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I came across this strange album of "dessins en cheveux" by P. Florentin in the NYPL Digital Gallery. As far as I can gather, they are mainly designs for mourning jewellery made of the loved one's hair.
There is a whole society devoted to jewellery made from human hair, it turns out. If you're really interested, you can visit a hair museum, or even commission your own new design.
Regular visitors will know that here at Fed by Birds we hate anyone to go away disappointed. So for the person who arrived on a Google search for "moustache man", I don't think you can do better than this:
The searcher for "nun holding a baby" - is this close enough?
For the person looking for "the difference between fashion and poaching" - they are easily confused. Here is someone doing just that:
Whoever was searching for "things to do in when it's raining" - a spot of fancy dress always passes the time. Here are some ideas:
The person after "birds that are blue" - how blue do you want them?:
But why not branch out from blueness with a Fischer's Turaco:
or a violet-breasted roller bird:
And the person who was searching simply for "properly complicated" - why not have a think about this for a while:
I don't know about you but I've got sadly out of the habit of drawing much. Even doodling's not so easy when you're sitting at a computer. The Campaign for Drawing was launched in 2000 by the Guild of St George, a charity founded by John Ruskin, to try to get everyone sketching. They say, "The Campaign's work will finish when the words 'I can't draw' are dropped from common usage." Their main event, the Big Draw, is in October, but you don't need to wait that long: another group have declared June 7 international Drawing Day. If you need some inspiration, can I suggest the wonderful Ghost School, where artist Wil Freeborn posts his sketches of everything that's going on around him:
The Joseph Rous Paget-Fredericks Dance Collection features the artist's extraordinary sketches and paintings of dancers, notably Anna Pavlova in a variety of magnificent costumes.
"You could dress up a pigeon in a tiny suit of evening clothes and put a tiny silk hat on his head and a tiny gold-headed cane under his wing and send him walking into my room at night. It would make no impression on me. I would not shout, "Good God almighty, the birds are in charge!" But you could send an owl into my room, dressed only in the feathers it was born with, and no monkey business, and I would pull the covers over my head and scream."
James Thurber, from The Thurber Carnival
Listening to the Radio 4 programme Making History I came across the story of the Dockside Dandies, trawlermen in Lowestoft, Suffolk, in the 1960s who for some reason no one can quite fathom developed a localised craze for dressing up in the most exotic and flamboyant way. Artist Peter Wylie has been investigating the phenomenon, and the Lowestoft Journal has more on the story:
"I remember suits of red, bright yellow, lime green, tartan and one lad was said to have had one made out of curtain material (flower patterned). Collars and cuffs were often a different colour to the suit... When you include the trend for wearing earrings - some with miniature anchors or port and starboard lights hanging - you can imagine what a colourful scene when a group of these '48-hour millionaires' got together when they came in from sea."
Happy gnomes drop sunshine bombs on a village of gloomy Gothic types in this 1935 cartoon from the Van Beuren studios. Rather a strange message it sends out about the victory of aggressive optimism.
Brompton Cemetery - the most peaceful place in London?
Brian Glover, Emmeline Pankhurst and inventor of self-help Samuel Smiles are buried there, as was Sioux Indian chief Long Wolf, who was involved in the defeat of Custer, until his remains were finally taken home in 1997.
Not to mention many other less famous inhabitants with such splendid names as W. Ornigsby Kettle. Collecting names is a good reason to go looking at graves: I seem to remember all the original EastEnders characters were named from Hackney tombstones, and Beatrix Potter reputedly took the names of her animal characters from those on the gravestones in Brompton - including a Peter Rabbett.
Back from the South of France, with some new vocab - huîtres, hirondelle, bandes desinées - and some spectacular comic books (aimed at the very small, which suits my level of French reading). Luckily this is France, so even books for the tiny are pretty sophisticated. Fennec
Anyway, it looks beautiful.
Gedeon Grand Manitou
The plot looks a little involved, but it's all very charming.
