"My September Baccalaureate": Journey Towards Elegant Lighting

Last week, at this very time, I was preparing for Hurricane Irene, which I discussed in this past Saturday's post, and in the conclusion of that entry, I reported that, in regards to Irene, I'd return to blogging with "hopefully little damage to report". Thankfully, that was the case, as I've already indicated earlier this week. I am very grateful to God — though I don't express it nearly as much as I should. In fact, since I sleep on a foam pad — which is directly atop of my floor, I often don't kneel when I say prayers before going to sleep, although I did (as is the standard) kneel at mass yesterday, with thanksgiving that, in terms of Irene, I was unscathed; especially given the damage which Hurricane Irene did cause for many people, including those who live  on or near the Jersey Shore, a place, where I took the photograph (posted above) in late July, of a shore town's resident's garden fence with the affirmation, God Answers Knee-Mail. Since the place where I took this photograph is very near the ocean, I hope the folks who own the property as well as their surrounding neighbors did not sustain too much damage, but, whatever the case turned out to be, I am fairly certain they relied on their knee-mail to God to see them through the situation.


And speaking of God; are you, dear reader, familiar with the adage, If you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans" ?


Well, what has happened, dear reader, is that I've recently discovered this very same  thing that happens with a muse. If you want to amuse your muse, tell him/her what you intend to write about. For as you may recall, dear reader, last Saturday I confessed that I had planed to write about my "journey towards elegant garden lighting", but my preparation for Irene took precedence. I did promise to return to my garden lighting epiphany today, but I admit that (because I have now been writing this entry in my head for over a week) my insights do not seem as poignant as they did last week, and I am tempted to renege on my promise; not out of an unwillingness to fulfill a task — but out of a bit of pride — that I may not sound as prolific in cyberspace as I do in my head, when it comes to the insights which I thought the new lighting system in my urban garden had taught me.
"Sometimes we regret our failure to write about things that really interest us. The reason we fail is probably because to write about them would prove embarrassing. The things that interested us during the past week, for example, and that we were unable or unwilling to write about (things that stand out clear as pictures in our head) were: the look in the eye of a man whose overcoat, with velvet collar was held together by a bit of string; the appearance of an officer after the building had shut down for the night; the obvious futility of the litter; . . . a man on a bicycle on Fifth Avenue; a short eulogy of John James Audubon, who spent his life loafing around, painting birds; an entry in Art Young's diary about a sick farmer who didn't know what was the matter with himself but thought it was biliousness; and the sudden impulse that we had (and very nearly gratified) to upend a large desk for the satisfaction of seeing everything on it slide off slowly on to the floor," is what E.B. White, (an author I have referenced in previous posts which you may find by clicking here and here as well as here, and here), had to say on the subject of the ideas a writer does not commit to the pencil, pen, typewriter, or keyboard. 


However, since I have not upended my desk as of yet, I will return to fulfilling my promise of sharing my journey towards elegant lighting. The lighting in  my garden still looks lovely, as evidenced by the "aerial view", of my terrace garden which Juan V photographed (pictured below), this past Thursday, when he came to see how the new "string lighting" and the things which I grow in my garden had fared during Irene; and as you can see, even after all the high winds, and torrents of rain, brought on with her wrath, my urban garden looks serene. 

In fact, the lighting looks so elegant that I am bit overwhelmed with joy by the ambiance it adds to my terrace garden. Initially, when I first thought about writing about my journey towards elegant lighting, I had thought that I'd be embarrassed about what the lighting situation within my garden had been during its earliest years; and therefore, the theme of my post regarding it would involve coming to terms with the different person I have been over the years.


Since this approach was my intent, I thought it might be helpful to some of my readers who have had difficulty accepting certain past actions that they have committed; or certain decisions they have made; for I had believed that my studying photographs of my garden's early days would spark the personal and professional inadequacies which I felt during that time (and have struggled to overcome) might be akin to how one reportedly feels when looking at photographs of themselves of bygone days when they were too fat, too thin, had bad hair, were with their ex, and on and on and on; or how they feel when reading journal entries they may have written in bygone years.


