How to be a Dandy

I bought this book from the museum shop when I saw the Dardel exhibition, and I thought I'd share a few pictures from it. Dandyism is alive and well in the modern age, as you can see.

Don't these gents look très élégants?

Source: I am Dandy: The Return of the Elegant Gentleman by Rose Callahan and Nathaniel Adams

Etymology Expeditions: The Dandy

Dandyism was about cultivating a certain aesthetic, appreciating beauty, satisfying one's passions, and a sort of aristocratic intellectual superiority. As Oscar Wilde, a famous dandy in his day, said: "One should either be a work of art, or wear a work of art."

The word dandy is from the 1780s, with origins uncertain. According to the Online Etymology Dictionary, it originally appeared in this Scottish ballad:

"I've heard my granny crack
O' sixty twa years back
When there were sic a stock of Dandies O"

In that region, dandy is a diminutive of Andrew. Dandy might also be a shortened form of the 17th century jack-a-dandy, meaning conceited fellow.

Can a woman be a dandy? Sure! There's even a special word for it: cointrelle, even though dandyess and dandizette were used briefly. Cointrelle comes from the word coint, meaning a skillfully made thing.

Sources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dandy
              http://www.etymonline.com
              http://cointrelle.com/

How Writers Write Fiction Week 4: Using Character to Produce Frame and Arc

                    

This week we talked about how different points of view affect a narrative. There's lots to consider when choosing your POV character. To illustrate this, we wrote the same scene from two points of view, a useful exercise. Some of the peer reviews were actually pretty difficult, because we were asked to pick the scene we thought worked better. For many of the critiques, both viewpoints worked well, and it was a matter of where the story was going rather than which scene was better. That's the fun part: you get to pick whose truth will be told in the story. Unreliable narrators are quite fun to do.

Another thing I liked was how the different characters focused on different things. Some objects became significant (or charged), but they weren't the same objects for both of the characters. They didn't notice the same details, or interpret the same situation in the same way.

We also discussed the point of telling, or where to start your story. That can be a tricky thing, but I can see how the story can act as a frame for an idea, or how the story arc can feel incomplete if you pick the wrong point in time to start your tale.

Definitely something to think about.

So much to learn, so little time...

Mothership Zeta Issue 1 Is Out!

... And I have a story in it called "The Customer Is Always Right."

Check it out here: http://mothershipzeta.org/

The Fabulous Worlds of Nils Dardel

I try to go on inspiration dates (or "trawling for stories") as often as I can, and this time I ended up at the Turku Art Museum. They're showing a special exhibition of Nils Dardel's art until 17th Jan 2016. I went to check it out and fell in love with the vibrant colours, the absurd humour, and the wonderful detail in Dardel's work.   

Nils Dardel (1888-1943) was a Swedish painter and dandy. In 1910 he made his first trip to Paris and became acquainted with the avant-garde movement. His style includes aspects of symbolism, naïvism, and surrealism, but it's very much his own and feels very unique. Some of his most famous works include The Dying Dandy, Visit to an Eccentric Lady, and Crime Passionnel.

Dardel contracted scarlet fever when he was seventeen, which resulted in a chronic heart condition, and this presence of death shows in his work as well as his life. He seems to have lived every day as if it were his last; heavy drinking and a full social calendar were very much a part of his life. He also made many trips around the world, visiting Japan, the United States, and South America, among others. Some of his biographers say that this was his way of turning a blind eye to the horrors of war, as the travels took place during the First and Second World War. 

Dardel was a storyteller. He wasn't satisfied with reality as it was, but brought aspects of dream and fantasy into his work. That's something that resonates deeply with me. 

This is the man himself. Handsome devil, isn't he? 

Here are some of his paintings (All images are from Moderna Museet's book Nils Dardel and the Modern Age):

Crime Passionnel

Dandy with a Sword

Dance of Death (Death and the Girl)

Sources: Nils Dardel and the Modern Age from Moderna Museet

Turku Art Museum website

A Night Out With Two Raucous Devils

Yesterday I went on a local ghost walk Tarinoita varjoisilta kujilta (Stories From Shady Alleys, the Halloween edition). I never knew there were so many ghosts fluttering around Turku. 

From the old washer woman who beat two children to death after they smeared soot on her clean linens one time too many to the ghost of Aleksis Kivi appearing at Turun Kaupunginteatteri to see a production of the play he wrote, these guys had it all. 

That building behind our host is an old water tower where the Reds chained up war prisoners to die during the Finnish civil war. 

Some of the "jumper-outers" joined the two devils for an amazing fire show.

They juggled, spun fiery chains, one even jumped rope with the rope in flames!

All in all, a very enjoyable night out. 

The event page on visitturku.fi says that they'll be continuing the walking tours next summer (last night's tour was a special Halloween version of the regular tour), so definitely go if you have the chance.  

Terribleminds Challenge: A Scary Story In Three Sentences

Halloween fun on Terribleminds today. Here's my story, and you can check out the rest here.

The creature is here; I can smell its fetid stench, rotting meat and engine oil, hear the whisper of its claws on the plascrete. I slam the dermspray into my thigh, and poison burns through my veins like ice. Time for your last meal, you bastard.