Before We Started Painting the Town

It is just one of those things, as Cole Porter wrote. I do not intend to let Fourth Edition become a voyeuristic woe-is-me blog just because I happen to be rather ill at the moment. Sadly, I am rather ill at the moment and so Fourth Edition languishes a bit. It probably irritates me more than it irritates you.

If you are a Dane, Spillet med byer might appeal (I'm hopeless when it comes to placing towns in Jutland) and if you are not, it could have a certain absurdish appeal trying to place obscure Danish towns on a map.

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).

Snapshot

Shop assistant at the bookshop (precisely, slowly): "You .. want discount .. on books, don't you? I can .. sign you up for .. discount on .. books. Give me your .. email address."

Later I met my partner by the door to the book shop. He too had been cajoled into signing up for their newsletter by a shop assistant doing the scary voice-thing. Gosh, what does the Borders chain do to their staff?

Our Protagonist Wonders..

Two questions: How do you say "I would like to buy six live chicken, please" in German? And if I were to say to you: "You look like a one-eyed pirate except you have two eyes," how would you interpret that?

I try to keep track of news in my erstwhile home country of Denmark. The more I read about government incentives, the happier I am that I chose to move to the UK where my being foreign isn't treated as a disease. It would have been far more difficult for my Scottish partner to move across and I dread to think what it would have been like if David had not had a very obvious Scottish surname. One day I'll reclaim Denmark from the people who annexed my nationality and turned it into something completely alien and repulsive. Right now I'll just sit here and wonder what on earth happened to Denmark.

Cooking experiment: Danish rice pudding cooked with coconut milk instead of regular milk and served with fresh raspberries = very, very yummy.

PS. "George W. Bush praises Tanzania" - a news headline from today which I find really quite amusing.

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.

Roses Are #FF0000

It's Valentine's Day today. I have already my present from my Significant Other: a facsimile of the Kelmscott Chaucer. Aww.

Equally geeky/sweet: Typecaster. "A Flash app [that] lets you drag two fonts from the left side into the stage area... to see how well the two types mix when dating (fonts available are Mistral, Papyrus, Comic Sans, Helvetica, Stencil, and American Typewriter)." I particularly like the type description of Papyrus.