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Travels in West Africa - Mary Kingsley
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Books
- Hits: 2173
"Waking up I noticed the smell in the hut was violent, from being shut up I suppose, and it had an unmistakable organic origin. Knocking the ash end off the smoldering bush-light that lay burning on the floor, I investigated, and tracked it to those bags, so I took down the biggest one, and carefully noted exactly how the tie-tie had been put around its mouth, for these things are important and often mean a lot. I then shook its contents out in my hat, for fear of losing anything of value. They were a human hand, three big toes, four eyes, two ears, and other portions of the human frame. The hand was fresh, the others only so so, and shriveled.
Replacing them I tied the bag up, and hung it up again.I subsequently learned that although the Fans will eat their fellow friendly tribesfolk, yet they like to keep a little something belonging to them as a memento. This touching train in their character I learned from Wiki; ...."
Mary Kingsley - an excerpt from her notes "Travels in West Africa" - documenting her travels through the dark content from 1893 - 1895. A little light in tone for my tastes, she was nonetheless remarkable, not only in that she was one of the first female explorers of Africa, but in that she insisted upon doing it in full Victorian dress. Worthwhile, file next to Speke's "The Discovery of the Source of the Nile".
Peter Falk
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Link of the day
- Hits: 1586
You don't see any damned gridlines here. Mind you, his subject matter is far more inspiring. Who would have thought that Peter Falk (AKA Columbo, in The Princess Bride, Wings of Desire) could paint? But he's actually a very competent artist. See more of his work here: http://www.peterfalk.com/ArtPF.htm.
Note: As he is ill I suspect his website will be shortlived. There are no links to the artistic portion of it off the main page of the site. Enjoy it while you can.
Painting
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Miscellany
- Hits: 2186
"I don't need a grid" I say to myself, "I'll just paint it freehand, like Leonardo Da Vinci or Van Gogh or Picasso..." .
I mean, really, why would I need a grid? How tough can it be?
4 hours into it and I'm looking to MOBA for inspiration, or at least some reassurance, there's none.
It's a tricky thing, this capturing a resemblance. I look at the reference photo. Back to my painting. In pose they're somewhat the same. I'm painting a child, 2 years old. And she has an ear (visible), a nose, 2 eyes, a mouth, all the things that my painting has. But my painting isn't her. Not by a long shot. Not even slightly, not even in the dark. And I try and discover what's gone so terribly wrong.
All the major visible organs. Check. Position. Check. Colors? I'll worry about those later.
There was a moment when I was painting her when she looked exactly like her mother. Well, not exactly, but I could see her. From there she became uglier and uglier, until now, when she resembles no one so much as Doug McKenzie (on the right) or an acid-induced Michael Jackson.
So it's back upstairs, into the photoshop to create the grid, copy it to some graph paper (and verify there's a resemblance...) then go downstairs and see where things went sideways.
"I just need practice" I reassure myself, although there's no reassurance standing in front of this monster I've created...
Living with Agatha Christie
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Dreams
- Hits: 1617
I'm living with a young Agatha Christie in the Southern US. It's not a romantic thing, I'm a lodger, I'm never home anyways because I'm working in this big restaurant, a Texas-styled bar and grill, I'm there all the time, day and night, all the waiters are older like me and it's got the vague feel of an ongoing nightmare from which there's no escape ....
When finally I do get home Agatha tells me she wants to move. The paint has blistered on the walls into curses and demonic sayings, blood leeches from the walls and the rooms are filled with an evil presence. The house is possessed. I go upstairs and in the hall on the way to my bedroom I find myself - for a moment - floating, before I land next to my room.
I can't blame her for wanting to move and so I say goodbye and she leaves. Now I have no place to live and find my way to the outskirts of town to hitchhike on to another town. There are other, older drifters like myself there trying to catch a ride as well. And then I'm talking to someone who's explaining to me how the house wasn't really haunted, how the place where I floated through the air is a geophysical anomoly, and remember, when I was flying there in the plane, how I floated up in my seat when we flew over the house? And I hadn't remembered at all but now I do and it all makes sense...
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