Archive for January 2009

Do You Believe In Faeries?

By on January 6, 2009

fairyphoto1If you are familiar with the history of photography or an Arthur Conan Doyle
aficionado, you might recognise this photograph. It is one of the five Cottingley Faeries photographs.

In the early 19th century, photography was regarded as an instrument of truth. The camera couldn’t lie. When Elsie Wright and Frances Griffiths took the first two Cottingley photographs in 1917, their photographs were taken as proof that faeries existed. Arthur Conan Doyle, the creator of Sherlock Holmes and a noted Spiritualist, approached the girls a few years later, gave them a new camera and asked them to take more photos of the faeries. The girls obliged.

Nowadays it is difficult to understand how anybody could be hoodwinked by the photographs. The faeries look like cut-outs and the lighting is noticably “off”. Quite apart from the Arthur Conan Doyle connection (and the inevitable “How could the creator of the world’s most famous detective be fooled by this?!” question), these photos were arguably some of the first to trouble photography’s truth claim.

Elsie and Frances denied faking the faeries for most of their lives, but eventually owed up in the 1980s when both were dying. I was reminded of the Cottingley photographs when I was watching BBC’s Antique Roadshow this past Sunday. Frances’ daughter and grand-daughter showed up with the original photographs and the camera which Conan Doyle had given the girls. What struck me was not so much the estimated value of the photographs and the camera, but rather how the Cottingley incident had impacted an entire family. Frances’ daughter, now an elderly lady, visibly struggled to admit her mother had deceived an entire world. When asked, both the daughter and grand-daughter maintained the fifth and final photograph was genuine – but the grand-daughter looked as though she was protecting her own mother from an unbearable truth.

Photography has changed so much since two girls went down to the bottom of their garden and found faeries. Ellie pointed me towards a series of images from Google Earth which are staggeringly beautiful (particularly the one with the elephants). Make sure to explore the linked images to Mt. Kilimanjaro and Mt. Everest.

This entry is filed under History, Photography and tagged , , , , . | 1 Comment

Books 2009: Gregory Maguire – Wicked.

By on January 5, 2009

First book read in 2009: Gregory Maguire’s Wicked which is a retelling of “The Wizard of Oz” from the viewpoint of the Wicked Witch.

It read a bit like really decent fanfiction in the sense that it subverted canon, told the story via a secondary character and fleshed out the world of Oz (like, just how did they build the Yellow Brick Road and why?). Like much fanfiction, the book also adds a healthy dollop of sexuality to a familiar story.

Did I like it? If it had been fanfiction – i.e. self-published fiction by someone whose day-job does not involve literature – I would have sung its praise because it is clever, inventive and does a marvellous job at humanising a character who’s cardboard Evil in the original book. But it’s not the work of a smart fan. “Wicked” is professionally published, has a John-Updike-in-the-New-Yorker recommendation on the front cover and its author talks about his book being a parable for the Vietnam war. This is where I begin to have serious reservations.

“Wicked” simply isn’t good enough for that sort of pretension. It’s a fun read with its fair share of structural and characterisation problems (most of which are forgiveable, admittedly, except for the middle third of the book which is one big mess) but it does not go any deeper than that. Maguire sets up quite a few interesting points – the distinction between Animals/animals; attitude towards sexuality; the divide and interdependence of science/religion – and completely fails to follow up on these points. Other Half has another two Maguire books set in Oz. I will be reading them at some point, but I’m not in any rush.

Related: Gregory Maguire reimagines “The Little Match Girl” for NPR.

This entry is filed under Books 2009, Literature, Reviewed and tagged , , . | 2 Comments

Welcome, welcome 2009

By on January 4, 2009

If you like Elliott Smith, you’d like Winterpills. Here’s A Benediction.

This entry is filed under Asides.

Still Coughing

By on January 4, 2009

Meanwhile, British steampunk enthusiasts are now hiding their retro-styled reinventions of common househole items under their brass beds for fear of being visited by the long arm of the law themselves

io9 looks into a British newsstory about a rogue terrorist who turned out to be .. well, a LARPer with a steampunk bent?

Meanwhile, my Doctor Who prediction turned out to be a load of codswallop. Whoopsie.

This entry is filed under Popular Culture and tagged , , .

A Few Links

By on January 3, 2009

My nose is running, my head is stuffed and my throat is sore. So, let’s cut this short.

The identity of the new Doctor Who is going to be revealed today on BBC1.  I called Paterson Joseph in November after watching a potential slip-up during an interview. Behind The Sofa has an interesting discussion going with Stuart making a surprisingly good case for Hugh Grant(!) although the consensus seems to be either Paterson Joseph or Chiwetel Ejiofor. The Daily Dust points out that “if there’s a black doctor, it means that when the world gets round to doing all the press for Barack Obama and how black people are getting into positions never thought possible even just a few years ago, then Doctor Who is getting mentioned in those articles.” We shall know very, very soon.

UPDATE: None of the above as it turns out..

