At the bottom of the garden with fairies and aliens

[pjthompson]

Quote of the day:

"Now that we have mapped every inch of our own planet, our remaining blank spaces lie among the stars. Unable, like our forbears to tolerate space uninhabited, we have made with our mind a new legion of bright and shining beings to fill the gaps left by our ignorances. Aliens are our fairies, and they behave just like the fairies of our ancestors."

—Diane Purkiss, At the Bottom of the Garden


This is a seriously interesting book, btw. It's a survey of belief in fairies and other daimon-like creatures from Ancient Greece to the present, and how the changing view of these "others" corresponds with our concepts of our own humanity and our need to explain away the kinks in our psychology and behavior. Purkiss writes well, too, so it isn't a dry tome.

And here's a wonderful surreal painting I used to illustrate this quote on the bulletin board here at work:

http://crossbreeddesign.com/colette/work/big/previous/014.htm

I love surrealistic painting. I wish I could afford something by this artist. She's fabulous.

Comments

[java-fiend.livejournal.com]

That's a really interesting painting. Do you like Escher? Parks? Dali?

I've got a couple of very cool surrealistic paintings in my house too... they're just so cool to look at because it's almost as if each time, you see something new in them.

[mnfaure.livejournal.com]

Oooo, I love that painting, too. Thanks for sharing