So this happened! I must admit to being very excited. If you want to read the full article on Queens of Vintage you can do so by clicking here or on the picture above.
A beautiful presentation – and quite to the point, for your style is indeed “effortless and unpretentious and simply very well put together.” So well said!
I must say that I find you subject of study most interesting. Forensic entomology – I didn’t even know the existence of it. But of course such a science also exists! And it made me think of the wonderful murder investigation in Hamlet (Act 4, Scene 3) in a new light – for in his own way Hamlet is really also an ‘entomological detective’, isn’t he:
KING Now, Hamlet, where's Polonius?
HAMLET At supper.
KING At supper! where?
HAMLET Not where he eats, but where he is eaten: a certain convocation of politic worms are e'en at him. Your worm is your only emperor for diet: we fat all creatures else to fat us, and we fat ourselves for maggots: your fat king and your lean beggar is but variable service, two dishes, but to one table: that's the end.
KING Alas, alas!
HAMLET A man may fish with the worm that hath eat of a king, and eat of the fish that hath fed of that worm.
KING What dost thou mean by this?
HAMLET Nothing but to show you how a king may go a progress through the guts of a beggar.
Now, Hamlet investigated the death of his father – but what made you pick up this morbid subject?
Thank you Jannie! Actually I quite enjoy Shakespeare but I've never read or seen Hamlet so I was interested to see this passage.
Prior to this year I was studying forensic science for 3 years and it was during this time I discovered that I really enjoy studying insects. I enjoy a lot of entomology, not just the forensic kind, but I decided to carry on studying in a forensic discipline. It can be a little bit morbid I suppose, but I'm hoping after I finish studying to go into university lecturing and research so my work will be more lab-based and hopefully not involve going out to crime scenes.
I have an entomology tag in my side bar if you want to see some of the other things I get up to involving insects :)
You are embarking on the same kind of career that I’m into, only I don’t study insects ☺ Well, to be more precise, I actually sometimes do come across insects, but from the slightly different angle of poetics and not forensics. Years ago, I worked with a horrendously surrealist play called “The Mosquito Bite”; and one of the beautiful poems in contemporary Danish poetry that I have also been working with is the brilliant crown of sonnets by Inger Christensen: “The Valley of Butterflies”. If you are interested, you can find an online English translation by John Irons at: http://johnirons.com/pdfs/butterfliesIC.pdf
Hamlet…! What shall I say…? If maggots mean anything to you, you must definitely see the play ☺
Personally, I really like the 1964 Broadway live tv-production directed by John Gielgud with Richard Burton as Hamlet. Much has been said about the striking number of weak and paralyzed young male protagonists in Shakespeare’s dramas (sometimes they are seen as an autofictional element, at other times as a sympthom of modernity heralding the crisis of patricarhy). Burton’s Hamlet, however, is not a whimpering, but on the contrary an interestingly dangerous character full of strong and conflicting undercurrents in soul and mind. In addition Burton acts whith an absolutely incredible degree of expressive force and vocal control…! The play can be downloaded for almost nothing from Amazon (I have also seen it for download at http://thepiratebay.sx/torrent/7082197/).
Your insect photos are fantastic. When enlarged, flies and mosquitoes look more like futuristic hyper-technological sci-fi spacecrafts than the small irritatingly noisy creatures that you clash with your hands on warm summer days.
O, I’m so happy that you liked the poem. In my opinion John Iron’s translation is also very good and actually manages to capture a lot of the complex texture of (paradoxical) thought, visual imagery, sound and rhythm, emotion and atmosphere – but of course a work like this can never be fully rendered in a different language. I suppose it would take a little more than a couple of lessons in Danish to be able to read it in the original version… ☺
![Vintage Queen Number 134](http://i43.tinypic.com/2ywej5l.png")
8 comments
Huzzah! You totally deserve it!
ReplyDeletexo Sara
A beautiful presentation – and quite to the point, for your style is indeed “effortless and unpretentious and simply very well put together.” So well said!
