Draped to the Ankles

Dr. Who Scarf

Belive it or not, I actually have one of these. Though I don't really knit, I do know enough to be able to knit a 12 foot long scarf. I used it all the time in the Chicago winters. I just find it unusual to find a website devoted entirely to Dr. Who's scarf. (Via SF Signal.)

Gotta Love the Brits

Lady Bracknell, who is a Brit herself (I hope the term 'Brit' isn't considered derogatory??) points to the e-petitions section at 10 Downing St website. This is where citizens of the UK are allowed, even encouraged, to create petitions to be signed online and presented to parliament. For those, like myself, who sometimes find themselves watching Prime Ministers Questions time on C-Span (yes, I am a bit odd), you will find this illuminating, particularly if you look at the list of petitions starting backwards with the smallest (fewest signatures.) Someone wants to give Jamie Oliver a Knighthood. And another wants to make eggs a mandatory part of the diet. Not all are facetious, of course, but I have a feeling that if something like that were tried by the White House, MOST of them would be facetious.

Those wacky Brits! What will they think of next?

Know Thy Bible

Well, seems I know my Bible:

Pretty good for someone who a) never went to Sunday school, b) was never a professed Christian, c) is now mostly a Buddhist. That's what it means to be a UU!

Tiny Houses

While Googling Craftsman Bungalow floor plans (I'm not buying one - I just really like them), I ran across Tumbleweed Tiny House Company. These are the cutest little portable houses. And I mean little. The smallest is only 40 sq ft. I have a playhouse in the back yard about that size. Maybe I could replace it with one of these!

The Lymond Chronicles

For Christmas, I received new copies of the last two books in the 6 book series Chronicles of Lymond by Dorothy Dunnett. Now, anyone who knows me knows these are my all time favorite books. I started reading them 30 years ago back when I was a teenager. Since then, I have re-read them a few dozen times. My old mass market paperbacks are so abused they have that heavy, clear packing tape all over them holding the covers on. And the covers are terrible, anyway; horrible, lurid 70's era romance novel covers. One of them doesn't even have the right time period portrayed - the books are set in the 16th century, but the cover for the book Pawn in Frankincense has a Napoleonic era couple on the front (ugh!). Anyway, I now own all the Vintage trade paperback editions, so I had to re-read them all again. I haven't read the entire series through in probably 20 years. I have been enjoying myself immensely ("Don't bother me right now; I'm at the courts of Ivan the Terrible and Mary Tudor today.")

Rather than write a whole review, I direct you to the numerous reviews on the Amazon pages (the link above). I do recommend them to anyone who enjoys epic historical fiction, ornate prose, exotic settings, court intrigue, action, adventure, and a main character to die for. Speaking of which, I took a quiz that only a Dunnett fan would appreciate, and apparently I am Francis Crawford of Lymond (though somehow I look like a young Peter O'Toole).

Which Lymond Character Are You?

Congratulations, you're Francis Crawford of Lymond, for a time the Master of Culter. You're the hero and the focal point of everything. You're the quintessential romantic hero: brooding, mysterious, witty, informed, gentle, sensitive and all the rest. You should, perhaps, consider doing the dishes once in a while and speak in your native tongue when possible. In other words, show off a bit less. It won't kill you.
Take this quiz!

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Hokusai and Van Gogh

I found a very interesting site for artworks via Plep this morning. The German website Vispix is a website whose mission is to publish a world-class gallery of fine art reproductions, and other digital images, completely free to the public. No copyright restrictions. While there are many museum-type websites out there (see my sidebar), this one strives to be different. Right now, they have all The 1000 Mangas of Hokusai available for viewing and downloading. These are some of the most stunning woodblock prints created anywhere, let alone in Japan. Vispix also has all of the works of Van Gogh, The Medieval Book of Kells, rock paintings from the Sahara, fractal art, and a lot of other things. The website has an ambitious vision, and I hope they are able to build towards that in the future. Right now, I suggest you click on over and take a gander at The 1000 Mangas of Hokusai.

Performance Arts

Blue Wyvern always manages to find the most unique and amazing images. She has posted videos of performance art on her blog. The Thousand-Hand Bodhisattva is the most beautiful thing I have ever seen on video. You must take a look. Busby Berkeley would have killed to have these dancers on his sets.

New York on My Table

Santa brought me New York City. Manhattan, to be more precise. I had three 3D puzzles, each has one tall building, and one smaller classic. Why is it that three of the buildings were missing at least one piece? That's just annoying. Below is the finished product (don't look too close - I messed up the Empire State Building.)

