If you carry a picture around for years, does it say something about you? Maybe — at least as an indirect indication of feelings, conscious or subconscious. Here are four images that I have long held close, tucked in the back of my daily notebook — scratched and battered, stained and tattered. Witness these low-resolution reproductions for purposes of the ^zhurnal (Fair Use, copyright cops!):

• Anne Cuneo, a novelist living in Switzerland, sent me this card ca. 1994 with an encouraging note about my "Shakespeare Stack Project" (see ThanksAlot and [1] ). Her book, Objets de Splendeur, subtitled "Mr. Shakespeare amoureux", came out in 1996. It was published in French and German, but alas has not yet been translated into English. The painting reproduced on Anne's card is the famous Chandos portrait from the 1600's ...
  
• Springboarding off the Chandos image, ca. 1996 the New York Times ran this illustration by Mirko Ilic in its Sunday book review section, accompanying a column about the timelessness of Shakespeare's work ...
  
• In 1999 the Folger Shakespeare Library, confused about the year when the millennium actually was to end, sent this Bard-with-an-attitude by Kevin Chadwick to my wife as part of a "Dear Valued Customer" advertising campaign ...
  
• Ivy Gerber, a long-time family friend, mailed us this card with the sweet wish, "May the Christmas light be with you now and always." The image, "Die Lichterpyramide / Pyramid of Lights / Pyramide de lumières" is by Sulamith Wülfing ...
  

TopicPersonalHistory - 2002-01-31

(correlates: MerleAndRobinByEllenJacobs, WebbWiggins, SimplyGoodHearted, ...)