Wednesday

Books for Time Travellers








See you at the Asylum, Lincoln, Westgate trading, this August bank holiday 2017. xx


Saturday

Found: Notebook

Busy stitching note books for the 2017 Steampunk Asylum at Lincoln. And now I have a lovely new research project! Weaselling references to notebooks in late Victorian literature.

Here, from Jules Verne, A Journey to the Centre of the Earth (version 1864): we learn that Professor Lidenbrock keeps notes, very precisely, in his notebook:

'my uncle drew from his pocket a small notebook, intended for scientific observations. He consulted his instruments, and recorded: Monday, July 1. Chronometer, 8.17 a.m.; barometer, 297 in.; thermometer, 6° (43°F.). Direction, E.S.E.'

Axel, his nephew, and a traveller on the journey into the earth, is also a wonderfully attentive notemaker:

'I took out my notebook, from which under the most desperate circumstances I never parted'

I want to get hold of these notebooks, so I can read the jottings such as the calculations of their depth into the earth:

"Calculate away, my boy."
"Nothing easier," said I, pulling out my notebook and pencil. "Nine times one hundred and twenty-five feet make a depth of eleven hundred and twenty-five feet."
"Archimedes could not have spoken more geometrically."
"Well?"
"Well, according to my observations, we are at least ten thousand feet below the level of the sea."

Now, who wouldn't want to hold a notebook composed on a journey to the centre of the earth?

Contains the jottings: Chronometer 8.17 a.m; Barometer 297 in; Thermometer, 6° (43°F). Direction, E.S.E.


Bears the name, Professor Lidenbrock.

Tuesday

Your Antidote to Facebook and Twitter


The more we're forced to live in this online, digitised world - under pressure to display our every thought while persuaders convince us that ownership of things is so old fashioned - the more I want to flee to a different world.

I want a world where physicality and sensuality matters; where I have the moment in my day to handle those small objects through which I can tell myself stories of the world. A key, a ring, a fragment of a letter in another hand. I want a private place to rest, to remember what's important: balance myself, consider why I choose the way I do. To think.


I want not to tell the world those moments. I want not a world compelling me to constantly account for thoughts, desires, beliefs, mistakes. I want not a world which tells me then to improve, behave, reorder, re-create to another, better set of rules.

I want a world that can be mine, just for me, for that quiet moment, privately.

Thursday

Otherwise known as 'Writer'

Time Sharper: One who watches, records, guiles observations to cash. In recording behaviours, traits, common parlances, the Time Sharper provides chronicles which repeat and re-loop time. Time Sharpers are thus capable of disturbing the mind-temporal balance. Sought after in some looser societies and regulated in others. The Time Sharper's Note Book is an essential tool of this problematic trade.

Wednesday

Book of the Day

Bone Doxy: Lady Archaeologist. Bone Doxy's Note Book for field and river scrummaging, last night discovered, waiting collection. With bones.