bluejoh has placed a treasure trove of links within a Ray Bradbury poem. Night Call, Collect.
It seems wrong to unthread such a dazzling post, but just one great site cited is this international tonguetwister collection. Here’s a French example:
Ta Kathy t'a quitté (bis)/ T'es cocu qu'attends-tu?/ T'as plus qu'à te cuiter,/ Et quitter ton quartier.
(Your Cathy has left you. You have been deceived, what are you waiting for? You have but to get drunk. and leave your appartment.)
And the German: Was blickst Du so stier Bube,/ warst Du in der Bierstube?
(Why are you looking so stubborn boy, were you in the beer bar?) -
or perhaps: Unter einer Fichtenwurzel hörte ich einen Wichtel furzen - ( Under a spruce root I heard a gnome farting)
From Sweden: Sju sjuka sjuksköterskor tvättade sina skitiga stjärtar i rosa champagne.
(Seven sick nurses washed their dirty behinds in pink champagne.)
And from Calabria: Avera ma vaju ma viu s'avera ma vaju ma jocu u pallone.
(I should go to see if I have to go to play soccer.)
Saturday, February 08, 2003
Friday, February 07, 2003
May as well make it four consecutive posts about dogs. Blog LCD apparently. This one’s about Abby. Boynton was having her nightly bout of gloom in despair room, when she was sought out by this geriatric lab, who can barely walk 10 feet without falling, whose old hind legs give way as she sways and twitches, and pants breathlessly around, half blind, doing her ward round in the dark, like some neverland nanna. The original Pets as Therapy dog, all she has ever wanted is to place her head in a human hand, and be there. A presence. Now between lapses of senility and fragility, she’s working off the memory, of routine and learned domestic geography. All paths lead back to the mark of the pack, her kind, a hand in the dark. As I pat her hard white head I shake mine and say: fifteen Abby, you’re almost fifteen.
Of course, as boynton's mother has always said: there is never just one mouse ...
So Bronte has her hunting mind fully occupied. On the matter of humane extermination, see the electronic repeller (... which to boynton, resembles a vintage radio of the type that she is always hunting down in vain)
It delivers a tremendous blast of ultrasound -- inaudible to you and your pets -- that disrupts the nervous systems of those pests. They will in most cases leave your home within a few weeks.
While the RatZapper clearly worked for this woman, who closes her rapturous testimony with the appeal: Let me know if you are interested, and what we could do together...Boynton will stick with the old crazy canine snapper.
So Bronte has her hunting mind fully occupied. On the matter of humane extermination, see the electronic repeller (... which to boynton, resembles a vintage radio of the type that she is always hunting down in vain)
It delivers a tremendous blast of ultrasound -- inaudible to you and your pets -- that disrupts the nervous systems of those pests. They will in most cases leave your home within a few weeks.
While the RatZapper clearly worked for this woman, who closes her rapturous testimony with the appeal: Let me know if you are interested, and what we could do together...Boynton will stick with the old crazy canine snapper.
Thursday, February 06, 2003
Trust your terrier... After 48 hours of "engaging her quarry", Bronte finally "bolted her quarry" and dispatched the mouse. It was quick and clean - so we suspect it's reasonably humane. Now Boynton just has to dispose of the body and re set the sculpture that rests in the fireplace. Five bowling pins and a bowling ball that the terrier toppled one by one the other night, with that sweet nostalgic bowling sound byte. It was the spare before the strike.
Wednesday, February 05, 2003
retro redux. Don't go past the e-cards on the 50's TV Guides link. Boynton just spent a happy hour among old friends... Long lost loves of her sisters like Dr Kildare and the boys from "Here Come The Brides"... (the three older sisters each staked out their own J brother) ... Sebastion Cabot (who was somehow scary to young boynton) and kindly Brian Keith. She thought her life would resemble "Please Don't eat the Daisies" - but so far she's only scored the canine whirlwind. She's tempted to link to Get Smart, and though she's been accused of writing a la Waltons, she'll finish with her all time favourite show, featuring one of the matching bookends.
