Somewhere Over the Rainbow

Anyone who knows me knows I am a massive OZ fan. I have dozens of illustrated versions of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, which is the first in a series and is the most well known. I have all fourteen of the original OZ books by L Frank Baum, including several that belonged to my mother when she was a girl. I even have OZ Barbie dolls. I love the magic and wonder of the OZ.

I have been having the discussion about how we, as human beings,  make up our own rules and follow them to suit ourselves. We often have a set of conflicting criteria that makes sense to us when deciding what we like and what we do not. I adore all the Baum books. I cannot get into other authors who have continued the series. Ruth Plumly Thompson who wrote more books that Baum did--does nothing for me. I know others *love* her, but she leaves me cold. Her puns are stupid. Baum’s puns are hilarious. Spiderman would say that puns are never funny, no matter who says them. I have some weird prejudice about her writing. It just doesn’t float my boat. 

The same for Wicked. If I had £1 for every person who asked me if I had seen the musical Wicked or read the novel, I would have about 11quid. Which is not nearly as impressive as I thought it would be when I started the analogy. Wicked doesn’t do it for me. The underground comic The Royal Historian of Oz written by Tommy Kovac and illustrated by Andy Hirsh is a gem. An emerald, I think it would be appropriate to say. It completely captures the feeling of Baum’s OZ and his characters who are so quirky and charming that you love them on sight. We have two original drawings from this outstanding comic. If you want to buy the comic (and you totally should--it is a great read) then go here: http://www.amazon.com/The-Royal-Historian-Tommy-Kovac/dp/1593622163   

  The more you know Baum’s works the cleverer it is--but it can be read and enjoyed without any knowledge of OZ history.

Why is it thumbs up to the Royal Historian and thumbs down to Wicked? Who knows. But it is.

Why all this waffle about OZ? You ask? Well because we bought two original pieces of artwork from Skottie Young who illustrates the Marvel comic version of OZ. Yes Virginia, there is a Marvel comics version. Not only of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, but they are planning to do all 14 in the original Baum set! That is just a dream come true for a OZophile like me. They are currently working on book 5--The Road to Oz. In fact, I just got an email that said my copy of Dorothy and the Wizard has been shipped. Hoorah!

Please excuse the wonky photos. Spiderman did an excellent job of framing and hanging our artwork if they appear all skew-whiff (that’s British for catty-wompus)  that is because I am crap at taking photos, not because he hung them crookedly. 

The first picture is a drawing is from The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and shows all the characters you’d expect walking down the yellow brick road…Dorothy, the scarecrow, tin man and cowardly lion. The bottom panels depict the scene where the tin man accidently steps on a beetle and kills it and is so overcome with grief he cries. His tears rust his jaw completely shut—such is the depth of his anguish.



click to see it bigger



The second is a drawing from Dorothy and the Wizard. It is a picture of Eureka the kitten sitting on the head of Jim the cab horse. Spiderman once scanned the colour page of the comic and labeled Eureka—the cheeky, naughty, always up to something cat—with my name and his name was by Jim the put upon, expected to carry all the heavy stuff horse. So this was an extra treat that he bought us the original.

click to see it bigger

Lastly, I am decorated with OZ myself. My newest tattoo is the symbol for OZ—the Z within the O. 

I wanted to get something to remind me to keep that magic in my life—to hold on to the innocence and joy found in those books. To be reminded to be brave and level headed like Dorothy. But also to celebrate being a British citizen. As Dorothy says, There’s no place like home.

Stay tuned for the next installment of  What I did on my summer vacation.

What I did on my summer vacation

Remember that old tired chestnut? How many years did I have to write the same  boring essay about doing nothing on my holiday? You start to inflate experiences that were just routine into something grand.

Actual examples of things I wrote about as a child:

I walked down to Lekkies (a small convenience store near my house) with a friend and bought a box of Chef-Boy-R-Dee pizza and made it.

Translation: I was so bored I made a pizza from a box. The pizza was tasteless, the box would have had more flavour. The thrill was playing dodge ‘em with the cars on Twin Bridges Road, but don’t tell my folks that or I’d never get to walk there again.

It is worth mentioning that Lekkies was shut down when I was a teen because they would sell alcohol to minors. Any minor. You didn’t even need a fake ID and you could look like you were 12. FACT. Mum--you don’t want to know how I know that.

