Yesterday's Mysteries Unravelled

In yesterdays Silly Photo Challenge I added a little guessing game of my own, challenging my readers to guess the original purpose of two different stones that I had taken photos of. I gave the clue that both stones are found in a museum park and each did serve a special purpose in the past. But what purposes?

I got a few guesses. Most popular were the ideas of the round one being a grinding stone and the flat one perhaps used to cover a well. Neither of these suggestions came close to the real answers:



This is a Lifting Stone from the early 19th century. This was before the days of Gyms and Barbells; but lifting heavy things seems always to have been a popular game or challenge among young men. The original place for this particular lifting stone was where three roads met. Lifting stones were often placed at the side of a road like that. Sometimes big crowds gathered to witness contests who was able to lift the stone the highest. This was also a way of proving your competence when applying for a job! Lifting stones were always rounded in shape on purpose to make it extra hard to get a good grip on the stone.




This is a Bridal Stone. It was placed just outside the wall surrounding the churchyard. After the ceremony in the church, the bride and groom stood on this stone to be looked at by the people of the village, while music was played and preparations made for their horse-and-carriage ride back home. Records show that this particular stone was used for the purpose as late as in 1820, in its original place. The church in the museum park (which has been moved there from somewhere else) is still a poplular wedding church. I'm not sure whether the bridal stone is still used, too. It is still customary for bride and groom to stand for a while outside the church, while people line up to congratulate them (and take photos). I guess that a special stone to stand on was also a good way to avoid getting the wedding shoes all muddy in bad weather! (Although getting "cold feet" about the whole thing might be a little too late to think of after the ceremony was already over...)



View of the old wooden church in the museum park. In front of it you see a midsummer pole (maypole); the leaves and flowers all withered because the pole is decorated for Midsummer and this photo was taken in August. See my Midsummer's Eve post from last year.

Silly Photo Challenge

On 15 June Sandra = MadSnapper and her friend SquirrelQueen are encouraging us to post SILLY PHOTOS on our blogs and link them to SquirrelQueen’s post at The Road To Here.

SILLY defined as “silly, crazy, blooper, or just simple mistakes”.

I’m afraid most of my bad pictures tend to be just boringly bad, rather than haha-silly.

… like my attempts to take photos of birds very high up in trees. (Why do I even try?!)

… lion cubs at the zoo; with a crowd of other photographers between me and the cage.

… duck running towards me. (Help!)

… my brother’s dog, enjoying the sun.

Silly Or Not? 

Two stones that you might well ask yourself why I bothered to take photos of. In fact both pictures were taken in a museum park, and both stones were used for different purposes in the past. Have a guess if you like - and you might as well dare go a bit silly...! I will give the answers tomorrow.

1.

2.

For a different kind of “silly” post, visit my DawnTreader’s Picture Book blog today, post entitled At The Zoo.

Quotation of the Week (24/2010)

“To have in general but little feeling, seems to be the only security against feeling too much on any particular occasion.”

George Eliot (1819-1880)

Guess Who?

  

 

If you have been following my previous posts from the sculpture festival, you should be able to guess the artist behind these smaller… er… works of art, I suppose… ;) that I found exhibited in an art gallery. *

Well. Not all of them small…

Try putting that giraffe in a park and pretend it’s not meant as a toy…!

 Fans of the artist

 Click to enlarge

* If you have not been following, you will find some additional information here.

 

Sunset Clouds

View from one of my windows.

Sign, please!

http://btt2.wordpress.com/2010/06/10/signature/

Do signed copies excite you? Tempt you? Delight you?
Or does it not matter to you?

I haven't really had the chance to get a lot of books signed by the author. I would not travel far and stand in queue for hours to get a book (or anything else) signed; or pay a lot of extra money for it. But if I had the opportunity to get a book signed by an author I admire, I'd be delighted.

Right now I can only recall two books that I got signed in connection with buying them. Not by extremely famous authors, but people that I've listened and talked to. One of them taught a one-week creative writing class that I attended back in the 90s. The book was a children's picture book to which he had written the story. That one I bought just as memory of a very inspirational week. The other occasion was a year or two ago - and now I'm reminded I haven't even read that book yet. (I think I might pick it up next, after the one I'm reading now...) It's a novel written by a woman pastor which I bought in connection with a lecture she was giving. I had previously read devotional articles and poems by her, and heard her speak a few times before as well.

With those two books, it does add something extra to have them signed by the author, because the signatures also remind me of the occasions and circumstances when I bought them.

Portrait

 

Hani by Anne-Karin Furunes

Another piece of art which is included in the Sculpture Festival.

Anne-Karin Furunes is a Norwegian artist known for using perforation technique. Her works are based on photographs, but consist of a perforated black or white canvas (or sheet of metal). Most frequently the image is an extreme close-up of a face. As one approaches the image, it begins to fade and ultimately disappear.

This picture has been up on that wall for a while – perhaps a year? I never heard anyone comment on it. To me it is kind of thought provoking that the place they have chosen for it is on the back wall of our public swimming hall.

---

In my childhood, we had some immigrants in my school and neighbourhood, but they all came from other European countries. Most of them from Finland, but also some from Eastern and Southern Europe. There were some language difficulties, but they did not look or dress different. I can only remember one case where religion became an issue. During my first few school years in the 60s we went to school also on Saturdays. Then one day we got a Jewish boy to the class, who could not attend school on Saturdays because that for him was the Sabbath. I don’t remember how they solved it. Extra homework I suppose…

Our society has become a bit more international since then. Women wearing headdresses of Muslim kind for example is no longer an uncommon sight in our streets. It is still an issue in some jobs though, whether employees should be allowed to wear veils or turbans.

A few years ago when I had to go to the emergency room at the hospital, one of the doctors that took care of me was wearing a veil like the one in the picture. I think that was the first time I saw any medical staff wearing it. I have to say in that particular situation it did not matter to me what anyone looked like, only if they could help!

Language can be a real problem though. We get a lot of foreign doctors. I’m sure most of them are excellent at their job, and we should be grateful that they want to come and work here (or else we should find ourselves –even more- short of doctors). Nonetheless, it is problematic when doctor and patient can’t understand what the other is saying. My last experience of that was my visit to the eye clinic recently. There was this doctor with a foreign accent, and he kept asking me something over and over which I just completely failed to understand because of his pronunciation. I think we both felt equally stupid. Luckily there was another doctor who was there on some kind of internship – she stepped in and acted as “interpreter”…

I have no idea where I’m going with all this – nowhere at all really. Looking at the portrait just sent my thoughts out on a ramble…

Probably means it’s a good piece of artwork!