tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-70183067876877603122024-03-18T22:46:16.201-07:00HexagoniaUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger20125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7018306787687760312.post-88835460141377424942015-11-23T09:07:00.000-08:002015-11-23T09:07:29.112-08:00Purple Bett<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">'In 1451 a number of leeches were tried at Lausanne in Switzerland. Some of the accused were brought into court to hear a document read out, instructing them to leave the district within three days.' </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Purple Bett: Neophobia and Witchcraft Trials in 16th Century Cumbria </b></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Barbara Ganoush, Heyford, £25</b></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The circumstances of the trial and execution of 'Purple Bett' for witchcraft in Cumbria in 1583 have long posed a problem for modern students of the witch trials. Mentioned in Culver's 'Trialles of the Witches of Cumbria', the bizarre descriptions of the accused's behaviour and appearance have confused a multitude of scholars and have led to the case being excluded from many analyses with suggestions that the source material has been corrupted so as to be definitively incomprehensible. Barbara Ganoush's study, made possible by painstaking restoration of contemporary woodcuts by Dr. Harecult at the Institutio Stotinkiana, sheds welcome light on the mystery and provides an intriguing insight into the 16th Century mind.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Purple Bett was found 'dwelling in ye tanglie hedge' outside the village of Colston, and was turned over, 'docile and meeke as ye lambe' to the witchfinders. Blamed for the failure of crops and a mild outbreak of 'plagues and mortifications of the bodie', she is described as keeping silent even during the brutal torture to which she was subjected. Described as 'hideous smalle, with her limbes tucked inside her' and 'round and shininge with a darke purple pallor', she put up no struggle when apprehended, although attempts to remove her 'foule and hairie greene bonnet' were thwarted 'by the power of her sorceries.' To prove her allegiance to the devil she was thrown into a lake where 'she bobbed upon the water like ye mallarde.' She was then cut into pieces revealing 'whyte fleshe that would not bleede' whereupon salt was rubbed on her wounds and she was doused in hot flax oil. 'Through the agencie of the Divil, these torments made a sweete smell to issue from her, which smell did make the villagers mouthes to water freely, troubling also </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">sorely</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> their mindes.' The account ends on this ambiguous note.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">From damaged woodcuts collected by G. Stotinki in 1903, Dr. Harecult has made high resolution restorations which Ganoush links painstakingly to the village and case in question. The conclusion, elaborated in this exhaustive study, cannot fail to satisfy the most exigent scholar: 'Purple Bett' was, in fact, a fruit of the plant <i>Solanum melongena</i>, the aubergine or egg-plant. Native to tropical Asia, it was introduced to Spain by the Arabs as early as the 8th Century, but its appearance in 16th Century Cumbria is, to say the least, unusual.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Ganoush uses this peculiarity to introduce the reader to other persecuted vegetables and cryptobotanical incidents from the middle ages to the present day, from the 'Tomato of Liepzig' to the infamous 'Buzz Aldrin Turnip'. The author must be congratulated for the open minded yet rigorously academic approach that she takes to her subject.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7018306787687760312.post-62289022571038288132015-08-16T04:17:00.000-07:002015-08-16T04:40:13.853-07:00Revolving Door Catastrophe Brings Stotinkian Studies to StandstillWe regret any inconvenience caused by the two year hiatus in the release of material from the Stotinki archives. This is due to a combination of unfortunate incidents: the extended absence of Chief Archivist, Harriet Kronk, on the disappointingly fruitless search described below; and the difficulty of removing a semi-fossilised piece of pumpernickel bread from underneath the uniquely sensitive mechanism of the famous revolving door at the Institutio Stotinkiano. For the first time since 1913 the back door of the Institute was opened, only to reveal a passage hopelessly blocked by jars of marmalade which slumped in great drifts to the edge of a vast chasm of unknown depth. The door was promptly closed again.<br />
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It is with great pleasure that we now confirm that Ms. Kronk has safely returned from Somerset where, using ancient telephone records and the services of a renowned psychometrist, she has correctly identified the phone box where Gospodin Stotinki left his complete translation of the Voynich manuscript (including marginal commentaries by the mysterious Dr. Cumberland), after he was "distracted by the simultaneous appearance of a beautiful young lady dressed as a 22nd Century Martian speleologist and a salted cashew nut in the coin-return slot."(Diaries, Vol.5) Realising his mistake on the bus to Shepton Mallett, Stotinki was plunged into the period of despair that led to the writing of<i> Oh, no! and other haiku</i>. Much speculation has been made as to the identity of the potential time-traveller, whether she seized the manuscript and whether Stotinki ate the cashew nut.<br />
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Needless to say, Ms. Kronk did not find the manuscript in the phone box, despite the psychometrist's assurance that nobody had entered since Stotinki's visit in 1982. Enquiring at a local second-hand bookshop, the elderly owner told Ms. Kronk, "I think we had something like that once, awfully dull read." Ms. Kronk was struck by the curious artefacts displayed around the premises, including a strange head-lamp covered in fine red dust.</div>
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7018306787687760312.post-28264883600122167972013-08-25T04:45:00.000-07:002013-08-25T04:45:57.032-07:00Red Dog Green Dog and Wod, Live at Cannings Court 14th September 2013<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">When, in the spring of 2013, a gigantic hexagonal 'monolith', flawlessly constructed from an unknown substance, was discovered in orbit around the moon, Gospodin Stotinki was among the group of scientists, artists and chefs who were sent up to investigate. Left alone on the spaceship after the on-board computer mysteriously decided to kill the rest of the crew, Stotinki spent the lonely hours in a weightless melancholy. As the beautiful planet rolled over itself in the night, he felt his feet longing for the reciprocal pressure of the earth. In his mind the ground pounded beneath him to the be-tranced steps of the Breton dances of his youth, that ancestral shuffle and stamp, the whirling cytoplasmic daydream of.....</span><div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Hearing a thud, he approached the cockpit of the spacecraft. Outside, requiring a space-walk to retrieve it, a small paper flyer was held against the windscreen by the wiper blade. Reading it through the grimy glass, the aching void of stars framing the paper on all sides, he pondered the nature of coincidence then, rubbing his hands with glee, he donned his spacesuit and stepped into the escape pod. He was on his way to Cannings Court.</span></div>
