Poetry - Charles Bukowski

Charles Bukowski
from
Sifting Through THE MADNESS
For The Word,
The Line,
The Way






Why is it that the pickup truck
carrying the loose refrigerator
on the freeway
is always going between
80 and 90 m.p.h.? 

Interiors - Bulthaup Kitchen in Newport Beach

And here is the inside, 1500 sq. ft. with an indoor patio.


http://tblurock.net/www.tblurock.net/Projects/Projects.html

Pin on Pinterest and I don't mean Harold Pinter-est.

Have you gone onto: 


the online Pin Board to pin and love anything you see from the internet, your computer, your phone, your photos? 


It is really very interesting and FUN. 


Pinterest   for food, style, clothes, products, words, places, texts, LOVE it.

Vintage Chanel - Vintage loves Ralph Lauren

 Looking at my vintage Chanel this morning from around 1987. That's vintage now, I think. OMG, that is 25 years ago. This dress is in perfect condition. I laid it out on my bed with my vintage Ralph Lauren pillowcases and cashmere blanket, although those are barely visible.

The last time I wore this was Thanksgiving, 1989, with claret colored Maud Frizon heels, and tons of 54" and 60" pearl ropes. Black wool. Lined. Wearing it is back in those zooming 80's, trips to New York 6 times a year, fax machines just coming on. What a laugh. I remember asking people I was in business with to please get one so we could be communicating faster and their response was NAHHHHHh, that stuff will never last. Ok. I wonder if they have email, or text, or Facebook, or  Twitter, or Pinterest, or Linkedn.

Chanel, Chanel.

Why don't they do bedding?
Wouldn't it be a kick to relax in Chanel sheets? Yum.

New York in the 80's: the fabulous massive floral tribute in the lobby of the Pierre, must have cost thousands, fresh every few days, now no longer there.
Walks up & down 5th Avenue. Rockefeller Center, St. Patrick's Cathedral, SAKS. Lexington Avenue and the Chrysler Building, Madison Avenue and blocks and blocks of fabulous shops. Pratesi sheets. Stays in the St. Regis, enormous rooms before the remodel, gigantic bathtubs, Louis XIV furniture. Two week stays in the Carlyle, chintz world draperies & bedspreads, marble bathrooms and $4,500 bills, in those days. Stays in the Mark, toile bedspreads and lots of room in the room. Stays in the Regency while selling jewelry to all the buyers and receiving magazine editors for their walk throughs. Being hit on in the library downstairs over drinks. Ego. Stays at the Ritz Carlton on the south park. Being there when Cary Grant came in for lunch. Suave and elegant. Walking Bergdorfs, Bendels, Bloomingdales, Macy's, Lord & Taylor, and B. Altman for accessory trends. Half of them no longer exist. Walking New York City. Walking New York City. Buying Gianfranco Ferre shirts. Perry Ellis linen pants, books and books at Scribners, now a Sephora. Helicopters to the airport. Then the clarity of Los Angeles and no one living overhead.

Chanel, Chanel, thanks for recovering that time for me, not remembering, recovering it, bringing it all back with your marvelous wool dress.

I miss New York.

Downton Abbey - I miss it, I need it DOWN...TON

I'm sitting here staring at my notebook, flummoxed as I go through Downton Abbey withdrawals.

MAD MEN will resume this month, but I'll have to wait out spring and summer before Lord Grantham and the Crawley Family will be back on board.

So I blog. I twitter. I Facebook. I read posts from PROBLOGGER and MASHABLE (love), make posts on Pinterest, Instagram, Flickr, and Linkedn. I love all these social media platforms, love twitter and real time news. love THE POWER OF REAL TIME SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING by Beverly Macy & Teri Thompson.
I love learning.

The reason to learn about it is because if one doesn't, you end up not knowing the language and being left behind. I was left behind when the internet started and was so cavalier thinking it didn't apply to my (then) kind of audience. How little I knew. How uneducated I was. To be fair it did take the buyers a good 10 years to get to emails, but hey, I could have learned so much more. All right, hind sight.

I was left behind by those priggy girls in high school with their blonde hair and teasing combs, their sprays, their crinolines, their kitty heels, but that is another story. I was interested in poetry.

No one speaks on the phone any longer, just to chat, so it seems. Real time has taken over and made everyone feel as if they have no time for anything, at least the people I know. The phone is there, and is in use as a map, for news, weather, the internet, texts, all of that...book buying, brings the real time with me.

I have itunes, the apple store, trip advisor, Redlaser, cameras and photos, instagram and flickr to go with that, newsstand, world clocks and timers, notebooks, internet movie data base, stocks, youtube, pandora music, gas buddy, so very important in LA, jot not scanner, evernote, dictionary, zip code finder, scanner, whack pack, very important for inspiration, google earth, classic books, Barnes & Noble app, Amazon app, flickster, yelp, videos, netflix, iTunes U, Blogger, find friends, zagat, asleep, handy level, game center, how cast, Pinterest, The Getty Art in LA, Scramble, easy wifi, easy writer, GPS tracker, IBART, Iconvert, my life, translator, LinkedN, TCM, snap tell, mini piano, Skype, Redfin, The Weather Channel, and dragon dictation. Is that enough?????

