Osamu Tezuka

The Storm P. Museum in Frederiksberg, Denmark is currently hosting the exhibit Osamu Tezuka - Mangaens Mester (English title: God of Manga).

Osamu Tezuka (1928-1989) grew up with parents encouraging him and his siblings to be creative - pen and paper were always next to their beds in case they should wake up, be unable to sleep and not to be bored. He became the manga no kamisama (God of Manga) - published more than 170.000 pages with manga drawings in more than 700 titles. He is known as the Japanese Walt Disney, and often people claim that he was inspired by the American cartoonist.

 

The boy on the exhibit poster is Atomic boy, one of his most famous characters starring in 73 stories.

 

Japanese is traditionally read backwards - at least to us in the west - as a book is read right to left and not left to right, as you are doing right now. Having studied Japanese and read several manga stories, it was really annoying when they flipped the drawings so novices could read it the western style - the exhibit actually mentioned how a manga cartoon is traditionally read, so why not let the museum goer read it like it was supposed to be read (translations into Danish were available next to the original drawings)... get people into the traditional way?

 

Amazing to see some of the drawings, that have been much inspirations to Japanese manga artists.

Wolverine

Regular heatwave today - temperatures above 30° Celcius (86+ Fahrenheit) and no wind to cool you down resulting in an extreme humidity according to our standards - hence me once again escaping to a cool cinema:

 

Like the X-Men movies, so not hard to persuade me to go in and see this movie.

 

The scene is quickly moved to Japan, where a dying Yashida-san has requested his presense to say goodbye - Wolverine saved his life when the Americans dropped the Nagasaki A-bomb. Wolverine meets Japanese culture and traditions at a very high paste: the neom lights of Tokyo, fast train, yakuza, ninjas - inspirations from a few Japanese movies has fingerprints on this movie making it a little more "real". A bite of good humor and some twists keep this story going and you entertained, plus Hugh Jackman as Wolverine is pure eye-candy ;o)

And a hint: Keep watching the movie despite the subtiltles starting at the end - you are in for an extra treat.

A Stitch Before Dying

3rd book in the Black Sheep Knitting Mystery series by Anne Canadeo.

 

Maggie is invited to host some knitting events/workshops at a Berkshire spa resort and eyes the chance for the knitting group to go there together for the weekend. The theme is definately spiritual and tries to use knitting as a meditative craft, where one can drift away in calm thoughts, relax and become one with the knitting. Something different for Maggie but definately intriguing as knitting is her big passion.

 

Random Knitting - Mindfull Knitting (with a touch of Yoga) and at a spa resort in beautiful fall colored suroundings - what could be a better way for the ladies to rejuvinate themselves?

 

When a murder occur at the peaceful place, they start to look at the odd ends to see if they can connect them.

 

Can help thinking about a quote from one of my favorite authors:

 

"Sitting with one's knitting, one just sees the fact."    Agatha Christie

 

 

Happy.... Threading the Needle Day

 

 

Today is Threading the Needle Day - and yes, could not resist embroidery with the two PacMan ghosts. The PacMan theme has stuck with me since the yarn bombing event last month, where I actually ended up being quoted in a newspaper the following day.

 

 

This card went to Tracy as part of the the Holiday's in July Card Swap over at Paper Craft Planet - July - do not know if she has actually received yet (dropped in the post last week), but she is not a follower of this blog, which is why I dare showing it. Hope she likes it :o)

Knit, Purl, Die

Part two in the Black Sheep Knitting Mystery series.  

Ok, swiftly need to go back to part one: I have never heard of dyeing with JELL-O - yes, the stuff that one usually eats?!?! There is even a how-to.... amazing a non expensive dyeing color.... But who came up with the idea?? Did that person drop some yarn into JELL-O while making it? Or was it out-of-the-box idea? Made laugh .... and yet a Hmmmm erupted.

 

...

 

A knitting friend of the black Sheep Knitters, Gloria Sterling, is found dead in her swimming pool. They do not quite settle with the official cause: accident, as smebode had obviously visited her, just before she died. A lot of people are raising their eyebrows due to the fact that she had a very young husband, but the knitting group sees him as a very devoted and devestated husband who lost his loved one.

 

Soon, an unknown side of Gloria's affairs surfaces, just fuelling the thought of foul play regarding her death, so our group looks among clues involving Gloria's former circle of business, real estate transactions etc. But will they unravel the truth?

 

Inspired by Mother Nature

Mother Nature - a great source of inspiration. When I saw A Day For Daisies' freebie I just new that I had to have some natural, colorful inspiration so I turned to pinterest and found these two beauties:



 

Pinterest

Pinterest



 

Needed to make two belated birthday cards so no need to choose which one to draw inspiration from :o) If I had used a die, I could have entered into the A Day For Daisies challenge, but opted for my woodgrain embossing folder instead - a little more rustic touch to the cards.