Plath in Portuguese (via Enigmatic Mermaid )
Retro delight: US TV guides from 50’s...(via Quiddity)
and Taschen’s All-American Ads of the 60s... (via Boing Boing)... (Boynton was going to buy this book for boynton for Christmas. Maybe she’ll buy it for February.)
And fff-inally – Boynton has a friend (or two) for whom this guide to “cuss control” could come in handy. (via memepool)
Retro delight: US TV guides from 50’s...(via Quiddity)
and Taschen’s All-American Ads of the 60s... (via Boing Boing)... (Boynton was going to buy this book for boynton for Christmas. Maybe she’ll buy it for February.)
And fff-inally – Boynton has a friend (or two) for whom this guide to “cuss control” could come in handy. (via memepool)
Tuesday, February 04, 2003
Freida Hughes has written a poem attacking a BBC-backed film of her mother's life and death. (via Moby Lives)
Critical of both the producers and “their monster/ "Their Sylvia Suicide Doll” and the consumers: “the "peanut eaters, entertained at my mother's death" - one defence offered is that 'Sylvia Plath invaded her own privacy first…' In the BBC link, there is a kind of found poem in the photo of Ted Hughes with the words:
Ted Hughes: Did not want his life
to be dramatised
But of course, it is, currently in production. In his essay The Case against Biography Michael Holyroyd quotes Oscar Wilde 'Every man has his disciples, and it is always Judas who writes the biography.” And in regard to the literary/artistic genre he notes the criticism that biographers “are continually trying to explain how the rabbit got into the hat before the novelist or poet produces her magic”
On a slight tangent, this is an interesting conversation with A.S.Byatt, re her book A Biographers’ Tale.
Boynton took heart from this observation: “a writer has a right to learn from what they intensely enjoy as well as what makes them think and understand” This morning Boynton had spent some enjoyable lowbrow downtime listening to an old tape she had once compiled of some corny uncool favourites from a decade ago. Unhip (quite a few feature on the pub Karaoke playlist) but they harbour all that standard nostalgic power that gets the mind (and heart) ticking over.
Critical of both the producers and “their monster/ "Their Sylvia Suicide Doll” and the consumers: “the "peanut eaters, entertained at my mother's death" - one defence offered is that 'Sylvia Plath invaded her own privacy first…' In the BBC link, there is a kind of found poem in the photo of Ted Hughes with the words:
Ted Hughes: Did not want his life
to be dramatised
But of course, it is, currently in production. In his essay The Case against Biography Michael Holyroyd quotes Oscar Wilde 'Every man has his disciples, and it is always Judas who writes the biography.” And in regard to the literary/artistic genre he notes the criticism that biographers “are continually trying to explain how the rabbit got into the hat before the novelist or poet produces her magic”
On a slight tangent, this is an interesting conversation with A.S.Byatt, re her book A Biographers’ Tale.
Boynton took heart from this observation: “a writer has a right to learn from what they intensely enjoy as well as what makes them think and understand” This morning Boynton had spent some enjoyable lowbrow downtime listening to an old tape she had once compiled of some corny uncool favourites from a decade ago. Unhip (quite a few feature on the pub Karaoke playlist) but they harbour all that standard nostalgic power that gets the mind (and heart) ticking over.
Monday, February 03, 2003
It’s beginning to slip from the headlines here, but earlier Boynton heard the inevitable call for perspective on the Columbia disaster with Jon Faine questioning the nine page local tabloid splash in the “mediafrenzy”...
See LivingRoom for more ( via bene diction)
These debates seem to ignore the global and symbolic meaning, the way the death of astronauts (like princesses) can hit a symbolic nerve that transcends (that given) our base equality. And for Boynton too it was some sort of universal connection to the bright moving star orbiting over the back yard. This is (apparently) an email from Laurel Clark on Friday:
This was definitely one to beat all. I hope you could feel the positive energy that beamed to the whole planet as we glided over our shared planet...
