Posted in Uncategorized, tagged boston, carousel, greenway, nature, park, plants, postaday, rose kennedy, sea creatures, urban greenery on September 5, 2013| 6 Comments »
The Rose Kennedy Greenway just gets better and better. Not only is the new carousel a wonder, but little signs have begun to appear identifying the plantings, many of them quite exotic.
Now, if they would just decide to create bike paths or else enforce the rules about “no wheels,” we walkers would at least know where it was safe to walk while daydreaming.
What do you think of these sea creatures?
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged hurricane sandy, Karsten Moran, kenrick sultan, learn to swim, Lisa W. Foderado, postaday, ray belmont, swim strong foundation, swimming lessons on September 4, 2013| 2 Comments »
Not sure which of many delightful aspects of this story I like best: that there are programs offering free swim lessons, that a teenager decided he needed to learn to swim, or that a dad whose son enrolled in lessons decided to take lessons himself and then gave back by teaching others.
Lisa W. Foderado writes at the NY Times, “After Hurricane Sandy brought the ocean to his doorstep, Kenrick Sultan felt a new sense of vulnerability. A shy 15-year-old, he has lived by water his entire life — but he never learned how to swim. …
“Having watched the waters of Hurricane Sandy creep up his street, Kenrick finally decided to conquer his fear of the water … Looking slightly terrified behind blue-tinted goggles, Kenrick lowered his slender frame into a pool at a nearby high school. Alongside him stood Ray Belmont, a volunteer instructor …
“Five years earlier, Kenrick’s best friend, Raynald Chance Belmont, 15, had learned from Swim Strong, which is administered and staffed entirely by volunteers. Because swim lessons typically cost as much as $1 a minute, learning to swim can be something of a luxury …
“Swim Strong is only one of a number of programs giving free or low-cost swim lessons to New Yorkers. The largest, by far, is a program called Learn to Swim offered by the city’s parks department, which provides free swim lessons at select pools through an online lottery system throughout the year. In the fiscal year that ended in June, the department taught 27,709 children and 1,110 adults to swim. …
“‘ After Chance learned to swim, his father, Ray Belmont, asked if he could sign up for lessons, too.
“ ‘It was always a goal,’ recalled Mr. Belmont, 39, a property underwriter. ‘It was huge for me. It was a big accomplishment. I’m two blocks from the ocean and before, if something happened to my children, I wouldn’t be able to help them. As an adult, there’s a different kind of fear. I had to overcome that by getting lessons for myself.’
“Like a number of Swim Strong alumni, Mr. Belmont decided to give back by volunteering as an instructor. He was eager to teach his son’s friend.”
More.
Photo: Karsten Moran for The New York Times
Kenrick Sultan, 15, with Ray Belmont, left, a volunteer teacher with a New York nonprofit group.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged bottlenose, dolphins, Jason Bruck, Megan Garber, memory, National Academy of Science, postaday, Proceedings of the Royal Society B, university of chicago on September 3, 2013| 9 Comments »
I grew up with stories about elephant memories and how elephants held grudges. “If you give an elephant a stone instead of a peanut when you are little, he’ll get even next time he sees you, even years later.”
Now Megan Garber at The Atlantic says dolphins’ memories top all other animals’.
“Dolphins, it turns out, have the longest social memories of any species besides humans. And we’re learning more and more about how lengthy those memories can actually be.
“The researcher Jason Bruck, a biologist at the University of Chicago, wanted to test whether bottlenose dolphins in particular can, indeed, remember each other after a long stretch of separation. So he took advantage of something else about dolphins: the fact that they seem to have something like names. Sometime between their first 4 months and their first year of life, dolphins will develop a distinct whistle — one that will remain the same for the rest of its life. According to research published last month in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, dolphins use these whistles in pretty much the same way we humans use names: as ways both to identify themselves and to call each other. …
“While it’s unclear what his findings might mean about dolphins’ memories overall — he was testing name recognition, not circumstantial or emotional memories — there’s some reason to think that dolphins’ memories stretch beyond rote recognition itself.
