This weekend I visited several of them dotted around the Lower East Side; the noise of children jiving at birthday parties in the gardens rang in two different plots. These are an oasis of beauty and a pleasant place for meeting amidst our overly-manufactured city and selves and our very human habit of running ourselves ragged. Real Estate, Retail and Industry are not the only things worth buying:

Life has loveliness to sell,
All beautiful and splendid things;
Blue waves whitened on a cliff,
Soaring fire that sways and sings,
And children’s faces looking up,
Holding wonder like a cup.

Life has loveliness to sell;
Music like a curve of gold,
Scent of pine trees in the rain,
Eyes that love you, arms that hold,
And, for the Spirit’s still delight,
Holy thoughts that star the night.

Give all you have for loveliness;
Buy it, and never count the cost!
For one white, singing hour of peace
Count many a year of strife well lost;
And for a breath of ecstasy,
Give all you have been, or could be.

‘Barter’ a poem by Sara Teasdale.

And another iteration of this:

8-9 … whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things… And the God of peace will be with you.

These reminded me of a small but interesting collection of Anglo-Indian furnishings in the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Much of the furniture is carved patterning that has caught black ink in it’s grooves on a white ground; I think quite a lovely iteration of black on white; though instead of paper there is wood and lacquer. These pieces are from Vishakhapatnam on the southeast coast of India; mostly acquired by Indian rulers for entertaining European guests in their palaces. What an interesting comparison of cultures; from the appreciation of the English eye; a view of Italy; reflected through Indian translation for English visitors.

The influence of European Engravings from the 18th century is obvious. An interesting reference point is the exhibit of engravings of Venice, also in the museum. Though it finishes today you can view some of the images online.

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To the right of the main image, below the plane of the Galaxy, is a large cloud of gas in our Galaxy. The obvious arc of light surrounding it is Barnard’s Loop – the expanding bubble of an exploded star. Planck has seen whole other galaxies. The great spiral galaxy in Andromeda, 2.2 million light-years from Earth, appears as a sliver of microwave light, released by the coldest dust in its giant body. Other, more distant, galaxies with supermassive black holes appear as single points of microwaves dotting the image.

What a wondrous universe we live in; vast, complex and wide.

Mike Perry’s work is showing up in all manner of products and places. I particularly love these screen prints from a recent show at Double Punch Gallery in San Fransisco. The Holiday Zine ‘to celebrate another year of making’ is worth a look too!

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Last year’s performance The Times called ‘a distillation of the French Baroque spirit in all its ultraelegant subtlety’ but I could not help seeing neo classical etherium. The only image I can find that captures something of the feel of that first scene with pas de duex is NYCB’s photo of Robert Fairchild and Wendy Whelan in Opus 19 / The Dreamer by Henry Leutwyler – an image that was all over the city last year, and has such resonance it is still in my mind.

It’s a not dissimilar spirit I see being captured in the collections of Kirrily Johnston. Echoes of inspiration abound from dance and movement by the likes of Martha Graham. I’ve been interested in Kirrily’s work since her first collection in 2004; for the conceptual nature of her draping and the unique way she looks at the body within a constructed form. I also shared the same crazy landlady with her that year and had similarly just moved from Melbourne to Sydney, though as is a neighbour’s want, we only ever exchanged friendly hellos. Her latest collection continues to ‘think outside of the square’.

A German national and well-travelled intellectual and theologian, he was part of a group who attempted to assassinate Hitler. Many such dissenters took the opportunity to save their lives through exile but Bonhoeffer felt he could do more from within than without. The conspiracy was discovered and all were arrested. Bonheoffer was hanged in the concentration camp at Flossenburg a few days before it was liberated by allied forces. He was put to death alongside two of his brothers-in-law and several of his close associates at the age of 39, leaving behind a devoted fiancé and countless who loved him. Within the prison his indomitable character and unswerving kindness won him many friends; including the two Gestapo prison guards who so admired him that they smuggled his writings and poems to the outside.

There are numerous recently written works about him. The copy I am reading includes a memoir by G.Leibholz, which outlines this man’s courageous stand and includes some of his poetry:

Who am I? They often tell me

I stepped from my cell’s confinement

Calmly, cheerfully, firmly,

Like a squire from his country-house.

Who am I? They often tell me

I used to speak to my warders

Freely and friendly and clearly,

As though it were mine to command.

Who am I? They also tell me

I bore the days of misfortune

Equally, smilingly, proudly,

Like one accustomed to win.

Am I then really all that which other men tell of?

Or am I only what I myself know of myself?

Restless and longing and sick, like a bird in a cage,

Struggling for breath, as though hands were

compressing my throat,

Yearning for colors, for flowers, for the voices of birds,

Thirsting for words of kindness, for neighbourliness,

Tossing in expectation of great events,

Powerlessly trembling for friends at an infinite distance,

Weary and empty at praying, at thinking, at making,

Faint, and ready to say farewell to it all?

Who am I? This or the other?

Am I one person today and tomorrow another?

Am I both at once? A hypocrite before others,

And before myself a contemptibly woebegone weakling?

Or is something within me still like a beaten army,

Fleeing in disorder from victory already achieved?

Who am I? They mock me, these lonely questions of mine.

Whoever I am, Thou knowest, 0 God, I am Thine!

March 4,1946

The painting is by Wassily Kandinsky: Composition X (1939) who’s teaching post at the Bauhaus was closed down by the Gestapo in 1933; the same year that Bonhoeffer denounced the political system on the wireless, though he was not expelled from his lecturing position at Berlin University until 1936.

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