Everybody's from Porlock Now

[pameladean]

I just got a nudge from gypsy1969.  I didn't realize I had made no entries for four weeks.

Raphael and I went to the Art Institute on the last day of a special exhibit of Old Masters.  One of them was Salvatore Rosa's "Lucrezia as the Personification of Poetry."  We went back to look at it several times, and both of us thought of Coleridge's person from Porlock, who interrupted the writing of "Kubla Khan."  Raphael spoke first, however, the words that now appear on my new icon.  Raphael surprised me with the icon last night, and it is really a good one for my mood at the moment.

Here's a link to an image of the painting:

http://www.oceansbridge.com/oil-paintings/product.php?xProd=60514&xSec=6


The novel in progress is very much alive, but it is in the stomping around and jeering stage, rather than at the point where it might bolt with me and see us both safely to the end.  It's going to be so enormous.

The weather is freakish, not in the realm of New York's or Washington's, but freakish for Minnesota.  We do have snow, and we are going to have daytime temperatures below freezing for a few days.  But it's just all wrong.  On a day-to-day bsis the lack of bone-chilling cold and feet of snow make life easier, but I doubt that a little ease will be worth the price that we'll pay.

I'd better get back to tearing my hair out and brandishing my pen.  I do read LJ, and will continue to do so.

P.

Comments

[kightp.livejournal.com]

Soldier on!

And see if you can find time to take a break at the end of March, because it's looking entirely likely that I'll be visiting your fair city then. (-:

[pameladean]

Most excellent!

I had BETTER be done by then.

P.

[karenkay.livejournal.com]

Okay, I'm completely creeped out that you can buy an OIL copy of this painting for $219, unframed. I just find this bizarre and somehow unseemly. Would have *any* of the light of the original?????

That aside, I'm glad you're making progress, even though it's at the stomping around and jeering stage--it'll get past that, I'm sure.

[gypsy1969.livejournal.com]

Glad to see you’ve come up for air! I nudged a few folks that I was worried about. Sounds like everything is copacetic with you. The weather is weird here too. Don't tear out all of your hair!

[ninstorage.livejournal.com]

Good to see you post again. Stories that bolt away with you are the best :) Have fun!

[pameladean]

I am a bit creeped out that the best image is from the site that wants to sell you a reproduction. But I suppose it isn't surprising.

P.

[pameladean]

Maybe I should get a cap so that I can just tug it out from under instead.

Thanks for the nudge; I'd been meaning to post for some time, but even having a grand new icon didn't quite put me over the edge.

P.

[clindau.livejournal.com]

Well phooey. I wanted to go to that exhibit and it slipped away from me. Drat. It's just wrong that I don't get over to that museum more often. Of course, if I lived in, say, London, I'm sure I'd never make it into the Tate Britain, or the V&A.

Speaking of selling reproductions

[clindau.livejournal.com]

Check out this page from Minnesota Public Radio about art forgeries:
http://minnesota.publicradio.org/display/web/2006/09/13/equineartfraud/

This woman is a dear friend of mine. Her work is amazing.

[tunxeh.livejournal.com]

I love that new icon. And news of a potentially enormous novel makes me very happy despite the large amount of work that I expect it still entails.

*goes back to lurking*

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

I am so glad you're writing!

[janetmk.livejournal.com]

Thank you for taking the time to post.

[papersky.livejournal.com]

When carandol was living on a commune in Devon, and my aunt and I were taking zorinth to visit him, I saw a signpost to Porlock.

Nobody else wanted to turn the car around and go there, but before that I'd never quite taken in that it was a real place. It's on the North Devon coast, and I expect it's lined with identical ugly semis facing away from the sea, full of people interrupting each other to ask "What's wrong with a tune you can whistle?"

[huladavid.livejournal.com]

"The novel in progress is very much alive, but it is in the stomping around and jeering stage...

Your novel is going through its terrible twos?

Oh god, if all novelist go through that, I'm surprised Proust survived Remembrance Of Things Past*...
_____
*Which is something I've been wanting to read. I was tempted to find a copy & take it with me when I took the bus to Fargo. Instead I took a coupl'a nice, juicy Star Trek novels.

Re: Speaking of selling reproductions

[karenkay.livejournal.com]

This article is interesting, but it pisses me off. Unless I missed it entirely, it poses a question that it doesn't answer. It shows you two paintings, asks which is the original, and doesn't give you the answer.

[coffeeem.livejournal.com]

Oh, my, oh, my. Yes, indeed.

(Re the cap notion: You would then also have the option of snatching it off, hurling it to the floor, and stamping on it.)

Re: Speaking of selling reproductions

[dd-b.livejournal.com]

If you go through the slideshow, in #7 it shows the pair of paintings plus the artist, and tells you which one is real.

