Scurvy Oaks

If you like American furniture, neoclassical architecture, 18th and 19th century portraits, old churches, old cars, and occasional pieces of opinion, this is the place for you. “The sweetest thing in all my life has been the longing — to reach the Mountain, to find the place where all the beauty came from — my country, the place where I ought to have been born. Do you think it all meant nothing, all the longing? The longing for home? For indeed it now feels not like going, but like going back.” ― C. S. Lewis, Till We Have Faces

[serpentinesheldonserpentine]

Well, it's early nights

And pillow fights

And your soft laugh

Fantasy world and Disney girls

I'm coming back

[serpentinesheldonserpentine]

Jim, it’s here. Really is here.

Country shade and lemonade

Guess I'm slowing down

It's a turned back world

With a local girl

In a smaller town

[no-one2ne1]

[sapiofeline]

Artsy Fartsy…?

[sweet-harmony]

…this is Bo Palace, founded in 1222, one of the oldest universities in the world and once home to great minds like Galileo Galilei. A place of knowledge, innovation, and centuries of academic tradition. It currently houses the rectorate, the law school, and boasts the world's oldest anatomical theater. The architecture of this palace - in the heart of Padua - with its marble, columns, and frescoes, make it a true masterpiece…

@sweet-harmony

[porcelainapparition]

Wareham, Massachusetts

circa 1774

[freiherr-von-naarenburg]

Two new sermons by St Augustine discovered

In a Latin manuscript from a monastery in Poland, a Latin scholar from Würzburg has found two new sermons by the Doctor of the Church, St Au

[beardedmrbean]

[rockyp77mk3]

LOL!

[beardedmrbean]

[protestantfaceofanglicanism]

Marvelous scene in Greenwich Hospital

[scurvyoaks]

"Old men who never cheated, never doubted, Communicated monthly, . . ."

[portrait-paintings]

Portrait of Clementina Hooper nee Burnside

Artist: Charles Howard Hodges RA (English, 1764-1837)

Date: 1820-1825

Medium: Oil on canvas

Collection: Royal Albert Memorial Museum & Art Gallery, Exeter, England

About the Sitter: Clementina Hooper (nee Burnside) was born on 12 July 1803. At the age of twenty she married George Stanley Hooper (1797-1867) of the East India Company. The wedding was performed at St. George’s Church, Madras on 18 December 1823.

[periodinteriors]

Constantin Hansen (Danish, 1804-1880), A company of Danish artists in Rome [pictured left to right: Constantin Hansen, Martinus Rørbye, Wilhelm Marstrand, Albert Küchler, Ditlev Blunck and Jørgen Sonne], 1837, oil on canvas.

[freiherr-von-naarenburg]

Scotland fans drink Boston dry as local bars run out of beer

The parent company of Sam Adams said its Boston Taproom ran out of the brand's flagship Boston Lager over the weekend because Scotland socce

[gadawg-404]

[serpentinesheldonserpentine]

Well, this kinda puts a damper on my evening mood.

70 is a curious age. Some of us are working hard to defer or defeat the looming demons of cancer, metabolic diseases like Alzheimer’s or diabetes, and other illnesses like ALS, MS, or stroke. I no longer drink hooch and haven’t smoked in ages.

Others of my friends are saying fuck it and burning it all down, taking up hooch, dope, and fast food like they were some kind of secular sacrament.

I’m not gonna analyze the partiers and hope they don’t analyze me, but geez most of these folks led straight and sober lives until recently. They’re living life today as though it’s Cosplay for the roles of roadies in an Allman Brothers tribute show.

Stay tuned.

[culturaloffering]

Good news from the world of actuarial science: If you make it to 65 without any of those horrible diseases, your life expectancy actually starts to increase again.

Take 70, for example. The fact that you are 70 and don't have cancer, Alzheimer's, metabolic disorders, or other significant problems, means that you sort of walked successfully through the graveyard of people killed at a younger age.

You are coming into the clearing and your life expectancy is now 18.1 years. . .at least. The old averages include a cohort of people who die much younger. Your new cohort is healthier.

Cheers!

[americana-plus]

On this day, June 17, in 1775, the Battle of Bunker Hill begins.

British General William Howe lands his troops on the Charlestown Peninsula overlooking Boston, Massachusetts, and leads them against Breed’s Hill, a fortified American position just below Bunker Hill, on this day in 1775.

As the British advanced in columns against the Americans, American General William Prescott reportedly told his men, “Don’t one of you fire until you see the whites of their eyes!” When the Redcoats were within 40 yards, the Americans let loose with a lethal barrage of musket fire, throwing the British into retreat. After reforming his lines, Howe attacked again, with much the same result. Prescott’s men were now low on ammunition, though, and when Howe led his men up the hill for a third time, they reached the redoubts and engaged the Americans in hand-to-hand combat. The outnumbered Americans were forced to retreat. However, by the end of the engagement, the Patriots’ gunfire had cut down nearly 1,000 enemy troops, including 92 officers. Of the 370 Patriots who fell, most were struck while in retreat.

[portrait-paintings]

Miss Laura Dorothea Ross (Mrs Francis Robertson)

Artist: Sir Thomas Lawrence (English, 1769–1830)

Date: c. 1798–1804

Medium: Oil on canvas

Collection: Tate Britain, London, United Kingdom

[freiherr-von-naarenburg]

The British Rape Gang report is out. . . A quarter million girls over generations. . .

bit.ly/4uE5odw

“While Sir Keir Starmer was the Director of Public Prosecutions, it has been reported that 13,000 suspected rape gang members and paedophiles were let off with warning letters (p 147).”

[einsliga]