Intelligent Design V

 

Intelligent Design IV

 

Intelligent Design III

 

Intelligent Design II

 

Intelligent Design I

 

Friday Fictioneers 100 Word Flash Fiction Story: Globial Warming

Every Friday authors from around the world gather around the virtual fireside of fellow WordPress blogger Rochelle Wisoff to share flash fiction stories of 100 words, all inspired by a common photograph, and exchange constructive criticism. Readers’ comments are also welcome.

This week’s photo has been provided by Sarah Ann Hall. She explains that the photo’s of the Stretton Aqueduct, in Staffordshire, England. Below follows the story this ‘s photo inspired:

Globial Warming

“Dried up.  Globial warming. ”

She didn’t correct him.

“Like your love.”

One from the army of nettles mustered on the aqueduct stepped up and stung her.

“My love never dried up.”

“You wouldn’t marry me afore I went off.”

“Didn’t want a fatherless mouth.”

“When I came back you’d married! A blind bloke with his legs blown off.  He didn’t last a year. What good were he to you?”

“You never wrote.”

“It were the war.”

“It were.”

They kept vigil for two minutes.

She threw her bouquet. It plunged through the nettles, slapped water.

“River’s back.”

“Globial warming.”

(c) Ann Isik 2013
100 words

Related articles

• A Flood of Flash Fiction (thousandmonkeys.wordpress.com)
• Flash Fiction (journalread.wordpress.com)
• Flash Fiction (worldmender.wordpress.com)
• Breakthrough – Alastair’s Photo Fiction Prompt (thehobbitings.wordpress.com)
• Flash Fiction (marginsandmirrors.wordpress.com)
• Cooking with Spring Nettles: Where to Begin (thekitchn.com)
• FLASH FICTION FRIDAY ~ What Truth Awaits? ~ (thebradleychronicles.wordpress.com)

 

Hull Art

Despite the other night’s in-dream admonitions from my team of angel guides about stalling, I have not been totally idle on the art front.  Here are some works I made last weekend. I made them on the hull of our Albin Vega. While most would find scraping boat hulls a tedious experience, not so the artist. My pencil is a paint scraper and my medium, an antifouling stripper. My support, a GRP hull.

My method is sgraffito.  You add some layers and then scrape through from the top one to reveal the ones underneath. In my case, the layers were already there.  I’m recording all the changes as I go and I have 54 feet of hull to play with!  Yippee!  I’m making butterfly books with these images. Not about butterflies. It’s the shape of the book. Long and thin. In my case: 3 inches high x 9 inches long. Like seascapes. I think these scraped paintings are seascape-like, don’t you?

I will be doing other things with these images, but for now will put them to one side and return to my Below the Line project. I have to focus and finish projects or I will overwhelm myself and start falling off kitchen benches again.

Ann

Related articles

• Mahanui (Jacinta II) (waitematawoodys.com)

What I’ve Been Singing This Week: O Mio Babbino Caro & Pastourelle

Montserrat Cabballé singing Puccini‘s O Mio Babbino Caro.  It’s an aria from his only comedy, Gianni Schicchi.  Here’a a literal translation of the lyrics into English:

Oh my dear papa,
I love him, he is handsome, handsome.
I want to go to Porta Rossa
To buy the ring!

Yes, yes, I want to go there!
And if my love were in vain,
I would go to the Ponte Vecchio
And throw myself in the Arno!

I am anguished and tormented!
Oh God, I’d like to die!
Papa, have pity, have pity!
Papa, have pity, have pity!

Silly girl. Lovely song.

The other song I had a go at this week is one I first heard, and listened to over and over, all night, on a Malaysian Airlines flight from Heathrow to Dubai. It stopped me going mad – I was sandwiched between two snoring men.  It was from an album recorded by Arleen Auger, of songs from the beautiful Auvergne region of France.

Here’s a translation of the lyrics, (the original is in Langue d’Oc) which I’ve taken from the libretto of Canteloube: Songs of the Auvergne (Sony: Essential Classics). These are sung by Frederica von Stade accompanied by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra.

Come over to this side!
Ah, come across the river!
Come here close to me!
For we will talk business
And the rest of the day
We will talk of love!

But I cannot cross!
How could I do it!
I have no arched bridge,
And I have no boat;
Not even a shepherd
Who loves me faithfully!

You would soon have a boat
If you were pretty!
You’d have an arched bridge,
And you’d have a shepherd
Who’d be faithful to you
Even to the grave!

I don’t think girl is going to be doing any business or talking any love with this charming fellow! But the song’s lovely. Here’s a link to a version by Spanish soprano Maria Bayo.

Enjoy!

