Kleine-Levin Syndrome: Real-life Sleeping Beauties

From Real-life Sleeping Beauties by Robert Williams:

Nicole Delien, a 14-years-old resident of Scott Township, admits that she is sometimes afraid of falling asleep. At times, she can fall into a deep slumber for many weeks, and this makes her miss out on everything—school, family events and fun. Her mom, Vicki, expressed her fear that her daughter might just sleep through her high school years. Presently, she goes to school but takes extra care not to do anything else outside her home as she might just fall asleep suddenly and fall into an accident.

Fifteen-year-old Louisa Ball, an English girl, can remain asleep for days or even weeks. Her prolonged sleeping spells often put her parents in a dilemma. They have a hard time maintaining good nutrition for her because Louisa herself does not eat or drink anything during this time. This condition started in October 2008 after she recovered from a week-long flu. Whenever she wakes up from her bouts of “hibernation,” she goes straight to the kitchen to feed her famished body.

Lily Clarke, 21-years-old, can sleep for almost two months and cannot be woken up. She missed out on her own 18th birthday because she fell asleep a few days before that. This condition started in 2007 and it has greatly impeded her life, as she had already slept through her University exams and Christmas holidays. Her mom, Adele, reported that Lily’s extended naps can stretch as long as 7 months and she is very worried about this.

These girls share the same nickname of Sleeping Beauty in real life. Fairytale-like as the name sounds, their lives are far from being a princess. They all suffer from a rare condition called Kleine-Levin Syndrome (KLS), also known as Sleeping Beauty Syndrome or Rip Van Winkle Disease. It is a neurological disorder characterized by altered behavior and excessive amounts of sleep.

The article is longer so click through to read the rest. It also has an entry on Wikipedia and a foundation website and a page on the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke site.

I really should have a list of science and medical concepts/conditions that use fairy tale names because there are several...Somebody get right on that for me, okay?

E! Online: Fall Shows We Love: Once Upon a Time Is Magic. Period

E! Online is the latest--and one of the bigger names now--to chime in with praise for ABC's upcoming "Once Upon a Time."

From Fall Shows We Love: Once Upon a Time Is Magic. Period. by Christina Dowling and Kristin Dos Santos:

Snow White, Prince Charming, the Evil Queen, blah blah blah. It all sounds like your typical Disney story, and a wholly unoriginal concept, but surprise! ABC's new fairy-tales-with-a-twist series Once Upon a Time is hands down the most mind-blowingly unique new show coming out this fall, perhaps because it's penned by two of the dudes responsible for Lost. (Unless you were one of the people who hated Lost's ending. Then forget we ever said it.)

But is Once Upon a Time really worth your precious time?

Find out as our 2011 Fall TV Preview launches today with the new drama we're (spoiler alert!) most excited about...

Once Upon a Time (ABC)

Premieres: Sunday, Oct. 23, 8 p.m.
Time-Slot Competition: The Amazing Race (CBS), The Simpsons (Fox), Sunday Night Football (NBC)
Cast: Ginnifer Goodwin, Jennifer Morrison, Robert Carlyle, Lana Parrilla, Jamie Dornan, Jared Gilmore, Josh Dallas, Raphael Sbarge
Status: We've seen the pilot episode.

While many of ABC's new comedies are are, um, lackluster at best (stand by for the cringe-worthy deets on that when we release all our 2011 Fall TV reviews), the Alphabet net has certainly taken a chance with Once Upon a Time. With cross dimensions that could only be pulled off by former Lost writers, this enchanting show shifts between Fairy Tale Land and the dreary (plus magically cursed) town of Storybrooke and tackles what happens beyond the "happily ever after" of the stories we love. Viewers will discover what happens when the happy ending goes to hell in a hand basket.

There's much more on the article page but overall an exuberantly positive review of the pilot. The site also has this short video that was embeddable, so here it is:

Fairyland Lustre by Wedgwood, Part 2

Yesterday, I shared part 1 of 2 posts on Fairyland Lustre by Wedgwood. Today is part two. As I mentioned yesterday, the best book about the Fairyland Lustre is rare and expensive although obtaining it through interlibrary load should be possible. The book is Wedgwood Fairyland Lustre - The Work of Daisy Makeig-Jones.