I have never stopped to think about that until now.

I have a destop, laptop, iPad and iPhone. I like the desktop and mouse the best and lying in bed watching movies of my own choice on the iPad at night if there is nothing on TV which there usually isn't. Why are the same movies run over and over? How many times can I watch SOMETHING'S GOTTA GIVE, as much as I love Diane Keaton and Jack Nicholson there are twenty thousand pages of Balzac I haven't read yet.

Social media is interesting and compelling.

I am into it because Apple stopped their iWeb platform I was playing around with, and by accident, I started blogging, and then hey, I mean GREAT, why not staircase the shaving cream?

Must all four sides be a box?

No, they can be whatever I want them to be. 

Provence, South of France Holiday

Dreaming of that pool, in the middle of sunflower fields in Provence, near Arles, where Van Gogh painted, lived, observed, made real with his keen sense of wonder and truth and beauty.

Outside of time, in a place of wondrous beauty, and fabulous wine, and wonderful food. Why shouldn't we doorstep, or singular or ride the slippery slope of avalanche.

Think Summer now.

Poetry - Charles Bukowski - the telephone

the telephone

will bring you people
with its ring,
people who do not know what to do with
their time
and they will ache to
infect you with
this
from a distance
(although they would prefer
to actually be in the same room
to better project their nullity upon
you).


the telephone is needed for
emergency purposes only.

these people are not
emergencies they are
calamities.

I have never welcomed the ring of a
telephone.

"hello," I will answer
guardedly.

"this is Dwight."

already you can feel their imbecile
yearning to invade.
they are the people-fleas that
crawl the
psyche.

"yes, what is it?"

"well, I'm in town tonight and
I thought..."

"listen, Dwight, I'm tied up, I
can't..."

"well, maybe another
time?

"maybe not..."

each person is only given so many
evenings
and each wasted evening is
a gross violation against the
natural course of
your only life;
besides, it leaves an aftertaste
which often lasts two or three days
depending upon the visitor.

the telephone is only for
emergency purposes.

it has taken me
decades
but I have finally found out
how to say
"no."

now
don't be concerned for them,
please:
they will simply dial another
number.

it could be
yours.

"hello," you will
say.

and they will say
"this is Dwight."

and then
you
be
the kind
understanding
soul.



 - Charles Bukowski
from The Last Night Of The Earth Poems

Downton Abbey Finale - Lady Mary dresses her way to Love

Does it have to end?  I've been in a swoon for the last couple of weeks, unable to let it go, watching and re-watching the finale Christmas episode of Series 2.  It has been fascinating to watch the obstacles Lady Mary and Matthew have had to surmount in order to finally come together.
And what about Bates and Anna, and the drama Daisy has had to go through and O'Brien and Thomas constantly working their evil, hiding Lord Grantham's dog.

And Lady Edith, looking like she may possibly find a beau in Sir Anthony Strallan who has a not-so-shabby looking country pile himself I must say. I love so many of the characters, Mr. Carson, Lady Cora, Mrs. Patmore, Anna, Bates and Lord Robert.

The Dowager Countess Grantham again has the most wonderful lines. When Matthew finally decks Sir Richard Carlisle and Sir Richard says to Violet, "I'm leaving in the morning. I doubt we'll meet again." Her response is "Do you promise?"

                                                                                                                                   I love everything about Downton Abbey, the story, the actors, the wardrobe, brilliantly created by designer Suzanna Buxton, http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203479104577124671699676082.html
the magnificent sets and the details in the rooms, like the Silhouettes framed and on the walls downstairs, the high polish of a brass bell, the leather walls in the Saloon, to say nothing of the massive Van Dyck painting in the dining room. but the clothes, the clothes.

Smashing. Brilliant. Compelling, the fabulous tweed skirt and jacket Lady Mary wore during the shoot, the black mourning coat and hat she wore in meeting Matthew at Lavinia's grave, the sleeveless red velvet evening gown, and the black embroidered evening gown shown here.  But mostly it is the writing that keeps me coming back for more, the writing that the actors live out for us to watch.

"You don't have to marry him, you don't have to marry anyone."

"But I do have to marry him."

"If I told you the reason you would despise me and that I really couldn't bear it."

"Break with Carlisle."

"Brave the storm, sack Carlisle."

                                                                     "I could never despise you."

"Will you marry me?"

                          

What a way to end, with this image of Downton Abbey in the snow.

Series 3 now filming. Maggie Smith and Dan Stevens have not signed on yet for Series 4 and 5, so like life, who knows?

But I'll be back to see all of the next Downton Abbey, and this summer I will be at Highclere Castle in England, the castle that is high on the hill with a clear view. Ah, we do love Downton Abbey. Thank you Julian Fellowes, and thank you everyone who made this series possible.

"Great fiction creates a parallel world others want to live in." - Kathleen Blurock

Beyond Baroque - Poets & Writers Los Angeles

In the hot steamy sun of late winter Los Angeles listen to the highs and lows of the poets and writers in the tradition of non formatting syncopation and no comments and no commas or a semi colon, and especially no exclamation point EVER!

Got it?
Be there 1 - 4 p.m.

today.


Beyond Baroque Literary Arts Center


http://www.beyondbaroque.org/