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I haven’t done a Folksy Friday for ages, been too busy knocking down walls and stripping wallpaper! We’re having quotes for damp proofing done today, so (kind of) to match that; the theme this week is ‘mushrooms’. Okay, from top left:
These are the most beautiful mushroom brooches I have seen! The stalks are made of crocheted cord sewn with vintage lace. I love them.
This mug appeals to the Victorian botanist in me.
I think these bowl are amazing. I think that crushed glass is put into them before firing to create the beautiful effect - but I'm not a potter, so who know how it's really done!
The detail in this print is truly amazing.
I know that there are LOADS of Alice-related things on Folksy, but this one caught my eye. It's dainty and subtle, some of the other Wonderland stuff is too show-offy for me - this necklace is just right.
Cute. Big. Mushrooms. 'Nuff said ;)
Buy 'em quick before they go!
I'd seen pictures of this artist's crochet guns in a magazine and thought they were absolutely amazing. Of course I immediately forgot all about them until I stumbled across his website yesterday, and I couldn't believe the magazine didn't use any pictures of him. He's a total hottie.
His work uses masculine imagery, worked in a traditionally feminine form, crochet. Nathan Vincent is a lot like his art: masculine, but full of boyish fun. And like I said, totally hot!
Check out his website.
I've made rose hip syrup, the first fruits of my recent obsession with foraging. Patrick and I picked a carrier bagful of big juicy hips from the green on Aberaeron harbour on Saturday, and by Sunday night it had turned into five jars of sweet syrup. I haven't tried any yet (other than the occasional lick of the wooden spoon as I was reducing it), but I have given a jar to my lovely friend Sarah. She's very appreciative of homemade gifts.
I recommend the River Cottage Handbook No. 2 by Pam Corbin, which you can buy here. It has loads of delicious recipes. My next experiment is going to be blackberry gin, and apple and blackberry vodka.
I was aware of fanfic already; had read a bit from some of my favourite universes (from Harry Potter to Lord of the Rings) because I was curious why X said that to Y, what Y really thought of Z, and how the drama of X and Z finally getting it together would play out – but hadn’t thought about how or why fanfic writers went about doing what they did. I’d even written some, without really knowing my reasons for doing so. Pugh’s incredibly well-researched investigation into the genre answered those questions, and raised many more. I must admit that I had always dismissed fanfic (and all its sub-genres) as a silly little aside that ‘real’ writers did for fun; or something that people not good enough to be ‘real’ writers did because they loved the characters that they’d come to know so well from books, films and TV.
Not having explored other fandoms online, I was amazed at how many there were, and the diversity of that range. The Bill, Men Behaving Badly, Hornblower, Blakes Seven… I can understand why people would want more from those universes, but for the life of me I cannot understand why anyone would want to read any more Jane Austen that they had to at school! Since reading The Democratic Genre, I’ve gone on to read and enjoy many excellent stories mentioned or quoted in Pugh’s investigation, even from The Bill which I have never really watched.
My opinion of the genre has changed, and I can totally see the literary tradition that helped to shape modern fanfic. Shakespeare took well known stories, and wrote his own versions of them; correcting what he didn’t like and making the characters interact in the ways he wanted to see them doing (Macbeth killing Duncan in Macbeth’s own castle, for instance). Pugh’s own novel Kirstie’s Witnesses is basically fanfic, from the foreword:
“The real Kirstie’s story is contained in several documents, notably the minutes of the Parochial Board, an application form, and evidence given at a trial and an inquiry. These items are all in the Shetland Archive.” She took these facts, and weaved a life out of them; isn’t that what fanfic writers do? The only difference I can see between this and typical fanfic is that the character was a real person, the methods used to write the novel remain true to fanfic's narrative forms. The same can be said for Tom Stoppard’s amazing play Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead; it could have been written as a book or story, but Stoppard, in keeping with the source material (Shakespeare’s Hamlet) he made it a play. Fanfic writers use the source material to generate new stories for their characters, in the style of the original. Pugh gives an example of a Bill fic that is written as a screenplay, using “the narrative techniques of [the] source material.”
I’ve read slash stories for various reasons: titillation; the oddness of seeing two people together who would never be like that in real life (the real life of the universe in which they live, that is); the enjoyment of queer writing; the exploration of sexuality. Pugh herself once said “anyone, up to and including a serial killer’s head, is legitimate territory for a writer to explore”. I embrace that sentiment, as have many other writers. For slash writers, changing the sexuality, or at least questioning or challenging it, is that same legitimately explorable territory. I still find it hard to understand why there are so few male slash writers. The answer to the question of why there are so many female writers and readers of slash was always obvious to me, and Pugh answers it so nicely “two good-looking men getting it on appeals to some women just as the reverse scenario does to some men.” She continues "some slash writers who were themselves gay may have wanted to explore this territory partly for ideological reasons, but many fanfic writers, both gay and straight, just followed their insatiable curiosity about alternative scenarios.” They are my reasons for reading and writing slash.
