Charlotte Salomon... Life? or Theatre?. "...During World War II, while living in exile in France, the young German-Jewish artist Charlotte Salomon (1917-1943) created Life? or Theatre?: A Play With Music, comprising almost eight hundred small gouache (opaque watercolor) paintings... Although the artist died in Auschwitz ... Life? or Theatre? survived and stands as a testament to Salomon's life and singular artistic vision." (via gmtPlus9)... A friend of Boynton's once wrote a play based on her remarkable life/work.

Theatre or Trivia?...This remarkable portal of theatrical props is also a wonderful resource for cultural history...(and trivia fiends)...(via incoming signals)

somehow I would like these images- to be emblematic for the year says Paul Ford.
We're already seventeen days into 03, and climatically antipodean, but they resonate - and not only because the be-hatted groundhog resembles a photo of Douglas in Boynton's tam-o-shanter...Seeking St Francis, she found this site...

They are rather grave , but these drawings of (fatal) workplace accidents are of the exact genre that Boynton and Nora used to exchange during Maths classes. (Drawing over-turned tractors and birko cord mishaps was naturally a way of confronting schoolgirl fears) (via Pop Culture Junk Mail - who alerts us to the Pythonesque # 65)

If as this legend goes, the Christmas tree tradition is all down to a vision of Martin Luther's:
Walking toward his home one winter evening, composing a sermon, he was awed by the brilliance of stars twinkling amidst evergreens. To recapture the scene for his family, he erected a tree in the main room and wired its branches with lighted candles.
Boynton wonders what he'd make of the urban postscript? (via Boing Boing)
Because the Tannenbaum imperative is enshrined in both tradition:
In many parts of Australia a common tradition still is for people to go into local pine plantations and remove there own Christmas tree ... and the idea of tradition... Few native trees have the natural shape and density of foliage that is expected of a Christmas tree... it would seem that the seasonal lament of discarded pinus radiatia will endure.

Boynton found this post on quoits last night. (not kwait but koit but don’t quote her on this) Another surge of nostalgia. Visits to her grandfather in the country where along with cribbage these were the chief domestic recreational pastimes. Now consigned to the sort of “Bingo, Cards, Rummy,Jig Saw Puzzles; Discussion Group Callisthenics.; Radio clubs” class, Boynton was not surprised to learn something of its former stature, particularly among mining communities, or those with Welsh roots, or that in the
La Trobe Valley
quoits were the rage, and there were very strong quoit competitions running here in the town as well as with neighbouring places like Moe. When it started in 1914, the Great War caused the quoits to fold up too, and when the war was over, the competitions were not revived.
More local still- some early developments in Fern Tree Gully
Due to the evident support accorded to this event, Mr. T.S. Grimwood decided to form a quoit club within the local district. Interested local gentlemen held a meeting in March 1886 and the club was established...(The Ladies were in training for the Hopping Race) ...On the 19th June 1886, the Ferntree Gully Quoit Club felt confident enough to travel with their quoits and paid Collingwood a visit.

And then Boytnon found this on a Found site.

Bulky space killers A friend was prompted by Boynton’s book-triffid post to pass on an article that appeared in The Sunday Age 12/1/03 (no link) on bibliophile John Baxter by Michelle Griffin. His despair “of writers’ cavalier attitude to their books” would seem more to do with the “relative values” of book as text v book as objet (d’art, d’amour, d’collectormania) , 'the collectors in his book come across as the kind of people more likely to scrutinise the dust jacket and the imprint number on a book than to read it cover to cover' Alas, there are very few collectibles amongst Boynton’s eclectic bricks. Perhaps it’s the collector gene that prompts her to hoard.
Professional de-clutterer Christy Best would surely chide her.
People (myself included) love to save books even after they’ve read them. After spending time with a book, you become emotionally attached to it. Besides, they look pretty sitting on our bookshelves. But they’re bulky space killers.
On this site, a true believer weighs in with tales of hoarding in-laws. They have a "junk" shop in which they sell stuff, but they get little business--I feel it's just a front for their hoarding habit., and confesses feeling 'sick to my stomach... like I'm hyperventilating every time I drive up their lane'.
So after all this Tyranny of the tidy, it was good to read an article in praise of clutter. (via aldaily)
Finally, if writers display a cavalier attitude to books, actors take the cake. Boynton has seen some truly gut-wrenching aerial book-as-prop displays in workshops past. She quickly learnt to substitute the second-strand rehearsal copy.

Bronte - the Jack Russell - added a new twist to the last post...'she's out for the evening, better destroy a small plastic figurine of a Scottish terrier that Boynton had forgotton she had ever acquired'...It used to look like this. Now it's legless.

Boynton is currently suffering iron defficiency. She blames Douglas. He always gets so nervous when she takes out the ironing board - (as a puppy he learnt the sign: 'she's out for the evening, better destroy some furniture'), that she in turn learnt to avoid it.

There is a Woman in the Moon but many people have never seen her...(via Plep)
All very lunar Rorschach methinks, but delivers the classic line: In 1969, Apollo 11 landed just in front of the lady's ear....Was it something inherently mysterious in the theme that sent Boynton on a mothergoogle chase?...In any case she likes this take, even if the german expressionist rocket ship looks pretty much like a small household electrical appliance.

Still around 30, fires burning in the state, a smell of smoke in the suburbs, to the north a rose sky. 3 panting dogs circle restlessly round the dry garden, ants storm one of many half chewed apples, Boynton wilts.

Just when Boynton was on the brink of mastering the principles in making "a useful Afternoon Tea Wagon"... (or autotray as we Victorians prefer to say)...to go with being "on the wagon"...or should that be "on the water cart"...she reads that just thinking about it might make the simple tea wagon legless. (via nonharmful).
Must weigh up the placebos and the nocebos over next cuppa.