Tuesday 5 February 2013

Ballet School Discipline - and the New Magdalenes?


A little while back I posted up a snippet involving a modicum of private ballet class discipline.  Recently that set me to thinking how within a suitably private, secluded scenario the approach of involving a young minx within a structured ballet class or school environment need not necessarily have anything to do with her learning ballet per se.  Nevertheless it might still be advantageous if she happened to be led - or allowed - to believe that the rigorous,  stern regime instigated by her new governess or dance teacher or what have you is headed that way, perhaps with the vague promise of a place at a prestigious ballet school at the end of it; and the dire warning of her lack of prospects otherwise, forever ringing in her ears.

Anyway what led to that particular train of thought was a little confection I blundered across today (see left) while searching for a few more Julian Guile illustrations to pad out my otherwise somewhat sparse collection of that artist’s work for inclusion on my new website.  Funny how these things work out!  When I was actually looking  I didn’t seem to be able to find much beyond that famous (I hope – it deserves to be) Rosaleen Young set and that photo set that was published way back in the mid-eighties in Janus and which I alluded to.       

While on the topic of Julian Guile:  Is it me or is his style virtually inseparable from that of ‘Thorn’ (can we even mention that name nowadays?  Last time it almost cost me having the blog shut down – I certainly won’t knowingly be including any of his work on the new website).

In terms of writing; much of today has been taken up writing about this sort of garb (eyes right!) for the new book but I have to admit to having been sidetracked by this little offering (left).  Now I am not one to be easily moved by art – and I don’t know what it is exactly – but I think I’ve fallen in love with a girl made of ink, pencil and pen!  (at least she can’t argue back)  (I originally wrote ‘pen and ink girl’ here, but that has unfortunate connotations in London-speak!).  And then earlier today on BBC Radio 4 - right as I happened to be working on a section relevant to that very subject - there happened also to be a discussion about Ireland’s Magdalene Laundries, the last of which was only closed down in 1996 as you probably know by now; talk about coincidence!  It leaves me a little worried, though, that I might leave myself vulnerable to moralistic criticism if the public spotlight begins to focus too brightly on that particular area.  That is particularly the case considering a subtitle something along the lines of ‘The New Magdalenes’ has been running around inside my skull for some time now!

Just what is it about this one?  Might it be the face or exression?
In the background I have been adding and uploading more content to the website (which eventually will also host unfinished pieces, sketchy ideas and snippets that have not made it into my books or are intended to one day form parts of new works.  I have also managed to put aside a little time to make a few changes to the blog.  For example I have recently added  ‘Curious QBuzz’,    ‘The Spank Shop’,  ‘Teen Spankings & Discipline’ and  ‘Red Lion Street’ (“An illustrated erotic blog in 50 chapters by Captain Shame. ‘Impossible things happen on Red Lion Street’”)  to the blog list over in the right-hand sidebar.  In a new departure 

I have also started hosting links to ‘tumblr’ blogs and a new section has duly been created in the sidebar for just this purpose (I’ve just lapsed into the passive voice again – ignore it; I’m a scientist).   

For the time being the tumblr blog list shall be sited above the main blog listings to make it easier to find but “keep ‘em peeled” coz I’ll be adding to and updating the tumblr listing to as we go along - and eventually the list will move.

To get the ball rolling I’ve added to the tumblr blog list:  ‘Discipline Days’,  ‘A Firm Hand’ and  Spanking and Punishment Art’.  The latter I found to be full of imaginative stuff beyond the expected and ordinary (For example: see right for yet another image that spawned a burst of creativity today – pinched off that very site), although they all proved inspirational...  Great stuff!.  

And if I may now make a request it is this:  This blog is haemorrhaging readership (probably through my having so often neglected it over the last year or so, but I don’t think that is the whole story) and so it would be helpful if, when visiting or linking to other blogs and resources from here, you could perhaps - if leaving a comment or two or feeding back to the author for example - see your way clear to also giving a mention to this blog.  I’d be most grateful!


