The News from South Philly

Update: This is not Buddy's final illness

lblanchard — Sun, 15 Feb 2026 17:12:51 GMT

This is not Buddy - it's a ruffed grouse, the state bird of Pennsylvania

Buddy just has a virus and should be fine. Some steroids and precautionary antibiotics, some subcutaneous fluids, some hifalutin food to eat for the next five days, and another checkup in three weeks -- no charge. Total bill, $183 and they also trimmed his nails.

Heart is good, lungs are good, blood glucose is good.

He was a perfect charmer in the exam room but is mighty happy to be home.

All the Rousseau photos

lblanchard — Sat, 08 Nov 2025 23:34:56 GMT

There are close to 60 objects in the Henri Rousseau: A Painter's Secrets exhibition at the Barnes Foundation, and images of every single one of them are behind the cut tag. You have been warned!

All images are click-to-embiggen. Many diacritical markings have been omitted (technical difficulties). I've noted the ownership of paintings in Philadelphia collections but not others. Perhaps I should go back and add the ownership. Maybe later...

Entrance. The text is legible when the image is enlarged.

Interpretive signage for the following images

The Toll Gate, 1890. As a clerk for the Paris toll service, Rousseau served at gates like this one before taking early retirement in 1893.

The Painter and His Model, 1900-1905. It may be a portrait of Rousseau and his second wife, Joséphine.

Dahlia and Daises in a Vase, c. 1904

The Past and the Present, or Philosophical Thought, 1899. Rousseau and his second wife, Joséphine Noury. The couple's first spouses hover in the clouds. The Barnes owns this.

Carnival Evening, 1886. This one belongs to the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and I have spent some little time staring at it.

Carnival Evening (detail)

Rendezvous in the Forest, 1889.

The Walk in the Forest, c. 1886.

Woman Walking in an Exotic Forest, c. 1910. This belongs to the Barnes.

Portrait of a Woman in a Landscape, 1899. This belongs to the Barnes.

Interpretive signage for the following images

The Representatives of Foreign Powers Coming to Greet the Republic as a Sign of Peace, 1907.

Detail, "Representatives." Note the unhappy lion, perhaps because he doesn't want to be peaceable?

Detail, "Representatives"

View of Clichy Bridge at Asnières, c. 1900-1902

View of the Quai D'Asnières, April 1900-1902. The Barnes owns this.

View of the Grenelle Bridge, 1892

The Carmagnole, 1893

Artillerymen, c. 1893-95

Portrait of Frumence Biche, 1893

War, c. 1894. This painting is huge.

The Horrors of War, 1895. Commissioned lithograph.

Interpretive signage for the following images

The Football Players, 1908

The Rabbit's Meal, 1908. The Barnes owns this.

Pere Junier's Cart, 1908

Pere Junier's Cart, 1908, detail

The Family, c. 1892-1900, with grumpy baby. The Barnes owns this

Young Girls in Pink, oil on canvas. The Philadelphia Museum of Art owns this

Child with a Doll, c. 1892

The Wedding, 1905

Portrait of Madame M., c. 1895

Portrait of Madame M., detail

Portrait of a Woman, 1895

Portrait of a Man, 1887

Portrait of a Woman, 1887

Interpretive signage for the following images

View of the Ile Saint Louis from the Quai Henri IV, 1909

Notre Dame, 1909

The Chair Factory, c. 1897

The Chair Factory at Alfortville, 1897. There had been roadwork between the painting of these two views.

The Ship in the Storm, c. 1899

Still Life with Coffee Pot, 1910

The Cliff, c. 1895

The Pink Candle, 1908

Grouping of the previous four paintings

Strollers in the Park, between 1900 and 1910

House on the Outskirts of Paris, c. 1905

Sawmill, Outskirts of Paris, c. 1893-95

The Banks of the Bievre near Bicetre, c. 1908-9

The Anglers, between 1908 and 1909

Suburb, 1896

The Great Laundry Boat at Charenton Bridge, c. 1897-1903

Landscape and Four Fishermen, 1909

Grouping of the previous three paintings

Interpretive signage for the following images. I want to go back on a weekday morning when the gallery is unlikely to be crowded (there's a bench) and just sit and soak up Rousseau's jungle.

The Merry Jesters, 1906. The Philadelphia Museum of Art owns this

Fight between a Tiger and a Buffalo, 1908

Scouts attacked by a Tiger. The Barnes owns this

Tropical Landscape -- an American Indian Struggling with a Gorilla, 1910

Tropical Landscape -- an American Indian Struggling with a Gorilla, 1910 (detail)

Jungle Landscape with Setting Sun, c. 1910

The Waterfall, 1910

Tropical Forest with Monkeys, 1910

Eve in the Earthly Paradise, c. 1906-7

Interpretive signage for the final "Enigma" gallery, containing three monumental paintings.

The Sleeping Gypsy, 1897

The Sleeping Gypsy, deteail

Unpleasant Surprise, 1899-1901. The Barnes owns this

The Snake Charmer, 1907

Gallery displaying the three "Enigma" paintings, never before displayed together

That's a lot of Rousseau to take in at once.

From Paris to Provence: A visit to the Barnes

lblanchard — Sat, 30 Aug 2025 14:06:37 GMT

There is a very lovely, very shallow pool at the entrance to the Barnes Foundation

This exhibition of works from the Barnes Foundation permanent collection, presented in a new context while their galleries are being refurbished, closes August 31. A number of people in other social media spaces and in real life have expressed an interest in this exhibition, so I am making this entry public.

According to the terms of Dr Barnes's will, the artwork must remain exactly as he placed it in his suburban Philadelphia galleries. Under the terms of the Orphans' Court agreement that allowed the collection to move, it must be displayed in precisely the arrangement at the time of his death and in a precise replica of his galleries. (The galleries were photographed and measured to the millimeter on the day of his death to assure the preservation of Dr. Barnes's vision, and the replica galleries are faithful to this vision -- to the millimeter.) The new building also has a separate purpose-built gallery that has revolving displays of materials borrowed from other collections and/or from the portions of the collection not in the galleries.

Dr. Barnes moved his gallery collections around regularly during his lifetime to accommodate new acquisitions or new aspects of his theories on how to see art. So the current arrangement is, in effect, a frozen moment from a dynamic process. Who knows what he might have done with it had his life not been cut short by that fatal automobile accident... He would certainly have kept his requirement that there be no contextual signage to distract a viewer from seeing the object and paying attention to color, line, light, and space. He placed his paintings in conversation with folk art objects -- furniture, ceramics, iron work -- in ensembles that I personally found jarring on my first viewing, although familiarity has bred some comfort. See the collection section of the Barnes Foundation website for examples. Click on any image and then select "ensemble" from the menu: https://collection.barnesfoundation.org/

The Orphans' Court agreement does allow for the removal of art for conservation, or when the galleries must be closed for refurbishment -- as in this case, when the floors in the first-floor galleries are being refinished. Here, then, is an opportunity to view upwards of 50 works with contextual labels. Out of consideration for folks' feeds, I have placed the art behind a cut tag. Most images can be enlarged to their original size by clicking on them, but there may be significant deterioration in quality. They are, after all, iPhone photos.

