Mid-October Thoughts

So I've been reading a lot of books lately.

(I highly recommend the translation by John E. Woods.)

Last week I devoured Buddenbrooks: The Decline of a Family by Thomas Mann. So freakin' good. It's The Magnificent Ambersons meets The Moon and Sixpence  -- generations of a prosperous bourgeois family who become weaker and weaker until (gasp!) one of them wants to pursue (oh, the horror!) a life dedicated to art.

The novel is loaded with details about trendy 19th century German homes. Like this one:

"...a stuffed brown bear, standing on its hind legs, its jaws gaping wide…stands in the vestibule downstairs, a bowl for calling cards between its paws."

 ~Thomas Mann, Buddenbrooks

So when I stumbled on this photograph the other day, it made quite an impression. 

The photo led me to the book it's featured in: The Breathless Zoo: Taxidermy and the Cultures of Longing by Rachel Poliquin. Check out the cover -- isn't it heartbreakingly poetic?

(Available here.)

I know. But you have to agree it's difficult to tear your eyes away from it.

(Walter Potter, The Rabbits' Village School. Photo by Mark Hill.)

This next piece makes my brain cells short-circuit.
It's disturbingly beautiful.
And beautifully disturbing.
And--zzzzzzzzzzzzt. (Back in a moment.)

("Idiots, Ophelia", 2005. Taxidermy lion, ceramics and glass. Photo by Karin Nussbaumer.)

This one's called "Nice."

(From "Life Can Be So Nice" by Iris Schieferstein, 2001. Photo by Stephan Rabold.)

This picture of the Bird Department at the Smithsonian made me start thinking about why we collect things. According to Rachel Poliquin, the desire to collect is stronger than ever in today's digital world.  

(From "The Breathless Zoo." Photo by Chip Clark.)

Objects have talismanic power. Owning something and being able to touch it actually sends a whizz! of oxytocin to our brains.

(Photo from Max Rollit's 1 Fournier Street. Here.)

I definitely like to collect ideas. But a person's memory bank is only so big. And when your brain gets really crowded (or...ahem... isn't as absorbent as it used to be), I think you need to start saving your ideas outside your body. 

(Writer Clive Murphy's flat in London is packed with ideas. Via Spitalfields Life.)

Isn't that the point of a mood board? I would never be able to keep track of all the stuff I love unless I wrote it down or pinned it up.

(Photo by Ivan Terestchenko.)

I put this picture up in my office because I get a rush of blood to the head just looking at it. Dickens was a rock star. When he did his reading tour in America in 1868, people camped out for tickets, swarmed his hotels and grabbed fistfuls of fur from his coat. It was craaaazytime and the stress ended up killing him two years later.

(From here.)

I was going to put this pretty girl up as well because I thought she looked particularly kind and gentle. 

(Via Spitalfields Life)

Not so much.

(Read all about it. Here.)

To recap. In this post, we've covered a family's slow disintegration into decadence, the lingering fascination with dead animals, Dicken's demise and beautiful female poisoners.

Hmmm.

Damn you, Halloween spirit. You got me again.

x/Lisa

P.S. Oh! Someone from the East Coast emailed me yesterday that the November issue of Martha Stewart (with MY NEW ARTICLE IN IT) is out. It's not at my grocery store yet, but maybe it's at yours. Let me know what you think!