  

9 comments:

Orage said...

"I originally wrote ‘pen and ink girl’ here, but that has unfortunate connotations in London-speak!"

Can you enlarge a bit on that?

Toyntanen said...

Hi Orage! Great to here from you again! How very, very weird that you should leave a comment, as just last night I was thinking to myself that I should email you in the morning; I shall do so in a few minutes, though what I shall ask might seem a little bit cheeky given how long it’s been.

To answer you query: I was alluding to cockney rhyming slang, you know (or maybe not) apples and pears: stairs or loaf of bread: head; as in “…use your loaf” meaning to think about something or “…up we go; up those apples and pears!” So, in the same vein we have “phew! What a pen and ink!” Pen and ink: stink.

Then there was that great 70s UK TV police-based all-action show (more recently a movie, though there were a couple of spin-off movies made back in the 70s) The Sweeny… Sweeny Todd: Flying Squad (they didn’t fly though; they mostly rushed around doing wheel-spins and shouting a lot

Charles Ryder said...

The Thorn conundrum?

Depending on you believe all the 'Thorn' artwork was originally done by an artist named Hobbs.
The story goes that this artwork was appropriated by the aforementioned 'Thorn' and was then passed off as his/her own work.Complete with the attendent threats for any perceived copyright infringement of 'his/her' work.
Alternatively all the work was done by Thorn and the 'Hobbs' name on the earlier work was wrong.

Whatever the case the work is very similar and incidentally some of my very favourite artwork. I have no idea which if any of the two versions is true. I am merely repeating what is generally known

The issue could of course be solved at a stroke simply by 'Thorn' producing a new piece of work.

Or has he already?
Compare the characters from 'julian guile's' artwork with those of 'Thorn'. Google both in images for a good selection. VERY similar in my opinion. And of course none the worse for that.
The Guile image of the uniformed schoolgirl bending over in preparation for the switch is one of the very best spanking drawings there is, in my opinion.

And incidentally if you read this Mr Guile, do you do comissions?

Looking forward to the new blog

Regards
Charles Ryder

charlesryder82@yahoo.co.uk

Toyntanen said...

OMG! (as my kids say - sick, init: which means really good apparently; cool!) But... OMG! Charles, what a coincidence. You’re the other person I've just been mulling over contacting! Along with Orage and Snoozz . But I'll get back to you via email about that a bit later - just as I will Orage in a mo, If you are reading this Orage (honest!).

As I've said before; I have quite a comprehensive collection of old mags but I have yet to see a work signed Hobbs, anywhere in the known universe! But I have had a dialog in the past with an individual who owns an original Hobbs, owns the copyright on it and who knew the artist - so I'll not argue the toss.

Suffice it to say that the allegation is that Thorn plagiarised Hobbs. The only reservation I have about that side of the argument is that fresh work signed ‘Thorn’ continues to appear on the covers and within the pages of a certain line of.. ahem!... adult comics (alright, graphic novels then). Now I’m not an expert, but I have a good eye for artistic style and I don’t think I could tell the older and presumably plagiarised stuff from the newer work signed ‘Thorn’. And now we have this Julian Guile character and if not for the signature I don’t think I could separate his work from Thorn’s, other than that the subject matter is a little, shall we say, milder. The facial expressions of the protagonists in particular are too close for comfort! What are we to make of all this? The only thing I know for certain is that I would not risk hosting anything signed Thorn and don’t really want to get in to the argument. But saying that; I have still to recognise that same style within any of the magazines in my collection. And we can all recognise on sight, I imagine, the work of Paula, Hardcastle, Ashely, John Willie, Anto, Kato, Roger Benson (I’ve always loved Mr Bensons ‘reform school set’) and others… I know I can… ‘Nuff said! As Stan Lee used to say.

It’s not a blog, Charles! it’s a real live website – so much easier to navigate than digging back through a blog archive. And it is the navigation aspect I have been playing with today. Not that it is only going to house the blog archive stuff; it is going to be chock full of all the stuff I have scanned and downloaded over the years and also fragments of unfinished writings, bits of unused artwork originally destined for book covers etc; that that sort of thing!