The move of the Barnes collection from Merion to Center City Philadelphia was contentious and litigious. Wikipedia has a relatively neutral entry on the Foundation and the controversy here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barnes_Foundation

And now for the images. All image captions are transcriptions of the wall labels in the exhibition, not original work. I have made two remarks on my own, which are set off in brackets. Reminder: you can click to enlarge.

From Paris to Provence: French Painting at the Barnes. Introductory panel. Enlarge to read the text.

Pierre-Auguste Renoir (French, 1841-1919)
Woman with Fan, 1886. Oil on canvas (later mounted to cradled panel)

Places they worked.

Paris and the North

Pierre-August Renoir (French, 1841-1919)
Portrait of Mademoiselle Marie Murer, 1877, oil on canvas.
Marie Murer was the half sister of Eugène Murer, an early patron of the impressionists. The siblings ran a restaurant and pastry shop in Paris in the 1870s, where they hosted regular dinners for artist friends. Renoir's dense, multihued brushwork, punctuated by touches of vivid color, animates this painting, giving Marie a lively demeanor despite her pensive pose.

Pierre-August Renoir (French, 1841-1919)
Portrait of Jeanne Durand-Ruel, 1876, oil on canvas
Renoir posed six-year-old Jeanne, the youngest daughter of the art dealer Paul Durand-Ruel, against a charming floral wallpaper. Like the painting of Delphine Legrand nearby, this full-length picture recalls 17th-century court portraits of children that Renoir would have seen at the Louvre Museum. Yet the colors here are experimental and modern -- note the sweeps of bluish purple in the girl's hair.

Pierre August-Renoir (French, 1841-1919)
Girl with a Jump Rope (Portrait of Delphine Legrand), 1876, oil on canvas
Standing assertively on her jump rope is Delphine Legrand, daughter of the art dealer Alphonse Legrand, who helped mount the second impressionist exhibition in 1876 while working for Paul Durand-Ruel. Renoir's depiction of Delphine's bright blue dress shows the radical brushwork introduced by the impressionists: brushstrokes are rapidly applied, moving in different directions, each one visible and unblended.

Édoard Manet (French, 1832-1883)
Laundry, 1875, oil on canvas
A woman washes laundry in the garden of a Parisian home. She gazes tenderly at the child holding on to the pail of suds, who seems transfixed by the water being wrung from the cloth. This scene of domestic contentment provided an opportunity for Manet to paint light and air outdoors, a subject that aligned the artist with his impressionist friends. Flashes of white paint -- offset by grays and blues -- suggest sunlight on the drying fabric.

Pierre-Auguste Renoir (French, 1841-1919)
Before the Bath, c. 1875, oil on canvas
An ordinary Parisian woman, half undressed, prepares for a bath. The hair under her arms and the rumpled bedding in the background shocked viewers when Renoir first exhibited this painting at an 1875 auction in Paris. Rather than depicting idealized figures from mythology, Renoir and his fellow impressionists aimed to represent contemporary life.

Paul Cézanne (French, 1839-1906)
Madame Cézanne, 1888-1890, oil on canvas

Paul Cézanne (French, 1839-1906)
Plate with Fruit and Pot of Preserves, 1880-1881, oil on canvas

Edgar Degas (French, 1834-1917)
Jockeys and Race Horses, c. 1890-95, oil on panel
As a member of the upper class, Degas attended races in both Paris and Normandy. From the 1860s onward, racehorses and jockeys appeared frequently in his work. This late example shows how the motif became abstracted after decades of exploration. Three jockeys, their faces smudged or omitted, exercise their horses in an indistinct landscape. Despite their colorful attire, the soft brushwork and blurred forms convey a melancholy tone.

Pierre-August Renoir (French, 1841-1919)
Luncheon, 1875, oil on canvas
The boater hat hanging from the chair suggests this couple is taking a break from a rowing trip. By the late 19th century, boating had become a popular leisure activity for Parisians looking to escape the city, and many lunch spots had cropped up along the banks of the Seine river, which winds through Paris's suburbs. In the summer of 1875, Renoir spent time in the western suburb of Chatou painting such convivial scenes.

Claude Monet (French, 1840-1926)
The Studio Boat, 1876, oil on canvas
The figure in the boat is likely Monet, who outfitted his floating studio with all the supplies he needed to paint from the middle of the Seine river. Inspired by the boating culture in Argenteuil, where he lived, he had this vessel built to his specifications. Monet often anchored his boat to paint; at other times, he worked while drifting down the river, creating landscapes that are more a collection of momentary glimpses rather than a depiction of one specific spot.

Claude Monet (French, 1840-1926)
Madame Monet Embroidering, 1875, oil on canvas
Monet's first wife, Camille Doncieux, sits by the curtained window of their rented house in Argenteuil, quietly absorbed in her needlework. The Monets had moved to this suburb northwest of Paris in 1871, probably at the recommendation of Édouard Manet, who had a home nearby. Even indoors, light remained a primary concern for Monet; touches of white flicker acros the front of Camille's dress, creating a tapestry-like texture that may allude to her handiwork.

Vincent van Gogh (Dutch, 1853-1890)
The Factory, 1887, oil on canvas
Van Gogh depicts a glass factory in Clichy, an industrial suburb on the northern edge of Paris. Instead of focusing on leisure activities as the impressionists did, Van Gogh chose to paint a factory as the site of modern life. The objects stacked along the pathway are glass balls, which may have served as lantern globes for gas streetlights in Paris.

Detail of The Factory, showing brushwork

Édouard Manet (French, 1832-1883)
Tarring the Boat, 1873, oil on canvas
On a summer visit to Berck-sur-Mer, a fishing village on the northwest coast of France, Manet painted the daily activities of its fishermen. Here, two men apply tar to a boat to make the hull watertight. Manet's blunt, black paint evokes the thick, sticky pitch they used. Despite his signature use of black, Manet was encouraged by the seaside environment to brighten his palette and produce sketch-like works similar to those of his impressionist friends.

Georges Seurat (French, 1859-1891)
Entrance of the Port of Honfleur, 1886, oil on canvas
Unlike his impressionist predecessors, when Seurat traveled to the northwest coast, he visited a commercial port. Using the pointillist technique, he instills the busy harbor of Honfleur with an unexpected stillness. Although the steam trailing from a ship suggests a moment captured, the precision of the dotted brushwork conveys a sense of permanence. The composition is further anchored by the mooring post in the foreground, whose stark shadow indicates the work was painted in the early afternoon.

