the weblog of robin camille davis

Les Incroyables et Merveilleuses: “literally roving bands of angry dandies” in post-Revolution France. An anti-rebellion fashion statement from the upper class. Cutting your hair à la victime was in — that is, cutting your hair short the way the executioners did before they guillotined someone. Yeah. Fashion.
L’inconnue de la Seine: the most famous face in [...]

If you haven’t already, you’ve got to see The Letters of Vincent van Gogh. The Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam has scanned in all 902 letters to/from VvG they have, complete with transcriptions, translations, and footnotes. Some of the letters contain sketches. You can sort his letters by recipient, place, and period. You can view [...]

Sometimes in Solana Beach, CA, we wake up to stacks & bridges of plain beach pebbles, constructed by some anonymous citizen(s) for our enjoyment. I took these photos in 2006 with a falling-apart camera. I don’t know when the last time I saw the stacks was, but I miss them. I miss the beach. I [...]

The Hay library had a stack of lit mags from the 70s called For Now up for grabs, so of course I grabbed some and even came back the next day to squirrel away some more. I’ve been turning them into art projects. Below are some cut & paste poems (poems made of poems!).

Click through [...]

In 1930, the linguist Charles Kay Ogden published a book called Basic English: A General Introduction with Rules and Grammar. In it, he proposed a structured, simplified version of English to be used as an international language. He came up with a list of 850 core words that were enough to get by with in [...]

See part 1 for more info on The Pillow Book by Sei Shōnagon.

[157] Situations you have a feeling will turn out badly
A son-in-law who has a fickle nature and tends to neglect his wife, and who now hasn’t visited her for some time.
Someone given to lying nevertheless makes himself out to be capable and dependable, [...]

The Pillow Book was written by Sei Shōnagon (c. 966–1017) during the peaceful Heian period in Japan. She was a gentlewoman in the imperial court known for her wit and clever poetry. (Poetry was a big deal then — you would be justified in severing all contact with a lover if he sent you poor [...]