Topical Guide 135
Mark Dorset
Flowers
I began bringing a chrysanthemum or two each day to add to the bunch of flowers in Mrs. Graham’s vase. This turned out to be a continually changing bunch. Each day she added some fresh flowers and threw away a few of the oldest.
“Do you know why I keep these here on my desk?” she asked me on the day that I first brought her the chrysanthemums.
“Because they look pretty?” I suggested.
“Because they smell pretty,” she said. She leaned toward me and spoke in her conspiratorial mumble. “This classroom stinks,” she said.Little Follies, “The Girl with the White Fur Muff”
From the Metropolitan’s website:
Having worked almost exclusively in black and white for more than two decades, Redon revealed his gifts as a colorist in the luminous pastels and paintings he made after 1895. In this bouquet, such identifiable flowers as poppies and cornflowers, which he had studied attentively, emerge as fanciful re-creations, in jewel-like patches of color against a misty, undefined field. Late flower pictures such as this one remain true to Redon’s artistic aim: “to place the logic of the visible at the service of the invisible.”
No art without transformation.
Robert Bresson, Notes on the Cinematograph
Smell; Odor; Aroma; Scent
Food: Salami
I can recall the odor of the room, the odor of chalk dust, ordinary dust, the smell of wet wool that came from the coats and sweaters spread out to dry on the big steam radiators below the windows, the waxy smell of crayons left to melt on the radiators, and, quite prominently, the smell of those wonderful hard-salami sandwiches that Spike used to bring every day in a brown paper bag: thin slices of aromatic salami on spongy white bread with lots of butter. About midmorning, when the smell of Spike’s sandwiches reached my desk, my stomach would begin to growl and my mouth would start to water. The memory alone is enough to make me want to break for lunch.Little Follies, “The Girl with the White Fur Muff”
Impractical Craftsman
“Life on the Bolotomy”
I’ve just watched Comme un Avion (English title: The Sweet Escape). I recommend it. The whole thing is very Leroyesque, with echoes of “Life on the Bolotomy.” The protagonist, Michel (played by Bruno Podalydès), has the Impractical Craftsman spirit, or illness, and Michel’s wife, Rachelle (played by Sandrine Kiberlain) has the tolerant, supportive, but bemused attitude toward Michel that Albertine has toward her earnest screwball Peter. The trailer doesn’t do it justice, but here it is:
[more to come on Friday, November 19, 2021]
Have you missed an episode or two or several?
You can begin reading at the beginning or you can catch up by visiting the archive or consulting the index to the Topical Guide.
You can listen to the episodes on the Personal History podcast. Begin at the beginning or scroll through the episodes to find what you’ve missed.
At Apple Books you can download free eBooks of “My Mother Takes a Tumble,” “Do Clams Bite?,” “Life on the Bolotomy,” “The Static of the Spheres,” and “The Fox and the Clam,” the first five novellas in Little Follies.
You’ll find an overview of the entire work in An Introduction to The Personal History, Adventures, Experiences & Observations of Peter Leroy. It’s a pdf document.