the yak occidental

It's October which means Samhain and a year since we moved into our new place!  Above: Allegory of Autumn (c.1680s) by Luigi Garzi October Excursion: First Pandemic Vacation We did our first vacation and it was both great and surreal to be so out and about. We did a trip to Sah yeh yeen (Texada Island) territory of the Tla’amin people. It had a very small town feel and everyone was very friendly. It was remarkably quiet on the hiking trails - like, literally. It was utterly silent, just the wind blowing when we stopped talking and no other people on the trail s far as we could tell. Most-liked Chore: Prepping for Thanksgiving Dinner Honestly, this was more about knowing that for the first time since the pandemic started that I could share a meal with my family members indoors (all in accordance with COVID guidelines of course). The food was delish and the company delightful, it was just so blessedly normal.  Least-liked Chore: Vacuuming the heaters The baseboard heaters get all du

Here are some songs I listed to a lot on my first pandemic-era vacation at the beginning of October. AUTUMNAL ESCAPE track list Let Me Love You Like a Woman by Lana del Rey It's Your Own Body and Mind by Sufjan Stevens and Angelo D'Augustine Please Come Down by Adia Victoria Good Thing by Emme (I couldn't find this on YoutTube, you can listen/buy here ) Agua by La chica Lullabies by CHVRCHES Flight by Bebe Buckskin Nighttime (Skin) by Cedric Noel Good Time (Esther Rose cover) by Stef Chura Lover (Taylor Swift cover) by Ellis Effect & Cause by The White Stripes My Baby Wants a Baby by St. Vincent

Here is a selection of memorable quotes from Radiance by Catherynne M. Valente Painting above:  Portrait of Consuela Kennedy in Evening Dress , 1937 by Anna Zinkeisen Real life is all beginnings. Days, weeks, children, journeys, marriages, inventions. Even a murder is the beginning of a criminal. Perhaps even a spree. Everything is a prologue. Every store has a stutter. It just keeps starting and starting until you decide to shut the camera off. Half the time you don't even realise that what you're choosing for breakfast is the beginning of a story that won't pan out till you're sixty and string at the pastry that made you a widower. No, love, in real life you can get all the way to death and never have finished one single story. Or never even get one so much as half-begun. p.22 Sit down with the Greeks and the Romans, and the boring answers get more interesting. Seasons because a girl and a crocus. Death because a girl and an apple. The moon because a girl keeps drivi

Why turn to TikTok when you can turn to the (mostly-Renaissance era) pictures of yore for wardrobe inspiration? Above:  Catherine and Eugène de Béthisy (c. unknown) by Alexis-Simon Belle  With the lace apron/gauzy overlay on the screen left dress  (on Catherine de Béthisy?), this dress looks like a master class in mixing prints with the almost light blue floral print and cobalt blue floral print .   What I guess I'm saying is that Renaissance children who were probably-doomed royalty were better dressed then I can ever hope to be. Above: Virgin and Child with Sts Catherine and Barbara (c. 1530-1532) by Ambrosius Benson  The woman on screen right (St. Barbara?) is wearing the most luxurious crimson velvet AND animal print and therefore probably a Scorpio. Above: Profile Portrait of a Young Woman (c. 1550s) by Sofonisba Anguissola Remember that ALL of the embroidery on this brocade capelet would have been DONE BY HAND!! Also note to self - on bad hair days, I'm just going to st

Whether you're into crystals or have a magpie fascination with pretty things, here's a little post dedicated to some of nature's most precious objects. Above: Portrait of Catherine the Second (c. second half of 18th century) by Aleksey Antropov He would often spend a whole day settling and resettling in their cases the various stones that he had collected, such as the olive-green chrysoberyl, that turns red by lamplight, the cymophane with its wire-like line of silver, the pistachio-coloured peridot, rose-pink and wine-yellow topazes, carbuncles of fiery scarlet with tremulous four-rayed stars, flame-red cinnamon-stones, orange and violet spinels, and amethysts with their alternate layers of ruby and sapphire. He loved the red gold of sunstone, and the moonstone's pearly whiteness, and the broken rainbow of the milky opal. He procured from Amsterdam three emeralds of extraordinary size and richness of colour and had a turquoise de la vielle roche that was the envy of al