Teacher’s resource

There Are Two Gutenbergs – Free Ebooks For All Ereaders

Not only the original USA one, but also a rather younger Australian one are there to give us free ebooks at the click of a mouse. The reason perhaps for there being two of them is that the copyright laws in the two countries are different. In the USA a book is covered by copyright for at least 70 years after the death of the author, in Australia on the other hand, it is only protected for 58 years, which means that books written as recently as about 1955 can be found on that site, as opposed to the USA site whose most recent ebook has to be from about 1943 – a very different era of writing.

Admittedly the USA site is much larger, and has a remarkably wide range of ebooks on offer, and in a number of languages, but the Aussies are catching up quite well.

Strictly speaking, the way copyright laws work, it is illegal for someone living in the USA to download an ebook written in say, 1955, as that ebook would still be under copyright in the USA, whilst the same ebook may be downloaded perfectly legally by someone living in Australia – yet another example of how the Internet makes a nonsense of so many national laws.

Happily for those of you who do not live in Australia, unlike Amazon et. al, the Aussie Gutenberg doesn’t give a damn where you live, and will perfectly happily allow all you good citizens of the USA to download ebooks published in 1955 without a care in the world. This is how it should be on the Internet of course.

Anyhow, I just thought you might like to know that there are two Gutenbergs, each with a completely different collection of ebooks for your reading pleasure, and in all standard ebook formats as well.

So off you go to check them both out and see what amazing reading matter you can find for yourself there…. But, sadly if Stephen King is your sort of writer, you won’t find anything of that ilk there.

USA Gutenberg: www.gutenberg.org

Australian Gutenberg: http://gutenberg.net.au/

Optical illusions, do they work?

Optical illusions work, there is no getting away from that. They confuse us, and get in the way of our comprehending things – laughably really.

To set us off, here is a classic image.

We have all seen these……..

These are “classic” optical illusions, and thus well known, but we have a selection of ones that you will probably never have seen before.

This one is well considered to confuse everyone!

This one is a well known illusion…..

And this is also a well known illusion, if you look carefully, it is simply a face upside down, printed like that. Easy really.

This one is a well known illusion, find the baby……..

And this one is a normal room, but with all sorts of lines on the walls and floors……

And this is a well known one….. You can duplicate it with a simply set of scissors…….

So, these are what I will write and show you today. If what I have shown you sparks any ideas, please let me know.

Images to spark ideas………

As always, I have tried to find some weird and wonderful images to inspire your creative juices – whether you happen to be a teacher or a writer. All of them (see above and below) have been chosen because they are totally weird and wonderful, and generally defy any sort of logical reason for happening. In other words, I hope that they will inspire you to extreme creative imaginings. Do let me know if you use them to inspire or as central to a story please!

I love the addition of the one boot

Er………………. A party anyone?

Well, an innocent way of passing the time, I suppose

Dangerous people to know… I can imagine a serious story about hill-billies here

Er……………… Yes…………..

We have all met such people in Walmart……

I love the way that people have indulged their passions and fantasies since time began..

More strange and disturbing images to fire your imagination

Once again I have found an intriguing collection of images that I hope will be of use to you guys as sparks to your ideas. In other words, I hope that the images below will give you ideas for stories as opposed to using them in stories.

So, lets get started on them……………

Now this is a restaurant with a difference! A weirdly odd and somewhat Edwardian effect. Many years ago whilst on a winter tour of Scotland with the Little Angel Puppet Theatre we found ourselves at John O’Groats which has a truly odd restaurant as well – and when we arrived there, a totally empty place (it was January after all) we were greeted by this odd building and Hawaiian guitar music blaring out of a public address system… All very odd.

One or other of these two odd images should give you ideas for a story….. Though certainly with a Gothic feel I would imagine.

From the sublime to the ridiculous now.

I would imagine that this silly photo could be the basis for a Sci-Fi story at the very least……. Whilst it is a simple bit of image jiggery-poky and is also mildly funny, it could be the basis of a story about a world in which people’s bodies are manipulated for some reason….. What do you think?

This is simply silly…………… But it is a new look at an old legend perhaps?

Now I have selected three more odd or curious images that give me pause for thought, each one of which seem to me to be ripe with an internal story.

