small picspam

[kaberett]

Item the first: I turned Rilke's Briefe an einen jungen Dichter into an ebook. Here's the epub; if you'd like other formats let me know, because I can trivially do conversions (with calibre) and upload. (There's a free translation into English as HTML; if you want that ebooked too, get the translator's permission and let me know and I can do that for you.) A favour request: Rilke's letters aren't up on Gutenberg, hence making the conversion myself. I'd offer my ebook to them but, er, they appear to require signing up to a forum to go "here I made you a thing", and I absolutely cannot face that, so if any of you are already involved with them, I'd appreciate it if you'd pass this on? (And, you know, if they wanted to compile it into a volume with the rest of his letters, that'd be nice too, but I'm not going to bother doing that til I've decided whether I get enough value out of this set for it to be worth it.)

Item the second: I've taken a small pile of not-terribly-good photos of entertaining/otherwise pleasing bits and bobs in my area. (I am... getting used to my point-and-shoot. The last one I owned took 35mm film, didn't have any ability to zoom, and I haven't used it in, er, A Very Long Time.)

These are my wardrobe doors. Upon my wardrobe doors are a selection of the postcards and other cards various I've been sent over the years; the left-hand door, bottom right, is from Cumbria. My Mate The Vet did lambing there the year after I did a geology field trip there, so she's helpfully labelled "ROCKS" and "SHEEP" on the front, and drawn "SHEEP ON ROCKS" and the Venn diagram of what we both like on the back :-) The square centerpiece cards on each side are from my mum. If you've questions about any of them, by all means ask away. (And now I am fighting off the urge to continue the drift round the side my desk abuts against... would have to pick a third colour scheme. Hmmmm.)

Left corner of my desk, showing off (1) the most... enthusiastic of the aloe vera plants evilsusan gave me (the rest have been banished to the back garden; I am gradually succeeding at giving them away); (2) the triceratops hand puppet that attaches by poppers to a dressing gown (a gift from the boything two the winter before this one just gone); (3) my horn (a restored Finke, 1985); (3) the mildly entertaining lever arch file House Paperwork is stored in; and (5) on the wall a piece of art by Mia -- here are some better images of it. Where it is I spend a lot of my time glancing up at it, and remembering about trees and the sea and the Moon and about love. (I am slowly but surely covering my walls in art made or gifted me by friends. On the wall behind me as I type this I've two of Mia's watercolours, Troll-Maiden Accepts An Apology, and Novel And Short Story. On top of the chest of drawers beneath it is my daylight lamp and my various other Lioness shinies and misc jewelry. On the wall to my left I have hung a piece of calligraphy azuire slipped into my backpack when accompanying me to the airport in Singapore at the end of my visit - it reads Wirklich gute Freunde sind Menschen, die uns ganz genau kennen, und trotzdem zu uns halten -- Marie Vonebner-Eschenbach - and a copy of the lyrics of Fractals [also available from iTunes and Amazon etc etc], handwritten out by CN; and on either side I've a teal scarf hung off a hook. Meanwhile attached to the radiator are three magnets my mum gave me yonks ago: a lump of tigereye, a lump of jasper, and a lump of snowflake obsidian. Scattered elsewhere around the house is more art by evilsusan - 2&3D - and my middle tinycousin has promised me a painting of a bit of the land around Mouldering Ancestral Home to add to the collection.)

A little while ago I tweeted about having got into my bedroom in my parental home quite late at night to find... that it contained a snake in a posh chocolate box. This is that.

I have talked a bit about the ridiculous corner shops around where I live. This is the one that shares a building with Baron's Court Station. Art Deco stained-glass lilies.

This is the optimal spot to wait at if I'm getting the Picadilly line (if the District I want to go all the way down the platform), feat. clematis and abominable potato weed.


If, on the other hand, I do the combo pushing+bus into work (which means I tend to be less tired - can't conveniently take the chair on the tube, but it's 500m from tube-to-work at that end, and walking that twice in a day is more than my sustainable upper limit on walking distance these days - plus means I get to smile at all the gingko and camellia and hebes on the way), my route takes me past the Institut Francais...

... and some walls that catch the sunlight absolutely beautifully in the evening:

Maybe at some point in the next few days I'll manage to get a photo for y'all of the NHM matching the sunset - it's delicate pink-and-blue brickwork and it's stunning with the evening light on it.

But! That is that for now.

Comments

[boxofdelights]

Lovely!

[kaberett]

Thank you :-)

[alexseanchai]

That is some pretty art Mia made. I showed my middle sister the Patreon pic and she agrees.

The art on my bedroom wall is all (well, bar my oldest sister's choices) by Emily Balivet. Morrigan, Minerva, and Muses. (I had signed photos of Julie McNiven, Samantha Ferris, and Alona Tal, but they came down in the pack-up-all-the-Supernatural-merchandise process before the goddess art went up.) Maybe I'll go take a picture. I've got lots of pictures of the part of the house where I do my actual work, but they're all before pictures for unfuckyourhabitat...

[kaberett]

this comment is directly responsible for me having reaarranged the top of my chest of drawers into something that more closely resembles an altar because Compulsion even though that is not how I generally conceptualise my relationship with the world

[alexseanchai]

Uh. I didn't do it on purpose?

[jedusaur]

Thank you for the pictures! I like what you're doing with the postcards.

[kaberett]

I'm pretty pleased :-) I only started doing it in around September (on a wall in the Den of Christians, to make it feel a bit more like home) and liked it enough to want to keep it.

[inoru_no_hoshi]

That aloe looks like you could separate it out into a half-dozen aloes and it'd just be like OH MORE ROOM TO MULTIPLY FOREVER, lolol.

The rest of these have me sighing happily over pretty architecture! The art deco lilies, old brickwork & new greenery, the windows, and sunset-on-stone and. ♥ You take excellent pictures. :D

(Snake in a fancy chocolate box is always going to be vaguely perplexing and 100% amusing.)

[kaberett]

yeah I uh don't particularly want to give it the encouragement

because of reasons it DIDN'T GET WATERED FOR FIVE MONTHS when I acquired it it was shrivelled up and mostly purple

... THIS IS WHAT IT LOOKS LIKE NOW

(there is actually an explanation if you would like one but I suspect that just... leaving it at this is more entertaining)

[sorrillia]

Neat postcards! I think I recognize some of them: the MBTA map, certainly, and the Gateway Arch. I'm not sure if the puffins are from my being in Maine?

[kaberett]

Yes, yes they are :-) The Blue Hill Observatory (left door, immediately below St Helens in red) is also you.

[hairyears]

That is a very inviting shop!

[calissa]

I do so love getting glimpses of the daily life of others. The photos are quite beautiful, too! I think you're doing a good job with getting the hang of the new camera.