Friday Five - Fancy Writing Implements

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I love anything to do with writing. 

Here we have some pen and ink-related items.

1. This is an oriental-style ink and brush set. 

I have no idea where or how I got this. 

You grind up dry ink, mix it with water and write with the brushes.

2. Made of glass and given to me as gifts. 

The green pen and pot were custom-made for me.

They are only to look at, so don't touch them.

3. Not technically quill pens

as the hawk and black feathers have 

pens and nibs attached to them.

I found the white feather. 

It is not trimmed into a quill, but it could be.

4. Ink wells I found in second-hand shops.

They are only for looking, too.

I have no idea how old they may be.

5. My grandson gave me the sparkly pen for Christmas 2022.

He made the "splash" pen holder on his 3D printer in January 2023.

These are only for visual appreciation also. 

Let's just say they are all no-touchy.

Februa's Festival, Illuminated

 

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"Illuminated F", watercolor & black Sharpie on 

Strathmore watercolor cold press, 20230217

I'm calling this experiment finished.

I had one sheet of wood pulp watercolor paper left so I gave myself permission to go crazy with color and this certainly has a look of chaotic pigment which makes me uncomfortable. I suppose I should explore why that is. I suspect it has something to do with my penchant for hiding. I prefer working in black and white.

I used Prang OVL-16H watercolors. They are really pretty for a $10 set of paints. If you want to play, you can't beat these for a starter set.

Enough psyco-babble.

Things learned:

Background is too busy for letter illumination.

Use a smooth paper if you want smooth inked lines.

Use 100% cotton paper because you use a lot of water.

Patience, Grasshopper. Patience. Lots of waiting for the paint to dry.

Here's the poem I wrote that is featured in the bands on the painting.

Februa's Festival

as long as February frightens away feelings forlorn, fragmented, and faithless, this faery song fades like failure on failure. 

fancy me a fool, fate defied upon Fortune’s Wheel, turning, fumbling, frustrated from all that is found and forfeit as first love. 

Friendship, Freedom, Forgotten Books, and Forget-Me-Nots, florets flourishing on flood-tides where father and child fish, fishing, fished all flushed and fevered finds, forced fervor feeding the falcons and doves flying amongst fireflies in Fairyland. 

foreshadowed in fresh flesh frozen in fifty shades of faint fuschia, fallen petals, fallen fame, fingers in the belly. 

Fly, just not yet, fickle Fortuna. 

Februa fire fans the footsteps of angels, a funeral pyre of false prophets fleeing the phantom’s finale.

Friday Five - Running Around in Circles

 

I wear five rings when I go somewhere. 

I don't wear them all of the time because 

they are too irritating when I'm trying to do things. 

I don't understand how people play 

instruments or knit or draw when 

their fingers are full of heavy metal.

This is how I wear them on my left "Thing" hand.

The right only gets one.

1. Gold Xs and crystal Os.

2. A spinner ring, "KEEP FUCKING GOING"

3. Silver sleeve ring with crystals.

4. "Dream"

5. "BELIEVE"

The really expensive stuff is locked up.

I lose things.

Love is in the air or the ear

 

~ cuniform tablet ~

The oldest love poem is the Love Song of Shu-Sin found in the library of king Ashurbanipal in Mesopotamia circa 2000 BCE. Found in the mid-1800s, this uniform tablet surpassed the Song of Solomon from the Bible as the oldest love song. The second stanza reads:

"You have captivated me, let me stand tremblingly before you.

Bridegroom, I would be taken by you to the bedchamber,

You have captivated me, let me stand tremblingly before you.

Lion, I would be taken by you to the bedchamber."

Love songs became popular in the middle ages when people began thinking of love in other than religious forms. Developed from the Troubadour musical traditions, secular love became a popular topic. Quant la doulce jouvencelle is a medieval love song from around 1430 performed by the duet Asteria.

Under the Lime-Tree (Unter der Linden), was a Bavarian love song written by Walther von der Vogelweide in the late 12th century.

Under the lime-tree, on the daisied ground,

   Two that I know of made their bed;

There you may see, heaped and scattered round,

   Grass and blossoms, broken and shed,

All in a thicket down in the dale;

              Tandaradei -- 

Sweetly sang the nightingale.

Ere I set foot in the meadow, already

   Some one was waiting for somebody;

There was a meeting -- O gracious Lady!

   There is no pleasure again for me.

Thousands of kisses there he took,

               -- Tandaradei -- 

See my lips, how red they look!

Leaf and blossom he had pulled and piled

   For a couch, a green one, soft and high;

And many a one hath gazed and smiled,

   Passing the bower and pressed grass by;

And the roses crushed hath seen,

               -- Tandaradei -- 

Where I laid my head between.

In this love passage, if any one had been there,

   How sad and shamed should I be!

But what were we a doing alone among the green there,

   No soul shall ever know except my love and me,

And the little nightingale.

               -- Tandaradei -- 

She, I think, will tell no tale.

You can hear it performed with music here.

In Chapter 007 - For a Song of The Bastard's Battle, Nicolette plays "Under the Lime Tree" on the zither Eryk made for her when they were twelve.

Friday Five - Things I can't Seem to Live Without

1. Two cups of black coffee first thing in the morning. I didn't have any coffee last Saturday. I felt sluggish and yawned all day. No coffee equals brain fog.

2. An Audible book playing all night as white noise. I have several books by my favorite author that I listen to over and over again. Since I've read them, I know the stories. My brain can relax and enjoy.

3. My phone. I know, I know. Like so many of us, I rarely use it to make calls. Instead, it's my super portable mini-computer. Notes, photography, research, reading, appointments, finances, entertainment, my all-night white noise machine.

4. Pen and paper. Any shape. Any size. Any color. Stickie pads. Notebooks. Watercolor blocks. Used envelopes. Fountain pens. Markers. Pencils. Write. Draw. Doodling. ToDo Lists. 

5. Lists. Oh, how I love lists.ToDo lists, shopping lists, idea lists, bucket lists. Lists of characters, emotions, tropes, themes, agendas, itineraries, prompts, food, travel items and packing essentials, holiday traditions, and menus. Mindmaps, outlines, brainstorming, vision boards.

There is an abundance of books of lists. The Book of Lists was first published in 1977 and was banned in many places in the US.

The oldest lists ever found are from the years 2001 BC to 2500 BC. The lexical lists are cuneiform clay tablets from ancient Mesopotamia that are glossaries of synonyms between various contemporary languages and symbols.

Friday Five - Five Cool New Words

 

New to me, anyway. 

I love dictionary dot com. 

They send me a new word each day in my email. 

They also help me find the word stuck in my brain 

when my dysnomia acts up. 

Ironically, dysnomia is not a word in their database. 

Their Thesaurus is quite handy, too.

1. strigiform - adj. - of or pertaining to owls

2. welkin - noun - the sky

3. smaragdine - adj - emerald-green in color

4. pandiculation - noun - the act of stretching upon waking

5. mansuetude - noun - gentleness

Bonus Word - retcon - verb - to later revise an established element 

of a fictional story 

(like when Star Trek has an alternate timeline?)

A syllabic abbreviation for retroactivity continuity, 

like fro-yo, sitcom, and hazmat.