Slavic Saturday

I was actually thinking whether this would be better suited here or in the “Behind the Iron Curtain” series and I decided for putting it here.

Former Czechoslovak Socialist Republic has had a great tradition of stop-motion capture movies and one of its pinnacles was a series of short stories for children that was so succesful that it runs until today. The series started the same year I was born, and one of my favourite episodes “Tapety” (Wallpapers) is just three years younger. The series was originally named “A je to!” (It’s done!) and was aired in the evenings as a bed-time story for children.

You can enjoy this series no matter your native language since there are exactly zero words spoken. If you spend bing watching multiple episodes, feel free to blame me.

You live, you learn…

Well, my latest resin project didn’t go that well. I wanted to created little snowglobes using wooden deco elements. The idea was to pour the lower half of the moulds, wait some time until the pot time is over, push the elements into the resin, let cure, add the top half, add a wooden base, be happy.

Assorted wood deco

©Giliell, all rights reserved

As you can imagine, reality had other plans. First of all the resin was still too soft to hold up the deco elements. The right moment would probably have been 5 minutes in the middle of the night.

I tried to stabilize them with bamboo skewers, but it was less than optimal.

half poured resin

©Giliell, all rights reserved

The next day I added the top half. The hole is pretty small so I needed a syringe to put in the resin. Usually the two half separated a few times during the process and were a pain to put together again.

First of all, that introduced way too much air, second of all, I added too much glitter.

The results are sad. Very sad.

failed snowglobes

©Giliell, all rights reserved

But I’m not giving up just yet. For the next trial I’ll do the following: I’ll cut off part of the top half so I get a bigger opening. I will then glue the halves together so they won’t separate. And I already glued the deco to the wooden platforms. I’ll pour the globes in one go (with less glitter) and then push in the elements and just let the base close the mould.

 

But in the meantime I had fun with the kids and my friends and we made many nice things.

Selection of resin objects

©Giliell, all rights reserved

My favourite one is the under water scenery, which I promptly turned into a necklace:

resin necklace with seashell and plants

©Giliell, all rights reserved

The plants are some fern which I collected and dried last week.

Jack’s Walk

©voyager, all rights reserved

Well, the sun did try to shine earlier this morning, but by the time Jack and I got ourselves outdoors it had clouded over. We went to the woods anyway and had a pleasant autumn walk in the autumn air. It wasn’t the bright colours that caught my eye today, though. It was a bit of fluffy white fungus that looked just like wet teddy bear fur. Hmmm…maybe it was wet teddy bear fur. Maybe today was the day the teddy bears had their picnic.

Friday Feathers

I think we’ve had these images before, but since naturalcynic expressed dismay at the lack of close ups of the condor, here’s the next smaller bird I have to offer: Norbert, a European griffin vulture. According to one of the falconers he takes a much more direct approach to food than “waiting until you drop dead”.

Griffin vulture

©Giliell, all rights reserved

Griffin vulture

©Giliell, all rights reserved

griffin vulture

©Giliell, all rights reserved
I personally think his feather collar is just so posh.

Was There a Mosh Pit, Too?

Classical music has long been associated with heightened emotions, violent premieres, and composers escaping from disappointed audiences through windows and the like. But I thought those days were over, at least for classical music, until this headline caught my eye: Malmö performance of Mahler’s Fifth ends in brawl.

I leave you with the tension of the introductory paragraphs:

The conflict began shortly after the renowned Latvian conductor Andris Nelsons brought the bombastic introduction to the fourth movement to a shuddering halt, leading his Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra deftly into the movement’s slow, atmospheric adagietto, wrote the Sydsvenskan newspaper.
At this point that the rustling on the second balcony became apparent, ruining the effect of the gently soaring strings and softly plucked harp for all sitting nearby.

 

Macedonia 2 – A Glorious Three-fer

I present a triune of lizards for your eyes. For some of you, a lizard may be no big deal, but I come from a land where lizards are rare, and the only ones we have are tiny and brown (but very cute!).

Lizard number 1 was hiding out in bright sunlight on some flat rocks, when I nearly stepped on it.

See if you can spot it:

I am invisible…

The dramatic reveal below the fold…

[Read more…]

Jack’s Walk

More fun than fungus, ©voyager, all rights reserved

Jack and I haven’t really wandered too far from home this week because fibromyalgia and damp weather don’t get along, but that just gives us a chance to check out the changes in our own neighbourhood.  These mushrooms for example weren’t here earlier this week. Must be all the rain we’ve had. I’m not familiar with this variety of fungus, but they look to me like more fun than fungus.

Glorious Shoes

Opus has sent us another colourful treat. This time it’s shoes and they are wonderful. It’s no secret that I love shoes, but I could never hope to have shoes quite this wonderful. They’re bright, bold and such interesting designs. Opus says,

More pictures, this time from Reykjavik.  Shooting through glass is tough, but I think they worked out well.  More of the sights that one sees when traveling with fabric artists.  I might never have noticed if not for them.

Well, Opus, I think traveling with fabric artists is definitely a good thing, but your camera skills are what makes it all come alive in photos. Thanks so much for sharing.

©Opus, all rights reserved

[Read more…]

When Captain America comes to the aid of James Bond…

The day before yesterday (or yonderday as I’d like to call it because why, English, why), British supervillain extraordinaire Piers Morgan, armed with supreme stupidity, verbose bigotry and lots of poop to fling tweeted a pic of Daniel Craig doing one of those normal thing people do like taking the baby for a walk to play Pokémon Go. OK, I made up the Pokémon part, but apparently, an image of a dad doing dad things was really too much for poor Piers.

Oh 007.. (sic) not you as well?!!! #papoose #emasculatedBond

The tweet got picked up by Chris Captain America Evans who rightfully called out Morgan for his attempt to literally shame a man into not caring for his child.

You really have to be so uncertain of your own masculinity to concern yourself with how another man carries his child. Any man who wastes time quantifying masculinity is terrified on the inside.

And for once, go read the replies which are full of dads posting pics of them carrying their kids.