We drove 4 hours in the car to stay with my grandparents in Texas. They are called Sweetie and Pawpaw. There was a thunderstorm and my Sweetie had to hide in the bathroom closet. She says shit a lot but slaps you in the mouth hard if you take the Lord’s name in vain by saying Oh God.

Translation: It was a long car trip and I was car sick. It was too hot to go outside and play but my grandmother made me. They have nothing to read except Reader’s Digest and TV Guide. Oh God I was so glad to get home.

I am pretty sure I had enough sense not to mention that she said shit a lot. But she did.

I went to work with my Daddy. I was allowed to run around the whole of the university while he was teaching, but once an hour I had to come back and check in. He did this so I would practice telling the time, but I just asked some nice college kid with a watch what the time was. There were other professor’s kids there as well. After I found a comb sitting on a chair in the library I made up a great game where we were the Scooby Doo gang (I was Daphne) and the comb was a clue and we had to search all over the campus for other clues to solve the mystery.

Translation: I was beaten up again for coming up with an imagination game that no one else wanted to play.

Where is this leading you may wonder? Is this just some demented walk down memory lane? We were very productive over the summer--I did a lot of sewing and making and Spiderman did a lot of hammering and nailing things up. I thought it would be nice to show you some pictures of all the stuff we did.

So stay tuned over the next week for some pictures of What I did on my summer vacation.

Oh, that's very different. Nevermind.

Do you remember the character of Emily Litella played by Gilda Radner on Saturday Night Live? Well I had a moment like that yesterday.

Some background information:
Swimming is on the national curriculum for PE in the UK. You have to take your class to the swimming pool once a week for lessons in year 3 for two terms and in, I think, year 5 for one term. We are lucky as our school is just over the road from the pool, but other schools have to get a coach to take them.

Anyway, I was reading the minutes from the staff meeting yesterday and I saw the words SHARK SWIM in the diary.

What??? I completely had a freak out. What kind of people take children to a shark swim??? I'm sure it is educational and what not--but SHARKS and CHILDREN are a bad match. And then I realized I work in year 3 this year. Usually, the teaching assistant for that year group is required to go on trips with their class. Was I going to go on a SHARK SWIM? Not no but hell no. There is no way I was going to do that. Someone else was going to have to go in my place. I went to find my line manager to excuse myself from this nightmare and it turns out what the diary *actually* said was START SWIM. As in, we start swimming lessons for year 3 on that date, not that we are going to go swimming with sharks on that date.

Oh, that's very different. Nevermind.

And to make it worse, I was laughing so hard that I ended up falling over one of those yellow caution the floor is wet signs that someone had carelessly left on the floor after mopping.



So that was my first day back at school then.

Spoiled Rotten Part the forth

The last day of our magical holiday was just as wonderful as the rest. For a long time we had wanted to go out to the Watts Gallery in Guilford but it was just an ooch too far from where we live. However, being in London we were half way there so we tubed to Waterloo station and caught a 45 minute train to Guilford, then after a 10 minute taxi ride, we were plonked in front of a cool art gallery.

 

According the museum guide this is the only museum in England dedicated to one artist—G.F. Watts. From their website http://www.wattsgallery.org.uk

George Frederic Watts OM RA (1817-1904)

In his own lifetime George Frederic Watts (1817-1904), was widely considered to be the greatest painter of the Victorian age, enjoying an unparalleled reputation. His ceaseless experimentation embodied the most pressing themes and ideas of the time. A complex figure, Watts was the finest and most penetrating portraitist of his age, a sculptor, landscape painter and symbolist which earned him the title ‘England’s Michelangelo.

His fame and renown was not limited to Britain and in 1884 he was the first living artist to have a solo exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, a show so enormously successful that it led to a longer run and a gift of his great work, Love and Life to the American people. His works also found great favour in Europe winning gold medals at the Paris Universal Exhibitions in 1878 and 1889. His influence among symbolists was profound and can be seen in the works of Gustave Moreau and Fernand Knopff

The work of G F Watts is of seminal importance in understanding the Victorian period because he was one of its most notable artistic innovators. Watts’s own refusal to become part of any painting movement coupled with the reaction of early twentieth century critics to all things Victorian left his reputation a little tarnished. Ironically, that outspoken critic of Victorian painting, Roger Fry, considered Watts an exception. Fry recognized his great importance within the British School, as shown by his visits with his students to the Watts Picture Gallery. Until the late 1930s, the Tate Gallery had a Watts room which exclusively showed the work of the artist. The legacy of his Hall of Fame portraits form a major part of the National Portrait Gallery’s nineteenth century holdings and the Tate Gallery’s huge collection are a tribute to his importance.