"Perhaps it is difficult to see the value in having one's self back in that kind of mood, but I do see it; I think we are well advised to keep on nodding terms with the people we used to be, whether we find them attractive company or not.  Otherwise  they turn up unannounced and surprise us, come hammering on the mind's door at 4 A.M. of a bad night and demand to know who deserted them, who betrayed them, who is going to make amends. We forget all too soon the things we thought we could never forget. We forget the loves and the betrayals alike, forget what we whispered and what we screamed, forget who we were. I have already lost touch with a couple of people I used to be; one of them a seventeen year-old, presents little threat . . . the other one, a twenty-three year old, bothers me more. She was always a good deal of trouble, and I suspect she will reappear when I least want to see her, skirts too long, shy to the point of aggravation, always the injured party, full of recriminations and little hurts and stories I do not want to hear again, at once saddening me and angering me with her vulnerability and ignorance, an apparition all the more insistent for being so long banished.


"It is a good idea, then, to keep in touch and I suppose that keeping in touch is what notebooks are all about," Joan Didion writes in her essay, On Keeping a Notebook, and, although I do not keep a notebook, diary, or journal, I do agree with Ms. Didion (a writer I've cited in several posts which you may access by going to the labels menu on my blog, located to the left of all blog entries and selecting Joan Didion), and, in fact, I think that snapshots also have the power to drive one back on to oneself — at least they do for me; which is why I thought that my reviewing them would bring on emotions that have been pushed aside, and allow me to share my journey of lighting within myself as it paralleled the various ways I have lit my garden over the years. 


But, once again, as it did last week, the aforementioned muse laughed when I told it my plans regarding the content of today's blog post; and, as it turns out, it is more of a chronicle of my various urban garden lighting methods without the underlying meanings that may or may not have accompanied them, which I hope that those who appreciate gardens and gardening will enjoy; as for my intended thought to philosophize about the deeper meaning involved, I am resigned to believing that, in this instance, it could very well be that "a spade is just a spade" . 


However, I am sure you will agree that September does bring out the philosopher in folks; the type of philosopher which the American poet Emily Dickinson describes in her poem, September's Baccalaureate which is posted below:

September's Baccalaureate

A combination Of Crickets — Crows — and Retrospects

And a dissembling Breeze

That hints without assuming —

An Innuendo sear

That makes the Heart put up its Fun

And turn Philosopher.

Upon recalling Dickinson's poem, in an effort (Or is it a justification?) to document my outdoor lighting journey, I did go through the photographs that I have of my urban garden. One of the earliest photographs I can find of my garden is from 2002 (seen below) when I'd already been living in my studio apartment with its "attached" outdoor space for nearly nine years, and, when I look at this photograph now, I think my garden looked timid, but then maybe I am projecting how I felt about myself and gardening during those early green thumb years.

Perhaps you recognize the image posted above, dear reader, because I included it in a blog entry titled, I Have NEVER Seen A Billboard Lovely As A Tree, that I posted this past May, when I had taken down the SODAS sign, which had maintained quite a presence in my garden for a number of years, and, in fact, it often "dictated" where my herbs, vines, plants, flowers, shrubs and trees were ultimately placed during its "reign".


In the aforementioned month of May blog entry, I pointed out that looking through past photographs of my urban garden — particularly in its earliest years — often causes me to "feel vulnerable, because they reveal my then lack of talents as a gardener (which have taken a while to develop)", but, because that blog entry, as well as this one, are about the removal of a longstanding object, "and not my own stages as a gardener", I will once again — as I did with the evolution of my SODAS sign — share photographs with you about the evolution of another object that has been in my terrace garden, and that is my outdoor lights. I'll start with the first image that I used when recounting my SODAS sign journey (which is the image above). However, this image is slightly different, in comparison to the image I used this past May, because I have added three arrows to it; in an attempt to illustrate part of what I am discussing today. 