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"Cannings Court is back!" blurted the flyer.</div>
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"Red Dog Green Dog and Wod", will play for dance, late into the night.</div>
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"Saturday 14th September 2013", it informed.</div>
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"Cannings Court, Pulham, Dorchester DT2 7EA", it directed.</div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7018306787687760312.post-21925610229522532882013-06-05T08:48:00.001-07:002013-06-05T08:48:44.799-07:00Beast of Bartcombe<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">When the mysterious disappearance of livestock in a Somerset village began in 1982, a variety of theories were put forward to explain these phenomena. The surrounding countryside was searched, armed vigils were held at the epicentre of the disturbances. Anecdotic evidence abounds, much of it contradictory. But recent discoveries in the Stoat Inc. Archive may reveal the truth.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Paranormal investigators, Stoat Inc. (formerly O.H.K.), were called in by Lord Heron of Chanter's End Manor after repeated sightings of a large mammal prowling through the grounds of the estate in twilight led to allegations that a big cat had escaped from the Lord's menagerie. The villagers were terrified. Strange tracks had been discovered.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Agents from Stoat Inc. were called to a country barn where a crepuscular stalking animal had been captured by a terrified farmer. Further investigation revealed the 'beast' to be a domestic cat.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But strange goings-on continued. The thatched roof of a village pub was gnawed through leaving a hole big enough for a tractor to pass through. Stores of grain were raided. Walkers were pushed over in the darkness and "sniffed by a snout of sorts..... a silky, snuffling snout," as one witness chillingly recounted. G.S. Poden of Stoat Inc. became fascinated by legends in the nearby village of Bartcombe linking the deserted manor house with ancient legends of Peruvian witchcraft and possible human sacrifice. According to his analysis of the data, events linked with the mysterious beast had Bartcombe Hall as their centre. He decided to investigate. Sensationally, we can now publish evidence of what he found. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">G.S. Poden was reported missing on the 7th of October 1981. A polaroid camera belonging to him was discovered in woodland adjoining the Hall. It contained this photograph. Despite repeated campaigns, his disappearance has never been explained.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">The Hexagonal Society of the British Isles would like to thank Perran Anderson Brightman for his help in bringing the Stoat Inc. Archive to light after decades of obscurity and conjecture.</span></span></div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7018306787687760312.post-30693615726580463822013-04-29T08:37:00.001-07:002013-04-29T08:37:41.133-07:00Man In The Hills<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">"We report here a legendary and, apparently, unique use of mosses for man camouflage, something previously seen in some insect larvae and weevils."</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> Journal of Bryology 23: 264</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It was in 1976 that Helvetius Kronk gave a copy of the newly released Burning Spear album <i>Man In The Hills</i> to his friend Gospodin Stotinki. Little did Kronk imagine the effect that his gift would have. Ignoring the vinyl disc within, Stotinki mounted the cover on the wall of his workshop and set his chair in front of it. His diary explains,</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">"Day after day I have looked upon that scene, imagining myself a homonculus shepherd wandering upon that face. In inclement weather I would shelter in the nasal caverns or build my fire out of the wind beneath the beetling brow cliffs. As I walked out into the world around me I saw evidence of great presences lying patiently in the landscape. Some were hidden in the hills and valleys. Others had been formed, perhaps unconsciously, by human endeavour."</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Stotinki read the work of Katherine Maltwood but was frustrated in his attempts to recognise consistent patterns in the figures that he discovered. "I craved ever deeper levels of communication with the beings in the land. I had to become..." </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">On a visit to Bèjar in Spain he happened upon the curious rites of the Moss Men. This was his epiphany. "Indistinguishable from the land I will recline like a moss-covered mountain, until I am the moss man, the man in the hills."</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Stotinki was found in a partially desiccated state several weeks later. He was clasping the trunk of a tree and had a nuthatch nesting above his left ear. </span></div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7018306787687760312.post-79674653330816237442013-03-27T15:13:00.000-07:002013-03-27T15:13:15.702-07:00On the Map<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">'About the year 1215, a Zen priest called Mu Ch'i came to Hangchow, where he rebuilt a ruined monastery. By rapid swirls of ink he attempted, with undeniable success, to capture the moments of exaltation and set down the fleeting visions which he obtained from the frenzy of wine, the stupor of tea, or the vacancy of inanition. Ch'en Jung, about the same time, was noted for the simplicity of his life and he competence with which he fulfilled his duties as a magistrate... Finally, he was admired for his habits of a confirmed drunkard. "He made clouds by splashing ink on his pictures. For mists he spat out water. When wrought up by wine he uttered a great shout and, seizing his hat, used it as a brush, roughly smearing his drawing; after which he finished his work with a proper brush." One of the first painters of the sect, Wang Hsia, who lived in the early ninth century, would perform when he was drunk real <i>tours de force</i>, going so far as to plunge his head into a bucket of ink and flop it over a piece of silk on which there appeared, as if by magic, lakes, trees, enchanted mountains. But none seems to have carried emancipation further, among these priests, than Ying Yu-chien, secretary of the famous temple Ching-tzu ssii, who would take a cat-like pleasure in spattering and lacerating the sheet.'