On the one hand it feels barbaric and sacrilegious, cutting up nice art books. But, on the other, that’s why I bought this particular title. To turn as many of the pics as poss’ into framed prints. Some for our home, the remainder to sell.
Here are a selection of images from this book, pre-op’, so to speak.
Apparently ukiyo-e translates as ‘pictures of the floating world’, which in itself is quite beautiful. The period of their popularity is, I’ve read, 17th-19th C. And, as per the book title, these examples are ‘early’.
I wonder if the colours have faded and become more muted? I kind of suspect they might once have been more vivid, when originally printed. But I rather like the effect time has wrought.
Most of the examples in this book are single figures. Tall and thin. With practically no background or contextual detail. But there’s a segment given over to ‘scenes’, which are landscape and not portrait in orientation, include multitudinous figures, and contextual detail or settings.
This one – above – is a bit odd. And rather saucily suggestive. The lady below looks across from the opposite page, rather disapprovingly.
All told, I think this book is a great way for us to procure numerous Japanese prints. Some for the beautification of our home. The remainder I hope to sell.
The print that leaped out at me was the one above and on the right. Which also appears, cut from the book, atop this post. I got a cheap frame from TOFS, for £5, and… thar she blows:
I need to get a frame mount cutter. Then I can tailor-make picture mount frames, which’ll make such pieces look a lot better. The tool I need is something like this:
For the time being, I’m using the pre-cut supplied mounting card.
And, finally, the print is up in the wall of our bedroom.
It’s amazing, the quantity of human activity that’s out there, waiting to be discovered. Tino Contreras, a prolific Mexican jazz dude, is new to me. A multi-instrumentalist, whose main instrument is drums, with a passion for jazz. Sounds totally up my boulevard!
I hope that some of the tracks from the above album are on the Jazzman compilation. I just ordered the latter via Discogs, for £3.99.
Rather amazingly, this dude, born in 1924, only passed quite recently, in 2021, aged 97! And he put out an album (on Gilles Peterson’s Brownswood label) – above – the year before he passed. Aged 96… Pretty bonkers!
Why ‘FC’ on the kick drum display head, you might ask? Well, his full name was Fortino Contreras Gonzalez. From which he obviously derived the more contracted version. And in this early photograph, it seems he was going by his full name, albeit abbreviated to just the first two initials, a la Gene Krupa/Buddy Rich, etc.
There’s a terrific interview from 2018 with Tino here.
I’ve had another episode of extreme fatigue. Had one yesterday evening. Really, really horrible. I just pushed on through that one. This time it was so appalling I had to stop. I called both 111, and my local Doctors’ Surgery. Got an appointment at the latter, for later today.
So, I’m taking a brief breather. I don’t think I can safely drive until I feel a bit better! Maybe 20 minutes rest? A bite to eat, and a drink of water, etc. Hopefully I’ll feel better, and be able to finish my current delivery shift?
I pulled over in Apethorpe, by St. Leonards. It was raining when I parked. It’s stopped now. It’s very peaceful here. There are several incredibly beautiful villages in this area. I passed through the very picturesque King’s Cliffe on my way here.
Now, to St. Leonard’s…
The local vicar unlocked the church for me, and chatted to me about it a bit. A lovely lady! Under the tower, I took the snaps, above and below. Different focal points/exposures, for different aspects of the same view.
The corbels are great. But so high up my iPhone struggles to capture them. I simply must get a better camera for this sort of malarkey!
It’s odd, but I’ve noticed that most – or at least a lot of – old churches have one or two large ancient chests. The carving on this particular example puts it a cut (boom-boom) above the average.
There’s a rather odd selection, window wise.
The main window is totally blown out of the water by this:
This is the window in the chapel dedicated to the FitzHerberts, of nearby Apethorpe Palace. And just as their home is far more splendorous than God’s house – and St. Leonards is still pretty splendid – so too is their part of the church.
