Is that the Kagoshima Choo-Choo? Gas hop on

 Yes, that is the Kagoshima Shinkansen coming in, past Kagoshima’s very own puffing volcano.The painter is there at cross-maintenance purposes, and seems to be keeping up.  If you buy a gashopon at the station, and really there is no why you shouldn’t, the train series will always deliver a train to to you on time.  And yes, from Track Number 9.  

Bart Brassica’s Whittled Down Family Crest

 

 

Bart Brassica has for some time now aspired to the notion of a Brassica Family Crest, ever since Granny Eggwhistle observed he looked Crest. Fallen. So in order to address this lack, and get back at Frank Winkler who said,  or so it was reported via Mavis Eggwhistle, that Bart was whittle-less, Bart has taken up whittling in a big way, and so he now has in addition to an axe that is grindless, various wooden tools of the trade which he has tableau-ed ( Bart’s term for anything laid on a table ) this Brassica  Whittled Down Family Crest.  Next project will be the Brassica Family Tree. 

A Palimpested Shopping List Shows off its Lighter Side

 While any list is good, here even the un-list - that tracery of pen on cheap paper leaves a feint imprint but first prize in the Best On Page show is the shadow thrown down by the sky-light blind. Will any remnant of the image remain outside of this one?   Apply to the page for further information. 

Hole-some Cover Ups : The Underfoot Foundry Art of Japanese Cities

While looking around and up is what you mostly do on holidays, in Japan it is good to keep a weatther-eye out for each city’s emblematic manhole covers.  Here is a set from Kyushu,  Fukuoka’s take of cherry blossom, the lovely town of Imari’s what I surmise is Pawlonia leaf and flower, and at the bottom Kagoshima’s enigmatic graphic statement, on which I am still pondering.  This post is one in a series - and as readers might have noticed,  I love things in sets.  More to come. 

 

Whiter Shades and Vintage Linen

 

Getting into bed with fresh white sheets, pressed pillow cases, a cream wool blanket with a satin edge, under  an vintage embroidered French ecru linen sheet, which was old but unused, still with the blue stencil outline visible between the neat stitching, a nuptial gift from an aunt  the best part of four decades ago,  I seem to have won a lottery of circumstance, to sleep and wake inside these. 

 

Two Dragons walk into a Bar

 No, just joking, but it’s a two for one dragon fly event, the shadow dragon showing its best angle on the the yellow railing.  Nothing bar the sun can do this.  

In a Flat Spin, Top Speed Origami

 

 If you happen to be in Kagoshima, on the island of Kyushu, in Japan on the overhead walkway to the Aquarium, you might be lucky like I was if you stop by a handicraft shop run by seniors, and even if their very good aprons don’t fit you, they didn’t fit me being made for and by lovely diminutive women, they will make a fuss about you as if you were Quite Something, if you ask after their health in Japanese - O-genki desu ka - will do the trick - and give you one, or two if there are two of you, of these excellent origami spinning tops, that turn into a blur of colour, which may be a metaphor for the passage of time, or just a nice use of centrifugal force. 

Rice Miles, or Wry Smiles - The train from Imari to Fukuoka

To get from the wonderful pottery town of Imari in Saga prefecture Kyushu, where lovely pots and porcelain have been despatched to far flung ports in Europe since before the Meiji Restoration, take the slow chuffing DC 125 One Man Diesel Car - complete with anime figures - past the rice crops of Ochichosari to Karatsu, taking in forests and the local bucolic glory,  before you change to Kyushu’s Chikuhi train line runs betweeen Karatsu and Fukuoka - this train line runs at a Kodachrome pace along the sea front,  it is slow enough to to see waves break and sigh over the sea vista, before you are engulfed into the suburban density of Fukuoka.   Smile, a train trip that delivers both rice miles and wry smiles, 

 

In the Shadow Forest - Kiso Road Stories

 

On the Kiso Road, along Nakasendo Way, at the top of the pass at Yubuhara, this group of deities stay shadow quiet but, like a moment of knowing, seem effortlessly, elusively elegiac. Of course one is not to know that this quiet group will always be waiting for you, and as the walk up through the forest being its own reward, this is that perfect thing, unanticipated beauty. 