To provide you with a little orientation: My terrace garden is actually a roof extension and it is "enclosed" by a low railing that goes around it. This railing is made up  of three metal "tiers", and when I first moved into my apartment (which I did during the night-time hours) I discovered the former tenant had left a small strand of white "Christmas" lights dangling over one of the "tiers". This turned out to be quite a blessing because, as it happens, there was not one light bulb in the fixtures within the apartment, so I brought the small strand inside and used it for  "regular" light, until I could get to the store to buy bulbs for my fixtures.


Soon after I settled into my new home, upon being inspired by seeing how the former tenant's lights looked outside, I subsequently strung many strands of lights outside — not just a small strand — I put lights around each of the three "tiers" as I wanted to have a look of ivy, and it seems strange now that, at that time, I never thought about having real ivy. My "tiers" of lighting can be seen by looking at the arrows seen in the image above. The purple arrow is pointing towards strands of lights that made their way around the entire first "tier" of my terrace; and the gold arrow is pointing towards lights which made their way around the entire second "tier"; the third "tier" is obscured in this photograph, hence there is no arrow pointing towards it, but their is a third arrow, which is chartreuse-colored, and it is also pointing towards lights that I put in my terrace garden the same day I put lights on all three "tiers" of railing.


Here's a mini-back-story as to what these "other" lights are about: As it happens, another "feature" which came with my terrace is a tall "pole/pipe" situated in the northwest corner of my terrace, and I strung lights up and down that "pole/pipe", which is where the chartreuse-colored arrow is pointing. These particular lights were the kind which can be wrapped around a tree trunk  — as I wanted the illusion of having a tree in my "yard", never thinking, never dreaming even, that one day I'd have seven trees growing in containers; including two larches (a small Japanese Larch AKA Larix Kaempferi and a tall one), 'Tamukeyama' AKA Japanese Red Maple, an  Acer palmatum AKA 'Shisitatsu' Sawa, an Acer shirasawanum AKA Autumn Moon, a Fagus sylvatica AKA Beech Tree, and a Physocarpus opulifolius AKA Coppertina; which are all thriving.

However, growing these trees was a long process, and in my early years as a gardener, long before I grew the trees which I have now, I lost a Spruce Tree to the scorching sun. (I subsequently lost another tree last year (a lovely Karamatsu) to grubs, which is a fact that you may recall from a previous blog entry, that I wrote last September the Fourth — almost a year ago today!)


Losing the Spruce was traumatic, because, at the time, it was the only tree which I had in my garden as seen in the photograph below:

This image is drastically different from my garden today, but it is part of my growth as a gardener. The orange arrow is pointing to the Spruce; my only tree at the time; the leaves from a tree that you can see in the upper right hand corner are from the pesky Ailanthus Trees, which many folks on my block (and all over New York City) have in their yards. The black arrow is pointing at a Silver Mound plant, an annual I had in my terrace garden for a number of years, mostly because of its tactile feature (very soft and fuzzy to the touch) and, while it was interesting to have, it tended to get leggy and take over my garden space, so for the past six years I have not included it in the landscape of my garden. 


The purple arrow with tips on either side of it is pointing to the lights that were on the three "tiers" surrounding my terrace. Lastly, the red arrows are pointing to my "pole/pipe" with the lights strewn around it. The "pole/pipe" became my quasi-tree in my early garden years, and various vines, which were planted in containers at the "pole/pipe's" base, enjoyed hopping on it, and they ultimately trailed up it, as seen in one of my early endeavors as a gardener in the images posted below. (These images were taken by Patricia Rosa who I have referred to in prior blog entries which can be accessed by clicking here and here as well as here.)

The little white flowers, that can be seen in the containers at the base of this flourishing Morning Glory Vine; are Asylum flowers, which were a delight to me in my early years; but now that I have very few annuals in my garden, I no longer include them in my "landscape". In any event, Patricia Rosa's photographs depict a very different garden than the one I have today, and BTW, if you look at the three white "tiers" of my railing in her photographs, you will see that they all have strands and strands of lights.


As for the vine that took over the "pole/pipe" in Ms. Rosa's images; it is a Morning Glory, a vine, which I have not had for many years since I made the switch to perennial Clematis Vines which can be seen in various stages of growth where the orange arrows are pointing in the image below. The black arrow is pointing to my beloved Karamatsu, the tree that I just mentioned, who lost its life to grubs last September.