</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"> Georges Duthuit, Chinese Mysticism and Modern Painting</span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Gospodin Stotinki's contributions to the visual arts have been discussed in these pages before. Inspired by the extraordinary approach of 13th century Zen painters, a near-fatal incident in which he was unable to withdraw his head from a wooden bucket of ox's blood, marked an inevitable change of course from active painter to art critic. Stotinki's interpretations were often unconventional and have been unfairly branded as 'nonsensical drivel.' In this extract he considers Coldstream's 1937 painting <i>On the Map</i>:</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">'In a haze of uncertain heat two figures are baffled by a landscape which does not exist, an absence of countryside that can only be represented by a map of nothingness held facing away from the one who reads it. These are not, as is often suggested, the artist's friends Graham Bell and Igor Anrep. Close examination shows that they are aspects of the same person. A man, standing baffled by the cartography of the void, is accompanied by his spirit body who sits, barefoot, spattered with the dirt of a desperate flight or furious pursuit through tangled woods and mud-mired tracks. Now he sits in exhausted contemplation of what? A towering spectre of horror just out of sight? Beyond the figures, the Mister Punch simulacrum tree feeds its hungry dinosaur brood with unseen arboreal plankton.'</span></div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7018306787687760312.post-30883754840204493242013-02-05T08:13:00.000-08:002013-02-05T08:13:15.237-08:00Homage to the Remarkable Mr. Hoban<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8qiouuiuiJ8nbNULcqNVEkobqIzRJ_27dpTegN9FNiPqfZR3ChaZlSKVtrFZA5J-ZGevA8qAGV5lH5wZi4s5b78HxsZYcuOBEvuQ43MHiwDWLoxwmdChBFTXIPc56pjwzep7_nSA6YGb_/s1600/IMG_1449.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8qiouuiuiJ8nbNULcqNVEkobqIzRJ_27dpTegN9FNiPqfZR3ChaZlSKVtrFZA5J-ZGevA8qAGV5lH5wZi4s5b78HxsZYcuOBEvuQ43MHiwDWLoxwmdChBFTXIPc56pjwzep7_nSA6YGb_/s320/IMG_1449.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">'Some times thers mor in the emty paper nor there is when you get the writing down on it. You try to werd the big things and they tern ther backs on you.'</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><i>Riddley Walker</i>, Russell Hoban</span></span></div>
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7018306787687760312.post-42421359064122176682012-11-03T06:15:00.000-07:002013-02-05T08:13:53.857-08:00Fictional Entry<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In 1971 Helvetius Kronk moved to Oxford to complete his studies of the flute music of Esrum-Hellerup. In his moving memoir, '<i>Leaves in a Darkened Room</i>,' he described his two years there as the happiest in his life. He had found lodging at number 23 Fictional Entry, a small street that once formed the entry to Peake College from the High Street. 'The architectural exuberance of the street, so vividly portrayed in Gospodin's paintings, nourished my soul and delighted my senses. The daily task of finding my front door among the shifting geometries and impossible perspectives seldom tried my patience, so beautiful was the puzzle set before me by those ancient hands.'</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Fictional Entry was built in the Middle Ages by a team of craftsmen selected from across the known world and briefed with the task of building a street of such complexity that it would be impossible to replicate. With the increase of tourism and the lack of reliable maps and signs, unscrupulous operators had succeeded in diverting visitors to Oxford into convincing life-size models of the city built on the approach roads from every direction. The impossibility of recreating Fictional Entry allowed pilgrims and visitors to verify their arrival in the true Oxford and ensured that the important income from tourism would not be diverted into the hands of charlatans.</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQm5pZsu4yzvPsACppRdf1TsTKVoxYl9j1F0iGl5TjVyQZXA97tBwlERssF7tw7e502OJYJzKEBYEeibztxAx4-or9RSH8ZHkXc1NsJ8nIX3OtHEeiBYGm1WR9FJ5kk4hfcbMM73mUirR-/s1600/IMG_0164.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQm5pZsu4yzvPsACppRdf1TsTKVoxYl9j1F0iGl5TjVyQZXA97tBwlERssF7tw7e502OJYJzKEBYEeibztxAx4-or9RSH8ZHkXc1NsJ8nIX3OtHEeiBYGm1WR9FJ5kk4hfcbMM73mUirR-/s320/IMG_0164.jpg" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Fictional Entry at Night, G. Stotinki</i></td></tr>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It is hard to imagine the widespread horror that accompanied the destruction of Fictional Entry in 1973 when a young American student called Lilian Mountweazel caused a vast explosion in the neighbouring room to Kronk. He managed to avoid the explosion only through the wilful avoidance of his official responsibility as Captain of the Apopudobalia Team- had he not feigned illness and hidden in a public house several miles away from his lodgings, his return from the playing fields might have brought him home seconds before the blast.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7018306787687760312.post-64910889885397434162012-07-31T10:55:00.001-07:002012-07-31T10:55:48.338-07:00Silver Lining<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The rain fell month after month and the water rose on every side leaving only the island of Hexagonia above the heaving waves. The Ark took shelter at Hexagon Wharf, its cargo dozing fitfully under the ceaseless, sardonic applause of the rain. And then, when it seemed that even the six-sided peak of Mt. Wheatstone would slide beneath the swell...</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSOoxSAs6N0rIFhC1mBifLk-zz2gIjSCagppP7qCD1WPgvvJZMWw69SMXR1sHBELp_RAh0vtxZtD9R69iLNJ3zMLfTIEZBQTGeLUcj9D4kdXsQYcgyAPpdOZk0vsbPn_RSeKnXtqSLKWzz/s1600/IMG_1084.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="239" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSOoxSAs6N0rIFhC1mBifLk-zz2gIjSCagppP7qCD1WPgvvJZMWw69SMXR1sHBELp_RAh0vtxZtD9R69iLNJ3zMLfTIEZBQTGeLUcj9D4kdXsQYcgyAPpdOZk0vsbPn_RSeKnXtqSLKWzz/s320/IMG_1084.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdwzW3wJ1tzJltfj6rBmSD5KrWHvw8xBN2A7_7abrL2MspbS9aPHVKLMttu1S9PTDXTOIjHDsFiMWDAbKqU1okchp0FXI5BsRakscVnkqK12ZFHYevRGW_VhXDqNS4t7zpVlzAtyffA3Sp/s1600/IMG_1026.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdwzW3wJ1tzJltfj6rBmSD5KrWHvw8xBN2A7_7abrL2MspbS9aPHVKLMttu1S9PTDXTOIjHDsFiMWDAbKqU1okchp0FXI5BsRakscVnkqK12ZFHYevRGW_VhXDqNS4t7zpVlzAtyffA3Sp/s320/IMG_1026.JPG" width="320" /></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The sky became a tunnel of colour. The toad was sent out to discover whether the Stotinki archives had been damaged by flood. He was gone a long time. But one morning a thud was heard on the deck. The toad had returned with a curious story to relate. On discovering that the entrance to the mine shaft wherein the Stotinki archives are kept was once again above sea level, the toad had contrived to open the heavy door. Once inside he was met with an extraordinary scene. An emaciated man lay stretched upon the ground, blinking with confusion into the bright daylight. This man was the famous musicologist Helvetius Kronk. He had visited the archive just as the deluge began and had become trapped inside by the rising floodwaters. With only stale Eccles cakes to sustain him over the months of his incarceration, he had become weak and slightly deranged. However his enforced stay in the archive had led him into virtually unknown areas. One day he had discovered the original score to the legendary 'Apocryphal Insect Music'. This lost collaboration between Stotinki and several species of leaf-eating beetle requires the construction of a 'phyllophone' to be played. Leaves are presented to the musicians, who gnaw a pattern of holes through the surface.