I originally posted the following on Google+ in 2016. Since G+ is due to be retired in the near future I’ve been making case-by-case decisions about what to do with my posts. Some are ephemeral and I’m content to let them go entirely. Others I’ve summarised on social media as I only wish to preserve their core. In this case, I’ve decided to reproduce it here.
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This is a warning about mermaids. Stay away from mermaids; those things are dangerous.
OK, for those of you who want to know more, here are the details.
One thing a lot of people get wrong about mermaids is that they tend to think of them as half human and half fish. In fact, no part of a mermaid is human and no part of a mermaid is fish, in the same way that no part of a stick insect is stick. Evolutionarily speaking, mermaids are closer to sea slugs than to any kind of vertebrate. You can think of them as a highly differentiated form of sea slug with a unique camouflage.
Another thing to know about mermaids is that they’re like bees and ants in that they have different body forms for different social roles. The ones you hear about, the ones that look like a woman with a fish’s tail, let’s call them the foragers. They gather food and bring it back to the nest. Now, they have a kind of magic whereby anyone who is touching the mermaid can survive underwater. You don’t need to breathe, you won’t be harmed by the pressure, etc. Which is how they catch their food. First they’ll lure you close, and then as soon as you have a firm grip on the mermaid, the mermaid will plunge. And then you’re trapped. If you let go, you drown. If you don’t let go, you live a little longer, but your fate won’t please you.
What happens next is that the mermaid hands you over to the queen. Now, the queen mermaid does not look like a woman with a fish’s tail. More like a huge squishy slimy blob with tentacles that sits on the ocean floor and does nothing much except lay eggs. And you’re going to be attached to one of those tentacles. It begins with your genitals being physically fused to her body, somewhere not already occupied by the remains of a previous meal. Eventually your whole body will be melted into her as well, but it takes a while so you’ll have time to be aware of the process. And in your final moments, immobile and covered in putrid, sticky slime, you might reflect on the fact that after she’s absorbed all the nutrients your flesh contains, she will turn them into eggs and make more mermaids to lure more unwary victims to the same fate.
As I was saying: stay away from mermaids; those things are dangerous.
Roughly twenty years ago, when I moved into my current home, my parents bought me a Technics SX-PR702 electronic piano. There is another photo elsewhere on this blog, but here’s a better one.
The piano has been repaired a handful of times in the murky past (spare part replacement) but recently failed again, and I doubt it’s still possible to get the parts. I haven’t made absolutely sure of that, but acting on advice from others (including Mum) I made the decision to buy a new $6000 electronic piano which will be installed in about a fortnight. Until then I still have the Technics. (It still “works” in the same way that a bad telephone line works, but the faulty electronics create an intermittent sputtering sound.)
As a sendoff for the SX-PR702, I thought I’d collect together some of the recordings I’ve created with it. Most but not all of these have appeared on this blog before, and I’ve recorded a couple especially for this occasion.
First up is a cover of a tune I originally composed as an angsty teenager. I have blogged it, with lyrics, before. I don’t precisely remember the original context.
Sixth, a very rough recording I made for this blog post, for the sake of having my ideas recorded. It needs work (before recording I did not realise the pulsating left hand voice is so dominating) but I’ve always envisioned it as a dance piece (not that I’m a dancer). You will hear the spluttering that is the reason the piano needs replacing.
Voice: Strings and Horns 127, Dulcimer 94, Metal Pad 106 [too loud]
Backing: “Country Rock” var 3 at 92 bpm {Bass 124, ACP1 mute, ACP2 110, ACP3 mute, Drum 90}
Seventh, another recording made specifically for this blog post. This demonstrates a motif that is part of my interpretation of a Japanese Enka (something I know nothing about but I love taking inspiration from an unfamiliar backing. Here’s a genuine enka).
So I didn’t blog in 2017, and I make no promises about 2018.
But I’ve decided that I must share one of my all-time favourite poems. I can’t spell out all of my reasons for doing this — there is subtext here — but I can give you one reason. It’s a truly beautiful poem and I love it.
Adrian Plass is a well-known religious writer, and I discovered his books back when I was religious myself. After I abandoned religion I pruned some books from my shelves, but — babies and bathwater — some things are worth keeping. Versions of the following poem can be found in at least two different books, showing that the author continued to work on it after the initial publication; my version is based on the one included in the book An Alien at St Wilfred’s (1992). I’ve made a couple of very small changes and punctuated afresh — it’s a poem for reading aloud, not for scanning from a page, so punctuation is arbitrary.
