fun gadgets from fred and friends

i came across “fred and friends” products quite by accident recently. fred and friends make a wide range of interesting products touching in part on the full spectrum of living. the design ethos of fred and friends is summed up quite nicely in this “message” . . .
so i thought i’d take a wander through their site when i saw something so clever and so obvious i kicked myself for not having thought of it. after years of having seen scores and scores of students, friends, and even myself write notes on hands it just makes sense that someone would come up with this . . . “the to-do tattoo”:
a bargain for forgetful people like me and available for $3.45 at amazon! but wait, there’s more . . . .

this summer you can surprise your friends and guests with these ice cube shot glasses! the flexible silicone shot glass mold creates 4 deep ice cube glasses that can be filled with your favorite drink. you simply fill with water or juice, set in the freezer for a bit and voila! - a handy reusable shot glass that’s approximately 2" wide by 2" tall x 2.45" deep. $7.00 at amazon.
got a rockstar visiting or maybe you’re just holding a guitar hero party . . . you have to have these on hand. the ice cube tray contains three cavities in the shape of guitar bodies, and comes with three reusable plastic guitar "necks". line up the necks in the mould, fill it with water, and freeze; in a few hours you'll have three chilled out guitars ready to dress up and stir a drink. $5.59 at amazon.

finally, this stacked cup coffee cup has tremendous potential. a set of these at the dinner table for the post feast caffeinated beverage would certainly make the evening even more memorable. $11.95 at amazon.

the fred and friends website is jam packed with a variety of irreverent, sometimes gimicky, sometimes clever stuff.

more amazing board games

i came across some amazing board games recently and thought i’d share my finds with you. the first one was invented by a swedish game creator named tomas flodén. pentago appeared in 2005 and won game of the year in sweden and then made it to mensa’s mind games of 2006 award list.
pentago is a game for two players and is played on a 6 x 6 board divided into four 3 x 3 sub-boards (or quadrants). the two players place a marble of their colour (either black or white) onto an unoccupied space on the board, and then rotate one of the sub-boards by 90 degrees either clockwise or counter-clockwise. you win by getting five of your marbles in a vertical, horizontal, or diagonal row (either before or after the sub-board rotation in your move). if all 36 spaces on the board are occupied without a row of five being formed then the game is a draw.

games generally last about five minutes depending on the skill level of the players. a four player game has also been developed named pentago xl.
it has multi-coloured marbles and you can play as individuals, or as partners.

pentago integrates elements of chess, checkers, and go into a game that obviously functions on many levels. to learn more about the game then you should visit its dedicated website.

next is “colosseum”.
the idea in colosseum is that you are a roman impresario - producing great spectacles in your arena in the hopes of attracting the most spectators. in the role of impresario you earn wealth and glory for each event run, using it to create bigger, better, more glamorous events. along the way you have to improve your arena, find the best performers, lure the emperor and his nobles, and manage assets for long-term success, all in the hope that one day you will be granted the title of “grand impresario”.

far from being a roll-the-dice and move your player type game, colosseum combines luck, tactics, strategy and negotiation skills. for more information visit colosseum’s dedicated website.

somewhat along the same lines is “siena”.

a visually stunning game, the story line driving the gameplay takes place in the year 1338. at that time the town council of siena retained the famous artist ambrogio lorenzetti to paint a fresco showing the town and its commerce. the resulting massive fresco entitled “the effects of good government on the city” is beautifully reproduced on the gameboard

so as you can see, you get to play the game above the painting lorenzetti made.

you start the game as a peasant, sowing seeds and selling your crop along the via francigena. the idea at this stage is that if you save enough florins you will be better off, eventually trading in cloth and spices throughout tuscany.

but you are much more ambitious than that of course! your next objective is to enter the council of nine, the town's government. at this point of the game there are many things happening including big decisions regarding the finacing of artists, the building of new structures and all the while you need to be watching your back for beggars, thieves, pretty women inside the inn... a more detailed analysis of the game can be found at funagain’s siena page .

