Monthly Archives for June 2011

Cakehenges and Word Fields: the Plight of the Carbon-Conscious Blogger

photo from TheSugarSyndicate.com’s Flickr account
Believe it or not, we are swamped with new Stonehenge replicas of all sorts and you might think, if you were not in possession of all the facts, that we should be posting here at least a couple of times per week, if not every day. You could be forgiven for assuming we are just lazy.

But nothing could be further from the truth! What people don’t realise is that unlike other bloggers, who just use mass-produced letters and words, often imported from countries where they have been grown with pesticides by people who are paid sub-subsistence wages and who have no access to health care despite their crippling work, here at Clonehenge we personally grow every letter and every word ourselves, nurturing them with great care and at much expense.

This labour of love gives us precious little time for the fun of producing these posts for our adoring public, but because we know you are waiting breathlessly we tear ourselves away from the Palabra beanfields to craft these posts like drystone walls, turning and fitting each word and each letter until somehow they fit and balance to make the august edifice that is Clonehenge.

Today our topic is Stonehenge cakes, or cakehenges. The example above, beautifully done, was the 2007 creation of a Chicago-based bakery, The Sugar Syndicate, which is, alas, no longer a going concern. It is an outstanding example of the cakehenge genre, second only to our favourite, the mom-made cakehenge from New Zealand’s Vanda Symon.

photo by Siobhan Jess Sarrel

The confection in the pan above was posted on the Clonehenge Facebook page by reader Siobhan Jess Sarrel, about whom we know nothing, especially not how to pronounce her first name. She baked gluten-free brownies, used fondant to fashion the Stonehenge on top, and took it to a friend’s solstice party. (We do not know if Ms. Sarrel is in the northern or southern hemisphere, so we don’t know if it was a summer or winter solstice party.)

These henges have many things right with them. First, they are our preferred type–replicas of Stonehenge as it stands today. In both cases the builders looked at pictures of Stonehenge to guide their modeling. Both show the trilithon horseshoe and the three remaining adjacent lintels. Both show fallen stones.

The top cake is more accurate in scale and placement and also includes the bluestones. It is impeccable and professional looking. The brownies, on the other hand, are gluten-free.

This may not mean much to the average reader, but for us this is a huge factor. Not only are we at Clonehenge among those who are required for health reasons to eat gluten-free foods only, but it is a little-known fact that the original Stonehenge on Salisbury Plain IS IN FACT GLUTEN-FREE!!! Well caught, Lady S. J. Sarrel!

Scores? We give the Syndicate henge 7 ½ druids and Ms. Sarrel’s brownie henge a solid 7. We figure we don’t want to run afoul of any syndicate out of Chicago!

Well, it looks like we’ve just about run out of words that are developed enough to pick. We’ll have to let the fields grow a bit before we can post again. Here’s hoping the aliens don’t come by and ruin things with crop circles!

If you’re still hungry for cakehenges, find more here. And until next time, happy henging!

P.S.: What the hell is fondant, anyway? Yes, we know we could google it but the truth is we’re far too lazy. Oops.

The Guerilla Henging Craze (and the Land of the Frozen Maple Leaf )

photo from this article

Happy solstice to our reader(s)!

Listen. We need to have a talk about, yes, guerilla henging. Everybody’s used to guerilla theatre and, more recently, guerilla crochet. But for years a hidden epidemic of Stonehenge building or henging has been going on without fanfare and without triggering any alarm in the unsuspecting public. Wake up, people!

It took this throw-away article on street art involving city-abandoned planters in (not surprisingly) Toronto (Ontario again!) to stir our thinking. It involves only one guerilla henge, but we know this is just the tip of the iceberg! [Note to Canadians–we used that as a common figure of speech. It is not, we repeat, NOT a cheap Canada/snow and ice joke.] This is not just a few flaky hengers, drifting along at glacial speeds, but a blizzard of henge creation that is crystallising now and is unlikely to melt at any time in the foreseeable future. *wink wink* [blah, blah, blah, Mounties, white bears, ice floes…]

Anyway, after a lengthy hiatus, we have been doing a little searching around the internet for new henges and the results are startling. Everyone is building Stonehenge replicas! We don’t mean stone circles, as we have explained before. That is a completely different category of creation. We’re talking about structures with lintels, meant to mimic Stonehenge itself. They are appearing in unprecedented numbers, from pre-made kits and models to instructions for junior hengers, to the usual alcohol-inspired henges and foodhenges, plus the mysterious henges that appear on lawns and in public places like mushrooms springing into existence overnight.

What is going on with people? The human race has gone into a frenzy of Stonehenge reproduction–those little worms that entered their minds upon seeing pictures of Stonehenge, or the real thing, taking over their wills as if they were wombs, and forcing them to give birth to Stonehenge’s children! There should be a task force on this or something.

But for now there is only Clonehenge. We are the voice crying in the wilderness, warning everyone of the danger of Stonehenge replicas eventually taking over every vacant square inch on the earth’s surface. Alas! We cry out but no one hears us. Our valient warnings fall on deaf ears. Et cetera, et cetera.

What we’re actually saying here, for those who are incapable of reading subtext, is–Day-um, ma peeps, git your asses out there and put henges in all the oddest and most surprising places. This is our time! Flash mobs are going out and guerilla henging is IN! Clonehenge wants YOU.

So once again we wish you happy henging! But please, some of you, be careful on the ice! You know who you are, eh?

P.S.: We forgot that we meant to use the word frightening in this post. Feel free to insert it where you will.

Why No Posts?

photo by Jo Wallace

Four words: “Disk failure is imminent.” All of the henges we had lined up (and we DID actually have some!) are currently unavailable and (possibly) awaiting rescue. Our apologies. Meanwhile keep those links, photos, and suggestions coming. If you sent us one and you haven’t seen it, please send it again.

We’ve posted the picture above before in our post on the Stonehenge/golf connection, but here is a link to someone’s blog post on this replica, sent us by ever-alert reader and contributer Bob Bradlee aka @StonehengeGuy . We’ve seen pictures of a minigolf course in Thailand, a couple in England, maybe one or two more, but surely we don’t have them all. You can help in this vitally important research! If you’re traveling this summer, keep your eyes peeled for Stonehenge golf courses, large or small. Clonehenge fame awaits you!