One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish

 Food markets are the hero of any locale, and while Makishi Public Market is small and the ground floor seems to be just seafood and pickles, the fish  include the requisite Suess-ian colour scheme of Red Fish Blue Fish - and if you’re wondering about that glaucous eye on the lower right, and think it is quite toad-ish I am totally with you. Puff Puff.  In case you might want to know, my very poor reading of hiragana translates the red fish as aka -ho ( here i guess)  - chi,  and the blue fish as Irabucho, though here I might be quite off-piste.  As someone with truly dreadful handwriting I feel I have no purchase on complaint, and so can only commend this Fishmonger’s good characters. 

Fell Fall and Fen at Shiraito no Taki - White Thread Waterfall in Karuizawa

Waves, waterfalls and fountains, all types of white water, are the perfect counterpoint to green scenery, an anodyne for the eyes, a breath of fen air, and this Shiraito Falls, is an exemplar of its kind, with its long arc of continuity, its water has spent six years seeping from the rain fall on Mount Asama, slightly warmed by the geothermal heat of the mountain to form the springhead of the Yukawa River. And yes, each strand is a white thread working, stitching the world together. 

 

Kodachrome Dusk does its Thing Okinawa Style

 Here a pixel fine slice of an Iphone photo delivers the non-contemporary - perhaps it is the salt air, the storm rolling in from east, or a wave of ‘70’s nostalgia that has rendered this image of Nashiro Beach  on the south west side of Okinawa so very Kodachrome, or it might be that land remembers everything. 

Gingham Style ! Black and White Dog Couture

 It’s not Gangnam Style but Gingham Style for this checker be-decked Poochie who is being taken for a ride in uptown Karuizawa.   So many questions , but there is no shadow of a doubt that this is not a a black and white case. 

Is This the Line for the Chattanooga Choo-Choo -Bart’s Busman’s Holiday

 Bart Brassica is, it seems, on holidays, and while he has gone singularly Dutch and Dining Out  (Stand Up Stood UP ) and as been spotted at a diner,  how does he get around?  Here the mystery not so much thickens as coagulates, those with keen eyes will see he is a Oberndorf, a previously undiscovered railway station in Hunterdon County, and at least two of the locals seem to have have taken Grey Zombie potion, while Bart looks at perky as he ever will.  This will take some pondering.

The Stone Water Basin and the Bamboo Dipper at Rest

Inside the New Otani Hotel in Tokyo there is an incredible 400 year old Japanese garden, among all sorts of lovely things is this stone basin, with its bamboo dipper to make an offer of water to to the stone deity standing alongside. But what to make of the narrow shelf of bamboo?  Is it a resting place for the bamboo dipper? A metaphoric half way point?  An aesthetic division of the basin’s circle ?  In any case something to ponder. And it would be a pity not to show more of the garden, so as they say, see below.

 

Next Level - Roof Top Gardens in Tokyo

 Yes,  here we have levelled up with Ginza’s famous Seiko Clock,  having found Mitsukoshi  Department Store’s level nine roof top garden.  An elevated oasis for sparrows and people looking for a breath of green space, and when the Seiko Clock chimes Big Ben’s theme bing bongs, well you get a little bit - sukoshi!- of London thrown in for next level effect. 

Winning Ways - Twin Stars Sparks

Back in the day when my children were small, I read loads of children’s books, and had been known to be so engrossed I would unintentionally stop reading aloud, to go into the top gear of reading silently.  But last Sunday I settled into a sunny spot on the deck, and read Twin Stars, Volume 1 of Charlotte Clutterbuck’s first novel for pre-teens.  Charlotte is a fine poet and friend, so off we set.  Two cups of tea and a half a chocolate slice later, I let out a long sigh of satisfaction . Twin Stars is a terrific read, the characters are complex and engaging, the plot rips along, the social mores are resonant and relevant, the detail is wonderful and of course there is more coming.  If Volume 2 was out already I would have bought it straight away.  Twin Stars reminded me of the joy of reading children’s books, and this one is a gem. 

