Toast and Honey

"I initially decorated it with a picture of Vita Sackville-West in the garden at Sissinghurst, but have since found a photo that suits the mood of these little black books to perfection. It is of a gang of Paris intellectuals, lined up in Picasso's studio at a party in 1944. Camus and Sartre are squatting on the floor, hands clasped about knees, while Picasso smirks, arms folded, at someone to the left of the photographer. Simone de Beauvoir is very chic and buttoned up, Zanie de Campan sports an improbable hat and Lacan, hair falling across his brow, stands at the edge, oblivious to the camera, exchanging a wry look with Jean Aubier.

Well. I may not have a salon of existentialists loafing about my flat, borrowing corkscrews and eating up all my Gentleman's Relish, but I strongly suspect at least half of them had the same notebook tucked into their breast pockets."

Olivia Laing
Visit her blog, "Toast and Honey".

Image courtesy of the author.

Comments

[Olivia]

The name's Olivia, actually.

[IL Postino]

Our apologies.

[Il Duce]

Actually, I read a biography of Picasso, and it noted that he wrote poetry in a small, black notebook that he could easily hide, and this was while he was still living in Paris.