ReplyDeleteI must say that I find you subject of study most interesting. Forensic entomology – I didn’t even know the existence of it. But of course such a science also exists! And it made me think of the wonderful murder investigation in Hamlet (Act 4, Scene 3) in a new light – for in his own way Hamlet is really also an ‘entomological detective’, isn’t he:
KING
Now, Hamlet, where's Polonius?
HAMLET
At supper.
KING
At supper! where?
HAMLET
Not where he eats, but where he is eaten: a certain
convocation of politic worms are e'en at him. Your
worm is your only emperor for diet: we fat all
creatures else to fat us, and we fat ourselves for
maggots: your fat king and your lean beggar is but
variable service, two dishes, but to one table:
that's the end.
KING
Alas, alas!
HAMLET
A man may fish with the worm that hath eat of a
king, and eat of the fish that hath fed of that worm.
KING
What dost thou mean by this?
HAMLET
Nothing but to show you how a king may go a
progress through the guts of a beggar.
Now, Hamlet investigated the death of his father – but what made you pick up this morbid subject?
Thank you Jannie! Actually I quite enjoy Shakespeare but I've never read or seen Hamlet so I was interested to see this passage.
DeletePrior to this year I was studying forensic science for 3 years and it was during this time I discovered that I really enjoy studying insects. I enjoy a lot of entomology, not just the forensic kind, but I decided to carry on studying in a forensic discipline. It can be a little bit morbid I suppose, but I'm hoping after I finish studying to go into university lecturing and research so my work will be more lab-based and hopefully not involve going out to crime scenes.
I have an entomology tag in my side bar if you want to see some of the other things I get up to involving insects :)
You are embarking on the same kind of career that I’m into, only I don’t study insects ☺ Well, to be more precise, I actually sometimes do come across insects, but from the slightly different angle of poetics and not forensics. Years ago, I worked with a horrendously surrealist play called “The Mosquito Bite”; and one of the beautiful poems in contemporary Danish poetry that I have also been working with is the brilliant crown of sonnets by Inger Christensen: “The Valley of Butterflies”. If you are interested, you can find an online English translation by John Irons at: http://johnirons.com/pdfs/butterfliesIC.pdf
ReplyDeleteHamlet…! What shall I say…? If maggots mean anything to you, you must definitely see the play ☺
Personally, I really like the 1964 Broadway live tv-production directed by John Gielgud with Richard Burton as Hamlet. Much has been said about the striking number of weak and paralyzed young male protagonists in Shakespeare’s dramas (sometimes they are seen as an autofictional element, at other times as a sympthom of modernity heralding the crisis of patricarhy). Burton’s Hamlet, however, is not a whimpering, but on the contrary an interestingly dangerous character full of strong and conflicting undercurrents in soul and mind. In addition Burton acts whith an absolutely incredible degree of expressive force and vocal control…! The play can be downloaded for almost nothing from Amazon (I have also seen it for download at http://thepiratebay.sx/torrent/7082197/).
Your insect photos are fantastic. When enlarged, flies and mosquitoes look more like futuristic hyper-technological sci-fi spacecrafts than the small irritatingly noisy creatures that you clash with your hands on warm summer days.
I really enjoyed reading that poem, the language is gorgeous. I only wish I could read the original version as well.
DeleteI hope I can get a new camera soon and do some more of this kind of photography, it's so interesting.
And back to Hamlet again: I'm looking it up on Amazon right now!
O, I’m so happy that you liked the poem. In my opinion John Iron’s translation is also very good and actually manages to capture a lot of the complex texture of (paradoxical) thought, visual imagery, sound and rhythm, emotion and atmosphere – but of course a work like this can never be fully rendered in a different language. I suppose it would take a little more than a couple of lessons in Danish to be able to read it in the original version… ☺
DeleteWhat an incredible honor to be on that list up there with all of the other best vintage bloggers :D Congratulations!!!!
ReplyDeleteI am so ecstatically happy for you, honey! What a well deserved, awesome honour - and note to (all but) cap 2013 off on.
ReplyDeleteTons of joyful hugs!!!
♥ Jessica