Saturday, August 22, 2009

Lonely and blue.

How's that for a hook? In fact, I am neither, not in the least, but I have just posted a response to Joe's question, pinched from Lennon and McCartney: "All the lonely people, where do they all come from?" over at Compasses. And having taken questions from such a wide range of sources, from the Book of Job to King Lear to Eleanor Rigby, I decided to ask him something a little more demotic and down to earth, though not quite so peremptory as the 'Hey you, where's my lunch?' that he threw me earlier...


However, lest you think I might be dumbing down, and since form's the thing just now, I'll have you know it's a real, proper Italian sonnet, tight rhyme scheme, though it is mostly hexameter not pentameter but apparently that's OK, but NO FINAL COUPLET, oh no no! (Violence to the spirit, it would seem, though Wordsworth, no slouch with the Italian sonnet himself, was known to have been guilty of it.)


~~~
As for blue, it is still for me the colour of deep joy. This was further confirmed by a set of nail varnishes sent me by lovely sister, who knew of my desire for same. Not just one shade of marvellous turquoise, but also a vibrant blue-biased metallic emerald-viridian, and, the other way, a fabulous blue-violet, gentian, ultramarine...

It was not possible to choose which one to apply. I rejected painting each nail a different shade, on account of how I have ten and three into ten won't go, and anyway, that was not enough of a challenge. No, it was necessary to apply all three colours to each nail, preferably in such a way that the colours melded and even merged so as to be reminiscent of paua shell... but this was really a council of perfection, and this was the best I could do, on the second attempt, the first was so thick and blobby it looked more like Hammerite. It really took an unconscionably long time...



I decided to take the picture against the background of my blue ceiling. This necessitated pointing the camera while maintaining something resembling the yoga 'V' position, not one of my stronger ones, and the resulting camera shake required the use of flash, which makes my feet look rather jaundiced and the ceiling look more like midnight blue than its actual strong turquoise.

~~~

Further instances of the colour blue which cause me disproportionate and near-delirious joy, my marbles, which arrived the other day from Toypost. I think I feel an obsession coming on. I never played much with marbles as a child, and indeed, if I had had access to such beauties as these I almost certainly wouldn't have done, for who would have wanted to risk losing them?



They have amazing names, like soap bubble, bluejay, Monet, treefrog, tidal wave and white tiger, as well as all the epithets like 'lustred', 'opal', 'electric'... If you think paint charts are fun wait till you see these. And the ones you see in the bottom left corner of the collage above are collectibles, 'Gaia' and 'moon'. I think there are some asteroids too. OK, it's all pointless stuff, but it's great pointless stuff.

