That which consumes my time today....

Palabra del dia: Solpar - to blow (con la boca/viento)

Palavra do dia: (um) Empecilho - obstacle, blockage, hitch, snag

Latin word of the day: Oculus, oculi - eye

Focus on: aeromancy

"the wreckage of vast sundowns predicts in sulphurous aeromancy havoc to be..." from Robert Malise and Bowyer Nichols, Fantastica: being the smile of the Sphinx, and other tales of

imagination.

The prediction of future events based upon weather conditions devised and practised in medieval times. There are actually several types of divination that can be placed under the umbrella of 'aeromancy', such as austromancy (divination drawn from observing the wind, while nepthomancy rests upon an interpretation of the clouds movements). ceraunoscopy (divination whereby thunder and lightning are interpreted) and also meteormancy (divination by meteors and shooting stars)

The 16th century German alchemist, Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa von Nettesheim, did note aeromancy as one of the four methods of elemental divination - geomancy, hydromancy and pyromancy complete the set and are discussed in his work 'The Philosophy of Natural Magic'... in fact I am intrigued to the point of purchasing a copying through amazon.co.uk right now!

...also Focus on: Couverture & The Garbstore

188 Kensington Park Road

Nottinghill

London

W11 2ES

Telephone: 020 7229 2178

Couverture and Garbstore each have their own website, click away!

Oh! What delightful stationery: Cavallini & Co.

Available NOW at the amazing 'The Oak Room' at Hatfield Park's Stable Yard, Hertfordshire - an outstanding range of Cavallini brilliance perfectly, and practically, located under one exposed beamed roof! Contact info@oakroomshop.co.uk or telephone 01707 257175

"It's alive!" - finally, Alex James Bruce's design blog goes LIVE!

I feel like Dr. Frankenstein - in what has been a long time coming, to the point of the time time spanning conception to actuality eluding me, my friend Alex James Bruce's blog, 'Does This Come In Black?', has on this, the 6th of July 2010, gone LIVE!

FOLLOW Does This Come in Black? now!!

Although my penchant is more for pandas, paper goods, etcetera, and not Big White houses (shown above) and black cladding adorning Britain's East (?) coast, I will be watching ardently!

After all, he too also enjoys a bit of Alexander Gerard. In fact this is the very same Alex to whom, when posting my initial enthusiasm of the American designer, I made special note.

I'm going to make special note of the dolls to the right. Designed in 1963, Girard created these half-decorative, half-toy wooden dolls for his own amusement, adorning his Santa Fe home. The Girard Estate, with the original housed in the Vitra Design Museum, have made Girard's part-joyful, part-grim available as reproductions - buy set 1 now at Atomic Interiors for only £59.20

ADD INFO DOLLS http://www.atomicinteriors.co.uk/vitra-wooden-dolls-set-2

Sorry, but I am simply obsessed with greeting cards!

I am terribly fond of 'paper things'.

Vague, I know, since the world of ephemera  is large. In fact, I have come to conclude it is impossible to know all that is exciting, interesting, amusing and awe inspiring wihin this unverse and, as thus, have decidedly come to dither on those particulars which take my fancy.

This is all a roundabout way of saying that, with nothing less than my hand on my heart, I do have a certain amount of love for greeting cards - okay, okay... once again a grey area in terminology but I am, through what ends up being hours of research and browsing *coughs*, distinguishing those areas within the Occasion Card Universe that hold special appeal, in terms of scenario utilized, history, style, manufacture and illustration....

Here are some of the bits and bobs I have unearthed...

Belle and Boo..

Darling Clementine..

Lima Design..

 Hello! Lucky..

I mean never to preach..

Posts that, throughout the history of my blogging, herald to a theme of my vegetarianism and anti-animal cruelty do not necessarily intend to bluster the veggie zen but just to perpetuate personal musings and, ultimately, to give one and all a notion of my position...

I bought 'The Animal Film' about 9 months ago with the intention to watch and learn... perhaps even giving the impetus to finally embrace veganism in all its (mentally perceived..) glory!!

HOWEVER... even contemplating releasing this disc from its plastic sanctuary sends a feeling one notch north of a shiver - I am trying to make light of condemnation, utilize the fascination we have in the abject to propagate the brutual, yet very real, truth regarding the contempoary relationship between animlal and man. I know I will cry uncontrollably, so I refuse to watch alone!! I need a partner that has some degree of consideration, an arduous ami... 

Alicia Silverstone does goooood.

Order a FREE 'Vegetarian Starter Kit' at GoVeg.com.

Stevie Smith

Egocentric

What care I if good God be
If he be not good to me,
If he will not hear my cry
Nor heed my melancholy midnight sigh?
What care I if he created Lamb,
And golden Lion, and mud-delighting Clam,
And Tiger stepping out on padded toe,
And the fecund earth the Blindworms know?
He made the Sun, the Moon and every Star,
He made the infant Owl and the Baboon,
He made the ruby-orbed Pelican,
He made all silent inhumanity,
Nescient and quiescent to his will,
Unquickened by the questing conscious flame
That is my glory and my bitter bane.
What care I if Skies are blue,
If God created Gnat and Gnu,
What care I if good God be
If he be not good to me?