signed!

I'm delighted to say that today I signed the contract for the book provisionally/definitely known as "Habitatscapes: Environmental Futures in Nineteenth Century Art" - all 110,000 words and 100 images of it - to be published next year by the University of Chicago Press.  I have two and a half months to pull the manuscript into final shape ...

Many, many thanks to all of you - you know who you are - who have helped get the book to this point: reading versions of it; workshopping it; coming to talks and asking great questions; feeding me images and quotations.  I really wouldn't have reached this moment without you.  

 

performances

Two very different mediums.  In the morning, my terrific Honors student (in Art History, this time!) Sophia Soll talks about what nineteenth century American landscapes can't show directly in terms of the transcendental; in the early evening, Nigel - on a very flying visit from Princeton - plays us his version of John Donne's "The Flea," set to - adapted to - hmmm, early prog rock?  Think Soft Machine or early King Crimson.  Gramsci was not at all sure what to make of this, but (presumably grasping that this was a song about Fleas) thought that the safest course of action was to wash himself, vigorously.

 

Bookshelf issues, part II

Different bookshelf, but very much the same Gramsci: he's never encountered a bookshelf he didn't want to sit in.

For my part, I'm delighted to have a new bookcase.  It's one of the ones from Alice's office that have been rehomed here.  But ... the arrival of multiple bookcases, and those things that go in them - books, not cats - and the furniture (and painting) re- arrangment that that's necessitated has been quite an upheaval, and let's just say that this has been on a day in which I would have very much appreciated a quiet day in my own university office doing all the admin that I'll have to do - when?  It'll get done - it always does.  But.

 

very May grey

For those of you who envy living in sunny Southern California ... this month and next - and with luck for longer - we often have a marine layer in the mornings, that sometimes lingers right on into the later part of today.  This morning it was drizzling, too.  So this view from our walk down by the Zoo, a couple of miles from our house, but looking up onto the same hilly part of Griffith Park - this might as well be Scotland.  No sheep, though.

 

Joe Boone's retirement party

Very excellent to get to celebrate Joe Boone's retirement today - a celebration that had to be delayed, but that was so very well worth it: a great gathering of colleagues and former grad students; and moving speeches that only conveyed a fraction of the love and gratitude that was ... I was going to write "in the room" - in the garden?

That would be Meg Russett's beautiful garden.

Bill Handley giving a heartfelt speech: it's a long time since I first met Bill, when he was a grad rep on the Faculty Board in Oxford, where he was already eloquent, but I don't know that I ever foresaw that he and I would be colleagues in Southern California ...

and then there were plenty of dear friends, colleagues, and former colleagues: the summer may not exactly have started yet (another week and a half of duties); but it felt like we're nearly there!

 

May Day

The poppies are still going strong!  So, indeed, are plenty of other native flowers and flowering plants, although admittedly the dominant color here is green.  Alas, between the Lugg movers arriving with the contents of Alice's office (and balking at the idea that it would be possible to carry tall unwieldy bookshelves down stairs that have rather a lot of corners in them, so plans will have to change); and endless end-of-semester grad studies admin stuff, there wasn't a whole lot of time to consider the joys of a rural retreat.

 

bookshelf issues

Tomorrow is the day that Alice's books, bookcases (thank goodness), and such like make their move from her (former) campus office to our house.  I'm sure we'll be able to fit them in, somewhere - it's remarkable what a logistical puzzle that turns out to be, even in a big house (electrical outlets, central heating vents, windows, doors, etc etc).  This bookcase will move from my study up to a bedroom - presumably without the tabby and white ornament - and something taller, and with more shelves, will take its place.