The light of the scan

 Light is, more often than not, what really makes a photograph. And one thing that makes the scanner such a fascinating and wondrous machine is its great line of light, making its way across the pane slowly like a monk marching steadily alongside a river. I don't know. It has a beauty to it. That slow crawl that's almost too slow for the eyes. The line that darts about when you look elsewhere. Just like those RGB projectors that show you all three colours in wiggles when you move your eyes. I love those.

 Anyway here I am. These scans are actually from, I think, November last year. And don't I look the same as ever? The scanner bed has a way of equalising the skin. I look older in person than I did thirteen years ago, but here it hardly looks different. Same flesh as always. Same hair, more sandy on the screen, maybe.

But I do have, here, my orange journal and the clear pink glasses that leave semi-permanent dents either side of my nose. How rude of them. 

Entering Deer World

 Okay so, number one: blogging is over - blogging is dead - blogging is over. We all collectively decided one day that blogging was not what we were going to do anymore. Sad.

 Number two: I can't remember what I did two days ago. If you were to ask me this question, many times I would say, 'uhhh....". Sad.

Number three: girl, the storage on my phone is always threatening me. It's always saying "hello my dear, I am only 15gb. I'm weak". Sad.

***

So the obvious and righteous conclusion is that I have to do something here. I have to once again bravely blog. So here we are, and here I will begin.

 Today I went to Nara. I've been staying in Osaka for a solid and delicious three weeks, and finally it became my turn. To see all those deer.

It was a beautiful day - strangely humid - and rain only poured down ragefully for about ten seconds of it. An angelic sort of day, and so I made the forty-five minute trip over to Nara and immediately saw that they were serious about the branding. Deer type stuff, everywhere. After a small walk to a nearby Buddhist temple (inside which lives a massive golden Buddha with a dainty little moustache - you are not permitted to photograph him), I spotted a small pen of deer. Some people were feeding them crackers. It was a modest sight, but the deer did appear to be ravenously hungry.

Nearby, there was a beautiful little lake, and I searched for deer crackers (the crackers to serve up to the deer). After finding some at the local Daily Yamazaki, I was finally in business and could perform my duty as a deer-feeder. Humble. Important.

 But I hadn't even reached Nara Park yet. I saw a large torii gate and headed towards it. This was the entrance to the park, and it was pretty exciting. Here were an astonishing number of deer. 

 I began to feed a small group of male deer, and I realised that there were warnings about the male deer around the park for a reason. Some of them tried to eat my skirt. Some of them gently headbutted me. Rude. 

The ladies were much more respectful, and there were also some very mellowed out old geezer deer who I liked. There were also some more impressive temples to find, but most importantly: masses of deer shit. I tried my best to clean my shoes on the way home, but it was hard to avoid picking up a special little souvenir.

The day felt like a wonderful dream, just walking around in a haze, occasionally being nudged and bowed to by the creatures, pockets of sunlight slipping through the trees. 

 What a true delight it was.

Digital Woman, Digital Wardrobe

I was watching Laini Ozark videos the other day, mostly about styling via digital wardrobe apps (my new obsession), and she's so funny and nonchalant and iconic, and her videos so straightforward, that it made me yearn for the old fashion blogspots of the '10s. Every so often I search around for fashion blogs of this general type and come up empty. Where is my girl Kayla Hadlington (she's here)? Where is the girl I forget the name of who used to fill blog posts with slightly moving gifs of her Hello Kitty halternecks? WHERE ARE THE ROOKIE MAG GIRLS?!

Laini Ozark. I love her.

 

I miss them. They are the little angels hovering above one shoulder, telling me, "yessssss, yessssssssss, wear your ladybird backpack for toddlers, make a collage, listen to Habibi". And like, ok I will, but where are you girl? I need you.

Sweet memories.

Whatever, let me tell you about the wardrobe app I use. So I actually downloaded two, because I love to survey and assess my options: Indyx and Whering. Sometimes I think the "normal word but mispelled" app/website naming convention has run its course, but it never, ever has. That sort of thing is eternal. I would name my app "clozet" I guess. I would name my app "wardroob".

