Deidre Lynch
@drbibliomane
She/her, 1st gen, Canadian who's at Harvard but isn't OF Harvard--posts mainly about books (w/ cats & flowers thrown in for good measure). Now writing an itty-bitty book that aims to be a literary & media history of scrap.
Not a great photo (it's difficult to photograph), but here is a picture of part of Toronto's Irish Famine memorial, at the edge of Lake Ontario. Enjoy your travels!
And how did I forget Girodet's blockbuster based on Chateaubriand's novel?! Atala au tombeau, at the Louvre.
On this super depressing day (another), I did encounter another #tinyjoy. The smoke lifted enough for me to take a walk. Please look at the butterfly I met as it visited a neighbouring zinnia. Thoughts as to species?
In praise of @tomkeirstead.bsky.social, whose cucumber (& red pepper!) harvest is just starting, & also William Cowper, #18thc bard of gardening, cucumbers esp: To raise the prickly and green-coated gourd, ...--is an art That toiling ages have but just matured, And at this moment unassay'd in song.
We saw a fabulous matinee of Waiting for Godot at the Stratford Festival today, & when we exited the theatre this is what the weather app told us about the air quality. The forest fires in northern Ontario are terrifying--again. That bare tree Beckett puts at centre-stage reads differently in 2026.
The primary school on our Toronto street is a construction site for the summer. An array of warning signs was mounted yesterday on the chainlink fencing that now surrounds the schoolyard. And then a clever graffiti poet showed up. DANGER DUE TO Religion Stupidity Americans & Monsters.
Since late June I have been writing a chapter on gleaning, & it only just occurred to me that that is what I'm doing myself, when, to take a break, I perambulate the 'hood & pocket this & that. This is my latest find, found lying on the sidewalk. I didn't know this version of Innes' book existed!
Since it's Marcel Proust's 255th (?) birthday today (🎂), I am seizing the opportunity to sing the praises of the British textile artist Rhiannon Williams, who stitched the 3000pp of In Search of Lost Time into patchworks, her aim being to "transpose a narrative figuring of time into stitched time."
#EarlyModern & #18thc pals, last night we had the good luck to see performed by William Christie's Les Arts Florissants two gems by Charpentier: his Les arts Florissants and Orphée. The harmonies were divine, the staging witty, & Koerner Hall in Toronto cradled us in beautiful sound. Here are 2 pics
Too much time has passed since my last posting of an #18thc nursery rhyme, so here is some nastiness from the juvenile library of 1744 for all of you. My Mill grinds/ Pepper, and Spice,/ Your Mill grinds/ Rats, and Mice.// Trilletto. So there!
I forgot to post about the #tinyjoys represented by this week's bouquet: dark pink cosmos, purple lupins, bi-coloured light purple/dark purple cornflowers/bachelors' buttons
Also weird that in this set of Emblems, "Merit" is the one male figure in a whole slew of female personification allegories: a king with a scepter and a book! What gives?
#18thc educational philosophy displayed in "Emblems for the Improvement of Youth," a 1784 writing sheet (the blank space is to be filled in w/ the pupil's best penmanship). I esp like "correction" holding a whip in her left hand while holding a pen in her right. Pedagogy has come quite a distance.
In 1976, in British Columbia, Canada, I had an embroidery kit based on this "Holly Hobbie" fabric. I probably didn't finish the sewing; I hardly ever do. But otherwise, a lot has changed in 50 years!
A former colleague invented this Reflecting Pool cocktail for his July 4th celebrations, and the really genius thing he did was include a bit of blueberry skin to honor the floating bits of American Flag Blue paint.
I fear I might have used this photo for Alison's thread last year, but, yes, it's Canada Day once again, and this Canadian tire money really is the most Canadian thing I own. So here we go again! (Happy Canada Day, bluesky!) #CanCon 🇨🇦
But ... speaking of Regency tables & fragments . .. if anyone feels like buying something like this for me, I wouldn't say no! Note the trompe l'oeil tabletop simulating clutter, & supposed to allure you into trying to pick up a playing card or coin or leaf through that open book of "Select Poems."
Being in shoe sales may run in the family. Here is Mr. Bean, faraway in Toronto, and yet he and Freya apparently have the same business plan.
I've been feeling blue about the news (the news from the U.S. Supreme Court esp), but the 5th farmer's market bouquet of the summer has brought some #tinyjoys to offset the depression. Here it is: pink peony, white & yellow feverfew, dark red Sweet William, peach & white snapdragon, mauve achillea.
Continuing this #InternationalPortraitDay thread. Though it was when I was much younger, I was told once that I resembled Rolinda Sharples's 1814 self-portrait, which was flattering. And I would indeed love to wear a dress like hers.
St. John's Eve, June 23rd, is also, of course, the night for bonfires, but it's way too hot for that this year. Otherwise, wicker men beware.
Happy St. John's Eve, Bluesky. This is the night when, according to William Hone's #19thc Everyday Book, you should keep watch by the church porch between 11 pm & 1 am: the ghosts of those fated to die in the next year will pass by into the church.
Since going to see Back Rooms, I've been imagining the White House ballroom like this.
Happy 283rd birthday, Anna Letitia Barbauld! Here, from 1795, is her at once funny, domestic, and sublime poem "Inscription for an Ice-House," offered in honour of her day, and also as a reminder to my UK friends who are anticipating a heat wave. Do consider putting ice in your drinks please!