The poem is called “Angel”, and it is subtly religious, but you absolutely do not have to be religious yourself in order to love this poem to bits. Immediately below is an audio version I recorded early in 2017. Please wear headphones to listen to this because it’s binaural and I want you to hear me speaking softly into your ears.
For discussion: if it speaks to you too, what other poetry do you know that is as beautiful as this?
It was at the end of 2015 that I decided to collect wall calendars. Every year, I promised myself, I would choose a calendar with a theme that I’d never chosen before, and at the end of the year each calendar would be stored permanently in a drawer.
I decided I would do this for at least twelve years, at which point I would have as many calendars as there are months in a year, so it seemed a poetically significant milestone. Then I would decide whether to continue.
Well, this month I purchased my twelfth calendar — a Faeryland theme for 2017 — and so that time has come. How to commemorate it? That is something I’ve planned for a while now.
You may be familiar with the ASMR genre of videos on Youtube. These feature relaxing sounds, typically made by everyday objects, often in some kind of thematic context. For some people these sounds can trigger a pleasant tingling sensation, which is what the term ASMR denotes. But the appeal is broader than that. Many people get some kind of pleasant sensation from ASMR videos, even if it’s more subtle than a bona fide spine tingle.
Personally I don’t have a strong response, and ASMR videos are not a big part of my life. But I do binge on them from time to time, and because such a simple thing can give people such pleasure, I couldn’t not speculate about making one of my own.
Presenting my calendar collection in the form of an ASMR video seemed like a perfect match. I would leaf through the pages one by one, and people could look at the pictures while listening to the sounds that glossy paper makes as it scrapes and bends. (Also, something about the form lends itself to a journey theme, in this case a journey through time.) This idea was already forming three years ago when I published an earlier video about my collection (completely silent), but the time wasn’t right then. It was something to save for the big Twelfth Year Anniversary.
The video I made is below. To watch it, turn off the lights so your senses can focus, put your headphones on (in my experience headphones are essential for all ASMR videos, even if they’re not binaurial), and turn the volume down nice and low.
I am a complete amateur at this. I lack time, experience, equipment, and a quiet home. But if I hear from one person who really enjoys it, I will count that a success. (Sometimes the calendars slip from my control, but I feel that’s a good thing.)
[Here’s a direct link. I’ve put quite a bit of information in the video description, so I recommend watching on Youtube so you can read that. As I say there, the Rob Gonsalves painting “Phenomenon of Floating” (image for April 2015) represents how I hope to make you feel.]
For a long time I’ve been fascinated by the Indian playing cards known as Ganjifa, which represent a different branch of the history of playing cards from the more familiar 52-card deck. In 2011 I acquired my own Ganjifa deck and wrote a couple of blog posts on the subject, including my own idea for a game. In 2015 I perfected the rules for this game and rewrote the blog post, giving my creation the title Kendra Kari (केंद्र कड़ी).
In response to that post I was contacted by Sunish Chabba, who was developing a new deck of Ganjifa cards under the brand “Guru Ganjifa”. This began a fruitful correspondence in which I helped Sunish with his project in various ways, and learned a great deal more about Ganjifa along the way. Sunish ran a regrettably unsuccessful kickstarter for the project, but lessons were learned and he plans to relaunch when the time is right.
Ganjifa cards can be looked upon as objects of play, as objects of art, or as objects of history, and there is something to be learnt from each perspective. In their heyday they were popular across most of India and proliferated into various forms, chief of which was the Dashavatara deck, with ten suits each representing an avatar of the god Vishnu. The deck developed by Sunish is of this type, as opposed to the eight-suited Mughal deck featured in my earlier posts.
(For more information I recommend this video if you generally enjoy history/culture documentaries, or if you’d like to explore even deeper you may find something of value in this freely-available research paper. If you’re in a less intellectual mood, perhaps you’d prefer to sit back and watch cards being painted. Other links can be found elsewhere in this post, or by searching. No source can be assumed accurate in all respects, as the sparseness of information makes fact-checking difficult.)
One of the challenges in producing a modern Ganjifa deck is deciding what rules to include for the traditional game. There are three main reasons why one cannot simply reproduce rules from historical sources. (1) As a folk game, Ganjifa spread from player to player over hundreds of years and accumulated innovations in each locality, such that each village evolved its own version of the rules. (2) The few versions that have been preserved in writing — at least in English — are not adequately detailed to serve as a comprehensive guide to play. (3) Any attempt to revive something from the past typically calls not for a faithful facsimile, but for a blend of tradition and innovation that captures the spirit of the original but adapts it to modern needs. Adaptability is, in games as in everything else, the key to survival.
