on the road...again

Roughing it for a few more days, my sweets.




:image from jeanne bayol's fantastic site, les verdines. jeanne restores and lavishly decorates authentic roulottes (gypsy caravans) - then sells them! via indelible88 via tina tarnoff.

Good summer weekend, everyone. Wherever you may be.




:amalia chimera, salt rocks

don't take my kodachrome away

As you probably know by now, the Eastman Kodak Company announced Monday that it's retiring its most senior film because of declining customer demand in an increasingly digital age. The world's first commercially successful color film, immortalized in song by Paul Simon, spent 74 years in Kodak's portfolio. They give us those nice bright colors. They give us the greens of summers. Makes you think all the world's a sunny day.

Oh, yeah.

Indeed, Kodachrome was favored by still and motion picture photographers for its rich but realistic tones, vibrant colors and durability. It was the basis not only for countless family slideshows on carousel projectors over the years but also for world-renowned images, including Abraham Zapruder's 8-mm reel of President John F. Kennedy's assassination.

As a tribute to the film, Kodak has compiled on its website a gallery of iconic images, including Steve McCurry's Afghan girl and others from photographers Eric Meola and Peter Guttman.


Did you know? Unlike any other color film, Kodachrome is purely black and white when exposed. The three primary colors that mix to form the spectrum are added in three development steps rather than built into its layers. Because of the complexity in manufacturing, only Dwayne's Photo, in Parsons, Kansas, still processes Kodachrome film. The lab has agreed to continue through 2010, Kodak said.

Let the stockpiling begin.





:ylebiann via flickr; tribute to kodachrome

you're not in kansas anymore

And neither am I, apparently.

Here's the thing. A few weeks back, I opened a swell new custom domain: swoond.
At that point, Blogger/Google was happily, stealthily redirecting my diana:muse visitors to the new site. I had plans to officially launch swoond in the weeks ahead, but Blogger botched that up pretty good. Last week, something untoward occurred in the Blogger/Google situation room. Many blogspot blogs - large, small and everything in betwixt - stopped redirecting visitors to custom domain sites. Mine was among the unfortunates (you'll see what this means if you try getting to diana:muse - it's a dead end). Ah, well. Que sera, sera.

All this to say, "I'm amazed that you found me! You're the top! You're the Coliseum. You're the top! You're the Louvre Museum. You're a melody from a symphony by Strauss. You're a Bendel bonnet, a Shakespeare sonnet, you're Mickey Mouse." So there.

If you have the time and inclination, please update your diana:muse links and logs and all that to swoond dot com - the URL is http://www.swoond.com/. Here's hoping that the redirect function is up and running again at some future point. And be on the lookout for the official swoond opening - probably sometime in July. I'll be away for a while, but I plan to do some blogging from afar. Much love all 'round, my darlings.


And remember: There's no place like home. Wherever that may be.


* Update (6/23) from the The Great and Powerful Wizard of Blogger/Google: The redirect function is back ON. You can travel here via diana:muse or swoond. Yippity skip. Be seeing you real soon, my pretties.



:akurania via photobucket

b e a u t i m u s e

Darlings. Do me the honor of visiting beautimuse, my new site for sharing über-sized images and designs of my making. I've been madly shooting photos for the past several weeks, strengthening bonds with my trusty little Nikon Coolpix (not kidding), my DianaF+ (of course) and my old Polaroids. Inspired as ever by all the gorgeousness that Jane and Lori offer (every. single. day. — they amaze me and I love them both), I loaded up on shots of some peonies (slay me) that I received on a recent special occasion, posing them against a black field and capturing them in various stages of bloomage and degeneration. As you know (well, I imagine that you know), I gots to have me lots of visual beauty if I hope to approximate a modicum of sanity. It's a process.




I'm so happy to share these with you. Let me know what you think. (I realize that many of you prefer the emailz for your communiqués. No worries. Find me at dianamusemail at gmail dot com or leave a комментарии just below.) Much love all 'round.








:dianamuse via beautimuse

Wishing you a dreamy new week. Wherever you may be.




:rodney smith

once more, making good on his pledge

Thank you, Mr. President. This is one of the main reasons - among the top three out of maybe 1,739 or so - that we elected you. I'm happily getting used to all this hope and promise.

I admire Judge Sotomayor's willingness to acknowledge the important influence of background and experience on a judge's perspective. As she said at Berkeley Law in 2001 (this speech being the source of potential controversy in the upcoming nomination hearings):

"Our gender and national origins may and will make a difference in our judging. Justice O'Connor has often been cited as saying that a wise old man and wise old woman will reach the same conclusion in deciding cases. I am also not so sure that I agree with the statement. First, as Professor [Martha] Minnow has noted, there can never be a universal definition of wise. Second, I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experience would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn't lived that life." [U.C. Berkeley School of Law, 10/26/2001]

Yeah, baby.

Congratulations, Judge Sotomayor. A big shout out of support and love from your hometown. And good luck on Capitol Hill; that's where the next battle will be fought. I imagine you already know: there goes your summer vacation.