However, I'm not sure the paintings are displayed in the same order as on the front page of the article, and the lighting is different (glaring on one of them), and they're pictured smaller.

So that may not really make it any better.

I was thinking the left-hand on the front page was the real one, because it was less contrasty and had more shadow detail. But that also makes it less dramatic, so who knows?

[pameladean]

Oh, they are. But while they are working themselves up to bolting, they are extremely annoying.

P.

[pameladean]

We almost didn't make it. It was lucky for us that the last day was a Thursday, when the museum is open late.

And exactly. I had to move away from Minneapolis, live in Massachusetts for four years, and then move back, before I went to Minnehaha Falls.

P.

[pameladean]

A long novel is actually less work -- for me, anyway -- than two shorter ones. I just like to complain sometimes.

P.

[pameladean]

Aw, thanks. I am, too. I'm just so slow, it becomes frustrating.

P.

[pameladean]

I'd have gone with you in a heartbeat!

As for the ugly semis (and I know what you mean, but my first thought was of large container trucks, which was pretty funny, and certainly ugly):

"Porlock Weir, only 2 miles away, is a quaint little harbour with a unique charm that has to be experienced. It also boasts the remains of a prehistoric forest, small parts of which are occasionally visible still at a very low tide, and it was here that some remains of an Aurochs were found. These are now on display in the Visitor Centre in Porlock."

Oh, fine, I forgot to save the link, but it's the first thing that comes up if you just Google for Porlock.

"And just try to find an Aurochs." *sniff*

P.

[faithhopetricks.livejournal.com]

Yay, novel in progress! And wow, what a lovely (and humorous) icon.

Re: Speaking of selling reproductions

[clindau.livejournal.com]

I knew right away which one was Lynn's; but then I know her work pretty well. Oh and in case the penny hasn't dropped yet, Lynn was Tim's "date" for the Stoppard speech/talk/lecture/whatever.

[thedragonweaver.livejournal.com]

The Terrible Twos of a book, and then you get to look forward to it going through puberty...

Hope we'll be able to meet your book soon, once you've made it fit for company.

[laurel]

Kevin and I keep meaning to go the Art Institute and keep not getting there. Sorry I missed that show. There's also actually an exhibit at the Walker I want to check out (believe it or not, that's rare-- I'm usually far more interested in stuff at the Art Institute).

Kevin's actually never been to the MIA so it'd be fun to take him there and show him my favorite pieces from their permanent collection. Mostly Impressionist stuff, but I'm also very fond of the Rembrandt of Lucretia (probably 'cuz my Mom told me the story behind the painting when I was a kid).

[And good to see a post from you, of course. Good luck with the book stuff!]

Re: Speaking of selling reproductions

[pameladean]

I was wondering about that!

P.

[pameladean]

That's a good idea. I do have a fleece beret that I wear when the house is particularly drafty. I'll have to remember that it can be snatched off and stamped on.

P.

[pameladean]

Coming up for air is really a good idea; I just forget that.

P.

[charlieallery.livejournal.com]

West Somerset, just the other side of Minehead (Arthur C Clarke country) and it's a pretty tiny place - narrow windy roads and this really steep road with very tight hairpins that climbs up onto the top of Exmoor and thence to Lynton and Lynmouth. Coaches and lorries have to use the tollroad and when that's closed (as it was for the local motor club hillclimb), they have to detour way down into Devon and back. My godmother lives about halfway between Nether Stowey and Porlock. :-)

(Just popping across from Mary Kay's LJ.)

[pameladean]

My mother and I almost got kicked out of the Walker for laughing (at the language of the identifying placards, not at the art), and referred to it thereafter as the Museum of Comic Art.

R and I were tired, but stayed til the museum closed, looking at random articles of the permanent collection.

[Thanks!]

P.

Re: Speaking of selling reproductions

[karenkay.livejournal.com]

It shows you the pair of paintings, but they are framed, not just side-by-side as in that inset. I agree with you about the order of the paintings--I think they are reversed with the artist. But my point is that a news article shouldn't leave us debating the inner truth.

I was thinking just the opposite, that the one on the right had more life. But as you says, who knows? And that's just silly. It totally obviates the point of the article, that Fakes Are Bad. If you can't tell the difference, does it matter?

[studentnurse.livejournal.com]

Hi, I'm one of those kids who went to Carleton because of Tam Lin... I linked to your LJ from Sharyn's.

I skimmed through a few pages of archives and enjoyed reading your thoughts on LM Montgomery and Laura Ingalls Wilder. I did really hope to read a eulogy for Owen Jenkins, so I skipped to the end of your journal, but saw that you started shortly after he died. I took what I think was his last class, and he taught me an incredible amount about reading and writing.