Atheist, Francophile, part-time Victorian gentleman, Freemason, Artist, Writer, Bonsai maker, Blogger, Classics reader, Opera aficionado, Moleskine addicted, Capitalist, Evolutionist, Global warming denier, Psychologist, Gaucho, Jazz man, Playwriter, Brazilian, Art Deco, Neoclassical, Social thinker, Biomechanics being, aspiring lighthouse keeper, future tugboat owner, Belle Époque revivalist, Dreamer, Absinthe connoisseur, African descendant, Surrealist, Guinness club member, Bohemian, Hedonist, Smithsonian, Avante-garde, Auckland War Museum member, Cat nemesis, Conservative, Harlequin suspicious, Lexicon fantastic, Absolutist, Sketching master, Candottiere, Ex-Libris, Theorist, Caffeine junk, Rational animal, Caravaggio admirer, Individualist, Alpha male, Steampunk, Gargoyle hunter, French cinema critic, Mastermind, National party voter, Living History, Flamboyant, Grimm brothers’ reader, Platigio, Revolutionary, Symbolist, Pirate, Alchemist, Zeitgeist, Royal mint collector, Web designer, Ecologist, Insightful, Chess player, Enemy of state, Cyber merchant, Elitist, Social philosopher, Strategist, Lover, Pinot Noir drinker, Barista, Geopolitics, Museophile, Noveau Realisme, Missionary, Oxbridge enthusiast, Explorer, Caissa worshiper, Agnostic, Visionary, Il carbonario, Untergunther, Cataphile, Virtuoso, Crayola buyer, Imperialist, Rocketeer, Moat’s buider, Muse, Zealot, Decorator, Artisan, Painter, Educator, Carpenter, Roman a clef and Chivas Rigal seal of approval.
Edgar degas
The adventures of lady Sarah Harris
Stanton pieces
Matthaus Merian
Taw
King Edward VII
Messalina
English telephone booths
Found and purchased yesterday. …Somewhere in Auckland, New Zealand… Going to auction at trade me website this Friday.
Ready to invade...
No man is an island,
entire of itself.
every man is a piece of the continent,
a part of the main.
if a clod be washed away by the sea,
Europe is the less,
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This celebrated woodcut records the arrival in Lisbon of an Indian rhinoceros on 20 May 1515. The ruler of Gujarat, Sultan Muzafar II (1511-26) had presented it to Alfonso d’Albuquerque, the governor of Portuguese India. Albuquerque passed the gift on to Dom Manuel I, the king of Portugal.
The rhinoceros travelled in a ship full of spices. On its arrival in Lisbon, Dom Manuel arranged for the rhinoceros to fight one of his elephants (according to Pliny the Elder’s Historia Naturalis (‘Natural History’) (AD 77), the elephant and rhinoceros are bitter enemies). The elephant apparently turned and fled.
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It is said that the genius of Rembrandt Van Rijn meant nothing when facing a blank piece of paper, and perhaps he was one of the few artists of the XVII century period that was afraid of facing the empty. Rembrandt didn’t have the luxury of Absinthe and green fairies or the incentive of financial packages provided by powerful Cardinals. With broken pockets, Van Rijt was the first of the free thinking artists of his time.
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Ten Stone by Brian Despain
“At the Closerie des Lilas I sat in a corner with the afternoon light coming in over my shoulder and wrote in my notebook. The waiter brought me a café crème.” – A Moveable Feast, Ernest Hemingway
I decided to initiate this blog as an expression of my daily writing and readings were basically, it reflects some of the contents of my dearest Moleskine notebook which include sketches, notes, stories and ideas.
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