The Open-Source What Project
Oh wow. Humankind at its slimiest. Just when I thought I had heard it all.
(via Ellie and a few others)
Sectarianism
Yesterday I wore my bright green woollen coat to celebrate that spring was in the air. A man approached me: "I don't like green." I blinked a couple of times and then sighed.
Ever heard of Sectarianism? It is: "..bigotry, discrimination, intolerance or hatred arising from attaching importance to perceived differences between subdivisions within a group, such as between different denominations of a religion or the factions of a political movement." In Glasgow, sectarianism is linked to football.
I was wearing green, so to the stranger I was obviously a Celtic supporter. He was evidently a Rangers supporter given his "I don't like green" stance. He moved across the road to confront me head-on. I'm not proud of this, but I did a little girly giggle and put on my best Danish accent: "Oh, are you talking about the football stuff?" And after I had explained I was from Copenhagen, didn't know anything about football, and he had repeated his "I don't like GREEN" about a dozen times, the man told me that I was lucky I was such a nice girl .. otherwise he would have messed me up.
(and I once showed up wearing green nail varnish at work and was told that I better be wearing blue nail varnish the next day just to show my neutrality. It didn't matter that green is one of my favourite colours and I don't give a t*ss about club football. Honestly.)
This is the dark side of Glasgow life.
Synergy
Wheylona and I go back a decade (gosh). We first met when she worked in Sweden and was heading with friends to Denmark for a concert. I remember us walking through the streets of Copenhagen singing History Never repeats (youtube link) about twenty minutes after meeting for the first time. Ten years on, the American lives in the Basque country (Spain) and the Dane lives in the UK. History may never repeat, but time does move swiftly.
W. has written a fantastic entry about Will Ashford's recycled/re-contextualising word-art:
The artist, Will Ashford, takes pages from books and finds words and (near-)collocations that call to him, then designs his artwork around them. For me it's an amazingly engaging combination of art forms, resulting in layered, textured, juicy pieces that need to be savored and digested slowly. I find them very visually appealing--I love the the swirls, arcs, lines and dots, the touches of color on occasion, the contrast between sharp and blurred. I also totally dig the idea of taking words--things that seem so stable and static and fundamental--and highlighting the fact that they are not at all what they seem, or rather that they are more than what they seem.
Gorgeous stuff. And W. was lovely enough to say that experiencing Ashford's work brought me to mind. That means a lot to me, W.
Ashford's work brought another friend to mind. Bonnie MacAllister also works with the intersection of visual art and words. She's a performance poet, a visual artist and a feminist educator. I was lucky enough to receive a copy of her latest collection, Some Words Are No Longer Words about a month ago.
Sometimes I wish I could bring all my friends and acquaintances together in one room - all the writers, poets, thinkers, photographers, painters, crafters and performers - and just feed off the synergy. Whilst the internet does allow for easier interaction, having them all in that one room would be absolutely amazing.
Brain Bling
How good are you at recognising fonts? I got a measly 24 right out of 34. At least I still know my Helvetica from my Arial. It's all in the curves, baby.
I have actually been watching quite a bit of TV lately. BBC4 is having a rather funky Medieval Season, so I've been lapping up programmes on Thomas Aquinas, Abelard and the aformentioned Stephen Fry & the Gutenberg Press (which was pr0ntastic, incidentally). I get to flap my arms around excitedly and repeatably which is really nice. TV, I forgive you your multitude of sins when you indulge me like this.
Finally, I'd like to thank everybody who asked for my mother. She was discharged from hospital on Tuesday and is back home again. It is a relief.
You know you have a Dr Who problem when…
..you sit down on the sofa which bumps against the bookcase causing a Judoon figure to fall down on your head. You put the Judoon back on the shelf among the Doctor Who books (including the “Doctor Who & the Loch Ness Monster” book which you own because you live in Scotland). Then you rub your head and lean back .. making the Dalek pillow/hot-water-bottle cover spout “YOU WILL BE EXTERMINATED”. Startled, you make an escape to the kitchen where you feel like getting a refreshment. On the fridge eight different Doctor Who fridge magnets stare back at you.
Thank you, Live-In Boyfriend.
They Used Wine Presses, You Know
Me mam's apparently doing a bit better. It's slightly strange to be in another country and not being able to rush to the hospital.
