New York Daily Photo for interesting posts like this one: a photo and a small post about Myers of Keswick. New York really is just a conglomeration of small neighborhoods. Follow his links – they’re all really fascinating.
I am not a Brit, but I’ve shopped in that store. I love the details he puts in his small posts to go along with each photo. He gets all this great information I didn’t know – and it’s presented in a lovely open manner, I think. That site is now a daily stop for me.
Along these same lines, here is the daily poem on Garrison Keillor’s site (another daily pitstop for me). It’s connected to what that New York Daily Photo site makes me feel like, and also my general feeling these days – with autumn approaching, and the city sidewalks seeming renewed and crisp, the air moving, the Hudson blue and sharp. Autumn in New York, now, is understandably connected with melancholy and grief. But it’s all part of it. I feel like a stranger here in the humid stinky sticky filthy summer. Fall is my season.
Elizabeth Bishop is one of my favorite poets (I posted about her here) Here’s her poem below. Love it.
“Letter to N.Y.” by Elizabeth Bishop
For Louise Crane
In your next letter I wish you’d say
where you are going and what you are doing;
how are the plays, and after the plays
what other pleasures you’re pursuing:
taking cabs in the middle of the night,
driving as if to save your soul
where the road goes round and round the park
and the meter glares like a moral owl,
and the trees look so queer and green
standing alone in big black caves
and suddenly you’re in a different place
where everything seems to happen in waves,
and most of the jokes you just can’t catch,
like dirty words rubbed off a slate,
and the songs are loud but somehow dim
and it gets so terribly late,
and coming out of the brownstone house
to the gray sidewalk, the watered street,
one side of the buildings rises with the sun
like a glistening field of wheat.
âWheat, not oats, dear. I’m afraid
if it’s wheat it’s none of your sowing,
nevertheless I’d like to know
what you are doing and where you are going.
We had this great British food shop in Biloxi, MS. It was owned and run by this guy who also ran a comic book shop (which is really the only reason I knew about the food shop, yes, I know, I’m a geek). The owner was a British expat whose wife taught piano and played for most of the local theater productions. Unfortunately, his shop wasn’t my favorite, and I don’t know if it survived Katrina. But I remember all those neat little British flags on all these different products. None of it was appealing to me to consume, but I always thought it looked so orderly compared to an American food shop.
Hi Sheila!
How funny to read this today, as I’m in London right now. I did both my junior year term abroad and graduate school here. I can’t believe I’ve never been to this store. They have everything, all my favorites! Walker’s chicken flavor crisps (chicken flavor? What? Um, I don’t know — I like it), hobnobs (delicious and fun to say, too), kerrygold butter, pg tips tea, shreddies (shreddies!), mince pies, all the chocolate, and clotted cream — my favorite food of all, and something which could easily substitute for spackle in a home repair pinch. Oh, and who could not love a country that has a brand of dish soap called Fairy Liquid? But Marmite? No, I’m sorry. That’s fish food.
Have you been to Carry On Tea and Sympathy — Tea and Sympathy’s nextdoor shop on Greenwich Ave.? Ooh, and have you read this:
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/article2387814.ece
(sorry, I’m inept at links)
Oh, and Sheila, that’s a truly fantastic site. Pickle Day! Governor’s Island — where my parents were married! What beautiful photographs.
Kristen – I didn’t see that article – love it!!
You turned me on to this site – did you see today’s photo?! Fabu!
The many-legged creature at that parade? Amazing!!!
I loved the pics of Governor’s Island, too – a place I have never been but always wanted to.
fairy liquid!! who wouldn’t want to take a bath in that! the first comment on this post about meyers of keswick made me laugh out loud:
rAoeK said…
sorry, I’m french. what is the tri-state area? (your blog is very interesting)