-------- MANTEX NEWSLETTER --------
Number 119 - August 2006 - ISSN 1470-1863
Literature - Art - Design - Bloomsbury - Quiz
Advertise in this newsletter. Your AD here.
For rates contact us at - ads@mantex.co.uk
11,000+ subscribers will see your message.
0--- 'Katherine Mansfield: A Secret Life'
Katherine Mansfield is one of the few outstanding
writers to establish a reputation purely through
the short story genre.
She was a friend and rival of Virginia Woolf,
and she only published three collections before
her tragically early death at the age of thirty-five.
She lived a completely Bohemian life - of a kind
which will take your breath away even now, eighty
years later. Love affairs with men and women; drink,
drugs, and constantly on the move. It's the 1920s
equivalent of a rock and roll lifestyle - yet she
wrote some wonderful stories. Claire Tomalin's
biography spells out the details at -
http://www.mantex.co.uk/reviews/tomalin.htm
0--- Pub quiz - Question #1
Who was the first woman to fly the Atlantic?
0--- 'Search Engine Optimization'
This is a term which translated into non-geek
language means 'making your web pages more
likely to be highly rated by Google'.
It's a process of combining high quality content
with technical accuracy, and tweaking the meta-tags.
Peter Kent's volume in the 'Dummies' series spells
out all that's required in a language that even I
can understand. And he's generous towards his
readers, listing all the f.r.e.e software
available - and even warning us against paying
for better placings.
If you want to improve your page rank score, see -
http://www.mantex.co.uk/reviews/kent-03.htm
0--- Pub quiz - Question #2
What is the largest mammal in the world?
0--- 'Deceived with Kindness: A Bloomsbury Childhood'
I decided to spend my summer holiday mugging up
on all the background gossip to Bloomsbury. And
this one is a classic.
Angelica Garnett is the daughter of Vanessa Bell
and her lover Duncan Grant. At the time of Angelica's
birth, Vanessa was still married to Clive Bell, so
Angelica was passed off to the world as his daughter,
though many people in the inner circle of the
Bloomsbury Group knew the truth.
This crucial fact of her provenance was concealed
from her until she was nineteen years old - whereupon
she 'avenged' herself on the family by marrying David
Garnett, who had been her father's lover even before
she was born.
This was the central drama of her life, and this
memoir is her side of the story. It contains some
wonderful pen portraits of Virginia Woolf, Lytton
Strachey, Maynard Keynes, and the other major figures
in Bloomsbury - both in London and at Charleston,
her childhood home.
http://www.mantex.co.uk/reviews/a-garnett.htm
0--- Pub quiz - Question #3
What is the modern name of the sea that pirates
call the Spanish Main?
0--- 'Web Design: E-Commerce' - new book
Don't worry - there's nothing geeky about
this new book from Taschen. In fact it's
a sort of mini coffee table book which
showcases commercial web sites - all using
the very latest design principles.
Examples range from photography, office
chairs, jewellery, fleet management, and
paintings, and they come from all over the
world - UK, France, Brazil, USA, Germany,
and Japan.
Stylishly produced and amazingly good value -
http://www.mantex.co.uk/reviews/wiedemann-1.htm
0--- Pub quiz - Question #4
What was the Beatles' first film?
0--- 'Bauhaus 1919-1933' - new book
The Bauhaus was one of the most influential
design schools in the early part of the modernist
movement. It started in Weimar, moved to Dessau,
then ended in Berlin fourteen years later.
Mies van der Rohe, Walter Gropius, Lazlo
Mohly-Nagy, Paul Klee, and Wassiliy Kandinsky
were all teachers there - and one of the major
discoveries for me was Marianne Brandt, a
designer of very beautiful household goods,
some of which are still in production today..
It's a beautifully illustrated and very scholarly
work in the super-cheap series on art and design
from the German publisher, Taschen. See it at -
http://www.mantex.co.uk/reviews/droste.htm
0--- Pub quiz - Question #5
Which famous port is on the Hawaiian island of Oahu?
0--- 'South from Granada' - English classic
Gerald Brenan was a fringe member of the
Bloomsbury Group who spent most of his
adult life living in and writing about Spain.
This classic piece of travel writing describes
his setting up home in the Alpujarras - a
remote but very beautiful region of southern
Andalucia (just up the road from where I am
writing this).
His account embraces the locals and their customs
(all set in the 1920s) plus some wonderfully
comic scenes where he is visited by Lytton
Strachey and Virginia Woolf.
He shows amazing fortitude and energy (walking
one hundred and fifty miles to buy furniture)
and although you would not guess it from what
he writes, he was also conducting a very painful
affair with Dora Carrington at the same time -
for details of which see below:
http://www.mantex.co.uk/reviews/brenan.htm
0--- Pub quiz - Question #6
What is a prune?
0--- 'Oxford Companion to English Literature ' - new edition
This is the latest version of a now-standard
encyclopedia of author profiles, plot summaries,
and explanations of literary themes and topics.
It offers details of writers, mini-tutorials on literary
topics such as Gothic Fiction, Modernism, Romanticism,
Science Fiction, and Biography. Some of the entries are
in the form of essays, and there are lists of Nobel and
Pulitzer Prizewinners, as well as winners of what most
people still call the Booker Prize.