And then I’m going to start another based on scholarly articles regarding Alzheimer’s disease, spongiform encephalopathies such as mad cow’s disease, and CJD and protein conformation disorders generally (which encompasses certain aspects of the progression of type 2 diabetes incidentally).

Orage said...

"It’s not a blog, Charles! it’s a real live website"
I'd like to know the difference between them!

Toyntanen said...

Hi Orage! No I wasn’t being ‘posey’. There is a difference, and it is a fairly major one even if becoming a little blurred or frayed around the edges these days. It is largely a question of differences in how each evolves over time, the way content is organised and – crucially – the ease and method of intra-site navigation (i.e., in the mind of the author, the ease of organising content; in the eyes of the reader, the ease of finding stuff).

You see; as I understand it, a blog is a Biographic LOG which lays out entries and updates in a linear manner across time. For that reason a blog is best suited to - and was designed to function as - a chronicle of one’s day-to-day activities. The first page – the main or home page – therefore constantly changes over time, with previous entries being displaced further and further back down the pile or stack. If a particular subject was broached on a particular page or pictorial content covering a certain area was uploaded, say, then if later on further thoughts pertaining to that same subject should arise in the author’s mind or new content covering the same area is uncovered it becomes difficult to then group these things alongside the original material: Yes one can use the comments sections to add thoughts later and one can add tags and links to new content pointing to the earlier posted stuff, but it is a bit ‘clunky’ to say the least.

In the past I have used Picasaweb albums to group together catalogue scans, magazine and book pages and the like, taken from material which has in some manner inspired or motivated me to write me. Later on I tried using online-hosted DropBox files for the same purpose. Both these modes or methods of sharing thoughts and content I made accessible form the sidebar, but neither proved entirely satisfactory.

A website, by way of contrast, has a home or main page which remains static (give or take the occasional odd update or modification) and all other pages or groups of pages spawn or stem from this, either directly or indirectly, usually regardless of when each was created or last updated. So there exists the potential to organise content by subject or type or what have you rather than by chronology. You can think of this structure as being much like the spokes of a wheel around a hub, but where each spoke itself forks and spreads like the branches of a tree (though it doesn’t have to be laid out exactly this way). Different subject areas and resources can thus be grouped together along with others alluding or relating to them and – crucially – added to or modified at a later date on an ad hoc basis.

Hope this helps... go one, give it a try – you know you want to!

Just cut and paste this link in to your browser (no I can’t make links ‘clickable’ in comments either!) And I have now made two different forms of interlinked navigation available – either click on the pics you come across which are labelled or captioned by subject area names, or run your mouse cursor across the branching pull-down menus at the top.

http://beyondthebarredwindow.weebly.com/index.html

Orage said...

I'm sure your readers would be glad to have a link to your new blog on the right hand corner, perhaps just after "about me".

Toyntanen said...

Hi Orage et al!

Yup! Will do - soon. I just want to finalize the front page first (because that is most probably what I'll be using for the link image) and then I'll be posting a link to the new website in the right hand sidebar as you suggest.

I have a lot more content to upload too, which I'll be getting on with this week now that the new book is at the proofreading stage. Amongst other stuff such as reader's letters from various spanking mags which have inspired me in the post - and eventually motivated me to begin writing - I'll be uploading all manner of fragments of writing, ideas, unfinished work, work in progress and ideas to motivate others.

I'll also put aside some space for contributions others of you might like to send in. So why not email me with your bits and bobs!

Anonymous said...

Hi Garth

I have been busy with your my own projects of late so your email was a welcome distraction to visit your Blog. Orage had already emailed me that incredible picture in the girl in the straitjacket but I am still sort of blown away. It's in a style somewhat reminiscent of my own but probably quite a lot better. I am quite jealous.

I have emailed you separately with a few thoughts about the website. Glad to see you are back in the business of updating again. Pity we can't have a few more beers together. snoozz