawers when they have a Moth in them.

airport holiday decorations - a comparative study (i)

Over the next week or so, there should be plenty of opportunities to assess how different airports decorate themselves for the holidays.  I think, though, that the nadir may already be found, at LAX Terminal 6 baggage claim.  3 poinsettias, one misshapen tree, and a whole lot of cotton wool.  If there was a notice saying it had been done by a 2nd grad class, or by the developmentally disabled, or by prisoners, or or or, I might feel a little more sympathetic towards it.  As it is, it's so bad that it's approaching the parodic.  It's setting the bar high - will I be able to find worse?

watery depths

Maybe I take a lot of pictures of fish because I'm a Pisces?  I'm amazed that I haven't thought of that before, but it's as good an explanation as any.  These are embedded in the glass door of a fishmongers/fish cafe in downtown Durham - one of those places which (paper tablecloths, plastic baskets of food, been there for ever) is either very good or very bad, but somehow never quite manages to entice me in ... But I've been shockingly unadventurous in eating out since I've been here: when I'm back in January, I'll add exploring food places within walking distance to the long, long list of things I haven't quite got around to doing yet.