As part of my collaboration with Sunish I drafted a set of rules that will form the basis of those to be published with the Guru Ganjifa deck. The purpose of this blog post is to make these rules available to potential playtesters, to create a forum (in the comments) for discussion of the game, and to provide a platform where I can document rationales for various decisions that I made. Note that my own playtests were limited to simulations in which I acted the part of all 3-4 players; I have not tested these rules under real conditions against live opponents.
Anyone who owns a Ganjifa deck is invited to help, and as there are so few people who do own a deck, my gratitude is all the more sincere. All feedback is welcome, whether positive or critical; whether pertaining to the game itself or to the clarity of the description. Critical comments can be used to improve the game, and positive ones to promote it. The rules herein accommodate groups of three or four players, and if you own a Dashavatara (ten-suited) deck you can play them exactly as intended. If you own a Mughal (eight-suited) deck you can still test the three-player game, but I wouldn’t suggest a four-player one. And if you’ve tried Ganjifa before but been turned off by its dependence on memory or some other quality not to your liking, perhaps you’ll be willing to give it a second chance.
The rest of this blog post is more academic than usual as it documents the choices I made in composing these rules. You don’t have to read it. But if you’re curious, read on.
My parents and I recently spent ten days in the North Island of New Zealand, a holiday we’ve been planning since Christmas. Mum and Dad have both been to New Zealand before, but it was my first time. We departed on the 10th of September and returned on the 20th.
I was given the task of researching places to visit, and did my best to put together a realistic itinerary. We chose September to avoid the peak tourist season and because the rainfall is lower than in either August or October. Bookings were made through a travel agent, with whose services we were less than fully satisfied; but I guess that’s what you get for using an agency that proclaims itself the cheapest rather than the best.
For the first few days the weather was beautiful, but later it turned bad, and so unfortunately we didn’t get to do everything on our list. The weather’s persistence surprised me, as I expected a New Zealand September would contain multiple seasons in each day; but no, it was either one thing or the other. One needn’t wonder why there’s a peak tourist season in New Zealand.
We arrived in Auckland around 5:30pm, and after collecting our luggage were greeted with the longest exit queue I’ve seen in any airport anywhere. (I don’t know why that should be.) The GPS navigation unit supplied with the hire car gave us all sorts of problems at first, though it got better as we learned to use it. I also had access to Google Maps through my phone, and will say more about navigation at the end of this post.
Our first full day in New Zealand was Sunday September 11, allocated on our itinerary as a free day in Auckland. We began with a visit to the Maritime Museum, which had a few quirky exhibits I quite liked, but overall was nothing special. (None of the museums we visited in New Zealand were prizeworthy, in my opinion, and I won’t dwell on them.)
Our next adventure — the Auckland Whale and Dolphin Safari — was much more impressive, though I was unprepared when water from a bigger-than-average wave splashed over the hull and made us all soaking wet! The moment is captured at the end of this video. (Hold tight to your camera if you ever go.)
I expected we’d see a handful of dolphins at best, but once we found them, there were lots. The next video contains a few clips.
Despite the experience exceeding our own expectations, it apparently wasn’t up to the standards of the crew, who gave us all an open invitation to come back another day for free. Watch the video above and think about that.
A photo of the wake:
Our second day began with a visit to the Auckland Botanic Gardens, which I enjoyed. Very spatious (arguably too much so; there are voids) and full of magnolias, but then so is the whole island. After a good ramble we had lunch at the cafe, which I would also recommend (I had the chef’s pork belly). Here are my photos; note the “bird lady”, one of a series of sculptures.
Our next stop was Hobbiton, which had been highly recommended by everyone we knew. Despite all the endorsements, my parents were still surprised at how good it was, especially for people with limited interest in Tolkien. Through our travel agent we had prebooked a 3:30 tour, the final for the day at this time of year.