For the past five hours Bronte has been totally transfixed eyeballing a mouse. Likewise Boynton - monitor and mouse - when she should have been cleaning the house, defrosting the fridge, matching up socks.(via b3ta)
See LivingRoom for more ( via bene diction)
These debates seem to ignore the global and symbolic meaning, the way the death of astronauts (like princesses) can hit a symbolic nerve that transcends (that given) our base equality. And for Boynton too it was some sort of universal connection to the bright moving star orbiting over the back yard. This is (apparently) an email from Laurel Clark on Friday:
This was definitely one to beat all. I hope you could feel the positive energy that beamed to the whole planet as we glided over our shared planet...
For the past five hours Bronte has been totally transfixed eyeballing a mouse. Likewise Boynton - monitor and mouse - when she should have been cleaning the house, defrosting the fridge, matching up socks.(via b3ta)
Sunday, February 02, 2003
Last week in the stifling heat, we watched it slowly cross the southern sky. At first we thought it was a shooting star, and made a wish. Next morning I heard an astronomer explain that the light slowly crossing from east to west was the space shuttle. Today we wake up to the news: Columbia disappeared from radar screens at 9am (0100 AEDT Sunday), 16 minutes from landing, " After a brief crackling noise, contact was lost". A witness in Palestine Texas, sees...trails of smoke zig-zagging, going across the sky... And NASA spokeswoman Catherine Watson told NPR: "All of the flight controllers are just looking at all the data trying to figure out what happened." Watson broke down in tears when asked whether it was possible that the crew had survived.
(And see Quiddity for the poem High Flight)
(And see Quiddity for the poem High Flight)
Saturday, February 01, 2003
Boynton awoke to no power today. She had forgotton to pay attention to the third citypower pamphlet that advised her of the pending interruption. So she quickly trekked the 4k over to Nora’s for toast and coffee and surfin.
The above image is from a fabulous exhibition called What was Home Economics (via Plep) a history of the school at Cornell.
What was school Home economics for Boynton? Fighting for flour rations to produce only adequate scones and blanc-mange in bad aprons handed down in turn by four older sisters. The menus like the aprons and caps never changed. Only the badly sewn initials on the pocket changed. Except Boynton actually never sewed her own initials in but quietly wore the two red letters of her outgoing sister. No one noticed.
Perhaps if it had been called Human Ecology she may have learned to balance the budget. Or to think outside the square (meals) of chow mein and stewed apples . Actually dandelions may have been a good nutritional supplement for Wallis Simpson, who reportedly 'served nouvelle cuisine before the term was invented. But she ate little of it herself, and in her later years consumed little apart from vodka and lettuce'
The above image is from a fabulous exhibition called What was Home Economics (via Plep) a history of the school at Cornell.
What was school Home economics for Boynton? Fighting for flour rations to produce only adequate scones and blanc-mange in bad aprons handed down in turn by four older sisters. The menus like the aprons and caps never changed. Only the badly sewn initials on the pocket changed. Except Boynton actually never sewed her own initials in but quietly wore the two red letters of her outgoing sister. No one noticed.
Perhaps if it had been called Human Ecology she may have learned to balance the budget. Or to think outside the square (meals) of chow mein and stewed apples . Actually dandelions may have been a good nutritional supplement for Wallis Simpson, who reportedly 'served nouvelle cuisine before the term was invented. But she ate little of it herself, and in her later years consumed little apart from vodka and lettuce'
Friday, January 31, 2003
Boynton was too late at the op-shop today, for the curved 50's retro chic couch had already been baggsed. Hold said the sticker. Not a directive. More a metaphor. And anyway lack of space et al means Boynton would have only thought about it for five before moving onto the dollar rack and the bulky space killers. (Enid Blyton's Dog Stories (the yellow edition) for $2 today). On the vintage note, this example from the ugly bridesmaid dress collection, sounds a warning that not all retro is neccesarily fetching. (via Pop Culture Junk Mail)
As January draws to its sober conclusion, Boynton can now countenance the practice of intemperance again. She may break out and have a glass of fizz tonight, or she may get her card restamped.
Thursday, January 30, 2003
EYD - Part Three – CMCTMHS – creative memories are close to my heart, sister.
