I've seen two things in the last couple of weeks that have unsettled me. Not disturbed, just unsettled. One was the Cow Leg Trouser from our marvellous Retroprogressive feature. The other was this story about artisanal pencil sharpening: "With an electric pencil sharpener, a pencil is meat," Rees said. "It's this ... Read More...
Month: August 2010
Emerson - Gathering Waterlillies, East Anglia 1886 - Getty Museum Dr. Peter Henry Emerson (1856-1936) was a Cuban-born, American-raised British surgeon, naturalist, meteorologist, bird-watcher, champion billiard player and, for which he is remembered, influential photographer. At a time when photographers were going to enormous lengths to recreate paintings – staging very artificial ... Read More...
In Anthony Burgess’ short story The Endless Voyager, a businessman throws away his passport and wallet mid-transit and, unable to enter any country, spends the rest of his life shuttling from airport to airport. He eventually goes mad. Today, of course, such a traveller might stave off purgatorial insanity by dabbling ... Read More...
Dabbler Country is The Dabbler's outdoorsy column. Today, Nige finds the nature-noter's perfect book... I think I've found the perfect bedside book, at least for those of us of an outdoor-loving disposition. It came to me via my Derbyshire cousin, who found it - of course - on the shelves ... Read More...
Being a retroprogressive site, The Dabbler approves of Youtube music videos about snail mail. For this week's music feature, here are four songs about letter-writing to help while away your Sunday afternoon... The Young/Heyman standard Love Letters is an unavoidable choice. It’s been rendered by scores of artists, notably Elvis in ... Read More...
Every Saturday, Susan Muncey - blogger, trend forecaster and founder-curator of the online curiosity shop, ShopCurious.com - brings you The Dabbler's style column RetroProgressive... Post recession shoppers do not wish to appear ostentatious, so luxury designer brands are paring down their logos and replacing them with more subtle designs, as part ... Read More...
Jim Morrison A 19-year old Morrison was arrested in 1963 for drunkenness and for the Bertie Woosterish theft of a policeman’s hat. Frank Sinatra In 1938, a 23-year-old Sinatra was arrested on charges of ‘seduction’ and ‘adultery’. His initial charge stated that: 'On the second and ninth days of November 1938 at the ... Read More...
By Frank Key Now the BBC's trio of Sherlock dramas has come to a close, and the critics have had their say, it is appropriate to note that it missed an opportunity. Why do writers feel they need to come up with entirely new stories when Conan Doyle – or ... Read More...
“Five miles meandering with a mazy motion Through wood and dale the sacred river ran, Then reach’d the caverns measureless to man, And sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean”. Samuel Taylor Coleridge The "secret river" has long been an obsession of dabblers, perhaps since the times when we lived in caves, and our ancestors ... Read More...
Class is in the news again: we're still all middle class, apparently (well, nearly all of us). Looking back we can trace how far those people formerly known as the upper classes have come. On Friday the 8th of October 1954 George Brown MP, son of a Southwark van driver, was on Any Questions? ... Read More...