 

 

Both cards are now enroute to their destinations.

 

While My Pretty Ones Knits

The first Black Sheep Knitting Mystery book "While My Pretty Ones Knit" by Anne Canadeo.

 

Smiled when I saw the UFO description again - second book within a week, but this time I already knew what it means. New addition to the knitting vocabulary is: TINK - knit spelled backwards.... describes stitch(es) that needs to be pulled.... also the name of a dog in the story.

 

This series takes us to Plum Harbor, Massachusetts - a city with no less than two yarn shops. Maggie Messina, owner of the Black Sheep Knitting Shop suddenly becomes a suspect, when her competitor Amanda Goran is found murdered in the Knitting Nest. The regulars at the Black Sheep Knitting Shop support Maggie and tries to unravel who was behind the murder, but it is a race against time as several things points at Maggie and detective Walsh wants to arrest the murderer soon.

 

Do not even have to wait for the second book in this series, as nr 5 is already out in stores and the 6th is due January 14th next year :o)

Blackbirds Song/Melody on My Mind

The are two versions of Blackbirds that I really cherish - the original one song by the Beatles and then Trio Rococo's cover version, that still sends chills down my spine everytime I hear it. The latter I heard at the Danish national football stadium, Parken, packed with people at an Kulturby96 event in Copenhagen, Denmark - and will never forget hearing it there... and it made a huge impression of most of us there.

 

Now, I do know that the freebie bird from A Day For Daisies is not a blackbird, but the song lured me into coloring the bird black/white - and then I thought sympathy card.... then the CCEE1329 challenge: Sing, Sing a Song.

Here is what I came up with:

Blackbird singing in the dead of night
Take these broken wings and learn to fly
All your life
You were only waiting for this moment to arise

Black bird singing in the dead of night
Take these sunken eyes and learn to see
all your life
you were only waiting for this moment to be free

Blackbird fly, Blackbird fly
Into the light of the dark black night.

Blackbird fly, Blackbird fly
Into the light of the dark black night.

Blackbird singing in the dead of night
Take these broken wings and learn to fly
All your life
You were only waiting for this moment to arise

Blackbird fly, Blackbird fly
Into the light of the dark black night.

Blackbird fly, Blackbird fly
Into the light of the dark black night.

Black bird singing in the dead of night
Take these sunken eyes and learn to see
all your life
you were only waiting for this moment to be free
you were only waiting for this moment to be free
you were only waiting for this moment to be free

The Beatles

My Cola

 

Well it must me mine, as has my name on the bottles ;o) And share it.... yes with myself.....

Dyeing Wishes

2nd book in the Haunted Yarn Shop Mystery series by Molly MacRae: Dyeing Wishes.

Once again, my knitting lingo is being updated. Already learned that TGIF is Thank God It's Fiber (and here we thought that it was Thank God It's Friday). New entry: UFO as in UnFinished Object. WOW!! That means that my appartment is UFO central: yarn, paper, card, fabric witness about it daily *sigh* but apparently a crafter's curse.

 

"And just as women shouldn't have too many cats, if she could help it she probably shouldn't have too many ghosts, or she might end up being called a crazy ghost lady."

 

Kath Ruthledge is still looking for her grandmother Ivy's notebooks with fiber dye secrets while still adjusting to life in Blue Plum with Geneva the ghost and the cat. Soon they stumble across a double murder and more than once the TGIF phone tree does it's work to gather minds and food to solve the murder as they know one of the murdered victims.

 

Kath gets more glimses if the gift that she has inherited from her grandmother and needs to rely on her instincts to interpret them - the others talk about Ivy's gift, but they do not seem to realise that it might be a little supernatural.

World War Z

I actually went into see a zoombie movie the other day - and one starring Brad Pitt. Now some eyebrows are raised as that is usually not a film that I would go in and see on a Sunday, but some friends asked me if I wanted to join them at the cinema - why not? And just expanding the movie world a little more.

 

Must admit, that there are elements/messages in the movie, that I do like - and despite being a zoombie movie it even made you think a little further about what we are doing to us/the Earth (Mother Nature). Mother Nature is the biggest serial killer of the all. At first I laughed when I heard one of the characters state that - but then the laughter stopped.

 

Mother Nature - one you can not beat, perhaps with modern technology slow down - who will always be the wiser. It is like people are discussing the face that more and more people get a certain kind of dissease than previous - but given the fact that a lot more people are living on Earth han "previous" are ratios actio the same or actually less? Or are we looking at an area where homo sapiens have invented a drug/medicine to alter/stop the course of a virus/dissease so Mother Nature merely adjust and alters her course/direction?

