When she turned around, I saw only a small fragment of the tattoo on her back. But I told her that I was guessing she had a tattoo of the Golden Spiral. I was right and she revealed the whole tattoo to me. Best one I have seen in a while.

On the other hand, it was she that led me to Svankmajer's Otik, which I found dissapointing. It was strange but didnt have that inspired infusion of strangeness which made his film of Alice in Wonderland so absorbing and so brilliant. In Alice, the girl traveled through a series of rooms, a wooden labyrinth. The caterpillar was rendered as a sock in a room full of socks which had created holes and tunnels through which they squirmed madly like frantic earthworms.

Still, this sounds promising:

iW: Do you have any new projects that you are working on?

Svankmajer: Yes, I do. I have two projects. I finished writing a new script called "Madness" that combines live action and animation. It is freely based on motifs from the stories by E. A. Poe and from the philosophical works of Marquis de Sade. It will be a kind of philosophical horror film.

I am a regular visitor to Paxton Gate. The inventory resembles that of an ancient wunderkammer. You can buy Venus Flytraps, old faded bottles, taxidermical wonders, handmade scissors, mink penis bones, enormous walking stick insects or anything else you might need as an ingredient in a magic potion.

I have bought iridescent butterflies there as (luminous) gifts. Yesterday I was there looking for a cricket cage. They only had some expensive ones made of bone so I will try my luck at Chinatown. But while conducting some online research about cricket cages I stumbled upon the Cultural Entomology Digest.

Near him two foxes: down the row of grapes
One ranging steals the ripest, one assails
With wiles the poor lad's scrip, to leave him soon
Stranded and supportless. "He plaits meanwhile then
With ears of corn a right fine cricket cage,
and fits it on a rush: for vines, for scrip,
Little he cares, enamored of his toy."

Theokritos (250 BC)

There are indications of a Greek Cricket culture and a fascination with singing insects which were carried around I suppose as a form of acoustic ornament.

blueplate

Friday was the perfect day to eat outdoors. M. and I grabbed a table at the little-known garden behind the restaurant Blue Plate. The above picture was taken with a cameraphone.