“In tests that broadcast the signature whistles of ‘extremely dominant males,’ for example, Bruck found that females responded with ‘exceptional interest.’
” ‘There was also a lot of posturing from the males,’ Bruck noted. And ‘some young ones would just go ballistic.’
“In other words, dolphins may well have the capacity for relatively complex memories — memories that associate individuals with actions.”
Read all about it here.
Photo: eZeePics Studio/Shutterstock
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged beach, bluffs, harbor, lace cap hydrangea, ocean, postaday, raft, ragged sailor, rhode island, sunset, swim, waves on September 2, 2013| 2 Comments »
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged architecture, boston common, frog pond, globes, greenway, postaday, tai chi on September 1, 2013| Leave a Comment »
Boston and environs.
It’s mainly weekends that I have time to upload photos, so I hope this isn’t too much.
First is a plaque commemorating the discovery of the telephone, then a mysterious Greenway flower, extra pics of the traveling save-the-earth exhibit, a tai chi session at the Frog Pond, pensive frogs, interesting architecture near Downtown Crossing, and an early morning rooftop in Concord.
I love rooftops. Makes me think of Dickens.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged contest, denmark, drip castle, postaday, rhode island, sand castle, sandcastle on August 31, 2013| 6 Comments »
Here are a couple of Rhode Island sand castles from Crescent Beach (one made by inverting buckets, one made with the drip technique I favored as a kid) and an elaborate castle that Suzanne photographed when she was in Copenhagen earlier this month.
This website promises to teach you how to make the perfect sand castle. It involves keeping the sand moist at all times so the castle doesn’t crumble.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged Aizhi bookstore, china daily, Chinese Academy of Press and Publication, davol, Hujiang.com, library, lost in a book, metro, postaday, shanghai, subway, uni, victor nell, zhang kun, Zou Shuxian on August 29, 2013| 6 Comments »
Libraries are busting out all over. We’ve blogged about the Little Free Library in Cambridge as well as Sam and Leslie Davol’s uni, which got invited to Kazakhstan — not to mention a library housed in an unused pay phone shelter.
Now it seems that a subway system in China is getting into the act.
Writes Zhang Kun at China Daily, “Shanghai’s Metro Line 2 is turning a new page with a library taking literally an online approach. Passengers will be able to select a book at one station, and return it to any of the other stations with customized bookshelves.
“Readers do not have to pay a deposit or any rent for the books and magazines they take. Instead, they are encouraged to donate 1 yuan (16 US cents) to charity at the bookshelf.
” ‘Now you can read a real book, rather than staring at the cellphone through the metro ride,’ said Zou Shuxian, a spokeswoman for the Aizhi bookstore, which initiated the project jointly with Hujiang.com” and the Metro Line.
“The Chinese Academy of Press and Publication released a survey recently that said the general public between the ages of 18 to 70 read 4.39 books in 2012, much fewer than in Western countries.”
The library “has been a resounding success with office workers. Waiting lines have developed during rush hour. … All the books have green tape on the cover to inform people about the program [and] to remind people it is borrowed and should be returned.”
I myself find it essential to have a book with me whenever I take the subway, but that’s largely because I ride the oldest system in America and it’s always breaking down.
My husband, who lived in Shanghai for about a year, says subways there are fast and efficient. I don’t think book lovers will have time to finish their books before their last stop. A lot of green tapes will be going home with commuters. You can’t keep a book lover down.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged art, artist, chandelier, Green Lighting, inhabitat, Kristine Lofgren, Luke Jerram, postaday, radiometer, renewable energy, solar on August 28, 2013| Leave a Comment »
Did you like last week’s entry on stained glass windows that produce solar energy? Well, there’s more.