I have referred to my replacing Morning Glory Vines with Clematis in a previous post which you may refer to by clicking here. My first Clematis and the "pole/pipe" lighting can also be seen in the following image with the short-lived Spruce in the back to the left.

This particular Clematis, has been featured in my line of invitations that preserve a moment in time, my event program covers which enhance any occasion, and my greeting cards that are about more than communication. All of these are available in the store-front pages of my web-site, Patricia Youngquist Photo Art, as well as in a downloadable brochure which you may access by clicking here.


However, the following season I had to replace my white Clematis with H.F. Young Clematis, a vine, which has flourished every year; as evidenced by the photograph below (a variation of this image was included with an informative narrative in a previous blog entry that you may access by clicking here).

I confess it was this H.F. Young's month of May birthing of dozens and dozens of the H.F. Young Flowers that prompted me to begin to regret having lights around my "pole/pipe"  — for I felt the cords and the plugs were interfering with the esthetics of my  H.F. Clematis Vine, (even though you can barely see them here) especially since I like to photograph this vine long after the flower's gone as evidenced by the image below.

The ability to get a nice image of what grows up my "pole/pipe" without a light bulb, cord or plug "mugging" the shot has not been easy, and this factored into my decision to remove the lights from the "pole/pipe". 


The railing lights had been the first group of lights that I took down, an endeavor you my recall from this past December, when I blogged about my taking down lights at a time when people were putting them up for the holiday season. You may remember, dear reader, that I stated that I had decided to do this because I felt the wires and cords of the lights were interfering with the branches of my lovely Actinida kolomikta and Actimida (Kiwi Vines) which you might surmise from the photographs below that you may remember from having seen them in a November 2010 blog entry.

I know that my Actinida kolomikta and Actimida (Kiwi Vines) appreciated the "breathing room" allotted to them (once I took down the railing lights in December of 2010) because one of the Kiwi Vines, the Actinida kolomikta, made reference to it when he was featured as the narrator in my first garden-themed movie, The Kiwi Speaks! Fifteen Minutes of Fame . . . almost, which is now on Vimeo and you may refer to this link for details. 


However, even though I removed the railing lights last December, it has taken me until last week to remove the ones from my "pole/pipe", and those lights, like the SODAS signs were once a key player within the objects I have in my terrace garden; as evidenced by a photograph that Donna De Solis took this past December, a few days after I had wrapped all my herbs, vines, plants, flowers, trees and shrubs for the winter. This photograph was featured in a blog entry at that time, but since I am referring to the "pole/pipe" in this instance, I thought it appropriate to include this photograph even though it's been seen by many of you.

In the case of De Solis's image, the "pole/pipe" lights are not interfering with any flowers from any vines, because it was December, and things had gone to sleep until spring; but while it may look festive at night, during the day, cords wrapped around the pole with un-lit bulbs were far from festive and, in fact, they often drew attention to the temporarily dried up vines.


Another item featured in De Solis's image depicts how I used lighting for specific Christmas decor. In the top right hand corner of her photograph there is a star which, in the image, may appear as if it is at the top of my Larch Tree, but in fact these lights are wrapped around a bamboo pole which, during winter-time, I use to give my Larch support against winter elements. The star is attached to the top of the pole, providing an illusion that it is affixed to my Larch, which is actually too tender to take the weight of this type of decoration.


As for the lights seen in front of the "pole/pipe" on the left hand side of this image, they are actually mixed within a wreath that is sitting on a table-top turned plant stand, which had been used to "house" the container for my Fagus sylvatica (Beech Tree), and when it was performing this function t looked like this (see photo-collage posted below):

It was (and still is) a great use of the table-top, but when I winterized my herbs, vines, flowers, plants, shrubs, and trees last December, they were all moved to the southern portion of my terrace, which in the case of my Fagus sylvatica (Beech Tree), meant that I had an empty stand.