I set them up to be approximately where they are in Manhattan, with south being at the front part of the table. I had a heck of a time finding the American Radiator Building (the small brown one) on my maps. The internet tells me it's at 40 W. 40th St. The other two smaller buildings are the old Met Life Tower, and the Flatiron - one of my personal favorites. The tall ones are the Empire State, The Chrysler (my favorite), and the CitiCorp (or Citigroup depending on what year we're talking about).

The question now is, what do I do with them?

In the News

I saw two news stories today that really made me think. The first is "Man Rescued by Stranger on Subway Tracks". This is the kind of story that is just too cool for words. A 50-year-old construction worker, Wesley Autrey, was waiting for the train in the subway station at 137th St in Manhattan. He had his two young daughters with him. At some point, he saw a young man fall to the ground having a seizure. He and two other women went to help him. He seemed to be ok, but when he stood up, he fell onto the subway tracks in the path of an oncoming train. Now, I don't know about you, but if I don't want my daughters to see a man run over by a train, I'm more likely to cover their eyes than jump down there. But that's what he did. He couldn't get the confused kid to go with him, so he rolled them both into the trough between the tracks and covered the kid's body with his own. He couldn't have known he would survive that, he was only hoping. As one article said, the trough is only 2 feet deep at its lowest points, and 8 inches deep elsewhere. But, they survived unharmed.

This man is a true hero. He has been awarded the Bronze Medal by the Mayor of New York and gotten quite a lot of praise. What was interesting to me was that when my DH pointed out the story last night, the pictures showed this gangsta-looking guy who didn't look respectable or even 50. We both were surprised that he didn't look like a bus driver or someone's kindly grandfather. When I went looking for the article in the Times, I saw a serious, respectable, somewhat grizzled black man who was described as former Navy and a construction worker. I can't find the pictures DH was looking at last night, but I thought the difference was interesting. Anyway, just goes to show you can't judge anyone by their looks, at least, not their photographs.

UPDATE: I found the article DH reading last night. It's at CBS News. That figures. For a few years, now, I have heard or seen nothing good from CBS News. I consider them disreputable, and downright liars. I'll have to see if I can find the story on some homeschoolers they did a few years ago that caused an uproar with its twisted facts and biased reporting.

The second story I got from Lynn about a disabled girl who has had treatment to stunt her growth (I link to a different article than hers). The parents of this 9-year-old girl had her uterus and breast tissue removed, and are giving her hormone treatment to keep her at 4 ft 5 inches tall and 65 pounds. At first this sounds a bit drastic, and there are a lot of people who are saying it's wrong and unethical. But the girl is severely brain damaged, and bed-ridden, and will never be anything other than a complete invalid. Her family took these measures to make it easier for them to care for her for the rest of her life. Her size keeps down bedsores, and she won't have to deal with menstruation or breast cancer (which runs in the family). All in all, it seems reasonable to me. And I can't imagine anyone arguing that they are only doing this for selfish reasons. If they were truly selfish, the girl would be in a home somewhere, not being cared for by a loving family. I know I probably wouldn't do it. I'm very selfish that way, and have little patience for being someone's nursemaid for the rest of my life. I say more power to them.

Changing Tastes

I was reading an article on American artists in Paris in the Smithsonian Magazine the other day. Anyone familiar with 19th century art will recognize the names of Whistler and Cassatt and possibly Childe Hassam. But what struck me was the discussion of a certain painting that has become relatively well-known today.

Now, before you look at the painting, let me tell you what was said. The painting is a full-length portrait of a woman in high-society. It was not commissioned - the artist just wanted to paint her and display the work in the yearly Salon. When he finally did, it was considered scandalous and the lady's mother was convinced her daughter's reputation was completely ruined.

both painter and sitter were vilified as "detestable" and "monstrous." One critic wrote that the portrait was "offensive in its insolent ugliness and defiance of every rule of art."

The artist hung onto the painting for years until he finally sold it to the Met in 1916. By then, it was not considered quite so scandalous due too a minor change the artist made. Here is the work.

Madame X (Virginie Avegno Gautreau) by John Singer Sargent, 1883

If you are anything like me, you will look at this and marvel at the beauty of this portrait and wonder how anyone in their right mind could consider it ugly or offensive. But 120 years makes a big difference in our perceptions. In all fairness, I have to say that the portrait originally showed one of the jeweled straps of her evening gown carelessly askew, and that was a big part of the painting's scandalousness. Still, you wouldn't think it would warrant the reaction it got. I imagine these same critics would have had coronaries when Picasso and his bunch started showing their cubist works. But that's what artists have been doing for 150 years, shocking their audiences and challenging the status quo. Nowadays, it takes a lot to shock us, but it can be done. The question is, why? Why is it so important for artists to continue to shock and challenge? When was the last major art movement, and what did it do for us?

But I digress. I just wanted and excuse to show this beautiful portrait of Madame X. Stunning, isn't she?