BBC has one of those prediction things that they like doing: “we may be witnessing the death of the English indie scene that rose out of the embers of Britpop, and has now become tired and cliched.” Which is utter nonsense, of course. We may see the end of identikit guitar bands pushed into the limelight by clueless record companies (The Pigeon Detectives, anyone? The Kooks?) but those bands have very little to do with indie music. Auntie Beeb also thinks that 2009 will be the year of electro-pop-rock which is a complete contrast to, say,   Klaxons who vowed British audiences and critics in 2007 with their, er, electro-pop-rock.

I didn’t like this site when it first popped up, but it has improved. Which Book? gives you reading recommendations based upon parameters of your own choice. I plugged in a few “musts” and was recommended Patricia Duncker’s Hallucinating Foucault (which I have already read and absolutely love).

Have a lovely Saturday.

This entry is filed under linkage, Literature, Music, Popular Culture and tagged , , , , . | 1 Comment

Knitterly Yours

By on January 2, 2009

september-2008-122Pattern: Woodland by Nikol Lohr. It’s a fabulous pattern. One day I shall knit one for myself. I made it scarf-sized rather shawl-sized.

Wool: 100purewool merino laceweight in “Choir”. I used approx 65 g.

Needles: 3.25mm. I think I could have gone up to 3.5mm and it would have been amazingly airy, but I liked the ‘airy, but substantial’ fabric the 3.25mm needles made. Similarly, I think you could have taken it all the way down to 2.50mm as well.

This was my mother’s Christmas present. I worked on it from May 2008 until September 2008. Then she sent me a wishlist saying that she’d like a scarf (yes!) but NOT in any shade of brown (cue panic!!). Although many kind souls offered to take the scarf off me, so I could buy my mother something, I decided to chance it. Fortunately, she loves it and I can stop panicking (for about another six months).

During Christmas I actually finished a beret, but I have been unable to snap any great photos of it (I blame my cold). I wanted a portable holiday project which would be fun to knit, easy to do in a house filled with relatives and something I’d use.

I chose a free beret pattern from the ever-reliable Garnstudio and it turned out to be the perfect holiday project. The lace pattern was interesting enough to keep me hanging in there but easy enough so my three-year-old nephew could bounce around without me losing track. Instead of using the suggested wool, I opted for Sandnes Tove in a lovely olive green shade. I used about 1.3 balls in total (which leaves enough for a pair of mitts).  I finished the beret in three days or so with nary a modification. Unfortunately the bouncy nephew and the Christmas excitement meant my gauge was way, way off, so the beret turned out to be huge. So I threw it in the washing machine at 40 degrees. It’s now perfect. Perfect, I tell you.

What’s on my needles now? A top-down jumper in a wool/alpaca blend. It’s my own design and I’m now at that scary point where i have to work in darts. I’m also getting ready to cast on for a shawl, but all my laceweight is hiding in the storage room behind our Christmas tree. So I cannot access it, oh the trauma.

And so the knitting begins..

This entry is filed under Knitting, Purls, yarn and tagged . | 2 Comments

Retrospect: On Cartoons, Personal Agendas and Denmark

By on January 2, 2009

Elsewhere on the net I’m currently embroiled in a discussion about religion. Usually I would stay far away from such a discussion – I’m a self-identified secular humanist with a strong agnostic bent and the only form of religious belief I find difficult to accept is a fundamentalist one (whether this be Christian, Islamic, Jewish, Hindi, Atheist or whatever) – but someone invoked the post-2005 variant upon Godwin’s Law: the darn Muhammed cartoons (first published in Denmark, of course). I could not stay silent because people invoke the cartoons and the public reaction without knowing anything about the actual context. It still bothers me after all these years.

So I’ve been toying with the good, old internet and dug out my old, old blog post (back from when I wrote really long, really smart blog posts). A lot has changed since I first posted it back in 2006. Some of the key players have died or changed allegiance. The world has moved on. I’m not longer living in Denmark and is (thankfully) no longer privy to what passes for political debate. But it makes for interesting reading, still.

Continue reading Retrospect: On Cartoons, Personal Agendas and Denmark

This entry is filed under Blogging, Denmark, History and tagged , , , , .

2009, So Far

By on January 1, 2009

+ “No, I’m not going to twirl you around like they did in Moulin Rouge.. oh, okay. But if you fall, I’m not picking you up.”

+ cough-cough-cough.

+ “.. ella, ella, ella, eh, eh, ella..” (or, why it’s a bad idea to leave the TV tuned to E4 whilst you go in search of tissue paper)

+ Cold, misty walk along the river yields surprisingly low dog-walkers count.

+ “Do you know what time it is? No, it’s not five minutes to five. It’s trying on sweater-time so I can check if I need to do more increases. Do try to look excited.”

+ “Any more shortbread left?”

+ Wonder how a tongue-in-cheek post can produce very disagreeable comments (but then again not be terribly surprised, sadly).

+ “Nooooo, they’re not going to show the kissing bit from Doctor Who again, are they? That’s disgusting.”

+ Realise that The Voyage of the Dawn Treader will probably not get made which is a shame since it was my favourite Narnia book. Then realise that the non-filming of a good book could be a Rather Good Thing.

+ Now in search of food (and tissue paper).

This entry is filed under Personal and tagged , , , . | 2 Comments

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