Category: Serendipity

#745 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Serendipity1 Comment

Sunrise, a flat tide and good weather is one of my favourite things to photograph. It starts the day well. I pulled this one out of my archive. The last few days have been dull and very wet. Thank goodness for sequins and festive-season appropriate clothes.

If the weather outside is Frightful

But my sequins are delightful

I will glow, I will glow, I will glow.

I discovered lurex when I was about 5 and performing in a ballet school performance. Wearing twinkly fabric became a secret passion. I am drawn to anything with a bit of twink or metallic embellishments. The clothes of the disco era made my life complete. If I had an ounce of entertaining talent the world of show business would be my twinkling oyster.

Failing that being a host or bar staff at a glamorous gay club would be the perfect career choice. Every day is a sequin day. Drag Queen, for obvious reasons, is an unobtainable goal. I am already a woman, no strapping required.

As things stand in the real world December is my month to shine.

I have a tiny twinkling capsule wardrobe. Four items that can add pizzazz to the day plus a vintage fake tiger fur jacket.

December gives me a pass to sparkle on a daily basis. Doing every day things wearing a little bit of twinkle lifts the spirits . Dog walk in a sequin skirt, obviously I am just walking the dogs before a lunch date. Cryptic black T-shirt how normcore is that?

Maybe this is the point to remember Shane McGowan of The Pogues.

Fairytale of New York

It was Christmas Eve, babe
In the drunk tank
An old man said to me, “Won’t see another one”
And then he sang a song
“The Rare Old Mountain Dew”
I turned my face away
And dreamed about you
Got on a lucky one
Came in 18 to one
I’ve got a feeling
This year’s for me and you
So happy Christmas
I love you, baby
I can see a better time
When all our dreams come true
They’ve got cars big as bars, they’ve got rivers of gold
But the wind goes right through you, it’s no place for the old
When you first took my hand on a cold Christmas Eve
You promised me Broadway was waiting for me
You were handsome
You were pretty, Queen of New York City
When the band finished playing
They howled out for more
Sinatra was swinging, all the drunks they were singing
We kissed on a corner then danced through the night
The boys of the NYPD choir
Were singing “Galway Bay”
And the bells were ringing out
For Christmas day
You’re a bum, you’re a punk
You’re an old slut on junk
Lying there almost dead on a drip in that bed
You scumbag, you maggot
You cheap lousy faggot
Happy Christmas your arse
I pray God it’s our last
The boys of the NYPD choir
Still singing “Galway Bay”
And the bells were ringing out
For Christmas day
I could have been someone
Well, so could anyone
You took my dreams from me
When I first found you
I kept them with me, babe
I put them with my own
Can’t make it all alone
I’ve built my dreams around you
The boys of the NYPD choir
Still singing “Galway Bay”
And the bells are ringing out
For Christmas day

Not all contemporary Christmas music is money-making goop. Link below.

Appropriately dressed for December.

#blingblog

#744 theoldmortuary ponders.

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Serendipity, WordsLeave a comment

Yesterdays blog caused quite a stir. It seems that rizz is a word that people really enjoy using instead of the word allure.

#743 theoldmortuary ponders.

I know a blog has gone down well when at some point in the day someone quotes it back to me. Also my stats go up, but that is less pleasurable than meeting someone who wants to talk about the blog.

It was news to me that I have been spelling ‘pizzazz’ wrong all my life.

Maybe I can blame my rural North East Essex youth where people still spoke with a soft accent rather than the better known Estuary English which is now synonymous with Essex.

There was no i in our pizzazz when I was growing up and for all of my life until yesterday. There was a rabbit hole of discovery on line that briefly swallowed me up. You can click on the link or not

https://uselessetymology.com/2019/11/15/where-does-the-word-pizzazz-come-from-etymology-history/

The Etymology of ‘ Pizzazz’- Useless Etmology.

I think I have always enjoyed words that include zeds.

Reliably first on the front row of a Querty keyboard.

Deliciously somnolent when written or typed repetitively. Zzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

The funny thing is that I must always have ignored spell check and pressed on with my own abbreviated version as the Whatsapp message at the top of the blog shows.

I was at school with a boy who had a zed in all of his names, Juliusz Bezjak Szpytma, I was very envious.

Imagine my excitement when I discovered that the devices used to light gas hobs had piezoelectric cells!

Enough, time to draw this blog to an end before I pass its Zenith.

#743 theoldmortuary ponders.

On By theoldmortuary.designIn art, Serendipity4 Comments

Oxfords Word of the year 2023 crept up on me with such stealth that I had never heard of it and certainly not used it. Rizz!

https://corp.oup.com/news/eight-words-go-head-to-head-for-oxford-word-of-the-year-2023/

Word of the Year 2023
After more than 32,000 votes, and a team of language experts, Oxford’s Word of the Year 2023 is…
rizz.


What does it take to command attention without even trying. A whole lot of charisma, or the shortened form, ‘rizz’.



