I want to introduce you all to someone who's become a very dear cyber friend of mine. I met him on flickr where his charming combination of humor, modesty, kindness, and his eye for lovely illustration made me, first, a big fan of his flickr file and then a big fan of him. On flickr he is known as Lets Look Up and Smile. He also has wonderful flickr groups:
HEADS!!...IN!!.. SPACE!!!
Handsome Hair Models on Parade
and one of my greatest sources of flickr merriment
Life's Railway to Heaven - Wholesome Gospel Family Record Covers
He's also just started a new blog A Thousand Shades of Twilightwhich expresses, in words, everything I found in his pictures.
As you all know, this summer hasn't been an easy one for me. I've spent a lot of it weary and worried. Someone mentioned Proust's magic lantern to me today and it clarified something up for me. When Marcel Proust was a boy he was confined to his room frequently. He wrote, "Far from my mother and grandmother, my bedroom became the fixed point on which my melancholy and anxious thoughts were centered. Someone had had the happy idea of giving me, to distract me on evenings when I seemed abnormally wretched, a magic lantern ... it substituted for the opaqueness of my walls an impalpable iridescence, supernatural phenomena of many colours, in which legends were depicted, as on a shifting and transitory window." The computer (that terrible instrument of depersonalization!) has been my own magic lantern this Summer. Through it I've received support from amazing people all over the world, and through it I've escaped my anxieties and gone to places as varied as Italy and West Texas. And now, with great pleasure, to Australia with 1000 shades of Twilight/Lets Look Up and Smile. I hope you'll all visit his blog.
Mr. Twilight, I hope you know how much happiness I've gotten from getting to know you and how you've cheered me at the end of some very weary days. After all, how could I not smile seeing a found photo like this?
Or this vintage book cover?
Dear, you're the first person I think of when I see a really tacky record cover or a sad clown. And since I'm at the thrifts all the time, well, in my mind at least, you're often right there with me.
12 comments:
Ah, thanks SO much, Eliz - I am quite blown away by your lovely words!:)Your kindness, generosity of spirit (in so many ways) and humour have been such a tonic for me at the end of many a long day. I think of you daily, dear. I hope you realise how much support, wisdom and mirth you provide for all of those of us who come into your orbit. Not to mention the steady supply of evil clowns and angst-ridden mimes.
Anyway, as I usually say at this point: Now, best get back to the usual drollery...
PS As a huge Proust fan, I am honoured to share a little bit of cyberspace with him...I love the thought of your computer as your magic lantern..
PS I accidentally left the same message 3 times in a fit of exuberance, hence the deletions!
TST - Elizabeth will do that to you! The fits of exuberance I mean.
How Nice! I have gone and checked him out. I spent an hour or so browsing his and your flikr...it is very fun. How in the heck did you tow get such funny stuff?
i will check him out for sure..the greatest thing about my computer is all the new friends i have inside it..
TTS - My pleasure, and I mean every word.
I went through a massive Proust phase, where I read every word by or about him that I could get my hands on. I read all seven volumes of Remembrance, one after the other, but now I remember mostly the dream-like trance it put me in, and only fragments of plot. The details of his life remain much more vividly.
Willym - Are you implying that I give people fits? ;>)
Sage - Glad you had fun on our sites! The answer to your question, for me anyway, is diligent trolling of thrift shops!
Granny - Me too!
Only of exuberance and joy Lady, only of exuberance and joy!
The whole revolution of the wired world has made our lives more interesting and productive in many ways. For myself I never had any idea that the people I would "meet" would become such a part of the fabric of my life. And thanks very much Miss Elizabeth for the introduction to a new group of interesting folks!
how cool!
(and even cooler that you went through a Proust phase)
Dora - It's amazing isn't it?
Jason - In my reading, as in my life, there have been times when I could only tolerate the company of women and gay men. Proust, E.M. Forster, James Baldwin have all been great companions and consolers.
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