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“The modern strawberry is a tale of disappointment and delight. I have learned to treat each punnet of really good berries I encounter as a box of fleeting, precious jewels, a treat to be enjoyed with unalloyed pleasure; no cream, sugar or splash of Beaujolais, just the warm berry in all its scarlet glory. That perfect fruit is a rare find, but once you chance upon it life seems, for an instant, to stand still. Eyes closed, you are briefly lost in buttercup meadows, with bees buzzing on the heavy afternoon air. You need to make much of a truly excellent strawberry when you find it…. Once a year I find myself falling for a cardboard punnet of misshapen, organic fruits the loud scarlet-red of a Ferrari. It is then, breathing in their honey-sweet scent, the prickle of their yellow seeds on my lips, that I wish they could always be like this.” —Nigel Slater, Tender Volume 2 (via disappointment and delight)

(via phoebe-bird)

“The psychological definition of loneliness hasn’t changed much since Fromm-Reichmann laid it out. “Real loneliness,” as she called it, is not what the philosopher Søren Kierkegaard characterized as the “shut-upness” and solitariness of the civilized. Nor is “real loneliness” the happy solitude of the productive artist or the passing irritation of being cooped up with the flu while all your friends go off on some adventure. It’s not being dissatisfied with your companion of the moment—your friend or lover or even spouse— unless you chronically find yourself in that situation, in which case you may in fact be a lonely person. Fromm-Reichmann even distinguished “real loneliness” from mourning, since the well-adjusted eventually get over that, and from depression, which may be a symptom of loneliness but is rarely the cause. Loneliness, she said—and this will surprise no one—is the want of intimacy.” —

The Science of Loneliness: How Isolation Can Kill You | New Republic

I recommend reading the whole article, it’s really interesting.

Lily Sometimes / Pieds nus sur les limaces (2010) - Trailer

“The whole time I was hoping my silence would fit yours and exclamation marks would gently float across time and space so that boundaries would be crossed; See, we were never about butterflies. We’ve always been about burning stars. All about us is unearthly and radiant.” —Anna Of All The Russias: A Life Of Anna Akhmatova

(via rememo)
JK Rowling on the first Harry Potter, Hilary Mantel on Wolf Hall: glimpse authors' musings on their first editions | Books | The Guardian

this is wonderful

At a glance they seem like familiar 19th-century botanical lithographs, the type you see on endless hotel room walls. But look closer and the plum appears to be running away, the raspberries look embarrassed and the grapefruit … well, it’s enough to make the viewer blush. The 14 original watercolour fruit studies are in fact by the surrealist artist Salvador Dali and are remarkable because they have remained more or less hidden since 1969, the year of their creation. (Previously hidden Salvador Dali paintings go under the hammer | Art and design | The Guardian)

At a glance they seem like familiar 19th-century botanical lithographs, the type you see on endless hotel room walls. But look closer and the plum appears to be running away, the raspberries look embarrassed and the grapefruit … well, it’s enough to make the viewer blush.

The 14 original watercolour fruit studies are in fact by the surrealist artist Salvador Dali and are remarkable because they have remained more or less hidden since 1969, the year of their creation.

(Previously hidden Salvador Dali paintings go under the hammer | Art and design | The Guardian)

ILHC 2011 - Champions Strictly Lindy - Finals - Spotlights

The Third Labour of Hercules, to capture the Ceryneian Hind. It belonged to Artemis and could run faster than an arrow. He trapped it while it slept.

The Third Labour of Hercules, to capture the Ceryneian Hind. It belonged to Artemis and could run faster than an arrow. He trapped it while it slept.

(via phoebe-bird)

(via leprintemps)

 
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