shangri-la, first described in james hilton’s novel lost horizon is the subject for a game combining strategy with fantasy. named “the bridges of shangri-la”, the premise of the game is that despite its fabled peaceful and tranquil exterior, the isolated utopia nestled high in the mountains, is experiencing a strange struggle for dominance. it seems that the masters of the competing mountain-folk are training their students and sending them out across bridges to control neighboring villages. to take control of a village, the students have formed alliances.

eventually the students become masters themselves, train new students and expand their ambitions to other villages. however, and this is where the fantasy element brings hazhard and chance into the game, there is one thing each student must keep in mind as they travel from village to village -- the mystical powers of shangri-la mysteriously cause the bridges to collapse, separating villages forever.

the goal of the game is the question who will control the greatest number of masters of shangri-la?

hot wheels fortieth anniversary design competition

as a little boy i had a respectable collection of dinky cars and corgis. these were very small diecast cars that were as true-to-the-original as was possible given their diminutive size.
hot wheels ® entered the world in 1968 at a time when the show car circuit was really taking off. the cars on the street were either the earliest econoboxes, massive landboats, or insanely overpowered muscle cars. hot wheels came in with a bang producing cars that were largely fantasy, painted in colours that had never been seen before and with design details that boys drooled over. here’s one of the very first hot wheels models, a highly modified volkswagen beetle . . .
in this, hot wheel’s® first year, sixteen models were released. nine were customized versions of real cars of that era and seven were based on actual show cars. after that the hot wheels® brand grew and flourished. mattel reveals some staggering statistics: mattel estimates that 41 million children grew up playing with the toys, the average collector has over 1,550 cars, and children between the ages of 5 and 15 have an average of 41 cars. my own collection is just over sixty cars strong but i have one simple rule and it runs somewhat counter to the hot wheels design aesthetic and that is that the car should look in design and colour as close to the original as possible. that is why my own statistics as such are skewed compared to mattel’s.

so this is the fourtieth anniversary of hot wheels® and to celebrate they gave carte blanche to chevrolet, dodge, ford, honda, lotus and mitsubishi (as well as an in-house team) to develop cars that “capture the die-cast brand's core essence of speed, power, performance and attitude, while also encompassing the distinct attributes of each company's automotive brand values.” yeah right! the idea was to have a ton of fun and produce another fantastic little car for people like me.

here’s the scoop from hot wheels itself.

"this is the first time in hot wheels history that we've turned outside the company to seek new car designs; and who better to go to than our automotive partners who have been a part of hot wheels history for the last 40 years?" says geoff walker, vice president, wheels marketing, mattel brands. "we couldn't be more thrilled with the results of this program, and we're anxious to see the designs come to life as 1:64-scale models on store shelves next spring."

so, enough talking, here are the final designs. from dodge, a typically muscle-bound car drawing loosely on the viper but definitely in a league of its own.
from ford, the "gangster grin". a retro low-rider with a devilishly huge grill/grin . . .
chevrolet weighs in with the purposeful looking "chevroletor". here it is looking like it would be at home setting a landspeed record on the bonneville flats . . .
from mitsubishi, a high-end streetracer - the "double shotz" . . .
more images and commentary can be found over at carbody design.
from honda a playful take on the honda logo results in a racing car for two . . .
(to see more images of this car nip over to the feature that wired has done on it).

and from lotus a swoopy derivative of their current styling cues . . .
a lovely gallery of images of this car can be found over at auto unleashed.

video of the vehicles as rendered in one sixth scale can be viewed here . . .
and just in case you think this wasn’t a big deal to the car designers involved in this competition, spend a couple of minutes viewing this . .

bbc interview with brian eno

among those people i most admire, i number brian eno near the top of the heap for the simple fact that he thinks and creates and lives in a manner that i consider worthy. he creates a new space, a perspective, and an approach to thinking that elevates the quality and understanding of my experience of this world.

