Monthly Archives for December 2008

Laptophenge–Doing it Right!

laptophenge

photo by Simon W. Burrow, with permission, henging by SWB and friends.

We have been admiring this man’s henging skills for a while and this evening we received the much-coveted okey-dokey to post some of his creations.  Hurray! We start with Laptophenge, which boasts $100,000 worth of old laptops. To quote the blog post:

“Fifty old laptops of course equals fifty crashed hard drives and an equal number of unhappy people.  Hopefully the joy created by Laptophenge has restored some of the karmic balance to the universe.“

We have no doubt that it has! Look at the joy here.

And this is not all–a henge t-shirt was created for the henging event that resulted in Laptophenge–a shirt we must post:
henge-t-shirt

Clearly these are people after our own hearts!And you haven’t even seen cellphonehenge and its ancient avenue of pagers . . . So many henges, so little time!

Laptophenge is an amazing creation. The t-shirt is just icing on the cake, the very best, most delicious icing.  Score: 7½ druids for our first California henge. We look forward to bringing you more works by Mr. Burrow. Happy New Year, everyone!

Colorado’s Stonehenge, The Rock Garden

colorado-gallery2-8

Welcome to Fort Collins, Colorado, home of Colorado’s Stonehenge, located at the headquarters of The Rock Garden [beware–potentially annoying music accompanies the site until you click on the Stop Sound button!] a seller of natural stone products. These photos are from their website, and, yes, they do advertise as Colorados’ Stonehenge.

colorado-gallery2-2

However there does not appear to be a Stonehenge replica here, just some trilithons and the constructions above–what would you call them?–with a lintel over the ends of two adjacent trilithons. We also see at least one monolith in there. But calling this a Stonehenge when you create a new kind of structure for it and when there is a large landscaped pond in the middle is colorado-gallery41stretching the term, we think.

Still, it is a nice construction, even though it is stranded in something that resembles a stone-age miniature golf course. We would be curious (as always) to know what inspired these builders to go for a henge replica.

Scoring–well, how many druids do you think would hang out here? On the other hand, Colorado druids may be a peculiar lot. We’ll give this Stonehenge replica 4 druids, and maybe an ice cream cone when the game’s over if you get your golf ball through the trilithon!

We may not post tomorrow, but we’ll see you next year. Happy New Year, gentle readers!

Guest Score from Simon Burrow: 7 druids. Thank you, Simon! Apparently, this one is all about being there.

Clay Henge (we hope!)

poop-henge1

photo by Jamie Rae Cline, with permission

So, when we look around for henges online, we see all kinds of things. Many we have yet to pass on to you because we’re waiting, perhaps in vain, for permissions for photos (Flickr allows you to reblog without permissions, but the resulting photos are small, and anyway part of the fun of doing this is communicating with hengers and henge photographers) and there are a few we simply do not plan to share.

Sometimes, as in this case, we’re not really sure what we’re looking at. The photographer says she thinks it’s made from clay, but something about it, maybe the moss, suggests that it was made or perhaps deposited by an unusually creative dog! Then again, perhaps it’s just powdered doughnut sticks–the things we used to call crullers. We may never know, but because the ick factor creates in us a morbid fascination, you get to see it–lucky you!

Ms. Cline tells us she saw it at Culver-Stockton College in the education department and that it was built by a student. We don’t know much more, and that may be all to the good. Nevertheless it stands as still another demonstration of the Clonehenge principle, that unfailing impulse to build henges from any material that comes to (gasp!) hand. Score: 3 druids, and all three are a little grossed out! There’s just something about that little pillar on the right . . .

Hop Henge: India Pale Ale

bottle-hop-henge1

photo from deschutesbrewery.com

Here’s something in keeping with the holidays: an Imperial IPA from a small brewery in central Oregon. And according to the site it actually was named after a henge:

“When one of our brewers suggested we name our new IPA Hop Henge, he also came up with the idea of actually recreating Stonehenge, only with hop bales. We were up for the challenge and even though the weather did not want to cooperate, we pulled it off and threw a party afterwards.”

So it’s a henge replica beer, the only one we know of! Maybe they were inspired by the Maryhill replica which is  near the Oregon/Washington border.  The ale gets very good reviews on the beer sites and blogs, but we at Clonehenge, never having tried it (sadly), make no guarantees. The henge itself, of course, is represented only by an artist’s rendering, the accuracy of which we cannot know, although there is another, better, picture at the bottom of this page here.

Stonehenge replicas turn up everywhere, don’t they? We think this one is kind of fun. Score: 7 druids for Deschute’s Hop Henge. Thank you for giving Clonehenge a favourite ale!

Harryport Henge, Illinois

harryport-stonehenge-21
photo (cropped)  from the website of the Illinois Powered Paragliding Association

One of the joys of producing this blog is finding Stonehenge replicas that haven’t made it onto the big lists yet. One example was the Oklahoma replica and this one in Illinois is another, the henge at Harryport (a private airfield), or, as it is termed in this link describing the process, Harry Rossett’s Stonehenge. Lots of good pictures on that link, of the creation of this henge which is made of foam covered with concrete. You can see it here on Google Maps:

We cannot say that building a full-sized Stonehenge replica is a sign of good character (It may be. Needz moar rsrch!), but it is a likely indicator of good humour and a guarantee that one is a Very Interesting Person. We have an inkling that one of the main motives behind this henge may have been testosteronic bravado–which was probably what generated the original Stonehenge, too, at least in part, so cheers to Harry Rossett! The stone shapes and proportions are off and the whole thing looks more skinny than ponderous, but we’ll give him a 6 druid score for his hangglider henge!

Stonehenge at Burning Man, Nevada

Stonehenge at Burning Man 2004

 

This replica, referred to by some as Sol Henge, was built for the Burning Man Festival in 2004. It is actually a sound system, a henge of giant speakers built by Sol Systems, a group of entrepeneurs who tell the story of Sol Henge at this link. See another picture here.

If you don’t know what the Burning Man Festival is, this post is not the place to learn it, but we will say that giant lit-up speaker-henges are probably one of the more pedestrian things about it. There does seem to be an affinity between Stonehenge and Burning Man. In other years there have been a Twinkie Henge (“just like Stonehenge but it will last longer”–2000) and a MudHenge (1996).

As for Sol Henge, it’s difficult to score. It seems to have an opposite effect to the original, not quiet power but fantastic effect, as if it is meant to point one’s attention at oneself instead of outward, and more about the senses than the yearnings. Of course, it may just be a more roundabout route to the same goal. No doubt it depends on the perceiver. Score: 7 druids for the henge in the desert, lit from within.

See first comment for information from one of Sol Henge’s creators!

Sandstone Henge, Tasmania

tasmanian-stonehenge

photo by ron_co2002, with permission

The holiday over, we are off again on our world tour, this time far south to Buckland, Tasmania and a sandstone Stonehenge replica built by Design in Stone, a sandstone processing plant. Unfortunately, the photo above and the photo on their site are so different that it is difficult to get a sense of what the finished henge is like.

tasmania-2

Tasmania has a bit of a henge fetish, it seems. A very nice straw henge was also displayed prominently there one summer and numerous pictures of it appear on the web (Straw and hay henges are practically a blog to themselves, but we will post some outstanding ones as time goes on.) Why do some places seem to generate more henges than others? It’s a curious phenomenon.

If we get more information on this replica, we’ll add it to this post. For now we’ll award 6 druids, partly just for being tucked away in such a remote corner. At one time we would have been surprised to learn of a Stonehenge in Tasmania, but we know now that we live in a Stonehenge-mad world, and half expect to see one around every corner!

The Henge at Babbacombe, Devon, U.K.

photo by trollpowersaab, with permission

photo by trollpowersaab, with permission

photo by trollpowersaab, with permission

We usually try to mix it up, leaving days between similar henges, but the picture above seemed just right for Christmas eve. Babbacombe Model Village is a collection of scale models of buildings and scenes, one of them, of course, being another miniature version of our old friend from Salisbury Plain. This time of year, the whole display is supplied with artificial snow and festooned with holiday lights.

Here’s another view of the model, in the form of an e-postcard you can send through the Babbacombe website. Interestingly, in 2005 mini-druids began appearing mysteriously throughout the village, in what was called a Banksy-like incident!

We feel like we should like this replica a little more than we do. It looks pretty good, and yet something is just not right, maybe the proportions, maybe just a lack in gravitas. For its purpose, however, it is completely adequate, and it’s the holidays so we’ll be generous. Score: 7½ druids for the model henge. Happy Christmas, everyone! Expect tomorrow’s post to be a short one.

Lego Stonehenge, Legoland Windsor

lego-stonehenge

photo by top_gun_1uk, with permission

Back to Stonehenge’s home country for today’s post, and a Stonehenge made of  something that may be under a Christmas tree near you in two days’ time–less, really! At Legoland Windsor, outside London, visitors are treated to this mini-Stonehenge of Lego bricks, complete with mini-people and backed by a miniature Glastonbury Tor.

The Lego company sponsored a Stonehenge-making contest this summer, by the way, and you can see the winners here. That many of them are not made of Legos surprised us, but it’s an interesting (to us, anyway) collection of replicas. Well done, kids!

Compared to some henges we’ve posted lately, at least whoever made the henge above took time to look at Stonehenge first. The “stones” have those characteristic Stonehenge proportions and the look of rounded squareness that many models fail to capture. The colour was a nice choice, too. Lego professionals know how to get it done! Score: 7½ druids for the plastic megaliths of brick.