Besides the line's unique quality, another aspect that endears it to me is that a woman designed it at a time when women were not as easily accepted in these fields.

From Wikipedia:

Susannah Margaretta "Daisy" Makeig-Jones (1881-1945) was a pottery designer for Wedgwood. She is best known for her range of "Fairyland Lustre" pottery.

She was born in Wath-upon-Dearne near Rotherham in Yorkshire. She was the eldest of seven children. Her father, K. Geoffrey Makeig-Jones, was of Welsh origin and was a medical doctor; her mother was the daughter of Thomas Reeder, a solicitor, in Yorkshire. Both families were of the 'gentry' origin and of a professional class background. She was taught by a governess at home, then attended a boarding school near Rugby. After her family moved to Torquay she entered the Torquay School of Art. She joined Wedgwood in 1909, after gaining an introduction to the managing director Cecil Wedgwood through a relative. One of Cecil's daughters, Doris Audrey Wedgwood, married her brother Thomas Geoffrey Rowland Makeig-Jones in 1928. She retired in 1931.

From The Wedgwood Museum:

In 1916, Susannah Margeretta ‘Daisy’ Makeig-Jones, introduced an extensive range of some of the most extraordinary ware ever produced by Wedgwood. It was called Fairyland lustre and adorned a large number of shapes, some of which were made especially for the purpose. Daisy’s fairies came from many cultural backgrounds and the articles they decorate often tell complex tales. Here, on the chalice cup, we simply see elves against a sunset sky enjoying a game of leapfrog. However, the simple antics of the fairies belie the technical expertise needed to make each piece of Fairyland lustre – some of which needed as many as six firings. Daisy’s Fairyland remained popular until well into the 1920s when the Wall Street crash and a change in taste saw that it was gradually discontinued. According to factory history, Daisy was asked to leave in 1930 but flatly refused to do so. She felt like a member of the family. Not long afterwards, she herself decided to leave, making the dramatic gesture of smashing her pots as she went.

From The Victoria and Albert Museum:

Daisy Makeig-Jones's fascination with fairies, following such illustrators as Arthur Rackham, Edmund Dulac and the Danish artist, Kay Nielsen, proved very popular in the 1920s. Wedgwood have always produced a huge range of styles to capture different market tastes. The cosy drawing room and nursery atmosphere of the decoration of these works, and the monumental forms, contrast sharply with the modernist works being produced at Wedgwood's in the same period.

Targeting the luxury end of the market with these pieces, they represent one of Wedgwood's most extraordinary technical achievements in the ceramic industry. The richly coloured ornament of Fairyland Lustre was extremely popular throughout the 1920s as expensive collector's pieces. But by the 1930s the appeal of lustre was waning and the collapse of the American market had a noticable effect on the demand for ornamental wares. Fairyland was gradually phased out in the 1930s as Keith Murray and Norman Wilson were taken up. Fairyland was considered too expensive and old-fashioned.
[Susan McCormack, 'British Design at Home', p.113]

From Antique Marks (which has one of the most informative webpages about the line):

Wedgwood's rise to prominence in the 18th century was based on innovation in manufacture and designs that, despite being adaptations of classical motifs from the antique, were presented in a new form, which had broad based appeal.

However, during the 19th century Wedgwood lacked the innovation and energy provided by its founder Josiah I, and its wares became for the most part derivative, concentrating almost exclusively on production of its traditional basalt and jasper wares.

By the early 20th century, the factory was nearly bankrupt. The key to its survival to a very large extent was the development, in the early 1900s, of a dazzling range of new glazing techniques, particularly one which produced a finish of multi-coloured iridescence. The catalyst for change at the company's Etruria works in Stoke-on-Trent was Daisy Makeig-Jones fairies. They were loved by some and hated by others, indeed, some thought she was mad, but without doubt, they helped Wedgwood return to profitability after the First World War.

Daisy's art school training helped Wedgwood grow and by 1914, she was considered good enough to be given her own studio.

Fairies bring good luck, they say. Daisy's run of luck began when she was paced in the studio next to the one where trials of new glazes were taking place. Glazes that were to add so much to her inspired designs. There, she was able to watch the paintresses at work and pass to them watercolour drawings of her Fairyland ideas so that, in effect, they became part of the experiments.