here is a recent interview conducted by the bbc’s “constellations” program regarding ( among many other things) brian’s most recent video and music installation work entitled “seventy seven million paintings.” here’s part one:
and here’s part two:

exquisite melancholy: the pre-raphaelite artists

the pre-raphaelite artists have long held an appeal for me, chiefly i think because of their ability to represent melancholy and beauty side-by-side and then also for their exquisitely detailed representations of nature.

the meeting that brought together the nucleus of the “raphaelite brotherhood” saw the gathering of luminaries john millais, dante gabriel rosetti, and william holman hunt. from that and subsequent meetings emerged the following set of four goals:

1. to have genuine ideas to express;
2. to study nature attentively, so as to know how to express them;
3. to sympathise with what is direct and serious and heartfelt in previous
art, to the exclusion of what is conventional and self-parodying and
learned by rote;
4. and, most indispensable of all, to produce thoroughly good pictures
and statues.

later the same year they were joined by rosetti’s brother william michael rossetti, thomas woolner, james collinson, and frederic stephens. regardless of our perspectives on their work, these artists were considered avant-garde in their time and so much of their thinking and work was kept secret from the orthodox elements of art society at that time.

the pre-raphaelites were particularly interested in colour and light and so invented a technique of painting in thin glazes of pigment over a wet white ground. they hoped that in this way their colours would retain a jewel-like transparency and clarity.
here is millais’ work “"dew-drenched furze" about which he is cited as having said “scotland is like a wet pebble, with the colours brought out by the rain."

rosetti's "proserpine" . . . rosetti's "holy grail" . . . rosetti's "lady lilith" . . . william holman hunt, "the lady of shallot" . . .


of course as with all art movements, the resonance of their work appears in later artists and art movements . . . some really nice examples of this effect show up in the work of john waterhouse whose extraordinary work “the lady of shallot" can be seen here . . .
also by waterhouse . . . “a magic circle” . . .
and finally a gorgeous painting by edward hughes “the princess out of school” . . .
and the beautifully rendered and titled “night with her train of stars” . . .
a comprehensive jump-page with links to the very best collections of pre-raphaelite artwork can be found here.

five thousand

i'm typing this in a corner of my garden . . . which i am showing here . . .

the golden fish blog was birthed on august 29, 2007. 281 days later, over 5,000 people have visited this blog. in fact at this point, over a thousand people a month are visiting. four hundred and thirty one posts later, this is a source of amazement to me as the blog has been about anything, everything and nothing in particular. it has been a reflection of my interests, my curiousities, my memories, my wistfulness, my hopes, my wishes and my dreams.

my wish for the blog itself is that it finds a voice in its first year that directs its life from that point on to whatever point it needs to go to. that the blog should find a singular voice may be wishful thinking given that its author is himself “resplendent in divergence.”

for now, thankyou to my readers for sharing the ride!!

steven

when tv was black and white: the forest rangers

as a young boy new to canada, there was as much fantasy about my understanding of this country as there was misinformation from what i had heard about canada before i left my home country of england. canadian television at the time reinforced some of the fantasy which presented canada as a more-or-less untamed wilderness.

one of my favourite shows was “the forest rangers” which ran from 1963 to 1965 but was so immensley popular that it actually went into reruns for some time afterwards. i was certain when i saw it that it was filmed somewhere in northern ontario but it was - amazingly enough - filmed in kleinburg, a little community just west of toronto. in addition to being the first canadian series to be filmed in colour, it also marked the first major series debut of gordon pinsent.

here’s the whole scoop from the cbc itself: “the forest rangers, a highly successful adventure series for children, was developed by executive producer maxine samuels as an independent venture, with the cooperation of the cbc. by the time the show aired in canada, it had already been sold to networks in england, france, west germany, and australia, and by 1966, over forty countries could watch the adventures of a gang of resourceful canadian young people who lived in northern ontario.