The empty stand looked all right, but in an attempt to give my H.F. Clematis "company" (since the stand is so close to the poles where the H.f. Young Clematis attached itself) during winter-time since it was one of three things which could not be moved, I placed a Christmas wreath with lights atop of the stand. These are the lights I referred to in the previous paragraph. The following image of the wreath used in this manner was also featured within in a  blog post on December the 15th 2010.

Once the 2010 winter had finally passed, and my wreath was discarded so that my Fagus sylvatica could move back into his digs, the wreath's lights were kept, and put on the rim of my Fagus sylvatica's stand (as evidenced in the photographs which were taken during different seasons in 2010 and are posted below).

The lights around the rim of the table-top-turned-tree-stand are the only lights  still remaining in my garden from previous lighting endeavors, and I have yet to make my "executive decision": if these lights will remain there now that I have the string lights hanging above my garden. Juan V thinks they looked nice when my Christmas wreath was there, and I do admit, having special lights in my garden for the holidays creates a festive mood, as seen in the five photographs below, depicting my prior use of Halloween lighting in my garden.

Because holiday lights are so festive, "the jury" (the things I grow in my terrace garden) is still out on whether or not I will incorporate them this year. 


One of my perennial vines, the Autumn Clematis AKA Donna the Grower's Legacy , can be seen in the fourth picture of these five photographs (taken in October of 2010) climbing on a wooden lattice before heading up to the trivets which Juan V placed on the wall in May of 2010. It is hard to see it (the Autumn Clematis) in the fifth photograph; in this instance, it's the lighting that I wanted you to see. 


The Autumn Clematis blooms in the autumn, hence its name, Autumn Clematis. Since the Autumn Clematis is the one who lives 24/7 with any lighting system which I install (especially because, for the most part, it faces my "pole/pipe"), it will be one of the key players in weighing in on any future decisions regarding my terrace garden's lighting; and, dear reader, you are welcome to weigh in as well by posting a comment.

Meanwhile, my Autumn Clematis is ready to burst with its white flowers (as evidenced in the photographs of it posted below, including one with a rose to give you a sense of the size of the bulbs in the string lighting) as it anticipates the view it will have within the string lighting of my garden.

SIXTY WORDS (60), Yes, SIXTY, Create a Picture — Who said it had to be a thousand?

Sixty words,

"Vermin"

'The mouse of Thought infests my head.

He knows my cupboard and the crumb.

     Vermin! I despise vermin. 

I have no trap, no skill with traps,

No bait, no hope, no cheese no bread — 

I fumble with the task to no avail.

I've seen him several times lately.

He is too quick for me, 

I see only his tail.'

Create a picture,

The writings of E.B. White, author of the poem posted above, are something that I have always enjoyed, as I have stated in previous entries on this blog which you may refer to by clicking here as well as here and here; and, for my readers who are writers that, like yours truly, suffer from time to time with a stubborn muse, the poem, Vermin, and the photograph of my writer's block pencil are for your consolation.

Perspectives on the Arrival of Spring

It has been nearly a week since the "official" onset of spring, but, in New York, the bitter cold temperatures would not indicate that we were having a spring at all.  Last year, on the first "official" day of spring, it was quite warm, and I wrote in a blog entry that "nothing was better at being the first harbinger of spring than the purple flowers poking out of the Chives plant which I have in my urban terrace garden", and I described how the Chive plant provided inspiration for a single-sided card that I designed. It can be viewed in the store-front pages of my web-site (where purchase information is also available). Today, as I reflect on this card and the chives that inspired it, I confess that agree with Chris who has "marked" it as an Easter or Passover card in those store-front pages, and I truly believe it might be a good selection (though very non-tradional) for an Easter or Passover card (both holidays are coming up next month) because, like those holidays, chives can be seen as a symbol of resurrection and renewal.
It is somewhat odd that I have come to this conclusion, at a time when resurrection and renewal do not seem close at hand given the long winter and the tumultuous state of the world; but history tells us that there will be a springtime, and springtime is a theme that I've used in my black and white photography (both in my collection of impressionistic note-cards and in my original prints like Springtime in the Greenhouse, which can be seen at the top of this post).