Pertaining to someone’s ability to attract another person through style, charm, or attractiveness, this term is from the middle part of the word ‘charisma’, which is an unusual word formation pattern. Other examples include ‘fridge’ (refrigerator) and ‘flu’ (influenza).

In our bobbing world of wacky conversations we certainly discuss the theory of rizz we just didn’t know there was a twinkly new word for it. The word ‘allure’ was used.

15 of us have been cold water swimming, ‘bobbing’ for nearly 3 years. In that time we have gathered irregular non-bobbers who come to watch from the sidelines. There are benches where family and friends can sit and take in the sea air.

Allure or rizz as it can be called is an entirely unintentional characteristic. I’ve had it all my life, this is not a boast just a statement. From conversations after swimming you either have it or you don’t. As you can see from the top photo. I am an entirely normal human being , not glam in any way. You would pass me in the street both now and thirty years ago, as in the portrait. What neither the portrait or photo show is the message writ large on my forehead that says ” Talk to me”

Rizz, is both a blessing and a curse. Strangers can be fascinating but sometimes there just isn’t the time or space in my schedule for a deep and meaningful with someone I don’t know.

One bobbers mum came to watch us one day last summer. She has rizz and she knows how to use it. ( I don’t use it because I am at heart an introvert, it uses me.) When we got out of the water she was deep in conversation with a man . By a gorgeous blogging piece of serendipity they were both from Oxford. He was originally from Plymouth but after a long career in glamour photography had settled in Oxford. How on earth did he alight next to a woman, also from Oxford to enjoy a 30 minute conversation in the sun. Marie has Rizz, it exudes out of her like honey from a hive.

Rizz is genetic. Marie’s daughter, a bobber has it. A few weeks ago I was talking to a stranger. ( Of course I was!) We alighted on a person we both knew in common. ” Magnetic smile” were the exact words used. Marie’s daughter emitting her rizz!

So there we are, a whole blog about a word I hadn’t heard of until two days ago.

Now about the portrait, and there are two more by other artists, also done because of rizz. When I was a mature Fine Art student I was approached to have my portrait painted as part of someone else’s course work because I had an interesting face. For interesting I think we can swap the word rizz. Curiously not one of the three portraits have the words ‘ talk to me’ across my forehead. I absolutely know those words are there because why else would an introvert get so involved in extrovert things.

©Peter Orrock

https://www.peterorrock.com/about

I have lost touch with Peter but he has 30 paintings for sale on Artfinder.

#742 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Books, SerendipityLeave a comment

Do you have a favorite place you have visited? Where is it?

My favourite places are Libraries. Libraries are magic portals to other worlds. The first magic portal I entered is no longer a library.

© Charles Watson

Braintree Library was a short walk from my mothers workplace. From a very young age the building became my childcare facility. My mum’s best friend was a Librarian here so that sentence is not as neglectful as it may seem. How I wish I had followed her career path or something similar and had a working life amongst books and words.

Starfield Library, Gangnam, Seoul.

Somewhere there must be a couple of theses that I wrote. Gathering dust, written and bound, skulking in a university library. Created before the digital age, they contain my thoughts on medical imaging . There is also a more recent one called Finding the Erotic in Nature, but on the whole my words are unpublished. My anonymous boobs appeared in a medical textbook and a published Fine Art Photography book. Normal boobs, not the glamorous variety. The only book in a library that has me as a named contributor is this one.

And in a way it links back to my early days in Braintree Library. My mothers workplace, close to the library was, a radical at the time, sexual health clinic. When the call out for pillows to commemorate and celebrate women whose work made a difference to society I submitted a design that was accepted for a travelling exhibition and book.

The exhibition went to some fabulous places. Maybe 10 prestigious institutions.

So in one way or another, in a very minor way I will forever be in a library. But in the real world way, whenever my path takes me close to a library and time permits, I am likely to pop in.

Trinity Library, Dublin

For the love of books.

#741 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Serendipity1 Comment
An Octopus keeps an eye out.

What lies beneath?

Tranquility Bay was not too tranquil at the surface yesterday , but what goes on beneath? The National Marine Aquarium, in Plymouth is featured in a T.V programme. Our watery neighbours serendipitously revealed on television.

Secrets of The Aquarium

There is a tank dedicated to the waters of Plymouth Sound so it is possible to see who else is in the water when we bob.

We never see Starfish unless a deceased one washes up on the beach but we do see and occasionally feel the remnants of jelly fish.

There is something peaceful about these bobbing neighbours of ours. They quietly go about their day while the bobbers excitedly swim about just above their watery realm. We tend to imagine bigger more troublesome things. The trouble is, of course, more in our imagination than in reality. We invade their world noisily and with a lot of splashing, quietly observed by sea creatures going about their lives with far less fuss.

#740 theoldmortuary ponders.

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Serendipity5 Comments

When we moved house from the actual Old Mortuary we bought a house with 7 Chandeliers. After 2 years we have got that number down to 4. We are not Chandelier people. I don’t have a fear of Chandeliers, and one of my favourite comedy moments involves a Chandelier.