Detail, Entrance of the Port of Honfleur, showing brushwork

Georges Seurat (French, 1859-1891)
Top: Four Boats at Grandcamp, c. 1885
Bottom: Two Salboats at Grandcamp, c. 1885
Oil on panel

Paul Gauguin (French, 1848-1903)
Mr. Loulou (Louis Le Ray), 1890, oil on canvas
Beginning in 1886, Gauguin frequently painted in the Breton town of Le Pouldu, a place he perceived as untouched by modernization. Here, he paints Louis Le Ray, the son of a local couple; thick contour lines transform the figure into a flattened arrangement of colored shapes. Gauguin was inspired by preindustrial arts like medieval and Byzantine enamelwork. [The boy clearly would prefer to be elsewhere.]

Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1841-1919)
Sailor Boy (Portrait of Robert Nunès), 1883, oil on canvas
Robert Nunès's father was the cousin of impressionist artist Camille Pissarro. The family lived in Yport, a resort town on the northwest coast that Renoir visited in August 1883. Dressed in a sailor-boy outfit, Robert stands on a seaweed-strewn beach holding a metal-tipped stick used to pry shellfish off rocks. Behind him, the ocean dissolves into the white chalk cliffs in the distance. The contrast between the sharply drawn figure and the loosely brushed landscape suggests that Robert posed at the Nunès home rather than on the rocky beach.

Vincent van Gogh (Dutch, 1853-1890)
Still Life, 1888, oil on canvas
Van Gogh painted this canvas during a stretch of rainy days when he couldn't work outside. He had moved to Arles a few months earlier seeking the Mediterranean light that had attracted generations of European artists before him. The bright yellow background setting off the blues and purples of the local wildflowers demonstrates the dynamic color contrasts he developed in the south.

Vincent van Gogh (Dutch, 1853-1890)
The Smoker, 1888, oil on canvas
During his stay in Arles, Van Gogh often painted the local farmworkers, whose simple lifestyle he both admired and idealized. He endeavored to capture what he saw as their sunburnt, weather-beaten quality. In this man's jacket, for example, Van Gogh scraped the paint to reveal the texture of the canvas, showing the coarseness of the fabric. He also used surprising colors -- like the bright green in the whites of this man's eyes -- to give his humble sitters a spiritual radiance.

Vincent van Gogh (Dutch, 1853-1890)
The Postman, 1889, oil on canvas
Van Gogh probably met Joseph Étienne-Roulin, a postman at the Arles train station, when the artist rented a room above the nearby Café de la Gare. The two shared left-leaning political views and became close friends; in fact, Roulin helped care for Van Gogh during one of his hospital stays. This iconic portrait is signed, unlike other versions Van Gogh painted, suggesting that the artist gifted this specific work to Roulin.

The Postman, detail

Vincent van Gogh (Dutch, 1853-1890)
Houses and Figure, 1890, oil on canvas
During the last year of his life, Van Gogh was a patient at a psychiatric hospital in Saint Rémy. With limited access to the outdoors, he had to paint what could be seen out the window -- or, as is the case here, what he could picture in his mind. This painting is a remembrance of his native Netherlands, showing the thatched cottages that dotted the Dutch landscape.

Pierre-Auguste Renoir (French, 1841-1919)
Embroiderers, c. 1902, oil on canvas

Pierre-August Renoir (French, 1841-1919
Bather and Maid, 1900-1901, oil on canvas

Pierre-Auguste Renoir (French, 1841-1919)
Nude in a Landscape c. 1917, oil on canvas
During the last decade of his life, Renoir lived and worked at Les Collettes, his estate in Cagnes. Surrounded by olive trees and rolling hills, the property represented for Renoir a kind of preindustrial Eden, far removed from the urban crush of Paris. It was here that he produced countless scenes of sensual nudes lounging in sun-dappled landscapes -- fantasies of the female body in total harmony with nature.

Henri Matisse (French, 1869-1954)
Blue Still Life, 1907, oil on canvas
Beginning in 1905, Matisse spent many summers in Collioure on the Mediterranean. The southern sun inspired his vibrant colors, such as those found in this still life. The bright yellows and reds of lemons and pomegranates pop against the cool tones of the tablecloth and background.
Matisse had been studying the work of Cézanne, who had just died in 1906; the tension here between two and three dimensions, as in the way the design of the folding screen continues into the tablecloth, attests to the Provençal painter's influence.

Paul Cézanne (French, 1839-1906)
Millstone and Cistern under Trees, 1892-94, oil on canvas
From the late 1880s to the early 1900s, Cézanne rented a room in a dilapidated villa known as the Château Noir, which gave him access to the grounds to paint. Here, he focuses on a water cistern framed by trees that rise and join to create an arched vault; a discarded millstone at left echoes the cistern's rounded form. These artifacts of a preindustrial era, now integrated into nature, attest to the long history of human settlement in this region, a point of pride in Provence.

Paul Cézanne (French, 1839-1906)
Mont Sainte-Victoire, 1892-95, oil on canvas
Mont Sainte-Victoire, which towered over Aix, was one of Cézanne's favorite subjects. He spent his childhood exploring its terrain, and he painted it several dozen times from different vantage points over the course of 40 years.
The mountain also held symbolic meaning to the artist, representing the ancient countryside -- the authentic France -- during a moment of rapid industrialization. The railway viaduct on the right side of the canvas resembles an ancient Roman aqueduct.

Paul Cézanne (French, 1839-1906)
Gardanne (Horizontal View), c. 1885, oil on canvas
Cézanne lived in Gardanne from the summer of 1885 until the spring of 1886. The horizontal format of this painting allows for a panoramic view of the village that highlights the staggered, geometric structures of the orange-roofed houses, culminating in the historic bell tower. Cézanne viewed these kinds of small Provençal villages as an idyllic contrast to Paris.

Paul Cézanne (French, 1839-1906)
Bathers at Rest, c. 1876-77, oil on canvas
Despite the reference to Mont Sainte-Victoire in the background, this bathing scene does not seem grounded in reality. The figures, who don't interact, look as if they were cut and pasted from works of historical art. Cézanne's interest in male bathers stemmed from fond boyhood memories of visiting swimming holes around Aix with his good friend Émile Zola. The emotion here comes from the freshness and juxtaposition of the colors.

Paul Cézanne (French, 1839-1906)
Three small paintings of bathers -- single views below
Although Cézanne's bathing scenes do not depict a particular location, the settings are inspired by Provence. The forests and hills in the countryside around his family estate became the stage for his reinvention of this classical subject. While maintaining the poses of bathers from ancient Greco-Roman sculpture and historic European painting, he stripped them of their symbolism, giving meaning instead to the treatment of form, space, and color.

Paul Cézanne (French, 1839-1906)
Three Bathers, 1876-77, oil on canvas

Paul Cézanne (French, 1839-1906)
Five Bathers, 1877-78, oil on canvas

Paul Cézanne (French, 1839-1906)
Bathers, 1902-04, oil on canvas

Paul Cézanne (French, 1839-1906)
Rocks and Trees, c. 1904-05, oil on canvas
The vertical composition of this landscape emphasizes the steep rocky hill and tall pine trees. It was painted either on the grounds of the Château Noir, a neo-Gothic mansion near Aix, or within the forest of Fontainebleau, southeast of Paris. When Cézanne painted in locations outside Provence, he often incorporated aspects of his native soil -- like the red-orange earth here -- creating a nostalgic landscape that was particular to his practice.