the show took place in and around a village called indian river, but the real focus of the story was an abandoned fort that had been taken over by the junior rangers. the fort was their headquarters, where they set up their ham radio, and helped keep watch for forest fires and other conservational offences. they ran up against not only poachers, but a succession of thieves, escaped criminals, spies, and other wrongdoers. when discovered, one or more of the junior rangers might be tied up, locked in a cellar, or otherwise held captive until they found a way out or were rescued by the government ranger or the r.c.m.p. although the program's stories were principally adventures, they sometimes had an educational slant. for example, the story might have concerned poaching beaver pelts, but during the course of the show, viewers would see the part beavers play in the ecology of the region.

the leader of the junior rangers was peter Keeley, played by rex hagon, whose brother george keeley, played by graydon gould, was the chief forest ranger for the area. (hagon left the show after the first couple of seasons.) ralph endersby played chub stanley, a city boy who moves to indian river to live with foster parents, and is welcomed into the junior rangers. The other rangers included mike forbes, played by peter tully, and kathy, played by susan conway. early in the series, syme jago appeared as gaby laroche, and paul tully portrayed zeke. apart from george (the only adult relation to any of the young characters to appear in the show), other adult characters included uncle raoul laroche, played by rolland bedard, indian joe two rivers, a guide played by michael zenon, and r.c.m.p. sergeant brian scott, portrayed by gordon pinsent. the dog was named spike and the bear was carol.
the forest rangers was produced in colour, on film, and had quite high production values. samuels hired such producers as ted holliday and william davidson, and attracted such people as paul almond, george mccowan, ronald weyman, and george gorman to direct individual episodes. lindsay galloway wrote most of the scripts for the series. the program was shot at toronto international studios at kleinburg, ontario, where the crew built bridges and a town street to represent indian river, and also found the abandoned fort (left over from the hudson bay television series) which they turned into junior rangers headquarters.”

a really excellent fan site has lots more information and images . . .

here are some brief but memory-filled scenes from the forest rangers series.


if you would like to buy episodes one to twenty then go here. if you would like to buy episodes twenty one to fourty then go here.

sir john barbirolli and the halle orchestra: sinfonia antarctica

i particularly love the recurring theme in gustav holst’s “neptune” taken from his larger work “the planets”. i most especially love the choral ending which is echoed in elements of vaughan william’s soundtrack for the film “scott of the antarctic” which was written into a larger piece of music later released as symphony no. 7 or sinfonia antarctica. this piece of music was first performed by the halle orchestra under sir john barbirolli.

when i was a very little boy growing up in england i actually got to see barbirolli conduct the halle orchestra in manchester free trade hall.

here is a scratchy but listenable and lovely version of the halle playing sinfonia antarctica! part one:
part two:
part three:
part four:

wishes, dreams, and daruma dolls

daruma dolls are a cool concept that i wanted to share with you. also known as dharma dolls, daruma dolls look like evil little weebils but they have an essentially good purpose.

here’s what a daruma doll looks like when you purchase it . . .
you’ll notice that it has no eyes, and there’s a reason for that. if you have a wish or a dream then you paint in one of the eyes, like this . . .
if your wish or dream come true then you paint in both eyes like this . . .
daruma dolls are usually made from paper mache that has been weighted at the bottom. that way they don’t fall over - a sort of metaphoric design feature meant to reflect the persistence of meditation.

the reason that daruma dolls are so round is that (according to legend) “daruma” who was the founder of zen buddhism, achieved enlightenment after a very very lengthy meditation during which time his arms and legs atrophied.

some other details you might like to know about daruma dolls include:

~some dolls have written characters on the cheeks explaining the wish or the dream.
~the surname of the owner may be written on the chin.
~until the wish has been granted, the daruma is displayed in a high location in one's home, typically close to other significant belongings.
~it is normal to own only a single daruma at a time.
~one other feature you need to know is that it is alright to burn your daruma if your wish or dream doesn’t come true. this is done as a purification ritual to let the powers that be know that you have chosen another route to make your wish or dream come true!
~some people buy a larger daruma each time the previous daruma’s associated wish is fulfilled.