But signs of spring are not limited to first flowers, first buds, or nuances in a greenhouse; signs of spring are not even limited to temperatures; signs of spring often appear in subtle ways such as the arrival of spring as seen by E.B. White in an article he wrote fifty-eight years ago, March 27, 1953.


"SPRING ALWAYS USED TO ARRIVE in midtown in the window boxes of Helen Gould Shepard house. Something about the brightness and suddenness of that hyacinthine moment said Spring, something about its central location, too. The other day we passed the Gould House and shed a private tear for olden springtimes. Spring struggles into Manhattan by other routes these days; Rockefeller Center has pretty much taken the occasion over. Rockefeller's is different from Helen Gould's. Less homey. More like Christmas at Lord & Taylor's — beautiful but contrived. One never knows where one will encounter the first shiver and shine of spring in the city. Often it is not in a flowering plant at all, merely in a certain quality of light as it strikes the walls. We met ours quite a while back, late one afternoon in February, driving south through the Park; in an instant the light had lengthened and strengthened and bounced from the towers into our systems, hitting us as a dram of tonic reaching the stomach, and, lo, it was spring."


After reflecting on E. B. White's observations, what, I ask, dear reader, is to tell me, what's your first sign of the arrival of spring?

Day of Christmas Eve with a special posting: SOME WRITER!

It is the morning of Christmas Eve 2010, and in the spirit of giving and sharing, I am providing this 'extra' December post that contains one of my favorite Christmas essays by E.B. White, who gave me such joy as a child by bringing the fictional characters of Wilbur, Fern, Avery, Templeton and Charlotte into my life through his beautiful book, Charlotte's Web, which Santa left under the tree for me one dark Christmas morning. Today in honor of E. B. White, Charlotte and her web, I've posted an image of a spider's web at the top of this post — because the days when I first met Charlotte, I  suppose I was looking for someone like her as I needed encouragement during those dark days, and, E.B. White provided it for me through her.
I say "dark Christmas morning," because in spite of our family's house giving the illusion of happiness (two Christmas trees —one filled with the many cards our family received and one filled with ornaments, three stockings (knitted by my mother for my sisters and me) stuffed with goodies, Christmas music playing throughout the house only interrupted by television holiday specials, I was very sad. My father had moved away and I did not know where he would be spending Christmas; my mother had gotten into the habit of crying non-stop; and I was experiencing little tumors (neurofibromas) growing all over my face. These made me feel ugly and unwanted as well as causing me to attribute my father's leaving to be motivated by the acceleration of my case of Neurofibromatosis, which I've had since birth (and have written about in an early post to this blog which you can read by clicking here).



If you know E.b. White's story, Charlotte's Web, you may recall that when one of the characters, John Arable (who is a farmer), discovers a new piglet is a runt, he decides to kill it. His eight year old daughter, Fern, persuades her father to let her keep the piglet as a pet and she names him Wilbur. Fern takes care of Wilbur for a while until he needs to be moved to a farm where he becomes very lonely. He soon is befriended by a spider named Charlotte, who not only keeps him company but also provides him with encouragement weaving the words "SOME PIG," "TERRIFIC," and "RADIANT" into her web.

As for another one of White's famous writings, Elements of Style (the grammar Bible)  — no matter how much I study it, I seem unable to master some grammar rules such as what to do with commas, which is why I am so grateful to Ms. Peggy Wood for editing my blog for punctuation . . . or should I say that is the reason I am grateful to Ms. Wood? Commas, semi-colons, and whether to use 'which' or 'that' often plague me as a writer. However on this Christmas Eve morning, I received an early gift, and it is again from E.B. White, as he offers me insight into my that/which dilemma, and I receive some Christmas grace through White's essay, Relative Pronouns (written on Christmas Day in 1948). Now, I share it you with dear reader, Relative Pronouns, by E.B. White:


"We had a Scrooge in our office a few minutes ago, a tall, parched man (Harold Ross, editor of the New Yorker), beefing about Christmas and threatening to disembowel anyone who mentioned the word. He said his work had suffered and his life had been made unbearable by the demands and conventions of the season. He said he hated wise men, whether from the East or from the West, hated red ribbon, angels, Scotch Tape, greeting cards depicting the Adoration, mincemeat, dripping candles, distant and near relatives, fir balsam, silent nights, boy sopranos, shopping lists with check marks against some items, and the whole yuletide stratagem, not to mention the low-lying cloud of unwritten thank-you letters hanging just above the horizon. He was in a savage state. Before he left the office though, we saw him transfigured, just as Scrooge was transfigured. The difference was that whereas Scrooge was softened by visions, our visitor was softened by the sight of a small book standing on our desk — a copy of Fowler's Modern English Usage.'Greatest collections of essays and opinions ever assembled between covers,' he shouted,'including a truly masterful study of that and which.'" 


"He seized the book and began thumbing through it for favorite passages, slowly stuffing a couple of small gift-wrapped parcels into the pocket of his great coat." 'Listen to this,' he said in a triumphant voice, 'Avoidance of the obvious is very well, provided that it is not itself obvious, but, if it is, all is spoilt. Isn't that beautiful?'"


"We agreed that it was a sound and valuable sentiment, perfectly expressed. He then began a sermon on that and which, taking as his text certain paragraphs from Fowler and warming rapidly to his theme.'Listen to this; If writers would agree to regard that as the defining pronoun, and which as the non-defining, there would be much to gain in lucidity and in ease. Some follow this principle now but it would be idle to pretend that it is the practice of most writers.'" 


" "It was the practice of St. Matthew,' we put in hastily. 'Or at any rate he practiced it in one of the most moving sentences ever constructed: 'And lo, the star, which they saw in the east, went before them, till it came and stood over where the young child was.' You've got to admit that the which in that sentence is where it ought to be, as well as every other word. Did you ever read a more satisfying sentence than that in your life?'"


" 'It's good,' said our friend cheerfully. 'It's good because there isn't a ten-dollar word in the whole thing. And Fowler has it pegged, too. Wait a minute. Here. What is to be deprecated is the notion that one can improve one's style by using stylish words. See what I mean about Fowler? But let's get back to that and which. That's the business that really fascinates me. Fowler devotes eight pages to it. I got so excited once I had the pages photostatted. Listen to this: 'We find in fact, that the antecedent of that is often personal. Now, that's very instructive.'"


" 'Very,' we said. 'And if you want an example, take Matthew 2:2 . . . there came wise men from the east to Jerusalem, saying, Where is he that is born King . . . ? Imagine how that simple clause could get mixed up if someone wanted to change that to who!'"


"'Exactly,' he said. 'That's what I mean about Fowler. What was the sentence again about the star? Say it again.'"


"We repeated, 'And, lo, the star, which they saw in the east, went before them, till it came and stood over where the young child was.'"


" 'You see?" he said happily. 'This is the greatest damn book ever written.' And he left our office transfigured, a man in excellent spirits.  Seeing him go off merry as a grig, we realized that Christmas is where the heart is. For some it is in a roll of red ribbon, for some in the eyes of a young child. For our visitor, we saw clearly Christmas was in a relative pronoun."

Cards that are about more than communication.

Although we are in the throes of winter, I am working on my collection of invitations that preserve a moment in time, event program covers that enhance an occasion, and creating note–cards that are about more than communication. My desire to bring back the practice of sending a paper card is even stronger than it was a short time ago when my friends and I were discussing the pitfalls of sending “E–cards” about which I blogged in a previous post, and I am thinking ahead to the forthcoming seasons and images that might celebrate them.

The card posted above is a sample from my edition known as The Petite Fold-Out Card Collection which can be found, along with many others, for purchase on my web-site, and can also be viewed within my downloadable paper-brochure.Each card in this edition measures 5" by 4 and 1/4" and additional samples are posted below. They should be viewed this way: The right portion of each image is the front of the card, and the left side of each image is the back of the card. 