Paul Cézanne (French, 1839-1906)
Bibémus Quarry, c. 1895, oil on canvas
Bibémus, a rock quarry to the east of Aix, was first mined in ancient Roman times. It was abandoned by 1885, when its limestone deposits were largely depleted. The quarry's landscape of eroded geometric shapes fascinated Cézanne, who rented a cabin there in the late 1890s. This painting highlights the steep, sheer rock face at right, cut into rectangular blocks of ocher and gray. Cézanne balances the manmade changes to the landscape with the soft greenery of shrubs and pine trees.

Photos of the Jas de Bouffan -- captions are more legible if you enlarge the next photo

Paul Cézanne (French, 1839-1906)
Portrait of a Woman, c. 1899, oil on canvas
The woman who sat for this painting was likely a domestic worker from the Jas de Bouffan. Cézanne renders his subject with monumentality and dignity, reflecting his respect for the working class. The woman's red-striped dress is set against patches of green and blue on the wall. The roundness and solidity of her form rhyme with the cauldron on the floor behind her, suggesting a parallel between the functional object and her steadfast presence.

Paul Cézanne (French, 1839-1906)
The Farm at the Jas de Bouffan, c. 1887, oil on canvas
The farmhouse at the Jas de Bouffan was next to the manor, the edge of which is visible at left behind the trees. Though Cézanne depicted the farmhouse in broader views of the grounds, this is the only painting that features the building on its own. This portrait of the humble farmhouse, drenched in sun and outlined against the sky, can be understood as part of Cézanne's interest in celebrating rural Provençal architecture.

Paul Cézanne (French, 1839-1906)
The Allée of Chestnut Trees at the Jas de Bouffan, 1886-87, oil on canvas
This dramatic allée formed by two rows of chestnut trees leads to the entryway of the manor house. Cézanne had painted this scene numerous times; this work, done shortly after his father's death, is perhaps the most haunting. The viewer is placed on the path under a thick canopy of trees that closes off the sky. Cézanne applied green earth -- a pigment he didn't often use -- to create the dark, somber tones of the foliage.

Paul Cézanne (French, 1839-1906)
Peasant Standing with Arms Crossed, c. 1895, oil on canvas
Paulin Paulet, a farmhand at the Jas de Bouffan, likely posed for this picture, as he did for Cézanne's famous Card Players. His tall stature is emphasized by the vertical line of the doorframe while the horizontal red band at the wainscoting locks him in place. His casual stance, with arms crossed self-consciously, indicates that he is working as a model for Cézanne rather than as a manual laborer.

Paul Cézanne (French, 1839-1906)
Terracotta Pots and Flowers, 1891-92, oil on canvas
Cézanne painted this work during the winter of 1891-92, in the greenhouse of his family estate. Geraniums and rhododendrons grow from the pots and rise to the top of the picture plane, as if toward pale winter sunlight. Their vertical network of leaves compresses the already shallow space; a single fallen bloom adds a note of melancholy.

Detail, Terracotta Pots and Flowers

Paul Cézanne (French, 1839-1906)
Still Life, 1892-94, oil on canvas
Cézanne used the same props repeatedly in his still lifes. The white milk pitcher and leaf-patterned curtain here appear in numerous compositions, like actors playing different roles. The distinctive red band above the wainscoting at left identifies the setting as Cézanne's studio in the manor. [Note the same milk jug in The Flowered Vase, below.]

Detail, Still Life

Paul Cézanne (French, 1839-1906)
Still Life with Skull, 1890-93, oil on canvas
This still life is notable not only for the skull -- a subject that Cézanne had recently taken up again -- but also for the folding screen in the background. He had painted the six-panel screen as a young artist in 1859. In the close-up view of one panel at right, the triangular hem of a woman's ocher skirt flows into a cluster of plants. Cézanne kept this screen from the Jas de Bouffan his whole life and featured it in several paintings, including A Table Corner nearby.

Paul Cézanne (French, 1839-1906)
A Table Corner, c. 1895, oil on canvas

Paul Cézanne (French, 1839-1906)
Young Man and Skull, 1896-98, oil on canvas
Likely the son of a worker at the Jas de Bouffan, the young man leans on his hand, recalling Renaissance representations of melancholy. His vacant gaze overlooks the skull in front of him, however, contradicting the idea that he is contemplating his own mortality. The painting thus points to its own artificiality, featuring a slightly bored model waiting for the sitting to be over. Yet Cézanne's interest in depicting skulls in the 1890s -- when his own health was declining due to diabetes -- inevitably makes this work a reflection on death.

Paul Cézanne (French, 1839-1906)
The Flowered Vase, 1896-98, oil on canvas

Detail, The Flowered Vase

Photos of the locations of the Paris-area studios of Modigliani, Soutine, de Chirico, and Miró. Captions below.

Amedeo Modigliani (Italian, 1884-1920)
Portrait of the Red-Headed Woman, 1918, oil on canvas
This unidentified woman was likely part of Modigliani's international bohemian circles in Paris. With short, curly red hair and a full face of makeup, she leans her shoulder over the chair and looks at the viewer with an unapologetic gaze. Her revealing dress shows how bold new fashions could represent a form of freedom. Modigliani used a thick round brush to describe the model's flesh, and the textured surface seems to invite touch.

Chaïm Soutine (Russian, active in France, 1893-1943)
Woman in Blue, c. 1919, oil on canvas

Amedeo Modigliani (Italian, 1884-1920)
Girl with a Polka-Dot Blouse, 1919, oil on canvas

Giorgio de Chirico (Italian, 1888-1978)
Sophocles and Euripides, 1925, oil on canvas
After almost ten years in Italy, De Chirico moved back to Paris in 1925 to work on sets for the ballet. Reflecting his theatrical interests, the mannequin-like figures here represent the ancient Greek tragedians Sophocles and Euripides. They stand back-to-back on a wooden stage, dressed in costumes composed of colorful architectural forms and carpenter's squares.

Detail, Sophocles and Euripides

Giorgio de Chirico (Italian, 1888-1978)
The Pirate, 1916, oil on canvas
The Pirate features a number of tools for nautical navigation, including a wooden sundial and, at right, a map -- possibly of Greece, the artist's birthplace -- indicating routes taken or to be taken. De Chirico thought of his canvases as sails that would transport viewers to new lands. This painting celebrates travel and adventure, a spirit that took the artist from Greece to Italy to France and back again.

Chaïm Soutine (Russian, active in France, 1893-1943)
Group of Trees, c. 1922, oil on canvas
Here, Soutine paints a reeling townscape, perhaps Céret, seen through a lattice of undulating trees. His thickly applied paint and vigorous brushwork suggest the influence of Van Gogh's landscapes of the South of France. Like Van Gogh, Soutine flattens the space, blending foreground and background in a whirling image that seems to merge the physical landscape with his emotional experience of it.

