Saturday, 31 January 2009
Sunday, 18 January 2009
A Story Tattooed
Shelley Jackson is publishing a story. On the skin of 2095 volunteers. And only they will be able to read it. An original idea, perhaps I will apply for a word!
Saturday, 17 January 2009
Before Sunrise
I love this film, and the idea of short lived but wonderful relationships. I think we'd all feel a lot better about saying good bye to people if we did so abruptly, and purposely avoided the depressingly inevitable fizzle out.
Leeds Museum
The new museum holds many treasures, but my favourite is this Roman mosaic depicting Romanus and Remus suckling on the she-wolf that rescued them from the river bank on which they had been abandoned. She looks like an affable sort of creature, no? One source* suggests that she actually fed the twins biscuits.
Edifying diversions include mincing around in a animal print cloak, puzzling over the relevance of items in the 'History of Leeds' section and, if a parent, reading from the information points your child is conveniently unable to comprehend, in a smug bid to appear sagacious.
But children aren't daft. Upon perusing the 'How to Save the World' public comment board, observe the perspicacity of one nine year old: 'Use less paper! So I shouldn't really be writing this then...' That's right my child, the ice caps are melting because of YOU and your scribbling chums.
*The Unofficial Founding of Rome by M. Saunders
Edifying diversions include mincing around in a animal print cloak, puzzling over the relevance of items in the 'History of Leeds' section and, if a parent, reading from the information points your child is conveniently unable to comprehend, in a smug bid to appear sagacious.
But children aren't daft. Upon perusing the 'How to Save the World' public comment board, observe the perspicacity of one nine year old: 'Use less paper! So I shouldn't really be writing this then...' That's right my child, the ice caps are melting because of YOU and your scribbling chums.
*The Unofficial Founding of Rome by M. Saunders
Wednesday, 14 January 2009
Tilt Shift Miniature Faking
This involved using various tediously complicated photographicic techniques/ the Photoshop blur tool to make a real-life subject look like a miniature. It's the sort of art one looks at and pronounces 'cool'.
Tuesday, 13 January 2009
The Crisis of Perception
Dr Deepak Chopra explains how the environmental crisis directly challenges the way humanity perceives reality. Science has spent hundreds of years making distinctions that don’t really exist. As a result, we think of ourselves as separate from the environment. The reality, he explains, is that we humans are an integral part of the environment – and that the environment is part of us.
http://www.bigpicture.tv/videos/watch/07e1cd7dc
http://www.bigpicture.tv/videos/watch/07e1cd7dc
Wednesday, 7 January 2009
Entomophagy
Last year the UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation held a conference on the benefits of eating insects. Many humans around the world are consumers of insects, scientifically known as entomophagists, but we in the West don't take advantage of the nutritional and environmental benefits that bugs offer.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/earthnews/3343288/Eat-more-insects,-scientists-say.html
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/earthnews/3343288/Eat-more-insects,-scientists-say.html
Macclesfield Psalter
14th Century Illustrated book of psalms. Faced being taken out of the public realm earlier this year, but was bought by the Fitzwilliam Gallery. I think it important that such works of art are available for all to see, even if most people aren't bothered.
Sunday, 4 January 2009
Medieval Britain on Television
In Search for Medieval Britain, 'Medieval art historian Dr Alixe Bovey uses the oldest surviving route map of Britain to make a series of journeys through Britain in the Middle Ages.' Some interesting content, but an inordinate amount of screen time is taken up by Dr Boweys' annoying face and unnecessarily sporty mode of transport. Also unlikely is the use of emerging Polaroid photographs to link between sites of historical interest. Altogether not hugely edifying.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b009xws3
The map she uses as a guide is the Gough map, dating from the 14th century. Of what profound relevance this is to her journey I'm not sure.
A much more coherent programme on the era is 'Inside the Medieval Mind'.
Subsequent parts on YouTube.
In our Time's programme about Abélard and Héloise is also very good. French, I know, but I got a bit distracted.
Detail of an illumination from a 14th c. manuscript of Le Roman de la Rose.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b009xws3
The map she uses as a guide is the Gough map, dating from the 14th century. Of what profound relevance this is to her journey I'm not sure.
A much more coherent programme on the era is 'Inside the Medieval Mind'.
Subsequent parts on YouTube.
In our Time's programme about Abélard and Héloise is also very good. French, I know, but I got a bit distracted.
