I wanna hold your hand

A bear and a wolf, holding hands; this stenciling was somewhere down on Kent in Williamsburg. 

The Hare with Amber Eyes

I'm terribly behind the curve on this, but I'm loving Edmund de Waal's The Hare with Amber Eyes: A Family's Century of Art and Loss. I'd probably progress more quickly through it if I wasn't turning to the Internet at the end of every chapter, seeking out images of the paintings he describes or looking at netsuke on de Waal's Web site and on Google Images to get a feel for the lovely little objects that are the center of the story. 

What's it about? Well, says the jacket cover:

The Ephrussis were a grand banking family, as rich and respected as the Rothschilds, who "burned like a comet" in nineteenth-century Paris and Vienna society. Yet by the end of World War II, almost the only thing remaining of their vast empire was a collection of 264 wood and ivory carvings, none of them larger than a matchbox.

The renowned ceramicist Edmund de Waal became the fifth generation to inherit this small and exquisite collection of netsuke. Entranced by their beauty and mystery, he determined to trace the story of his family through the story of the collection.

I'm still looking for a facsimile of the portrait of Louise Cahen d'Anvers by Paul Borget, but the Internet doesn't have all the answers. Still, there is something thrilling about being able to see Monet's La Japonaise (Camille Monet in Japanese Costume), below left, and James Tissot's La Japonaise au bain, below right, alongside de Waal's discussion of the Japonisme that took hold in the latter half of the 19th century.

In the prologue, de Waal describes spending time with his great-uncle Iggie, the keeper of the netsuke for a time: "I liked the way that repetition wore things smooth, and there was something of the river stone to [his] stories." Repetitive the text is not, but there is solace in the easy progression of the prose; I can't help but think of one of my favorite David Berkeley songs, and though it has little bearing on the text, it's nice to take a listen, glory in the way these vastly different places and times end up with similar themes.

Another brick in the wall

The pattern of bricks on the side of a building; a tree's bare branches in shadow; a stark stencil of a man's face: these are a few of my favorite things.

Face to face

Loved these "sketches" of faces in black paint on the sidewalks of Greenpoint: but who's the artist? What's the story? Wish I knew.

In these empty lanes

I find it strange when my wandering takes me to places in the boroughs that are, by and large, unpeopled. Down by the water in Greenpoint, it was pretty quiet; although I ran into some people doing what could have been a photo shoot for Cycle World (black leather, artful posing astride powerful bikes), the streets otherwise seemed to be mine.

Streetside

Took a long walk today, from Long Island City to Greenpoint, passing over the Pulaski Bridge. It was absolutely clear and warmer than New York in February should be; there were oh so many things to see along the way. I suppose I'll be posting a few glimpses -- as in so many little corners of New York, even temporary walls become installations in the museum that is the city.

Keep an eye out

Down in the Village, the walls are watchful.

Right this way

A colorful wall; yes, I suppose taking this turn would be just fine.

The Deepening Stream

Some time ago, browsing the used-books shelves at the Center for Fiction, I saw a squat little Modern Library edition that, for reasons unknown (I didn’t recognize the title and had never heard of the author) I simply had to possess.

The weathered red hardcover sat on my shelf for a rather long time. It’s no secret that I went on a Maud Hart Lovelace bender, and I’ve also closely followed the saga of Downton Abbey; it’s all led to an incurable curiosity about life as it was lived in the late 1800s and early 1900s – say, from the turn of the century to the end of the Great War, when the world was full of great promise and great barbarism both. I reorganized my bookshelves in early January, and when I unearthed The Deepening Stream, I did a bit of research and learned that it charts the story of a girl growing up in just that period. It went to the top of my list.

Dorothy Canfield’s novel was first published as a serial in the Woman’s Home Companion in 1930. We meet Penelope “Matey” Gilbert as a child in the States and in France, jumping from town to town as her father pursues his career in academia, and then experience with her a number of milestones: her parents die, she falls in love and marries Adrian Fort, she bears two children, and when the war breaks out, she takes her family to France to help (Adrian drives an ambulance on the front, and Matey and the children stay in Paris to help support the Vinets, a family she had lived with for a time when she was young).

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Casting a long shadow

The view from the High Line always give me a thrilling sense of omniscience; I was reminded of this again Sunday, seeing both the water towers and the shadows they cast on a nearby building.