alice did at 11:30

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darling alice fell back- did you?

images from Vogue, photographed by Annie Leibovitz

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alice in auguryland

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 never again talk to me of the useless chatter of facebook- just the other day-
Liz posted a 2002ish photograph of her summer at PENLAND.



I commented :       Oh, Alice!

 

 to which one of LizALICE's friend (RS) replied:

‎

"You couldn't deny that, 

Even if you tried with both hands."

"I don't deny things with my hands," 

Alice objected.

"Nobody said you did," said the Red Queen.

"I said you couldn't if you tried."

I'd say that is fairly perfect- brilliant even,
whatever the fb naysayers may say.
I say nay.

thank you LT, RS & fb.

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tales from the crypt or always read the comments & Edit, edit, edit A REPRISE

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Do you read the comments? Let me just say-to get the full story-FYI-you are missing the best part(s)
Sometimes the comments exude- sometimes they get snarky-sometimes they get dark.

Whatever-they are essential reading, especially when the Anon(s) come calling. If you blog do you allow Anon. to comment? I do- however more and more I am getting comments with links to viagra, computers, increase you blog traffic,  or cloaked in -'great post-they get better and better-I have been researching_______.'  I must say I do enjoy the gushing ones-they are not many (at all) mostly the snarky Anon. can make things interesting. I have only chosen to Not publish 1 from Anon. dear Anon. and you know why- HERE.

and another thing. if you blog do you arrange to have "set" comments responding to the Comments your readers leave? Something sincere, generic? Still-I am relatively new to it all and have mostly come along by the seat of my pants or skirts-but that's another post. No glorious introductions, No behind the scenes- 'dear, let me just tell you This before you That. just Trust Me.

where is this leading- HERE- & then right Here on this very page (in the spirit, Well- just in the Spirit) Edit, edit, edit A REPRISE and the COMMENT that prompted my response below-

from ANON -on a post about Quilts(here)

I have a beautiful quilt in dark broody colours, but that's not why I'm here! Where has Edit, Edit, Edit gone? LA, why did you 'conceal' it? Please tell.
Anon.

dearest Anon-& why do you conceal your identity? prerogative? I do wish you had visited it earlier. I removed the post because I had 2 old hands at blogging comment that they thought the gratuitous insipid comments I had received from Eddie Ross were Automatic ones and not true responses to my humble opinion about editing the room. I did think if this WAS the case-my own reaction was unwarranted though my opinions still stands. I am nothing if not fair- If the comments could have been read in the full context of the post- I would have left it up. But since-I found the explanation very plausible it seemed I was reacting to a phantom reply- that was unfair.I live and learn and I do know when to edit. You? If you would like a full copy of the post-send an email and I will copy you on it. pgt

oh, and anon- The moody brooding quilt sounds,Well dark.

& NOW THE post that prompted Dark and Brooding- EDIT edit edit (a reprise) dedicated to ANON(from here always and forever known as Dark and Brooding, do sign that way in future so I'll know you care)

What an exciting week in New York-alas, here I am in NC-not a bad place to be
-subsequent to the thinking of Powers that be.

Along the sidewalks of BLOOMINGDALE'S windows Gawkers gawk into living rooms
Three to be exact- the windows at BLOOMIES are blooming with rooms


 the design blogs are buzzing about a

"BIG WINDOW CHALLENGE, Featuring Apartment Therapy and ELLE DECOR- Three designers go head to head in the windows at Bloomingdale's flagship in NYC. May the most Beautiful Room Win!"

REPRESENTING Apartment Therapy is Maxwell Gillingham-Ryan founder of the site APARTMENT THERAPY-
Bloomingdale's represented by Eileen Joyce-
and the magazine ELLE DECOR- represented by Eddie Ross.


I've never met Eddie
Everyone says he's quite swell.
Today he popped in to see where I dwell

He must be quite neat with sour and sweet

He came by to comment-on a post MARC in Skirts-
But really He wanted to take a quick look-

His visit was prompted by something
I said:
A comment I left-
a thought that I had-

"Edit,edit,edit. Less would have been more in this case. All three rooms leave a lot to be desired"

to which he replied

Thanks for your sweet comment over at My Notting Hill!
xo
Eddie 

I wonder how Eddie could have missed my point-
It wasn't a sweet comment-
But my honest opinion.


