Sunday, 24 July 2016

Talking to myself

The other day I was walking along the road talking to myself.
Suddenly, I realised the presence of a man walking beside me, on the right.
I looked at him.
He too was talking to himself.
Relief.
I actually ventured to say Hello to him.
He didn't respond, but noticed that I had said something to him.
I saw him remove his earphone from his right ear.
Sorry, I was talking on the phone, he said.
Caught on the wrong foot, for a moment I didn't know what to say.
I said, Hello.
He had a broad smile on his face.
And replied, Hello.
We moved on.

Monday, 11 July 2016

Sight seeing in Alsace



A holiday in Alsace, in the celebrated village of Riquewihr. All new to me, and stemming from a recommendation from a cycling friend years ago.







Alsace reminded me in some ways of Belgium: a place that has had the tides of history sweep through it, yet remained itself. The gabled, ornamented architecture of a prosperous merchant class, a religious rubbing-along when money is to be made, the superlative artists brought to that area by that disposable wealth and taste for ostentation. The vigneron who lived in one fine house in Riquewihr had himself depicted being pulled away from his agreeable existence by Death (rather than the end of his week in a gite):



There's a fine tradition of shop signs:



This statue in Colmar is of Schwendi, excitedly brandishing not one of his weapons, but roots of the Tokay vine, which he'd brought back from a campaign in Hungary. That's a very Alsatian thing to commemorate:



A Belgium, though, with sun, and mountains, and hectares of vineyards - all that cool and smooth Reisling instead of beer-brewing. But with Germanic or Belgian moments: some mildly pornographic beer bottle labels caught my eye.



I had never seen these before, the White Storks, or heard their beaks clattering after they fly in from the fields by the Rhine:


Of course, I was at times keen to stay in early modern mode, and here I am, looking (I think) quite the part:


My chief artistic find was in this superbly-housed gallery, the Augustinermuseum in Freiburg (we motored into Germany for a day). Those are the original statues from the niches on the cathedral, elongated to be seen from pavement level.


It's a Sundenfall, a Fall of Man, carved in boxwood by Meister H.L., who was active c.1511-33. The tree of knowledge is a fig tree, its distinctive leaves carved with astonishing delicacy. There's no flattening, everything is rendered in the round.




I like the choice of a fig as the forbidden fruit.


The animals of paradise are superbly done - that fine lion, and the stag, its antlers carved (how?!)


Durer's parrot sits up the tree:


Freiburg also offers a Cathedral with extraordinary stained glass, all in the most vibrant colours. Those in the nave were funded by the city's guilds, so you have a shoemakers' window, one from the tailors, the breadmakers - and amongst these windows, one that you could only imagine had been sponsored by the torturers and executioners' guild (or, as Abhorson would say, 'our mystery'). Eye-poppingly hideous deaths





I shall have to ask medievalist colleagues to identify the saint depicted below. It must be some crazy yarn from the Golden Legend. I saw the motif in a painting in the Colmar Unterlinden museum, and here again in the glass at Freiburg. As you see, the saint shoes a horse by lopping off the horse's leg, nailing on the horseshoe to the hoof, and he then must re-attach the leg without causing the animal any inconvenience or pain. The magical act of the saint reminds me of the Alpine stories of the feasts of beef at sabbats with the nachstvolk, when the bones of the animal had to be placed back in the skin, and the animal would be alive again in the morning (though never quite as strong for work).




There's a concentration of villages fleuries around here, done so intensely that the car parks have notices explaining that the funds from parking charges go to the floral display in the village you are about to visit.

I wanted wildflowers, and at the top of the ridge by the Auberge de Heucote, and at the top of the Ballon D'Alsace, we found orchids that were long 'gone over' this year back in England, but in their prime at 2,000 to 3,000 metres in July in France. The French seem to call the Butterfly orchid the Orchidee de Montagne.

.

I was very mildly excited to find this solitary example of an orchid I'd never seen in the UK. It turns out to be the Small White Orchid: a suitably boring name for what must be one of the most boring of its kind:


New to me was Pilosella, or 'The Devil's Paintbrush' (now, that's a plant name for you). It's just a garden escape in this country, and classified as a noxious weed in other parts of the world where it is also spreading from gardens. But protected in its native habitat.