for more things daruma then you need to visit the darumasan blog which has links to everything worth knowing or seeing in the way of darumas.

antoine de saint-exupery: the little prince

i’ve been incredibly fortunate through my life to have had both the ability to read, and the wherewithall to be able to buy a wide range of books based on my interest. i read a lot some times and not so much at other times but the underlying habit of reading to find out about things, to experience experiences, to know knowings and especially to dream has always been with me.

the little prince is one of the more exquisite and special books i have experienced. written by antoine de saint - exupery, himself an incredible man, the little prince was actually written in a little village in new york state named asharoken which sits on long island’s north shore. published in 1943, it remains immensely popular among young and old alike with its whimsical drawings and other-worldly qualities.
taking some of the experiences which he presented in two of his other books night flight, and wind, sand and stars, both exquisite, beautifully written stories detailing his years as a mail pilot flying incredibly treacherous and lonely journeys across north africa and south america.

the little prince tells the story of the author being stranded in the sahara desert, thousands of kilometers away from the nearest inhabited place.
here he meets a young, extraterrestrial (though human-appearing) prince. it is through their conversations that saint-exupery expresses his own views about the follies of mankind and the simple truths that people seem to forget as they grow older. the essence of the book is contained in the famous line spoken by a fox to the little prince: "it is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye". other memorable and lovely quotes from the book include: "you become responsible, forever, for what you have tamed" and "it is the time you have spent with your rose that makes your rose so important."

the entire text of the little prince along with the accompanying illustrations has been very generously uploaded here!

saint-exupery is also credited with the following thoughts: “a civilization is a heritage of beliefs, customs, and knowledge slowly accumulated in the course of centuries, elements difficult at times to justify by logic, but justifying themselves as paths when they lead somewhere, since they open up for man his inner distance.”
“a single event can awaken within us a stranger totally unknown to us. to live is to be slowly born.”

many, many more quotes from the genius of saint-exupery can be found here.

eric satie: gnossiennes number one

like so many of the musicians whose work i have come to know and love, i am not entirely certain when i first heard eric satie’s music but i do remember the first time that i realized how beautiful it was. it was a late autumn evening and i was at university in a room filled with candles. to that point the music had consisted of king crimson’s “starless and bible black”, a smattering of tangerine dream circa “ricochet” and “rubicon”, and eno’s “here come the warm jets”. the appearance of satie’s simple gossamer threads of piano, held together by the finest filigree of air in the relatively vast spaces between notes held me enthralled.
eric satie was born on the 17th of may, 1886 in a beautiful little port on the coast of normandy named honfleur. honfleur has figured in the paintings of (among others) courbet, monet, and jongkind. here are two of monet’s paintings . . .
“towing a boat, honfleur”. 1864 . . .
“rue de la bavolle, honfleur”. 1864 . . .
satie’s life has been documented and analyzed in detail and makes for fascinating reading if only because while the music is undoubtedly the richest thread, there are so many other aspects of his life that could easily be termed “unique” and “unusual”. of particular interest to some might be his interest and immersion in the esoteric, one part of which resulted in him becoming the official composer and chapel-master of the rosicrucian order or the "ordre de la rose-croix catholique, du temple et du graal", led by sâr joséphin péladan.

that satie would emerge as a player or writer of music appears in retrospect to have been an inevitability. there was an inclination on the part of his family towards music that saw him taking organ lessons as a young boy and then, when his father remarried (after the death of his first wife) a pianist, he was no doubt aware of and to some degree influenced by their work in writing and publishing compositions of their own. it was in 1879 that satie entered the paris conservatoire where he was labelled untalented by his teachers. this seems to happen more often than not with musicians and composers who later flourish through developing systems of composition, or details of practice and performance that while not consonant with the times are ultimately of infinitely greater value.