We then drove on to Rotorua, where we spent the whole of our third day. This began with a visit to Hells Gate where we’d prebooked a 10:00 “Hells Gate Combo”, consisting of a mud bath, sulphur spa, and tour of the geysers. I didn’t expect much from the tour, but the place turned out to be well signposted with much to learn about its history and chemistry, so I’m glad we included it. The mud bath is a fun and worthwhile experience, but pay no attention to claims that it will leave your skin glowing for days (it won’t). Some of the staff spoke with a strong Maori accent that my ear is not accustomed to, but travelling with a group has the advantage that what one person doesn’t catch another probably will.
Our next stop was the “Buried Village“. This includes a trail through a preserved archeological site with remains from a village destroyed by the 1886 eruption of Mount Tarawera, which also destroyed the nearby Pink and White Terraces — a geothermal formation formerly hailed as a natural wonder of the world. It wasn’t bad, but compared to other places we visited I found it relatively dispensible (the waterfalls were considerably more impressive than the archaeology). We had lunch there on our arrival, but I don’t recommend that unless you really like sandwiches.
To finish our time in Rotorua we had a prebooked Day and Evening pass at Te Puia, a Maori cultural centre. However, all of our earlier activities had taken longer than expected, and following some rushed but necessary grocery shopping we were about fifteen minutes late and had to catch up with the 4:30 tour. I think the only thing we missed out on was the weaving school. Here are some pictures from the carving school, where we met the group.
Sacred Maori buildings cannot normally be photographed, but the buildings at Te Puia were constructed specifically for the purpose of being shared. Below is one picture each of two smaller buildings followed by three of the main meeting house.
The tour also took us to a geothermal area on the site, boasting a geyser that shoots hot water high into the air somewhat less than once an hour. I photographed it under the fortuitously-positioned gibbous moon.
We were later treated to a Maori ceremony and performance in the meeting house photographed earlier. I recorded some clips on video but have decided not to upload them as the recording does not really do it justice. We also shared a fantastic meal, in which I ate in quantities ordinarily associated with Christmas.
On our fourth day the weather began to change. The blue sky turned cloudy, and there were periods of rain, but for the most part it was still nice to be outside. We left Rotorua for the Orakei Korako geothermal park, a bigger and more photogenic geothermal area than the others we’d visited, but less endowed with signposts. A ferry takes visitors across the river on demand, and returns promptly when summoned. Two hours was ample time for a visit, including a meal.
As well as photos, I recorded some short video clips, shown in the following compilation. I think the bubbling mud geysers with birdsong in the background would make a great relaxation video, and if I’d had the luxury I’d have recorded something longer. The Youtube page contains links to downloadable .avi versions of each clip, so you can listen to your favourite on repeat if you wish (best with headphones of course). To really get into the right spirit, please imagine you can smell the sulphur.
Miscellaneous Orakei Korako photos:
Photos of an area called the Artist’s Palette:
A cave, including one 3D photo to look at with your red-blue glasses:
Other individual geysers as featured in my video clips:
The next item on our itinerary was a tour of the glow worm caves at Waitomo, prebooked for 3:00. I had high expectations of this, which led me to being a little disappointed, but I would definitely recommend it as long as you keep your expectations in check.
There are several tour operators at Waitomo, which cater to visitors with different wishes. For example, some cater to lovers of adventure sports, some to busloads of tourists on budget, etc. We chose Spellbound, which provides relatively long tours for small groups in which the eye has plenty of time to adjust to the dark and nobody gets wet. The door to the ticket office (which shares a building with the Waitomo General Store) could definitely be more welcoming. There are two caves on the tour, separated by a minibus ride (which is rather cramped, to be honest, so wear comfortable clothes). Only one cave contains a large number of glow worms. The other is promoted online as a fossil cave, but in fact there is only one fossil moa and all the other bones are modern animals such as livestock. (Still, it’s a nice cave.)
Between the two cave visits there is a refreshment stop, with hot drinks and biscuits. One thing I wasn’t expecting was eels, but if you visit New Zealand and make bets on which wildlife you’ll encounter, you should probably bet on eels. A larger eel tried to eat a smaller one, but I didn’t catch this on camera. Instead, I have the following.
As for the glow worms, they are spectacular. Sadly, however, they are far too dim to capture on camera, and expecting to do so will lead to disappointment. I had envisaged recording them on video as we drifted by on the boat, but they don’t even show up on the screen. That’s just the way nature is. The Spellbound people will email you some photos as a souvineer, but it’s not the same.
After leaving Waitomo we made our way to New Plymouth, eating at a petrol station in Te Kuiti on the way. My descriptions of the remaining days will be brief, as the weather turned ugly at that point and prevented us from doing several of the things on our itinerary. Photographic opportunities were also compromised.