In fact, Daisy carried out her own test firings with glazes of different colours and lustres that were later adopted when production began, just nine months after being taken on as a staff designer.

***

Rich blues, purple, orange (her favourite colour) yellow, green and gold, were all worked together with pixies, elves and sprites in ways reminiscent of book illustrations by Edmund Dulac and Arthur Rackham.

And, like all clever, well constructed pictures, the harder you look, the more you see: elves playing leapfrog; spiders spinning evil webs; gaudy rainbows over romantic castles; ghostly woods and apparitions in the Land of Illusion.

Interestingly, rather than being figments of an over active imagination, many Fairyland Lustre designs have strong links with folklore, legend and tradition, though clearly, Daisy's fairy people did things their way.

From The Walters Art Museum:

The Wedgwood factory gave Susannah Margaretta (Daisy) Makeig-Jones (1881-1945) her own design studio in 1915. Drawing on her early love of fairy stories, she introduced an imaginative line of decorative wares that remained popular throughout the 1920s. This particular design was introduced in 1924. Engravers transferred Makeig-Jones's designs to copper plates for printing onto paper sheets known as pottery tissues. While the ink was still wet on the pottery tissues, the images were rubbed onto the ceramic surfaces. Women painters then applied the colors to these designs on the ceramics, a process that necessitated several firings, and then added the colorful glazes. The gold details were added last.

So the Fairyland Lustre saved the company (which is struggling again today) and has remained a highly collectible item. I highly recommend hunting for a piece the next time you visit a museum. They are fun to look at and study with their details and colors.

These images came primarily from M. S. Rau Antiques and James D. Julia Auctions, not the referenced museums. The idea to pull materials from several museum sites was abetted by The Lion and the Cardinal where many of the links were compiled previously. (I usually do that anyway as readers here know, but The Lion and the Cardinal made my job easier.)

Fairy Tale Weddings by Debbie Macomber

Fairy Tale Weddings by Debbie Macomber is temporarily $1.24 in ebook edition on Amazon and is actually two of Macomber's early books combined in one volume, one inspired by Cinderella and the other by Beauty and the Beast.

True confessions time: I read this last fall when I was deathly ill with high fevers and could barely manage anything but holding up my Kindle and trying desperately to stay well enough to avoid hospitalization. I don't remember the stories very well, but they were perfect books for when I was really sick and needed just enough content to distract me from my woes but couldn't focus on anything with too much weight. I ended up glomming a bunch of Macomber titles during those weeks after reading this one since almost anything else contributed to strange fever-induced nightmares. Macomber helped keep me from going crazy since reading is my best medicine. Strange but true. Consequently, she will always have an affectionate spot in my reading history. So buy this and save it up for your next bout with the flu or other feverish illness. (No, I didn't have the flu, but it was similar, just much, much worse with several weeks of fever and other ailments.)

Description from the publisher:

Fairy Tales Can Come True

Cindy and the Prince

Thorndike Prince--handsome, levelheaded, successful--is a high-ranking New York City executive. Cindy Territo is the janitor who cleans his office after hours. There's no reason they'd ever meet, no reason he'd even notice her--until, on a whim and a dare, Cindy crashes his company's Christmas ball. She dances with her Prince and then, like a proper Cinderella, flees at midnight, leaving her heart behind....

Some Kind of Wonderful

Beautiful inside and out, New York socialite Judy Lovin values family over fortune and fame. So when her father's business collapses and his most powerful enemy offers to help--in exchange for Judy's company--she agrees to join John McFarland on his remote Caribbean island. It isn't long before she discovers that John's far from the beast he seems to be!

About the Author

Debbie Macomber, the author of Hannah’s List, 1022 Evergreen Place, Summer on Blossom Street, 92 Pacific Boulevard, and Twenty Wishes, is a leading voice in women’s fiction. Three of her novels have scored the #1 slot on the New York Times, USA Today, and Publishers Weekly bestseller lists. Debbie Macomber's Mrs. Miracle was Hallmark Channel's top-watched movie for 2009. Winner of the 2005 Quill Award for Best Romance, the prolific author has more than 140 million copies of her books in print worldwide.