It's a useful reference for literary buffs.
I've already used it a number of times to dig out
information - and it's remained on my desk since it
first arrived.
http://www.mantex.co.uk/reviews/oxf-drabble.htm
If you don't want the full works, there's a cut-down
paperback version available at -
http://www.mantex.co.uk/reviews/oxf-ccel.htm
0--- Pub quiz - Question #7
Who was elected president of the Philippines after
Ferdinand Marcos was ousted?
0--- 'A Life of Dora Carrington 1893-1932'
Dora Carrington was an artist from the Bloomsbury
Group whose reputation seems to be having something
of a revival just at the moment.
She is most famous for the fact that she fell in
love with and lived for most of her life with
Lytton Strachey - a renowned homosexual.
In fact it didn't stop her also marrying Ralph
Partridge and moving him in to live with them,
and keeping him there, even when Partridge brought
his latest lover home to dinner.
You might wonder, how so much is known about
the details of these peoples' lives? The answer
is that they all wrote to each other all the time.
There's plenty more of this Bohemian gossip in
Gretchen Gerzina's more-or-less standard biography.
http://www.mantex.co.uk/reviews/gerzina.htm
0--- Pub quiz - Question #8
The Appian Way links Rome with which port?
0--- 'Duncan Grant and the Bloomsbury Group'
Duncan Grant was the lifelong partner of Vanessa
Bell (Virginia Woolf's sister) and both of them were
members of the Omega Group established by Roger Fry
to encourage decorative arts in 1914 (not a good year
to start a commercial enterprise).
But they were quite successful in artistic if not
in commercial terms, and their influence on English
design has been lasting.
This study traces Grant's life and his artistic
development. He was something of a Golden Boy who
did well wherever he landed - and he lived to a
ripe old age, still chasing young men and engaged
with painting until the end. More details at -
http://www.mantex.co.uk/reviews/turnbaugh.htm
0--- Pub quiz - Question #9
Who was the world's first elected female prime minister?
0--- 'The Letters of Vita Sackville-West and Virginia Woolf'
This has been the highlight of my last few days - a
marvellous and fairly huge exchange of letters between
two women who in the 1920s were both commercially
successful writers at the peak of their powers.
Both of them had husbands of course, but this doesn't
stop them sloping off for Sapphic trysts in the various
homes and flats to which they had access.
Don't expect lots of salacious details. They might
be rapturous and romantic about each other, but they
are primarily intellectuals, and the letters offer
wonderful insights into the world of writing as an
art form, the commercial aspects of publishing, and
lots of gossip about famous people.
There's a sad element too. Vita was 'unfaithful' to
Virginia in a way which will touch anybody who expects
some form of fidelity in a lover.
http://www.mantex.co.uk/reviews/desalvo.htm
0--- Pub quiz - Question #10
What is the trademark of Bacardi?
0--- OK - That's enough Bloomsbury!
No more just for now - but I do have to warn
you that I have just ordered Leonard Woolf's
memoirs. After all, he was instrumental in
setting up what is now the United Nations,
he was married to Virginia Woolf, and the
later years of his life were pretty spicy.
Be warned!
0--- Pub quiz - ANSWERS
#1 Who was the first woman to fly the Atlantic?
ANSWER: Amelia Earheart
#2 What is the largest mammal in the world?
ANSWER: The blue whale
#3 What is the modern name of the sea that pirates call the Spanish Main?
ANSWER: The Caribbean
#4 What was the Beatles' first film?
ANSWER: 'A Hard Day's Night'
#5. Which famous port is on the Hawaiian island of Oahu?
ANSWER: Pearl Harbour
#6 What is a prune?
ANSWER: A dried plum
#7 Who was elected president of the Philippines after
Ferdinand Marcos was ousted?
ANSWER: Corazon Aquino
#8 The Appian Way links Rome with which port?
ANSWER: Brindisi
#9 Who was the world's first elected female prime minister?
ANSWER: Mrs Bandaranaike of Sri Lanka
#10 What is the trademark of Bacardi?
ANSWER: A bat
0--- COMING SOON
'Architecture Now! 4.0'
'Web Design: Flash Sites'
'Web Services Essentials'
'eBay - The Missing Manual'
'Penguin Dictionary of Jokes'
'Yahoo! Hacks'
(c) Copyright 2006, MANTEX
All Rights Reserved
PO Box 100 Tel +44 0161 432 5811
Manchester Fax +44 0161 443 2766
M20 6GZ UK www.mantex.co.uk
If you like this newsletter, PLEASE
FORWARD IT to friends and colleagues.
subscribers should register at the
following address --
http://www.mantex.co.uk/newslet.htm
BACK ISSUES featuring news items,
reviews, and product details at -
http://www.mantex.co.uk/news/archive.htm
Please retain the copyright and
list-joining information. It may be
posted, in its entirety or partially,
to newsgroups or mailing lists, so
long as the copyright and list-joining
information remains.
If you have any requests, observations,
or items you would like to be included
in our next issues, just mail us at --
news@mantex.co.uk
You receive the MANTEX newsletter
because you subscribed to it. If you
wish to leave the list, go to --
http://www.mantex.co.uk/newslet.htm
News-119-August-2006
ISSN 1470-1863
The British Library