To Autumn
I saw the movie Bright Star today which coincidentally happened to be exactly 190 years to the day after John Keats wrote To Autumn. So I can't think of a better way to salute the film, the poet and the change of season than to post the poem in it's entirety. To Autumn
Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;
To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease,
For summer has o'er-brimm'd their clammy cells.
Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?
Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find
Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,
Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;
Or on a half-reap'd furrow sound asleep,
Drows'd with the fume of poppies, while thy hook
Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers:
And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep
Steady thy laden head across a brook;
Or by a cyder-press, with patient look,
Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours.
Where are the songs of spring? Ay, where are they?
Think not of them, thou hast thy music too, -
While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day,
And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue;
Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn
Among the river sallows, borne aloft
Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;
And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;
Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft
The red-breast whistles from a garden-croft;
And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.
- John Keats, 19 September 1819
The exhibit begins with his earlier works that "borrowed expressive qualities of Parisian Post-Impressionism and the luminous colors of the Fauvres." There are also a few examples of his attempt at pointillism. Symbolism also played a role in his earlier works with the horse and rider who symbolized the crusade against conventional aesthetic values. It is clear from this exhibit that Kandinsky was as much as a philosopher as artist. He was also one of the founders of the Der Blaue Reiter group that was fundamental to the expressionist movement in Germany.
Peinture de Paris
The hotel only has 26 rooms and we splurged on one of the Superior rooms. If you are traveling alone or don't mind a little togetherness with your traveling companion, they have smaller and less expensive rooms as well as off season specials.
I joked before the trip that all I wanted was my own little twin bed and what we got instead were two twin beds made up as one. We pretty much passed out the minute our heads hit the pillow anyway so it didn't really matter! It was a cute room though!
Hotel Continentale 
