Later, a wild thunderstorm. Later still, a strange beautiful though slightly sinister light before sundown.
Still later yet, a bit of scanning; influenced by the storm and the light and all, I scanned this image of a waterspout glimpsed many years ago from the North Carolina Outer Banks...
Also scanned this snap of young Caleb Szégy-Légy in Madison Muskies uniform, with double bass, 1982. Caleb is now a large bald architect.
Meanwhile, back at Accokeek, Maryland, the sheep keep an eye on things. As a possible title, Sheep may Safely Gaze would be cheap and facile. I like it.
Touring England and Scotland with old friend Bob Lyon back in '83, we stopped to view the White Horse of Uffington. I took some pictures - some sheep shots, and also the scene above, a couple of trees nicely placed in the curve of the hill. Weeks later, back in Maryland, I picked up one of the books I had bought in London, Classical Landscape by Osbert Lancaster. I opened it at random, and read the following, part of a description of the Greek landscape on the road from Vilia to Mandra:
All the way one is being constantly struck by the admirable emphasis a single tree can add to a landscape, giving scale and distance to a prospect the immensity of which in our own country [The U.K.], with great hangers of beech and thick groves of oak outlining without exaggerating the more rounded contours of the downs and hills, is rarely chanced on. (It is not, however, entirely unknown, as I recall some thorn trees in a hollow of the Berkshire downs immediately below the White Horse at Uffington which fulfil exactly this rôle.) [Emphasis mine; chapter 3, pp. 93-94]
I always meant to send a print to Lancaster, but it slipped my mind; he died in 1986.
One pours a bit of cassis in the little reservoir in the bottom of the glass, and then tops it off with lager - let the ingredients blend a bit. Drink; repeat as necessary.
Here's an interesting coincidence - Patton was Master of the Sword at the Mounted Service School, Fort Riley, Kansas, and designed the Army's Model 1913 Cavalry Saber. in 1914, Patton wrote a manual - Saber Exercise. Makes you think...
It's a highly thought-provoking scenario - many thanks to Robert for presenting it.
Cat Contemplating the Bust of Apollo, Eleutherian Mills, 1984. So now I'm thinking that not enough scholarly attention has been paid to, nor generous grants given for the study of aesthetic cognition in Felis domesticus. Oh, just one more:
Cat in Deep Meditation, Cimetière du Père Lachaise, Paris. I would think that any forward thinking grant-giving organization would leap at the opportunity to fork some cash over for such a project. I'm waiting by the phone, by the way.