</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2-Oxcr5TSP_OC74erVWoKzJLn1FpXWPy51BJ4v5EJPGdvq7QuymhyphenhyphenOZazT2BgCaSNks-D3Py7meipDDv2C50R98M6VqgWqbolj3TchxVTEkbi4yTqB6OVZhA877t96YEYLnY5mV_WcS80/s1600/IMG_1096.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2-Oxcr5TSP_OC74erVWoKzJLn1FpXWPy51BJ4v5EJPGdvq7QuymhyphenhyphenOZazT2BgCaSNks-D3Py7meipDDv2C50R98M6VqgWqbolj3TchxVTEkbi4yTqB6OVZhA877t96YEYLnY5mV_WcS80/s320/IMG_1096.jpg" width="239" /></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> These are then fed into the phyllophone in which a sensitive apparatus interprets the pattern of holes into an audible output. Kronk describes this music as "by far the most sublime and ethereal of all sounds." Kronk's discovery sustained him throughout his long ordeal. His only regret was that his hunger and delirious state led him to devour a thick bundle of Stotinki's detailed plans for the construction of the phyllophone.</span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7018306787687760312.post-20992445437610748052012-05-20T13:23:00.000-07:002012-05-20T13:23:19.692-07:00Endless Forms Most Beautiful<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">"It is a huge privilege to live on Earth and to share it with so many goodly and fantastical creatures-albeit a privilege of which we are grotesquely careless. In truth, if we did not need to exploit other species we might simply and unimprovably spend our lives in admiration of them; they are so extraordinary."</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">Colin Tudge, The Variety of Life</span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7018306787687760312.post-55933583968510417762012-04-03T11:53:00.000-07:002012-04-03T11:53:14.870-07:00If I Remember Right<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">"When crocodiles lie thus with open jaws, small shore birds, especially waders of the sandpiper kind, which are always running about on the banks in search of food, enter the huge reptiles' mouths to capture any such small fry as may have sought refuge among the teeth or in the folds of the mucous membrane of the mouth or pharynx. Indeed, if I remember right, I have witnessed the thing myself; but now as I write I cannot feel quite sure that it was not one of many stories told me by my men."</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">Odoardo Beccari, Wanderings in the Great Forests of Borneo</span></span></span><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCn6ofG6O5Ll0W9kUUoroqOhDI5atPzNJMyRX8zNNpJckne3zXLO27zBMBB5o6BP5iDl9sE_nuXCmhMgN7QOv4-qvsGp2Z2Paubl4bHgfdYFwPlChkNCvcGEH_Ir7QKQuW0R1PbGaOdB0p/s1600/photo+jess+096.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCn6ofG6O5Ll0W9kUUoroqOhDI5atPzNJMyRX8zNNpJckne3zXLO27zBMBB5o6BP5iDl9sE_nuXCmhMgN7QOv4-qvsGp2Z2Paubl4bHgfdYFwPlChkNCvcGEH_Ir7QKQuW0R1PbGaOdB0p/s320/photo+jess+096.jpg" width="202" /></a></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In the summer of 1982 Gospodin Stotinki was a regular visitor to the Bournemouth home of American diarist Anna Kronis. During long dinners with the Mississippi socialite and her adoring circle, he had noticed her tendency to back up her reminiscences with reference to her diaries. An avid diarist himself, Stotinki decided to replace her entire diary for the year 1971 with a plausibly modified version of his own. Perfecting her handwriting style, he recopied his own experiences into a blank volume and, after leaving the book in a cage of crickets to give it a suitably aged appearance, he returned it to her shelves. Guided to that year by after-dinner conversation, she began to describe the events therein with such vivid clarity that Stotinki soon came to doubt whether it had been he or she who had actually spent that year travelling the Breton peninsula in search of forgotten ancient monuments. One evening she produced a photograph clearly showing Stotinki and his mysterious associate Heron beneath the 'Champignon' of Huelgoat forest. Feeling certain that he had not referred to this incident in the diary, he attempted to remember who had taken the photograph. It was her.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> Surely they would not meet until five years later. </span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7018306787687760312.post-28580081408105345582012-02-10T15:22:00.000-08:002012-02-10T15:22:10.781-08:00As it might be made<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOhn2aJiEPeaHcb2iZENGPi9s4Touk_vTxoWbdFD5uANcvUYHT5MaYKxneX7_fAeV6tNv9Ep7Ynoe3Ku02PnGHJCkWOd6jkGRx74p83ebSPux1kd1eTvnhikX7vI3F_EUUzpmw1ODGXnOC/s1600/images.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOhn2aJiEPeaHcb2iZENGPi9s4Touk_vTxoWbdFD5uANcvUYHT5MaYKxneX7_fAeV6tNv9Ep7Ynoe3Ku02PnGHJCkWOd6jkGRx74p83ebSPux1kd1eTvnhikX7vI3F_EUUzpmw1ODGXnOC/s1600/images.jpeg" /></a></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It is surprising that the National Archive of Anachronisms contains only a handful of references to Sir Charles Wheatstone. The discovery of an early telegraph device during the 1969 moon landing is already well-documented (see 'A Welsh Dresser with a Difference' by U. Persson). However, a more recently deposited fragment casts new light on Wheatstone's process of invention.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The item in question is an incomplete piece of correspondence of uncertain date and authorship. It appears to describe a visit by a friend to Wheatstone's workshop in the late 1820s.</span><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFFSuDymSnESJahvtgfyhtx-H0ocjH1HSNYovSUBXHSCvgTqX_pnFSo7ZUNcsGxiPQeNAg6-r0KAtFXtLpq0XpLF69S4VpmXkB6DJPFE1QK1lSDOIgTfBcIk962_SnTBEqipxd7v1lW4X6/s1600/220px-Charles_Wheatstone_later_years.