Three Things: The Cloud Edition, II
I’m in a cloud-gazing mood. This week, let’s write a cloud into our story/scene/poem/what-have-you. Need it be a boring little fluffy thing in the middle of a bright, blue sky? Well, that’s entirely up to you.
Alfred Stieglitz, Equivalent, 1930. Photograph.
Phil Toledano, The Woods. Photograph. www.mrtoledano.com
Roy Lichtenstein, Cloud and Sea, 1964. Porcelain enamel on steel. Museum Ludwig, Cologne, Germany.
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Psst, it’s Online Open Mic week! This is your last chance to get feedback on your work-in-progress for two whole months, since we’ll be taking an Open Mic break for the month of January. You have today and tomorrow to submit your piece! Go!
This week, I’m in a nautical mood. Let’s make our way to the coast and write a little something, shall we? For those of us stuck behind our writing desks, here are three images to prompt the salty, sea-worthy senses.
Lori Nix, At Sea, 2004, from Lost series. Photograph. www.lorinix.net
Alfred Stieglitz, Gossip–Katwyk, 1894. Photograph. Published in Camera Work, 1905.
Alex Colville, To Prince Edward Island, 1965. Acrylic emulsion on masonite. National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, Ontario.
Three Things: Train Whistle Edition
I lived, for a time, in a small Midwestern town with a railroad running through it. The train whistles on quiet nights were one of my favorite things about living there, at once melancholy and comforting. Like a late-night bell toll, those far-off whistles break into a gentle reverie as if to say, “I am here, too! You are not alone, awake in the dark.”
It is perhaps, then, no wonder that when I discovered The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows a while ago in the strange depths that is Tumblr, the very first (and possibly the shortest) entry caught my attention:
ameneurosis
n. the half-forlorn, half-escapist ache of a train whistle calling in the distance at night.
There are many other lovely imaginary words and definitions to be found in the (local!) blog—indeed, it was very hard to choose between them—but for this week’s Three Things, it is that train, off in the distance. I have for you this week not three images of trains (that felt too easy), but three pieces in which I can imagine the distant hail of a locomotive.
Don’t forget to listen for that whistle.
Edward Hopper, Gas, 1940. Oil on canvas. The Museum of Modern Art, New York.
Andrew Wyeth, Wind from the Sea, 1948. Tempera. Private collection.
Alfred Stieglitz, A Snapshot: Paris, 1911. Photograph.
