abbadabba

Way down in the congo land sitting in a coconut tree,
there was a monkey and a chimp--and Lordy how she loved him.
Everynight in the pale moonlight sitting in the coconut tree,
these love words she always said to he...

" Abba dabba dabba dabbadabba dabba dabba"
said the monkey to the chimp.
" Abba dabba dabba dabbadabba dabba dabba"
said the chimpee to the monk.
All night long they chattered away.
All day long they were happy and gay,
swinging and swaying in a honky, tonky way.










"Abba dabba dabba dabba dabba dabbadabba"
said the chimp, "I love but you."
Abba dabba dabba in monkey talk means
"Chimp, I love you too."
Then the ol' baboon, one night in June,
married them and very soon,
they sailed away on an abba dabba honeymoon.

Words & Music by Arthur Fields & Walter Donovan (1903)
Recorded by Debbie Reynolds, 1951
From the 1950 movie "Two Weeks In Love."



(i want to talk about something that has been really difficult for me to deal with for a number of months. there's this other person who from the day they started their blog has been 'borrowing' from my blog. at one point i counted, and they had lifted or duplicated over thirty images and their topics in about a four-month period.

when i finally said something, they never responded, but removed a few of the images, and pretty much stopped doing it. until this month when it has started again. i'm not saying that more than one person can be interested in similar things. i'm saying when the same images are used within a week or so over and over and over, it feels like a real invasion.

the last number of posts i'm not even sure that they are repeats of images, but i am so over-stressed about this person at this point that even the repeat coverage of a topic shortly after i have covered it feels like the same kind of theft.

online blogger friends have agreed that this is such bad blogging form, but i could really use some more support if you have got any. i find myself wondering who this person thinks that i am--some kind of wikipedia? no i'm a single retired woman who has been interested in this subject for like 35 years, have written about it many times, has amassed a broad library on the subject, and who spends many hours every day doing research, and then combining everything, and then making it look good on blogger.

please share any support, thoughts, ideas, or suggestions with me.

thank you,

lily)

tis a gift

When the Japanese ports were opened to Europe in the nineteenth century, the Ukiyo-e prints gave the western world "a glimpse of Japanese life" and became, with their “simplicity of line and large flat areas of colour, a major influence on the more innovative European painters.” 1

The influence of Japanese art on western painters is known as ‘Japonisme’. This is not to be confused with ‘Japonaiserie’ which is the western interest in the exotic, decorative, or fantastic qualities of Japanese art for their novelty value. 2

Japonisme is not a style. According to Wichmann, “it does not lend itself to being used as a concept in place of a style; and it cannot be pinned down to a specific period.” It is rather, the influence of the (then) new ways of seeing the world that the Ukiyo-e prints, and then the Japanese paintings provided.

It caused a “decisive re-evaluation” in the ways western painters had been looking at the world. 3

The influence of Japanese art was not restricted to just ‘simplicity of line and large flat areas of colour’ but was also manifest in the other artistic ‘devices’ that provided unfamiliar solutions to ways of seeing and representing space and forms and how they relate to the apparent world.

(As Chisaburo cautions: “it is often very difficult to determine in what respect and how far Japanese influence extended”, and…“it is sometimes difficult to be persuaded of a Japanese source when an equally good and more accessible European one is at hand.”

However, as Henry Moore says, “I suppose everything which one appreciates must have some influence even though one isn’t (always) aware of it.” 2

Shore W. Ukiyo-e, Castle, New Jersey, 1980. 1
Chisaburo, Y. Japonisme in Art - An International Symposium,
Committee for the Year 2000, Tokyo, 1980. 2
Wichmann S. Japonisme, Harmony Books, New York, 1981. 3

from Virginia Hodgkinson's master's thesis (pdfs).

here's my process as a hunter gatherer, spending all day searching for images, then squirreling them away into intimately labeled folders. these were in the 'simplies' folder. the west entered the wonderful stage of extraordinarily simple images as part of their enchantment with the un-victorian, un-rococo, un-ungepatched japanese work. when i saw the blue bicycle, i knew it was time for the simplies folder.

The Greatest Grandeur

Some say it’s in
the reptilian dance
of the purple-tongued
sand goanna,
for there the
magnificent translation
of tenacity into bone and grace occurs.