If Boynton came across a tad too cynical, she’d like to endorse the various memory-crafts showcased recently. Although she practiced an early childhood form of scrapbooking (pasting) she has a deeply–rooted fear of handicraft, but admires those who can. Alas, she is simply NNE - not neat enough. And NHB - never has been.
The wider therapeutic and creative effects of memory projects journaling and story-telling are well known , and the new order of Creative Memory Consultants often work with issues of memory loss and Retrieval. I was here.
If the internet is actually some dynamic universal memory machine, it's appropriate to see some of the global nodes literally recording the local. This is an example of one of the many community projects, and this is a kind of hybrid home page/cultural history.
Still, sometimes it’s the old technology of words that can out capture, as seen in this extract from a suburban memoir(via the digital) and this paper on the phenomenology of memory... Thus endeth the scrapping.
If Boynton came across a tad too cynical, she’d like to endorse the various memory-crafts showcased recently. Although she practiced an early childhood form of scrapbooking (pasting) she has a deeply–rooted fear of handicraft, but admires those who can. Alas, she is simply NNE - not neat enough. And NHB - never has been.
The wider therapeutic and creative effects of memory projects journaling and story-telling are well known , and the new order of Creative Memory Consultants often work with issues of memory loss and Retrieval. I was here.
If the internet is actually some dynamic universal memory machine, it's appropriate to see some of the global nodes literally recording the local. This is an example of one of the many community projects, and this is a kind of hybrid home page/cultural history.
Still, sometimes it’s the old technology of words that can out capture, as seen in this extract from a suburban memoir(via the digital) and this paper on the phenomenology of memory... Thus endeth the scrapping.
EYD Part two. TSC – The scrappers connection.
Nora was telling Boynton of some friends who are heavily into scrapping – a craft craze that Boynton had never heard of. After extensive research she concluded “It’s just decorating your photo album isn’t it?”
Why should you scrapbook?
Life is a series of moments and stories, which can be captured in a scrapbook that can be handed down through generations. Let us spare our children the yellow faded colour photos of their childhood that many of us own now
As a craft cult scrapping can become all consuming, and has all the usual trappings: superstores, style-gurus, conventions, community where people chat with customised acronyms : CIS – Crop in style and SSS Secret Sister swap but converse mainly about vellum and glue and AF (acid free) stuff.
Of course it has its antecedents – Victorian ladies used to spend their leisure compiling scraps into beautifully embossed albums. But then Boynton always thought that inclination was part of the peculiar mortality mindset of middle class Victorians.
To catch life when you still could. Is this new incarnation also a sign of sublimated nihilism? The desire to preserve the transient? To create a parallel universe of memory, where reality is either miniaturised or replicated? Memories are literally created, cropped and embellished. This is an interesting variation of the commissioned portrait. For the age of the universal private (folk) museum.
Nora was telling Boynton of some friends who are heavily into scrapping – a craft craze that Boynton had never heard of. After extensive research she concluded “It’s just decorating your photo album isn’t it?”
Why should you scrapbook?
Life is a series of moments and stories, which can be captured in a scrapbook that can be handed down through generations. Let us spare our children the yellow faded colour photos of their childhood that many of us own now
As a craft cult scrapping can become all consuming, and has all the usual trappings: superstores, style-gurus, conventions, community where people chat with customised acronyms : CIS – Crop in style and SSS Secret Sister swap but converse mainly about vellum and glue and AF (acid free) stuff.
Of course it has its antecedents – Victorian ladies used to spend their leisure compiling scraps into beautifully embossed albums. But then Boynton always thought that inclination was part of the peculiar mortality mindset of middle class Victorians.
To catch life when you still could. Is this new incarnation also a sign of sublimated nihilism? The desire to preserve the transient? To create a parallel universe of memory, where reality is either miniaturised or replicated? Memories are literally created, cropped and embellished. This is an interesting variation of the commissioned portrait. For the age of the universal private (folk) museum.
