Cooler Design "diablog" is at designerbs.blogspot.com

designerbs.blogspot.com

Is the "blog"spot which started as an exchange between Suzanne Dell'Orto and myself. The "b"s stands for "Beth" and "Suzanne" as opposed to the more . . . er . . . vernacular use the the acronym.

So, for some musings on design, check out the "diablog." *


*Even if, at this point, only one of us desultorily posts—which makes is a monoblog.

On reassessing

Celebrating birthdays is fun. Growing older is not. Along with the privilege of aging comes reassessment of everything. Is my body of work good enough? Have I made a difference? Made peace with being more of a follower than a leader and more of a matcher than a giver? If not, am I doing anything to change? These self-indulgent questions arise and often fester.

But sometimes there's a wake up call of the very best sort. Like today. I drove my husband to the station to catch a train at 5:28am in order to start work at 6:30am. At this time of year, it's light at 5:15am and lovely, with birds practicing for their dawn chorus. I waited till the train pulled out, then drove home to get more sleep. But as I passed the Tarrytown lakes, I saw beautiful fog smothering the water and pulled over to have a look.

The scene was Instagram-worthy—and made even better when a white heron flew across my field of vision and landed, also surveying the scene, to the left of my view. I I thought of the phrase, ". . . then glut thy sorrow on a morning rose" and told myself to snap out of my self-indulgence.

The phrase is from Keats. The entire poem is below, copied from the site of The Poetry Foundation.

www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/173743

Ode on Melancholy

By John Keats

No, no, go not to Lethe, neither twist

       Wolf's-bane, tight-rooted, for its poisonous wine;

Nor suffer thy pale forehead to be kiss'd

       By nightshade, ruby grape of Proserpine;

               Make not your rosary of yew-berries,

       Nor let the beetle, nor the death-moth be

               Your mournful Psyche, nor the downy owl

A partner in your sorrow's mysteries;

       For shade to shade will come too drowsily,

               And drown the wakeful anguish of the soul.

But when the melancholy fit shall fall

       Sudden from heaven like a weeping cloud,

That fosters the droop-headed flowers all,

       And hides the green hill in an April shroud;

Then glut thy sorrow on a morning rose,

       Or on the rainbow of the salt sand-wave,

               Or on the wealth of globed peonies;

Or if thy mistress some rich anger shows,

       Emprison her soft hand, and let her rave,

               And feed deep, deep upon her peerless eyes.

She dwells with Beauty—Beauty that must die;

       And Joy, whose hand is ever at his lips

Bidding adieu; and aching Pleasure nigh,

       Turning to poison while the bee-mouth sips:

Ay, in the very temple of Delight

       Veil'd Melancholy has her sovran shrine,

               Though seen of none save him whose strenuous tongue

       Can burst Joy's grape against his palate fine;

His soul shalt taste the sadness of her might,

               And be among her cloudy trophies hung. 

Philip Roth

In an interview with Daniel Sandstrom, the cultural editor at Svenska Dagbladet and printed in the Mrach 16, 2014 NYTBR, Philip Roth judged his own body of work by quoting the boxer Joe Louis:

"I did the best I could with what I had."

Note to self.

Be the best you can be.
Do the best work you can do.
Respect yourself.
Avoid apologizing.

Philadelphia

OVERVIEW
From old NYT articles
http://travel.nytimes.com/2013/01/06/travel/36-hours-in-philadelphia.html?ref=36hours

http://travel.nytimes.com/2009/05/10/travel/10hours.html?_r=0



FOOD

From KL
Many choices
http://www.tastingtable.com/city_guide/national/158

From KH
Anthony Bourdain goes beyond cheesesteaks (thank god!)
http://www.travelchannel.com/tv-shows/the-layover/episodes/philly

I learned about this via a podcast with designer Roberto deVicq de Cumptich (yup, that's a real name) http://ilpittore.com/



ART

From KC
Calder's Diana Re-gilded. Get ready to pose.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/23/nyregion/a-gilded-goddess-would-rather-be-in-philadelphia.html?ref=design&_r=1

Must-sees

Philadelphia Museum of Art
Barnes
Rodin Museum



OTHER

Science: Franklin Institute
Odditites: Mutter Museum
Muurals: http://www.muralarts.org/



HISTORY

Close to Independence Hall and The Liberty Bell

http://constitutioncenter.org/

Possible tea with Mama T
http://www.unionleague.org/



LODGING

Windsor Suites, sweets

Why Read Moby Dick?

Nathaniel Philbrick's Why Read Moby Dick? is a great incentive to reread Melville's masterpiece. In addition to plot tidbits, Philbrick gives the reader many facts about whaling, Melville, and the latter's relationship with his reluctant friend Nathaniel Hawthorne. Philbrick also brilliantly points out correspondences between pre-Civil War U.S. and parallels to the U.S.today. Each short chapter ends with an enlightening—if mildly irritating—moral tag.

Irritation aside, some of Philbrick's observations lend themselves to inspirational axioms. Here are a few of my favorite extracts from Why Read Moby Dick? I've italicized the back story to my quotes from Philbrick.

Page 122
Melville visits Nantucket a year after writing Moby Dick and meets George Pollard, captain of the whaling ship Essex, which was destroyed by its prey. Philbrick writes that Pollard was a "quiet, reserved survivor who had learned to live with disappointment."

For someone who has ceased to believe in his own immortality (and as we shall soon see, Melville had reached that point), life isn't about achieving your dreams; it's about finding a way to continue on in spite of them.

Page 126
After his death, Melville's family finds a possible clue to how Melville "managed to survive the forty-year backlash left by the creation of Moby Dick" (Melville worked for nearly two decades as a customs inspector after Moby Dick was published to unkind reviews) . . . .

Atop a table piled high with papers was a portable writing desk. Taped inside the desk, which had no bottom, was a piece of paper with a motto printed on it: "Keep true to the dream of thy youth."

SPOILER ALERT
The very last paragraph of Philbrick's Why Read Moby Dick? is as insightful as the rest of the slim volume (yup; I actually wrote "slim volume").

In the end, Melville had found a way back to the view espoused by Ishmael in Moby Dick: "Doubts of all things earthly, and intuitions of some things heavenly; this combination makes neither believer nor infidel, but makes a man who regards them both with equal eye." This redemptive mixture of skepticism and hope, this genial stoicism in the face of a short, ridiculous, and irrational life, is why I read Moby Dick.

Philbrick's book and summary above is why I may reread Moby Dick. But first, intrigued by the history and the tale that so struck Melville and impressed by Philbrick's writing, I will probably read, Philbrick's In the Heart of the Sea.

From Truth & Beauty

From Ann Patchett's Truth & Beauty:

I had been raised by Catholic nuns who told us in no uncertain terms that work was the path to God, and that while it was a fine thing to feel loyalty and devoltion in your heart, it would be much better for everyone involved if you could find the physical manifestations of your good thoughts and see them put into action. The world is saved through deeds, not prayer, because what is prayer but a kind of worry? I decided then that my love for Lucy would have to manifest in deeds.

Patchett's lines resonate, especially since the motto of The School of the Holy Child Jesus had the motto "Actions not Words" (I write, inactively . . . ).