No Electricity, But Much Excitement

We went to the hospital today for a long-awaited appointment. I have been undergoing epilepsy tests but they came out negative. No abnormal electrical currents or any abnormal brain structures - I'm relieved that I'm not dying of a brain tumour and I'm frustrated that I could not get a clear, concise answer to wtf is going on with me today. We're off to see my GP to find out what is next. Exciting times.

So, a compensation I was allowed to buy three skeins of very, fabulous, very expensive yarn. I am not sure if it is entirely healthy (for my bank account or my partner's sanity) to both suffer from bibliophilia and, er, yarn-philia?

Speaking of bibliophilia, one of my major interests is artists' books: the idea that the book is more than just a transparent medium but actually plays a major part in our understanding of texts (and thus the world) is very, very appealing to me. This year's Glasgow's International Art Festival caters to this interest of mine with the Glasgow International Artists Bookfair. It'll feature all sorts of books about books as well as actual artists' books and workshops on bookbinding etc. I'm so there. No surprise that I will also be found here looking very excited at this exhibition.

Glasgow is good to me.

Underneath the Trees

Ladies and gentlemen, we had snow the other day. You might think that my Viking Blood might've caused me to embrace the weather and frolic through the snow like some demented Norse god, but no. I hate snow. Blame it on too many schoolyard snowball fights which I always lost. No, I stayed indoors and read.

Speaking of which, today is World Book Day. Hooray. Worryingly the site has plenty of fun games involving Paddington Bear (who recently abandoned marmalade in favour of Marmite) and Jacqueline Wilson. I'm not so sure about the chosen strategy, but then again I'm an old hag who's currently more obsessed with yarn than books.

Selective linkage on the unrelated theme of anatomy (in the broadest sense) and art:
+ SteamPunk Lego Star Wars (yes, really)
+ Art resulting from asking children what they thought the body looked like “under the skin.”
+ InsectLab. Also rather steampunk and not for people with entomophobia.

Go forth and read. I'm curling up in front of the heater.

Getting My Geek On

I finally got hold of Alex Lloyd's third album, Distant Light the other day. It's the aural equivalent of me snuggling up in a blanket on a spring day: it's invigourating but also deeply comforting. However, most days I'm listening to Canadian band Alaska in Winter - their album continues to worm its way into my ears.

And most days I am passing time by harking back to my roots. My grandmother sews, knits, crochets, embroiders and works with paper; my mother crochets, works with paper and even writes songs; my uncle P. paints, does graphic design and builds small castles in his back garden.. you get the picture. We are a creative bunch. I can sew, knit, crochet, do calligraphy, work with paper, paint and dabble in photography with quite good results. Right now I crochet and am re-discovering my love for textiles, textures and multi-dimensional shapes. It is exciting to see something I have in my head suddenly begin to appear between my hands just through using a hook and some scrap yarn. Exciting, I tell you!

And then you get people who think of crocheting as a mathematical exercise. The Institure for Figuring has an entire subsite dealing with Hyperbolic Space. It's actually really damn cool:

We have created a world of rectilinearity. The rooms we inhabit, the skyscrapers we work in, the grid-like arrangement of our streets, the shelves on which we store our possessions, and the freeways we cruise on our daily commute speak to us in straight lines. But what exactly is a straight line? And how do such “objects” relate to one another?

This question, so seemingly trivial, lies at the heart of a conundrum that dates back to the dawn of the Western mathematical tradition. Though seemingly obvious, the property of “straightness” turns out to be a subtle and surprisingly fecund concept. Understanding this quality ultimately led mathematicians to discover a radical new kind of space that had hitherto seemed abhorrent and impossible.

Saturday Linkage

This week I rummaged around on the net and almost accidentally joined a book club based in Gothenburg, Sweden. Thankfully the members correspond with each other online. The idea is that you set yourself up for reading 20 books within a set time (which is very achievable) and some of these books have to be books recommend to you (which is admittedly the only thing I struggle with a bit because I am set in my ways, I am). I have always had a natural distrust of book clubs but let's see how this one works out.

Famous SciFi films as Woodcuts? Yes, and they are beautiful. I have always had a soft spot for Russian woodcuts - this probably stems from my childhood when I'd read Eastern European fairy tales illustrated with amazingly visceral woodcuts (I'm still amazed that my parental unit never took them away from me - some of the woodcuts were brutal). Now I'm not entirely sure whether the linked pictures are actual woodcuts or illustrations deliberately designed to recall woodcuts (I suspect the latter) - but I do know it's fun trying to suss out just which film they are referring to. And The Matrix one is just damn cool.

I have also looked at Seven Proposed Futuristic Cities. Funny how modern architecture tends towards towers/tall structures (and has done so for about a century). I would be much more interested in futuristic cities preoccupied with ecology, sustainable energy and fabulous architecture. Surely these things are not mutually exclusive?

Finally, as I have had nasty migraines all throughout, I have spent most of my time crocheting. Yeah, I've rediscovered my crafty roots (I used to be really creative and crafty when I was in my teens) thanks to surfing Etsy and thinking: "You want $35 for that?! Dream on.."

So, let me know if you want a hat or a scarf. I promise I won't crochet anything too heinous (plus you could always go for an iPod cover).

Saturday Linkage

Last night I went into the kitchen and announced: "I really like Tanzania." My poor, deluded brain had been locked into dream-space whilst I had been battling it out on Puzzle Quest. While my fingers had been busy pairing up gems and fighting wyverns, another part of me had been in Tanzania on a veranda, er, playing Puzzle Quest. Needless to say, I was ordered to bed and slept until 1pm today. But I still really like Tanzania.

Saturday linkage:
Not All Men of the Future Wear Polyester Jumpsuits: "In The Antineutral Suit: Futurist Manifesto (1914), Balla railed against "neutral, 'nice,' [and] faded" colors, not to mention "stripes, checks, and diplomatic little dots." Instead, Futurist attire would be "Dynamic, with textiles of dynamic patterns and colors (triangles, cones, spirals . . .) that inspire the love of danger, speed, and assault, and loathing of peace and immobility.""

Speaking of fashion, do you have $8,901 to spare? If so, you might want to bid on an Elsa Schiraparelli item designed for and worn by Marlene Dietrich. I like the idea of a Schiraparelli gown - particularly one associated with Dietrich - it cannot get more arty decadence circa 1930 than that, surely?

Via my Other Half: Neil Gaiman on why books have genders. I could take or leave Gaiman, but it is an interesting idea. I might revisit that in a later entry.

Finally, Pictures of Walls. This site feeds into my preoccupation with public lettering/writing, of course. And funnily enough you also get pictures of walls there - which in turn have pictures on them. Gosh.

Mapping the World

A tired day today.

So why not go look at Strange Maps instead?

It's seriously one of the coolest, most informative websites around. It does what it says on the tin: Maps. Strange ones.

The content ranges from the very informative - a map of how various denominations of Christianity are distributed throughout the US - to the bizarre - a map of Neu-York: how New York would have looked had Nazi Germany conquered it.

Personally I like looking at maps that challenge my preconceptions - who knew that Papau New Guinea is such a polyglot society that it dwarfs the rest of the world? Or that Great Britain could easily fit within Borneo?

If you think this sounds all a bit too heavy, there are maps of the US made out of pumpkins, the US as perceived by Japanese people, cats' maps of the bed etc. And for you über-geeky technosavvy ones out there, how about a subway map of the Web 2.0?