I applaud the hard work of all the designers- they have done an inordinate amount of work.
Voters are voting-
Bloggers are cheering- Mostly for Eddie, and I guess that is good.

Best of Luck to you Eddie-
Come back when you will
& Next time consider
Edit, edit, edit.
xo.

& NOW THE COMMENT ON THIS EDIT POST that made me edit-,the NAME has been edited to protect the-

omg. ok - little AI think this is what happens when you have someone just reading all their google alerts and responding automatically with a "thank you for your comment!" comment. worthless.the whole thank yous! is such an issue. Eddie and Jaithen are too busy to be thanking anyone - that is exactly why he doesn't get what you said. all they know is you   wrote about them, but they didn't take to read what you wrote. better to have not thanked at all.it used to be early on   in the life of design blogs that a "thank you" was good manners. It still is. but try sending "thank yous" when you get    50 comments 3 and 4 times a week. it wears you down and is impossible to keep up with it. then still, sometimes it       doesn't even mean anything, so why bother? as is exactly what happened here with Jaithen (he's the one who reads the   google alerts and sends out the thank yous.)I try to comment some, feel guilty for every comment that goes unthanked and the energy wasted on the guilt and worry is too much. uggggh. any suggestions??????                                           

to which I replied:

___(blank) sounds plausible-and that makes it pretty crazy. Oddly enough-the comment I left was on Notting Hill's post-I didn't mention his name-just the comment. And do they follow you home to your own little augury perch too? gracious!I didn't think they could possibly be reading all the comments when their images are wallpapered across the design blogs with this room image.It would be exhausting. Either way- Does that make it better or worse? Comments that are fillers? Too much, it just lacks sincerity, No? It might have been wise to remove those alerts for a week or two.It seems like the entire competition is just a popularity contest really, doesn't it? Especially when implying the way the voting is set up is somewhat advantageous to Apartment Therapy-(another robo message maybe)which I don't get at all. ___(blank) YOU are great because you tell it -like it is- and I respect that, hope you do the same. Thanks for the comment xo(and I mean that!)

 ( and yes I have deleted ALL the comments on the ORIGINAL POST in the SPIRIT of -Well, Not wanting to alienate My dear Readers, those that DO leave their NAMES and ANON. too! It's my blog and I will EDIT if I want to-
Oh!

& I get to be Alice too.

(all photographs are by the fabulous Annie Leibovitz and were published in VOGUE 2009)
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ALICE what words mean

"When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone,

"it means just what I choose it to mean -- neither more nor less."

"The question is," said Alice,

"whether you can make words mean so many different things."

"The question is," said Humpty Dumpty,

"which is to be master - - that's all."

Dorothy- birds of a feather...& books, & wisdom & friendship

"Mockingbirds don't do one thing but make music for us to enjoy.
They don't eat up people's gardens, don't nest in corncribs,
they don't do one thing but sing their hearts out for us.
That's why it's a sin to kill a mockingbird."

Harper Lee

headress by Katsuya Kamo (photo from Coutorture by way of Hollister Hovey)

Today is the last of my book posts from new friends and old, this one with a just slight change in the questions.
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Yes to my mind, I've saved the best for last. Dorothy is the dearest, and most elegant of my friends- on this they would all agree.

She grew up on Park Avenue, went to finishing school at Finch, later- married and moved to Boston, summered in West Hyannisport with her family, then returned to New York to work and through all these adventures she read and she continues to...This among many other things we share a passion for, and do we ever talk it. The time we spend together could be more frequent-but I know where she is -She is reading & that connects me to her.

Dorothy what are your first memories of reading?

The OZ books and then of course "The Little Princess" .

I never had my mother read in bed to me...

Winslow Homer " the new novel"

I think my love of books came much later in life when all of a sudden I realized that I was missing a big slice of living so I started to take courses...

Untitled

Jose de Almada Negreiros, 1930

and finally got to "Alice in Wonderland" and "Gulliver's Travels" and in retrospect, I really don't think that either of these are children's books.

Alice illustrated by Arthur Rackham

Dorothy in her own creation

What is your favorite book?

I think Wallace Stegner's "Angle of Repose.


Well- I don't know if she knows- but this is my favorite too- I think- but a very hard decision. I have read Angle twice since Dorothy introduced me to the book. It calls me back and I could sit down to it, drop all others , and read it again with pleasure, bitter-sweet , & melancholy.