Juan Miró (Spanish, 1893-1983)
Group of Personages, July 9, 1938, oil on canvas
Group of Women, July 15, 1938, oil on canvas
Miró assigned specific dates to these two works, reflecting the recordkeeping used in the evolving field of photojournalism during the Spanish Civil War (1936-39), a period he spent in exile in Paris. Group of Women, with its flailing figures set against a smoky background, evokes the terror of aerial bombardment. Photographs of the war were widely circulated in international newspapers to publicize the Spanish Republic's resistance to General Francisco Franco's fascist regime.

Group of Personages

Group of Women

Chaïm Soutine (Russian, active in France, 1893-1943)
Flayed Rabbit, c. 1921, oil on canvas
A flayed rabbit lies splayed on a white cloth, its clouded eye just visible. Reinterpreting hunting and still-life paintings from historic European art, Soutine here gives us an overhead view of the rabbit's innards and musculoskeletal system. The artist likely obtained his subject rom a local butcher in Céret. Its furry hind feet, still intact, preserve the memory of the living, hopping animal.

As noted earlier: you can view these works, including their regular positions in Dr. Barnes's "ensembles", on the "collection" section of the Barnes Foundation website: https://collection.barnesfoundation.org/

I have a new subscriber who won’t see very much…

lblanchard — Thu, 24 Aug 2023 11:11:10 GMT

Gratuitous photo: I rehomed the hated lace-weight yarn yesterday and now my stash contains only remnants. Time to shop!

Leaving this post public for a bit.

A friend-of-friends user, sunshine_two, has subscribed to my journal and I have subscribed back. Looks like we can still see each others’ public posts but that’s it. Happy to change to friends on a trial basis, but I haven’t figured out how to get beyond the mutual subscription. Maybe on the desktop? Maybe it’s up to sunshine_two ?

A chance meeting at the Philadelphia Museum of Art

lblanchard — Mon, 22 May 2023 21:05:48 GMT

For kazzy_cee, especially. Look who I ran into this afternoon!

Every museum step should count as two steps

lblanchard — Fri, 31 Mar 2023 14:34:31 GMT

Petah Coyne, "Untitled (Two halves of the same soul)." Random visitor obligingly posed for scale.

As folks say in my neighborhood, I feel some kind of way about the sacrifice of 26 beautiful peacocks to make this installation, but it was definitely breathtaking. As was the rest of the exhibition at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts' Landmark Building, Rising Sun: Artists in an Uncertain America. I am so intrigued by it that I plan to drop small dollars on an individual membership for the year. It has the advantage of being less than a block from the new Trader Joes with the wider aisles, so I can have a two-fer: spend time in the museum and then go buy cheap eggs.

Peacock close-up

The juxtaposition of highly contemporary art with architect Frank Furness's over-the-top high Victorian exuberance is wonderful, but nowhere is it more striking than in Saya Woolfalk's installation in the historic rotunda. They seem designed for one another and absolutely achieved the artist's ambition of creating a "secular chapel." In fact, the impetus of joining the museum is the opportunity to sit in contemplation of this, early and often.

Saya Woolfalk, "We Emerge at the Sunset of Your Ideology"

I did a very brief and not terribly good video to show the extent of the installation, which includes a bit of the soundtrack.

Before going to the Landmark Building, I stopped at the Hamilton Building to do some pick-up shots of three or four things I missed from Making American Artists. On the way to the ladies' room on what would have been my way out, I remembered there was a second floor and decided to explore. Whoa! Two large galleries devoted to the work of PAFA alum Philip Cohn. Never heard of him before, will never forget him.

Philip Cohn, "Afternoon at the Waterworks"

But wait: there's more! A huge gallery displayed Strange Sensations: The Startling and Surreal in PAFA’s Permanent Collection, with many compelling and often disturbing works. Many of them were covered in glass, and because of that did not lend themselves to photos (pesky reflections). Among those were a series of three Andy Warhols on the subject of the electric chair, which to be honest I didn't especially want to "accession" into my photo collection in any case. Here is one less disturbing, but plenty startling and surreal.

Kenneth Callahan, "The Tides"

I spent a total of five hours, less 15 minutes to eat a sandwich on a cold and windswept plaza, in the two buildings. The Hamilton exhibitions all close on Sunday, so I had a real compulsion to absorb all that goodness yesterday. My knees had Opinions about all that standing-around time, which they were voluble in sharing with me. I think I should get extra step credit for all that weight-bearing time. I was glad to have my walking stick, as I had become definitely tottery from the overuse.

The knees got less cranky and I regained my stride when I walked that less-than-a-block to Trader Joes for potatoes to bake with that chicken. Roy had done the rest of the vegetable prep, so I flang everything in a roasting pan, sprinkled cheap and salty southern-style poultry seasoning over all, stuck dinner in a 400° oven, and mostly sat on my rump for the rest of the evening.

Today is a day of minimal steps. I have clerical stuff to do all morning, a ZOOM meeting to attend this afternoon, and a quick run to the Triangles to pick up meds in between. Tomorrow looks wet, so it will be my baking-and-laundry day.

STATS: Morning weight: 150.4. Yesterday’s steps: 7,049, every one of them hard-won.

Equinox at 5:24 /the search for new LJ friends

lblanchard — Mon, 20 Mar 2023 13:08:54 GMT

The daffodils of Madison Square are ready for spring

Several Facebook friends have noted that the Equinox begins at 5:24 p.m. today. In celebration, I've brought the winter mugs (snow scene at Bethesda Fountain in Central Park) upstairs for storage and brought out the spring mugs (red tulips from a Flower Show display some years ago) for use.

Yesterday was pretty ordinary: two loads of laundry, a quick walk to the Triangles to pick up an Amazon order (wrong kind of orchid food, oops, so I'll have to return it), and an afternoon spent chopping and stewing vegetables for a ratatouille-adjacent dinner that used up a pound of superannuated ground chicken that I exhumed from the freezer. I am playing catch-up on a number of Tolkien-related podcasts that I let slide while in the throes of Flower Show prep and attendance. Speaking of that: I have finally solved my little Google login problem on my iThingies, to my considerable embarrassment. What was wrong? The login screen requires scrolling down below the visible portion to click a blue "submit" button. Sheesh....now I'm good to go, two weeks too late to edit the tour-guide info sheets from the show floor but I'm glad I'm back... I note with even more embarrassment that I'm making a lot more mistakes with interfaces than I used to. Attention must be paid!