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFFSuDymSnESJahvtgfyhtx-H0ocjH1HSNYovSUBXHSCvgTqX_pnFSo7ZUNcsGxiPQeNAg6-r0KAtFXtLpq0XpLF69S4VpmXkB6DJPFE1QK1lSDOIgTfBcIk962_SnTBEqipxd7v1lW4X6/s1600/220px-Charles_Wheatstone_later_years.jpg" /></a></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">'I passed by Conduit St. and decided to call on Charles only to find the house in a state of unimaginable chaos. Charles appeared dazed and was found sitting at the dining table upon which the remnants of an uneaten breakfast had been pushed all to one side. On the tablecloth before him, all manner of peculiar hieroglyphic designs had been drawn using Mrs. Howell's homemade chutney. Recurrent among these designs was a regular six-sided figure. Charles hardly acknowledged my presence but stared fixedly at the images on the table, murmuring to himself. Perplexed, I attempted to find out the matter from Mrs. Howell herself. She proceeded to tell me the most extraordinary story: very early that morning Charles had received a visit from a "foreign gentleman", dressed in curious garments and carrying a small, square case. He had joined Charles for breakfast and had left abruptly without taking his hat. Young Nellie, the maid, had given chase and, unable to match his furious pace, had followed him for half a mile at which point he turned into an alley. Arriving at the turning, the maid claims to have seen this curious character crawl into a "great pile of animal furs, all crumpled up". Beside herself with terror she had watched as this "'orrible, shaggy thing" had begun to expand into the shape of a globe. As it began to float into the air she had fallen into a swoon and was revived and brought back to Conduit St. by a police officer.'</span><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaY681cc4OXVGV07I9nrSalPgi6Tx8uq69jqo8mtvVBTfl48wLwJdA0-jHzHgDynaNG7r4rYUuf7aaSPpX2MMwttDHnwoNdYyjH88OyVGCnkrMfLTpLmni4OZFeLWxV8qgwfFlKpirPVO9/s1600/hexagonal-map.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="194" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaY681cc4OXVGV07I9nrSalPgi6Tx8uq69jqo8mtvVBTfl48wLwJdA0-jHzHgDynaNG7r4rYUuf7aaSPpX2MMwttDHnwoNdYyjH88OyVGCnkrMfLTpLmni4OZFeLWxV8qgwfFlKpirPVO9/s320/hexagonal-map.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It is pointless to speculate on the conversation that took place between Wheatstone and the "foreign gentleman" that morning. What is certain is that the descriptions of the "Hot Hair Balloon of Shoreditch", reported in 1863, closely resemble the account given by Wheatstone's maid. The Shoreditch "balloon" is reported to have abducted a certain John Leighton as he left a meeting of the Society of Antiquaries one November evening. He was found twenty minutes later asleep on the pavement in Hammersmith. He refused to speak about his experience. Soon afterwards he published this vision of the metropolis.</span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7018306787687760312.post-10659448690477869602012-01-08T09:11:00.000-08:002012-01-08T09:11:36.228-08:00In a Lantern<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The church on Lundy island contains a ring of ten bells cast in 1897. Each bears an inscription, the first two being dedications In Memoriam.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The third bell bears the words: Horam precandi iam adventisse moneo - I warn that the hour has now come for prayers.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The fourth bell has no inscription and may have been damaged and replaced. The original is believed to have borne the inscription: Nos omnes cantamus laudes Dei - We all sing the praises of God.</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYRdS3eDVFuJuNcQ07quM1YChRNnY6HvsvLvEaamfb0JaVyvOuwkHMQ5Bg4X1vhKSRvEo97lKQWz-qd97-nBzzl2DjcnlXrsxU_DXyNuo5I7E0ZM1yqT4xeJB7urvdnbJih0TZZ2W34G9j/s1600/IMG_0618.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYRdS3eDVFuJuNcQ07quM1YChRNnY6HvsvLvEaamfb0JaVyvOuwkHMQ5Bg4X1vhKSRvEo97lKQWz-qd97-nBzzl2DjcnlXrsxU_DXyNuo5I7E0ZM1yqT4xeJB7urvdnbJih0TZZ2W34G9j/s320/IMG_0618.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">On the fifth: Ut fieremus HGH Vicarius Curavit - HGH, the Vicar, had us brought into being.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">On the sixth: Carolus Carr Societas no fudit AD 1897 - Charles Carr and Co. made us in AD 1897.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">On the seventh: Confuse agitate pericla declarums - When rung confusedly we announce dangers.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixsszfVyx7yyuGK44yTYDhPjcIJfOMYjqK9XFAigQEJCAGGcq6-cfSgHgu61LvlNIcEhQnSpGr0xJJtNk62ER0YgxmkFs_tQCNBbEoLv3LjdnypVA-yDPk3FX5Rru7LT4kOHvFAhyr54TC/s1600/IMG_0632.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixsszfVyx7yyuGK44yTYDhPjcIJfOMYjqK9XFAigQEJCAGGcq6-cfSgHgu61LvlNIcEhQnSpGr0xJJtNk62ER0YgxmkFs_tQCNBbEoLv3LjdnypVA-yDPk3FX5Rru7LT4kOHvFAhyr54TC/s320/IMG_0632.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">On the eighth: Retro pulsate ignes indicamus - When rung backwards we signify fires.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">On the ninth: Recte sonates gaudia pronunciamus - When sounding the right way we proclaim joys.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">On the tenth, the tenor: Animis cedentibus dico valet - I say farewell to the departing souls.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
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</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Accompanying the audible pitch of each bell, these hidden incantations reverberate out across the island. The bells are sure of their purpose and the intention that their makers imbued within them at the mysterious moment of their casting.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
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</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">As they climbed into the tower, the atlantic winds bore down on the window panes of the lantern room, the lighthouse howled and hummed. Where the lantern had once been, a massive metal platform provided standing room for his mysterious companions. They produced musical instruments, they clambered, dangled, declaimed to the winds.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg64Jc2Sg9GNO4tllYylyw1I8YUNuchzOmjpmxa9fpvsVyVUdJjPt71wEOfROH90-KExrDzLcuz8NuHoBmCf73B7-LzZ1EDMM-7gm7S6O36J7SMYwYohoI4cS2KbL24ugrI53jaZQQyrO5a/s1600/IMG_0564.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg64Jc2Sg9GNO4tllYylyw1I8YUNuchzOmjpmxa9fpvsVyVUdJjPt71wEOfROH90-KExrDzLcuz8NuHoBmCf73B7-LzZ1EDMM-7gm7S6O36J7SMYwYohoI4cS2KbL24ugrI53jaZQQyrO5a/s320/IMG_0564.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And, as the light began to fade and the wind rose and tested the tower, one of their number told him this:</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">" There are places on this earth where our actions and intentions are amplified in the same way that the light in this tower was once concentrated and projected outward by mirrors. That light had a benign purpose-to warn and protect sailors and travellers. Even though the light is no longer here, that intention remains, as lasting as an inscription on metal or stone. Now, we are drawn here to play our music and speak our thoughts. To proclaim our friendship. To befriend the wind. If there is light in that, who can say? Maybe that light can still be seen."</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
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</span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7018306787687760312.post-897922159060766922011-12-20T12:34:00.000-08:002011-12-20T12:34:34.454-08:00A Report, A Rumour, Not To Be Believed<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">'"In winter," Grandfather Trout said, "summer is a myth. A report, a rumour. Not to be believed in. Get it?"'</span><br />
