Little Girl Memories
I’ve written before about my old collection of swap cards (aka trading cards). My mum, under the mistaken belief that because I no longer played with them that meant I had no interest in their fate, gave my entire collection to my cousins. I wasn’t happy when I found out, to put it mildly.
When I was a child, swap cards were a mad craze – I don’t know whether they simply disappeared from my horizon or if they truly went out of fashion. Recently I have noticed them making a reappearance in limited edition sets at craft fairs and cute boutiques. I purchased this half-dozen from Bob Boutique in Bendigo (where I also bought the bunny mask).
They aren’t a patch on my original collection – without being all rose-coloured and biased at all – but they do make me feel nostalgic. I’m not quite sure what to do with them though. I’ll probably end with giving them away to one of my nieces. How ironic. Little girl’s memories just do belong to little girls.
Green Ladies (and an Exotic Dancer)
Wow! Zowee! Tzing! Welcome back to the penultimate episode of the Inter-Universe Beauty Pageant, hosted right here on Earth by the lovely ladies Orielle Starlight of Uranus, and Andromeda X of Jupiter!
Today we will meet the last four contestants: Misses Zane, Bottlestar, Gold and Lorna.
I can’t help but wonder if Miss Zane (above) is as zany as she and her home planet looks: Dora with the unpronounceable surname (and, with unearthly accents, also unprintable) Xeii. It is a great pity too that this sewing mistress betrays an extraordinary ignorance of her remarkable home planet, that – in defiance of all known laws of physics, astronomy and every stream of science known to mankind – is ineluctably, a cube.
I do like her join-the-dots dress though, the tomato-red over-the-knee socks, and the tangerine Mary-Jane wedges. [SPOILER ALERT! Ed’s note: Honestly, I think I surpassed my childhood self with Miss Zane. How did she not win?]
Another seemingly clear winner is Miss Bottlestar, Maldie Morn, who, at the tender age of 18, is a marine biologist. She must be a real smart cookie. She is a little more learned than Dora Xeii, and informs us of the etymology of her oddly-named planet: Bottlestar was once war-torn Battlestar, but in the aftermath of world peace (a noteworthy achievement in itself), it was renamed. She lives in the city of Grug. It must be admitted that the Bottlestarri aren’t that good at coming up with aesthetically pleasing place names though.
As if you didn’t suspect right away, the very pink Donna Stein of the planet Gold is a … dancer. I think I will not mention what kind. I’m not quite sure how she slipped past the selection criteria for this illustrious contest. Like the red ballet slippers though. Nice pins too.
This little green lady is Louella Brite, a ‘dressmaker expert’ from a rainforest on the planet Lorna. Owing to the altruism of some anonymous Earthling, her home planet was seeded with rainforests millennia ago, and everything is now in full bloom. Just like Louella’s rainbow themed gown. I would totally wear those platform ballet/gladiator sandals with green fishnets too.
Well there you have it folks: all 25 contestants of the 129th annual Inter-Universe Beauty Pageant have now paraded their charms before you. Revisit them all in the official gallery. Who are the winners? You’ll have to stay tuned to find out …
Didn’t We Have A Lovely Day?
Illustration from Le Sourire, by Alberto Fabio LorenziIt was such a lovely, sunshiney morning today walking through the Botanic Gardens to work that a terribly catchy tune from my childhood popped into my head. It’s been playing on loop for hours.
So here it is, if you know the tune join in with me in the chorus:
Didn't we have a lovely time the day we went to Bangor
A beautiful day, we had lunch on the way and all for under a pound you know
But on the way back I cuddled with Jack and we opened a bottle of cider
Singing a few of our favourite songs as the wheels went around …
If you want the whole song, click here.
The gorgeous 1920s beach fashion comes from Katie Louise-Ford.
Epigrams and Etchings
I enjoy reading poetry. Many years ago while browsing in a bookstore I discovered the Roman poets. Martial (c. 40–104 B.C.) and Catullus (c. 84–54 B.C.) became particular favourites for their wit – often I’ve laughed aloud at their very bawdy epigrams. They must have been brilliant men at a party! So rude and libellous, it’s a wonder if they weren’t sued by one of their outraged targets. Sadly though, I can’t read them in the original Latin, and must rely on clever translators.
Here is a small selection (the politer ones), accompanied by the drawings and etchings of Henri Matisse (1869–1954), which seemed eminently to suit.
MARTIAL
The Epigrams
Book I
I
May I present myself – the man
You read, admire and long to meet,
Known the world over for his neat
And witty epigrams? The name
Is Martial. Thank you, earnest fan,
For having granted me the fame
Seldom enjoyed by a dead poet
While I’m alive and here to know it.1
3
So, they’ve summed you up, my little book.
You’re now a ‘milestone in ironic outlook.’
This the price of your publicity:
MARTIAL VIEWS LIFE VERY SAUCILY.
Whatever they say is a load of balls
Certain to send you to second-hand stalls,
Unaware, little book, of the comforts of home
Your ‘low key wit’ now belongs to Rome.
What today’s ‘an incandescent event’
Soon winds up a ‘minor supplement.’
