Sunday 22 April 2007

Some Instructive Use of Time

As someone who's greatest skill happens to be time wastagement, I thought I should take up the old adage "misery loves company" and show off some of best time wasting sites I have found recently. Mostly while looking for California bungalows and the Glasgow style, as I do with probably improper regularity.

Unified Vision-Prairie architecture in Minnesota. I have spent two days looking at this! The tour of the Purcell-Cutts house is worth the time taken (the glass in the fireplace is just about the coolest idea ever). Easy to get lost in and with great attention to detail, this is what Arts and Crafts concepts applied to web design would look like I think-very fitting.

Nocloo-children's Book Illustrations-This site features illustrations from Arthur Rackham, Maxfield Parrish, Kay Nielson, and Glasgow girl Jessie M King (this is how I found it) among others.
From there I found Art Passions-more fabulous illustrations!
I must say I find it entertaining that there are many versions of the Arabian Nights and other Near Eastern stories, and in the bulk of them the women seem to have an invariable dislike toward clothing. Sure they're drawn replete with necklaces, bracelets, anklets, hair ornaments or turbans, just no actual clothes. Having said that, I do particularly like Dulac's version-a notable exception.

What a great job they had.

Hunterian Gallery A great collection of the Glasgow style (just click on Mackintosh and spend some time engrossed in the world of The Four)-This is the first website that I've seen feature solo works of J Herbert Macnair. It also features a tour of the Rebuilt interior of the Mackintoshes house in Glasgow. One of these days I am going to get myself to Glasgow and take in everything.

...Of course I will have to find a way to inoculate myself from the artschoolitis I am prone to first, as I know that if I spend much time at/near the Glasgow School of Art, I will be making plans about going to art school again. Such is the nature of the disease-I can't get within 20 feet of an art school without deciding yet again that I should totally go to art school-the ultimate time waster.

Now I need to find a really comprehensive gallery of Archibald Knox. I would be happy to find some more work of the likes of this.

5 comments:

mem said...

Actually, I didn't do the 360 sweep of the room—there were several dishes, but I confess they were not on the floor. (One is visible on the musicbox in the extreme right.) In college, I did leave a bowl of Ramen noodles on the floor for several weeks, and my roommate covered it with a towel. And there were roughly eight empty boxes in there. :-P (== SO HA)

Did your black hole of Calcutta come equipped with Mr Sladden's magical window? (I figured if it was in Baghdad, it could've been in Calcutta, too.)

The illustrations are very excellent. I did not purchase a copy of The Arabian Nights with those illustrations, sadly.

mem said...

You know, I can become more adept at meanness if you prefer. While I'm sure it would be amusing to see your relations fighting one another with naginata, I think in all likelihood they would have some difficulty wielding them due to the length of the weapon. I think I would probably have difficulty, but then again I am a little short.

By all accounts, the ones featured on EBay are not full length, as we'd expect a real one to be around eight or nine feet long.

However, if you do coordinate such a bout, I will be more than happy to referee, and may possibly be able to end the bloodshed with the loss of a single arm. (None shall pass.) Of course, I would not pay any entrance fee. But I would also not steal any of your profits. I just need guaranteed escape from the country.

Naginata actually means "arrow splitter," and it is rumored that some were fast enough to cut arrows out of the sky. I believe moving that fast would wrench my arm from its socket. At least it would probably sound cool.


If this is what you are like on caffeine when you are bored, I think it's time for you to move someplace where there is more to do, as both caffeine and boredom would appear to be readily available where you are.

Of course, I am simply procrastinating. While you are avoiding school, I am actually trying to educate myself. And so far, I have educated myself in precisely nothing.

And you have no idea how long it took me to figure out what you meant by "sticks with knives." Also, my captcha thing this time is 'fbooouwl', which seems like it should be a foreign word or something. Say that six times fast in your Canadian accent!

mem said...

Okay, so laugh all you want, but it's not a "knife-stick." At worst, it's a "sword-spear." And I'll have you know that I cleared 4'9" without the use of phone books at least three years ago. I currently stand an equally legitimate svelte 5' 7" without shoes, thankyouverymuch.

And Japanese women were nothing to laugh at, either; they would take your Prairie-Province-Protestant-stiff-upperlipness and make you eat it and smile. And ask for more.

I think the knife stick match of DOOM (hahaha) would be won by the rascal least likely to cut off his own head. This is why I usually referee at a distance. Just in case one of my child prodigies is the spawn of Mary Poppins and has somehow hidden an eleven-foot long weapon in his pant leg.

That came out totally wrong.

Now it is definitely time for me to get away from this machine. Your caffeine-induced hysterics are going to totally ruin me right before bedtime. (Oh, wait, let me go ahead and pre-empt your whining about how I go to bed early. Waaaah waaaaaah.)

mem said...

Hahaha. I tend to "forget" skills that I self-censor. I was thinking to myself, "Maybe I should edit that." And then I thought, "But I'll totally ruin the Mary Poppins reference," to which I have considerable attachment. So I thought I would leave it and half-way apologize.

Though the fact that you almost peed yourself reading it definitely makes it worth it.


I guess I don't really know how Saskatchewan-ers (ese? ites?) are perceived. You're the only one I know from SK, and I don't suppose you are either a drunk farmer or Indian. (Do you make your own moonshine there? We have to import ours from Arkansas and Mississippi.) However, you have the appearance of stiff-upperlipness, and I will gladly use you as a generalization if it reflects well on others. (I like to think I generalize generously.)

mem said...

Well, it did come out wrong. Hahaha. I deadpanned it in my head, too.

We should just call you SKiers. It's hip, cool, and ironic, seeing as how there probably aren't many mountains on the prairie.

You know, prohibition was probably one of the WORST things they could ever do here. Organized crime and unions both flourished then. Depressed people like their wine, and, you know, God gave it to gladden the heart of man.

Moralists are annoying.

I am tired. Do you know what would make me laugh harder than almost anything? If the CAPTCHA was ever the word from Strong Bad's email that sounded like 'foo-hoo-goo-gads'. Because I can't find that one, I'll contribute this wonderfully-illustrated children's book, guaranteed to make your proposed stick-knife match of DOOM (hahaha) look tame by comparison.