Claus Porto: Soaps

Here is another thing my nation does well, SOAP! And boy do I adore soaps. If I'm not smothering myself in their heavenly lather, then I keep them in my drawers to scent my clothes, or press their papers in my favourite books. This particular collection is a must have. I've been dreaming of it for ages, but I can't quite afford it yet. Check out the tantalizing descriptions at Lafco New York.

Os Madredeus

The ultimate Portuguese band.

If only the romanticism you exemplify was still present in us all.

Anna Akhmatova (1889-1966)

{A lover of Autumn, it is important to be with her at this moment}

Loneliness

So many stones are thrown at me, / They no longer scare. / Fine, now, is the snare, / Among high towers a high tower. / I thank its builders: may / They never need a friend. / Here I can see the sun rise earlier / And see the glory of the day's end. / And often into the window of my room / Fly the winds of a northern sea, / A dove eats wheat from my hands... / And the Muses's sunburnt hand / Divinely light and calm / Finishes the unfinished page.

Statue in Tsarskoye Selo

Already the leaves of the maple / Are falling on the swanpool, / and on the bloodstained bushes / Of the late-ripening rowan. // And, dazzlingly slender, / Her crossed legs never cold, / Sitting on the northern stone, / She gazes away along the roads. // I felt confused and fearful / Before this girl whom Pushkin sang, / Beams of the fading light / Playing on her shoulders. // For how can I forgive her / The pleasure of enamoured praise... / See - so elengantly naked, / She's happy being sad.

Summer Garden

I want to visit the roses / In that lonely / Park where the statues remember me young / And I remember them under the water / of the Neva. In the fragrant quiet between the limes of Tsarskoye I hear / A creak of masts. And the swan swims / Still, admiring its lovely / Double. And a hundred thousand steps, / Friend and enemy, enemy and friend, / Sleep. Endless is the procession of shades. / Between granite vase and palace door. / There my white nights / Whisper of someone's discreet exalted / Love. And everything is mother- / of-pearl and jasper, / But the light's source is a secret.

Untitled

If all who have begged help / From me in this world, / all the holy innocents, / Broken wives, and cripples, / The imprisoned, the suicidal - / If they had sent me one kopeck / I should have become 'richer / Than all Egypt'... / But they did not send me kopecks, / Instead they shared with me their strength, / And so nothing in the world / Is stronger than I, / And I can bear anything, even this.

Jane Birkin - "Période bleue"

Can't wait to buy this album. She's a beacon.

The Embrace: An Essay by John Berger

Lovely little gem of a documentary on Rembrandt.