Vote for Me!

My Dad encouraged me to submit a collage for a new contest that the Newport Art Museum is having. I submitted 'Romeo and Juliet' and didn't really think anything of it until I got a call today that I'm a finalist. So now I'm asking all of you to go to the facebook contest page and vote for me!

Wesley B Austin

(This post is dedicated to Hannah Hager Phenicie.)

I have never been a watch wearer, lets face it- with cell phones always on hand, they've grown a little obsolete. But now that I'm commuting 45 minutes each way to Brooklyn everyday, I find myself increasingly glancing at my wrist when my cell is buried too deep in my bag or when we're so deep underground that its signal gets faulty. Thus, I started a search for a watch. In my mind, what I pictured was a watch that felt like an old family heirloom, nothing over the top and gaudy, just something with the loved and used aura of an antique. When I found this watch I knew that I was in love:


I found it at the amazing antiques/vintage emporium The Showplace, from this wonderful gentleman who showed me a number of 1920's, 30's and 40's watches. I was almost afraid to ask the prices once I'd seen his amazing goods, and was totally shocked when I found that I was easily within budget! The watch I settled on is from 1940, its a Hamilton which was a big brand in the day, but what really drew me to it was on the back of the case. Inscribed in clear neat lettering are the words Wesley B Austin, and the date 12-25-40. I thought it was a real sign given that my parents were going to be giving me the watch for Christmas, 12-25-10. On the watches 70th birthday it found a new home (and a new gender of owner!) I love wondering about where my watch has been and what its seen, I feel like I'm breathing new life into it as we explore the city together.


I know that this image is a little weird but it was impossible to get a photo that showed the inscription so I ended up putting it on a flatbed scanner.

i carry your heart

Well I had to follow up that Catullus poem with another of my favorite romantic poems. This one is a few millenia younger, but just as heart rending:




i carry your heart with me(i carry it in
my heart)i am never without it(anywhere
i go you go,my dear; and whatever is done
by only me is your doing,my darling)
i fear
no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want
no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)
and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows
higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)

-e.e. cummings

February is for Lovers

I'm in a romantic mood today, so I'm going to share a latin poem by Catullus which is as romantic as it is enduring.

vivamus mea Lesbia, atque amemus,
rumoresque senum seueriorum
omnes unius aestimemus assis!
soles occidere et redire possunt:
nobis cum semel occidit breuis lux,
nox est perpetua una dormienda.
da mi basia mille, deinde centum,
dein mille altera, dein secunda centum,
deinde usque altera mille, deinde centum.
dein, cum milia multa fecerimus,
conturbabimus illa, ne sciamus,
aut ne quis malus inuidere possit, ,
cum tantum sciat esse basiorum.


Let us live, my Lesbia, and love,
and value at one farthing
all the talk of crabbed old men.
Suns may set and rise again.
For us, when the short light has once set,
remains to be slept the sleep of one unbroken night.
Give me a thousand kisses, then a hundred,
Then another thousand, then a second hundred,
then yet thousand, then a hundred.
Then, when we have made up many thousands,
we will confuse our counting, that we may not know the reckoning,
nor any malicious person blight them with evil eye,