an angel at my table

spring grass at Willow Manor

I picked up a lovely hardback copy of Janet Frame's autobiography, An Angel At My Table, at G-Dub last Friday.  I fell in love with Frame several years ago, after seeing Jane Campion's film, by the same title.  Today I sat down to read, and was bowled over by this brief, but stunning, first chapter:

The future accumulates like a weight upon the past. The weight upon the earliest years is easier to remove to let that time spring up like grass that has been crushed.  The years following childhood become welded to their future, massed like stone, and often the time beneath cannot spring back into growth like new grass:  it lies bled of its green in a new shape with those frail bloodless sprouts of another, unfamiliar time, entangled one with the other beneath the stone.  

Frame's Pocket Mirror, 1967, a collection of some of her poetry is brilliant, by the way.

It's seven degrees here in Central Ohio as we speak.  The manor's old heat pipes are knocking and the radiators hot.  Jack Frost was here.  I remember being fascinated with frost on the kitchen windows of my grandparents' house in rural Indiana, and my grandmother telling me the lovely artwork was evidence that Jack had visited in the night.



In English folklore, Jack Frost appears as an elfish creature who personifies crisp, cold, winter weather, a variant of Father Winter, also known as "Old Man Winter". Some believe this representation originated in Germanic folklore specifically in the Anglo-Saxon and Norse winter customs. Tradition holds Jack Frost responsible for leaving frosty crystal patterns on windows on cold mornings, also known as window frost or fern frost.

Apparently Jack was trying to tell me something with his big letter 'e'.  He also left a beautiful image of a Christmas tree, as well has some of the most elegant fern frost. I love this little poem by Janet Frame, from her collection of poems The Pocket Mirror, 1967. I wish I had written it.


Cold Snap


It was the timed wave the toffee-wave
breaking where the cold-water cup
was a cliff of clean tooth
tasting the syrup of decay.

It is the secret frost feeding the night
the ripe as winter sweet set
like ice (when cold cut in squares)
of havoc for the summer's tooth.


Janet Frame

bewitching woolly-socks flick

When I put the tree up last weekend, I brought out my little library of holiday films. I had forgotten Bell, Book and Candle had been tucked away with the others. It's the 1958 romantic comedy based on the hit Broadway play by John Van Druten. Jimmy Stewart and Kim Novak are once again paired, after their success as a duo in Hitchcock's Vertigo.

Set during the holidays, Novak plays a Greenwich Village witch, who casts a love spell on the unsuspecting Stewart. Elsa Lanchester and Jack Lemmon add lots of hilariously quirky humor to the cast. Rumor has it, that this movie was the inspiration for the TV series Bewitched. There are too many striking similarities, including Lanchester's betrayal as a bumbling witchy aunt, of the Aunt Agatha variety.

This is a stylish film with great mod sets, and Novak's fabulous clothes. Although, not quite as elegant as Edith Head's creations for Vertigo, they are still a joy to behold. There is one stunning black evening dress which is so Madame X. My favorite is a deep red velvet hooded cape, with a matching rosy red fur muff. Though out the film, she wears tons of wonderful garnet jewelry. (Which reminds me, it's the season for my favorite vintage Prague garnet earrings.)

There's lots of snowy shots of lovely old 1950's New York, including a spare aerial shot of Central Park. Plus, to top it off, Novak owns a shop dealing in African art, which is right up my alley. Yup, you guessed it. This is most definitely a woolly-socks flick, so kick 'em up and enjoy. You're going to want to add this one to your traditional holiday collection.

And, it's impossible to mention garnets, any time of year, without being reminded of this beautiful poem by Janet Frame .

In a Garnet World


In a garnet world
something troubles the rock
--a rash, an itching dazzle
that will not sleep or be soothed,
a night sky of stars without sky
or night; and stars that sting.

This rock once unseen
in its river of ice, is now sick.
A man climbing cloud-high
caught human sight of it
brought to it this blood-colored incurable
infection of light.

What's Hot

I am SO into orange this summer. It's such a warm, pleasant, spicy

color, don't you think? The first photo is the lid of an African hand

carved soapstone box I picked up at HomeGoods, of all places. I also

found a luscious burnt orange silk throw there, last weekend, as well.

.

Clockwise in the collage photo, throw pillow from the sofa in the

family room at Willow Manor, my fave orange handbag, orange

ginger jar (also a HomeGoods find), and a sweet little piece of vintage

McCoy pottery.

.

Orange brings to mind this poem I love, by Janet Frame.

.

.

Summer

.

At midday then the sweltering mother

bedded in wheat and wharves rose

to give food

gold sea and salt bread to the city.

.

Deep from her blue apron pocket

she drew a ripe orange to slice

and squirt light

--your mouth was stained with sun.

A Dying Art?

Back in the '70s I was intrigued with graphology, the study of and analysis of handwriting, and still have several books on the subject. It is a controversial method of personality evaluation. Results of most recent surveys on the ability for graphology to assess personality and job performance have been negative. I still, however, find the uniqueness of individual handwriting fascinating. It's a very personal extension of one's self, and I think it reveals quite a lot.

Remember the old Zaner Bloser style of cursive we learned in grade school? I always earned high marks in penmanship because of my artistic ability to copy the letters. I actually would have had a great career as a forger. Have you noticed most young people today don't even use cursive writing? They print. I suppose this is because the keyboard is now used more than the old pen and paper method. Even my own handwriting is a curious mix of printing and cursive.