“It is something-it can be everything-to have found a fellow bird with whom you can sit among the rafters while the drinking and boasting and reciting and fighting go on below.”
Wallace Stegner

the author

"It's perfectly clear that if every writer is born to write one story, that's my story."
Wallace Stegner

Angle of Repose, winner of the 1972 Pulitzer Prize for fiction is based on the correspondence of the little known 19th writer, Mary Hallock Foote written to her husband and family during the explosion of migration to the West. The main characters are a part of this migration and their lives are altered by way of it.

Some of Mary Hallock Foote's Illustrations:

What are you reading at the moment?

Right now I am reading" Out Stealing Horses" by Per Petterson a beloved Norwegian writer who also has gotten awards for his book.

( thoughtful, good writing)

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"Olive Kittridge": by Elizabeth Strout deserved the prizes it got.(if you're into psychology- this is it.)

Dorothy,What about the Classics? You know I love to read these and as the genre suggests-we can gain new insights each time we read the beloved books.

I think we do need to occasionally return to the Classics . So I suggest:

"Middlemarch "by George Eliot..

"It is an uneasy lot at best, to be what we call highly taught and yet not to enjoy: to be present at this great spectacle of life and never to be liberated from a small hungry shivering self--never to be fully possessed by the glory we behold, never to have our consciousness rapturously transformed into the vividness of a thought, the ardor of a passion, the energy of an action, but always to be scholarly and uninspired, ambitious and timid, scrupulous and dim-sighted."

George Eliot

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Maybe a return to "To Kill a Mocking Bird" by Harper Lee.

"In the twentieth century, To Kill a Mockingbird is probably the most widely read book dealing with race in America, and its protagonist, Atticus Finch, the most enduring fictional image of racial heroism." -Joseph Crespino

Two books that are not novels that came out recently that are really good reading.

"The Nine " Jeffrey Toobin (Obviously about the Supreme Court)

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the other "Indian Summer" by Alex Von Tunzelmann-about the era of Ghandi, Montbatten and the take over by India from the British Empire.

In spite of the subjects both these books are chatty and even , at times, gossipy- so they are far from heavy.

Do you have an ongoing LIST?

I do have books that are piled up for future reading...

American Lion by Jon Meacham (Andrew Jackson ) just won the Pulitzer.

the American Lion

The Given Day (because it's about Boston) by Dennis Lehane. Lehane is author of seven novels; including the New York Times bestsellers Gone, Baby, Gone & Mystic River.

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"Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet" by Jaime Ford because a friend liked it.

Yes, books are next to the bed..also on the table opposite that I tell myself I will get to ( one is the Encyclopedia of Music and another jokes with asides by Socrates or something like that.... and I could go on and ...

Wisdom begins in wonder.
Socrates

& for me-I could go on listening.

As for me, all I know is that I know nothing.
Socrates
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an AESTHETE'S LAMENT a "well read" portrait

What Books are on your Summer reading list?

A great design scholar examines every object in his home, from its provenance to the details of its acquisition, and ends up creating a moving portrait of his life.

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Conversation Pieces by Sacheverell Sitwell. I love portraits and this particular genre, portraits composed of two or more family members, doubles, triples, and quadruples the pleasure.

the Sitwells by Sargent

Ex-libris for Sacheverell Sitwell (1897- 1988)by John Piper, based on a monogram of Sitwell’s grandfather.

Valentina by Kohle Yohannan. A fashion designer who still remains a mystery.

Nana by Emile Zola. So salacious and hermetic and lots of descriptions of truly vulgar interiors.

"Perfection is such a nuisance that I often regret having cured myself of using tobacco." zola

Zola by Manet

E M Delafield's A Provincial Lady series of novels. Beaucoup de charme!

E M Delafield

& Far too many plant and seed catalogues! I read and dream more than I actually order.

Is there one book you honestly don’t expect to get to? Why?

I have never and will never manage to do more than dip a toe into Proust. Which is why I never put it on any must-read list anymore! It’s so dense and so rich that I get bogged down after only a few chapters and have to clear my mental palate with a dose of Nancy Mitford.