Kristine Lofgren writes at Inhabitat about an amazing solar chandelier.
“British artist Luke Jerram is known for his stunning art installations, which are often inspired by science. His latest project, unveiled [last year] at the Bristol and Bath Science Park, is the world’s largest solar chandelier! The 16.5-foot-tall chandelier is made of 665 glass bulbs that spin when exposed to light …
“The chandelier was created using glass radiometers rather than traditional light bulbs. As the sun hits each radiometer, it begins to turn, speeding up and slowing down as the light changes. The overall effect is a shimmering, gently moving piece of artwork. At night, it is lit up using electric light.” More.
By the way, Inhabitat also features a piece on a sculptural sound chamber that sings when the wind blows, here.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged Liz Stinson, manufacturng, new york city, Ovidiu Colea, postaday, rebecca davis, souvenirs, statue of liberty on August 27, 2013| 2 Comments »
Kaili knows how much I want to believe that U.S. manufacturing is not dead. He sent me this example from Wired magazine — a story about the making of Statue of Liberty souvenirs.
Wired‘s Liz Stinson reports that of the many souvenirs you see in New York, most “come from overseas where they’re stamped out on machine-driven assembly lines. But a select batch—the ones you can buy on Ellis Island—were made in the United States, right here in New York City, with actual human hands.
“Colbar Art in Long Island City, Queens, creates prototype and custom molds, castings and original artwork, but the factory is most well known for being one of the largest producers of Statue of Liberty figurines in the world, and one of the last in the United States. …
“Ovidiu Colea’s story is the focus of a recent mini-doc made by NYC-based videographer Rebecca Davis.
“Davis, a video journalist at NBC, documented the Colbar Art crew during their daily routine of making statues, and it’s surprisingly fascinating to watch. ‘Growing up, one thing that had a lasting impression on my memory were the Mr. Rogers episodes where they’d go to the crayon factory and show you how the crayons were made,’ she explains. ‘I wanted to see from start to finish how these statues, as New Yorkers we see all over the place, how they come into being.’ ” Me, too.
More.
Rebecca Davis’s charming video, found at http://narrative.ly/meet-your-maker/the-liberty-factory/, captures the Romanian craftsman’s pride in his work and in workers who come from all over the world.
I apologize that the embed code doesn’t work. I wanted to put the video here.
http://www.wired.com/design/2013/08/watch-where-your-favorite-nyc-souvenirs-come-from/
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged art, artist, community supported art, csa, drew peterson, liz miller, minneapolis, payment systems, postaday, randy kennedy, st. paul, Zoe Prinds-Flash on August 26, 2013| Leave a Comment »
And speaking of payment systems, community-supported agriculture has been around for years and, more recently, community-supported art. I blogged about the approach here in 2011, when the Cambridge Center for the Arts embraced the concept.
The NY Times has written about it, too. Randy Kennedy lays out the principles: “For years, Barbara Johnstone, a professor of linguistics at Carnegie Mellon University [in Pittsburgh], bought shares in a C.S.A. — a community-supported agriculture program — and picked up her occasional bags of tubers or tomatoes or whatever the member farms were harvesting.
“Her farm shares eventually lapsed. (‘Too much kale,’ she said.) But on a recent summer evening, she showed up at a C.S.A. pickup location downtown and walked out carrying a brown paper bag filled with a completely different kind of produce. …
“ ‘It’s kind of like Christmas in the middle of July,’ said Ms. Johnstone, who had just gone through her bag to see what her $350 share had bought. The answer was a Surrealistic aluminum sculpture (of a pig’s jawbone, by William Kofmehl III), a print (a deadpan image appropriated from a lawn-care book, by Kim Beck) and a ceramic piece (partly about slavery, by Alexi Morrissey).
“Without even having to change the abbreviation, the C.S.A. idea has fully made the leap from agriculture to art. After the first program started four years ago in Minnesota … community-supported art programs are popping up all over the country …
“The art programs are designed to be self-supporting: Money from shares is used to pay the artists, who are usually chosen by a jury, to produce a small work in an edition of 50 or however many shares have been sold.”