Hope--his most famous painting

 

 

He painted many “social justice” paintings and many of his worries about the homeless and the poor are as relevant today as they were then. His paintings could be photographs from today.

Found Drowned--she has a locket in her hand from her lover who abandoned her

Under a Dry Arch--where the homeless *still* sleep

Ophelia--about to drown herself

 

He was a progressive guy and one of the founding members of the Society For the Protection of Birds (later to become the RSPB) and he once removed a feather from the hat of Lillie Langtry when she sat for a portrait because “no exotic bird should have to die so that women might decorate their hats with the plumage.”

A Dedication--an angel weeps over the feathers of dead birds used in the millinery trade

 

Famed for his sculpture as well as painting--here is one of my favoutite busts of Clytie--who was turned into a sunflower after pining away for the Sun God. This way she could always follow him as he made his journey accross the sky.


my favourite Greek myth

Lastly, my favourite painting—one that I recall seeing in 1990 when we exchange students—is called Choosing. According to http://www.wattsgallery.org.uk

This delicate yet sensuous portrait shows the seventeen-year-old Ellen Terry choosing between the camellias, which despite their luscious appearance have little scent, and the violets in her hand which are far humbler in appearance but smell sweeter. The choice, which is symbolic of that between worldly vanities and higher virtues, had a personal significance for the artist and the sitter. 1864 was the year in which Terry gave up the stage to marry Watts, thirty years her senior, and to be educated by him. The marriage lasted barely a year, and despite Watts's disapproval, Terry eventually returned to the stage

There was also a mini Charles Dickens’s exhibit entitled Dickens and the Artists which was very interesting.

Plus we saw there will be an Eleanor Fortescue Brickdale exhibit February of 2013 so we know we’ll be there!

 

The we did it all in reverse—taxi, train, tube, until we got to out tiny hotel with kitchenette and ate a scrummy, but cheap dinner whilst we watched a CSI/NCIS marathon because that’s what you do on a holiday.

 It was a wonderful four days and we felt completely refreshed and ready for school—which we should be as it starts next week!

 

Spoiled Rotten Part the third

Just when you thought Hogwarts was the coolest thing ever, we had another day on the magical holiday! On Sunday we spent the morning at the British library.  Why do more people not go there? They always have interesting events—for less that £10 a ticket—and they are a hop, skip and a jump away from Kings Cross station.

 Our morning was a panel discussion by 3 leading children’s authors and illustrators—Anthony Browne, Emily Gravett and Peter Sis (who had just won the Hans Christian Anderson medal the night before)

Anthony Browne-- Winner of two Kate Greenaway medals and was Children’s Laureate in 2009.  
My favourite is Gorilla where a young girl, obsessed by gorillas and often neglected by her father concocts a fantasy about a large gorilla who spends time with her the way she wishes her father would.



Emily Gravett whose first book Wolves won the Kate Greenaway medal is a favourite illustrator for us. 
For this book she put paper into  her rat cages and let then nibble, pee and poo all over them then carefully took them out and scanned them making for very realistic pages.


Peter Sis, one of our long time favourites who often illustrated for Cricket magazine and the New Yorker, has a wonderful surreal style. He has won numerous awards including three Caldecott Honor awards. He also has a fascinating picure book called The Wall about growing up in Soviet-dominated Czechoslovakia.



The talk was so interesting as each illustrator talked about one of their works and their illustration style and influences.

Then we were off to the pet shop (the very same pet shop we bought Tibia and Pippi for my 40th birthday) and came home with a new spider baby for clan. Spiderman has longed for this particular breed as she will have stunning colouration when she grows up. She's a brachypelma auratum(cousin to Pippi who is a brachypelma boehmei) commonly known as a Mexican flame knee due to the intense colouration on her knees --kinda like candy corns in that 3 shade effect. Our baby is about the size of a 10p (or a quarter to our American peeps) and is just developing her colours. here she is:

with her soon to be first meal

 

When she grows up she’ll look like this:

See what I mean about the candy corn effect?