Nor had I ever seen a Spiked Rampion:


or really taken in the Yellow Gentians (The very bitter-tasted root used to be used in beer-making. The French, divided as ever between hypochondria and enjoyment of alcohol, still make a 'liqueur de gentiane' out of it.)


or such sheets of Bistort





The Unterlinden gallery in Colmar has the Issenheim altarpiece by Grunewald: a gallery in itself, bringing together art from the medieval period down to images that anticipate Blake. But I may post another time on that intense experience. Colmar also has this variant of Cranach's Melancholia - she aimlessly whittles at a stick, as the night-army hurtles through the sky, a mad mixture of mercenary landesknechts and witches.






Monday, 4 July 2016

Smashwords Summer Sale

Hello and Happy Fourth of July!
Today some of us are celebrating the US, and thanking those who are serving to protect that right. I will be doing some of that, but it s also my boyfriend's birthday. He made it easy for me to remember ;) Too bad the weather is limiting what we can do. What is everyone else doing?

So I am taking part of the Smashwords Summer sale. They have a sale twice a year that they share and authors can take part of. All the books are 50%, 75%, or 100% off! I will probably play around as the month goes along.


End of the Line
~ 50% off! 2.99 to $1.50
When so much is lost how does one to have the strength to move on? At seventeen Lauren was prepared for yet another year of school. Then asteroids hit, killing all of those she knew except for a few other teens from her neighborhood. Joining forces with her classmate Aaron, they work together on the journey in the hopes of finding more people that are alive. On the way, threats of starvation, illness, and freezing to death don’t compare to the danger of Dean Manson. Manson is an ex-con out for revenge against Aaron. With so much working against them these teens fight for everything even if it means denying their feelings just for the chance to see a new day.
https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/40242


Family Ties
~ FREE instead of $2.99
Stories told by word of mouth can get twisted or lost. Abby grew up hearing about her great-grandmother Emma, a royal who left that life to come to America. Yet when Abby takes a summer job with her best friend Cory, she feels eyes on her. When she is kidnapped after leaving work, Abby learns there may be a hidden part of her family tree...
https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/324723


Beneath the Scars
~ 50% off! 2.99 to $1.50
Corporal Riley Nolan is back home and out of the hospital after sustaining severe injuries in a skirmish overseas. His physical injuries may be healed, though he is left with horrible scars all over his body. His mind is still healing, and he has almost no contact with the world outside his small dark apartment. 

After the death of her parents and being forced to sell their house and move into an apartment in a new town, Eponine is left picking up the pieces while trying to maintain a normal life for her little sister, Genevieve. 

Can these new neighbors help each other heal, finding the light and laughter in the world again? Most importantly, can Eponine help Riley see he's not the monster he believes himself to be beneath the scars?

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/373634


Project US 
~ 50% off! 2.99 to 1.50!
Rachel is used to being in control of her emotions, never letting anyone get close to the real her. Nick is exactly the kind of guy Rachel has been trying to avoid getting involved with. Yet, when their school arranges a mysterious project that puts them together, they soon become trapped in a marriage that turns out to be real and legally binding, and they aren’t the only ones.

While their parents try to get four hundred students out of these marriages with legal help, the teenagers must live in a compound with their respective spouses for the duration of the project. Being trapped together leaves no room for denials. As Nick begins to fall for Rachel, she does everything in her power to avoid his charms and protect her heart. All she wants is to get out of the marriage, but does she truly want out, or is she only lying to herself?

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/555929












The whole Mistakes series (books 1-3) is FREE!
A series about werewolves and their dark world that is changing, and threatening our world.
https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/366574
https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/538345
https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/587612

Friday, 1 July 2016

Compare and contrast



As the nation bids farewell forever to another good that we had in common, I surprise myself by thinking that at least we have some people still who can voice such sentiments, and use such words, as would have been used on such a sad occasion back in centuries that were alive, too, the late poet's imagination.

One the other hand, the egregious Mr Gove. When he was Education Secretary, every state school received, unasked for, a copy of the King James Bible at his behest. Until yesterday, I was unaware of how he'd had the spine of the book decorated with this gilded self-reference:


(The cost! "Vanity of vanities,saith the preacher".)