Pugh's investigation has deepened my interest in the genre by showing how fanfic can be a literary genre (albeit a rather odd one), as surely as the writing of the beat generation, pulp fiction or steampunk are. Yet fanfic can also be so much more. Some of the writers Pugh has interviewed in the book have explored their chosen characters by plunging them into different universes: a Blakes Seven/Cabaret crossover; Green Eggs and Hamlet (a particular favourite of mine); the first person tale of a mutoid from the B7 universe slowly reverting to humanity. When reading a book, my partner will often stop and stare at the wall or sky for minutes on end; he recently told me that what he’s doing is continuing the stories and conversations, in his head – what if X took Y to one side before the start of chapter six and explained about Z’s behaviour? Pure fanfic. I’ve told him to start writing them down! Another thing I found refreshingly positive, is Pugh’s assertion that just because someone is not paid for their writing, it doesn’t mean that it’s not good writing. I’m paid for hardly any of my writing! My own experiments in fanfic (mostly slash, I’ll admit) have been shorter fics and drabbles (100 words), character studies, or little in-between scenes to get to know a quirk I’ve read or imagined – but now I want to write more, something as clever and furiously inventive as the stuff Pugh introduces in her book.
Buy the book from Seren Books
or Amazon
I've got some time free today, so I thought I'd catch up on some book memes (all nicked off other blogs/sites). Feel free to join in, I'd love to see what your answers are.
What is your favourite:
Work of historical fiction?
The Love of Stones by Tobias Hill
Piece of comic writing?
Any of Terry Pratchett's Discworld books that has Gytha Ogg in it; The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
Work of poetry and/or book of poetry?
OMG, too difficult, too many! I recently re-read Mark Doty's My Alexandria, and got a lot more out of it than I did when I was eighteen.
Essay?
Lady Love Your Cunt by Germaine Greer
Science fiction novel?
Neverness by David Zindell, A Scanner Darkly By Phillip K. Dick, Rogue Planet by Greg Bear (which I think was a huge influence on James Cameron's Avatar); The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula Le Guin
Fantasy novel?
Any Tolkien; all Terry Pratchett; Robert Holdstock's Mythago Cycle is a big influence on my own writing
Romance novel?
Berta La Larga by Cuca Canals
Book about food?
Food For Free by Richard Mabey
Epistolary novel and/or novel in diary form?
Dracula by Bram Stoker (not too sure I've read many, to be honest. I loved Adrian Mole when I was a kid, but Sue Townsend's books about him being in his thirties are just plain boring)
Murder/crime novel?
Exquisite Corpse by Poppy Z. Brite
Work of classic fiction ?
Tess of the d'Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy, or Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
Horror novel?
I Am Legend by Richard Matheson, genuinely scares the hell out of me!
Biography or autobiography?
I'm not really one for biographies, but I did enjoy Mozart by Peter Gay (so much so that I bought Mozart's Letters, Mozart's Life by Professor Robert Spaethling straight away)
Work of children's literature?
Harry Potter, obviously; Hobberdy Dick By Katharine M. Briggs; The Tree That Sat Down (and The River That Stood Still and The Mountain of Magic) by Beverley Nichols; The Hobbit (of course); I also love Rupert the Bear
Piece of young adult fiction?
I Am David by Anne Holm; Toby's Lie by Daniel Vilmure; The Book of Dead Days by Marcus Sedgwick (the rest of the series is pretty damn good too)
Short story?
Ping by Samuel Beckett; Oh, whistle and I'll come to you, my lad by M.R. James; Pastoralia by George Saunders
20th century novel?
Queer by William S. Burroughs, heartbreaking; The Heart is Deceitful Above All Things by JT Leroy (or whatever her real name is) - I don't care that she made it all up, her writing is superb, and I appreciate what she was trying to do. The whole JT Leroy literary scandal says a lot more about us as readers, than it does as her as a desperate writer. Think about it.
Questions from Annekata (go and look at her lovely, lovely blog)
1. If you could have a dinner with a famous person (alive or dead) who would you choose?
There are so many people both dead and alive that I would love to answer for this question! Alan Turing. He's the father of computer science, and sadly he killed himself because society was so against homosexuals at the time. A great man, and we share the same birthday.
2. Where would you have that dinner?
There's a lovely little restaurant on the Rue de L'Eglise in St Généreux. It hasn't got a name, or a menu - you just get whatever they decide to make that day. Six courses of good French country cooking, vin compris. C'est magnifique!
3. What book written (in the last 300 years) had a real influence on your life?
There are many books that have influenced my life. Here are a few, in no particular order:
Folk Music by Sheenagh Pugh, and
Kirstie's Witnesses by Sheenagh Pugh
Berta La Larga by Cuca Canals
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by JK Rowling (yes, really)
1984 by George Orwell
The Poems of Max Ehrmann
The Lord of the Rings by Tolkien
Naked Lunch by William S. Burroughs (it was after reading this, and all his other novels in quick succession, that I decided to concentrate on being a writer)
4. If you could live anywhere, in any time, what place and time would that be?
I like living now, and where I am, is that weird? I'd like to visit loads of different times, I'd love to be a hunter-gatherer living in Wales in the Neolithic (is that when hunter-gatherers lived?); I'd also like to go and visit the 1700s, just so I could wear some fantastic clothes! There are also so many turning points in gay history that I'd like to visit - being a young man paired with a strong Roman warrior as my teacher; learning Polari and visiting underground gay clubs when gay culture was still being created, also seeing it being decriminalised would be amazing; I'd also love to go back to June 28th 1969 to be part of the Stonewall riots.