Wednesday, January 29, 2003
EYD – express your dreams. Part one. NSBR – not scrapbook related
TMWIAFC - The mini world is a foreign country
Since discovering that 50’s moderne mini house, Boynton has been roving round the curious world of miniature enthusiasts. It began with a gallery of projects. There are many more like this where builders document their construction, and mini empires. Some enthusiasts start small and end up planning a town.
According to another, this may be why the scale keeps falling:
Many miniaturists are drawn to the challenge of smaller and smaller scales as their homes fill up with larger dollhouses
Our goal (except for the fantasy contingent) is to represent reality in miniature… claims one member... I am not limited to what others have discovered, downsized, and deemed worthy of drafting. The world is much larger than that.
But the world is also much much smaller : a barbecue... a kennel... a fish tank... a ping-pong table.
And the world is complex - a pet bowl stand with food
“I had never made a driving school before.” Says Yuki Yoneda
This electrified mini box depicts a gentleman’s corner. You can almost smell the missing specimen.
A variation is the reconstruction of a childhood home as seen in Hilde Lippet’s beautiful Eichwalde house. The past in 3D. This opens up a fascinating area of ways of memorialising/containing/compressing the past - in analog form - from shadow boxes, urns, to the craze of scrapbooking, and the digital comparisons... Stand by
TMWIAFC - The mini world is a foreign country
Since discovering that 50’s moderne mini house, Boynton has been roving round the curious world of miniature enthusiasts. It began with a gallery of projects. There are many more like this where builders document their construction, and mini empires. Some enthusiasts start small and end up planning a town.
According to another, this may be why the scale keeps falling:
Many miniaturists are drawn to the challenge of smaller and smaller scales as their homes fill up with larger dollhouses
Our goal (except for the fantasy contingent) is to represent reality in miniature… claims one member... I am not limited to what others have discovered, downsized, and deemed worthy of drafting. The world is much larger than that.
But the world is also much much smaller : a barbecue... a kennel... a fish tank... a ping-pong table.
And the world is complex - a pet bowl stand with food
“I had never made a driving school before.” Says Yuki Yoneda
This electrified mini box depicts a gentleman’s corner. You can almost smell the missing specimen.
A variation is the reconstruction of a childhood home as seen in Hilde Lippet’s beautiful Eichwalde house. The past in 3D. This opens up a fascinating area of ways of memorialising/containing/compressing the past - in analog form - from shadow boxes, urns, to the craze of scrapbooking, and the digital comparisons... Stand by
Tuesday, January 28, 2003
If Boynton was dismayed at reading her Sunday stars: 'No sensible astrologer would tell you that your life is a pyjama party right now ' at least there was a sensible solution offered to the extreme planetary lows... 'Cocoa, breathing exercises or Harry Potter will work'. Boynton can be seen here trying out each remedy... ah well, c'est la PJ vie
Monday, January 27, 2003
bought by drought ... So after the furnace of Saturday's 44 degrees, it took a while to accept yesterday's cool change - that it was safe to step outside again. As Boynton walked her two stir-crazy canines up to the golf course, there was a beautiful soft light. Classic evening pastoral after the full assault of summer. No one about, birds reassembling on the bare oval, the soft greens of gums with pale pink trunks - the dry yellow ground. The height of drought. Interesting to read that the golden summers of the Heildelberg painters were drought landscapes.
Sunday, January 26, 2003
'The brightest gem in Albion's crown
While the prolific bosom pours Earth's richest gifts in lavish showers' Charles Tompson
Boynton awoke to the birdsong of radio sports jocks saying Happy Birthday Australia
"This is the joy-inspiring day
That gave these blessings to our lot
Then let us share the social rites
Join hands, all malice be forgot!
This little star, once marked by none
Now shines a bright - a BLAZING SUN! " ... (C.T. 1824)
While the prolific bosom pours Earth's richest gifts in lavish showers' Charles Tompson
Boynton awoke to the birdsong of radio sports jocks saying Happy Birthday Australia
"This is the joy-inspiring day
That gave these blessings to our lot
Then let us share the social rites
Join hands, all malice be forgot!
This little star, once marked by none
Now shines a bright - a BLAZING SUN! " ... (C.T. 1824)
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