Six Things, Volume 77

Everest | Illustrations | Two-shot | Mushrooms | Forebears | Spin

Sep 14, 2024

Thing 1 – Everest

Time moves forward (or at least that’s how we perceive it, and that’ll have to do for the moment, because while it’s altogether possible that it does something else entirely, we’re simply not capable of perceiving it in any other way, and there’s an overwhelming probability that this will remain the state of affairs until and unless we evolve into multi-dimensional beings, which at the time of writing seems a somewhat remote possibility.)

I’ll start again.

Time moves forward. Alarmingly, the rate at which it does this seems to increase as you get older. There are plenty of hypotheses out there trying to explain exactly why this is. Here’s one. And here’s another. You might want to read one or both of those, or you might not feel it’s a constructive use of your precious time, which, given the subject at hand, would be entirely understandable. Up to you. I shan’t judge.

Anyway. What I wanted to say was this.

The Olympics finished five weeks ago. Which is impossible, because in my mind they finished both yesterday and – thanks to the vagaries of our perception of time detailed above – a year ago.

Thinking about time messes with your head.

Whenever the Olympics come round I spend rather more of my precious time following them than is entirely sensible. And while doing so, I kid myself that this will be the beginning of a glorious new era of sports-watching.

‘Handball! I’m going to follow handball! I’ll become a handball aficionado!’

That was in 2012. No prizes for guessing what I didn’t become.

It’s just possible that climbing will be different. Climbing as a sport first floated onto my radar in 2021, when it made its Olympic debut (thanks to Outi for the tipoff). Back then I found it intriguing and bewildering in equal measure. But this time I was completely hooked.

The attributes required for a successful climber seem to be athleticism, strength, ingenuity and the dexterity of a mountain goat. I possess none of these, so naturally I’m fascinated by people who do. I would no more climb even the most unchallenging of walls than I would eat a Ford Fiesta, but show me someone else doing it – someone braced against a 20-degree overhang and clinging with the tip of their fingernail to a protuberance the size of a walnut – and I’m agog.

Perhaps that’s the attraction. While all Olympic sports are impossibly remote for the average couch turnip – pole vault, anyone? Nope, thought not – climbing is the one that is most completely beyond my ken.

I can propel a skateboard across an unimpeded floor and not fall off it.

I could, just about, run 10,000 metres. It would take me a couple of days, but I could do it.

Put me in a kayak and I might, merely by sitting absolutely still, be carried by the torrent far enough to be able to say I took part.

Climbing, though. Nope.

Nope nope nope.

And of course transfer the whole thing to a mountain and the nopes begin to multiply exponentially.

All of the above was prompted by this, a timelapse drone video of the journey to the top of Mount Everest.

It’s the only way to travel.

Incidentally, if you read the word ‘Everest’ with a short ‘e’ at the beginning (ˈɛvərɪst in IPA), then here’s why that’s wrong. And here’s why we should really be calling it either Chomolungma (Tibetan, meaning ‘Goddess, mother of the world’) or Sagarmatha (Nepali, meaning ‘Goddess of the sky’)

Finally, in case you were planning an excursion – nope x 35,000 – you might want to read this, the Deadly Geography of Mount Everest, first.

Thing 2 – Illustrations

Fans of commercial art will love delving into the Modern Illustration archive, the work of Lincoln-based illustrator Zara Picken. Starting as an Instagram account called Ephemerama, it features work from 1950 to 1975, and aims to ‘provide a source of inspiration and education for anyone with an interest in illustration’. Lovely stuff.

Thing 3 – Two-shot

As an enthusiastic film watcher but one whose knowledge of the craft is scant, I found this short film about the two-shot both entertaining and enlightening.

The YouTube channel behind it, Every Frame A Painting, is the work of Taylor Ramos and Tony Zhou. Apparently it’s extraordinarily popular and this film marks the end of an eight-year hiatus. I’d never heard of them until this week, which just goes to show something or other.

A bit more about them here.

Thing 4 – Mushrooms

Following on from last week’s feature on colours, and perfectly timed for the beginning of autumn and peak mushroom season, here (from Rob Walker’s The Art of Noticing) is the Mushroom Colour Atlas.

Thing 5 – Forebears

Here’s a fun little thing from Ray Newman which tells you how common your surname is (and, if you use the dropdown date menu, was).

No surprises in casa Parikian.

A propos of the rarity of my surname, I had an anecdote about how my father once met the only other man in the world with the name Manoug Parikian and he was the mayor of Plovdiv but that’s pretty much the extent of the anecdote so I won’t bother telling it.

Fun fact: there are no Wangs in Libya.

Thing 6 – Spin

There’s a certain childish pleasure to be derived (albeit, perhaps, only briefly) from the website Paint Spin. It pretty much does what it says. See if you can guess the point at which I got bored while making this one.