And some declare it to be an expansive
desert — solid rust- orange rock
like dusk captured on earth in stone —
simply for the perfect contrast it provides
to the blue-grey ridge of rain
in the distant hills.

Some claim the harmonics of shifting
electron rings to be most rare and some
the complex motion of seven sandpipers
bisecting the arcs and pitches
of come and retreat over the mounting
hayfield.

Others, for gran- deur, choose the terror
of lightning peals on prairies or the tall
collapsing cathedrals of stormy seas,
because there they feel dwarfed
and appropriately helpless; others select
the serenity of that ceiling/cellar
of stars they see at night on placid lakes,
because there they feel assured
and universally magnanimous.



But it is the dark emptiness contained
in every next moment that seems to me
the most singularly glorious gift,
that void which one is free to fill
with processions of men bearing burning
cedar knots or with
parades of blue horses,
belled and ribboned and
stepping sideways,
with tumbling
white-faced mimes or companies
of black-robed choristers; to fill simply
with hammered silver teapots
or kiln-dried
crockery, tangerine and almond custards,
polonaises, polkas, whittling sticks, wailing
walls; that space large enough to hold all
invented blasphemies and pieties, 10,000
definitions of god and more, never fully
filled, never.

© 1994 by Pattiann Rogers

from Firekeeper: New and Selected Poems (1994).

here i stand hat in hand....

you might notice a difference between the posters on the right and the posters on the left. these are three of the very few examples of the wonderful german posters from its historical museum for which i could find whole (though somewhat 'edited') versions. these versions are not to be found for the vast majority of them.

there is, however, a cd available with over 1000 images from the collection. it's listed on amazon.de. there are even copies that sell for half-price: 15 euros vs. 30.


only trouble is, i haven't been able to find anyone who is willing to sell to someone in the US.

so i come ask- ing for a favor: is there anyone in europe who can buy one of these and mail it to me? i can reimburse you immediately through paypal, or however else we can work it out.

danke.

a solitude of space

There is a solitude of space
A solitude of sea










A solitude of death, but these
Society shall be








Compared with that profounder site
That polar privacy






A soul admitted to itself—
Finite infinity.

Emily Dickinson

turning japanese

I've got your picture of me and you
You wrote "I love you" I wrote "me too"
I sit there staring and there's
nothing else to do
Oh it's in color Your hair is brown
Your eyes are hazel And soft as clouds
I often kiss you when there's
no one else around

I've got your picture, I've got your picture
I'd like a million of you
all round my cell
I want a doctor to take your picture
So I can look at you
from inside as well
You've got me turning up
and turning down
And turning in and turning 'round

I'm turning Japanese
I think I'm turning Japanese
I really think so
Turning Japanese
I think I'm turning Japanese
I really think so
I'm turning Japanese
I think I'm turning Japanese
I really think so
Turning Japanese
I think I'm turning Japanese
I really think so

I've got your picture, I've got your picture
I'd like a million of them all round my cell
I want the doctor to take a picture
So I can look at you from inside as well
You've got me turning up and turning down and turning in and turning 'round





I'm turning Japanese
I think I'm turning Japanese
I really think so
Turning Japanese
I think I'm turning Japanese
I really think so
I'm turning Japanese
I think I'm turning Japanese
I really think so
Turning Japanese
I think I'm turning Japanese
I really think so

No sex, no drugs, no wine, no women
No fun, no sin, no you, no wonder it's dark
Everyone around me is a total stranger
Everyone avoids me like a cyclone ranger
That's why I'm turning Japanese
I think I'm turning Japanese
I really think so
Turning Japanese
I think I'm turning Japanese
I really think so

I'm turning Japanese
I think I'm turning Japanese
I really think so
Turning Japanese
I think I'm turning Japanese
I really think so

Turning Japanese
I think I'm turning Japanese
I really think so
Turning Japanese
I think I'm turning Japanese
I really think so
Turning Japanese
I think I'm turning Japanese
I really think so
(think so think so think so)
Turning Japanese
I think I'm turning Japanese
I really think so

© 2008 The Vapors

(and no, i don't know what it means either. but it's not what the american rumors said it was, and i hope it's not offensive!)