Protest for Stromness

Photograph: Murdo Macleod

Sir Peter Maxwell Davies is an English composer, honored with the position of Master of the Queen's Music. In the late 1970s, Stromness, a village in Scotland, learned that mining companies had received approval to open a uranium mine two miles from the center of their town. The public protest grew as residents feared the pollution would eventually lead to a small apocalypse for Scotland's Orkney Islands.

As part of a fundraiser effort for the protests, Sir Peter Maxwell Davies, a resident, composed and performed Farewell to Stromness. And the cabaret-style piano interlude has continued to inspire musicians. Its bittersweet elegance and "slow, walking bass line...[is meant to portray] the residents of the village of Stromness having to leave their homes as a result of uranium contamination." At the Stromness Hotel, Davies first performed it in June 1980 during the St. Magnus Festival.  The uranium mine was eventually canceled and Stromness, despite its small size, still thrives.

 

The Bigger They Come

unfortunate 26.5 pound fox found in Maidstone

Post-War Scotland

Boy and Brazier, Gorbals 1968

 
Oscar Marzaroli (1933–1988), an Italian-born photographer whose family immigrated to Scotland when he was a child, captured post-World War II, urban Glasgow with a powerful lens. The Bourne Fine Art Gallery featured his work, especially that of 1958-68, in an exhibition last November. I didn't blog about it at the time, but the photographs wriggled there way into my brain and have implanted themselves permanently it would seem. A sampling of that exhibition can be found here.

Flitting Gorbals 1965

Golden Haired Lass

Boy and Pram, Gorbals 1964

Further, Marzaroli's work has inspired a diverse group of artistic endeavors. Ricky Ross, Scottish singer-songwriter and member of Deacon Blue, has recorded Marzaroli's influence in an audio tribute that includes interviews with Oscar's wife Anne and others with whom Marzaroli was intimate. Among other things, friends and family remember him as "very tall...very charming...cut[ting] quite an exotic figure."

Fisherman in Boat

Liz Peden, a teacher at the Global Arts Project, found inspiration in Marzaroli's original photograph "Gorbals Boys 1963." She re-imagines this "iconic photograph" through a three-part sculpture made of chrome and bronze that recreates the three, dusty boys captured playing in their mother's high heels through the streets within Marzaroli's photograph. Her work is also entitled "Gorbals Boys."

Gorbals Boys 1963

Liz Peden's "Gorbals Boys"

To Catch a Fox

Time Life/John Dominis

“I never ride just to ride. I ride to catch a fox.”

R. Sargent Shriver, 1915-2011

Affecting All

Time Life Pictures / Getty

"Whatever affects one directly, 

affects all indirectly."

Martin Luther King, Jr.

Sensible Tea Habits

George Orwell (illustration found here)

Eric Arthur Blair (aka George Orwell), like many Englishmen, was a connoisseur of tea. Recently, at Slate, the online news-magazine, Christopher Hitchens recommended Orwell's "A Nice Cup of Tea," a 1946 article that ran in the Evening Standard. While Orwell boasts a list of 11 rules, these "essential [rules] are easily committed to memory," according to Higgins. Several are humorously archaic. Even if you aren't a tea drinker, it's amusing enough.

Here are my own eleven rules, every one of which I regard as golden:

First of all, one should use Indian or Ceylonese tea. China tea has virtues which are not to be despised nowadays — it is economical, and one can drink it without milk — but there is not much stimulation in it. One does not feel wiser, braver or more optimistic after drinking it. Anyone who has used that comforting phrase 'a nice cup of tea' invariably means Indian tea.

Secondly, tea should be made in small quantities — that is, in a teapot. Tea out of an urn is always tasteless, while army tea, made in a cauldron, tastes of grease and whitewash. The teapot should be made of china or earthenware. Silver or Britanniaware teapots produce inferior tea and enamel pots are worse; though curiously enough a pewter teapot (a rarity nowadays) is not so bad.

Thirdly, the pot should be warmed beforehand. This is better done by placing it on the hob than by the usual method of swilling it out with hot water.

Fourthly, the tea should be strong. For a pot holding a quart, if you are going to fill it nearly to the brim, six heaped teaspoons would be about right. In a time of rationing, this is not an idea that can be realized on every day of the week, but I maintain that one strong cup of tea is better than twenty weak ones. All true tea lovers not only like their tea strong, but like it a little stronger with each year that passes — a fact which is recognized in the extra ration issued to old-age pensioners.

Fifthly, the tea should be put straight into the pot. No strainers, muslin bags or other devices to imprison the tea. In some countries teapots are fitted with little dangling baskets under the spout to catch the stray leaves, which are supposed to be harmful. Actually one can swallow tea-leaves in considerable quantities without ill effect, and if the tea is not loose in the pot it never infuses properly.

found here

Sixthly, one should take the teapot to the kettle and not the other way about. The water should be actually boiling at the moment of impact, which means that one should keep it on the flame while one pours. Some people add that one should only use water that has been freshly brought to the boil, but I have never noticed that it makes any difference.

Seventhly, after making the tea, one should stir it, or better, give the pot a good shake, afterwards allowing the leaves to settle.

Eighthly, one should drink out of a good breakfast cup — that is, the cylindrical type of cup, not the flat, shallow type. The breakfast cup holds more, and with the other kind one's tea is always half cold before one has well started on it.

a good breakfast cup

Ninthly, one should pour the cream off the milk before using it for tea. Milk that is too creamy always gives tea a sickly taste.

Tenthly, one should pour tea into the cup first. This is one of the most controversial points of all; indeed in every family in Britain there are probably two schools of thought on the subject. The milk-first school can bring forward some fairly strong arguments, but I maintain that my own argument is unanswerable. This is that, by putting the tea in first and stirring as one pours, one can exactly regulate the amount of milk whereas one is liable to put in too much milk if one does it the other way round.

Lastly, tea — unless one is drinking it in the Russian style — should be drunk without sugar. I know very well that I am in a minority here. But still, how can you call yourself a true tealover if you destroy the flavour of your tea by putting sugar in it? It would be equally reasonable to put in pepper or salt. Tea is meant to be bitter, just as beer is meant to be bitter. If you sweeten it, you are no longer tasting the tea, you are merely tasting the sugar; you could make a very similar drink by dissolving sugar in plain hot water. Some people would answer that they don't like tea in itself, that they only drink it in order to be warmed and stimulated, and they need sugar to take the taste away. To those misguided people I would say: Try drinking tea without sugar for, say, a fortnight and it is very unlikely that you will ever want to ruin your tea by sweetening it again.

(excerpted from The Collected Essays, Journalism and Letters of George Orwell, Volume 3, 1943-45, Penguin ISBN, 0-14-00-3153-7)

So Cal Charm

I've just returned from a So Cal holiday. The warm and windy city of Los Angeles exudes that tried-and-true-meets-new vibe. Madeline Stuart's interiors reflect this curious meeting of the mind and eye, specifically in the Bel Air Georgian she designed with Phil DeBolske.

Of course, her other work within Los Angeles similarly emphasizes old world influences on a contemporary life. Here are a few more of my favorites:

Brentwood House

Another Bel Air house with a distinct Spanish and Japanese influence