Detail of an illumination from a 14th c. manuscript of Le Roman de la Rose.
Friday, 2 January 2009
Stephen Fry - Language
In his edifying new podgram, Fry asserts that 'only to a dullard is language a means of communication and nothing more.'
The transcript can be found on his website.
The transcript can be found on his website.
Bill Bryson's Britain
Memorable excerpts from Bryson's Notes from a Small Island:
'It has long seemed to me unfortunate - and I'm talking the global view here - that such an important experiment in social organisation was left to the Russians when the British would have managed it so much better. All those things that are necessary to the successful implementation of a rigorous socialist system are, after all, second nature to the British. For a start, they like going without. They are great at pulling together, particularly in the face of adversity, for a perceived common good. They will queue patiently for indefinite periods and accept with rare fortitude the imposition of rationing, bland diets and sudden shortages of staple good, as anyone who has ever looked for bread at a supermarket on a Saturday afternoon will know. They are comfortable with faceless bureaucracies and, as Mrs Thatcher proved, tolerant of dictatorships. They will wait uncomplainingly for years for an operation or the delivery of a household appliance. They have a natural gift for making excellent jokes about authority without seriously challenging it, and they derive universal satisfaction from the sight of the rich and powerful brought low. Most of those above the age of twenty-five already dress like East Germans. The conditions, in a word, are right.
Please understand I'm not saying that Britain would have been a happier, better place under Communism, merely that the British would have done it properly. They would have taken it in their stride, with good heart, and without excessive cheating. In point of fact, until about 1970 it wouldn't have made the slightest discernible difference to most people's lives, and might at least have spared us Robert Maxwell.'
'Given the nature of the hotel I'd expected the menu to feature items like brown windsor soup and roast beef and Yorkshire pudding, but of course things have moves on in the hotel trade. The menu now was richly endowed with ten-guinea words that you wouldn't have seen on a menu ten years ago - 'noisettes', 'tatare', 'duxelle', 'coulis', 'timbale' - and written in a curious inflated language with eccentric capitalisations. I had, and I quote, 'Fanned Galia Melon and Cumbrian Air Dried Ham served with a Mixed leaf Salad' followed by 'Fillet Steak served with a crushed Black Peppercorn Sauce flamed in Brandy and finished with Cream', which together were nearly as pleasurable to read as to eat.
I was greatly taken with this new way of talking and derived considerable pleasure from speaking it to the waiter. I asked him for a lustre of water freshly drawn from the house tap and presented au nature in a cylinder of glass, and when he came round with the bread rolls I entreated him to present me a tonged rondel of blanched wheat oven baked and masked in poppy-seed coating. I was just getting warmed up to this and about to ask for a fanned lap coverlet, freshly laundered and scented with a delicate hint of Omo, to replace the one that had slipped from my lap and now lay recumbent on the horizontal walking surface anterior to my feet when he handed me a card that said 'Sweets Menu' and I realised that we were back in the no-nonsense world of English.
It's a funny thing about English diners. They'll let you dazzle them with piddly duxelles of this and fussy little noisettes of that, but don't fuck with their puddings, which is my thinking exactly. All the dessert entries were for gooey dishes with good English names. I had sticky toffee pudding and it was splendid. As I finished, the waiter invited me to withdraw to the lounge where a caisson of freshly-roasted coffee, complemented by the chef's own selection of mint wafers, awaited. I dressed the tabletop with a small circlet of copper specie crafted at the Royal Mint and, suppressing a small eruction of gastro-intestinal air, effected my egress.'
My own mother is a perpetrator of eccentric capitalisation. The greeting cards she sends me go generally something like this, 'HAPPY Birthday Laura, LOTS of LOVE from MUM xxx' with each word altering further in scale.
'It has long seemed to me unfortunate - and I'm talking the global view here - that such an important experiment in social organisation was left to the Russians when the British would have managed it so much better. All those things that are necessary to the successful implementation of a rigorous socialist system are, after all, second nature to the British. For a start, they like going without. They are great at pulling together, particularly in the face of adversity, for a perceived common good. They will queue patiently for indefinite periods and accept with rare fortitude the imposition of rationing, bland diets and sudden shortages of staple good, as anyone who has ever looked for bread at a supermarket on a Saturday afternoon will know. They are comfortable with faceless bureaucracies and, as Mrs Thatcher proved, tolerant of dictatorships. They will wait uncomplainingly for years for an operation or the delivery of a household appliance. They have a natural gift for making excellent jokes about authority without seriously challenging it, and they derive universal satisfaction from the sight of the rich and powerful brought low. Most of those above the age of twenty-five already dress like East Germans. The conditions, in a word, are right.
