Small Time Blues by Pete Droge (Almost Famous movie)

Star Sayings

Innumerable as the stars of night, Or stars of morning, dewdrops which the sun Impearls on every leaf and every flower.

John Milton, Paradise Lost. Book v. Line 745.

Starry-eyed - overly romantic or idealistic.
Star-crossed - thwarted or opposed by the stars; ill-fated.
Starmonger - astrolger, fortune teller (used in contempt)


Zeffirelli's star-crossed lovers in Romeo & Juliet, 1968

Star in some languages:
French - étoile
German - stern
Hebrew - כוכב
Irish - réalta
Italian - stella
Latin - sidera

An Herbal Treasure in NYC

It must have been nearly ten years ago when I began to explore the West Village of New York City as a starry eyed teenager. I'll never forget the experiences there that led me to choose to study at New York University for my bachelor's degree. I so loved the energy and the individuality of the people, the shops, the streets, the mosaiced lamp posts around there. I recall an afternoon when a friend and I met a guitar playing man named Lucas who played Led Zeppelin's "The Rain Song" to us in Washington Square Park. I looked around and thought, I want to live here someday. Some of my favorite shops were the tattoo and peircing parlors on St. Marx, the Mud truck always parked at Astor Place, the used record shops and Matt Umanov guitar shop and of course Aphrodisia Herb Shoppe on Bleecker St. I returned to Bleecker this summer after a long trip abroad and was saddened to find that Aphrodisia had closed down. I walked up and down Bleecker, unwilling to fathom that it was no longer there, especially since I have developed a passion and curiosity for herbs in the past few years.
A nice man at the bookshop next door informed me that the store did indeed close, and he gave me a business card, saying perhaps they'd reopen someday. I remember going into the shop, seeing the lovely lady and her gorgeous cat inside. The shop seemed so cozy and full of life, like an old cottage that was well lived in. I would walk around, trying to take in as much of the products I could. I would read the labels on the herbs, totally lost as to their function and use, but nevertheless aware of their quality and powers. I believe the only thing I ever purchased was a bag of loose tea that I might never have drank properly. Instead, I would go inside there to revisit a world that was otherwise lost to us. It was a place of magic and imagination, with its lacey curtains and dainty jars and decanters all around. The smell of the forests, the fields, and the gardens of the world were all bottled up in there. I never took advantage of the owners' wisdom, perhaps because when I entered, when I was living in that place and time, I didn't feel a need for any remedy or fix. I was content to just look around, and wonder. I miss that place, not because I was a regular customer, but because it holds a place in the dear memories of that time of my life. I miss what that place stood for, and still believe in it. Aphrodisia, like Washington Square Park, and the Rain Song, and St. Marks Place, will always remain the same for me.  I wish luck to the owners and hope they will open up again soon.

Art Nouveau Journals

Finding a suitable, worthy journal to house your innermost thoughts, dreams, and musings is no simple feat. Oftentimes the physical journal itself will encourage and inspire you to write more, merely because of its beauty, its stature. These one of a kind journals will surely not be wasted on to-do lists or budgeting. Though you cannot buy them individually, you get five assorted designs (about $6 each), so you can give them as gifts or have enough paper space for at least a few weeks, months, or days...depending on your writing style.

Anaïs Nin, Kindred Soul

Last week, I read:
"And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom."
That old familar fluster in my heart, I envisioned the release and felt close to the subject.
And then:
"Each friend represents a world in us, a world not born until they arrive, and it is only by this meeting that a new world is born."
A gust of inspiration overcame me as I read more of Anaïs' words. I had never heard of her, but I felt an immediate affinity with her spirit, so apparent in these one or two line truisms. Of course I sought out more of her works, and was led to Under a Glass Bell, a reader. I borrowed it from library, but felt I couldn't yet read it. I kept it beside my bed and glanced at it, wondering when I'd feel ready to pursue it. Just a few moments ago, I felt the time was right. I took the book with me to a private place and read the first short essay, "The Labyrinth." As I read, I was overcome with gratitude that I had been led to her, and more awe of the text's undeniable, unswerving mission; to awaken in me, the imagination I let sleep so long. I feel sure that reading her works will do a great service to my own soul, and also somehow, to the world. Who is this brilliant star, dressed in lace and ruffles? She left behind her diaries to the world, for us to find out. She wrote, in "The Labyrinth":
"My lips moved like the sea anemone, with infinite slowness, opening and closing...forming nothing but a design on water..."
I could envision a tiny, glowing anemone, a dweller in a world unknown to my senses, floating slowly on its journey that none else could embark upon. I could be that anemone in that moment, the distance diminished.
Her description of the labyrinth of her eleven year old diary evokes fantastical, earthy, folkloric memories of that dark green, velvety moss in mysterious, magical forests where as children, our minds dwelt as permanently as they do now, in the largely repetetive, resigned, and chapped world of adulthood. Nin advocates for the existence of that sensual, inconsistent, flower and fur-ridden place that's been buried deep beneath all this time beyond eleven years old.