I'm "shopping" for some new LJ friends, as you may have noticed. One by one, the old LJ cohort has dropped by the wayside, many in protest of our Russian overlords' execrable human rights violations. Although that makes perfectly good sense to me, I have a lifetime membership so my presence isn't exactly lining their pockets, plus I like being able to archive a year's worth of journals as a pdf using Bookblogger. But I miss having a community. I recently read a piece by Cory Doctorow on the "enshittification" of several social media platforms and I am increasingly noticing this on Facebook. ( https://www.wired.com/story/tiktok-platforms-cory-doctorow/ )

halfmoon_mollie has suggested a couple friends-of-friends, and I've dutifully subscribed. I didn't see an "add friend" option. Maybe that option has gone away? In any case, I suspect that I will only see the public content and not anything restricted to friends. I assume the reverse is true for those who have subscribed to me in turn. That has me re-thinking my usual practice of friends-locking everything. Really, who cares what my daily weight and step counts are, other than me? So this one will stay public. It's a pretty fair sampling of my usual daily recap.

In celebration of the Equinox, I'm traveling up to the Temple University library this afternoon for a talk-and-walk on forgotten women of horticulture, beginning at the library with the talk and special collections show-and-tell and including a campus tour. It's Temple's Ambler campus, some miles to the northwest, that is actually the former women's horticultural college and the current arboretum, but I'm sure there are lovely things to be seen on the main campus as well. And the Ambler campus's archives and special collections were brought to the main campus after much of the Ambler library was destroyed by a freak tornado that also laid waste to a lot of the arboretum...

STATS: Morning weight: 149.8. Yesterday's steps: 8,439. Workouts: Marching With Meredith (15 min senior aerobics), twice.

For poliphilo

lblanchard — Fri, 28 Jan 2022 19:21:06 GMT

Three suns over Mortimer's Cross, from BL Harleian Ms 7353:

You'll probably find the whole ms interesting. It's almost all pictorial: five paired images, showing a biblical story on the left and a relevant scene from E4's life on the right, finishing up with an epic riff on the Tree of Jesse.

http://www.bl.uk/manuscripts/FullDisplay.aspx?ref=Harley_MS_7353

I scheduled a trip from Philly to London specifically to see this ms, with multiple anxious emails to guarantee me a reader's card and a seat. When I got there, a rather bored fellow said that oh, no, it was out for conservation. It would have been a waste of a couple thousand dollars except no trip to the British Library is completely wasted, and we also went to Fotheringhay, where I read one of the lessons in the church's annual service of lessons and carols.

The Nativity at St. Charles Borromeo -- Christmas 2017

lblanchard — Wed, 05 Jan 2022 18:55:24 GMT

"This is for pondhopper" -- I mentioned that the local parish priest, a former engineer from Chile, created an epic Nativity.

Happy birthday halfmoon_mollie

lblanchard — Wed, 02 Jun 2021 18:58:17 GMT

I have it on good authority that birthday cake has no calories or carbs when it’s your own.

Coronavirus chronicles: Errantry cakes?

lblanchard — Wed, 01 Jul 2020 12:59:00 GMT

Errantry, calligraphy by J. R. R. Tolkien
https://www.tolkienestate.com/en/painting/calligraphy/calligraphies/elvish-script-01.html
Lots more at the link

I am going to bake cookies or little cakes based on ingredients in a Tolkien poem. But first, a little backstory:

The backstory is in fact the story of what got me going on the whole Tolkien/Swann song cycle. We were out back watching the bumblebees bumble along in the wisteria and I said, Oh, look, a Dumbledore." Roy said "???????" so I told him it was an archaic word for bumblebee. "?????," he said, so I whipped out my phone and Googled "Dumbledore bee." One of the first hits was to a YouTube video of Errantry. A little more Googling and I found the text of the poem, which excited me in the same way that fine needlework or miniature painting does -- intricacy of rhyme and scansion. According to Wikipedia, Tolkien invented this rhyme scheme, which was so fiendishly difficult to compose in that he never tried it again. I understand that it can also be sung to the tune of "I am the very model of a modern major-general."

The text of the full poem is here: https://lotr.fandom.com/wiki/Errantry

Independently of my interest in the song cycle -- or maybe not, who knows how the mind works? -- a week or so ago I developed a hankering to play with cardamom as a spice variant for my spent sourdough applesauce cake. Side note: a cardamom/orange oil flavor palette turns out to be quite tasty, especially when the cake is topped with vanilla yogurt and a dollop of marmalade.

But back to Errantry. I played the Elvin/Swann cycle the other day and this time the word "cardamom" jumped out at me. In the first stanza our mariner stocks his gondola with:

a load of yellow oranges
and porridge for his provender;
he perfumed her with marjoram
and cardamom and lavender.

Later, after battling with the dumbledors, the hummerhorns, and honeybees, he returns with honeycomb.

So I am meditating on some kind of porridge-y honeycake infused with orange peel and oil, marjoram, cardamom, and lavender. I wonder if I'll like it. More to the point, I wonder if Roy will like it.

Errantry, composed and played by Donald Swann and sung by William Elvin:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ye53tRTq_jk&list=PLyXYyeDNdJ1V4AGF7taf9xDzlOWOIzSse&index=5

EDITED TO ADD: The carefully-tested almost-final recipe for Errantry Cake:

ERRANTRY CAKE (based on Allrecipes.com Honeycake III recipe)

Preheat oven to 350F (or 325F for a dark/glass/pan). Grease and flour a 9 x 13 pan. Sift together these dry ingredients (I am lazy so I whisk them together):

• 2-1/2 c flour
• 3 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1-1/2 tsp cardamom* [thinking about reducing this]
• 1/2 tsp marjoram*

stir in to the other dry ingredients and DO NOT FORGET THE OATS!!!:

• 1/4 c rolled oats*
• 1/3 c lavender buds*

1 c orange juice (I use reconstituted frozen)

Blend together:

• 1 c white sugar
• 1 c honey * OR a mixture of marmalade and honey to equal one cup* **
• 3 tsp orange zest if not using marmalade *
• 1/2 c vegetable oil [I used EVOO last time and it was surprisingly good]
• 4 large eggs

Blend alternating batches of the dry ingredients and the OJ to the egg/oil/honey mixture. Do not overbeat. Pour into greased/floured 9 x 13 pan and bake in a 350 oven for 45-50 minutes (oven may be too hot for a dark nonstick pan – try 325).

* Mentioned in Errantry (oranges, porridge, marjoram, cardamom, lavender, honeycomb)

** I made it with a cup of honey and fresh squeezed orange juice/zest the first time. I didn't have enough honey this time, so I added enough marmalade to make full cup of sweet wet stuff and skipped the orange squeezing and zest grating.

NOTE: There were no oats, nor any dried lavender buds, in the original recipe to soak up liquid, so the last iteration, while otherwise splendid was just a touch on the dry side. Next time, I will use jumbo eggs instead of large and see what happens.

Coronavirus Chronicles: The Tolkien collection grows

lblanchard — Tue, 30 Jun 2020 21:04:11 GMT

Happy birthday to meeeeeeeeee.....

This is a very early birthday present to myself, inspired sadly by the recent death of Ian Holm. It's a 13-CD set of the audio version of Lord of the Rings, adapted by Brian Sibley and broadcast in 1982. It has gone out of print, and I thought I should grab a used version before other Tolkienistas were similarly inspired. It arrived yesterday and I have ripped the CDs to iTunes and added to my iPhone. Ian Holm, who played Bilbo in the Peter Jackson films, played his nephew Frodo Baggins in the audio version.