Please understand I'm not saying that Britain would have been a happier, better place under Communism, merely that the British would have done it properly. They would have taken it in their stride, with good heart, and without excessive cheating. In point of fact, until about 1970 it wouldn't have made the slightest discernible difference to most people's lives, and might at least have spared us Robert Maxwell.'
'Given the nature of the hotel I'd expected the menu to feature items like brown windsor soup and roast beef and Yorkshire pudding, but of course things have moves on in the hotel trade. The menu now was richly endowed with ten-guinea words that you wouldn't have seen on a menu ten years ago - 'noisettes', 'tatare', 'duxelle', 'coulis', 'timbale' - and written in a curious inflated language with eccentric capitalisations. I had, and I quote, 'Fanned Galia Melon and Cumbrian Air Dried Ham served with a Mixed leaf Salad' followed by 'Fillet Steak served with a crushed Black Peppercorn Sauce flamed in Brandy and finished with Cream', which together were nearly as pleasurable to read as to eat.
I was greatly taken with this new way of talking and derived considerable pleasure from speaking it to the waiter. I asked him for a lustre of water freshly drawn from the house tap and presented au nature in a cylinder of glass, and when he came round with the bread rolls I entreated him to present me a tonged rondel of blanched wheat oven baked and masked in poppy-seed coating. I was just getting warmed up to this and about to ask for a fanned lap coverlet, freshly laundered and scented with a delicate hint of Omo, to replace the one that had slipped from my lap and now lay recumbent on the horizontal walking surface anterior to my feet when he handed me a card that said 'Sweets Menu' and I realised that we were back in the no-nonsense world of English.
It's a funny thing about English diners. They'll let you dazzle them with piddly duxelles of this and fussy little noisettes of that, but don't fuck with their puddings, which is my thinking exactly. All the dessert entries were for gooey dishes with good English names. I had sticky toffee pudding and it was splendid. As I finished, the waiter invited me to withdraw to the lounge where a caisson of freshly-roasted coffee, complemented by the chef's own selection of mint wafers, awaited. I dressed the tabletop with a small circlet of copper specie crafted at the Royal Mint and, suppressing a small eruction of gastro-intestinal air, effected my egress.'
My own mother is a perpetrator of eccentric capitalisation. The greeting cards she sends me go generally something like this, 'HAPPY Birthday Laura, LOTS of LOVE from MUM xxx' with each word altering further in scale.
The Tower of Babel
The biblical explanation of language diversity.
Genesis 11:1-9 (KJV)
1 And the whole earth was of one language, and of one speech. 2 And it came to pass, as they journeyed from the east, that they found a plain in the land of Shinar; and they dwelt there. 3 And they said one to another, Go to, let us make brick, and burn them thoroughly. And they had brick for stone, and slime had they for mortar. 4 And they said, Go to, let us build us a city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven; and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth. 5 And the Lord came down to see the city and the tower, which the children built. 6 And the Lord said, Behold, the people is one, and they have all one language; and this they begin to do; and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do. 7 Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another's speech. 8 So the Lord scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth: and they left off to build the city. 9 Therefore is the name of it called Babel; because the Lord did there confound the language of all the earth: and from thence did the Lord scatter them abroad upon the face of all the earth.
Depiction by 16th Century painter Pieter Breugel
Genesis 11:1-9 (KJV)
1 And the whole earth was of one language, and of one speech. 2 And it came to pass, as they journeyed from the east, that they found a plain in the land of Shinar; and they dwelt there. 3 And they said one to another, Go to, let us make brick, and burn them thoroughly. And they had brick for stone, and slime had they for mortar. 4 And they said, Go to, let us build us a city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven; and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth. 5 And the Lord came down to see the city and the tower, which the children built. 6 And the Lord said, Behold, the people is one, and they have all one language; and this they begin to do; and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do. 7 Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another's speech. 8 So the Lord scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth: and they left off to build the city. 9 Therefore is the name of it called Babel; because the Lord did there confound the language of all the earth: and from thence did the Lord scatter them abroad upon the face of all the earth.
Depiction by 16th Century painter Pieter Breugel
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