Our fifth day began with a visit to the Puke Ariki museum in New Plymouth. This museum is very eclectic with many treasures, but unfortunately the presentation lets it down. The space just wasn’t designed with enough attention to the impact of light and shadow.
Next we set out toward Mount Egmont/Taranaki, in the hope that the weather would clear enough for us to do some walking in the Dawson Falls area of the Egmont National Park. Mount Taranaki looked spectacular when it chose to reveal itself, with its peak covered in snow, but when enveloped in cloud you wouldn’t know it was there. (No photos, as we saw it only from the car.) The weather was barely adequate when we arrived, and Dad and I decided to rug up and do the Wilkies Pools loop track while Mum stayed near the visitors’ centre. I was attracted to this area by the promise of “goblin forest”, so called for its gnarled, moss-covered trees. But I think you need better lighting for the full otherworldly effect, which other bloggers have captured better than we could.
Here are two pictures of Dad posing as a goblin, followed by one picture of me.
Wilkies Pools themselves are seen from only one vantage point and do not (as I imagined) follow the track. As for the view downriver, I imagine it’s much better on a good day. There were patches of snow on the ground and many miniature waterfalls amidst the trees, which was a pleasing contrast from the kind of environments I’m used to in Australia. Overall the walk was enjoyable and the scenery attractive, but it lacked a climax.
The rest of the day was mostly spent driving, following the coast all the way to Palmerston North. Our plans for Day Six were to drive north and do the Waitonga Falls track in the Tongariro National Park, but a phone call to the visitor centre confirmed that it would not be worth the trip, given the weather. So instead, following a visit to the Te Manawa art/science/history museum (which isn’t much), we just did some local walks in the Palmerston North area.
On the seventh day we had a late start (after retrieving a jumper I’d misplaced the day before), but once on the road we headed south toward Wellington, stopping at a couple of places on the way. Our first stop was Owlcatraz, which was a pretty good place for a break; we took one of the shorter tours available. A combination of traffic conditions and bad weather made the next stretch of our journey take twice as long as it should have, but eventually we made it to the Pataka art gallery in Porirua. Leaving Mum and Dad to find a carpark, I went straight to the cafe only to find out there was a 30 minute wait on lunch! (The food, however, was pretty good. I intentionally over-ordered, to avoid queuing twice and to allow for sharing.) Happily for us, the gallery itself is very small and we actually managed to make up more time than we’d lost.
We spent the last three days of our holiday in Wellington (where our hotel was not the best, but never mind that). After settling, we got back in the car and drove to Zealandia, where an evening tour awaited us as our final pre-booked activity. I expected more of a discussion time at the end of the tour and felt it ended far too abruptly, but otherwise I can’t complain. A highlight was recording this video of a live kiwi, illuminated by red torches.
On our eighth day I spent most of my time in the Museum of New Zealand, leaving Mum and Dad on a laundromat quest that had begun to resemble the pursuit of wild geese. (They did eventually find one.) The museum — which also contains an art gallery — is large and cannot be faulted on content, but again, its weaknesses are all about presentation. Ineffective use of lighting is one such weakness, but its biggest failing is the nonlinear, almost mazelike layout that makes it practically impossible to keep track of where you’ve been. Its very frustrating to walk past an exhibition space for the third time and worry that you might have missed something. Museums should have a straightforward grid layout so that visitors can check off exhibits one by one.
On the ninth day we visited the Weta Cave (the workshop where the Lord of the Rings props and costumes were made) for a tour we’d booked at a visitor centre the day before. I was surprised at some of the other shows and movies they’d had a hand in. We hadn’t planned on this, but the weather had forced us to look for indoor activities — otherwise we would have visited the Putangirua Pinnacles instead (which you may recognise as a LotR location). In the afternoon we visited the Botanic Gardens — outdoor, yes, but close to civilisation and free of muddy tracks — where I took the following photos (the third being a view over Wellington).
Tuesday 20 September was our tenth and final day in New Zealand, with the hire car due to be returned to the airport at 3:00 and our flights home a couple of hours later. The weather was better than it had been, so we took the ferry to Matiu Somes Island for one final adventure. In the daytime we didn’t expect a wildlife experience and we didn’t get one, but it was a nice place to go for a walk and admire the rugged coastline.