I love a big, grand Chandelier like the one above, ours are poor imitations and rather effective as dust catchers. I have created a Chandelier black hole for this blog, I was looking for the opposite of serendipity. I wondered how to get there. Coloured glass was my route.

After a few days in Venice, where this Chandelier twinkled for us, we had seen more coloured glass than was good for us.

I had rather hoped to see some gorgeous contemporary glass but if there was anything beyond the predictable temptations for tourists we didn’t find it. So without being able to show you gorgeous glass I will share another video . Dale Chihuly in Venice. If you have the time follow the video trail that Youtube offers. Some truly great art.

Gorgeous glass in Venice. If you watch the video you will notice that the artist wears an eye patch. By an awful quirk of fate a shard of glass from a shattered windscreen blinded him in one eye.

An artist blinded by the medium that made him famous.

Quite the opposite of serendipity which , thank goodness, takes us to the black hole at the centre of this blog. Zemblamity

Goodness me that was tortuous!!

#739 theoldmortuary ponders.

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Serendipity1 Comment

Are you more of a night or morning person?

Serendipity comes in all shapes and forms. This question landed just as I had done the morning dog walk.

A beautiful creamy morning in December. Such a fab illustration for a blog with this question at its heart.

I am neither a night or a morning person. Greedily I love both. Once I passed the age of 30 it was obvious that I could no longer have both with the ease of youth but I can still happily enjoy the night until it bleeds into the morning. 2 or 3 am can be vivid in a way rarely found in their pm counterparts. The jolting, head nods of the early afternoon are one of my worst pieces of behaviour. They have plagued me all my life. How dreadful is that?

#738 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn abstract photography, SerendipityLeave a comment

Day 2 of #Celebrating Serendipity.

This morning as I wrote on the first day of December, I was warmly snuggled under my duvet feeling like bobbing was not the best idea when the temperature was 0 degrees C. How wrong could I be. Tranquility Bay was as tranquil as a summers day.

All the attending bobbers made it to the buoy at least once and still managed an enormous amount of nattering.

As usual the subjects were broad and wild. It’s amazing how vivid conversations can be after twenty or so minutes of really chilly swimming. As vivid as the tidal pool was on our departure.

And I have created two baubles for the #Celebrating Serendipity Chart. This morning I had no idea how December blogging was going to go and now I have a bauble chart. Days really do take the strangest paths sometimes.

#737 theoldmortuary ponders.

On By theoldmortuary.designIn art, SerendipityLeave a comment

Pondering December 1st.

Admirals Hard

On the threshold of the festive season and where to take pondering for a whole month.

The picture above was serendipitous about a month ago. The incoming tide created a meandering tide mark that leads the eye to one of my favourite local doors.

Celebrating Serendipity and where it leads me is going to be the theme of the 31 blogs that will ease us into 2024.

The first few days will still draw heavily on my recent Italian trip but who knows where serendipity will take us. This morning at 0 degrees I already know that life and not serendipity is going to dip me in the sea.

But back to last weeks serendipity. An Andy Warhol painting  that caught my eye. Not to be too self absorbed, but Illeana Sonnabend, an American-Romanian Art Dealer, born in 1914 was a doppelganger for me in the 1980’s.

As luck would have it there are no retrievable photographs of me in that era but if me and Illeana were in the same room and at the same age you might easily mistake us for twins. Serendipity at its very best.

#736 theoldmortuary ponders.

On By theoldmortuary.designIn art, Serendipity, Words2 Comments

One of life’s pleasures, of my sort of aimless wandering in a foreign city, is indulging in capturing the textures, colours and experience of inconsequential but interesting things.

I loved the texture created by the loss of mortar between the bricks of this wall in Venice. Texture and ginger colours was a bit of a thing for me on this particular day. I was able to see the original painting of a mythical bird woman by Max Ernst.

The imperious bird-woman commands our attention with her direct owl’s gaze, and seems alarmingly about to step out of the painting. The robe depicted here may refer to the mystic initiation of Christian Rosenkreuz, founder of Rosicrucianism. It seems also to have autobiographical allusions, with the artist present in the green swan or heron. Much of the highly textured surface has been created by decalcomania, a technique of dabbing at wet paint with rags or paper to create a puckered surface. The comprehensive meaning of this painting eludes us, as is characteristic.

Max Ernst’s paintings often baffle me, but even when reproduced the textures he creates are thrilling. To see one up close and actually see the picture in person was a fabulous treat. But as a word collector I was almost as thrilled with the word ‘decalcomania’

So much to take in, in one walk. Time for refreshment. Which turned out to be just one more moment of inconsequential discovery. My poor old post-covid taste buds long for anything that stimulates them into action, however brief. Ginger is a regular drink of choice and the fierier the better. There was an Italian soft drink that promised great things with its name.

Gingerino offered not a glimmer of ginger but it was one of the bitterest and delicious things I have tasted in a long while. Despite its nuclear colour I was hooked and rather giddily had another. Sadly it seems my discovery was just a very brief holiday romance. Gingerino and I will never be reconnected in the U.K.

A day of remarkable ginger texture is definitely a day well spent.