Each card in this edition is blank inside. The one featured at the top of this post is titled Pansies and Violas. I’m encouraged to learn that others might feel strongly about sending cards this way too. Nine days ago (March 6th 2010), on National Public Radio affiliate WNYC’s The Leonard Lopate Show, the host’s featured guest was the novelist and critic Thomas Mallon, who was touting his book Yours Ever, People and Their Letters, published by Pantheon. As Daniel Okrent states in a November ’09 review of the book, “Mallon’s writing about a practice that for at least eight centuries was the primary means of communication between people who happened not to be in the same place at the same time. It was more than just communication, though; it was a form of human conduct enhanced, even exalted, by the demands it imposed on those who practiced it.” Okert explains that Mallon writes, “The small hardships of letter writing — having to think a moment longer before completing utterance; remaining in suspense while awaiting reply; having one’s urgent letters cross in the mail — are the things that enrich it, emotionally and rhetorically.”

Okert concludes that, “Given the present and future of letter writing, it’s a privilege to be cherished.” Hearing the interview with Thomas Mallon, and re–reading Daniel Okrent’s review, leads me to believe that not only is letter writing a privilege to be cherished, but so is the sending and the receiving of paper cards. The impact (on quality communication) of mass–produced–E–cards getting lost in cyber–space, either by a spam filter or a broken link, is threatening whatever little personal touches have been left in communicating these days — and is fueling impatience as well as the need for immediate gratification.




E.B. White had this to say about greeting cards (The New Yorker, 6-19-54): “A greeting–card firm has sent us some statistics about the expression of friendship and good will in America. The figures were staggering. In 1953, some three and a half million cards were mailed carrying greetings of one sort or another. Friendships ranked high on the list, along with Get Well Soons, Happy Birthdays, and Merry Andsoforths. For a firm dealing in the emotions of love and affection, the statistician’s mind runs on very strange matters indeed. Thus we read that the money spent on ‘friendship’ in 1953 would ‘pay for a battle-ship.’ And if stacked one atop another in their envelopes, those three and a half billion messages would ‘make a pile so high that even the Russians couldn’t invent a guided missile that could get over the top of it. It would be 4,375 miles up in the ionosphere.’ There seems to be something wrong here somewhere. Perhaps we should simply stack these friendship cards instead of mailing them, thus warding off unfriendly missiles. Or perhaps we are sending the cards to the wrong people. Why doesn’t some enterprising greeting–card firm get up a mailing list of our ‘enemies’ (there must be billions of them), to whom a friendship card would come as a real surprise? The money spent on the cards would still pay for a battleship, but if the cards worked, the battleship might never have to open fire.”





In anticipation of spring, summer, and fall, I have recently created a unique line of all occasion greeting cards based on (but not limited to) my garden images, which I sell at select venues, to private clients, and on my web-site. The nature based images in these beautiful cards are a nice way for you to announce that you have scaled Mount Kilimanjaro, cycled from Manhattan to Cape May, have completed the Midnight Run in Central Park to ring in the New Year, scooped up eighty martini glasses for $100 at The Tavern on The Green’s recent auction run by The Guernsey’s, or to say a very special message when e–cards just won’t do.









There are other Petite Fold–Out Cards not seen here (but posted on my web-site) which are perfect for inviting folks to your own garden party, or to announce you have finished writing your libretto — and to thank your agent, publicist, cast, and your dear friends who supported your efforts as you rose to success — as my friend and talented client Charles Leipart, the celebrated librettist, has done with cards he has purchased from me. Charles has purchased from my Black and White Note–Card collection as well as the Fold–Out Collection. Here is one of his favorites, October in the Woods #2:

So if someone has had you for dinner serving you a special cuisine, or celebrated a significant birthday (they are all significant) with you by offering a toast, or taken you on a voyage, or even given you a job interview — why not take out the pen and write a personal note that won’t get lost in spam but will be welcome in a snail–mail–box amongst bills and campaign requests. If you are worried about not being green by sending a paper card, please note that these cards have a double–life, because the unique feature of these cards is that the image is continuous, folding out into a print that is 8.5" by 5" which is suitable for framing. It’s a nice way of preserving a moment, as seen below with the card titled, The Last Leaf Gardener.