- Remnants of a former Christmas grotto
WG SEBALD
LEWIS’S DEPARTMENT STORE, LIVERPOOL-MEMORIALISED
IMAGES AND TEXT RE DESUETUDE, DECAY, QUIRKY DESOLATE BEAUTY AND MEMORY
COMMENTS AND SHARED ENTHUSIASMS WELCOME
THE IMAGES ARE A COMBINATION OF THE VERY LAST DAY LEWIS’S DEPARTMENT STORE WAS FULLY OPEN TO THE PUBLIC, THE SPECTRAL ABANDONED FIFTH FLOOR, AND SOME HAUNTING IMAGES OF 8 DAYS BEFORE CLOSURE
I am interested in making links between, and commenting on, these subjects:
The (probably doomed)attempt to REDEEM (in the non-theistic sense of the term)the past(ie. to keep it in eternity),or just to RECOVER the past, in the present, FROM the past, via memory.
I ackowledge fully my influences:
T.S. Eliot’s “Rose Garden” in “Burnt Norton” (“Four Quartets)
W G Sebald- to me, the greatest writer ever(in mastery of style, content and cross-generic breadth)
Walter Benjamin-the little I hitherto have read and understand, but particuarly “The Paris Arcades”
Many other(subconscious, half-forgotten)ones
Decayetude's Blog 
Very evocative Steve, and well done for the techno wizardry!
If only my prose could be less prosaic and rise to the shimmering occasion! This is a beautiful blog which will have resonance with diverse and discerning multitudes. Just to gaze at it for a moment is to be awarded manumission papers for the soul. The wood and the dummies and the remnants and The End and time which is stationary and vertical before they invented horizontal stationery,,,Apologies, Stephen, for my breath has quite been taken away in a somewhat inappropriate but hopefully mildly amusing manner.
A truly witty comment on vertical time, John….!i looked up manumission! “Shimmering” is onomatapeoiaically evanescent- a lovely word.
The end HAS truly come for Lewis’s: particuarly redolent today was one single chair positioned(?randomly)forlornly in a display window(in former times the glory of Liverpool retail); and the cute balcony cafe, with fittings ripped out.
More(coherent)text and pictures to follow
subscribe please
So much to see here. I’m just getting started with your first blog post. I love the wit of your photographs. I like that you called the manikins what they are, dummies. Lewis Department Store will indeed miss you.
So promising. Thanks for directing me to your blog, Steve, if I may be so bold as to call you by what is apparently your first name.
apart from the normal pedestrian etiquette anxiety Issues that I personally get, I’m also suggesting that this small area and corner is an area of ley line sort of meridian energy; and to clutter it effects the potential “energy” adversely and all that pass through it. Think same of Bold Street also, myself. Thanks Steve, keep well.