Indyx, though, got dismissed immediately because it wanted me to sign up for an account before doing anything. I don't like signing up for an account before I really know if I want to use an app, so I tend to just uninstall apps that do this, and so the choice was made for me: I shall use Whering.

On reflection, having watched a few people talk about both apps, I think Whering is probably the one I would've liked better anyway. They seem pretty similar, but Whering reminds me a little more of Pinterest's Shuffles (which I love), where Indyx is a bit more classic-looking - reminds me of the kind of fashion blogs which do still exist and are plain and corporate and boring. It's a minor thing, but the point is just that I really like Whering.

One thing of note that I've seen people talking about is AI styling features in Whering. This is not something I'm interested in at all, and when an AI feature is suggested to me in any app I start gnashing my teeth, but I actually can't see a single AI thing in this app. So I don't know what's going on there, I don't know if I'm somehow missing what's right in front of me, but it doesn't exist to me, so I guess that's simply not real. Don't worry about it. It's not there.

The coolest feature of all time though, is the styling tab, which brings up this clothes slider that you can use to cycle through different pieces and build an outfit. You can choose to layer 2-4 garments from different categories, and there. is. a. shuffle. button. This is endless fun.

What really drew me to downloading this type of app was the prospect of delicious statistics. After uploading all of my clothes, shoes, and bags (barring a couple of things I'm sure are lurking in strange and foreign spots outside my wardrobe), I get to see this beautiful round number:

Wow, who is she? She has 80 items. Can you believe it?

I love seeing a breakdown of everything I have at a glance. The truth about me is that I have nine short-sleeved t-shirts. And I'm actually not ashamed of that.

 

Also, my favourite colour is black. Not shocking information, but nice to see a percentage. We need to raise that black higher. We need to reach 50%. This is my dark goal.

Umm so what are you gonna do with this sweet app, Lilly? What's your game?

Well, dear reader, I think it might help me to be reminded of things I don't wear as much but love. There's a delight in being able to see it all without opening the wardrobe, or rifling through the unhangables to see what's around. There's a smooth, easy visual to enjoy via just having a screen that can show you a top/bottoms/shoes combo. There's a power in knowing I have [exact number] of camisoles. I am emboldened to know what exactly is happening in my wardrobe.

Who knows what can come of this. Probably incredible pleasure.

 

Look at this bug:

Orange Journal, or: Yes, I started another journal

Once again I have succumbed to my innermost urges, the ceaseless indulgent need in me to start another journal. No, it's okay, stop screaming. I love them all. I really do. When I don't finish them, it's only because I believe they deserve blank pages. They deserve a future, a long life of limitless potential.

It can't be helped. A woman needs a new journal. And here is mine, for now. The orange thing. It is approaching Christmas, after all, and in the UK we are obsessed, in a rather perverse way, with orange-infused chocolate. Not least, the Terry's Chocolate Orange, which has always been, to me and many others, associated with Christmas. So this is my defence. This is why I believe it inherent to me on perhaps, some misty biological level. This thing really is very orange.

This last spread is a tribute to my time on Liberty Island with the big lady - something I've been wanting to do for a few years - which I finally did this month. And wow, she's good. Looking up inside her carapace and seeing this dark network of industrial beams - it's really cool. She's a woman of fortitude. Also these drawings are very funny, and possibly the most accurate representations of me ever made.

Alice Meynell's Poems - A 1913 Collection

Recently I found a new delight at the book shop. I was arms deep in a second hand poetry table at The Strand, and I pulled out this unnassuming olive green volume:

I liked its pious, Victorian poems filled with straightforward rhyming couplets and floral imagery - this era of poetry really speaks to me for some reason, very schoolhouse to me - but what really excited me was the discovery that this book was signed - in 1914 - by Alice Meynell herself.

I was like, oh, yeah, I gotta buy this. And it was a modest $10. Perfect. A new treasure for me.

There's also a lovely portrait of her by John Singer Sargent which greets you as you open the book, drawn in 1894. I love how rough and thick those pencil lines are.

Here's one of my favourite poems (so far) from this collection:

 

AN UNMARKED FESTIVAL

 There's a feast undated, yet
    Both our true lives hold it fast,—
Even the day when first we met.
    What a great day came and passed,
    —Unknown then, but known at last.

