Me and Barb Shoup, one of the other writing teachers, enjoying an afternoon cappuccino in the Comune.
Archive for SJ Rozan
Landscape porn
I know you asked for food and art, but a storm came in last night and left this morning, and I thought you’d want to see it.
Storm comes in last night.
After the storm, early this morning.
Food porn #2, plus
Yesterday I posted one of the sketches I did in drawing class and got this response: “Post more food pix!” Sic transit gloria. Here’s last night’s primo, which was vegetable lasagna, plus some foliage near the dining terrace and a sunset with backlit pigeons.
Art class
Because, I guess, anything is better than the US political situation right now, some folks have asked for more of the sketches I’m doing in Jonathan Santlofer’s art class. Okay, to distract you, here comes one. We don’t have a nude model here, by the way, so does anyone have Melania’s number?
Food porn #1
Okay, you guys. The food here is fabulous, so fabulous I keep forgetting to photograph it before we eat it. But I did grab some pix for you and there will be more. I’m sitting in my window watching at the layered mountains recede to the southwest and the rain clouds slide in. Dinner soon, but here’s yesterday’s. I didn’t manage the main course (grilled meats and vegetables) but I got everything else.
Campari and soda before dinner.
Antipasti, and students going for it, and statues looking on enviously.
Antipasti plate.
Cake.
Evening in Assisi
Assisi, like any other, oh, gee, 2,000-year-old place, has some extremely cool things going on. I’ve learned about a few over the years, and they’re too great not to share. Here’s me on an evening walk, running my mouth for the benefit of newcomers about the cloth, brick, and tile measurements built into the wall by the town fathers 900 years ago so you wouldn’t get cheated when you bought your goods at the market in the square. Photo by the sneaky but invaluable Jonathan Santlofer.
Afternoon in Assisi
Sitting in my room overlooking San Pietro and the Umbrian plain, just back from a walk to the top of the town for a restorative cappuccino after a very long day. Started with a 7:30 am visit to the Basilica with art historian Justo Sanchez and Charles Kreloff who gave us an illicit tour (only the official tour guides are supposed to do this) of the major works inside it. This is my eighth year here and I learned all kinds of new stuff, both about the art itself as art, and the narratives it’s portraying. Then back to the Hotel Giotto for breakfast, then quick on to my 10 am drawing class. Every year I come here to teach and wish I could take the drawing class in the morning instead of write. So this year I am, with my buddy Jonathan Santlofer. (If you need to know what kind of a mess I’m making, see below.) Then an hour of writing, then co-teaching with my other buddy, Barb Shoup. Then the cappuccino walk. Now some internet biz, the internet being spotty here so get it while you can. Soon, dinner, one final walk, then bedtime. Love it here.
Afternoon at the Rancho
Breezy here, which is great, because it’s hot. I’m on the porch watching the whitecaps roll around on the bay. We have only a tiny slice of water view, but it’s framed by branches and quite lovely. The rocking chair beside me is going as though The Invisible Man were also enjoying the afternoon. What’s a zephyr where I am is apparently a strong wind higher up; the trees are tossing their heads. An osprey with a fish in its talons just headed across the sky above the yard, struggling and pitching until it found a current it could ride. For some reason unknown to me, the ospreys don’t seem to fish where they nest. The ospreys from the beach to the north will fish in the water to the south, and the birds with a nest to the east — I have an almost-irresistible urge here to break into
but I’ll give you Danny Kaye instead.
When I got here I filled the birdfeeder, and though I had no customers in the hottest part of the day I had a house finch and some sparrows later on. Four crows were roosting in the neighbor’s apple tree. They’re a family; for the last two weeks the young ones followed their mother around making weak little “feed me” caws. That’s over now. One by one, they flew from the apple to the maple on the other side of the yard, feathery black shapes across the blue sky each with a small green fruit in its beak.
And even further
You knew I was going to have to do it, didn’t you? This is the NYBG corpse flower cam.
Expected bloom Sunday or Monday, and the Garden, which is not open Mondays, will be open this one. Just sayin’.
Further to the corpse flower
First of all, its scientific name is Amorphophallus titanum, which translates as “misshapen giant dick.”
Then there’s this, about its smell:
Analyses shows the “stench” includes chemicals that produce these aromas: limburger cheese, rotting fish, sweaty socks, sweet floral scent, Chloraseptic,and human feces.
Also, the last photo I posted may not make it clear that the damn thing is eight to ten feet tall.
I’m going to Italy on Tuesday, and my only regret about this trip is, I won’t get to see and smell the corpse flower in bloom.