I had a 35mm emerald one, but I gave it to Tom, who I could see was hankering after it, (green glass goblin...) , and because it pleased me to do so.

~~~
Accidie, acedia. Isn't it odd to have a singular noun ending in 'ie'? I find I am putting off doing not only the things I should do, because they are the things I should do, but also the things I want to do, because I feel guilty about doing them when I'm not doing the things I should... Screwtape had something to say about this I'm sure. I seem to be stalling on so many things. Even my Proust listening has foundered somewhat in the Vanity Fair of the Guermantes Way.

So I'm writing Italian sonnets (though I procrastinated plenty about that too...) and photographing marbles and painting my toenails instead of applying Cuprinol to the front fence or perusing the website of the Chambre de Commerce in pursuit of gainful employment.

Tomorrow...


16 comments:

marja-leena said...

Oh wow, memories of own childhood marbles, playing with the neigbourhood kids, then our children's, and Chinese checkers games.... but you have some unusual and amazing ones, like the one with a flower!!!

Rouchswalwe said...

You ~ are ~ so ~ cool !

I spent all day shopping for ingredients. Tomorrow is brewday! Now I'm thinking, would it even be possible to brew blue beer?

It's certainly desirable.

PurestGreen said...

This is a great post, full of fun and wanton creativity. I love the story of holding your feet up in the yoga pose to get the photo - brilliant.

Pamela Terry and Edward said...

I share your love for the blues! So many wonderful shades in the world.

And you have perfect toes! So blue. So straight!

herhimnbryn said...

Oh, blue nails and blue marbles and a quote from the 'Nymph, nymph what are your beads?' poem. I love visiting here, so much resonates!
Would that you could just pop over here and see my little collection of blue marbles, sitting on the window sill of my studio. I understand your joy with this colour, I do. It draws you in.

Roderick Robinson said...

Of course three goes into ten - 3.3 recurring. A recurring third of a toe! Any crocodile would be proud to have one.

When you do in fact Cuprinol (glad to see the accorded majuscule) the fence bear in mind Mark Twain who turned something similar into a work of art. Could be another photographic opportunity; doing naughty words and then painting them over, fearful that they may show through. But all art is risk.

I'm sorry to have seemed censorious about accidie. Decades ago The Sunday Times invited seven proper writers to do The Seven Deadly Sins. In a profound essay E. Waugh did Sloth which he equated with accidie and the thing has always stuck in my mind.

Jean said...

Lucy, I was admiring your gorgeous toenails, which are definitely life-enhancing and not a waste of any of the time they took you, while you were leaving your lovely comment on my blog. Sharing and loving new nail varnish along with sonnets is perhaps the essence of what I love about blogging.

Bee said...

The toenails and marbles complement each other nicely! I've never owned marbles, but these exquisite shiny baublesque ones make me want some of my own.

A blue swirled marble always makes me think of our planet.

I'm glad that you are making the time for fun and whimsy . . . Proust and the front fence can wait.

Rosie said...

I like the toes. The layers of colour remind me off seashells...we must take them to the beach.

herhimnbryn said...

I must point you to some more blues washed up by the sea...

http://lettuce-eating.blogspot.com/2009/08/seaside-treasures.html

The Crow said...

Delightful reading and photo-gazing this lazy Sunday morning (my time). Love the blues, which I also find uplifting.

(I feel a Smeagle coming on towards the cat's-eye: "My press-s-shus-s-s!") Enjoyed your reflection in the large iridescent one in the last photo - cool beans, Lucy!

Dale said...

How completely wonderful, Lucy!

I wonder why google reader doesn't pick up your posts, for me? I'm always the last to arrive!

Linda S. Socha said...

Lucy....
Lovely post. Love the blues. I have a blue table by the window in my bathroom .

As a child...and still...one of my favorite things was a marble collection....Several years I found a hardware store in a small town near by that sold marbles by the pound...in incredible colors....Now I keep some blue ones in a crystal to remind me of how much I love the light on glass
Linda

Meggie said...

You have such neat feet!! A fitting setting for the wonderful colours of those polishes!
I loved marbles as a child, & yes, I never played with them for trade, I traded them for keeps!

Lucy said...

Thanks all.

ML - The flower one is a 'blue sulphide flower', there are a couple of fish like that too. Toypost also do Chinese checkers, and lots of other lovely things.

R - well they make it green for St Patricks don't they, but I'm not sure about blue, it might look like chemical toilet solution! Reminds me, another blogging friend recently described having interestingly blue pee following treatment for kidney stones...

Purest Green - thank you! My yoga mentor is Dutch, so I find I only know some positions in Dutch! The V is quite straightforward, but others are Pomps and Bergs and something that sounds like 'Squashed Bollock'...

Pamela - my feet, like their owner, are short and broad, but I have always been quite proud of how straight and strong the toes are. They are very stubborn feet, I wore shoes as little as possible as a child, and have never been able to abide high heels or pointy toes, so consequently nothing has constrained or distorted them!

HHB - 'Nymph nymph' was a standard of my mother's repertoire; on acquiring the internet I found it was for many people. Loved the sea-washed blue china.

BB - I did think about Tom Sawyer, actually! I was quite happy to be corrected about accidie; I don't remember the Waugh essay, but do you remember Frank Muir's story, on one of those 'My Word' type programmes, where they had to make a punning twist on a well-known phrase or dictum, and he told one about his wife going to a Seven Deadly Sins fancy dress party, planning to where flame-coloured tights, as Lust? I'll only finish if you're tracking and come back...

Jean - you are so lovely, generous and above all talented, I hope you don't desert us altogether...

Bee - thank you; please check out Toypost, they have such reasonable, delightful things. You made me remember I had a tag for 'whimsy'.

Rosie - mm, though I don't want them sand-blasted off yet...

Crow - I was actually muttering 'my preshusss' over them!

Dale - lovely to see you. I can't really help about the feed question, but please don't worry. Come as and when you can.

Linda - Hello! I've put some in a blue-stemmed martini glass, some in an old soap dish, and some in a very deep turquoise glass bowl. Toypost sell bags of a dozen, soap bubbles, milkies or catseyes, for 65 pence a dozen. They really are amazingly cheap treasure, and I can't think they are very extravagant on natural resources...

Meggie - the game is really quite popular among young children here, but I really don't think you'd want to risk the most beautiful one would you?

Thanks everyone for encouraging my frivolity.

Dick said...

I wish Tom had been there with a camera to snap you snapping your toes!

The beautiful marbles have me wondering where my childhood collection has got to. Few as glorious as these, but one or two that might match.