Here’s to you, A Handful of History - 5 creative things on history I thought were worth sharing. Enjoy!
ELVIS. So during this (corona) summer my husband and I spent a happy week driving through the western part of Denmark. I discovered that here, far away from the bustling cities and the noisy highway roads you find passionate people with wonderfully crazy ideas (how great is that!). One of them is Henrik Knudsen, the founder of the “Memphis Mansion” which is a true copy of the house Elvis lived in during his years as a professional musician. Inside is a museum that takes you through original Elvis objects - all from music instruments, jewelry, and costumes to cars, photos, and Elvis-merchandise (next to a pair of white suede shoes, a sign tells that the right shoe is a half size bigger than the left shoe since Elvis then suffered from an ingrown toenail...👀). The mansion is “the only stationary Elvis museum outside the US” and you don’t need to be an Elvis fan to go there (I’m not). Just make sure to join the guided tour hosted by the founder himself - he knows just about everything there is to know about the “King”, and he is a first-class storyteller too.
THE RESCUED FILM PROJECT. Film photographer Levi Bettweiser is on a mission to "save all the old rolls of analogue camera film in the world that have never been processed." In this video we meet him as he has just come across 1200 rolls of film taken by one man - Paul - who lived in East Chicago, Indiana in the 1950s. The rolls are carefully saved but never developed. Until now.
WITCHES & WIZARDS. There are several museums around the world that have to do with witches and witchcraft, wizards, and wizardries. One is “Hex - the Museum of Witch Hunt” in Ribe, DK, another is the “Museum of Witchcraft and Magic” in the village of Boscastle in Cornwall, UK, and in “Pitt Rivers Museum” in Oxford, UK, all sorts of items connected to witchcraft from around the globe are exhibited. However, how about the real thing? Actually the city of Christchurch, New Zealand, has had an official wizard for decades. His job is not to cast spells or to impersonate Gandalf from JRR Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings, this article tells. He is more a kind of provocateur, one that criticizes the system. But he is also someone who brings a sense of fun to the world. "Every day the world gets more serious, so fun is the most powerful thing in the world right now," he says. I truly agree.
TUTANKHAMUN. Next year (most probably) a new museum will open in Egypt, the “Grand Egyptian Museum”. It is situated just over a mile from the Pyramids of Giza and it will house the treasures of the famous Tutankhamun. The museum is almost half a million square meters - equal to the size of a major airport terminal - and let me just say that after watching this video made by CNN, showing the inside of the museum, I’m very curious to go and have a look myself.
HOT COMB. I've just ordered the graphic novel "Hot Comb" by Ebony Flowers, and am very excited to read it. "Hot Comb offers a poignant glimpse into black women's lives and coming-of-age stories as seen across a crowded, ammonia-scented hair salon while ladies gossip and bond over the burn", the description says. The theme reminds me of another graphic novel I have on my shelf, "Embroideries" by Marjane Satrapi (author of "Persepolis"). The book is about a group of women - all related to Satrapi - who sit together while enjoying a ritual cup of afternoon tea. As the afternoon progress, they share their secrets, their regrets, and their outrageous stories about (among other things) how to fake one's virginity, how to escape an arranged marriage, and how to enjoy the miracles of plastic surgery. It's highly entertaining - and, in many ways, very recognisable too.
💌 Thanks for reading! This newsletter is free - to show your support please share it with someone who'd like it. See links below 🔗
💌 First time you read this? You can subscribe here.
See you next time.
Majken xx
Charm For Warts, Oxfordshire. "Go out alone & find a large black slug. Secretly rub the underside on the warts & impale the slug on a thorn. As the slug dies the warts will go."
(Pitt Rivers Museum, private photo)
Comments