Fairyland Lustre by Wedgwood, Part 1

No, I am not in the path of Hurricane Irene--best wishes to all of those of you who are--but I have witnessed an evacuation before when living in South Carolina. Additionally, Nashville survived our horrible floods last year, so my sympathies are thoroughly engaged. I pray that the loss of life and property damage is minimal.

So today I wanted to share something that has been on my list for months now. Last December when John and I traveled with my parents to visit several museums, the Birmingham Museum of Art was our first stop. I hadn't been there before and didn't know that the museum has one of the largest collections of Wedgwood in the world, the largest in the USA. I have always loved Wedgwood and brought some pieces home with me from my first trip to England several years ago. Mine are the inexpensive, common pieces of jasperware that Wedgwood is most famous for producing. But at the museum I fell in love with the Fairyland Lustre. I am sure I have seen random pieces before, but the museum had a wonderful display of several pieces which captured my heart for several minutes.

Unfortunately, photography doesn't capture the beauty of the pieces. Overall, to most tastes, in pictures they simply appear gaudy or gauche. But in person they glow. The finish shimmers and is amazing. The gold detailing shines. The colors glow. They are vibrant and feel very magical to behold in person.

They are also expensive. So I won't be owning one anytime soon. I will have to be content with my Jasperware. But now when I see a ceramics collection in a museum, I go hunting for the Fairyland Lustre and usually find one lone, representative piece hidden among the rest. Even the one book on the line is out of print and sells for about $400: Wedgwood Fairyland Lustre - The Work of Daisy Makeig-Jones.

Tomorrow I will share more about the line's history. These images are not from the Birmingham Museum of Art, but come primarily from M. S. Rau Antiques and James D. Julia Auctions.

The one above is one of my favorites.

Fairy Tale Desserts on Top Chef: Just Desserts

So last night I turned on the tv to discover my John had left the channel on Bravo which proved fortunate because the season premiere of Top Chef: Just Desserts was airing with a fairy tale dessert challenge! The website doesn't have any still images yet--the page was empty when I was writing this--but some videos are available for embedding, so I will share those.

I haven't watched the entire episode yet, but I saw the desserts which were inspired by Jack and the Beanstalk, Goldilocks and the Three Bears, Little Red Riding Hood and Hansel and Gretel. Hansel and Gretel was disappointing since it missed the opportunity to do a charming gingerbread house. But the Jack and the Beanstalk team made me happy by referencing Milky White, the cow in Jack and the Beanstalk.

I don't know all the ways of watching the episode through various online resources, etc. I do know Bravo runs repeats ad nauseum, so if you have that, you can find it there. It might also be available on the Bravo website soon.

Here are the videos:

Fairy Tales, Monsters, and the Genetic Imagination in 2012

Regular readers know that I live in the Nashville area. I was thrilled this past week when the Frist Center for the Visual Arts announced its upcoming exhibits for 2012 and one included fairy tales. It doesn't open until February 2012 here in Nashville but it will travel to two locations in Canada after it leaves here.

From the Frist Center's Press Release:

Fairy Tales, Monsters, and the Genetic Imagination
Feb. 24–May 29, 2012
Upper-Level Galleries

Fairy Tales, Monsters, and the Genetic Imagination is an exhibition of works by contemporary artists who invent humanlike, animal or hybrid creatures to symbolize life's mysteries, desires and fears. Finding inspiration in sources ranging from Aesop's Fables to the products of genetic experimentation, the artists in the exhibition examine interactions between nature and humanity in the context of oral and written lore, psychology, ethics and visions of the future in both science and science fiction. The exhibition will include approximately 60 contemporary paintings, photographs, sculptures and video works.

This exhibition is organized by the Frist Center for the Visual Arts and curated by Frist Center Chief Curator Mark Scala.

The exhibition will travel to Winnipeg Art Gallery, Manitoba, Canada: June 15–Sept. 9, 2012, and to the Glenbow Art Museum, Calgary, Alberta, Canada: Sept. 28–Jan. 2, 2013.
The exhibition is accompanied by a catalog published by Vanderbilt University Press.

