Gardens Under the Rain

Days of rain took their toll on the poor floribunda blooms; sparse enough already.

The tomatoes are just fine with it of course...

ETA: Update! NOT so! They all succumbed to late blight! Sob!

How I crave a greenhouse!

Syd Barrett: BBC 6 Music Documentary repeated

A two-part documentary available on Listen Again for a few days, here:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/radio/bbc_6music

On Air: Khmer Rock

Ros Serey Sothea

Fascinating and very moving BBC Radio 4 documentary about musicians in Cambodia:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00lrv50

Nik Cohn article here:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2007/may/20/worldmusic.features

That pesky climate change issue again

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/jul/26/climate-change-obama-administration

Seriously considering changing my name by deed poll...

T'will certainly be my avant-rock pseudonym/literary antihero name anyway.

...and "dancercise"!

"Jan Pehechan-Ho" by Mohammed Rafi (link)

Lubki: Russian Popular or Folk Prints

I found an interesting exploration of Russian popular prints,

called Lubki (Singular:Lubok), with translations of their texts, by Alexander Boguslawski.

The first image depicts a scene from Firdawsi's poem Shah-nameh, a Persian work, in which the hero Rustam, turns into a lion (araslan).

One of my favourites, The Bull that Did Not Want to Be a Bull and Became a Butcher

(below), invites us to ponder

"what the world would look like if things were opposite to what they really are.

In the middle of the print, which in its form resembles a hagiographical icon, unfolds the story of

a bull who took bloody revenge on the butcher.

Around the central image, thirteen smaller pictures with rhymed short inscriptions

illustrate the impossible reversals:

A sheep is shearing a shepherd,

a peasant changes places with his judges,

a donkey hits a heavily burdened peasant because he is going too slowly,

children put an old man to bed and amuse him so he does not cry,

a student beats the teacher who does not learn fast enough,

a blind man leads the one who can see, a man is wearing

hats on his feet and a shoe on his head, a stag runs away from a pig

and a hunter from a hare, a parrot puts a man in a cage to make him speak,

a donkey rides in a carriage drawn by women, a beggar gives alms to a rich man,

a nobleman spins yarn while his wife is on guard duty; in the last picture

a donkey is shaving a man and accidentally kicks him on the head."

(Copyright Alexander Boguslawski*, 1999)

*I really hope that's a genuine name :-)

...All of which reminds me of the bespectacled hunting rabbit in Struwwelpeter :

More Lubki here: