Careful, Stumble, You Might Fall

I'd show you a picture, but it's a bit too gruesome: I have yarn burn on my left hand. It's all band-aided up now, but I had to abandon the yarn-fest late yesterday night after it started hurting too much. Who knew that my latest obsession would turn this nasty? I'm accustomed to paper cuts, of course, and dropping books on my feet/head/other limbs - but yarn is supposed to be soft and snuggly, isn't it?

Life's small adventures continue.

I nearly had a blackout in my favourite bookshop (scroll down to end of page) the other day. Again, you might think "Fainting in a bookshop? ah, but at least they have aisles and nice sofas.." but my favourite bookshop is naturally one of those places where the books are overflowing the shelves, spilling unto cluttered piles on the floor and me keeling over dramatically would just cause an avalanche of books that'd block the entrance. Plus I might injure one of the cats or dogs.

I'm awaiting an appointment with a neurologist.

And finally, just because I have a huge stack of SF/fantasy links (mostly all from Other Half who's slightly tired of me obsessively surfing for beautiful, beautiful injury-inducing yarn): say, you want to create an alien language..?

Riddle Me This: What Can You Do With Paper?

Today a gækkebrev arrived. Literally meaning "a riddling letter", a gækkebrev is a letter in the shape of an elaborate paper cut-out with a riddle written in its middle. Sometimes a snowdrop is included with the letter, sometimes the riddle just alludes to the snowdrop.

The letter is commonly associated with Easter in Denmark and school children absolutely love making them. The reason? Quite apart from kids being creative and conjuring up gorgeous paper cut-outs, the letters bear a prize: an Easter egg. Above all other things, the gækkebrev is anonymous and the writer will leave a hint in the shape of dots (four dots if your name has four letters etc). If you can identify the sender, you win an Easter egg. If you are fooled by the riddler, you owe him or her an Easter egg.

People will go to great lengths to fool the recipient of a gækkebrev. They might post the letter in another town, they might get a friend to write for them in case their handwriting is too distinct or they might even deliberately travel out of the country and get someone else to post their gækkebrev. Or perhaps that is just my family and friends?

The sender of my letter wrote me using a painstakingly different handwriting and altered the number of letters in her name - opting to sign with a pet name rather than her real name. Sadly, I still recognised the handwriting (your lower-case "r" is really distinct, Chris) and now I'm awaiting my prize. I love traditions - particularly when they go my way.

A few relevant links:
+ A guide to DIY gækkebreve in English
+ The fairy tale writer Hans Christian Andersen's paper cut-outs and gækkebreve. Gorgeous stuff.
+ Contemporary paper art by Dane Peter Callesen carries on the tradition of paper cut-outs and paper art - and he really, really ups the game. My current favourite of his is Icy Sea/Eis Meer which has been created using an A4 sheet.

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.

A Corner of a Foreign Field

A blustery day in Glasgow. We seized the moment when the rain stopped and went into city centre to buy me a cinnamon latte and browse quickly through the bargain offers in Waterstones. This is what passes for normalcy - I could do it because the city was quiet, I had company and I had had a good night's sleep. Yes, I am starting to get cabin fever but the next hospital visit is on Wednesday. Please cross fingers for a solution. In the meantime life goes on.

And life right now equals being crafty with yarn. I have embraced Etsy - although I am slightly disturbed by the fact that you can buy handmade nipple tassels (link not safe for work, obviously) as well as pig ballerina cloth sanitary towels (reusable) (link not safe for your sanity). I have also become a beta tester of Ravelry which is a knitting/crochet community. I feel very middle-aged - particularly as I have been crocheting along to PUPPIES these past few days. Youth, youth, where hast thou gone?

Finally, I'm much amused by The Independent's latest marketing decision: free glossy booklets featuring the Great Poets. Who else would have thought that would entice more people to pick up the newspaper? Who?

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.

Books Running Through the Veins

If you can read Danish, it might amuse you to know that the editor of Bogrummet (The Book Room) is my cousin. I sorta-kinda-almost knew what she had been doing with her time, but it had sorta-kinda-almost slipped my mind.

It's still very cool and utterly amusing in a absolutely-definitely way.