James Mitchell
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plainfeather.bsky.social
James Mitchell
@plainfeather.bsky.social
150 followers 150 following 300 posts
Retired book publisher and author, medievalist, photographer, Soto Zen student, early musician, San Francisco resident since 1967, unrepentant hippie. Like Bluesky, life is plenitudinous.
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plainfeather.bsky.social
James Mitchell @plainfeather.bsky.social · 7h
Chandler is full of little surprises like that. I should go look if the director nailed the fixity ecstasis in either of the first two movie versions.
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plainfeather.bsky.social
James Mitchell @plainfeather.bsky.social · 18h
like a hunky immigrant catching the first sight of the Statue of Liberty. He was a big man but not more than six feet five inches tall and not wider than a beer truck. He was about ten feet away from me. His arms hung loose at this sides and a forgotten cigar smoked from behind his enormous fingers.
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plainfeather.bsky.social
James Mitchell @plainfeather.bsky.social · 18h
It was a warm day, almost the end of March, and I stood outside the barber shop looking at the jutting neon sign of a second floor dine and dance emporium called Florian's. A man was looking up at the sign too. He was looking up at the dusty windows with a sort of ecstatic fixity of expression,
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plainfeather.bsky.social
James Mitchell @plainfeather.bsky.social · 1d
#critters #doggos
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plainfeather.bsky.social
James Mitchell @plainfeather.bsky.social · 2d
A day to remember, October 18, 2025. Thx photographer Scott Ness.
#NoKings #SanFrancisco
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plainfeather.bsky.social
James Mitchell @plainfeather.bsky.social · 3d
No Kings! #caturday
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plainfeather.bsky.social
James Mitchell @plainfeather.bsky.social · 3d
Also the young prince appears otherwise to be wearing a dress like the queen.
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plainfeather.bsky.social
James Mitchell @plainfeather.bsky.social · 3d
No Kings!
Jean-Michel Basquiat, The Trumpet.
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plainfeather.bsky.social
James Mitchell @plainfeather.bsky.social · 4d
The thong design I'm sure is conventional enough to appear in all cultures, including aboriginal ones. I haven't really looked into it, but the drawing shows the queen and prince together, whose controversial relationship is summarized in the German Wiki <Sieben weise Meister.>
plainfeather.bsky.social
James Mitchell @plainfeather.bsky.social · 4d
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plainfeather.bsky.social
James Mitchell @plainfeather.bsky.social · 5d
I have absolutely no idea what's going on with this picture, but it is tempting to think there may have existed a branch of Frederick's of Hollywood in late medieval Germany. (Berlin, germ. qu. 12 1471 Folio 97r.)
#medievalsky
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plainfeather.bsky.social
James Mitchell @plainfeather.bsky.social · 7d
H.W. Tilson, "Columbus Day", The Saturday Evening Post, Oct. 11, 1930.
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plainfeather.bsky.social
James Mitchell @plainfeather.bsky.social · 8d
First snowfall of the season at Glacier National Park: livestream webcams at Late MacDonald and Apgar Mountain.
#MountainMonday
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plainfeather.bsky.social
James Mitchell @plainfeather.bsky.social · 10d
I would definitely think about a trip to Newfie if I could be sure of siting a Newfoundland Pine Marten (Martes americana atrata).
#critters
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plainfeather.bsky.social
James Mitchell @plainfeather.bsky.social · 11d
"Diejenigen, die man tanzen sah, wurden für verrückt gehalten von jenen, welche die Musik nicht hörten" / Nietzsche.

"Those who were dancing were considered crazy by those who didn't hear the music."

#Nietzsche
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plainfeather.bsky.social
James Mitchell @plainfeather.bsky.social · 11d
Big party tomorrow night at Tam O'Shanter's house!
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plainfeather.bsky.social
James Mitchell @plainfeather.bsky.social · 12d
The gentleman on the right at the dinner table who has eaten too many oysters is presumably the new prime minister, while the guy next to him falling backwards has been struck by a brick, and the guy next to him on the floor has his head wound addressed.
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plainfeather.bsky.social
James Mitchell @plainfeather.bsky.social · 12d
Great moments in modern democracy - William Hogarth, "An Election Entertainment," 1754-55, Sir John Soane's Museum, London. Debauched Tories celebrate an election victory while demonstrators heave bricks through the window.
#art #oilpainting
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plainfeather.bsky.social
James Mitchell @plainfeather.bsky.social · 13d
The Dog with the Pearl Earring.
Thx Tim Mitchell.
#art #Vermeer
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plainfeather.bsky.social
James Mitchell @plainfeather.bsky.social · 14d
In the Distance, Andrea Kowch, 2022.
#art #oilpainting
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plainfeather.bsky.social
James Mitchell @plainfeather.bsky.social · 15d
Art Nouveau house in Paris, 29 Avenue Rapp in the 7th arrondissement, designed by Jean-Baptiste Larrive, 1901. Imagine returning home from work every night and walking through the doorway.
#architecture
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plainfeather.bsky.social
James Mitchell @plainfeather.bsky.social · 16d
Thx Sailing Rose.
#SailawaySunday
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plainfeather.bsky.social
James Mitchell @plainfeather.bsky.social · 17d
Bring me my Bow of burning gold:
Bring me my Arrows of desire:
Bring me my Spear: O clouds unfold:
Bring me my Chariot of fire!
#bikes
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plainfeather.bsky.social
James Mitchell @plainfeather.bsky.social · 20d
Thx Flora Smyth Zahra, who sent me a photo in which the MFA placed two similar vases in front of the painting at an MFA gallery. This was a trick I'll bet they learned from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum.
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plainfeather.bsky.social
James Mitchell @plainfeather.bsky.social · 20d
Later I learned that giant vases were popular in Boston homes. The way two of the girls stare out from the shadows and seem to be hiding something reminds me of Henry James' spooky "Turn of the Screw" novel, and of course the whole configuration might have been filched from Velazquez' "Las Meninas."
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