in 1887, satie left his home to move into lodgings in montmartre. it is here that he published the works he is most widely known for - the gymnopedies, the ogives, and the gnossiennes among others. here is a painting by maximillian luce entitled, “paris seen from montmartre”. 1887 . . .
here then is gymnopedie no. 1 . . .

and here is gnossiennes no. 1 - lent . . .

and finally here is guitarist john williams rendering gnossiennes no 1 . . .

denise levertov: variation on a theme by rilke

i recently featured a poem by denise levertov entitled “sojourns in the parallel world” and because i was so taken by her writing, i thought that it might be interesting to dig a little deeper. levertov was born in england on october 24, 1923 to a welsh mum and to a dad who was a russian hasidic jew who then converted to christianity and became an anglican parson. with a heritage like that, it follows that you would be extraordinary!

levertov claims that she announced at the age of five that she was going to become a writer and in fact at the age of twelve she sent her writing to no less than t.s. eliot who wrote her a two page letter of encouragement in reply! later levetov married an american and moved to america where she became an american citizen. here she (as did so many others) came under the influence of (among others) the black mountain poets who worked out of the extremely progressive black mountain college. (just for interest’s sake, you should read the list of faculty who at one time worked at this college!)

levertov’s writing tends to focus on politics, war, and religion. here is a fine example of this type of writing “in california during the gulf war”.

in california during the gulf war
 
among the blight-killed eucalypts, among
trees and bushes rusted by christmas frosts,
the yards and hillsides exhausted by five years of drought,
 
certain airy white blossoms punctually
reappeared, and dense clusters of pale pink, dark pink--
a delicate abundance. they seemed
 
like guests arriving joyfully on the accustomed
festival day, unaware of the year's events, not perceiving
the sackcloth others were wearing.
 
to some of us, the dejected landscape consorted well
with our shame and bitterness. skies ever-blue,
daily sunshine, disgusted us like smile-buttons.
 
yet the blossoms, clinging to thin branches
more lightly than birds alert for flight,
lifted the sunken heart
 
even against its will.
                      but not
as symbols of hope: they were flimsy
as our resistance to the crimes committed
 
--again, again--in our name; and yes, they return,
year after year, and yes, they briefly shone with serene joy
over against the dark glare
 
of evil days. they are, and their presence
is quietness ineffable--and the bombings are, were,
no doubt will be; that quiet, that huge cacophany
 
simultaneous. no promise was being accorded, the blossoms
were not doves, there was no rainbow. And when it was claimed
the war had ended, it had not ended.

but it is in her self-reflective pieces that i find the greatest value and resonance. here’s “variation on a theme by rilke”

variation on a theme by rilke
           
a certain day became a presence to me;
there it was, confronting me--a sky, air, light:
a being. and before it started to descend
from the height of noon, it leaned over
and struck my shoulder as if with
the flat of a sword, granting me
honor and a task. the day's blow
rang out, metallic--or it was i, a bell awakened,
and what I heard was my whole self
saying and singing what it knew: i can.

in the course of her writing life, she received many awards, scholarships and fellowships, a sort of testimony to the power and beauty of her poetry. denise levertov died in 1997 at the age of 74. a beautiful tribute to denise was written by fellow poet robert creeley.

if you would like to read more of her work, a collection of denise’s poetry is maintained by chris corrigan. google books has several of her works including selected poems, a door in the hive, breathing the water, this great unknowing, and several others.

clocks that show time

there’s something so precise about the sharp pointed fingers that so exactly delineate the passage of time on analogue timepieces. breaking experience into visually perceptible and predictable amounts provides a form of comfort. that time is an artifice constructed by man to allow for the measurement of what constitutes experience is something that the following designs and designers are playing with.

bomi kim has created something so simple that it compels me to wonder why no one has come up with anything similar before.
essentially a clock without a face or hands, “the meaning of time” is simple a clock mechanism to which you attach objects, images, whatever strikes your fancy and then allow those objects to describe your own experiencing of time.