What is happening in them and could one perhaps use all three of them in one story?

Well, perhaps one might use the first two in one story, but I am damned if I can see how one might use the third image in the same story as the first two.

And to finish with, here is a collection of creatures that one would not like to come up against on a dark and stormy night – or even on a sunny day come to think of it! I have no idea what or who they are, I suspect it is some sort of Swiss (or Scandinavian) religious ceremony that has been stolen (as is the case with just about all Christian festivals) from a pre-Christian festival. But whatever it actually is all about, it seems to me to be begging for a story to use it as a central feature of the story. So, lets see what you can do with this one!

If any of these images have been a help for you in any way, please do let me know what you used them for.

More Strange And Weird Images To Fire Your Imagination

Once more I look into the weird world of other people’s imagination, this time via the photographs of Erik Johansson who manipulates his photos to create a totally different and obviously impossible vision, also a collection of simply weird photos of real people – which defy the imagination I confess, but which could be the starting point of some very odd stories, so this is possibly useful for teachers to stir the imagination of their students.

So, here is the first of Erik Johansson’s odd world………………..

He seems to be fascinated by this sort of idea, he has a lot of images that have a landscape pouring over a huge drop, for example this one…..

A different take on essentially the same story are a series of photos he has produced that show water pouring from paintings or similar, as in this one….

He also seems to love creating images that are totally impossible in one way or another, and one of his favourite methods of achieving this is to combine reality with an impossible action, as in this one, which shows both an ice-cream melting, but a cut off arm also melting… Odd…………

And as a last look into his strange world, we have his mania for altering perspective, a bit like Escher in this respect, so here we have a totally impossible room to ponder upon……..

And now, to open a real can of worms, a totally extraordinary view of the real world, real people in very strange situations, some of which I am totally at a loss to explain, such as this one… What on earth is that little person?

Or this one….. Another strange and essentially wrong set of people. What on earth are they doing?

And this one simply defies explanation. These people seem to be totally ignoring that very strange little being, though one of them seems to be feeding it… Hmmmmmmmmmm………..

And as the last image, I am totally bemused by this one. The guy dressed in Arabic clothing seems to be signing a serious contract, but why oh why are there three enormous “things” wearing Arabic woman’s clothing? Damned if I know………..

Anyhow, I hope that one or more of these strange images will spark off an idea in your mind and help you to write the Great Novel that you have been struggling to create for some years already.

Dan Raven – Photographer Of Strange Images

About a week ago, I came across the work of Dan Raven who is a photographer with a very special and idiosyncratic view of the world. There is a brooding quality about his photos that is remarkably attractive I found. By this I don’t mean that his photographs are in any sense dark or […]

About a week ago, I came across the work of Dan Raven who is a photographer with a very special and idiosyncratic view of the world. There is a brooding quality about his photos that is remarkably attractive I found. By this I don’t mean that his photographs are in any sense dark or morbid, quite the contrary in fact. They are full of light and space, but still, they make one think of mortality and similar dark thoughts. Odd really how they have that effect, on me at least.

He has taken lots of photos of abandoned places, buildings, constructions, rooms and so on, which obviously do have their own sort of melancholia, but even these, which as I say, do give one intimations of mortality, manage to do that without being all dark and Gothic in the literal sense.

To give you a better idea of what I mean,here are two photos he took of abandoned places.

Whilst both of these rooms are very different, they are also very similar, both in the sense of being abandoned, but not emptied. The people who lived in and used these rooms apparently simply walked away one day, leaving all their bits and pieces behind, in a sort of mute “we were here” cry. Continue reading “Dan Raven – Photographer Of Strange Images”

Haunting Images Of Abandoned Places

Kenneth Provost is a Belgian photographer of abandoned places. Wandering around his native Belgium with his camera in his hand he discovers all manner of abandoned factories, houses and similar urban detritus, and makes the most wonderful photos of them. Apparently he was given his first serious camera about 4 years ago, and promptly went […]

Kenneth Provost is a Belgian photographer of abandoned places. Wandering around his native Belgium with his camera in his hand he discovers all manner of abandoned factories, houses and similar urban detritus, and makes the most wonderful photos of them.