Souvineers I bought on our holiday include an ornamental glass tuatara, a set of coasters featuring representations of New Zealand birds blended with images of their habitats, and a mermaid doll. I also bought a few other things as gifts, and in the same spirit received a toy tuatara from Mum.
As for my impression of New Zealand culture, it is mostly familiar to Australians, our way of life and theirs having much in common. But various differences are worth noting. For example, floors in New Zealand buildings are numbered in the American fashion (with the first floor being at ground level), the phones use completely different tones to communicate their status, and things on menus are sometimes unfamiliar or strange (for example, every restaurant in Auckland seemed to offer a monstrosity called “slaw”).
I want to finish by discussing the topic of navigation. We had two main methods of navigation at our disposal: the GPS unit that came with the hire car, and my phone. We also had low-resolution printed maps, but these were limited.
On my phone I had a copy of the itinerary I’d prepared (in PDF format), with links to various routes in Google Maps. (Incidentally, the mobile version of Google Maps doesn’t support routes with intermediate destinations, which speaks to the importance of testing everything before you go.) The main disadvantage of navigating with a phone is reliance on reception, and there were large regions where I was unable to access Google Maps at all, even when I could send messages just fine and there was not a mountain to be found between me and the capital. I am unable to account for all these facts. Regarding expenses, I won’t bore you with details; suffice to say that costs were manageable and that I’m glad I have a prepaid account. Another minor disadvantage is that the GPS functionality does not update very dynamically.
As for the hire car’s navigation unit, it too had problems. It didn’t come with instructions and was not very intuitive, so at the beginning it didn’t even seem fit for purpose. Later we became more familiar with its quirks. Its route calculation algorithm was markedly inferior to Google’s, and despite being set to look for the fastest route it frequently advised us to detour onto minor roads. And of course, there was no way to query its database and preview routes before going on holiday, as I had done on Google. (It’s easy to propose ways to make this possible, and I hope to see the travel industry move in that direction.) On the plus side it was clearly the economical choice, was not dependent on the quirks of telecommunication services, and communicated its instructions automatically through the voice synthesiser.
When both were working, we got best results by using the in-car unit as the primary means of navigation while also occasionally checking the route on my phone, providing a second opinion that allowed us to confidently bypass wasteful detours.
I hope you’ve enjoyed my report, especially the photos and videos. We had a good time on the whole — despite the best efforts of the weather gods (may they be accursed) — and perhaps someday I’ll go back and see some of the things we missed.
I have been very negligent about updating this blog, for all the usual reasons, mostly to do with time and its habit of insufficiency.
That probably won’t change for a while, but here are a few things that I’ve shared elsewhere on the Internet over the last few months.
My niece’s 3rd birthday was in May, and I bought her a safari-themed magnetic theatre, which appropriately enough I gave to her at the zoo. Before that, however, I had recorded this video of a story I composed for it. Enjoy!
Another video I recorded earlier this year describes a method for remembering how the pips are arranged on standard six-sided dice. I did this for good old whimsical fun, channelling some of the greats of the explainer genre. It’s all about looking closely at everyday objects in search of easily memorised patterns, and I expect people to find it not so much useful as charmingly useless.
On Google Plus, I posted a warning about mermaids (2 June), which summarises my thoughts on the subject as developed over years of idle musing. My take is about as far removed from a Disney movie as you can get (but considerably nearer to folklore I think). It should appeal particularly to both biologists and sex fetishers, and I would be delighted if any authors are inspired by it.
Hopefully something in this eclectic collection appeals to you, and if anything arouses your curiosity, we can discuss it in the comments.
Back then I described how I had attended a four-week adult education class of that description at the WEA Centre, at which I chose to illustrate a poem that I’d previously written for a child of approximately five years.
Here is the poem again, punctuated in the way that seems best when the entire poem is displayed on one page. (I use simpler punctuation for book versions.)
A rabbit who lived up an elephant’s trunk Was feeling extremely displeased With the effort it took just to clean out the gunk Whenever the elephant sneezed. So she looked all around for the optimal place For which she had started to hope, And was offered just one — which was not in good taste, Being deep down a crocodile’s throat. “Well, I couldn’t live there”, thought the rabbit, “because There are too many teeth at the door! I might as well stay in the trunk where I was And put up with cleaning the floor.” But later the elephant stopped by the moat And the crocodile bit off a chunk. So the rabbit is now in the crocodile’s throat As well as the elephant’s trunk.
