mother’s druthers

I sometimes think, and most of the time know, if my mother had her druthers she’d live somewhere like this. With enough hill to run up and roll down. And an ocean, just underneath.

The house, built in the fifties, is perched on a cliff on Elliðaey (Ellirey), an island south of Iceland’s mainland. Rumor has it you can rent it. If you can reach it.

the perks of being a wallflower

“On Friday night, I was reading my new book, but my brain got tired, so I decided to watch some television instead.”

— The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky

freudian twits (but not the roald dahl kind)

I know what you’re thinking: we coordinated our outfits. But before you run away with yourself, no. We’re just psychiatric like that.

Would you believe a psychologist once told our mother we had a combined IQ of 289? (Yeah, she didn’t either.) This is what happens when you trade on a total impracticality for twenty-odd years. The line between creativity and madness has thinned over time and now we’re just a hop, skip and one small impulse control disorder away from an irrational fear of bear attacks.

farewell, artemidorus

(above) Assyrian sculpture and Balawat Gates (11th – 8th centuries BC)

Whenever we visit the British Museum The Euro spends most of his time in Room 4, which is where all the Egyptian sculpture is, mostly just staring at the Rosetta Stone. My favourite is the Ancient Assyrian (modern northern Iraq) exhibits. Large stone sculptures and reliefs were a feature of the palaces and temples of ancient Assyria. An entrance to the royal palace of King Ashurnasirpal II (883-859 BC) at Nimrud was flanked by two colossal winged human-headed lions. A gigantic standing lion stood at the entrance to the nearby Temple of Ishtar, the goddess of war. This is one of a pair of lions that flanked the doorway in the throne room of the palace of Ashurnasirpal II (883-359 BC). They were suppose to provide magical protection for the building.

(above) Etruscan Sarcophagus (3000 BC – 1st century BC)

The Etruscans flourished between the eighth and first centuries BC and were famed in antiquity for being devoutly religious, for their metalworking, their love of music and banqueting, and the independence they allowed their women. There’s a sarcophagus called the Sarcophagus of the Spouses in The National Etruscan Museum in Rome that’s made of terracotta and dates back to the 6th century BC that I adore. This one’s only slightly less lovely.

(above) Roman Imperial Mosaic Panel (3rd Century)

A mosaic panel from a fountain basin excavated in Carthage. Jets of water stream from the mouth; a water outlet beneath it has been filled with white tesserae. It’s of the sea-god Oceanus. In classical antiquity, Oceanus was believed to be the world-ocean. In Greek mythology, this world-ocean was personified as a Titan. Not quite as eye catching as he appears in the Trevi Fountain, but you don’t miss it.

(above) Mummy case portrait panel of Artemidorus (AD 100-120)

Just a beautiful example of merging of cultural influences: a Greek personal name, a Roman-style portrait, together with traditional Egyptian funerary practices. The mummy case is painted in encaustic, a mixture of pigment and beeswax with a hardening agent like resin or egg. Below the portrait is a falcon-collar and a series of traditional Egyptian funerary scenes applied in gold leaf. The largest of these shows the god Anubis attending the mummy, which lies on a lion-shaped bier flanked by goddesses (probably Isis and Nephthys). The god Osiris himself is also depicted on a bier, awakening to new life.

The identity of the dead man is preserved in a short, mis-spelled Greek inscription across the breast, which reads: ‘Farewell, Artemidorus’.

(above) Roman Portrait Panel (80-120AD)

Another portrait panel. This time, sans mummy or case. It’s of a naked young Roman with curly hair. The portrait was painted on limewood in encaustic and tempera.

(above) Roman Portrait Panel (2nd Century)

A final Roman portrait panel. This time tempera on oak. The portrait is of a bearded man wearing white tunic with purple clavi. It was donated to the British Museum by Sir Robert Ludwig Mond, a Lancashire chemist and archaeologist. Mond did work with Howard Carter and was involved in the preservation of the tomb of Ramesses

(above) Amenhotep III (18th Dynasty)

My favourite of the Egyptian Sculptures. The head from a monumental quartzite statue of Amenhotep III wearing the red crown of Lower Egypt. Amenhotep III was the grandfather of Tutankhamun and ruled Egypt for more than 36 years. The head originally topped off one of a set of statues that stood around the courtyard of his funerary temple at Kom el-Hettan, near Luxor. In the early 19th century the British collector Henry Salt bought the head, together with a second head from the same site, and both ended up in the British Museum.

presidential

“I wish there were a political affiliation called Common Sense, because that’s what I would be. I would run on the ticket. I couldn’t be president because I don’t have perfect teeth. But it’s the Cabinet that matters and you and I could be in the Cabinet.”

- Flynn

stephen king & kindle

“I didn’t do ‘Ur’ for money. I did it because it was interesting. I’m fairly prolific. It took three days, and I’ve made about $80,000. You can’t get that for short fiction from Playboy or anybody else. It’s ridiculous.” – Stephen King

In 2009 Stephen King released “Ur” – an exclusive novella he published on the launch of the Kindle 2. In a recent interview with The Wall Street Journal King revealed how much he earned on the story.

I’ve never touched a Kindle. I do have an iPad – I subscribe to Press Display and read most of my European newspapers on it. I’ve also read the odd short story this way, but no novels yet. And I’m not sure I ever will. Still, the kind of figures King talks about reveal an audience hungry for digital reading.

In a separate interview King made an interesting point when he noted the difference between downloading books and downloading music. With music, you’re free to download singles. Just the songs you like. You don’t have to buy the whole album. With novels it’s all or nothing. You don’t purchase it piecemeal.