Where did that term go?!
Tsukioka Yoshitoshi, Saitō Oniwakamaru on a Carp, 1873
Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Herbert R. Cole Collection (M.84.31.432): https://collections.lacma.org/node/191654
Goodness me - how have we reached the end of another term?! We’ve thoroughly enjoyed the company of those of you who’ve joined us throughout - thank you! Robert’s looking forward to some well-earned gentle garden-pottering around the requirements of our reduced summer programme.
Shameless? Moi??
…Which is, of course, a flagrant reminder that there’s still time to book for said summer programme, aka The (Very Imminent) Northern Renaissance at Pickering, and, online, The Mongols, The Pre-Raphaelites, The Odyssey, and/or a visit to our archive for Byzantium or a Blast!
Before we move into summer mode, though, we’re delighted to announce that we’ve finalized our autumn in-venue course at Pickering. Robert will, therefore, be taking you on a seven-week voyage of sea-faring, settlement, and sagas, courtesy of…
Please note two important points, O Denizens of Pickering.
First, this will be a 7-week version of the 10-week online iteration. We shall not, therefore, be able to match all in-venue sessions to the online sessions, but equivalents to some of the sessions will be available via catch-up. We’ve not really got a feel from our experiment with last term’s Lost Worlds whether this is something we need to consider for those of you who prefer bricks-and-mortar courses. Do please let us know if so, so that we can take it into account for future programming.
Secondly, as with all in-venue courses, we’d be grateful if you could complete your registration with payment within 14 days of booking, as we need to establish whether we are able to run the course without making a financial loss, and thus confirm our provisional booking with the venue asap.
This leads me, tangentially, to the image at the top of this post. Those of you who joined us for Ukiyo-e in February will instantly recognize this as a Japanese woodblock print.
*[For those who are interested, it’s one of a series of illustrations which depicts the adventures of a warrior-monk. In this one, he’s avenging the death of his mother who has, he’s just learnt, been eaten by this giant carp. But we prefer the lovely Penny’s parsing of the image, for which, read on…]
Penny - whom many of you will also know from many courses - spotted it during her recent travels in Japan, whence she messaged thus: “It is very distinctive and made me laugh and think of you! You are hanging onto the fish like grim death. The fish is Wright History; you don’t know where it's going but you’re going with it. You have the knife, metaphorically speaking, between your teeth and nothing is going to stop your journey.”
You can, I’m sure, imagine, O Denizens, how many levels of delighted this made us. And that Penny was also kind enough to buy us our very own copy is the cherry on top of the icing of an already delicious cake!! Here it is in situ, where it makes us actively happy every time we pass it.
So… As Robert enjoys his summer pottering, I shall be determinedly riding that carp, knife between my teeth - aka working my way through a list of boring behind-the-scenes Stuff which needs longer attention spans than is usually possible amidst the excitements of term proper. No need to feel sorry for me, though - a quick scroll through our news posts reminded me that our prospects for this summer are infinitely rosier than they were last year! Additionally, I also have a second list of fun stuff lined up for around said boring Stuff, including some bookmarked TV, a few novels, and a brief visit from my mother (which will, of course, also be enjoyed by Robert and Duffy!).
It strikes me, by the way, that this snapshot accidentally and yet perfectly encapsulates Life at Wrightington Towers.
As some of you know, our respective lives were very different before we got together – as demonstrated by this ad hoc tableau: a table lamp from my last life which fitted perfectly where it used to be but is now rather at odds, aesthetically, with my now-home, atop Robert’s parents’ Ercol console table… Robert’s gardening hat and his Gentleman Scholar Panama hat … a dusty hairpiece from my erstwhile still-glamorous days… a foundational book from my academic hinterland, a biography of Tchaikovsky, a guide to antique musical instruments, and a novel loaned by a friend for my summer entertainment which features a couple living in Bishopthorpe (I kid you not) and struggling with a very particular form of self-denial as they seek to make a normal life.… And now it’s all beautifully brought into harmony by a gorgeous Ukiyo-e print which symbolises Wright History and is here due to someone whom we’d never have met had our lives taken even slightly different turns. Where did it all go so right?! Thank you so much, Penny!
And on that personal and very happy note, I shall sign off for now. Whether we’re seeing you over the summer or not, we hope you all have a super summer, and hope to see as many of you as would like to join us come autumn!