Gardening With Nature by James van Sweden, the foremost american landscape architect of the day along with his partner Wolfgang Oehme. In the first chapter he describes his main influences then goes on to tell how he got started back in l971 when he asked Oehme to help him landscape the backyard of his old […]
Monthly Archives: January 2005
John Steinbeck and Ailanthus
John Steinbeck, the great American author, had occassion to notice Ailanthus. He describes them in his essay “The Making of a New Yorker” for the New York Times in 1943. The very first time I came to the city [New York] and settled was engineered by a girl. Looking back from the cool position of […]
Ailanthus: a poem
By John Marin —————————————————– AILANTHUS Please take a moment and think about the Ailanthus. No-one plans it. No-one plants it. No-one waters, Or prunes, Or sprays it, Or gives it plant food or weed killer or even manure. It squeezes between tall buildings, Through sidewalk gratings, And cracks in concrete, And in angles of fences […]
Catching up
I’ve been neglecting my website of late. Two entries in 2 months? I won’t be winning any blogging awards that way. Well, in fact I did manage to split the win for Macvaysia‘s Best Malaysian Weblog by a Mat Salleh Award. (Mat Salleh?) That could only be because it wouldn’t be fair for the more […]
The Fortress of Solitude
Thank you to Michael B. who wrote to say that Ailanthus shows up in the novel “The Fortress of Solitude” by Jonathan Lethem, a novel about growing up white in a black neighborhood in Brooklyn. Until I can track down a copy of the book for an excerpt, I’ll make do with Michael’s words that […]
The Element of Lavishness
The Element of Lavishness: Letters of William Maxwell and Sylvia Townsend Warner, 1938-1978 Maxwell to Warner, March 15, 1940: I have all but one foot out of the office, but continue to work a little each day on manuscripts, and will for another month and a half, with the mornings free to work out my […]