The publisher description for the exhibition catalog provides a little more information as well as the image at the top of the post. It also includes essays from Jack Zipes and Marina Warner, superstars in fairy tale academia. Here's the description:

This catalog explores the psychological and social implications contained in the hybrid creatures and fantastic scenarios created by contemporary artists whose works will appear in the exhibition Fairy Tales, Monsters, and the Genetic Imagination, which opens at Nashville's Frist Center for the Visual Arts in February 2012. Curator Mark Scala's introductory essay focuses on anthropomorphism in the mythology, folklore, and art of many cultures as it contrasts with the dominant Western view of human exceptionalism. Scala also provides an art historical context, linking the visual fabulists of today to artists of the Romantic, Symbolist, and Surrealist periods who sought to transcend oppositions such as rationality and intuition, fear and desire, the physical and the spiritual.

Discussing how artists adapt traditional stories to give mythic form to the very real dilemmas of contemporary life, Jack Zipes's "Fairy-Tale Collisions" centers on Paula Rego, Kiki Smith, and Cindy Sherman. From a generation of women who have attained prominence since the 1980s, these artists alter fairy-tale imagery to subvert or rewrite social roles and codes.

In "Metamorphosis of the Monstrous," Marina Warner discusses works in the exhibition in the context of historical conceptions of monsters as expressions of alterity, bestiality, or sinfulness. Her reminder that contemporary monster images offer "a promise and a warning about the variety, heterogeneity, and possible combinations and recombinations in the order of things" sets the stage for Suzanne Anker's essay, punningly titled "The Extant Vamp (or the) Ire of It All: Fairy Tales and Genetic Engineering." Considering representations of hybrid bodies by Patricia Piccinini, Janaina Tschape, Saya Woolfalk, and others, which evoke imagined beings of the past as a way to envision the recombinant creatures that may lie in the future, Anker shows how artists explore the social, ethical, and future implications of biological design and enhanced evolution.

Accompanying an exhibition of contemporary art in which depictions of marvelous creatures and fantastic narratives provide both chills and delights, the essays in Fairy Tales, Monsters, and the Genetic Imagination explore the meaning of this fabulist revival through the lenses of social and art history, literature, feminism, animal studies, and science.

I am thrilled I will get to see the exhibit without traveling--and I am a Frist member, so that works, too!--and the catalog looks like a great addition to my library. If you are in the Nashville area anytime between February and May next year, include the Frist Center on your itinerary. (It's also right down the street from my high school alma mater.)

Participate in Fairy Tale Film Month on SurLaLune Blog

   

Back in the spring I started a fairy tale film week and then abandoned it when I became overwhelmed with editing Bluebeard Tales From Around the World.

   

Now I want to devote all of September for discussing fairy tales and films--including classic, recent and future--and I am asking for reader participation. What fairy tale film do you love? Which one do you detest? Which one is a guilty pleasure?

  

I don't particularly care what you write, just be sure you want it shared. You can choose an online name for it. But I want to start discussion and even awareness of fairy tale films as the onslaught of new ones begins next year again. We've had several this year, too, of course.

   

Then throughout the month of September I will share your thoughts on the blog. So technically the deadline is September 29th, but the sooner the better so I have more to share. And to sweeten the request, I will randomly select one submitter to receive a brand new copy of Jack Zipes' new book, The Enchanted Screen: The Unknown History of Fairy-Tale Films. I only have one copy to give away but I may find some extra prizes if I receive enough entries to inspire me!

Send your entries to contest (at) surlalunefairytales dot com. Include a user name or how you would like to be named in the post. Sending an entry to me implies permission to reprint it on the blog. I hope this is fun and gets us all thinking about our favorite fairy tale films. I'd prefer one film discussed per post to maintain link, but I am quite flexible and want good writing and strong opinions more than anything else.

Finally, there are no right or wrong answers here. You can love Disney. You can hate it. You can love or hate any of these films. The commenters on SurLaLune tend to prefer discussion over attacks. I will moderate, too. And don't let the article about films I linked to earlier today with Jack Zipes intimidate you. It happened to coincide with my timing for this announcement. Your opinions are welcome whether or not I agree with them or anyone else does!