Wednesday 20 February 2013

A Shocking Ramble



Shocking!
Fanny (Frederick) and Stella (Ernest), two male cross-dressers who shocked Victorian London in the mid-1870s.


 Shocking – The Sixties


 Equally Shocking…
This is the Skull Chapel in Czermna, Poland.  It’s the only such place in Poland and one of three in Europe. It holds the bodies of the people who died in the 30 Years War, the Silesian wars and epidemics.



Surely Shockingly Uncomfortable
Surely shockingly uncomfortable to sit down in.  This is Tilda Swinton as Orlando, photographed by Karl Lagerfeld for Vogue, July 1993.  The story of Orlando begins in the Elizabethan age and ends in the present day (that being 1928 in Woolf’s book and 1992 in the film version).

Shockingly Neglected
The nyckelharpa is the most ethereal of instruments, nearly lost to the world but kept safe in a small region of Sweden.


The nyckelharpa (literally "key harp", plural nyckelharpor), sometimes called a keyed fiddle, is a traditional Swedish musical instrument. It is a string instrument or chordophone. Its keys are attached to tangents which, when a key is depressed, serve as frets to change the pitch of the string.

The nyckelharpa is similar in appearance to a fiddle or the bowed Byzantine lira. Structurally, it is more closely related to the hurdy gurdy, both employing key-actuated tangents to change the pitch. The nyckelharpa and its tonal range appear on the reverse of the Swedish 50 kronor banknote.  A depiction of two instruments, possibly but not confirmed as nyckelharpor, can be found in a relief dating from circa 1350 on one of the gates of Källunge church on Gotland.

Shockingly  Endangered
These are said to be the top ten most endangered animal species (by which is meant, I assume, species of bird, mammal, reptile / amphibian) 

1.Ivory-Billed Woodpecker
A North American bird so endangered it may actually be extinct

2.Amur Leopard
The world’s rarest cat: Only 40 left in Russia’s Far East

3. Javan Rhinoceros
No more than 60 of these swamp-dwelling Asian rhinos exist

4. Northern Sportive Lemur
Here’s the scarcest of Madagascar’s fast-dwindling lemur species.

5. Northern Right Whale
Hunted to near extinction, 350 right whales still swim the Atlantic

6. Western Lowland Gorilla
Disease and illegal hunting are taking an alarming toll on this gentle giant of a primate

7. Leatherback Sea Turtle
The population of the world’s largest turtle is dropping at an alarming rate

8. Siberian (or Amur) Tiger
The world’s biggest cat weighs as much as 300 kilos (660 pounds)

9. Chinese Giant Salamander
Humans are eating the world’s largest amphibian into extinction

10. The Little Dodo Bird
Samoa’s little dodo bird is in immanent danger of following the large dodo into extinction.
 

Whatever memories the day may bring, whatever hopes it may bring, have a shockingly good day, fellow bloglings!

10 comments:

  1. Oddly I've come across a nyckelharpa before although I can't remember where or when. There are plenty of YouTube offerings.

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  2. I had no idea that the long-extinct dodo has a little brother! Hopefully, at least that one can be saved from extinction.

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  3. Great post!! Some things seemed more shocking at the time I bet than they would be nowadays... I loved the skull chapel! (That from someone who has a little animal skull collection, all found on walks.)

    And the Right Whales come to the coast of Georgia to give birth. They are far off the coast, so you can't see them from the beach, but it's nice to know they are there.

    Hope you are doing well!! xoxo Silke

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  4. Shocking! I think that skull chapel would creep me out and one of the cross dressers actually looks like a woman and the other one you can kind of tell its a man.

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  5. Wonderful as Tilda Swinton looks.....I'm grateful that I don't have go further than admire her dressed like that. The sixties are much more my style.

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  6. i have to say this post is shocking!

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  7. I had to dig deep, but did post a photo of a nyckelharpa once... or actually more than one here They're actually not uncommon in Swedish folk music, I think they've had a bit of revival in the late 1900s.

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  8. Very interesting post.

    The Ivory Billed Woodpecker is about the size of a crow or small raven. It's not as easy to recognize as you might think; I'm told you must look for the characteristic shape of the head and neck, combined with the white on its wings. It is thought to be extinct, but there have been recent unconfirmed sightings in the bayou swamps of Louisiana.

    Although there are plenty of ornithologists (both amateur and professional) who would like to mount a serious expedition to find and photograph the elusive Ivory Billed Woodpecker, the bird's natural habitat is hazardous to the health of anyone who isn't part Cajun and part alligator. Be it flora or fauna, if it's tough, irritating and poisonous, it's represented in that swamp - and that's just the stuff we know about. There's also the swamp monster, a kind of bigfoot creature that lives back in the swamp and resents intruders. It's hairy, over seven feet tall and it uses tools. Clubs, mainly.

    Me, I'm staying in town. Them as goes back into that swamp can just tell me what they find. If they come back out, that is.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Very interesting post.

    The Ivory Billed Woodpecker is about the size of a crow or small raven. It's not as easy to recognize as you might think; I'm told you must look for the characteristic shape of the head and neck, combined with the white on its wings. It is thought to be extinct, but there have been recent unconfirmed sightings in the bayou swamps of Louisiana.

    Although there are plenty of ornithologists (both amateur and professional) who would like to mount a serious expedition to find and photograph the elusive Ivory Billed Woodpecker, the bird's natural habitat is hazardous to the health of anyone who isn't part Cajun and part alligator. Be it flora or fauna, if it's tough, irritating and poisonous, it's represented in that swamp - and that's just the stuff we know about. There's also the swamp monster, a kind of bigfoot creature that lives back in the swamp and resents intruders. It's hairy, over seven feet tall and it uses tools. Clubs, mainly.

    Me, I'm staying in town. Them as goes back into that swamp can just tell me what they find. If they come back out, that is.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Son who loves Safari's has just seen the almost extinct Gorilla's of Rwanda.

    ReplyDelete

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