The Lovers’ Chronicle 10 July – unchained – art by Camille Pissarro & James McNeill Whistler – photography by George Charles Beresford – birth of Marcel Proust

Dear Zazie,  The usual goin’ on here.  Beautiful evenin’ here last night.  Sat on the porch and watched a thunderstorm roll in.  Got some rain, but need some more.  Here is today’s Lovers’ Chronicle from Mac Tag to his muse.  Follow us on twitter @cowboycoleridge.  Rhett

The Lovers’ Chronicle

Dear Muse,

this is a layup,
the song that comes to mind
“The Righteous Brothers version”
right, but i could have gone
with a Van Halen song but
i expect you do not know that one
“Uh, no”
the obvious song may be
a little overplayed,
“Just a bit”
the theme for lovers
is timeless
“We both hungered”
for our touch

© copyright 2023 mac tag/Cowboy Coleridge all rights reserved

the title has me thinkin’ of what Dave wrote about not askin’ for permission and bein’ his chance to fly; that is what comin’ here has always felt like to me; no need to ask for anything, free to follow the Muse wherever She goes, as close to flyin’ as i will get

© copyright 2022.2023 mac tag/Cowboy Coleridge all rights reserved

thunder rumbles,
lightnin’ flashes closer
wind picks up bringin’ cooler air

a once rattled heart
fills with someone
no more lyin’ to myself sayin’
this is the way it had to be
this is not a dream
wavin’ hello
to life stretchin’ out
the reality, enough
to make one tremble
as what will be passes
over my thoughts
over me

© copyright 2021.2023 mac tag/Cowboy Coleridge all rights reserved

Pale Love, Pale Rider

thunder rumbles,
lightnin’ flashes closer

if there is a guidin’ principle
behind this verse
it may be this; what the hell
shall we see what happens

what rattles the heart
feelin’s closin’ in

kiddin’ myself sayin’,
it could have been
otherwise

this is the way
it had to be

© copyright 2020 mac tag/cowboy coleridge all rights reserved

time expandin’
with inspiration

breathin’ new life
into what was left

the truths you reveal
by causin’ me to think

i could lie and say
it could be otherwise

i would rather never be
than wave farewell

stretched out
in the dream
makes our reality

© copyright 2019 mac tag/cowboy coleridge all rights reserved

in the rearview,
dreams of havin’
ever after

now content
with dreamin’
of those feelin’s

the time we had
expanded
with inspiration

chosen for you
how else could it be

nothin’ as precious
as that unchained

***

for Karen

there is nothin’
a lovely Lioness
cannot do
once she sets
her mind to it

© copyright 2018 mac tag/cowboy coleridge all rights reserved

feels like that
after years long denied
no one’s fault but mine
too much reliance on others
in choosin’ the trails to take
coupled with a grin and bear it
mentality through anything

that tough independent,
bear any pain attitude
serves well sometimes
but can make it hard
to know when you need
to get shut of a situation

and if you adhere to the
no way in hell askin’ for help
plan, well then there you go
chained

© copyright 2017.2023 mac tag/cowboy coleridge all rights reserved

What do I want
to do right now
Give you all the
words you deserve

© copyright 2015 mac tag/cowboy coleridge all rights reserved

Unchained Desire

Thunder rumbles, lightnin’ flashes closer
Wind picks up bringin’ cooler air
Porch swing sways back and forth
Unchained Melody plays on the radio

Unchained desire rattles the heart
Wistful feelin’ closes in
No one to sway with
No one to play with

Lyin’ to myself sayin’
It could not have been otherwise
This is the way it had to be
This is not a dream

Wavin’ me farewell
Crushin’ out my life
Stretchin’ out in despair
It is not a dream

The reality makes me tremble
As a shadow of what was
Passes over my thoughts
Passes me by

© Cowboy Coleridge mac tag copyright 2012 all rights reserved

Today is the birthday of Camille Pissarro (Charlotte Amalie, Saint Thomas, Danish West Indies (now US Virgin Islands) 10 July 1830 – 13 November 1903 Paris); Impressionist and Neo-Impressionist painter.  His importance resides in his contributions to both Impressionism and Post-Impressionism.  Pissarro studied from forerunners, including Gustave Courbet and Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot and later studied and worked alongside Georges Seurat and Paul Signac when he took on the Neo-Impressionist style at the age of 54.  Pissarro is the only artist to have shown his work at all eight Paris Impressionist exhibitions, from 1874 to 1886.

In 1871 he married his mother’s maid, Julie Vellay, a vineyard grower’s daughter, with whom he would later have seven children.  They lived outside of Paris in Pontoise and later in Louveciennes, both of which places inspired many of his paintings including scenes of village life, along with rivers, woods, and people at work.

Gallery

Today is the birthday of James McNeill Whistler (James McNeill Whistler; Lowell, Massuchusetts July 10, 1834 – July 17, 1903 London); artist, active during the American Gilded Age and based primarily in the United Kingdom.  He was averse to sentimentality and moral allusion in painting, and was a leading proponent of the credo “art for art’s sake”.  His famous signature for his paintings was in the shape of a stylized butterfly possessing a long stinger for a tail.  Finding a parallel between painting and music, Whistler entitled many of his paintings “arrangements”, “harmonies”, and “nocturnes”, emphasizing the primacy of tonal harmony.  His most famous painting is “Arrangement in Grey and Black No. 1” (1871), commonly known as Whistler’s Mother, the revered and oft-parodied portrait of motherhood.  Whistler influenced the art world and the broader culture of his time with his artistic theories and his friendships with leading artists and writers.

