It may or may not surprise you to learn that I regularly scour the web for additions to The Sudden Yurt Commune.
And today, I found exactly the kind of vessel I would want for our flagship. I’m jonesing bad for these:
It’s a handmade boat, part of a floating art project called The Swimming Cities of Serenissima.
Description: The Swimming Cities of Serenissima is a fleet of three intricately hand crafted vessels that will navigate the Adriatic Sea from the Litoral region of Slovenia to Venice, Italy in May of 2009. Designed by the visual artist SWOON, the floating sculptures are descendants of the Swimming Cities of Switchback Sea (Hudson River, 2008) and the Miss Rockaway Armada (Mississippi River, 2006 and 2007).
Uhm, whatever, Pretensio. Just look at ’em. That’s all you need to do.
(all photos Tod Seelie)
Aren’t they amazing? So magical and whimsical.
Further info on the project here.
And, please, you must go here for more photos — they’re gorgeous, breathtaking, every last one — and to follow the tale of their journey.
The SYC needs one of these, don’t you think?
So we can all float down a river, out to sea, to the end of the world, wherever …..
Awesome! You’ve found the Niña, Pinta, and Santa Maria of our Traveling Cosmic Voyage.
Looks like someone actually watched the Kevin Costner epic Waterworld. Which, in actuality, I *did*. I even kinda liked it. Dunno what that says about me, but there you go. I think I liked it because of Tina Majorino, though.
They are gorgeous and remind me of China Mieville’s book, “The Scar,” which is set in a floating city made up of boats and barges and floatsam that have been strapped together over time. We MUST have whimsical gypsy boats to sail off into the sunset. Sooo loverly.
GraD — I thought that, too. Kinda Water World-y.
Marisa — I don’t know that book, but it sounds like my kind of thing.
And, yes, we MUST have whimsical gypsy boats to sail off into the sunset, sipping wine and singing songs ….
And I cannot look like those pictures without thinking that we will all need striped knee socks and victorian nightgowns and leather jackets and just generally crazy steampunk get ups that look like they were designed by Cyndi Lauper if she had been born in the late 1800s.
Hmm. We will need to learn to sing sea shanties. That’s good, though, because I’ve always wanted a proper reason for singing sea shanties.
Oh, and I JUST found out that a B&B near my home has yurts! But they only have two. Five or six months out of the year they rent out two adorable yurts on their property.
We could run a yurt B&B when we aren’t making whimsical sea voyages. 🙂
We need these.
I think they just might be strong enough to carry all those books we’re bringing along. 🙂
Oooooh. One of the boats can be a floating LIBRARY. I like this idea.
Marisa — “Sea shanties,” yes. I don’t know any! “Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum”? Is that something? And a yurt B&B would be so cool. With a yurt coffeehouse.
Oh, sweet Moses. THAT would be SO perfect.
Kate P — Floating library, yay! With our own neighborhood librarian, Kate P!
I suspect that we all know the same four sea shanties:
The yo-ho-ho one (Fifteen men on the dead man’s chest…)
“What do we do with the drunken sailor?”
Sloop John B
and
John Denver’s “Aye Calypso”
I for one am NOT trying to falsetto yodel.
OH WAIT – we can add “Land Ho” by the Doors, but it’s not widely known.
I used to joke about having my own private library island, but I would be more than happy to be in charge of the floating library! Hey, isn’t the theme to “Spongebob” a sea shanty? That’s the only one I know.
Hahahaha! Yes it is, Kate. We’ve got a whole EP going for us!
I am working on a soundtrack album. I’m thinking, in addition to Nightfly’s list: Moxy Fruvous’ “My Baby Loves a Bunch of Authors” (in honor of Kate and her library) and Captain Tractor’s “The Last Saskatchewan Pirate” – which makes an excellent sea shanty. 🙂
OH! I can add one: “A Pirate I Was Meant to Be” from the Curse of Monkey Island videogame. (Yeah, I know, but it’s a great game and very funny, lots of tongue-in-cheek stuff. Example: one of the singing pirates only joins your crew if you can best him in a duel. There’s only one way possible to win – when he asks you to choose your weapon, close the pistol case and take the case behind it, which holds a banjo.) In any case, Marisa, I will send you the audio file if you need it.
And yes, I only realized this just now because the song just popped up on my iPod.
nightfly that sounds AWESOME! I would love to have the audio file (I can burn us all CDs!) and, I’m not gonna lie. I’m off in search of that videogame PRONTO. There are few things I love more than silly videogames.
The game is old, but I think you can find a version that will run on a current machine/OS. It’s wonderfully done, really, the animations are hand-drawn and the whole look of it is wonderful. Voice acting is top-notch too.
RE: CDs… I was working on a Yurt Soundtrack already, so if you take care of the seafaring stuff I’ll take care of the land-based items. I’ll call mine “One If By Land”….