I never completed my illustrations (check the above link to see how far I got), but my mother has always wanted the book to be finished, and late in 2015 she said she was willing to pay for it to be done through the graphic design studio I work for.
Now, because we’re graphic design, not art, the project was somewhat outside our usual domain — but we do have a couple of employees who can draw. One (Travis) is not long out of school, has started formal art classes at TAFE, and aspires to become a cartoonist. It turned out he was keen to do the drawings for my book, especially as it was to be his first time ever drawing for a client. However, he didn’t feel confident about colouring, so that (and inking) fell to another employee and art hobbyist (Rosie).
Incidentally, I also enquired online as to whether any other artists were interested (through a friend who is involved with the free painting software Krita). But nothing came of that, so Travis and Rosie got the job.
You are now reading the official announcement that the book is finished, and that if you’d like a copy, you can get in touch. Copies are limited, so I can’t give them out to every random person who stumbles upon this page, but I’d be happy to send them to any online friends who are interested.
Meanwhile, here is a web quality PDF for everyone to enjoy, and below is a video of the printed product. The back page shows a selection of my own illustrations, as also seen in my earlier blog post. The pages are 150 gsm white satin, and the cover is 300 gsm.
(I regret that my voice sounds bored in places, but that’s simply because holding a camera and reciting a story at the same time takes concentration, and I don’t have enough brain cells left to be expressive.)
OK, that’s the announcement over. I’d now like to share a few thoughts about lessons learned in the making of this book, especially about working with amateur artists. Then I’ll end with an invitation for any art or other derivative works of your own.
I’m glad I was able to offer experience to a young artist learning his craft, but the road was a bumpy one at times, and made me appreciate what a good professional artist could do. With a bit of luck, you could give a story to an experienced artist and more or less leave them to it, trusting them to make sensible decisions about what to draw and to draw it well. Travis is nowhere near that level, and I had to critique his drafts in a lot more detail than I was comfortable with. To his credit, he was happy to draw as many drafts as it took. If persistence and openness to criticism are among the marks of a successful artist in the making, then those are certainly among his strengths.
The skills that someone needs to be a good storybook artist include not only drawing, but also an ability to read someone else’s story and gauge what would and would not be appropriate for an illustration. This ability might not be evident simply from an artist’s portfolio, and I think it comes in two parts: knowing what to put in, and knowing what to leave out. For example, the book doesn’t mention anything about a castle until page 7, where we learn that the crocodile lives in the moat. Yet Travis drew a castle on page 4, and in early drafts it was a lot more prominent. Was this a good decision? In my comments I ruled that the castle should not feature prominently before the moat was mentioned in the text, but that showing a small part of it on page 4 was OK. In this decision I reasoned that someone reading the book for the first time might suppose that the castle is playing on the theme of places to live, so there is some thematic justification for it.
One very obvious lesson we learned is that we should have finalised the character drawings before starting on the scenes. Any real artist would have done it that way, but it’s one of those things that, as a design studio, we didn’t think about until it was too late. On a related topic, if you look closely you’ll notice several inconsistencies in the character drawings, but one thing worth mentioning is the length of the elephant’s tusks. On page 2 (where the elephant sneezes) they are a modest length, but on page 1 and the cover (which was based on a tracing from page 1) they are nearly as long as the trunk. In fact this isn’t an oversight, but an attempt to make it absolutely clear that it is a trunk and not, shall we say, some other part of the elephant (I felt that was important). An experienced artist would have found a better solution, but knowing our limits, the inconsistent tusk length was a sacrifice we chose to make for the greater good.
The only page for which I rejected Travis’s original concept entirely was the last, for which he drew the rabbit alive inside the crocodile, sitting on the detached elephant’s trunk and holding a fishing line. The poem leaves it up to the child’s imagination whether the rabbit survives or not, so I felt the pictures should do the same.
I could go on discussing Travis’s drawings and the stages they went through, because I know he’s OK with that, but a few examples suffice to make some general points. I am less inclined to publically critique Rosie’s efforts, because she’s a hobbyist rather than an aspiring professional, so I don’t feel it’s appropriate to put her work in the spotlight so much. That said, there is a story to be told about every page, as each picture is a collaboration, containing elements contributed by Travis, Rosie and myself. So please feel free to ask about any details that catch your eye. The illustrations are clearly better than I could have done, as you can see by comparing them to my own pictures on the back cover.
