Monday 19 November 2007

parenthood, oh joy!

I'm waiting for the call to go and get Wee Cal from the hospital. He has been in there since he broke his arm (third time) three days ago. At least he's in better shape than the laddie in the next bed, who took a notion to jump off the roof into the swimming pool but slipped.


That's me and Wee Cal as drawn by Holbein in the Praise of Folly. We are depicted at precisely the moment when the lad asked me to buy him his first skateboard. Note the artist's masterful stroke in showing the son standing firm, with legs apart while the father is caught somewhat off-balance with his feet misaligned. Notice also how Holbein depicts the father's hand going instinctively to protect his wallet.

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11 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Tell him to get a haircut so he can see where he's going.

19 November 2007 at 17:58:00 GMT-5  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Wow, three times, not bad. As a notoriously clumsy child myself I must say arms are much much better then jaws... Jumping off the roof into the swimming pool was luckily one of the very few things I was smart enough to not try though.

As a side note, when he tells you he's going to build something called a "street luge" make sure you have the ambulance standing by!

19 November 2007 at 19:09:00 GMT-5  
Blogger Unknown said...

My sister-in-law has a son, Geoffrey, who's 19 now, but when he was 16 she learned that his friends had a nick-name for him: Geoff No.

She braced one of his pals and asked where this nickname came from. He hesitated for several moments and then confessed, "because we're always telling him, 'Geoff, NO!'"

19 November 2007 at 23:50:00 GMT-5  
Blogger Peeboo said...

Eddie,

Has anyone mentioned a 'From Hell' sighting on The Simpsons?

20 November 2007 at 03:57:00 GMT-5  
Blogger Hayley Campbell said...

ARF!

Poor boy. Imagine being 15 and breaking yer wanking arm.

20 November 2007 at 04:16:00 GMT-5  
Blogger Eddie Campbell said...

From hell on the Simpsons?

we were in one of the comic books,

http://eddiecampbell.blogspot.com/2006/12/tumbling-into-madame-tussauds.html

but I've never seen it mentioned on the tv.

and... arf! indeed.

20 November 2007 at 05:30:00 GMT-5  
Blogger Eddie Campbell said...

geoff no.

that's funny.

20 November 2007 at 05:54:00 GMT-5  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

OK, I have no idea where my previously posted comment went, so here's trying again:

Hi, I'm a frequent reader of your fascinating blog (RSS to Livejournal) and I wondered about something concerning the Holbein drawings in your latest posts.

I noticed a lot of red in-between scribbles that seem to have nothing in common with the actual drawings. Did Holbein actually draw those later into/above his drawings or is it the work of a bored Erasmus-studying lad (which might be the fact given the underlined (Greek) words or the marked passages)? I guess that would make the edition they preserved in Basel a so called secondhand book...;-)

Any idea?

Thanks, lutos

20 November 2007 at 12:13:00 GMT-5  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Hi Eddie,

I'm enjoying the Holbeins (and indeed hayley's mirth at her sibling's suffering).

Off topic as ever here's a link to Joh Sutherland talking about Alasdair Gray's Lanark, 'Text as Illustration'. I'm a little surprised Gray hasn't cropped up here before. You may want his stuff on your list of prose works that combine images in unconventional ways. His Poor Things is another example if I remember correctly.

http://books.guardian.co.uk/bookclub/story/0,,2212333,00.html

Best,

Ben Smith

20 November 2007 at 12:42:00 GMT-5  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

John Sutherland that should have been.

Ben Smith

20 November 2007 at 12:43:00 GMT-5  
Blogger Eddie Campbell said...

the red scribbles seem to be by another hand. Holbein's schoolmaster was part of the humanist circle in Basel, and gave the decorated book to Erasmus. The biggest source of info on the book that i have is the slim volume that accompanies the facsimile in the same slipcase, but it is in German. I don't think anybody knows for sure.

22 November 2007 at 06:55:00 GMT-5  

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