The ball of twine is an awe-inspiring figure that has become an icon for what special figures used to be. Despite its apparent complexity, it is pretty easy to skate. Here's how.
How to skate the ball of twine
Author: Bev
Squeaking skates
Did you know that skates squeak when it's cold enough?
Skating party in Lödöse
The Lödöse Museum in Sweden hosts an annual skating event---on bone skates! This year, the skating is scheduled for February 11 from 1 to 3 PM; the details are here (in Swedish). Skating on bones in Lödöse, Sweden. Photograph courtesy of Marie Schmidt, Lödöse Museum. There are videos of previous years' skating events on the… Continue reading Skating party in Lödöse
Writing projects
The final manuscript atop the archive notes and drafts. The final manuscript of my book on bone skates is now on its way to McFarland, who will publish it. Watch for it in bookstores later this year. Now I'm ready to get going on my next big writing project, a history of figures. As part… Continue reading Writing projects
Bone skates and boats
I just ran across an interesting bone skate in the Swedish History Museum's catalog. It's listed as having possible boat-like carvings. You can see them if you look carefully at the picture: right about the middle of the bone, just above the number written on it, there are some curved scratches. Photograph by Ola Myrin,… Continue reading Bone skates and boats
H. W. Jacobi on bone skates
I recently got hold of a copy of De Nederlandse glissen by H. W. Jacobi, thanks to some kind people in the Netherlands. It's a paper written for a course at the University of Amsterdam in 1976. This paper has gone viral (in the bone skates sense) despite its obscurity. It has been cited far… Continue reading H. W. Jacobi on bone skates
Kalderhohdi Farm
In August, 1878, A. Heneage Cocks visited Iceland and got a pair of bone skates. Here's the story as he told it to J. Romilly Allen: I noticed the bone skates hanging up in Kalderhohdi Farm on the Log River SW Iceland when putting up there in August 1878. I remember carefully concealing my feeling… Continue reading Kalderhohdi Farm
On the Outside Edge
My edition of On the Outside Edge: Being Diversions in the History of Skating is now available on Amazon at such a low price ($8.31) that Amazon will lose money on each copy sold. The author, George Herbert Fowler, is quite an interesting person. He worked as a scientist at first, but later switched to… Continue reading On the Outside Edge
World Figure Sport exams
Last weekend I was at the World Figure Championship in Vail, Colorado. Exams were being offered, and I decided to study the system experimentally by taking a few. This post is an account of my experience. Since this blog is about studying the history of skating and not my own skating, this post focuses on… Continue reading World Figure Sport exams
The other Jones
Readers of this blog and everybody else who's interested in skating history already know about Robert Jones's Treatise on Skating. But there's another book, a much more recent one, by a Jones. Ernest Jones is well-known in psychoanalytic circles as a disciple of Freud, and his background on psychology provides the foundation for his book,… Continue reading The other Jones