To finish this blog post, here is my invitation for artists. (I’m thinking particularly of those who try to draw something new every day, at all levels of proficiency.) If the muse takes you and you’re inclined to share, I’d love to see how you would have illustrated the poem, either the whole poem at once or a selected page from the book. For example, perhaps you have an idea for getting the rabbit and the elephant into the frame, or perhaps you think you can do a better job on drawing a scene from inside the crocodile’s mouth on page 5. Let me know whether you’d like me to nitpick your efforts.
And if you’re not an artist but would like to join in the fun, other derivative works are equally welcome, from an essay of literary analysis emphasising the political theme of housing shortages, to a recipe for a rabbit sausage roll with gooey green lining inside the pastry.
I’ve been taking a break from blogging since the beginning of the year. I won’t discuss the reasons here, and I make no promises as to how prolific I will be in the months ahead, but for now, I’m back.
One thing, though: I’ve been blogging lists of interesting links for more than seven years, but now I feel it’s time to give that a rest, as it does eat up a lot of time. I’ll continue sharing my favourite links on Twitter, but that’s a more spontaneous, less curated thing.
During my blogging break I rewatched several seasons of Stargate, which I have on DVD but hadn’t seen for some time. Here’s a list of episodes from the first three seasons of SG1 which, this time around, were my favourites: Hathor, Singularity, Tin Man, Bane, Holiday, 1969, Legacy, Learning Curve. Watching these DVDs was a therapy that helped me deal emotionally with a recent loss.
I thought I’d begin the year in blogging by looking back at what happened over the Christmas period. Here’s a photo I took in Ardrossan, taking a walk while others were listening to carols.
Here is a tortoise that I gave to my nephew as a gift. On the right, Elliot trying hard to crawl, a feat he finally achieved a few days after I returned to Adelaide in January.
Here’s my sister giving my niece a ride on a boogie board. This was, again, at Ardrossan.
In classic childlike fashion, Elke decided she wanted to switch roles, so here she is giving her mother a ride.
Finally, two pictures of Elke and Josh, and finally Elke and her mother together on the board.
As I mentioned last time, my mother and I both received free copies of Mark Rosenfelder’s China Construction Kit, because I helped with the front cover design using a photograph taken by Mum. The copies arrived in a mysterious cardboard box several days before Christmas, which we left under the tree and opened with all the other parcels.
I still haven’t read the whole book, but one thing that caught my eye early on was the discussion of the classic 8th Century poem Lu Chai (~ Deer Park) by Wang Wei on pages 232-3. Several English translations are provided, and I felt moved to write a version of my own, distilling what I intuitively felt was the essence of the versions given into a form that best pleased my own muse. Here’s what I came up with (note that I wrote this before researching the poem online, and I refer to it as a version but not a translation).
An empty mountain. No human presence seen. Yet voices are carried on the air. The light of dusk again through forest branches Strikes green moss that breaks its shaded depths.
I wrote about this on Google Plus, including links for further reading.
I won’t go into details about what we all gave each other for Christmas, but I do think it worth mentioning that my parents have promised me a trip to the North Island of New Zealand later this year. If you have any recommendations of places to visit you are welcome to share them.
My parents hosted a cocktail night on New Years Eve. I had a berryoska (with mulberry instead of blackberry), an FBI (which I’d compare to a more complex Baileys), and a Bonnie Prince Charlie (surprisingly bitter, but my favourite of the three).
Assorted links from the last two months, and almost certainly the final for 2015.
This article on autism in women is mostly interesting and good, but has an unfortunate tendency to exaggerate a point by failing to compare like with like.
Transcript of a talk on online advertising and related issues of crucial importance in today’s world. Definitely worth reading. I don’t endorse every opinion (especially near the end), but it’s all part of an important conversation.
I have several things to say on the topic of books.
Mark Rosenfelder’s book on China is out. I helped with the cover illustration, which uses a photograph taken by my mother. We’re each getting a free copy.
I’m (sort of) writing a book of my own. It’s the children’s poem I wrote years ago and started illustrating, but this time with someone else doing the illustrations. It’s not a commercial publication. There’s a lot more I could say — and feel free to ask — but otherwise I’ll reveal all early next year.
A November ritual is choosing a wall calendar for the following year. Readers may recall that I have a collection to which I add one calendar a year, and that each year I choose a theme I’ve never had before. For 2016 I’ve chosen “Australian Waterfalls” and I am very happy with that decision.
I wrote a couple of random thoughts on Google Plus (here and here), in case you want to add anything.
The Outer Hoard 