Ann

Related articles

• Going solo (thehindu.com)

 

A Code of Cups

English: Cup and Ring Markings Believed to have been made by neolithic man, markings such as these occur all over the area. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I find it fascinating, the inventive and often amusing devices my psyche or my angels/guides use to get a point across in a dream.  (I think there must be a team of angels assigned to look after me).

On the eve of posting Auspicious Dream: Part II, I had another. I’m not going to be boring and go through the thing, but I had to laugh.

I’ve been stalling, creatively, recently. Got stuck. Focus problems. My dream included someone I  knew  only briefly – a passing acquaintance – and over 20 years ago. Overnight, I puzzled about this, then found the answer in his name.  It’s Beckenstall.  My helpers were beckoning me to quit stalling!

There’s more to it. Stan (lovely man) made important discoveries of neolithic rock art, (petroglyphs), cup and ring markings. He used to take groups on walks. I wanted to join in but at the time he advised against my trekking across isolated moors in icy rain just after a hysterectomy. Ah, well.

English: Cup and ring markings Detail of [363144]. Baluachraig, , Scotland. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Cup and ring markings. They fascinate me. They’re found mainly in Northern England, Scotland Ireland, Brittany, Portugal, Galicia (north west Spain), north west Italy, Greece, Switzerland. Similar forms are found around the world: in Mexico, Brazil and the oldest cup marks recorded to date are in a Paleolithic cave at Daraki-Chattan. (Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cup_and_ring_mark).

Often, there’s a depression surrounded by etched circles. Depressions can be connected in a pattern with gutter channels. Their raison d’etre is shrouded in mystery. Interpretations abound. It’s conjectured that they relate to fertility rites. To the sun. Findings from comparisons between various sites is interesting, but the code of the cups has yet to be cracked.

I identify with these in various and entirely non-scientific ways. Here’s my entirely unproveable theory: if they are connected with fertility rites, could it be that the cup would represent the womb, into which, as part of the rite, a phallus would be symbolically inserted? That nothing has been discovered could mean that the phallus may have been made of wood. These would have decayed. This idea came to me because I’d read up on the linga and yoni stones of Hindu tradition. The yoni is the receptable for the linga, the phallus. It’s about divine conjugation and the linga and yoni are at the heart of every temple dedicated to the god Shiva in India.

So, not only have I been beckoned and told to quit stalling, but I’ve been given some delicious images to play with.

Are you stalling? Beware! In my dream, I was shot, with a round pellet (like a cup marking). The shot went right through my body. These angels just aren’t going to put up with my procrastination.

Walking the sites of cup and ring markings would makes a great themed walking holiday.

The drawing above is one I did from the piece of fossilised coral I developed an obsession for, for a while. I’ve blogged about this before. Search the word linga if you’re interested.

Ann

Related articles

• Volunteers throw new light on prehistoric moors life (yorkshirepost.co.uk)

Playing the Cards You’re Dealt

During the recent repainting of my studio I found this incomplete art project and I’ve been pushing some of its elements around on the front cover of this erstwhile children’s board book. It’s become a maquette and I’ll be doing some mixed media works from it, I think.

These fossil forms go back to the time I lived on Grand Cayman. They’re actually papier maché and very light. I took this shot from above.

I’ve also painted the kitchen, bathroom and painted and dressed another room.

It had to be done if I were ever to transform back from salmon to human form. Fins are all very well, but I need hands. (I refer to my fall and dream and will post  Auspicious Accident: Part II very soon. The writing of it took me on a curious journey).

The large form in this arrangement is very fishy-looking. It’s sort of how I’ve been feeling: bound and limbless. Prone. Well, not quite as bad as that …  Strange though that this project should have surfaced (sorry about the pun!) at this particular moment. And also strange that I’ve been singing Song To The Moon, which is about a rusalka (water sprite) who falls in love with a human (a prince of course) and has to transform to be with him. There are no coincidences!

My little attic studio is finally mine. I’ve painted the walls with a period paint. It’s a dead flat matte white called Wash Day (water again!) It’s soft and powdery, like the forms in the picture. Which reminds me of another dream I had, at the time I was making these forms.  It was set in a white room, with figures in white overalls – workmen- and they were sitting round a white table playing cards. The cards were completely white – blank – and the room was covered in a white powder or dust. One of the men turned to me and, smiling broadly, held up his hand of blank cards. I figured out most of it, but not the white dust. When I pondered the dream, it seemed to me that I was being guided by these non-working, but playing, workmen. I believed was being shown that I now had a hand of blank cards and I should play them. I’d just lost three members of my close family and I was beginning a new era in my life.

I think I was being told it was time to get out from under the dust and ashes and start playing my own game.  To play the game with the cards I’ve been dealt. Blank cards to personalise. (And it’s not work)!  Rather a beautiful and positive dream, I feel.  I think I have some lovely angels assigned to me!

Ann

Related articles

• Play Your Cards Well (theoldmoneybook.com)