Many Hands Make Light Work - In the Photon Field

 Granny Eggwhistle says she is sure the new Farm Hand might be a member of an occult, because under hand is one thing but Over Hand like this is unnatural.  But why has Farmer Bart Brassica taken on an extra Hand?  It seems, as he is away on a faux holiday (see double-double-dutching-bart-fakes-fancy.html…)  and has applied the adage Many Hands Make Light Work, though in this case he is thinking the rocket needs to work harder at photosynthesis, and with all this light work, some of it must inspire the Aragula to go for it.  There may be a nothing under handed about the Hand or it could be there is more to the Hand than we can see.  

The Fleeting Fineness of Flowers Down

 Double ruffled tulips are fine examples of the under rated ephemera of fading flowers, they have a wabi-sabi all their own, here the tulips’ touch down reframes their faux Kutani-ware Wedgewood vase - itself a floral fiat of form and pattern. Something about the surrounding crowd of bijou here suggests World of Interiors, and makes me wonder why photographs of wilted arrangements, with their mandala ethos, are not a genre of their own. 

The Sea in Two Minds and an Undertow

It’s easy to forget, or maybe not realise,  that like turning the heel for a sock, the ocean knits itself around corners into bays, here the north eastern edge of North  Stradbroke shows precisely how the sea can be in two minds about flow and crimp and flat where the Pacific meets Moreton Bay. The water on one side is  so seemingly placid but heaven knows, that seam of intersect does not even bother to hide its undertow.

 

Stand Up, Stood Up? Bart Dines Out.

As Bart Brassica is holidaying double Dutch style,  see Episode double-double-dutching-bart-fakes-fancy.html , he has been wistfully waiting at Glenn’s Historic Gettysburg Diner, at which there are 166 vacant seats.  Is so much emptiness  ominous in a diner open 24 hours a day?  Notwithtsanding the lack of customers Bart appears to have been Stood Up by Mavis Eggwhistle, though as Mavis is unlikely to know that Bart Brassica had invited her, as he is working on his Telepathic Powers, after enrolling, but not attending, TelePathy for Beginners, which as he understood the CurryCueLamb, would be mostly acts of contemplation.  So, is this Bart’s last piece of Stand Up?  Will his Curried Lamb Burger ever come? 

Feeding Dandelions to a Donkey and the Donkey’s Auntie

These two Donquettas were not coquettish about dandelion greens, though there was some jockeying, at which they excel, for access, and while this was amiable enough at midday, the next morning, maybe they got up on the wrong side of the stables, but the Aunt was not nice to the niece and vice versa.  If ever I have a to reverse park a donkey I will be letting the donkey do it.  They have nice noses and a fundamental grasp of dandelion delicacy and space. 
 

A Green World in Three Scenes

A Myanmar market stack of green leaves leaning towards  a Fibonacci spiral , two stems of Angophora leaves, thoughtfully snipped off by sulfur-crested cockatoos,  and a tableau of acorn, oak leaf, birch cone and  my  green Lamy fountain pen, all contribute to  a visual paraphrase  of John Donne’s green thoughts in a green shade. 

 

Get Your Skates On , St. Kildering Your Way Into Nostalgia

Pink skates with yellow laces, scuffed toes reflect on their uneven roll call of days along the Esplanade, what can explain their sense of ennui, ready to go but glazed inside the glass, the palms in colonnades reflected, the distant idea of a wooden rink at Ettalong, with its corrugated, companionable percussion?  
 

Blue in the Face

The Blue-faced honey eater may be the only creature that looks good in Blue eye shadow, and being so very dapperly attuned to the cafe colour system it would be hard to begrudge them a few muffin crumbs. Blueberry I wonder? 

 

Sets and Setsability

 It’s the set of three for me, even things waiting to be set up with a dedicated tableau are given a temporary set place of three, here two modern pieces and a vintage souvenir of the Jenolan Caves with its psychic stalagmite emanating its own aura, are all the better for being set up as a trio. More brio, mor trifectas please. More setsability.   

Two Birds in the Blossom

 While one might say these birds, the green porcelain, the small black bird and their two amigos,  more easily seen below, are if not in hand then at hand, they are also in, or at least proximate to, the bush, in this case cherry blossom. The duality of birds being neither here nor there,  there being more than two, the blossom being at its optimal pink poised  position, ready to float down if ruffled, is one way of looking at things.  Wallace Stevens moments everywhere. 