Read all about it, here. Could be risky if you really don’t want a sculpture of a pig’s jawbone. But if you look at it as supporting the arts, you are likely to be satisfied with that side of things — and there’s always a chance you will love what you get or find its value increase.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged Allan Kozinn, carla kihlstedt, george hurd, gretchen ertl, matthias bossi, music, musician, new model, panera, pay what you can, postaday, rabbit rabbit radio on August 25, 2013| Leave a Comment »
The music of avant garde composer Kenneth Kirschner is open source, free to experiment with.
Other musicians are looking for sales models that may render hidebound and unimaginative music labels obsolete.
Allan Kozinn of the NY Times describes what Rabbit Rabbit Radio is doing.
“With some help from George Hurd, a composer and music administrator, [Matthias Bossi and Carla Kihlstedt] produced a blueprint for Rabbit Rabbit Radio and started the Web page in February 2012. The plan was to release a new song for subscribers on the first of every month.
“Along with the song, Ms. Kihlstedt and Mr. Bossi, who are married to each other, began posting video clips, slide shows and photo albums; information about the making of the track; essays on various subjects; and lists that might include links to clips by other musicians whose work they admire or notes about restaurants they have discovered on tour. Past releases can be explored in their online archives.
“Subscribers pay $2 to $5 a month. (There is no difference in access; it’s a matter of paying what you can.) …
“So far, 18 months into the project, Rabbit Rabbit Radio has nearly 900 subscribers.”
Pay-what-you-can usually relies on some people paying more than they would ordinarily pay for the product. Theaters offer it occasionally, but they could never survive just on that. Panera Bread struggled with the model when it first tested it in St. Louis.
John has told me about a video-game payment model that requires people to pay small amounts for tools that can help them win the otherwise free game. Sometimes, he says, there’s a pop-up in the intense middle of the game that says you have to wait eight minutes to continue but if you want to keep going right now, you can pay a small amount.
I think if you are motivated enough, you will pay a small amount for almost anything. I hope the approach works for Rabbit Rabbit.
Photo: Gretchen Ertl for the NY Times
Matthias Bossi and Carla Kihlstedt, with their daughter, 4.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged art, artist, clean tagging, graffiti, Modern Hieroglyphics, postaday, powerwasher, reverse graffiti, street art on August 24, 2013| 2 Comments »
Oh, boy, what a cool site! Modern Hieroglyphics started following me after my last Banksy post, so I clicked and took a look at his site. It’s all about street art. I especially loved this post on “reverse graffiti.”
Says Modern Hieroglyphics, “Paul Curtis (Moose) uses a powerwasher to remove dirt and grime off of walls, resulting in the creation of stunning images and patterns. The new art form is known as ‘reverse graffiti’ or ‘clean tagging,’ and is growing in popularity all over the world. This is the story of Moose. …
” ‘I became an artist by accident really, I was promoting music that my label was releasing by using reverse graffiti. I created it for that purpose, then I would do large pieces for fun or like a strange hobby, then people started to ask me to work for them… and the Internet happened and I became notorious. …
” ‘I discovered reverse graffiti one day when I was a teenager working as a dishwasher in a restaurant. I aimlessly wandered out of the kitchen one day to just be in the restaurant section. I’d cleaned everything I could in the kitchen, and felt like I owned the place. So when I saw a small mark on the wall, I reached for the my cloth and wiped it off, only to find that in the process of wiping the mark off the wall, I made a much bigger mark by cleaning the original mark with the cloth.
” ‘In those days people smoked freely in establishments and the wall was brown with nicotine. I had always thought that the wall was painted that color, and now this almost-white cleaning stripe was shining out of the wall like I had a tin of white spray paint and started to write. It was quite a shock for me, and I spent a long time trying to rectify what looked like damage but was only cleaning.