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</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">"<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The difference between the Ancient concept of the nature of the world and the New concept is, in the Ancient concept the world has a framework of Time, and in the New concept, the world has a framework of Space.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> To look at the Ancient concept through the spectacles of the New concept is to see absurdity: seas that never were, worlds claimed to have fallen to pieces and been created newly, a congeries of unlocatable Trees, Islands, Mountains and Maelstroms. But the ancients were not fools with a poor sense of direction; it was only not Orbis Terrae that they were looking at. When they spoke of the four corners of the earth, they meant of course no four physical places; they meant four repeated situations of the world, equidistant in time from one another: they meant the solstices and the equinoxes. When they spoke of the seven spheres, they did not mean (until Ptolemy foolishly tried to take their portrait) seven spheres in space; they meant those circles described in time by the motions of the stars: Time, that roomy seven-storey mountain where Dante's sinners wait for Eternity. When Plato tells of a river girdling the earth, which is somewhere (so the New concept would have it) up in the air and somewhere also in the middle of the earth, he means by that river the same river Heraclitus could never step in twice. Just as a lamp waved in darkness creates a figure of light in the air, which remains for as long as the lamp repeats its motion exactly, so the universe retains its shape by repetition: the universe is Time's body. And how will we perceive this body, and how operate on it? Not by the means we perceive extension, relation, colour, form - the qualities of Space. Not by measurement and exploration. No: but by the means we perceive duration and repetition and change: by Memory."</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">from 'Little, Big', John Crowley</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"> </div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7018306787687760312.post-46077648442780055742011-12-11T06:21:00.000-08:002011-12-11T06:21:26.630-08:00In the First Place<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEYBLxjLrZZhG9LEhet2zdpQWZkci5HGQiBOH0TxdanXgr0pQT8TGvazjix1NrjYDWeB4JbqlATaPalD-CEwXBS2g0qAqLw0IpjN4z68bT7H45LoXX1Wnp1gH_ch_45t-REmdXo3OUrQI4/s1600/lz-3-tail-385x251.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="208" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEYBLxjLrZZhG9LEhet2zdpQWZkci5HGQiBOH0TxdanXgr0pQT8TGvazjix1NrjYDWeB4JbqlATaPalD-CEwXBS2g0qAqLw0IpjN4z68bT7H45LoXX1Wnp1gH_ch_45t-REmdXo3OUrQI4/s320/lz-3-tail-385x251.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Stotinki's diaries from his mid-thirties reveal the intense atmosphere of his Wolvercote airship design and construction business. Often working for three days and nights without pause, Stotinki and his team would launch prototype craft at dawn from the open expanses of Port Meadow. When succesful, Stotinki would often land in the centre of Oxford and go to the Botanic Garden...</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">'I walked the length of the systematic order beds, where the plants are arranged, by family, in long, narrow beds. To walk along the paths of this garden is to undertake more than a mere physical journey. It is to walk along the path of evolutionary history, from the earliest flowering plants to the most recent. The historical developments, the complex relationships between species are manifested in the physical world, and we can walk around as though inside an idea- as though, in order to acquaint ourselves with the history of our own family, we were to stroll among the shades of our own ancestors, flesh and blood before us, each standing on one branch of a giant family tree '</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: xx-small;">Journal vii, G.Stotinki</span></span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCqbCBDtuUm0DAs8jLqXZkzLxDsOn5e0gLLNrfrChaFRDqniMna0eY8CVvOadnX7yFsjAFNng5LBE2jmXZpKJZfhiqmY95hx3Puog9szOIVoKhTK4bVzXcJT5sene7Szt966DEs2_Y00Vk/s1600/alchem1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCqbCBDtuUm0DAs8jLqXZkzLxDsOn5e0gLLNrfrChaFRDqniMna0eY8CVvOadnX7yFsjAFNng5LBE2jmXZpKJZfhiqmY95hx3Puog9szOIVoKhTK4bVzXcJT5sene7Szt966DEs2_Y00Vk/s320/alchem1.jpg" width="228" /></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Some commentators believe that Stotinki's interest in, and subsequent use of the ancient technique of the 'Memory Palace' stem from his strolls in this garden. He writes of conversations with the gardeners who describe how, bringing a certain plant to mind, they could find information about which botanical family it belonged to, or it's geographical origins, medicinal uses etc., simply by remembering its location within the ordered planting systems of the garden.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> '" Architecture, in fact," she said, "is frozen memory. A great man said that."</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> "Hm."</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> "Many great thinkers of the past believed that the mind is a house, where memories are stored; and that the easiest way to remember things is to imagine an architecture, and then cast symbols of what you wish to remember on the various places defined by the architect....</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> "It sounds terribly complicated, I know. And I suppose it's really not any better than a notebook."</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> "Then why all that guff? I don't get it."</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> "Because," she said carefully, sensing that despite his outward truculence he understood her, "it can happen - if you practice this art - that the symbols you put next to one another will modify themselves without your choosing it, and that when next you call them forth, they may say something new and revelatory to you, something you didn't know you knew. Out of the proper arrangement of what you <i>do</i> know, what you <i>don't</i> know may arise spontaneously. That's the advantage of a system. Memory is fluid and vague. Systems are precise and articulated. Reason apprehends them better."</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">'Little, Big', John Crowley</span></span><br />