And we met: You knew not me,
    Mistress of your joys and fears;
Held my hand that held the key
    Of the treasure of your years,
    Of the fountain of your tears.

For you knew not it was I,
    And I knew not it was you.
We have learnt, as days went by.
    But a flower struck root and grew
    Underground, and no one knew.

Day of days! Unmarked it rose,
    In whose hours we were to meet;
And forgotten passed. Who knows,
    Was earth cold or sunny, Sweet,
    At the coming of your feet?

One mere day, we thought; the measure
    Of such days the year fulfils.
Now, how dearly would we treasure
    Something from its fields, its rills,
    And its memorable hills.

The Best Prop Ever Made: Red Dragon's Journal

Recently I watched the movie Red Dragon, and we can forget about every single aspect of this movie right now aside from the one thing I was in complete awe of: the journal.

After the movie's intro, we're treated to one of those beautiful '00s opening credit sequences, and this one is laid over extensive shots of the one prop that they truly went crazy for: Red Dragon's own gorgeous, scribbly journal. There are so many pages, it's so thick, and it's just so nicely arranged. I am taking huge inspiration from the neatly arranged newspaper cuttings, sinister medical woodcuts, and perfectly scrawled thoughts in pen. This guy would've have been a Tumblr darling in 2008, most certainly. And for that, I'm more inclined to support his crimes.

I love the way clippings are overlaid on some of these pages - many have a picture in the centre of this huge page, surrounded on all sides by handwriting, and I like that layout a lot, how it conveys a singular focus and feels somehow more chaotic and intense than it might if the image was placed at the top, or top-left, of the page. It just feels more serious, more prominent to the eye. I love that.

There's a neatness to the arrangements of these pages, but still you can feel the frenetic, hurried energy of them. The way the handwriting fills up every tiny space, to the edge and in some cases over the top of the pasted in clippings, perfectly communicates a certain feverishness. There's a great sense of layout that is ultimately just the base for the unchecked ink ramblings of the guy. It's such a great object.

Again, the neatness, and the consideration of layout is clear when you look at each page here, but there are lots of little rough details that bring it back to feeling super real, and like a genuine document of thought - like the torn edges of this headline:

I would love to flip my greasy little fingers through the actual prop. In any case, it's a fantastic bit of inspiration for my journals. I might start collecting more newspapers.

I TAKE TOO MANY PHOTOS (and yet not enough)

I swear, every time I look through my phone’s IMAGE FILES I am greeted by the unstoppable and dire realisation that no, I will never be a true neat minimalist legend. I will simply be a woman with things. And the things I have the most of, clearly, will be all those alluring files I keep on my precious phone. 

Blossom in New York, 8th April 2024.

The best thing, without a doubt, is that they’re backed up. Because they’re not stored in one easily destructible phone, but on Google’s big, meaty servers too, everything was basically okay when I abandoned my poor phone at Heathrow last October. Am I still hurt by how lacklustre the lost & found department at the airport was? Yes. Am I still haunted by the knowledge that at any time it can all go south, and I can be on a 12 hour flight without my phone, saying, “wow I wish I had my phone”, and then be in Tokyo for maybe a week and a half completely phone-less, gazing at commuters eyes fixed on their phones like an orphan at an out-of-reach bowl of gruel? Yes. But basically, it was fine. Still got all my pics. Still got most of my apps (although tragically I lost the now-unavailable free version of Kanji Tree, but the person who made it deserves cash money, and I have other kanji apps).

I went to a safari park with my family, and I saw ponies there (yesssss).

The point is, my pics and snaps are eternal. They will never die. They will exist as long as I have storage left. And I do. I do have storage left.

They accumulate though. Like a big mould. Sometimes I look back upon them, and find seven near-identical photos of me standing in front of a landmark. None of them are “show to another human being” level images. And yet they are here, in the bowels of the phone. Lurking.

I love them. 

Eclipse in New York, 8th April 2024.

Here are some pictures from my recent outings. Try to guess what events may have lead me to take them. Try to imagine the rich life I may be leading. And then smile as you look. These are my images. This is me.

Abandoned Squirtle, 9th May.

Tasty treat, 21st June.

Hand reaching out, 30th May.

Lost Mickey, Tokyo, 3rd Jan.