 

Might be a bit thorn over the subject, as I have an illness that needs medication - I believe that Mother Nature sometime tries to evolve, but then end up in a blind street and needs to learn. She is good at adapting and finding other solutions - might sound harsh that she lets something die for other things to develop into more amazing things. Then there are the homo sapiens - us - who have developed methods to survive her quirks, but would it actually be better for us in the long run, if we let her have her ways?! That will always be a hot topic, since we think, act etc. and nobodys' opinion will never be the same even in situations of life and death......

All these thoughts "just" because I saw a movie.

Faces

 

 

 

Faces ..... here as street art - but again the thin line between art and vandalism.... These are scattered through the city - some a couple of years old, others fairly new

Steve Bloom - Livin Africa

The man on above photo is photographer Steve Bloom, who held one of his lectures in connection with the National Geographics 125 Years Exhibit in Copenhagen. Did not know much about hos photos before I went to the lecture, but decided that it would be a great opportunity to see the world through the eyes of a "new" photographer. Turned out to be a good decision.

 

Steve is born in South Africa but relocated to the UK in 1977 due to his dislike with the then Apartheid regime in his country. Later he returned to his beloved continent and started capturing amazing photos of people, places and animals which has also resulted in numerous books with wonderful photos. Africa for me is unchartered territory, so was quickly drawn into the photos that presented the continent in a colorful way seen through his eyes - do not know if I will ever go to Africa myself (can foresee a problem with the MS and temperatures) so a wnderful way of "travelling" to the area.

 

The lecture with his photos and sounds while he was talking non-stop for 1½+ hour just swooped you into his Africa - wanted to see more and yet had to stop in order to digest the photos properly. An lecture like this just want an amateur photographer to venture out more and take photos knowing that the result will never be as good as works of an professional - it makes you look/discover small facts, details you might not have seen unless you "just happened" to capture it on a photo.

Happy...... Cow Appreciation Day

Did you know that July 15 is Cow Appreciation Day??

Well it is, and that is the day I chose for the Holiday's in July Card Swap over at Paper Craft Planet - July (and any other month of the year) have a lot of unknown holidays. I was to send a card to Bridget, and since she was the one who originally introduced med to Beccy's Place I immediately knew, that the quilted cow would be the image for the card.

I forgot to take a photo of the card, so here's the photo Bridget took when receiving it.

Was struggling a bit on how to color this cow when eying a black/white monochrome paper pack..... well this digistamp did not end up being colored - but paper pieced :o) To me a cow is black and white - yes, know they come in other colors too, but an old neighbor when I grew up had black/white cows only - and hey: the cows depicted on Ben&Jerry's ice creams are black/white too ;o)

Others like cows too, as here is one depicted on the wall in one of the streets of Copenhagen, Denmark - a place that I pass from time to time.

Happy Cow Appreciation Day!!

Angora Alibi

We have had some good summerdays lately, so time to go to the local park and find a reading place on a bench during the weekends - just for a couple of hours to rewind. The past weekend it was needed even more, as my sleeping, eating, resting patterns etc. got all messed up du to a 5-day MS attack treatment. Most colleagues never realised what was happening, as I went to work as usual - due to summer time things are luckily a little slower than usual - and trying to have a normal day is the best medicine. One normal thing for me is also "escaping" into the wonderful words of a book.

 

Back to Sea Harbour where Izzy Chambers Perry is almost due with her baby - she discovers an abandonned baby car seat on the beach, eqiuipped with a knitted blanket. The yarn used for the knitted blanket was sold from her yarn shop only to fuel more thoughts about the discovery.

 

Soon we realised that the car seat has a connection to a local murder and suddenly it becomes a race against time for the Sea Side Knitters to solve this so the new born can arrive in a safe world while they are knitting on a baby blanket for baby Perry.

 

I love reading those books, where you return to the same city and cast of characters and feel present there yourself. It also makes me smile a bit - as I remember something I read about the tv-series "Murder, She Wrote" with Angela Lansbury. They said that Cabbot Cove, where the series mostly takes place, has the worlds highest murder rate due to all the murders happening in the tv-series.... but then again Sea Harbour still seems a lot less extreme :o)

April and May Tea Swaps remade

 

I was partnered up with Robyn in Hawaii, and needed to do something with a male theme (see Fran's open call here), so came up with the above cards, using Becky's Old Boots. The base back paper is actually from a paper back, that had nice print on it and the wooden like stripes are washi tape.

Create With TLC had this Mad Hatter (Alice in Wonderland) freebie image a few months back, which I thought was suitable for the pouch holding the tea for Robyn.