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</span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7018306787687760312.post-60984761683990051352011-11-24T10:21:00.000-08:002011-11-24T10:21:15.588-08:00Over Supper we Discuss the Yeti<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">'Over supper we discuss the yeti...Tukten says quietly, "I have heard the yeti," and cries out suddenly, "Kak-kak-kak KAI-ee!"-a wild laughing yelp, quite unlike anything I have ever heard, which echoes eerily off the walls of the cold canyon.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> Stirring the embers, Tukten is silent for a while. Dawa stares at him, more startled than myself. According to Tukten, the yeti is an animal, but "more man-creature than monkey-creature". He has never seen one, but intends to turn quickly when he does and pretend he hasn't; the yeti never attacks men, but to see one is bad luck. Yetis were once common in the Khumbu region, but in the time of his grandfather, the people set out poisoned barley to keep yetis from raiding their crops, and killed them off - there were dead yetis everywhere, said Tukten's grandfather.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> Looking up, he gazes at me peacefully over the flame.Then he says something very strange: "I think the yeti is a Buddhist." When I ask him if he means a holy man, a hermit with strange powers, a <i>naljorpa</i>, he just shrugs, refusing with uncustomary stubbornness to explain further.'</span><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzNUdLbCUE8Wd3CdI3Xtznc_upiNM7gv3Sk4kg0MpJqF16wd-DXABZTdHnJn97F3BHG9wAtIa4TE6GVQHUkp5-Btiiaht5Ax7RXQJ8JvAKPZxx8U_0qpapFGDs1Jv33vLVykylK9Z1yAci/s1600/images-1.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzNUdLbCUE8Wd3CdI3Xtznc_upiNM7gv3Sk4kg0MpJqF16wd-DXABZTdHnJn97F3BHG9wAtIa4TE6GVQHUkp5-Btiiaht5Ax7RXQJ8JvAKPZxx8U_0qpapFGDs1Jv33vLVykylK9Z1yAci/s1600/images-1.jpeg" /></a></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Peter Matthiessen, The Snow Leopard</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It would be easy to assume that technology has given us a view of the world so comprehensive as to include the yeti, the sasquatch, the trinity alps giant salamander (described by one witness as being the size of an alligator), the dorset ouser - all conveniently labelled on Google Earth. Large mammal species are still discovered with surprising regularity.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The world is still imbued with mystery. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In 1959 European and American explorers stole parts of a relic purported to be the hand of a yeti from the Pangboche monastery in Nepal. Bizarrely, it was the actor James Stewart who smuggled the remains to London in his luggage. Here they were analysed and described not as human but as 'near human'. </span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTPW2qn5HC1Gkca6x_EaX2NKeeL9rPcQibMWNn9w-n532C6cYgtfFpzcaMI4EXZCJ8765RA5McH0jXPPLMyA3erHlQTSsdr4QNzVr7vdfQrLG8N4N9t1UQ5izzxVyBowjyG4nRp2XQ9aFD/s1600/250px-1954-lowres-JAJ-daily-mail-pangboche-scalp-2Bhand.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTPW2qn5HC1Gkca6x_EaX2NKeeL9rPcQibMWNn9w-n532C6cYgtfFpzcaMI4EXZCJ8765RA5McH0jXPPLMyA3erHlQTSsdr4QNzVr7vdfQrLG8N4N9t1UQ5izzxVyBowjyG4nRp2XQ9aFD/s1600/250px-1954-lowres-JAJ-daily-mail-pangboche-scalp-2Bhand.jpg" /></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Of course. It was a yeti hand. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">For those at Pangboche for whom the relic had a genuine importance, scientific analysis of its yetiness was maybe not so significant. Unfortunately, several years later the rest of the relic was stolen and its present whereabouts are as obscure as the creature which once used it to shield its eyes from the glaring snow at the unknown summit of this earth.</span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7018306787687760312.post-5341368925315207392011-11-09T15:33:00.000-08:002011-11-09T15:33:29.476-08:00Never Odd or Even- Crab Inscriptions<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgalT6It0gRxi_Blsp2xJBQ78bNAzlskqweu7Vhv2tSn0K1neI5Yx8erQGouDoI1_-t1jyAS5oJegXnDxQfCHsXKIUaHTvCvBjGYP52o0S1MdGmWcgvmgEm8srB9XyvYLrpaU2YAtYT1pfk/s1600/Unknown-1.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgalT6It0gRxi_Blsp2xJBQ78bNAzlskqweu7Vhv2tSn0K1neI5Yx8erQGouDoI1_-t1jyAS5oJegXnDxQfCHsXKIUaHTvCvBjGYP52o0S1MdGmWcgvmgEm8srB9XyvYLrpaU2YAtYT1pfk/s1600/Unknown-1.jpeg" /></a></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Asteroid 2005 YU55 has just passed within 202 000 miles of the centre of the earth which may explain those red tendrils all over the kitchen. It's an impressive lump of space rock but it carries a name that is hard to make an imaginative connection with. Asteroid 2817, however, discovered in 1982, was named after french writer, Georges Perec. I've just finished reading his extraordinary novel 'Life a user's manual' (La Vie mode d'emploi) which I found in a Summertown Oxfam. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Perec set himself bizarrely complex constraints to his writing such as using a version of the 'Euler Square' to determine the contents of the chapters in 'Life'. His novel 'La Disparition', and the english translation, omit the letter E, the most common letter in french and english. Apparently there is a spanish translation which omits A instead as that is the most common letter in spanish. Reading about it reminded me of E Prime, the version of english which omits all forms of the verb 'to be'. Consider what E Prime translations of political and religious speeches would sound like...</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Georges Perec also wrote a book in which E was the only vowel used and composed a 5556 letter palindrome. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It was Ben Jonson who came up with the word palindrome. Before that, the ancient greeks called them 'Crabs' or 'Crab Inscriptions'. A famous latin palindrome, 'In girum imus nocte et consumimur igni' translates as 'We go wandering at night and are consumed by fire' and is understood as a reference either to moths or insomniac spontaneous human combustees- in either case it is gratifying in that it makes sense. </span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3wCj3sRIpTQ2EqB3K3gGAJVBZaw22jZEShQYeTeuCBMwBg4NMIE_7oFxJyhdhOar9cumxHYVq5gVHfi5lAtNC7y1xw-rzwp2iJ-WK0aGXP1r5rQgy5kz_jodHRK03ycOWUysNfgVi1MnH/s1600/images-1.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3wCj3sRIpTQ2EqB3K3gGAJVBZaw22jZEShQYeTeuCBMwBg4NMIE_7oFxJyhdhOar9cumxHYVq5gVHfi5lAtNC7y1xw-rzwp2iJ-WK0aGXP1r5rQgy5kz_jodHRK03ycOWUysNfgVi1MnH/s1600/images-1.jpeg" /></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">After a conversation with a soapstone salesman in a market in Helsinki, Gospodin Stotinki was inspired to undertake a palindromic world tour and, while on a train from Laval to the island of Krk, he began work on a palindromic novel. As his creation unfurled from its central axis, he was disturbed to find that the inspired and spiritually uplifting prose with which the novel began was mirrored by an ever more violent and obscene conclusion and, in panic, he hurled the incomplete notebooks containing it into the sea and cut short his tour with a flight to Yreka, California. On entering the town's bakery he realised that he had yet to escape the crab's clutches.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This was the bread product that had drawn him into the Yreka Bakery, and coincidentally it appears when searching the internet for images of Georges Perec.</span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7018306787687760312.post-81424705220689078302011-11-02T12:17:00.000-07:002011-11-02T12:17:14.866-07:00New Work from Gospodin Stotinki<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKfJvIENKbyzdYmnh9_Op4v35A3lYeJ35AJP7r0-AtKmmzBUK6fqP0MXNuRW-X27MIHqxmrV5mm8Ehx-hiuaKlpHPGXg_feF7sjfIxbvSeHm3_N5zCsqmcGku1n944sembDK7OY0_zE9iS/s1600/IMG_0500.