the possibilities are endless - tubes of gel liquid with tiny objects inside that move from end to end as the tube rotates about the mechanism, flowers, twigs, roots, hot glued pebbles, boy you could have fun redesigning this!
at the moment it is a design proposal, but i see that the designer has set up a soon-to-be functional website that might bear bookmarking just in case this becomes available . . . .

utlizing a different design aesthetic to express a similar form of relationship with time is ”the last clock”. the last clock has a second "hand", a minute "hand" and an hour "hand". what's unique about the "hands" is that they are arranged in concentric circles, the outermost circle describing the passage of seconds, the middle circle describing the passage of minutes, and the innermost circle the passage of hours.

each of the hands of the last clock are made from a slice of live video feed. as the hands rotate around the face of the clock they leave a trace of what has been happening in front of the camera. the video feed for the clock can be any video source: you could mount a camera on the clock itself, hook up a remote camera to a streamed internet or tv signal. there are many possibilities. after the clock has been running for 12 hours, you end up with a mandala of archived time! here's a still image of one that was hooked up to a video feed of a golf game . . . and a close up of the same image . . .

if you would like to know more about the last clock, it’s website has video as well as still images of the clock in action that are not only beautiful but can be purchased at the site.

the cloud bed

a bed is a bed is a bed - until you reach the age where your back and your neck tell you otherwise. in my youth i slept on all manner of beds - futons, cots, sleeping bags on couches, full-motion waterbeds, partial-motion waterbeds, sleeping bags on floors, curled up in armchairs, on the ground, you name it - i probably slept on it. nowadays i sleep in a faux colonial queen-size that probably came from a reputable shop - it actually doesn’t even belong to us but is on loan from a friend currently teaching in hong kong - it's very plain and yes, it’s fairly comfortable but it’s nothing exceptional.

i am not what you could call a bed snob but i do like interesting looking beds. platform beds have made a return of sorts and i’ve always liked their looks but i also know that they tend towards the uncomfortable usually having a mattress and not a boxspring. while i am not pulling a princess and the pea routine here, i am fairly particular as a courtesy to my body about what i place it on while recharging it.

i came across some very lovely beds recently and one in particular that is - unusual.
but i like its design all the same . . .

being ovoid in shape suggests that it may need chocks at either end to prevent any pronounced rocking that might fling one of the occupants out onto the (possibly) carpeted floor! visuals and scenarios abound in reflecting on this possibility. the bottom line for me is that it is a very attractive looking piece of furniture if not entirely practical.

if you are interested then more info and images can be found at the cloud bed website.

goldilocks and the three bears

goldilocks has been a part of most children’s lives in the western part of this world for a long, long time now. in fact its first known appearance was made over 170 years ago when the romantic poet robert southey (most widely known for his massive works of prose/poetry) published a sort of prose story named the three bears in a larger collection of his writing named “the doctor”.

the story is simple but for those of you who have either never read it, heard it, or heard of it, here it is:

a family of three bears (a mother, a father, and a cub) live in a quiet house in the woods. one day, while waiting for their porridge to cool, they leave the house unlocked and go for a walk in the woods. while they are out, goldilocks comes to the house. she enters the bear’s house and messes with their belongings, trying out their porridge (eating all of the baby's), sitting on their chairs (breaking the baby's), and then trying out their beds (falling asleep in the baby's).

every member of the bear family has their own unique chair, porridge, and bed, which have unique characteristics. the father and mother's beds and chairs are "too hard" and "too soft" and their porridge is "too hot" and "too cold", with the baby bear's porridge, chair, and bed being "just right". goldilocks is still asleep in the baby's bed when the bears return home. they wake her up, and scare her away.

if you’d like to read a real beauty then this version from 1941 is for you!

here’s a lovely, old animated version of the goldilocks story .

and here, believe it or not . . . goldilocks and the three bears told with real live bears and an almost unbearably sweet girl . . .