To set you off on the proper foot
Some shit’s written ‘Magic, a classic to boot.’2
38
They’re mine, but when a fool like you recites
My poems I resign the author’s rights.1
Femme Endormie, 1936
Book 2
I wrote, she never replied:
That goes on the debit side.
And yet, I’m sure she read it:
That I put down as credit.1
Book 3
90
She’s half-and-half inclined
To sleep with me. No? Yes?
What’s in that tiny mind?
Impossible to guess.1
Study of a model, 1934
Book 7
3
Why have I never sent
My works to you, old hack?
For fear the compliment
Comes punishingly back.1
Book 8
27
If you were wise as well as rich and sickly,
You’d see that every gift means, ‘Please die quickly.’1
Woman’s face, 1942
TO CHLOE
I could resign that eye of blue
Howe’er its splendour used to thrill me;
And even that cheek of roseate hue, –
To lose it, Chloe, would scarce kill me.
That snowy neck I ne’er should miss,
However much I’ve raved about it;
And sweetly as that lip can kiss,
I think I could exist without it.
In short, so well I’ve learned to fast,
That, sooth my love, I know not whether
I might not bring myself at last,
To – do without you altogether.3
FOOTNOTES
1 Martial – The Epigrams, translated by James Michie, Penguin Classics, 1978
2 Translated by W. S. Milne, (1953–) from The Roman Poets, Everyman’s Library Pocket Poets, 1997
3 Translated by Thomas Moore, (1779–1852), from The Roman Poets, Everyman’s Library Pocket Poets, 1997
La torsem et native nue 1932
CATULLUS
5
Lesbia,
live with me
& love me so
we’ll laugh at all
the sour-faced strict-
ures of the wise.
This sun once set
will rise again,
when our sun sets
follows night &
an endless sleep.
Kiss me now a
thousand times &
now a hundred
more & then a
hundred & a
thousand more again
till with so many
hundred thousand
kisses you & I
shall both lose count
nor any can
from envy of
so much kissing
put his finger
on the number
of sweet kisses
you of me &
I of you,
darling, have had.
From The Poems of Catullus, translated by Peter Whigam, Penguin Classics, 1966
Variation 1, 1942
Compare the same poem translated four centuries earlier:
Come and let us live, my Dear,
Let us love and never fear
What the sourest Fathers say:
Brightest Sol that dies to-day
Lives again as blithe to-morrow;
But if we dark sons of sorrow
Set, O then how long a night
Shuts the eyes of our short light!
Then let amorous kisses dwell
On our lips, begin and tell
A thousand, and a hundred score,
An hundred, and a thousand more,
Till another thousand smother
That, and wipe off another.
Thus at last when we have numbered
Many a thousand, many a hundred,
We’ll confound the reckoning quite,
And lose our selves in wild delight:
While our joys so multiply
As shall mock the envious eye.
Translated by Richard Crashaw (1612/13–49), from The Roman Poets, Everyman’s Library Pocket Poets, 1997
Fata with a hat of light, 1933
What is Beauty?
‘Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.’ This, one of the most trite and oft repeated phrases ever, handed as a sop to plain women, remains true nevertheless. Beauty, in reference to physical appearance – and art – interests me, principally because the notion is so entirely subjective, and because so many proclaim loudly against its validity.
The subject was recently brought back to mind after reading about software that was supposed to ‘beautify’ people. Pictorial examples were given, and one comment caught my attention: a reader asserted that the (supposedly) more beautiful version of the subject was bland and boring. The implication being that even naturally attractive people (with regular features) are bland and boring. What an insult to a large and lucky proportion of the population.
Beauty is of course not the be all and end all, but it is dishonest and utterly disingenuous to dismiss it as unimportant. There have been numerous studies done to attest that human beings are naturally attracted to symmetry, proportion, and balance. Most human beings pursue beauty in one form or another – if it was unimportant in our lives, we would not do so.
Equally, art that is beautiful is often sniffily dismissed as the merely ‘decorative’, appealing only to the untutored masses and should therefore be pooh-poohed by the serious art critic.
We do however live in a time of mass obsession with youth, beauty and artifice, when natural beauty and aging gracefully has gone by the board. Sadly, too many forget to tend to the beauty and spirit within, where true grace resides. A so-called ‘ordinary’ man or woman will suddenly become beautiful when they move, when their eyes light up, when joy animates them; still photos show so little of the subject they depict.
The original article from The New York Times is very interesting. An excerpt from it (wow, this professor said the same thing I did just above, and I promise I wrote it before I read the article! I feel smart …):
“The first reaction we have to faces will be based on face symmetry, health, averageness,” said Alexander Nehamas, a philosopher and professor of the humanities and comparative literature at Princeton, who has written about beauty. “But we never see a face like that in real life. We see faces in connection with people expressing emotions and ideas, all those aspects of the face are essential to our deciding whether a face or a person is beautiful.”
Here are some words and pictures on the topic from the book What is Beauty?, by Dorothy Schefer (Thames & Hudson, 1997). Click images for larger versions.
