Jelly Babyhenge, photo and henge by Dave Dummet
In honour of the Royal Sprout, whether he lives to rule or to banish the monarchy, we wish him and his parents and grandparents good luck and good health!
Oh, and we hope you like our new look. It is here to stay. Comments are welcome.
Stonehenge, the grand and mysterious ancient ruin of Salisbury Plain, thought by some to be the spherical temple with many offerings located in Hyperborea, as mentioned by Diodorus, has now been reproduced in the medium of compressed Wonder Bread, which, if you are not familiar with it, is bread in the same sense that coconut-scented shampoo is fruit. But there it is: you can see it above. A crumby little Stonehenge. Sigh.
This is not to say that the artist, Milena Korolczuk, has not been very clever in creating her Stonehenge de pain, her megaliths o fara, her ancient stones van brood. Of course very few people would be able, or would want to create a careful little sculptural sketch like this from such an unorthodox substance. It is brilliant in its own way. We applaud her.
Score: 6 druid. Six tiny little crumbly stale druids. We had put them at the back of the shelf the first summer we started Clonehenge and forgot about them all this time, but here is the perfect way to use them. We don’t even have to brush the cobwebs or mouse dropping off of them. There, little fellows, off you go!
What’s interesting about this for our purposes, if you look at the page it came from, is that except for a depiction of the earth, all of the other sculptures are human portraits. Stonehenge is the only monument or icon, or anything. Which brings us, as always to the question that echoes down the centuries of posts amassed on this now millennia-old blog,
WHAT IS IT ABOUT?
No, that’s not it. What is it? Let’s see…
WHAT IS IT ABOUT STONEHENGE????
Yes, thank you. That’s the one precisely. What is Stonehenge doing to us as a species? Why do people stuck in Antarctica build snowhenges? Why do people drinking wine make cheesehenges? Why do people at the beach make little Stonehenges from odd roundish stones? Why do rich people build full-sized Stonehenges, and regular people build those odd one-trilithon henges? Why, when people build odd things from stone that don’t look like Stonehenge AT ALL, do they call them Stonehenges?
People laugh at us when we say that Stonehenge has a secret force that in a sense lays a psychic egg in the minds of those who loom at it, forcing them to reproduce it in some form at a point in the future. But tell us, oh you mockers and laughers, how do YOU explain it? What dark forces are at work that has created Stonehenges on every continent? That has forced scientists and artists and students and real estate agents and all sorts of people with little in common to reproduce it in countless forms? We leave this question here for you to ponder.
As for what we want, we ask for two things, two forms of Stonehenge now that we have our inflatable bouncy Stonehenge that once was only a dream. We would like to see: 1. A Stonehenge replica, no matter how small, on the International Space Station, and 2. We would like to see an inflatable FLOATING Stonehenge, preferably of a good size. These are our dream henges. See what you can do. You aren’t busy with anything important. You don’t fool us.
The world shambles on in strange lurches, its rhythms forced by powers we cannot imagine, and when we try to site ahead, we see only dim inexplicable shapes in patterns of motion that defy understanding. Someday we will actually write a humourous blog, but until then, dear readers, happy henging!
A mockup of the New Stonehenge, used with permission from Mr. Colin Shearing.
It has been announced with great fanfare. Even a BBC article has announced the unveiling of the plans for this grand Stonehenge for the new millenium, its site only four miles from the original. The plans are unexpectedly elaborate, including a flooring of white quartz granite, a moat, gardens, and yurts for visitors who wish to spend the night.
Consider all of that, along with uprights that are to be of various colored stone types from around the world, eight gates, a white wall, and a visitor center and exhibition domes that will be built to look like Newgrange: and of all this the project leader, Colin Shearing said, “It’s going to look like Stonehenge as we believe it looked as it was new.” and “You can’t really experience how [Stonehenge] was when it was new because it’s old, so a new one would give you an opportunity to experience what our ancestors experienced when they went to the original one.”
By “experience what the ancestors experienced”, does he mean a simulation of the way things look when you take psilocybin mushrooms, as our ancestors probably did? Because this New Stonehenge is beginning to sound more like an elaborate American cemetery than like anything resembling the original Stonehenge and its surroundings.
Still, that doesn’t mean that Clonehenge doesn’t fully support this effort! We do, most emphatically. This is the most ballyhooed and trumpeted Stonehenge replica project of all time, or at least for all of the centuries during which the Clonehenge blog has been operational.
The build-up and fanfare so far has been sensational. The plans are unbelievably elaborate and posh. The work is being done to have an environmental impact study of the planned site completed. Only one major piece needs to fall into place. It’s not so major, actually. After all, it’s just money. That’s right, folks, they lack funding. And that’s where YOU come in. The site says,
“New Stonehenge is to be a Global Legacy Monument built to last 5000 years like Stonehenge itself.
The New Stonehenge project has now devised a strategy whereby 30,000 families from around the globe become the project’s founding families; the people who really make this project become a reality.”
This set of sponsors gets a brick of Preseli bluestone engraved with their names, or the names of their choice, and set into the wall around the monument. They and their descendants will have free access to the monument in perpetuity. They get a plaque to keep in their home, and, (drumroll), t-shirts! All for the tidy sum of £700. If you’re interested, the information can be found here.
We may seem to be making light of it. (That’s what we do.) But the fact is, if you’re looking for a way to commemorate your name or the memory of a loved one, associating it with a monument that might still be standing thousands of years ago is an uplifting way to go. These names will be seen by people who visit for concerts, festivals, weddings, and other events, or just to see the monument and gardens. This Stonehenge will be like a glorious steam ship steaming ahead, not across the sea but across time, carrying the memory of those who had the foresight and vision to see it built and secured.
IF it is actually built. That remains to be seen.
Someday we would like to see a replica built that is truly based on Stonehenge as we see it now, imitating the shape of each stone and extrapolating from that to just how the original builders saw it when it was complete. This is not that project. But a large Stonehenge replica/sculpture in Wiltshire, so near the original would be wonderful to see. Maybe we could have a Clonehenge party at its opening! As things develop with the New Stonehenge, we will keep you posted.
Until then, friends, happy henging!
(Please read Colin Shearing’s comment below for a better description and explanation than we had room for here.)
CLONEHENGE 