Somebody at BBC is my new friend. Stephen Fry & the Gutenberg Press is showing on BBC4 tonight so whoever greenlighted that show gets to be my friend. Yes I'll sit there with popcorn shouting at the telly whenever they say something vaguely incorrect (or get too carried away with the entire 'cultural revolution' - too Eisenstein and not enough Johns for my taste. I just know they'll fly on the wings of the "printing press as agent for change" thing and there are so many problems with that idea..). Oh, my heart be still.
Related-ish: two ways of debasing/defacing/recycling books (delete as appropriate):
+ Nicholas Jones - Book Sculptor
+ How to make a handbag out of a book
I'm not sure I approve.
Stranger Things Have Happened
If somebody could explain to me why I spend an entire day feeling excruciatingly guilty over telling my manager that I'm still ill and, no, I do not know when I'll be back at work, then leave me a comment. I shouldn't feeling guilty for telling the truth but I suspect it's that old authority thing. You know, you see a policeman and you instantly feel like you should be locked up for some crime? Okay, maybe that's just me ..
I can't remember where I found this, but it's actually very good: Garfield Without Garfield. Remember that 1980s comic strip about a fat cat and its owner? That comic strip is actually still in circulation back where my parents live. Whenever they send me a parcel, they always wrap things in the local paper* and Garfield's there peeking up at me with some bad pun involving lasagna. Gah. But Garfield Without Garfield is different. There is no fat cat spouting lasagna puns; it's been removed. And the result is a comic strip that's far funnier and stranger than you might expect.
*click only if you are really bored, able to read Danish and have an unhealthy fascination with farming communities.
Yarn Mention Of the Day: I ordered some yarn off teh interwebs thinking it'd be burgundy with a few freckles of pink. It turned out to be chocolate with quite a lot of pink. I feel like I'm knitting with Neapolitan ice cream.. which is bad for my sweet tooth. Mmm, ice cream..
Sonic Strikes Back
Sometimes I just effin' love New Zealand. They do things differently there.
NZ man 'used hedgehog as weapon': "The police spokesman said the suspect was arrested "for assault with a weapon, namely the hedgehog."
Poor hedgehog, though.
Twitching
Following Friday's unfortunate stroll, I decided I should probably take things easy. What brought it home? It was possibly the fact that when I passed out on Friday, I narrowly escaped having my forehead cut open thanks to broken glass lying on the ground. This time I was lucky and as for next time .. there will not be a next time. I'll be taking things very, very easy from now on. No more marathon computer sessions, no more computer games and I'll try very hard to squeeze as much sleep into my day as I possibly can.
I'm thirty-two, intelligent, out-going and occasionally I'm witty too. And some days I can't even manage the five-minute walk up to the local supermarket. I have no idea what on earth is wrong with me and I am seemingly stuck in a slightly chaotic health care system (apologies to all Britons, but my experience of UK vs Danish heath care definitely gives the Danish heath care system the upper hand - and I've had some pretty dire experiences with Danish doctors in my time). Right now I feel as though my doctor is expecting me to give her a diagnosis - not the other way around. It's quite, quite frustrating.
Also, I am suffering from cabin fever. Know what it's like being stuck in bed with a cold for a week? Try imagining yourself stuck in that situation for a few months. I've begun knitting. Don't get me wrong, I really enjoy it but I knit whilst watching Crufts, for heaven's sake. And I wear slippers an awful lot. It is as though my life has decided to skip straight to me being eighty-four.
Good things:
+ A worrying family situation has improved.
+ Other Half has taken up making ice-cream. He is very good at this.
+ Friends and family send me beautiful, beautiful yarn.
+ Doctor Who is back on TV! AND the Ofishul Doctor Who exhibition is coming to Glasgow next year!
+ Elbow's latest album, The Seldom Seen Kid makes me beam.
+ And the daffodils are in bloom, so even if I end up with my face flat on the ground, I can look at pretty things.
Bad Things Not Mentioned Thus Far:
+ I try to knit fingerless gloves for Other Half (using organic Scottish wool - locally sourced too - gosh, I'm such a Guardian reader, am I not?) but I end up hating every thing I knit and frog it mercilessly. Grrr..