"I have only ever read one book in my life, and that is White Fang. It's so frightfully good I've never bothered to read another." NM

Where do you read and when? Does the genre you are reading dictate the place you read?- in other words do you take just any old book to bed?

I read all the time and can be found dragging a book or magazine to the breakfast table, to my spouse’s everlasting chagrin. I tend to read gardening books when I’m in the country, those as well as country-house decorating books. But when I head to bed, I bring biographies for some reason.

What does your nightstand look like? Or your side of the bed, floor, chair!

At present it is a small, round Syrian table piled high with books and topped with reading glasses. More books and magazines are deposited on the floor in some measure of disorder. I really should have something better than this.

(My own thoughts on a new look for the AESTHETE)

giotto

What is your all time Favorite Book for its sense of place?

Nothing beats Flaubert's “Madame Bovary” for atmosphere. You can practically hear the leaves in the trees rustling and see the dust churned up by carriages and wagons.

"And what is there to beat sitting by the fire of an evening with a book, when the lamp is lit and the wind beating against the window?... You forget everything... the hours slip by. Sitting still in your arm-chair, you can wander in strange places and make believe they are there before your eyes. Your thoughts become entwined in the story, dwelling on the details, or eagerly following the course of the adventure. You imagine you are the characters, and it seems to be 'your' heart that is throbbing beneath their raiment." - Gustave Flaubert, from Madame Bovary

What is your Security Blanket Book?

It’s the one book I take to bed whenever I am laid up with a cold or other illness.

"When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean -- neither more nor less." "The question is," said Alice, "whether you can make words mean so many different things." "The question is," said Humpty Dumpty, "which is to be master - - that's all." from ALICE

THE PERFECT AESTHETE"S PERFECT ALICE
Annie Leibovitz for Vogue

What is your favorite Genre? Why? What is your most recent purchase in this category?

Biographies and more biographies. I cannot get enough of reading about other people’s lives, loves, houses, dreams, hopes, and private torments. Most recently I received a copy of Francine du Plessix Gray’s biography of Madame de Staël, the great French intellectual and salon hostess, and I rushed straight through it, much faster than I had hoped. So I intend to start it over and try to savor rather than gulp. I also devour crime novels, especially the works of Henning Mankell. Oh, he’s good.

"Genius is essentially creative; it bears the stamp of the individual who possesses it."
Madame de Stael

Francine du Plessix Gray as a young woman

What about Books you are reading for a second or third time? Why? Any disappointments on second reading?

I read everything multiple times, pulling out especial favourites when the weather is bad (rainy days in particular). If a book is good, it’s always good, so no disappointments here. Well, except the novels of Taylor Caldwell. I used to race through them in high school and now they seem so labored, creaky, and pretentious.

What is the seminal book in your field or your passion that you would recommend to young would be(s) of the same?

It never, ever fails to inspire- See HERE.

"The best decoration in the world is a roomful of books."BB

Latest Obsession Author, Designer, Photographer writer?

Swedish crime novelist Henning Mankell. He can’t write enough books fast enough for me. I have half a mind to write and tell him so.

Henning Mankell on reading:

"It is a disgrace for the whole world that we in the year 2008 have yet to eradicate illiteracy on our planet. Still millions of children are forced to enter life without knowing how to read and write. Being a writer myself I know that there is only one symbolic book which truly matters: the ABC-book."

Book covers can be art- Do you have a favorite cover in your stacks?

The English slip jacket of the collected letters of Deborah Devonshire and Patrick Leigh-Fermor, read about In Tearing Haste here. Very graphic, rather naïve, and just the sort of cover that would never be sold on an American book. It’s too eccentric and at the same time too subtle.

Going out on a limb here –define LIBRARY in the nontraditional sense?

Any collection of books that contributes to the broadening of your viewpoint.

Image-Architectural Digest, December'79, photograph by Derry Moore.

WELL SAID AESTHETE.
As I have mentioned in several posts- reading the AESTHETE's lament was a catalyst for my own decision to start Little Augury. I want to personally thank You for that and to ask that you please seriously consider hesitating before posting anymore Must Read Books for awhile- I can't keep up.

Dear READER, do you think the AESTHETE has read SISTER, The Life of Legendary American Interior Decorator Mrs. Henry Parish II. Of Course! I do too- but have You? I can't wait to read it- and it can be yours to read too- I'll send it your way.