my interests and other peculiarities
Comment on this post. I will choose seven interests from your profile and you will explain what they mean and why you are interested in them. Post this along with your answers in your own journal so that others can play along.
1. lloyd's building
Headquarters of Lloyd's of London (in the picture, please ignore the rather phallic tower in the background), designed by Richard Rogers, and one of the most amazing buildings I have ever seen. The first time you see it, it's that raw, stainless steel and concrete giant, but when you actually look at it, it's so beautiful. Not decorative or pretty, just completely stunning. All the different elements, the staircases on the outside, the cranes, the cathedral like central projecion at the top, it could be a complete mess, only it isn't, because it all just fits.
2. dc
DC Comics. Batman, Robin, Green Lantern, and all the others. Fond, if slightly geeky childhood memories. OK, it wasn't that long ago. And if I were awake early on a Saturday morning and had a TV and they were on, I'd absolutely watch them again. Not to mention the comics. I get a kick out of the wee brother finding my old comics and being completely into them, even though he doesn't read a word.
3. mrs. beeston
Title giving character of Mrs. Beeston's Tierklinik, a book about a little duck with Entenfüße, who finds a home in Mrs. Beeston's animal clinic. There he meets a cuckoo who can't cuckoo, a mouse who loves cats, a forever lounging cat with a knot in her middle, a pig with a straight tail and some other equally afflicted characters. They are all treated and cared for by brusque (but loving) Mrs. Beeston, who oils the cat, sings with the cuckoo, curls up the Pig's tail with a curling iron, but to no avail, initially anyway.
My grandmother used to read that book to me when I visited her as a child, and I am dying to get a copy, but it's not being printed at the moment. In fact this is the book I tried to order at Dussmann the other day, only to have them get back to me saying they can't get it after all. And I really, desperately want to have that book. More than any other book in the world, and that is saying something.
4. millais
As in John Everett Millais, Pre-Raphaelite painter of Ophelia, the most beautiful painting I know and subject of my History of Art coursework. Quite a talented man, but admittedly more interesting for the illustrious society he belonged to. Bit conceited, very much convinced of their own ideas and very fascinating (gotta love the story of a man (D.G. Rosetti) who burries the only copy of his poems with his dead wife and then digs her back up ten years later when he wants the notebook back).
5. roark
Howard Roark, architect extraordinaire, visionary and man who stands by his ideas and ideals against all odds, not caring what others think. He's the main character of my favourite book, The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand. He is a very complex character, not because he is conflicted or has deep and dark issues of some kind, like so many other characters, but because of his unfaltering integrity. Whatever is thrown at him, now matter how often he "fails", or rather how often society fails to recognise the brilliant over the copied and mundane, he never falters, never surrenders himself and his talent to the ignorant masses.
To be like him, uncompromising, always true to what he believes in, suffering for his art if you will, that is greatness. I doubt I could be like that myself, but I love that he can, am amazed by what he is and what he can do.
6. yellow brick road
Aka the road of yellow brick, the way to get to the Emerald City in The Wondeful Wizard of Oz. Dirty old man that the wizard may be, L. Frank Baum's world of Oz is pretty amazing, even if he melts my favourite character. Loved the book, loved the movies, even loved the cartoon.
And from the way it sounds alone, the most amazing things must lie at the end of a yellow brick road.
7. downward mobility
That actually goes back to my History of Art coursework, too, and is part of the title of a paper I read when doing my research. My topic was suicide in art, downward mobility is a reference to a bit of a phenomenon in Victorian times, where it was quite usual for women expecting a child out of wedlock to drown themselves. Another borrowed concept here was the Bridge of Sighs, not the one in Venice, but more figuratively as a bridge they jumped down from, into dark and murky death. Fascinating stuff. For an artistic example see Found Drowned by Watts.
1. lloyd's building
Headquarters of Lloyd's of London (in the picture, please ignore the rather phallic tower in the background), designed by Richard Rogers, and one of the most amazing buildings I have ever seen. The first time you see it, it's that raw, stainless steel and concrete giant, but when you actually look at it, it's so beautiful. Not decorative or pretty, just completely stunning. All the different elements, the staircases on the outside, the cranes, the cathedral like central projecion at the top, it could be a complete mess, only it isn't, because it all just fits.
2. dc
DC Comics. Batman, Robin, Green Lantern, and all the others. Fond, if slightly geeky childhood memories. OK, it wasn't that long ago. And if I were awake early on a Saturday morning and had a TV and they were on, I'd absolutely watch them again. Not to mention the comics. I get a kick out of the wee brother finding my old comics and being completely into them, even though he doesn't read a word.
3. mrs. beeston
Title giving character of Mrs. Beeston's Tierklinik, a book about a little duck with Entenfüße, who finds a home in Mrs. Beeston's animal clinic. There he meets a cuckoo who can't cuckoo, a mouse who loves cats, a forever lounging cat with a knot in her middle, a pig with a straight tail and some other equally afflicted characters. They are all treated and cared for by brusque (but loving) Mrs. Beeston, who oils the cat, sings with the cuckoo, curls up the Pig's tail with a curling iron, but to no avail, initially anyway.
My grandmother used to read that book to me when I visited her as a child, and I am dying to get a copy, but it's not being printed at the moment. In fact this is the book I tried to order at Dussmann the other day, only to have them get back to me saying they can't get it after all. And I really, desperately want to have that book. More than any other book in the world, and that is saying something.
4. millais
As in John Everett Millais, Pre-Raphaelite painter of Ophelia, the most beautiful painting I know and subject of my History of Art coursework. Quite a talented man, but admittedly more interesting for the illustrious society he belonged to. Bit conceited, very much convinced of their own ideas and very fascinating (gotta love the story of a man (D.G. Rosetti) who burries the only copy of his poems with his dead wife and then digs her back up ten years later when he wants the notebook back).
5. roark
Howard Roark, architect extraordinaire, visionary and man who stands by his ideas and ideals against all odds, not caring what others think. He's the main character of my favourite book, The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand. He is a very complex character, not because he is conflicted or has deep and dark issues of some kind, like so many other characters, but because of his unfaltering integrity. Whatever is thrown at him, now matter how often he "fails", or rather how often society fails to recognise the brilliant over the copied and mundane, he never falters, never surrenders himself and his talent to the ignorant masses.
To be like him, uncompromising, always true to what he believes in, suffering for his art if you will, that is greatness. I doubt I could be like that myself, but I love that he can, am amazed by what he is and what he can do.
6. yellow brick road
Aka the road of yellow brick, the way to get to the Emerald City in The Wondeful Wizard of Oz. Dirty old man that the wizard may be, L. Frank Baum's world of Oz is pretty amazing, even if he melts my favourite character. Loved the book, loved the movies, even loved the cartoon.
And from the way it sounds alone, the most amazing things must lie at the end of a yellow brick road.
7. downward mobility
That actually goes back to my History of Art coursework, too, and is part of the title of a paper I read when doing my research. My topic was suicide in art, downward mobility is a reference to a bit of a phenomenon in Victorian times, where it was quite usual for women expecting a child out of wedlock to drown themselves. Another borrowed concept here was the Bridge of Sighs, not the one in Venice, but more figuratively as a bridge they jumped down from, into dark and murky death. Fascinating stuff. For an artistic example see Found Drowned by Watts.