How is this related to the Coronavirus, you may ask. I need to fill my ears with something while I'm on the exercise bicycle. Otherwise I get bored. Thirteen CDs will keep me pedaling for awhile.

Another Tolkien audio thing to note: I posted at some length a few weeks ago about the Donald Swann song cycle, "The Road Goes Ever On," in which he set several of J. R. R. Tolkien's poems to music. I found a lecture/recital of a young tenor who sang the full cycle. Now I've found the playlist of the original recording, piano by Swann himself and vocals by William Elvin. A final track on the YouTube playlist below is Bilbo's Last Song, played and sung by Donald Swann.

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLyXYyeDNdJ1V4AGF7taf9xDzlOWOIzSse

Happy birthday halfmoon_mollie

lblanchard — Tue, 02 Jun 2020 16:01:25 GMT

Have some flowers!

Hippeastrum impertinence

lblanchard — Tue, 05 May 2020 17:35:02 GMT

Hippeastrum striatum, doing something stupid

Hippeastrum striatum is my Christmas bloomer, putting on quite a show from mid-December through late January. After that, it's supposed to rest, although it's an evergreen. So I'd been watering it sparingly in anticipation of a possible modest re-bloom in July or August.

Instead I got...this. I went into Roy's office to give its green occupants a little drink and was immediately struck by a flash of orange at soil level, where no orange should be. Plus, it's a mere three and a half months since it last bloomed. So what's going on? It could be a disease, it could be a pest that made its life miserable, or it could just be One Of Those Things.

Whatever. I cut off the anthers, put them in a centrifuge tube, and popped it in the freezer. Just in case Mandonii gets a hankering to bloom... I don't have the Really Good Desiccant, but a frost-free freezer is a bit of a desiccant itself, isn't it? The centrifuge tube (open) is in a container full of silica gel. I will close up the tube in a couple of days and hope for the best.

Pinging pondhopper

lblanchard — Tue, 14 Apr 2020 17:28:05 GMT

On offer:

Lemon Star x Dama de Rojo
Lemon Star x self
Bogota x self

Lemon Star x who knows what? I have two mystery pods. I think that one may be Lemon Star x 2015L/M/N and the other might be Lemon Star x Bogota, but I didn't write them down, alas...

I'm pretty sure you'll want some of the first because Dama. What about the others?

Adapting

lblanchard — Fri, 27 Mar 2020 15:33:12 GMT

Many of our neighbors have "adopted" us as the only seniors within striking distance. So we have a cadre of almost a dozen willing personal shoppers, etc. So that's one thing.

Our local supermarkets and other vendors have instituted curbside pickup. I haven't tried it yet, but I could theoretically order online and pick up a small order on my bike. That's another.

And I'm riding a tiny bit longer every day. That's a very big other.

We have been social distancing since March 9 and totally quarantining since March 21. I did ride my bike to a supermarket that was supposed to, but didn't have a "seniors only" aisle on March 21. Another eight days and we should know whether Coronavirus is lurking in our bodies anywhere.

Yesterday I read a recipe for homemade sanitizing wipes: 3 Tbsp of bleach to 2 cups purified water. The recipe called for hacking down a roll of paper towels to the size of an empty wipes container, but I don't think I'll do any of that foolishness. I'll just dip a clean rag in the solution and swab.

There is still no flour of any kind on the supermarket shelves. I have fifteen pounds, which will let me bake bread for another six weeks. I hope the situation will resolve itself by then -- the flour situation, I mean. I have no idea when the big situation will resolve itself.

The woman who gave me the starter told me that I can dry it in a thin sheet on parchment paper, put it in an airtight container, and it will keep for years. If I get really low on flour, I'll do that for insurance.

And so it goes...

Marks self safe from the shopping apocalypse

lblanchard — Sun, 15 Mar 2020 16:04:55 GMT

Clivia miniata 'Sir John Thouron', gratuitous Flower Show photo

I'm hearing about all kinds of carnage as people panic-buy hand sanitizer. That's just dumb. Once you're in your house you're far better off with plain old Ivory soap.

My Good Samaritan neighbor wasn't able to get within 100 yards of the Trader Joe parking lot, but that's okay. I can get anything else I want/need from the Acme and the only thing we're actually low on is milk. I figure I'll wait a day or so until the worst of the frenzy has died down and the supermarkets have had a moment to re-stock, and then I'll strike. I'm not happy about having less than 10 lb of flour, but I really don't need any for at least two weeks, and maybe longer.

I have a sneaking suspicion that I could probably make yogurt by mixing up some reconstituted powdered milk and some yogurt and then putting it in my pilot-light-oven. I may try it just for the sake of experiment.

They are closing the liquor stores in surrounding counties on Tuesday. I hope they do it in Philadelphia soon. It might make people a little saner. It would be great if they closed all the bars, too, until the week after St. Patrick's Day. We have a lot of yobs who don't think they have any responsibility to the herd.

Facebook is a sewer right now. Everyone is social distancing and oversharing. I think I have posted my last public health related FB post for awhile. People need more Flower Show pictures, dammit!

Hippeastrum parade

lblanchard — Wed, 19 Feb 2020 01:45:51 GMT

Those seedlings have been busy! I only have two Hippeastrums in my collection (mandonii and striatum) that aren't seedlings, and only one (Dama de Rojo) that is a seedling that was grown from pondhopper rather than one of my own breeding. Most of my babies come from four parents: fairytale (aka Trader Joes), apple blossom (aka Pathmark), 'gervase,' and 'striatum.' I am hoping to introduce two more into the mix: mandonii, if anything will take its pollen; and Dama de Rojo, for whom I have two targets planned.

xG2, Fairytale x Gervase

Babymax 1

xG2, left; babymax, right

Babymax, showing color variation

2006-2 x striatum, seedling 1

Mystery (seed that fell on the floor in 2015)

Offset of 2009-1 or 2009-5 -- can't tell because it's in a communal pot

2009-2

2009-2, artificial light

2015L/M/N

2015L/M/N, closeup

Dama de Rojo

Babymax, seedling 2

Babymax, seedling 3

Left to right, two seedlings of 2006-2 x striatum; babymax 2 and 3; Dama de Rojo

Left to right: Babymax 2; Babymax 3; Dama de Rojo, showing size comparison (Babymax 2 and Dama are in the same plane)

Introducing 'Babymax'

lblanchard — Mon, 10 Feb 2020 17:03:49 GMT

Pretty thing isn't it? It's actually the first egg out of this clutch to hatch, so I guess it's Babymax 1.

LJ doesn't know me very well...

lblanchard — Wed, 01 Jan 2020 16:06:18 GMT

Their algorithm only counts the quantity

In other news, the Mummers are marching today. I will be able to leave the house without tripping over The Scamp and having another ambulance ride (which is what happened last time I tried to walk up there). Also, the Y is open until 3. Imagine that...

