Patterns in the trees

I snapped some pictures of the patterns in this tree bark a while back. I might do something with them later.

Museum of 51

I went to see the Museum of 51 exhibition at the Royal Festival Hall a while back, which is about the Festival of Britain. Basically it was a festival in 1951 to celebrate 100 years since the Great Exhibition and cheer people up in grey, rationed post-war London. As well as films, shows, fairs and so on, there were shows of housing and interiors, to show people what they could look forward to after rebuilding and the end of rationing (everything available for sale in WWII was simple and utilitarian and rationed). My dad went to pretty much all the events, seeing as they were mostly around the corner from him in Battersea.

There were a lot of different things there- people's memories, films of the events, displays of different attractions from the festival, but the thing which particularly interested me was the design section.



There was this 50s room, which I particularly liked. The original ones were to show people all of the exciting home design they would be able to buy once materials were no longer rationed. Everything is brightly coloured and cheerful looking, which figures.



I'm not sure I'd want to live with that wallpaper though. My dad has the dining set and sideboard of the furniture, and I have the coffee table version of the little tables (mine is a long round-edged rectangle). It's a great table.



Let's lounge around in our luridly furnished room reading metaphysical poetry. I love the covers of this line of Penguin poetry books.



They had this map, showing what people in different towns were apparently talking about in 1951. Here's the SE. Chatham docks, Oxford Aristotle, no surprises there. Most of them were just the local industries.



Aberdeen- philosophy and fish



I so would go to this. The actual Sherlock Holmes museum in London is a crappy tourist trap.



I love the graphic design from the 50s in the UK, it's really playful. (Not that I got a great photo of this.

Mariposas

(This is my 200th entry here- do I get some kind of prize, or should I just get out more?)

When I was caught outside without an umbrella in torrential rain on my break when I working at the museum over the summer, I took the time to snap some more butterfly photos. My previous efforts are here. I went back with my film SLR just before the exhibition closed too, but I haven't got round to scanning those yet.



I love the way that when you get close to butterflies you realise just what creepy insecty bodies they have.

New zine time again

24-page b/w quarter sized zine on pink paper made of marshmellows and happiness

What's in this one:

* Why Mr Frosty sets are disappointing as an adult
* Your Tears are Cheap: Special holiday centre section of vitriolic negativity
* Lists! Lots of lists.
* Extra J.Mascis and cats



(Sorry about slight graininess of pictures, my scanner really does not seem to like pink paper all that much)

Available on Etsy or contact me if you don't like to use Etsy. Up for (selectivish) trade too.



Also, I'm giving free postcards away with every order. I used to sell these postcards with a drawing and silly poem I did of Ernest Hemingway until I got this email:

"1) Etsy received a notice from David Stickles (dstickles@fashionlicensing.com), whose client Hemingway Ltd. is a corporation owned by the heirs of the late American author Ernest Hemingway. The notice said that "by virtue of grant from the Hemingway heirs, Hemingway Ltd. owns multiple trademark rights and rights of publicity in and to the name, photograph, likeness, signature, and persona of Ernest Hemingway." According to the notice, certain material on Etsy is not authorized."

Apparently drawing people steals their face, and they need Ernest Hemingway's face to flog a tacky range of loafers and cushion covers (I'm not joking, check out this). Seeing as I can't sell the things, I might as well give them away.

Also, I will be at the Camden Zinefest on Saturday the 8th if anyone else is coming.

Parallel lines on our slow decline

So I haven't updated for 2 months. Basically since then I:

Worked stupid hours at the NHM
Then worked stupid hours on preparing stuff for the halfway hand-in for my MA (got decent grades for that)
Then immediately after that I went to Austria to teach kids English again and caught a nasty bug while I was there
Came back last monday and have been shaking off my illness (while coughing up alarming amounts of blood- don't worry I'm not dying of TB, it's just dodgy sinuses)

I've got lots of photos to edit, and posts to write.



Oh yeah, along the way I also found myself a lovely spanish boy, name of Marcos.