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKfJvIENKbyzdYmnh9_Op4v35A3lYeJ35AJP7r0-AtKmmzBUK6fqP0MXNuRW-X27MIHqxmrV5mm8Ehx-hiuaKlpHPGXg_feF7sjfIxbvSeHm3_N5zCsqmcGku1n944sembDK7OY0_zE9iS/s320/IMG_0500.jpg" width="239" /></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Admirers of the work of Gospodin Stotinki were sent into an international apoplexy this week by the news of the discovery of previously unseen works sealed in buried boxes in the garden of his central french residence. The quality of the work is generally abysmal and Stotinki experts already seem to agree that, unwilling to destroy work with which he was not happy, he chose instead to hide it in the ground for eternity. Among the material is the drawing entitled "The Magic Mirror Reveals to Tiddles that his Plans have been Disrupted by the Mexican".</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This childish sketch seems to confirm Stotinki's complete lack of artistic talent and will serve as ammunition for those who claim that Stotinki used his abilities to plagiarise work from eras ahead of his own (see Lloyd Jackson's "Temporal Adventure Without an Apparatus" pp.117-119).</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4yNEgA3cXyvB6dCGzzJAgeDUKPj5N06JRD1iKE0ZDLuBy8iZJUEMckloQjdEKg7CzJVk9A6kf8fwczD9vlHU8AkB84HPa5XOzNqw8Fglq7_E1XuDbTkRXD97Cb_2Fr3Y2RDHMXGMUjyZS/s1600/IMG_0204.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4yNEgA3cXyvB6dCGzzJAgeDUKPj5N06JRD1iKE0ZDLuBy8iZJUEMckloQjdEKg7CzJVk9A6kf8fwczD9vlHU8AkB84HPa5XOzNqw8Fglq7_E1XuDbTkRXD97Cb_2Fr3Y2RDHMXGMUjyZS/s320/IMG_0204.jpg" width="240" /></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The publication of the story "Cardboard Elvis", discovered alongside this drawing, would certainly confirm Stotinki's inability in the area of literature, despite the interesting date- 1927. The original manuscript was partially obscured by obscene oaths in half a dozen eastern european languages. Only one thing is certain: controversy will rage over Stotinki for some time to come. Fascinatingly, one of the only images of Stotinki in his 'Fern Headdress' period was found in the cache. On the reverse was written the obscure message, "Only humour can elude absolute evil."</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Curious.</span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7018306787687760312.post-89434252950847546082011-10-26T13:51:00.000-07:002011-10-26T13:51:42.541-07:00More Gnomes<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Hundertwasser had a surprising amount to say about 'Garden Dwarves'. Maybe not so surprising in the context of his gnomic vision of a world where human dwellings blended seamlessly into the organic landscape. Gardens traditionally contain art that evokes the presence of nature spirits- perhaps our subtle intuition of such presences goads us into making images of them...</span><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNyNXG_cadPxta59h6WoRE7N5PqpLOYg7DNPAypeCasfuf2degidxKDmY4Vy8CbazdHTaxSIljG1kgDr8ztOWSauCuueIG3qcYBiBl0cLs_XGmsYBlGNnbJAa14xycGdo-5rgm9MAfJxHv/s1600/IMG_0187.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNyNXG_cadPxta59h6WoRE7N5PqpLOYg7DNPAypeCasfuf2degidxKDmY4Vy8CbazdHTaxSIljG1kgDr8ztOWSauCuueIG3qcYBiBl0cLs_XGmsYBlGNnbJAa14xycGdo-5rgm9MAfJxHv/s320/IMG_0187.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">"My theory is that the garden dwarf is a mind of god, the god of very ancient times which was destroyed - maybe even destroyed by our monotheism. He personifies the bad conscience of man towards nature. When people feel they wrong nature they place this garden dwarf as an excuse. He is small because grass and flowers are small, so he is smaller and can talk better to the snails and the rabbits and the animals who are generally small - as we can no longer do. He is always there, in the sun, in the rain."</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Perhaps. Grass and flowers are not always small. The tallest tree in the world, named Hyperion by those who discovered it, is a redwood, Sequoia sempervirens. It is growing on the Californian coast and currently measures just over 115m. Douglas firs of 15m grow as epiphytes on its branches. What manner of garden dwarf would we need to construct to talk to this creature on our behalf?</span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7018306787687760312.post-38733123315419234722011-10-19T08:49:00.000-07:002011-10-19T08:49:56.200-07:00The Garden Dwarf<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The absence of kitsch makes our lives unbearable.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We can't manage without romanticism.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The garden gnome symbolizes our right to dreams and our yearning for a fairer, better world.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The garden gnome is a bulwark against the soulless, nihilistic dictates of our times. Just as we hunt Dracula with garlic and crucifixes, so we use the garden gnome to drive out sterile, tyrannical dogma.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Aggressive rationalists and passive dreamers of a better, more beautiful existence part company at the garden gnome.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Long before the christian world picture, long before the gods of the ancient romans and egyptians, long before history was ever recorded, we were able to talk to the birds, the animals, the plants and the trees, indeed even to water, rocks and clouds, and communication brought harmony.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Thus it is written in fairy tales.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The garden gnome, together with the elves, pixies, gnomes, giants and the whole host of magical beings, is a last survivor from that distant past.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Man lives by virtue of his identity, by virtue of his memory of the roots of his being. We may now be very "intelligent", but we have forgotten the language of nature.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Hence the small gnome in the garden.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">You talk to the grass and the birds for me,</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I no longer know how.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And ask nature forgiveness for the evil we do her,</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And help me against the cold, all-powerful enemy.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I no longer know how.</span><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjo5gd8Tt3F16Gn30Y6m1Mn6KFdeiElJmdyDnuFPBYkLlxR4Msv13qRbejKMHkMGR2dxF7O3aWP_lSEwNnoCqZ3wJF8Ex9E560TTH8hcXTlilfLOgk9Ssz7MLAnuZdjGv9qjcUa7LlqvVsI/s1600/IMG_0476.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjo5gd8Tt3F16Gn30Y6m1Mn6KFdeiElJmdyDnuFPBYkLlxR4Msv13qRbejKMHkMGR2dxF7O3aWP_lSEwNnoCqZ3wJF8Ex9E560TTH8hcXTlilfLOgk9Ssz7MLAnuZdjGv9qjcUa7LlqvVsI/s320/IMG_0476.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Hundertwasser April 1990</span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2