” ‘Years later, while gazing out of the window on a bus, I saw that in the road tunnels in Leeds, these clean marks appeared everywhere, drunks sliding home along the tiled walls left long streaks that looked like chrome in the car lights. Later on, I finally did something with that observation.’ ”
More samples of Moose’s art are at Modern Hieroglyphics.
Art by Paul Curtis (Moose), creator of reverse graffiti
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged art, artist, canada, dichroic glass, environment, grid, Kevin Hudson, Nakoneshny, popsci, postaday, renewable enrgy, sarah hall, Saskatechewan, Saskatoon, solar energy, stained glass, sustainability on August 22, 2013| 2 Comments »
Artist Sarah Hall is killing two birds with one stone. Or solving two challenges with one creation. According to Canadian Public Broadcasting, Hall has made stained glass windows that can convert the sun’s rays into energy for the building the stained glass embellishes.
Emily Chung writes, “Lux Gloria by Sarah Hall, at the Cathedral of the Holy Family in Saskatoon, is currently being connected to Saskatoon Light & Power’s electrical distribution network, confirmed Jim Nakoneshny, facilities manager at the cathedral.
“The artwork, which consists of solar panels embedded in brightly coloured, hand-painted art glass, had just been reinstalled and upgraded after breaking and falling into the church last year.
“Once it is connected, the cathedral will be able to use the solar power produced by the art installation to offset its own power consumption from the regular grid, Nakoneshny added.
“According to Kevin Hudson, manager of metering and sustainable electricity for Saskatoon Light & Power, the solar panels are expected to produce about 2,500 kilowatt hours annually or about a third to a quarter of the 8,000 to 10,000 kilowatt hours consumed by a typical home in Saskatoon each year.”
Read all about it at the CBC, here.
Photo: Sarah Hall on Popsci.com website
Lux Gloria: The solar-stained glass installment features dichroic glass and will be connected to the electrical grid in Saskatoon, Saskatechewan.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged Amami Oshima, crop circle, japan, marine biology, NHK, noaa, ocean, photographer, postaday, puffer fish, sea, this is colossal, underwater, Yoji Ookata on August 21, 2013| 4 Comments »
The website “This Is Colossal” has a lovely bit on a fish with artistic tendencies.
Japanese photographer Yoji Ookata “obtained his scuba license at the age of 21 and has since spent the last 50 years exploring and documenting his discoveries off the coast of Japan. Recently while on a dive near Amami Oshima at the southern tip of the country, Ookata spotted something he had never encountered before: rippling geometric sand patterns nearly six feet in diameter almost 80 feet below sea level. He soon returned with colleagues and a television crew from the nature program NHK to document the origins what he dubbed the ‘mystery circle.’ …
“The team discovered the artist is a small puffer fish only a few inches in length that swims tirelessly through the day and night to create these vast organic sculptures using the gesture of a single fin. …
“Apparently the female fish are attracted to the hills and valleys within the sand and traverse them carefully to discover the male fish where the pair eventually lay eggs at the circle’s center, the grooves later acting as a natural buffer to ocean currents that protect the delicate offspring.” Read more.
Never imagine that there is nothing left to discover. After all, “According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration less than five percent of the world’s oceans have been explored,”
Photo: This Is Colossal.
The male puffer fish makes this nest to attract a female.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged dinner, family, garden, gazebo, lusthus, postaday, shrimp, sweden on August 20, 2013| 2 Comments »
Margareta suggests that dinner in the lusthus might make a nice post.
Google Translate informs me that a “lusthus” is a “gazebo.” If you break it into two words, it’s “desire house.” I will ask Erik to explain more about that.
Judging from the light and the absence of high chairs, the folks are having a late dinner, after the young laird has retired for the evening. Everyone looks relaxed. I think it is a kind of shrimp they are eating.
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