achromatic mary

I haven't blogged recently. It's because I'm mostly hung up on varsity work, or procrastination due to freaking out about how much varsity work I have to do (this is not helpful). This year I'm doing my Honours in Philosophy at Wits University - it's really interesting but super difficult, especially this semester as I've got to get cracking on my thesis (or long research essay). Even though it's much more complicated than it appears at first, my topic has some intuitive appeal. Read the following story and think about it yourself.

for the love of fonts

Typeface and typography can be such a beautiful means of conveying an idea or a mood. I like knowing that a font isn't just a means to convey written language, but can be beautiful all on it's own, or - as the following will show - interpreted into something completely new. Here are some creative examples of typography gone wild.

wedding choices

If you didn't already know, I'm getting married in January. It's going to be a small, simple, and hopefully beautiful event in a remote part of Limpopo, surrounded by woods and vistas. Planning weddings, however, is not very simple. There are lots of options these days - it isn't just a choice between this or that Methodist church or this or that table setting. One confusion culprit is Pinterest. SO. MANY. IDEAS. All of the following can be found on my wedding pinterest board. Here are a couple that are annoying me (but only because they're so good I can't choose between them):

photography can be bizzare

When I was a kid, my dad always used to buy disposable cameras for me and my brother when we went on holidays. This purchase usually resulted in A LOT of stupid photos, often of the same thing and often from a blurry distance (one reel was JUST photos of donkeys - seriously, who was I?). Well, it was my birthday last month, and Natasha bought me a disposable camera. The 20-odd photos were quickly snapped in that old-timey wind-and-shoot way that reminded me of simpler times, before selfies and instagram.

I'm no photographer. But I am an aspiring hipster, so I have a Diana F+ film camera (thanks for the gift, bro) that makes photos not only expensive to shoot but nigh-impossible to get right (especially if you have a "oh just take the flippin' photo" attitude like I do). Still, it's fun. After getting Tash's film developed, I decided to enlighten my blog about some weird camera stuff that's out there. Here are four photographic devices that puzzle and delight me.

crimes against hugh's manatees

I confess to spending way too much time wandering around the internet, but I try to think of it less as wasted time and more as time spent expanding my creative horizons. That little lie works best when I find beautiful things online - and tumblr is such a good source. I follow a variety of picture-blogs there, from the always-entertaining web news blog the daily what  to the evocative poet Sierra DeMulder. I also follow Hugh D. Crawford's hilarious crimes against hugh's manatees, one of my fave FAVE webcomics. He's flippin' hilarious. His cut-out critters are so existentially hopeless it makes them too endearing for words. Check out some of my favourites below, and check out the tumblr (linked above) for more info.

my guitar kids

I flipping adore teaching these two kids - Dylan and Kacy, aged 11 and 6 respectively.

I'm an intern at a high school, and it's the best place for finding clients. These two are the highlight of my Wednesday afternoons. I only take them for 30 minutes (can a kid under 10 really do anything for longer than 30 minutes?) but they're always so hyped up on life that our time seems to fly and drag all at once. Between trying to get them to practice F,  our lessons are commentated by a non-stop stream of the gross jokes that are circulating Dylan's class, and frequently interrupted by Kacy's gymnastics (the girl cannot sit still, to her adorable credit). We end every session with a strange game that involves at least one foot race and two complicated additions to rock-paper-scissors. Last week it was a water-bomb fight (loosely put: they had no water bombs. They just gulped up water and spat it at one another).

Regardless, I love these two. One day they might learn how to actually play guitar.

Dylan as a "cool kid" - the guitar adds 10 points