As amazing as this enormous edifice is, let’s turn back now to the window behind it. That’s really something special, in my opinion.
Along the bottom of the window are a series of texts. Which make pretty strange reading. Or at least they do to me. Here they all are:
Bonkers, eh!?
On, to Cotterstock:
After the restorative sojourn at St. Leonards, I finished my shift. And after that I wandered around Ashton, where my shift had ended, taking the following snaps:
This post is headed up by the ‘after’ pic. Below is a before one.
Simon, the guy who recently serviced our boiler, came over today. And fitted our has hob. It’s great to have all four rings working. On the old hob, the littlest one ceased functioning aeons ago.
It took Simon a lot longer than anticipated to do this job. And it precipitated much cussing! Apparently almost all hobs differ slightly, making each one a new and different pain in the arse.
The electric oven’s still not been used, on account of my wanting to be 100% sure there’s nowt left in there, transport or packaging wise. We don’t want melted foam or plastic stinking out the house, and ruining our brand new oven.
Clearing up around the house, I found an air quality monitor. So I’ve put it up, on’t wall. I took the opportunity to also wall-mount the thermostat controller.
On my way home from my second and final delivery shift of the day, I stopped to admire St Mary The Virgin. I’ve often passed her. And she always turns my head. But this is the first time I stopped to investigate.
Sadly she was shut.
Passing through Melbourn en-route home, I saw this picturesque cottage being re-thatched. Took a quick snap. The Old Ways live on.
Back to St. Mary… I knocked at the door of the large house (former vicarage?) next to the church. But answer came there none.
The gorgeous hedgerow arch above looks amazing. It’s even more magical to take shelter under it in a downpour. As I was doing when I took these pics.
When I got home, utterly spent, it was feet up on’t couch time. But I spotted that the sky was unusually pink. So we popped out to have a look.
Kind of accentuates the cherry blossom.
These photos are nice. But they fall a long way short of capturing the actual colours, or the powerful impact of the light as we saw and experienced it. Magical!
I finally got around to moving the filing cabinet out of the corner, in my drum room, where I could’nae get at it. And I put a new lampshade on an old lamp, making it look fresh n’ new. The colour once again coordinates well with the feature wall.
There’s still vast amounts of stuff floating around without a proper home. But I’m chipping away at it all the time. Now… time for some serious bedtime reading:
Today I fitted the new light fixture and lampshade, in the drum room. The colour rather neatly, and completely by lucky chance – or serendipulosity – is colour coordinated with the new feature
I bought the lampshade yesterday (or was it Monday?). And trimmed the short length of ‘hang’ cable to make it even shorter. The ceiling is low in the drum room!
That was yesterday. Today I’m putting the damn thing up. Hope it won’t prove too tricky?
Sone time later…
Antonio popped out to have a run. So I thought I’d try and do this job whilst it was just me at home. But it took ages in the end. As I was busy doing other small chores as well: washing the breakfast dishes, hoovering the lunge, and taking the old fridge to the municipal dump. There’s always so much to do!
Having, naturally, to switch off the lighting circuitry fuses, I had to work by lamplight. And the awkward overhead angle, accessing the ceiling fixture = sore neck!
When it was just a naked bulb, the light was just above my head. Having to have a little bit of cable length, to allow for the desired flexiness, means the lampshade is now below noggin level. Hey-ho… compromises!
The observant viewer may note the weird black gooseneck doodad, to the left. That’s for an ‘over the kit’ phone-camera set up, as and whenI’m either recording drumming vids, or teaching via Zoom or Teams, etc.
I’m still chuffed with this small but noticeable improvement. Each little chip away at the ol’ block gets one that little bit closer.
Ah, the simple pleasures. Our old butter dish, a porcelain jobbie, got broken. That was ages ago. We’ve been using an ugly old takeaway tub, ever since.
But takeaway that takeaway tub. Plastic ugliness begone! This is rather lovely. All glass. All see through. Nice and simple.