The romantic side of me cringes at the notion of handwriting, as we know it, becoming totally obsolete. I adore the process, as well as the personal touch, of old fashioned letter writing with ink, pen and paper. It truly is an art form, which I hope we can preserve. I am first to

admit, the internet has certainly played a part in the decline of my own hand written correspondence.

This document above is William Shakespeare's last will and testament, written in his own handwriting. It's in a cursive style called "secretary hand", which was commonly used in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. It's interesting to note our handwriting today hasn't changed all that much in the last five hundred years. And I hope it continues for at least another five hundred.

top photo: quote from Janet Frame's novel, Towards Another Summer, in

my handwriting

An Angel at my Table

You've probably noticed from my sidebar, that I'm reading a book by New Zealand novelist and poet, Janet Frame, Towards Another Summer, written while she was in London in 1963. She considered the book to be too personal to share during her lifetime and it was just published this year (2009).

This week's Netflix pick An Angel at my Table, 1989, was originally produced as a three part miniseries for New Zealand television. I had seen this movie years ago, but wanted to watch it again, since my interest in Frame has been renewed with the novel. I enjoyed it even more the second time around.

It is superbly directed by Jane Campion (The Piano) and is based on the autobiography Janet Frame. Starting with her birth in 1924, it covers the first forty years of her life and takes nearly three hours to tell the story. The film is divided into three sections, but I was so intrigued, I had to watch the whole thing at one setting.

Suffering from introversion and depression, Frame was misdiagnosed as schizophrenic and spent eight years in a psychiatric hospital, nearly lobotomized. Frame would later become one of New Zealand's most celebrated poets and novelists, publishing her first books while she was still confined to a mental ward.

This film follows her harrowing and often frightening journey as she struggles to accomplish her life's dream of writing, which she used as a form of survival and self defense. Three talented actors play Frame at different ages throughout the film, with Kerry Fox, pictured above, giving a powerful performance as the young adult Janet, whose skill and creative perseverance would prove to be her salvation.

Theme Thursday = Mineral

In a Garnet World

In a garnet world

something troubles the rock

--a rash, an itching dazzle

that will not sleep or be soothed,

a night sky of stars without sky

or night; and stars that sting.

This rock once unseen

in its river of ice, is now sick.

A man climbing cloud-high

caught human sight of it

brought to it this blood-colored incurable

infection of light.

Janet Frame

Janet Frame (1924-2004), leading New Zealand writer of novels, short fiction, and poetry was twice contender for the Nobel Prize in literature, her works were noted for their explorations of alienation and isolation. Frame was awarded the title of Commander of the Order of British Empire (CBE) in 1983 and made a member of the Order of New Zealand, the country's highest civil honor, in 1990.

She also held foreign membership of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, received honorary doctorates from two New Zealand universities, and achieved recognition as a cultural icon in her native country.


photo: My favorite vintage garnet earrings from Prague Old Town, when it was still Czechoslovakia.

Autumn

The gate to the wood is closed, said Summer.
Take the path over the pond,
kill all the daffodils.
The old men sat wrapped in greaseproof paper,
We are not afraid, they said.
Be shrewd, be whistling.
We are tired of picking locks and seasons.
All things yellow stream down beyond our eyes.

Janet Frame, The Pocket Mirror, 1967

photo Jurmala beach from Flickr

Janet Frame

Until I saw the talented director, Jane Campion (The Piano) and screenwriter Laura Jones' beautiful film adaptation of Frame's three volumes of autobiography, An Angel at my Table, 1990, several years ago, I was totally unfamiliar with Janet Frame(1924-2004), leading New Zealand writer of novels, short fiction,
and poetry.

A twice contender for the Nobel Prize in literature, her works were noted for their explorations of alienation and isolation. Frame's early years were traumatic. Her childhood was marked by poverty and the drowning deaths of two sisters, and in 1945, while studying to be a teacher, she suffered a breakdown. Misdiagnosed
with schizophrenia, she was in and out of psychiatric hospitals for ten years. In 1951, while Frame was still interned, New Zealand's Caxton Press published her first book, a slim volume of short stories titled The Lagoon and Other Stories.

The work won the Hubert Church Memorial Award, at that time one of the nation's most prestigious literary prizes, and thankfully resulted in the cancellation of her scheduled lobotomy. Frame was awarded the title of Commander of the Order of British Empire (CBE) in 1983 and made a member of the Order of New Zealand, the country's highest civil honour, in 1990. She also held foreign membership of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, received honorary doctorates from two New Zealand universities,
and achieved recognition as a cultural icon in her native country. Her collection of poetry, The Pocket Mirror, published in 1967, is absolutely brilliant.


I Do Not Deny the Sun

I do not deny the sun
that denies me.
I leave the door open,
wheat on the table,
apples in the pantry.
I was warned from the first hour
that the sun did not care,
tearing seasons with his tongue
while maudlin snow ran down his cheeks;
that he snored in a deep white bed
and waking did not as we do
--tell his dreams and embrace callers.

Summer

Wheat Field with Rising Sun, Vincent Van Gogh, 1889

Summer

At midday when the sweltering mother

bedded in wheat and wharves rose

to give food

gold sea and salt bread to the city.

Deep from her blue apron pocket
she drew a ripe orange to slice
and squirt light
---your mouth was stained with sun.

Janet Frame, The Pocket Mirror, 1967

.....