Whistler’s lover and model for The White Girl, Joanna Hiffernan, also posed for Gustave Courbet.  Historians speculate that Courbet’s erotic painting of her as L’Origine du monde led to the breakup of the friendship between Whistler and Courbet.  During the 1870s and much of the 1880s, he lived with his model-mistress Maud Franklin.  Her ability to endure his long, repetitive sittings helped Whistler develop his portrait skills.  He not only made several excellent portraits of her but she was also a helpful stand-in for other sitters.

In 1888, Whistler married Beatrice Godwin, (who was called ‘Beatrix’ or ‘Trixie’ by Whistler).  She was the widow of the architect E. W. Godwin, who had designed Whistler’s White House.  Beatrix was the daughter of the sculptor John Birnie Philip and his wife Frances Black.  Beatrix and her sisters Rosalind Birnie Philip and Ethel Whibley posed for many of Whistler’s paintings and drawings; with Ethel Whibley being the model for Mother of pearl and silver: The Andalusian (1888–1900).  The first five years of their marriage were very happy but her later life was a time of misery for the couple, because of her illness and eventual death from cancer.  Near the end, she lay comatose much of the time, completely subdued by morphine, given for pain relief.  Her death was a strong blow Whistler never quite overcame.

Gallery

Today is the birthday of George Charles Beresford (10 July 1864 – 21 February 1938); studio photographer, originally from Drumlease, Dromahair, County Leitrim.

Between 1902 and 1932 he worked from a studio in Knightsbridge at 20 Yeoman’s Row, Brompton Road. Here he produced platinotype portraits of writers, artists and politicians who were celebrities of the time. His images were used in publications such as The World’s Work, The Sketch, The Tatler and The Illustrated London News. He donated substantially to the Red Cross in World War I. In his later years he became an antique dealer. In 1943 the National Portrait Gallery acquired some of his negatives and prints from his former secretary.

Beresford was a close friend of Augustus John and Sir William Orpen, another Irishman – they produced a number of images of each other.

Beresford and Julia Ellen Maunsell (died 13 October 1923) were married on 10 April 1861.

gallery

And today is the birthday of Marcel Proust (Valentin Louis Georges Eugène Marcel Proust; Auteuil, France; 10 July 1871 – 18 November 1922 Paris); novelist, critic, and essayist best known for his monumental novel À la recherche du temps perdu (In Search of Lost Time; earlier interpreted as Remembrance of Things Past), published in seven parts between 1913 and 1927.

Proust never married and apparently had romantic relationships with novelist and artist Lucien Daudet, composer Reynaldo Hahn, and his chauffeur and secretary, Alfred Agostinelli. Proust’s friend, the poet Paul Morand, openly teased Proust about his visits to male prostitutes. In his journal, Morand refers to Proust, as well as writer André Gide, as “constantly hunting, never satiated by their adventures … eternal prowlers, tireless sexual adventurers.”

He died of pneumonia and a pulmonary abscess aged 51. He was buried in the Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris.

quotes

Autrefois on rêvait de posséder le cœur de la femme dont on était amoureux; plus tard sentir qu’on possède le cœur d’une femme peut suffire à vous en rendre amoureux.

• In his younger days a man dreams of possessing the heart of the woman whom he loves; later, the feeling that he possesses the heart of a woman may be enough to make him fall in love with her.

Le temps dont nous disposons chaque jour est élastique; les passions que nous ressentons le dilatent, celles que nous inspirons le rétrécissent et l’habitude le remplit.

• The time which we have at our disposal every day is elastic; the passions that we feel expand it, those that we inspire contract it; and habit fills up what remains

[Le bonheur] est, dans l’amour, un état anormal.

• In love, happiness is an abnormal state.

Comme tous les gens qui ne sont pas amoureux, il s’imaginait qu’on choisit la personne qu’on aime après mille délibérations et d’après des qualités et convenances diverses.

• Like everybody who is not in love, he imagined that one chose the person whom one loved after endless deliberations and on the strength of various qualities and advantages.

L’amour, c’est l’espace et le temps rendus sensibles au coeur.

• Love is space and time made tender to the heart.

L’adultère introduit l’esprit dans la lettre que bien souvent le mariage eût laissée morte.

• Adultery breathes new life into marriages which have been left for dead.

Une femme est d’une plus grande utilité pour notre vie si elle y est, au lieu d’un élément de bonheur, un instrument de chagrin, et il n’y en a pas une seule dont la possession soit aussi précieuse que celle des vérités qu’elle nous découvre en nous faisant souffrir.

• A woman is of greater service to our life if she is in it, instead of being an element of happiness, an instrument of sorrow, and there is not a woman in the world the possession of whom is as precious as that of the truths which she reveals to us by causing us to suffer.

Mac Tag

thanks for stoppin’ by y’all

The Song of the Day is “Unchained Melody” by The Righteous Brothers

Let’s lie and say it could never have been otherwise. – Jim Harrison

I would have rather felt you round my throat, Crushing out life, than waving me farewell. – Marcel Proust

Bad luck was my god. I stretched out in the muck. – Arthur Rimbaud

It’s not a dream, / But the reality that makes our passion / As a lamp shadow… – W.B. Yeats