But what’s her name? Due to her Mexican heritage we have named her Frida Kahlo.

 

Can’t you see the resemblance?

 

So that was day three of the magical holiday. Stay tuned for day four!

Spoiled Rotten part the second



On Saturday Spiderman surprised me with a tour of the Harry Potter Experience at the  Warner Brothers Studio!!! My work colleague Pauline went last year and said  it was amazing so we were keen to go. All pictures Courtesy of Warner Brothers Studio Tours London: The Making of Harry Potter.

It was all worked out with a coach to pick us up, drive us  to Watford and drop us off  at the door of the studio and then let us have 3 hours on the tour and then take us back to London. This made it so easy we could be relaxed and enjoy the tour. The only down side was we were on the coach with a typical a-hole American and his family. He was clearly rich judging by his mega expensive watch and brand name *everything* and all the posh gadgets his kids had. But he was the sort who thought being rich meant he should get more privileges than the rest of us and was forever  shouting at someone about his “rights” such as they were the last people to get on the coach and the best seats were taken. He got really shirty with the sweet lady tour guide about how they should get better seats because they had paid good money to go on this tour. Um…hello…we’ve paid good money to go on the tour as well. Then he started handing out sandwiches to his kids despite the clear “no food on the bus” policy because rules don’t apply to him, right?

look at all those hand made labels

But we got there and despite Mr Dickhead we had a smashing time! Just to see sets up close like Snape’s Potions classroom --and the effort that the props department went to in collecting all those old glass bottles and making all the labels by hand, distressing them to make them look old and sticking them on. That was the theme of most of it--the gorgeous props that were distressed and made to look hundreds of years old. There were these fantastic frescos in the great hall that had been distressed to make them look thousands of years old--so faint you could hardly see them. I’m not sure I ever saw them on the films. That was another theme--so many wonderful pieces of set dressing that were hardly noticeable in the films. Cabinets full of interesting gizmos and antique jars or brass doodads…just seen in passing in the film but really made the sets feel true to life. Like in Dumbledore’s office.

all the books were phone books with a fake leather cover

Think of the Room of Requirement when Draco Malfoy was fixing up the vanishing cabinet--all those props--hundreds…thousands of props--so many seen and so many unseen. I thought it must have been amazing to be a set dresser on these films!

There were also costumes to look at--there were 4 identical sets of clothes for Harry--each one more distressed than the last. The first one--spotless. The last one--tattered. There were interactive bits (which I love--I am a born lever puller) where you could make the items in The Burrow—home of the Weasleys  work by magic e.g. the iron to press the clothes, the knitting needles to make the jumper, the knife to cut carrots etc.  

There was also a very informative set of videos about the green screen technology and how it worked for things like flying on broomsticks, Quiddich, Hagrid’s flying motorbike etc. There was also a bit of green screen technology where you could ride on a broomstick and they would put in a sky behind you and make you look like you were flying--but it was getting late and we still had much to see. Besides it was expensive and I’ve already said how I feel about spending money on myself.

he wasn't really flying -it was all mechanical

You also got a cool tour of the creature shop and the out door sets like Diagon Alley.

there were railings so you couldn't peep into shop windows

 

 In the creature shop we were *thrilled* to see Aragog--Hagrid’s  giant pet spider. Interestingly, it was a true spider not a tarantula (true spider’s fangs work like pincers side-to-side but tarantula’s fangs work up-and-down. FACT) Plus it was clearly a male as it had swollen palps to carry his sperm in (but no tibial hooks to hold a female back when mating--but not all species have them)

we tell the girls if you eat up all your crickets you'll grow big and strong like Aragog

It was thrilling to see stuff you recognised and amazing to see stuff up close you never noticed in the film. It must have been a blast to work on the film.

Lastly we were perusing the gift shop (cue angelic music) and saw these gorgeous sterling silver spider earrings made by The Noble Collection. They are replicas of ones worn by Narcissa Malfoy.

aren't they beautiful?



Oh my heart ached when I saw them--they were classy and elegant, but also looked like spiders! But they were wicked expensive. I didn’t dare dream of getting them as I had just spent £80 on  Tallulah the uke the day before. Spiderman called over the sales girl and asked to open the case. I looked at them up close and he said:

Him: Would you wear them?

Me: Yes but…

Hime: Would you wear them?

