Pope up..."we started getting massive packet loss suddenly..." say Haloscan "This has been a pretty hectic month for us as one problem after another has poped up"

But is it thrift? On her way down to the park, boynton saw the new guy carefully assembling a window display in the salvo’s. On her return she noted the interesting tableau involving 2 black clad mannequins, much lace and a dog leash. Nice to know art’s getting a guernsey in the immediate neighbourhood.

From early feb jessamyn (abada abada) has an interesting post on William Gibson and the topic always at the back of boynton’s mind: the effect of blogging on other writing, whether the diversion of the “writing urge” is useful – or perhaps sometimes slightly profligate.

Boynton loves this Vintage TV site, ( via The Presurfer) but also feels that old surge of collector-regret. Last year she saw a perfect model on the nature strip of a well heeled suburb over the river, in the hard rubbish collection. She consulted with friends who nay-sayed the idea of taking it home. That old chestnut, storage. ( and realistically – how many conversation pieces do you need?) But when Boynton sees these TVs with the complimentary accessories (which she could immediately furnish herself) she puts it down as one of those dumb lost chances. Especially as she saw a similar one for sale for a hefty price in the local op-shop. She’ll just have to add it to her expanding collection of things not bought, the regretted non-purchases of markets past and lost opportunity-shop finds.

Paul McGeough's The last of the Marsh Arabs in today's Age describes the destruction of the 5000 year old civilization, and the so-called the "environmental crime of the century" (tough call - given the competiton?). The once idyllic water culture the size of Wales... has become a windswept desert, to be glimpsed only on the dusty postcard racks in the desolate hotels and souvenir shops of the region.
In an earlier article the Marsh lands are described as having “an aura of infinity”. Even such an aura was transient it seems.
The vanishing can be seen in the stark satellite images in this BBC summary
Boynton read about this destruction in a grim, ( what is an adequate adjective for despair) footnote in Douglas Botting’s biography of Gavin Maxwell. Maxwell had written about his travels in the area in A Reed Shaken By The Wind. Here he found Mijbil, the first of the famous otters that feature in The Ring Of Bright Water books. For those of us who weep for Mij – how do we respond to the extinction of his species, the annihilation of the ecosystem, the destruction of a people, the loss of an ancient civilisation?

Nora was recently given part of her grandmother’s linen collection, which included an impressive display of souvenir tea-towels. Like the tea-towels etc described in this collection, they are stiffly pristine, preserving the gaudiness of fauna, the parrots and pineapples. Boynton was taken with the snowy mountain skiers, the saturated queensland, and the bold red palette of the penguin parade. Of course they work as art for boynton – who has always seen things in ephemera, and has urged Nora to put then up on the walls of her (condemned) house. A farewell exhibition.
They kind of look like this... I wish... Elsewhere another is described as an easy domestic form for keeping a memory. In this case, the popular nostalgia of the tea-towel also serviced private memory

In her search for vintage linen info Boynton found this page and has fashioned an original poem from the quick tips.

16 ways with vintage fabrics
Press vintage guests into service
With a remnant of ticking
Monogram collectible guests.
Before they do a runner
Make mismatched guests in
Worn out men’s shirts feel at home
Drape over tables, lined with a stack
In your garden for a summer party
Replace dreary with cheery with dreary
Before napkins in a wicker basket
sunfaded

The loss of commenting shouldn’t make boynton feel this is only half a blog, but it does. Dialogue disabled. Even if it’s just the possibility of dialogue. A switch must have occurred somewhere in the blogging mindset that was once happy enough to do monologues. Perhaps its something about validating the public voice, a bow to the audience. When “commenting is temporarily offline” audience functionality is switched off, the dynamic is dead, the theatre dark.

All day there has been a man on the neighbour's roof replacing the spouting. All the windows face south, the roof is about six feet away (as the sparrow flies). Boynton rigged up her old vintage curtain depicting cafe scenes from fifties Paris, Copenhagen, London, Verona. That means her view of the man has been mainly this and this as he walks along with his ladder. You get used to disjointed living in these terraces, or Fitzroy caravans as they are sometimes called.

"Alfred found much pleasure in reading"
from An Island Story - A history of England For Boys and Girls by H.E. Marshall (via Plep)

Boynton has found much pleasure in Kevan's Kenning Game Engine ever since bluejoh alerted her to its diversionary/literary appeal.

The humidity files. A Jack Russell Terrier evidently has a shorter fuse than a Labrador.
Bronte spent an hour mousing the other night, alternating between squeaking and wagging her tail. Then suddenly she snapped, barked impatiently and gave up. Obviously just too muggy to mouse…. So a benign-like-mine labrador would be a better inclusion in Jim’s early humidity warning system. Boynton has spent a languorous time following up her reply to Jim, about the Rawson Solution. Her source for this homily was once hearing a 3LO talk-back caller say that she had investigated the best place to live nationally for someone with (medical) low humidity tolerance and found it to be this small town that was built to service the Thomson Dam project. She sounded authoritative, but Boynton can find no web data to substantiate the claim. Just some pictures. A bonus is mini-golf on your doortstep. And a small maxi course ('15 years and never been parred") Would boynton’s vision of the caravan-canasta playing lifestyle finally be her place in the world, or a self-fulfilling prophecy?
Of course boynton could only be happy in a van that looked something like this. A repro retro model would look the part, but could never quite recapture the vintage baggage. Like all nostalgic constructs, it’s the outer shell only of memory. Boynton and a friend were once fortunate to hire a genuinely old style o’night van that had the requisite spring-loaded huntsman waiting in the venetians, an old half-hearted toaster and worn vinyl coverings. It was your quintessential non-descript experience. And this van predated the models that boynton’s family once hired, that cluttered up the princes highways of childhood, so there was little attendant folk memory happening while consciously eating rise-a-reeso off plastic plates. Nevertheless she has somehow developed an interest in old caravans. Until quite recently they could be seen quite commonly in country paddocks, but numbers would seem to be declining. She will never be quite so driven as this man who rescues them from field-rot in England. But she could just about consider building her own teardrop.

Pulp fiction... "We have a new look" announced the Age yesterday. Uh oh. We know such improvements in formatting can often be a masking agent for dumbness creep. In the etxra there was a big spread on how to slice a mango. After filleting, you score small sections without cutting through the skin... Hmm, there's got to be an analogy there thought boynton as she navigated through all the sections of superficial liftouts.