Double Double Dutching - Bart Fakes Fancy Mini-Break

 Bart Brassica is ambivalent about holidays, preferring to abide his time at home but, mindful of his social media profile sometimes will faux-cerise his background and write a witty tag line to incinerate - his word not mine - that he is exoterating ( again a Bartism  which I’ve picked up from his Insta post- and in case you wonder what the flapjack he is on about this is portmanteau for making leisure activities more  exotic ) - or at least  that he is making holiday hay . While this Dutch Motel was once, and might still be, on Route 22, Bart notes the duplicate double digit, its duplicate signage and firmly  believes this guarantees that even if Mavis Eggwhistle does appear, he will get off Scotch Free.  

Acorns in the Leaf Field

A stroll, what other pace would do, of the fine  Botanic Gardens in Castlemaine, Vic, shows these bronze seed pods, which though growing nowhere, give pause for consideration being so totally attuned to their oak leaf allies.  Perfect autumnal parking. 

Sub Divo - Bart Goes Motto Mad

 

Bart has been toying with the idea of sub dividing Brass Acres into hobby farmlets, and seeking a bold new family crest which he believes will convince Huntington County admin , has been considering either the phrase ‘Avis Avid Aviso’ which Mavis tells him is Latin for ‘go ask the birds’ and Sub Divo but  he has stood outside under the blazing sky so long his time lapse photograph has got a case of the shimmers,  and Bart himself is between two birds and fennel anyline. Still, as Huntington. County Council have not received anything by way of an application from Bart, and  Latin is Persona Non Data with them, this maybe Via Fini for Barts’s motto mania. 

Bottoms Up- a Sideways Take on Dinghies

By demolition of the neighbouring shed, these up-ended dinghies have appeared at Shelley Beach beside ( (yes) The Boatshed, their dark or algal hulls neat shapes - how did they get up there, and how do they get down?  Which little boat glides best and lively over the waves?  Collectively do they say ‘closed for winter’ or loitering with intent to float?  

Tableaus to Make Roses Last

It may be a little compulsive but mostly I take photos  of flowers I’ve arranged or grown,  to record the pleasure of that fleeting moment when the blooms ripen but still hold, when the vase is the right match, the setting doesn’t fight with these, and the light balances is soft enough so the colour is saturated and bright enough to caste pale shadows.    The cat- handled cup  and the little horse agree. 
 

The No Scissors Paper Bird

 Though not a native of the tin-scape of Uluṟu - a postcard from the inimitable Dan Brown - this paper Benteveo, that arrived par avion from Argentina, is well adapted to the colour scheme.  The bird’s other name Pitangus sulphuratus is a vocal, yellow chested passarine, and I will say it was charming to make both it and its acqaintance. No scissors were used in making this animal. 

Lake Stacks Up - the Patience of Lake Saint Clair

 Walking along Franklin Beach on Lake Saint Clair, one of my well-balanced predecessors has hit the right note with this staccato column, with its elegant echo of the rocks’ volcanic ancestor in the distance.  Saint Clair’s slightly tanin-tinged water is cool to the skin for a swim, but soft as rain, I went in twice, each time as they say of rivers, never the  same. 

Shaping Up: Collages of Pantaloons and Leaves

Drawing gum leaves and nuts is a bit like getting lost in the forest, best to keep going, looking for edges, and perhaps stone curlews and swimmers.  Retrace your steps wearing fancy dress, carrying a washi paper cherry blossom and don’t forget: tessellated Wiley. 
 

A Leaf out of the Bat’s book

 

The lovely Bat Wing Fern, this charmingly winged frond found by Lake Saint Clair, botanically Histiopteris incisa,  here shows its likeness to both bat and butterfly, and in its symmetry seems more likely to fly off than stay put, but it will no doubt leave the airborne part to its fine spores. 

The Round Square Roots of Trees

 

Each view, potentially has its perfect frame at Lake Saint Clair it might be the uprighted, galactic explosion of silvered roots of trees, drift wood grey from floods and seches, telescopic in their perspective, a species of clock, which ticks off time like fleas.