Stripped-down Christmas chronicles: Christmas Eve tradition

lblanchard — Tue, 24 Dec 2019 15:18:28 GMT

You know what I really like at Christmas? Little fairy lights.

Last year I discovered that you can get wee strings of battery-operated LED lights that last forever if you're careful about turning them off at night. This year I ordered a heap more. Just imagine -- sixteen! strings! of! wee! lights! I spent a little time stringing lights on almost all of the plants in the living room. I have two to finish, maybe, some time today.

And that's about all I have to do. I have one giftie for Roy that has to be labeled and decorated with a slapped-on bow. Other than that, and the fairy lights, I'm done.

Except for the microbes. Microbes don't give a hoot that it's Christmas Eve. It's Tuesday, and they have a case of the screaming feed-mes. Okay, I fed them, and I'll portion them out -- these for next week, these for the fridge, and these for the bread I'll mix up the day after Christmas.

I have to walk up to Walgreens to pick up a prescription, but that's something that I need to do anyhow.

Our four-foot tree is due to be delivered some time today. Down to the basement with it, unless we decide we'd like to play with it. Edited to add: It's here, we opened it up, and we're dubious, but if it's on a low table and covered with ornaments it ought to be okay.

Roy is in charge of the lamb chops. I am in charge of the green beans and rice blend. The dessert is made. Roy is going out for wine. I am really looking forward to turning off all but the fairy lights and enjoying the sparklies after dinner.

Blessings of the season to you all.

Radiation, Week One / Hippeastrum mandonii

lblanchard — Sat, 28 Sep 2019 15:10:30 GMT

Hippeastrum mandonii, fading and pollinated

H. mandonii is about done -- the petals on the first bloom were getting soft last night and now they are looking sun-bleached. I was fretting that the ladyparts weren't opening up the way they have done on all my hybrids (and H. striatum, I think), but a Certified Expert tells me that not all species open up, so I pollinated yesterday and again this morning, and will hope for the best. If it's self-fertile, I'll be sharing seeds with pondhopper and the aforementioned Expert.

This couldn't have come at a better time. With all the cancer stuff happening, a propagation experiment is exactly what I need to keep me preoccupied.

The results of too many earlier propagation experiments must be deaccessioned, though -- and if I have the energy next weekend I think I'll move a ton of them out front and advertise their availability on Facebook -- first-come, first-served because I am not about to get involved in savesies and setting-up of times. A friend of Roy's is here this weekend, so this is not a good time. Besides, I'm fully occupied with Mr. Mandonii and don't feel like working on a plant giveaway right now.

Speaking of energy levels, I seem to be doing all right after the first week of radiation. The target area is ever so faintly pink but not at all painful or itchy -- yet. This past week I have fallen into a good rhythm of slathering on the special moisturizer as soon as I get home and again before I go to bed. I bought some hypoallergenic moisturizing soap for twice-daily cleansing of the armpit that I may not deodorize (eeeeeuw).

Energy-wise, I was worse at the beginning of the week, but I think that's because I was a cheesy slacker and walked nowhere all the previous week, leaving me totally out of shape and a little breathless on my four-block walk home from the bus. I am taking Uber to the treatments -- the one time I tried public transportation the bus was so late that I had to take a different bus, which stops two blocks further away from the facility -- leaving me hot and bothered both literally and figuratively. Nope nope nope nope nope. Uber out / bus back is working beautifully; and I am extending the walk home by a block every day as my strength returns.

I also moved my appointment from mid-day to late afternoon. That way I can do a good six hours of work before I head out, and can flop in a chair once I get home, until it's time to nuke the MANNAmeals.

Speaking of MANNAmeals, the soups are a little light on protein, vegetables, etc. for my taste. I really like a hearty soup. So I'm roasting a bottom round roast right now, to be chopped into tiny bits and frozen to add to soups. Later I'll do the same with chicken breasts. And I ordered enough eggs to see me through my treatments and then some, so I'll bake those and freeze them this weekend as well. That way I will be prepared for the killer fatigue if and when it hits.

Hippeastrum mandonii * bounce * bounce * bounce *

lblanchard — Fri, 20 Sep 2019 00:07:31 GMT

Not my actual plant but this is what all the fuss is about

I paid cash money for two immature H. mandonii more than seven years ago -- spring of 2012, to be precise. A couple years later, the bulbs, still immature, rotted -- but by then they had thrown off some offsets that were healthy, so I potted them up.

More years passed and I have lately been casting a wrathful eye on these plants. They're a species hippeastrum and famously fickle in the bloom department. I was on the fence about whether I should deaccession them now or give them one more year.

I guess one of them heard me.

Hippastrum mandonii, such a tease...

I understand that these are seed-grown, which may mean that they are self-fertile. Or they may not be. I also read dark mutterings that some of the bulbs from this grower turn out to not look like a proper mandonii. Certainly this bud has the proper coloration -- whether it has the shape remains to be seen.

This was going to be the year, I told myself, that I didn't do any propagation. Pffffft. There will be an attempt at selfing and some saving of pollen to try with H. striatum when it blooms next, and also on the reliable old Hippeastrum 2006-2 that appears to be fertile with EVERYTHING.

All the more reason to be ruthless with the remaining juveniles etc. I need room for new precious babies.

Happy birthday, pondhopper!

lblanchard — Tue, 17 Sep 2019 19:57:47 GMT

You don't need me to tell you what this is...

Coleus ‘soledad’

lblanchard — Mon, 09 Sep 2019 22:33:13 GMT

Cuttings from the plants by Soledad’s bench

I went down to Soleded’s house this afternoon and took four cuttings from her three ‘Tilt-a-Whirl’ coleus plants. These got a lot of sunlight, so they’re quite dark. They are more colorful in the shade.

She liked having plants around her bench. I will think of her when I see them.

The News from South Philly

Update: This is not Buddy's final illness

All the Rousseau photos

From Paris to Provence: A visit to the Barnes

I have a new subscriber who won’t see very much…

A chance meeting at the Philadelphia Museum of Art

Every museum step should count as two steps

Equinox at 5:24 /the search for new LJ friends

For poliphilo

The Nativity at St. Charles Borromeo -- Christmas 2017

Happy birthday halfmoon_mollie

Coronavirus chronicles: Errantry cakes?

Coronavirus Chronicles: The Tolkien collection grows

Happy birthday halfmoon_mollie

Hippeastrum impertinence

Pinging pondhopper

Adapting

*Marks self safe from the shopping apocalypse*

Hippeastrum parade

Introducing 'Babymax'

LJ doesn't know me very well...

Stripped-down Christmas chronicles: Christmas Eve tradition

Radiation, Week One / Hippeastrum mandonii

Hippeastrum mandonii * bounce * bounce * bounce *

Happy birthday, pondhopper!

Coleus ‘soledad’

Marks self safe from the shopping apocalypse