Me: Yes, every day, but…

Him: Don’t make a man ask three times or he’ll change his mind.

 And with that he got in the queue and purchased them for me. I *never* wear expensive jewellery. We often joke that he better not ever waste money on a diamond ring or other nonsense. But these are stunning. While he was queuing, I was chatting up the salesgirl who had screamed just a little when she saw his spider belt buckle. Then another sales girl joined in and then another and they were asking spider questions and I was telling them about the girls. You could tell they thought we were weird but interesting.

 Then we hopped back on the coach--Mr Dickhead and family were seen to get on another one--I’m sure he wasn’t supposed to, but he probably argued his way onto it so we had a peaceful ride back.

 So that was Saturday of the magical holiday. Stay tuned for Sunday’s adventure which includes an eighth addition to the Spider clan.

Spoiled Rotten Part the first

Spiderman spoils me. That is all there is to it. He surprises me with little treats and big adventures. I am spoiled so rotten you can smell me across the ocean.

 I am funny about spending money on myself. I will buy something that is for the kitchen like a microplane grater—which really is for me as I am the one who is obsessed with lemon zest—but only after deliberating on it for ages and only after I got my job tutoring. The money I make from tutoring goes for buying things I’ve always wanted but can’t justify paying that much money for. The microplane grater costs £20. That seemed outrageous, but I used my tutoring money and I love it and use it every few days. But I find it really hard to spend on myself. I will let my underwear be falling into rags rather than pay £12.99 for a new bra. Again with tutoring money I bought some new bras but only when the others were hanging on by a thread. Literally.  I was *this* close from having my boob pop out in public.  I just never feel worthy enough to splash out on myself. That money could go for something we really need.

 I have no problem buying things for the two of US. Trips to plays or museums or holidays. We have spent hundreds of pounds on original artwork. But these are a joint purchase and bring us both joy. I just have a real difficult time spending on ME.

 

Spiderman understands this. So he often surprises me with things I would never allow myself to buy. He is a good man who loves me and helps me treat myself better. Thanks, oh best beloved.

 We just came back from 4 fabulous days in London. Spiderman found us a little "studio flat" hotel room to rent with a kitchen for less than a regular hotel would cost a night. It was out in Earl’s Court—right on the line between zone one and two and it was charming. Slightly run down (but no more than the place we live in now) and it was being renovated. Our room was freshly painted, had a comfortable bed, a kitchen about the size of the one we have now and one of those fabulous showers with the wide head that feels like rain. The one thing it seemed to be lacking was kitchen equipment. I had meticulously planned our meals to be cheap and easy and spelt pasta had featured on the menu twice. There was only one pot—a tiny pot (like the size you would heat the sauce in not cook the pasta) and we had a momentary panic. There were also only plates and no bowls. Goodbye cereal. But we asked the incredibly nice man who said he would try to find some somewhere else in the hotel (robbing Peter to pay Paul) but we made a plan that we could eat rice if need be as rice would cook in the small pot even if pasta would not. But the nice chap came through and when we came home we had a larger pot and two bowls.

same logo-new address 88 Cheshire Street E2 6EH

 

Friday night we took the train about 12 stops out to a shop called The Duke of Uke.

It was a dream come true for me! Spiderman encouraged me to get an upgraded ukulele as I practice every day and get such enjoyment out of playing. I’ve been playing for a year and I really am improving. I may never be a rock Goddess, but I am fairly competent. Ruth, my first ukulele was a very inexpensive royal blue uke. She cost less than the digital tuner I bought to go with her! Ruth was really made for children or just mucking about. She is fun but doesn’t have great tone and is plastic-y with a bit of wood. I spoke to the nice man working there about upgrading to a better but not top of the range uke—they could go up to several hundred pounds—yikes! Made my heart pound just thinking of spending that much but I settled on a Lanikai LU21 soprano ukulele that cost £80. I would never have spent that much on myself without the encouragement of Spiderman saying that he thought I was good enough. Thank you for your confidence in me.

 

I cannot believe the sound quality difference. She has such tone and resonance! She rings like a bell! Plucking her sounds like a dulcimer! She has this amazing voice. And so we have named her Tallulah—because being a uke you need a name with oo sound to go with it.

 

So that was just the first day of our holiday. And it gets even better!  Spiderman surprised me on Saturday with a journey to a magical place! Stay tuned tomorrow for day two!