Le Corbusier’s cabin

i am a realist, not a fantasist, as a rule. but i do have a persistent fantasy about a particular kind of living space. earlier in my life, it was an empty loft in new york city, with no furniture except a white desk, white curtains, a white bed, and two white side tables. i have a similar vision of a whitewashed stucco house on a rocky, isolated greek or italian island. and now there is le corbusier. the architect known for brutalist concrete slabs built a tiny, rustic, cabanon (or cabin) on the shore of the côte d’azur, just a few kilometers from the italian border. the cabanon is 144 square feet, sided with half-logs like a northern minnesota cabin, and full of built-in furniture he designed. as steve and i walked across the beach to see the cabin yesterday, i looked down and realized that everywhere i looked, there were striped beach rocks, maybe my favorite kind of beach rock after hagstones. so now, of course, i want to live in le corbusier’s cabanon, and create art by the sea, and gather gallons of striped beach rocks, and then maybe one day when i am very old, go out for my morning swim in the mediterranean, and just not come back.

striped (gneiss) beach rocks from Roquebrune-Cap-Martin, France

classical

i finished this and thought about some goat-legged half-god in an olive grove, playing his lute and trying to seduce a forest nymph. i suppose it depends on how beautiful his song is, but mostly i’m cheering the nymph on to make good her escape.

bent eucalyptus twigs; autignac, france

give me some space

our half-adoption of a half-feral stray cat here means, as it always does with animals, that we have a bed guest every night who needs to be next to, on top of, or around the head of her adoptive mom. that would be me. i could use a little space.

mediterranean beach rocks from Sète, France

gratte-cul

these gorgeous rose hips come from the wild rose called here the eglantier, but known in english as sweet-brier. my favorite name for them, however, is gratte-cul, which translates as the delightful expression “scratch-ass,” because the little seeds inside are encased in a hairy husk that, when artfully dropped down the shirt or pants of a schoolmate, generate an exquisite torment that one can then talk about for decades, if not generations, according to our next-door neighbor here.

rose hips; autignac, france

sucker for umbels

i am a sucker for umbels. carrot, parsley, dill, fennel, angelica, queen anne’s lace (which is another way of saying carrot). i’m happy to throw my lot in with friends like that any day.

unidentified winter stem; languedoc, france