5. What season would reflect you best?
Autumn. Cold, sunny days made for scarf-wearing, long walks, fruit-picking, blankets, knitting, making dens, hot tea, baking cakes, warming stews, game pie, blackberries, gloves, Halloween/Samhain, fires, fireworks, lots of soup and reading stories. That's me.
6. What do you wear when you don't want to think about what you wear?
Boring. Jeans, t-shirt, sneakers.
7. What does craft/making mean to you?
Literally everything. All the creative stuff I do, whether that be writing, sewing, painting, pyrography, knitting, crochet, sculpting, soldering, drawing, folding, sticking, is a part of who I am. I make, therefore I am. Lolz.
8. If you project yourself into the future. Is there anything you would like to achieve in the next 2 to 5 years?
I want to get one of my novels published. I'm over halfway writing one, and about a fifth of the way through the other.
I went home for the weekend to say goodbye to my parents (they're off to France for five weeks), and to see Justin, Gail and Jess (and get stupidly drunk on cola cube vodka); and my Dad has given me a toolbox full of useful tools to help with renovating the new house. Here is a list of things Patrick and I will be doing in the next five weeks:
*Stripping wallpaper
*Taking up carpets
*Knocking down a partition wall (to open up the living room)
*Knocking plaster off the walls downstairs
*Damproof course (but we're getting someone in to do that)
*Start digging the garden
That's pretty much all we can do without my Dad there, but he'll be busy drinking copious amounts of red wine and eating out in restaurants!
I'm going to book Tuesday (a week tomorrow) off work; Patrick and I are going to sleep in Aberystwyth Street on Monday night in a sleeping bag, I'm so excited! We're going to spend the day mapping out all the rooms on graph paper, and all our furniture as well, so we can start planning where everything is going to go. Fair play, we started off with just a bed and a kitchen table, and we've already got a houseful! Unless we start refusing furniture, we're going to end up living in a junk shop. A beautiful, shabby chic, country living-style junk shop, but a junk shop nonetheless!
I’ve missed quite a few Folksy Fridays, been busy with house stuff and work has been hectic! But I’m glad to be back in the swing of it again.
No theme this week, just fab shops that have sold under 10 things.Okay, from top left:
Wonderful Edgar Allan Poe art box from a fantastic shop. It appeals to the goth in me (there are some awful photos of me with eyeliner and lace from when I was about 15!)
Quite possibly the cutest thing on all Folksy: Awkward Turtle. He is beautiful, not awkward at all! Everything in this shop is ridiculously low-priced, so if you want a turtle-shaped bargain, go and snap one up quick.
Beautiful watercolour from a beautiful beautiful shop. Just lovely!
I know it’s the wrong time of year, but these Easter eggs are lush. I love pretty Easter eggs and these one are amazing.
Buy 'em quick before they go!
Kitchen, dining room, bedroom. I'm liking how the whole house has started taking on lots of bluey-greens: petrol, stone, moss; muted colours of seashore and driftwood. I can't wait to buy paint.
Y gegin is Welsh for 'the kitchen', which is what I'm thinking about at the moment. Our new house has a teeny tiny kitchen that we are going to extend in a few years time, so we need to design a dros dro (temporary) kitchen that has maximum storage, and is easily-wipe-down-able. This is because I'm a skinflint who won't pay to have a damproof course done in the kitchen walls, as we are going to knock them down in 2 years time!
I've seen some lovely (and cheap) galvanised shelving units in Ikea. They're £6.99! I want them to store food - cans and things like that.
I love this tiny kitchen redesign. It's actually smaller than our kitchen! If you Google image search 'small kitchen ideas', all the kitchens are huge, not small at all - so I was really pleased to see a proper tiny kitchen, and it's just lovely.
No good for my kitchen, but I love this idea of using an old chest of drawers as an island. I've filed it away in my head for future use.
I want all of these drawers in my new house. There'd be no room for a bed or kitchen, but who would miss those things when you could spend all day looking at these beauties!
Well I'm still not in my house. The date is now 26th of July, and they can't change it because we've exchanged contracts. Anyway, I'm still not shutting up about this forest room, and I've discovered a really cool site called Olioboards, where you can make and save your own mood boards.
Here are my first two efforts. If you sign up to it (it's free) look for me, my username is 'fflwcs'.
I have plans for my new living room, it's going to be a woodland glade. Wallpaper from wallpaperdirect.co.uk, and beautiful grassy rug from Ikea.
I'm also going to make little crocheted mushrooms, to look as if they're growing out of the rug and nooks and crannies.