Apparently he was given his first serious camera about 4 years ago, and promptly went out into his city of Ostend and discovered that he was surrounded by the most wonderful old and abandoned buildings, which he proceeded to explore with the happy results you will see below.

All of his photos have the quality of suggesting that some sort of important and significant events occurred to or in the places he shows us, which he doesn’t feel any need to expand upon, simply leaving it up to us to conjure up an explanation of what we are looking at. They hint at tragic events, terrible loss of life, the breakdown of society and all manner of other equally serious events.

The main reason that I wanted to draw your attention to his work, is that all of his photos would be superb as starting points in any writing classroom. Each of them contains enough emotion and imagery to supply an entire story line for a short story at the very least.

I shall post a few of his images below to give you a taste of his vision of the world, and also his website so that you can go directly to him and buy any images that you feel would be useful to you.

I emphasise the idea of buying his images from him, as this is how the man makes his living, and it would obvioulsy be totally wrong to make use of his vision without paying for it, so if you like what you see below, please go by his online shop and purchase as many as you can use.

Link to his Website: Kenneth Provost, Photographer.

Images To Inspire Great Stories

Every so often I find that I have collected a pile of curious images that I use to spark ideas in my head for my writing, and I also like to share some of them with you guys, to see if you can use them to help you either to write yourself, or as resources for your students to help them get started with their writings.

So, here are a new load of weird and strange images, each of which can certainly be used to spark ideas.

I particularly like this one, it has such a yearning feel to it… I know it is actually very banal, but there has to be a story lurking in it somewhere… What is he thinking? Why did he go to sea? Is he approaching some important point in his life? And so it goes, such an image has so many stories in it.

Or to go to the other extreme, from yearning to downright silly, here is one that any Dutch people will certainly recognise at once, a room full of Sint Nicholas’s. For the non-Dutch among you, it should at the very least give rise to strange thoughts about gatherings of imitation bishops, a fancy dress party in which every one accidentally wore the same costume… and so on.. no end of ideas in this one I feel.

Continue reading “Images To Inspire Great Stories”

Pictures To Produce Ideas

The internet is a source of the most amazing and extraordinary images, many of which simply cry out to be used as starting points for short stories. For example, if you see this photo (see below) it has to make your mind begin to wander around all manner of possible stories.

What on earth is happening in this photo? Why is that nonchalant young woman sitting on her bed apparently being embraced by a large and peaceful bear? Is the bear comforting her? Why is she apparently ignoring the bear? What on earth is she doing, dressed only in her nightgown, with a large and amiable bear beside her?

As you can see, such an image could surely be used by your students (or yourself) as the starting point (or equally, the end point) of a short story of just about any genre.

I have long been fond of using such images to get my writing juices flowing, and the advent of the internet has been a real boon to individuals such as I in this respect. So much easier than having to go to a library and ploughing through volumes of stuff to find that one exciting image that I need to get me going.

Continue reading “Pictures To Produce Ideas”

Abandoned Places Have A Beauty All Their Own

It is a curious fact that abandoned houses, towns and other man made objects, when we have finished with them, and left them to rot away on their own, frequently acquire a new sort of beauty, as I hope you will see in the photos I have collected from around the web to illustrate this point.

Generally when we think about stuff that we have thrown away, or abandoned, we tend to think that it will be ugly, messy and generally a bad idea, as in this image below.

And of course, to a large extent this view is correct, rubbish is rubbish, and highly undesirable. But having said that, there remains a sort of haunting beauty in old and abandoned buildings and cities.

A tristesse is always lurking in the background whenever one finds oneself confronted with the ruins of what was once a home, or a village. If you consider the photo below, you will see what I mean.

On one level this is a horrible, rotting mess, but on another level one is forced to think about the people who used to live in this room, what sort of stuff did they watch on that remarkably clean looking TV set, why did they have such large armchairs in their bedroom, set out in order to watch TV in comfort? Who were they, and why did they leave? I am afraid I have no idea, as I do not know anything about this image, other than what it says for itself. Patently a sad story is lurking in the background here, something that caused them to leave quite hurriedly it would seem.

Even in buildings that were never lived in by families, we see the same sort of brooding atmosphere. This image of an abandoned Sanatorium in Germany is such an image.

Continue reading “Abandoned Places Have A Beauty All Their Own”