 

Now you might be wondering, why I am mentioning April's teaswap for Byron again - but actually both first attempt of the April and the May swaps did not reach Hawaii - and the May swap from Hawaii has not reached here either. Second attempt on both swaps made it last weekend after 3 weeks in transit - wierd as it used to be only 1 week transit despite the distance - wonder if the changed the mail routing?

Here are the card and tea pouch remade for Byron, in link above you can read what I used as image etc.

 

Flora Danica

 

 The four parkmuseums in Copenhagen are hosting Flora Danica exhibits.

 

Flora Danica - flowers of Denmark - 123 years in the making (1761-1883) with a huge collection of botanical drawings showing the Danish (and Norwegian, as Norway once was part of Denmark). Elaborate copper prints are well kept, and have been the source to lots of artists (painters, sculpteurs,pottery makers,  knitters etc).

 

The exhibits shows us some of the copper prints and art work throug time inspired bu the copper prints - or better yet natures own artistic curves and colors.

 

It was actually naked men - or an article about naked men in a local newspaper that made me pursue a visit to these exhibits.... yes NAKED MEN. It was a huge and cheerfull discussion between us ladies in my office that started it, and for once the guys (they outnumber us girls) dropped their jaws and refused to take parts in our discussions due to the topic.....

 

Or what their minds believe were the topics....

 

Admit it - you too were thinking that I have now turned the subject away from flowers, but I really havent :o)

 

It started with a colleague seeing a photo of a plant, where some of the flowers resemble naked men.... just a few days later we discovered the news about the exhibit, and here the botanical drawing of same flower was dipicted in the new paper..... ergo no hoax with photo shop on the Facebook photo, as there was the proof. Way back when the drawing was made, the botanist were quite surprise about this phenomenon. It an orchid by the way: orchis italica.

 

:o) Have a nice weekend

Vintage Day

During the weekend I went not far from my home to capture the following two buildings - love how the vintage look reminds us of old times - hidden gems in the city.

 

There was one... then another one.... and one more..... grabbed the camera in my bag and captured some the old cars passing by.... the were moving so some of the cars did not come out well on the snap shots, and wish that I had captured the first one, as that was a true beauty.... but at least I captured these :o)

Went out looking for something specific and got to see more vintage things than expected. Free surprises beat them all.

Close Knit Killer

Feels like coming home everytime I start reading a book about Kelly Flynn and her Lambspun friends - almost like you are there yourself in Fort Connor, Colorado.... that is what I like when reading books. However, I have one BIG problem when reading knitting mysteries: when I read I get the urge to knit and when I knit I want to read more pages in the book. I have seen some reading while knitting - and sadly I do not master that version of multi tasking..... sigh :o)

When Jared Rizzo returns to Fort Conner, he invokes bad memories and emotions in a lot of Fort Connor citizens, as he misled them years ago financially and ruined a lot of people's lives. He has paid his dept to society and has no nice words for those who confront him with the past - a person that makes you feel uncomfortable.

No murder mystery without a murder and Jared Rizzo is the victim? Who did it? A lot of people close to the Lambspun friends are suddenly possible suspects which triggers Kelly's habit for sleuthing when murders occurs in Fort Connor. All this while the House of Lambspun add more place to facilitate the yarn activities and we meet young Cassie for the first time

National Geographic 125 Years

 

Øksnehallen, Copenhagen, Denmark - one of only 3 places in the world commemorating the 125th anniversary of National Geographic with more than 100 photos (old and new) on display. I am one of them alway's WOW'ed when flipping through a National Geographic Magazine, so a visit to this exhibit was an absolute MUST.

Photos by Tim McCurry were present, historic photos etc. that just makes you speachless. These two photos were a real treat, as I had never seen them before:

 

Albatrosses at the South Georgia Island, 1977 - never knew that albatrosses can become 40 to 50+ years old.

Photographers: Des and Jen Bartlett

 

Borneo 1980 - the boy, Binti, is the son of primatologist Biruté Galdikas - look at that orangutang trying to avoid the soap :o)

Photographer: Rodney Brindamour



 

 

This is the cover from National Geographic July 2002 - one of my favourite covers (and I have that magazine) featuring the beautiful bald eagle - the magazine features the stunning photos by Norbert Rosing. Looking at this cover it almost seems like a painting with the vast shades etc. - yet knowing that it is a photo, enjoy that effect.

 

Whenever I spot a magazine with the signature yellow border, I just have to browse through the magazine, wether it is brand new or 30+ years old - the photos in there are a mix between timeless or a view into the then look of a city, country etc. But few realise, that some disliked when the first photos appeared in National Geographics magazines as they thought they were tabloid like that had no business in their scientific magazine. These days we regard these photos through the years as some of the best teachers as they capture things, that one never gets to see in real life.