Tag: birds

About Edgar

This evening I had the pleasure of attending a lecture about Edgar Allan Poe by Amy Branam Armiento, Ph.D., professor of English at Frostburg State University and immediate past president of the Poe Studies Association. Titled “The Macabre Poe,” the lecture is part of the annual October run of spooky, horror, and dark talks hosted by Profs and Pints, which brings college faculty members into bars, cafés, company offices, and other off-campus venues to share their knowledge.

Dr. Armiento gave a great presentation and I picked up a few tidbits about the great Poe that I didn’t know before. For example, he had something of a contentious relationship with his foster father, John Allan, so if you have a signed collectible and Poe’s signature spells out “Allan,” there’s a very good chance the signature is not authentic. I couldn’t blame Poe if he was resentful. He was taken in by John and Frances Allan when he was three years old and they never officially adopted him. Harsh.

So much for naming my bookends Edgar and Allan. Out of respect they are now Edgar and Lenore. See also, I’ve always thought it would be fun and rather metal to have two Vasa parrots and name them Edgar and Allan.

A black Greater Vasa Parrot in a palm tree.
Greater Vasa Parrot. (Image: Wikipedia)

I doubt I’ll ever have Vasas though. If I ever spy a pair at Phoenix Landing, I’ll be there, but they’re hard to come by on the adoption circuit.

A woman in the audience tonight was involved in naming the current Baltimore NFL team, and thank goodness she’s a Poe fan. Otherwise, the Ravens might have been named the Blue Crabs or the Lighthouses. I’m sure both the team and whoever designed the Ravens logo appreciate that. Too bad this audience member wasn’t also involved in renaming the D.C. team, which used to be called the Redskins and now goes by the Commanders. My guess is no woman was involved in that nonsense, or at least no one who ever read or watched The Handmaid’s Tale and doesn’t hate women.

Joseph Fiennes as Commander Fred Waterford in The Handmaid's Tale.
Joseph Fiennes as Commander Fred Waterford in The Handmaid’s Tale. Now we know where JD Vance gets his make-up ideas.

I picked up a copy of More Than Love: The Enduring Fascination with Edgar Allan Poe, a collection of essays edited by Dr. Armiento. In the essays, writers, poets, actors, visual artists, musicians, tour guides, teachers, and others describe how Poe has influenced their careers. I can’t wait to read it–but first, I will have to dig into my Barnes & Noble’s collector’s edition, The Complete Tales and Poems of Edgar Allan Poe for a refresher on some of the tales Dr. Armiento discussed tonight.

A book titled "More Than Love: The Enduring Fascination with Edgar Allan Poe."

And now for today’s candy, Necco wafers. These hardened discs of sugar and flavoring could have been made yesterday and they would still taste like they came into the world the same day Poe did.

Eye Candy

I’ve long put off doing something with my home office. All I have in a 9’5 x 11′ room is an L-desk, a file cabinet, and a salvaged printer table.

When the exterminator came by today for routine maintenance, one of the ladies in the rental office glanced in and I felt shame, so MUCH Libra shame. So I did what any good Libra would do and rationalize a little shopping spree by noting that it’s a three-paycheck month. Now I have a dark red and black traditional Oriental rug and a 55-inch black console table coming. I’ll get artwork after the rug arrives to see what colors will work best. I keep my office dimly lit, with warm light bulbs, so probably something in fall colors.

I didn’t stop there, though. I bought artwork for over my bed and a four-piece set of birdie artwork for somewhere in the living room. They’re 12-inch square so while they are long enough to take up the necessary space with three inches between them to fill the two-thirds rule of how wide artwork should be over a sofa, they might not be tall enough. If so, I will hang them in a square in the dining area.

Yes, I’ve been living without artwork in my apartment for about nine years now. Why? Because I got rid of all of the stuff I had when I moved back to Virginia in 2015 as it was all given to me by people I didn’t want to be reminded of in my new life. I also hate clutter, as my ex-husband was a slob (one of the reasons for the divorce—nope, signed up to be a wife, not a maid) and my ex-boyfriend was somewhere between a level 1 and a level 2 hoarder (living in the same zip code was enough for me).

A couple of years ago I started going to galleries and looking for paintings, but as much as I wanted to and could finally afford it, I just couldn’t bring myself to plunk down $2,000 or $3,000 on a piece of art for fear of getting it home and then finding that it wasn’t a good size or it just didn’t work with my furniture, color scheme, or light.

So hello canvas prints from small businesses on Amazon! If they work, great! If they don’t, no harm, no foul. I’m only out a couple hundred bucks and I can offer them to friends who might like them. I do know the bird art will work, because bird art will ALWAYS work in my home, but not sure about the abstract I bought for over the bed.

I also figured out where I’m going to hang artwork given to me in recent years by people I do want in my life, as well as smaller pieces I’ve picked up over the years and just never hung, like this beauty, “A Study of Riddles,” by Apollo the Crow at Diva Crows:

I don’t believe Apollo has been painting lately, or, if he has, Diva Crows has stopped selling his artwork, so I’m super glad I got one of his last commissions. He’s still alive and well as far as I know, though.

Another great thing about this painting is the fabric Diva Crows used to wrap it:

Yes, those are eyeballs in the roses. What lovely mix of romance and Hitchcockian terror! Fortunately, I’m on the good side of the Crows who live on the property, having kept them in peanuts for a couple of years now.

And now for today’s candy: Gummy Eyeballs! Fortunately, these were not around when I was a kid or I might very well have turned out even more warped than I did.

Seasonal Simplicity

Long brutal day and pressed for time, so I’m using one of my traditional safety entries, which is to share my current, seasonal wallpaper, downloaded from DesktopNexus.

In keeping with the theme of simplicity, chocolate balls are today’s candy. Like their Christmas and Easter counterparts, they’re wrapped in foil. One thing I remember about them is that sometimes part of the foil was actually in the chocolate, like the chocolate began to melt and then hardened around the edge of the foil.