In response to Anonymous's foolhardiness (see Comments), a few thoughts from me. You'll find this addendum in the Comments section as well:

Here at my outpost, we place high value on civil decency and respect. You violated both codes of conduct. You may NOT stoop to name-calling without being brought to task. I came close to deleting your comments altogether, but I wanted to save the responses to your unnecessarily aggressive, rude remarks. Why? I got to know some of my lovely readers a bit better, and I'm the richer for it. I guess I have you to thank for that. Ironic, isn't it?

Regarding all the bluster about Judge Sotomayor: The talking point that conservatives pushed hardest last week — to the alarm finally of some Republican senators — was (presto!) the 2001 speech that I referenced in the original post.

The context matters. It always does. Judge Sotomayor was pointing out that throughout history even esteemed white male justices like Oliver Wendell Holmes voted to uphold race and sex discrimination. She said accidents of birth inform people’s views, but judges must strive to look beyond them. Several justices, including some conservatives, have made similar comments (Alito and Thomas, to name but two). I'm not going to reference these for you; do your own homework.

As is clear, Judge Sotomayor does not talk only of the benefits she derives from her experiences; she also notes the challenge to her as a judge "to be greater than the sum total of my experiences," and "continuously to judge when those opinions, sympathies and prejudices are appropriate."

A racist? Puh-leez. You have some nerve, Anon. Other than that, you got nothin'.

A final word: Begone.

:image huffington post

light! color! spring!

As we tiptoed through the legion of vari-hued tulips in Central Park over the weekend, I thought of these wondrously vibrant images by photographer Sølve Sundsbø. We had just taken in the Met's Bonnard exhibit for the third and final time (it closed Sunday); there, too, I was rejuvenated by the luminous yellow, turquoise, vermillion and fuschia palette.




This Sundsbø-Bonnard color connection is a thing of beauty in itself.














:sundsbø images, v magazine via foto decadent; pierre bonnard, still life with fruit (1939), met museum

sonia rykiel, alchemist

Do you remember these plumed diaphonous creations from Sonia Rykiel, spring 2008?






What were her influences, I wonder.

The peony?


The rose?



Gertrude McFuzz?



Regardless, I find these gowns so delicious and beautiful, they serve as a mild antidepressant. Even the typically dour models look genuinely joyful. That's saying something.















:ultrathew flickr; gertrude mcfuzz © theodore and audrey geisel

Me too, Margaret. Me too.





:found via ffffound

joan snyder: narrative painting

Flowerfield/Tongue, 1999

In 1974, after working on her 'stroke' paintings – intense swaths of color painted over pencil-drawn grids – Joan Snyder began in earnest to make paintings which had what she referred to as a female sensibility. "In the early 1970s, women were forming groups and talking about things political and personal, and about our art," says Snyder. She says that these dialogues influenced the art world. "Women’s work helped to pump the blood back into what were dry, cold, and minimal years in the art world in the late 1960s."

Paint the House, 1970

Over the four decades of her prolific career, Snyder’s body of work has continually evolved in style and form. Beginning with the stroke paintings, Snyder's works have been essentially narratives of both personal and communal experiences. After abandoning formal grids as the basic structure of her paintings, Snyder’s work became more explicitly gestural and rooted in memory, while at the same time more complex materially.

Cloud Garden, 2003

The MacArthur Foundation profile of Joan Snyder declares that her paintings "mirror her personal experience, but, at the same time, the visual messages she provides through her images convey universal and readily understood emotions. Through a fiercely individual approach and persistent experimentation with technique and materials, Snyder has extended the expressive potential of abstract painting and inspired a generation of emerging artists."

Women Make Lists, 2001

:artnet; nielsen gallery

i have a bird in spring

I have a Bird in spring

Which for myself doth sing —

The spring decoys.

And as the summer nears —

And as the Rose appears,

Robin is gone.

Yet do I not repine

Knowing that Bird of mine

Though flown —

Learneth beyond the sea

Melody new for me

And will return.

. . .

Then will I not repine,

Knowing that Bird of mine

Though flown

Shall in a distant tree

Bright melody for me

Return.

- Emily Dickinson

:image from seen, june 2004, via liquid sky arts

the audacity of hope

Stars of Persia, Allium christophii

President Obama's extraordinary, groundbreaking message yesterday to the people and leaders of the Islamic Republic of Iran is amazing. Just amazing. On the occasion of Nowruz, the Iranian new year, President Obama offered Iran a new beginning in diplomatic relations and he committed his administration to a future of honest and respectful diplomacy. A long-awaited, bold, hopeful prelude to renewal. Astounding.

On the occasion of your New Year, I want you, the people and leaders of Iran, to understand the future that we seek. It's a future with renewed exchanges among our people, and greater opportunities for partnership and commerce. It's a future where the old divisions are overcome, where you and all of your neighbors and the wider world can live in greater security and greater peace.

I know that this won't be reached easily. There are those who insist that we be defined by our differences. But let us remember the words that were written by the poet Saadi, so many years ago: "The children of Adam are limbs to each other, having been created of one essence."

With the coming of a new season, we're reminded of this precious humanity that we all share. And we can once again call upon this spirit as we seek the promise of a new beginning.

- President Barack Obama

:image kaitymae via deviant art; message transcription via wsj