"...to warn us it's only a matter of time before we all burn."
I've actually been sitting here over an hour, allowing myself to be distracted from writing an LJ entry. Is this what semi-vacation means? Or is it because I got an email this morning in which Sadie Damascus (aka Sarah Hyman Dewitt, née Sarah Jackson) dubbed me a "sultry mysterious hayseed with a powerful laugh." I can live with that. Maybe it was the stories she told me about living in the California redwoods and of a little boy named Berkeley. Or it might be the weather here in Providence, the light and smells and sounds Outside the window distracting me. How I ought be at the sea. This, that, or the other. Whatever. Hardly matters.
M. l'insomnie has made a reappearance. I've been sleeping quite well of late, but the last two nights, nope. The cause seems to have a dual cause (Uhm, what?). 1) One of the usual problems I have, wherein I'll fall asleep for anywhere from several seconds to twenty minutes, then wake and be unable to get back to sleep, and 2) the goddamn cats. No shit. All night, it's a fucking feline stampede, and Hubero caterwauling for Selwyn, who, I think, hides just to piss him off. Last night, I came damn near chucking them both out into the stairwell.
The reason Spooky and I haven't gone much of anywhere far afield during this semi-vacation is that her foot's still messed up from the last time we were at Beavertail (three weeks ago!!!) and she smacked her toes on a rock. So, driving is painful. And I don't drive (blind eye + potential for seizures = no driving license). So, we've been seeking adventure nearer to home.
Oh. Big eBay auctions coming up. BIG. To help pay the goddamn taxes. I don't so much mind income tax. I just wish I could earmark the funds: This goes for science and public welfare, not the wars in the Middle East, etc.
Anyway, back to yesterday's aforementioned (and mostly successful) "mission." Here are photos, along with annotations to make sense of the day (plus insomnia-inducing kitten!):
The only Lovecraft-related site I'd not visited in Providence, the memorial erected to him in 1990 (he would have been 100 years old). I have these fantasies, that if I should suddenly, unexpectedly find myself a multimillionaire, I'd hire a sculptor to create a life-sized bronze statue of HPL. Nothing cheesy. No fucking tentacles. Just Lovecraft, looking dapper, surrounded by his beloved cats, with a kitten in his arms. Maybe Kickstarter? But for now, he has this modest plaque on Prospect Street, next door to the John Hay Library, across the street from Brown University. Visiting the memorial was the first third of our mission.
Me, at the HPL memorial.
View of Carrie Tower at Brown (ca. 1904, a gift of Paul Bajnotti of Turin, Italy), on the corner of Prospect and Waterman Streets, as seen from the HPL Memorial. Ninety-five feet high.
Mission Objective #2: A bear sculpted (the "Bronze Bruno") and cast in bronze by noted wildlife artist Eli Harvey (1860-1957) in 1923. One of eight he did for the school. We also hoped to see a second of the Brown bears, one atop a fountain, but had failed to note its location on the campus (and Spooky's foot wasn't up for much of a hike). Harvey was a contemporary of Charles R. Knight, most famous for his paintings of prehistoric life, who sculpted lions for Princeton, after Harvey did the Brown bears. We can only find locations online (or mention) of four of them; the current locations of the remaining four, don't yet know).
Detail of "Bronze Bruno."
Still more detail.
One of the many Brown buildings with which I am in love: Sayle's Hall, 1881, just south of the bear.
View from the quad, looking southwest, towards Benefit Street.
Spooky!
The John Hay Library, where Lovecraft's surviving papers are housed.
Selwyn tries his damnedest to eat Gir.
All photographs Copyright © 2012 by Caitlín R. Kiernan and Kathryn Pollnac.
Yup,
Aunt Beast
M. l'insomnie has made a reappearance. I've been sleeping quite well of late, but the last two nights, nope. The cause seems to have a dual cause (Uhm, what?). 1) One of the usual problems I have, wherein I'll fall asleep for anywhere from several seconds to twenty minutes, then wake and be unable to get back to sleep, and 2) the goddamn cats. No shit. All night, it's a fucking feline stampede, and Hubero caterwauling for Selwyn, who, I think, hides just to piss him off. Last night, I came damn near chucking them both out into the stairwell.
The reason Spooky and I haven't gone much of anywhere far afield during this semi-vacation is that her foot's still messed up from the last time we were at Beavertail (three weeks ago!!!) and she smacked her toes on a rock. So, driving is painful. And I don't drive (blind eye + potential for seizures = no driving license). So, we've been seeking adventure nearer to home.
Oh. Big eBay auctions coming up. BIG. To help pay the goddamn taxes. I don't so much mind income tax. I just wish I could earmark the funds: This goes for science and public welfare, not the wars in the Middle East, etc.
Anyway, back to yesterday's aforementioned (and mostly successful) "mission." Here are photos, along with annotations to make sense of the day (plus insomnia-inducing kitten!):
The only Lovecraft-related site I'd not visited in Providence, the memorial erected to him in 1990 (he would have been 100 years old). I have these fantasies, that if I should suddenly, unexpectedly find myself a multimillionaire, I'd hire a sculptor to create a life-sized bronze statue of HPL. Nothing cheesy. No fucking tentacles. Just Lovecraft, looking dapper, surrounded by his beloved cats, with a kitten in his arms. Maybe Kickstarter? But for now, he has this modest plaque on Prospect Street, next door to the John Hay Library, across the street from Brown University. Visiting the memorial was the first third of our mission.
Me, at the HPL memorial.
View of Carrie Tower at Brown (ca. 1904, a gift of Paul Bajnotti of Turin, Italy), on the corner of Prospect and Waterman Streets, as seen from the HPL Memorial. Ninety-five feet high.
Mission Objective #2: A bear sculpted (the "Bronze Bruno") and cast in bronze by noted wildlife artist Eli Harvey (1860-1957) in 1923. One of eight he did for the school. We also hoped to see a second of the Brown bears, one atop a fountain, but had failed to note its location on the campus (and Spooky's foot wasn't up for much of a hike). Harvey was a contemporary of Charles R. Knight, most famous for his paintings of prehistoric life, who sculpted lions for Princeton, after Harvey did the Brown bears. We can only find locations online (or mention) of four of them; the current locations of the remaining four, don't yet know).
Detail of "Bronze Bruno."
Still more detail.
One of the many Brown buildings with which I am in love: Sayle's Hall, 1881, just south of the bear.
View from the quad, looking southwest, towards Benefit Street.
Spooky!
The John Hay Library, where Lovecraft's surviving papers are housed.
Selwyn tries his damnedest to eat Gir.
All photographs Copyright © 2012 by Caitlín R. Kiernan and Kathryn Pollnac.
Yup,
Aunt Beast