66 Square Feet: What is a garden?

Wednesday, July 7, 2010

What is a garden?

Railing garden on Bergen Street.

Windowbox on Smith Street.

Fire escape on Smith Street.

Fire escape on Court Street.

3 comments:

chamomilla said...: inspiring... any place can be turned into a garden...; July 7, 2010 8:24 AM
Christopher Paquette said...: I love these!; July 7, 2010 10:21 AM
Fougères said...: What a great idea. Anywhere can be a garden, if that's what you make it. It also makes me want to make the most of what I've been given, garden-wise. Please keep up the great postings and pics!

Fougères at www.VerdantSanctuary.com; July 7, 2010 8:06 PM

Manifesto

What is 66 Square Feet About?

It's about gardening in tight spaces. It's about how to live with a man and a cat in a tiny apartment with a tiny terrace. It's about photos, and friends, and inspiration and blackspot on the roses. It's about food and cooking over an open flame. It's about wine. And water. And watering...And picnics. It's about seasons without and within. It's about New York, and about South Africa. It's about where I go, and what I come back to: a terrace twelve-and-three-quarters by five-and-a-quarter feet wide.

Afterwards in the street, she looks around the neighborhood. "Yes, it is certified now."

She refers to a phenomenon of moviegoing which I have called certification. Nowadays when a person lives somewhere, in a neighborhood, the place is not certified for him. More than likely he will live there sadly and the emptiness which is inside him will expand until it evacuates the entire neighborhood. But if he sees a movie which shows his very neighborhood, it becomes possible for him to live, for a time at least, as a person who is Somewhere and not Anywhere."

The Moviegoer, Walker Percy

"Die kierie kom uit Indonisie, gesny van 'n tak wat van jongs af omslinger was deur a wildevy se rank. Hulle het saam grootgeword, en die rank het sy spoor op die tak gelos. Daarom is die slinger ook oneweredig, en hier,"se hy, "by die punt van die kierie moes daar iets gebeur het - die slinger en die tak het inmekaar gevleg en 'n knoop gemaak. Die natuur het die kierie so gemaak."

"n Kieriemaker sou dit eweredig gedoen het," se ek.

"My kind," se meneer Boje, "vermy die reguit lyn."

Petra Muller, Koendoes