That's Amore

Get ready for a gourmandized weekend with Clotheo.

 

Remembering on Veterans Day

Old veterans swap stories
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Facing It - Yusef Komunyakaa

My black face fades,
hiding inside the black granite.
I said I wouldn't
dammit: No tears.
I'm stone. I'm flesh.
My clouded reflection eyes me
like a bird of prey, the profile of night
slanted against morning. I turn
this way—the stone lets me go.
I turn that way—I'm inside
the Vietnam Veterans Memorial
again, depending on the light
to make a difference.
I go down the 58,022 names,
half-expecting to find
my own in letters like smoke.
I touch the name Andrew Johnson;
I see the booby trap's white flash.
Names shimmer on a woman's blouse
but when she walks away
the names stay on the wall.
Brushstrokes flash, a red bird's
wings cutting across my stare.
The sky. A plane in the sky.
A white vet's image floats
closer to me, then his pale eyes
look through mine. I'm a window.
He's lost his right arm
inside the stone. In the black mirror
a woman’s trying to erase names:
No, she's brushing a boy's hair.

 

Jasper Francis Cropsey paintings

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Jasper Francis Cropsey (1823-1900) trained as an architect but made his mark as a painter in the Hudson River School. The group of artists in that school broke away from European painting traditions and found their inspiration in American landscapes. It is the first truly American style of painting. 

Cropsey's works emphasized landscape, lighting, and atmospheric effects. He was quite popular in his day, although later in his life newer painting styles started to push him aside. 

Jasper Francis Cropsey

Lovely Hula Hands

Get ready for a hand-waving weekend with Alfred Apaka.

 

Walking in Nuuk

Well, the U.S. has signed a new treaty with Greenland, so it's off to Nuuk, the capital of Greenland. With only 20,000 inhabitants it is the smallest capital city of any country. There are no road connections from Nuuk to any other city, you can only get there by plane or boat. It has Greenland's largest port. It is surrounded by spectacular scenery. 

It is a very pleasant looking city, well maintained. While the buildings are nice and modern looking, the city's layout appears to be a bit haphazard at times, with streets running off on odd angles and even buildings not always lined up square to their neighbors. I noticed rocky outcroppings in it, so I think the city just follows the lay of the land. There is also a lot of space between the buildings.

The above video is a walk in September. He starts it in his apartment and then winds his way through the downtown until he reaches the shore of the fjord it is located on. Below, since it strikes me that Greenland needs snow, we have a walk through the same area during some winter snow flurries.

Paintings by Edwin Lord Weeks

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Edwin Lord Weeks (1849–1903) was an American painter who was an Orientalist. He was the son of New England spice and tea merchants, and he had a comfortable upbringing. In this adult life he travelled extensively, primarily through North Africa, the near East, Persia, and India. The areas he visited were the subjects of his paintings. He frequently juxtaposed elaborate architecture in the background with mundane daily life in the foreground.   

Edwin Lord Weeks

Happy Halloween

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For as long as I could remember, the person in E23 pasted the same Halloween decoration, a witch with a giant wart on her crone's nose, but whenever kids rang, the tenant wouldn't answer. At first, kids figured they'd just missed the guy: bad timing. But it seemed impossible that all of us missed him every year. - Victor LaValle

  

To Have, or Not to Have

Get ready for a nothingized weekend with Sheng-Xiang & Band.

 

Every breath you take

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Strange Couple - Ravinder Kumar Soni

‘Anxious I am
To know
To whom do I belong? '
Asked the exhaled breath
Damp, warm and smelly,
‘I am always thrown out.'
‘Not to me.'
Said the inhaled breath
Cool, fresh and fragrant,
As the two crossed path
A little distance away from the nose.
‘I do not notice any difference
Between you two and therefore,
You must belong to me, '
Said the meddling nose.
Upon hearing these words
The two breaths collided
As only pockets of air can
The difference was quite obvious
They did not lean towards each other
Because only one of the two
Could feed and fan the fire,
The inhaled breath,
Soon to be exhaled.

 

Paintings of mountain men

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Mountain men were fur trappers who worked in the Rocky Mountains from 1820 to 1880 with the peak in 1840. After the Lewis and Clark Expedition the mountain men moved west into the newly revealed wilderness. Their main occupation was the then lucrative beaver fur trade. Fur trapping was a difficult occupation. They worked, frequently alone although there were trapping companies, in the wilderness. 

They hunted for their food, and if injured had to provide their own medical self-care. The weather, particularly in the winters, could be severe. The wildlife, from the bears down to biting insects with their diseases, were dangerous. They also had to deal with the Indians, who weren't always happy to see the mountain men in their hunting grounds.  

They performed an important part in opening up the American west. Along with exploring the Rocky Mountains, they created trails for their mule trains to haul out furs. These trails were to become the routes for the migration from the east to the west.

Once the fur trade dried up a lot of mountain men settled down (they generally only lasted 2 or 3 years in the trade anyway), became guides for the wagon trains, or served as army scouts. To say they were manly men is to put it mildly, to this day they capture our imagination because of their toughness and self-sufficiency.

Shine On, Harvest Moon

Get ready for a coruscating weekend with Whitaker and Me.

 

The engineering of retention ponds

The above video discusses the engineering needed for retention ponds. Basically, the ponds don't just capture and store excessive rainfall, rather they exist to regulate water runoff during storms. Regulating the flow of water to prevent, or at least minimize, flooding. 

I live in Florida which has enormous amounts of water areas coexisting with the land. There are retention ponds everywhere, in fact there is one a couple of hundred yards away from my humble abode. I've never given much thought to them and how they function -- they were just ponds plopped down in new developments. It is interesting to see what purpose they actually serve and how they function.    

  

Lucy Willis paintings

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Lucy Willis (1954 - today) is a contemporary English artist who works as a painter and printmaker. She is best known for her watercolors. She uses somewhat subdued colors and captures the play of light and shadow. She has travelled through southern Europe, the Middle East, and India and frequently portrays scenes from them.

Lucy Willis self-portrait

Good Vibrations

Get ready for a juddering weekend with the REO Brothers.

 

Cooking in the Amazon

This video takes place in a small settlement somewhere in the Amazon basin. The houses are  rather ramshackle looking, but there is power brought into it so it may be less remote than one would first expect. In one scene you see a TV playing in a back room, and there are satellite dishes on some of the houses. 

It starts with a man and his son going out to gather fruits and greens. They return to their home via a boat. It looks like it is setup as tour boat, so perhaps this settlement is somewhere around Manaus? 

When they return the women cook a meal -- fish covered with onions and greens wrapped in a leaf cooked over a fire, as well as some sort of a flour, perhaps casava, as a side dish. They also have fruit drinks.

The video ends with several shots of the settlement.

     

Columbus Day

Columbus's fleet departs for its historic trip

This is a reposting of a previous Columbus Day post. Again, the significance of his voyage is not that he steps foot on a Caribbean island, rather it is that his voyage led to the connecting of the Americas to Europe and the trade and the expansion of our world view that followed.

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It is Columbus Day. Some of the common talking points around it strike me as being rather puerile. For example, we have the 'stolen land' bit, and the strange 'Columbus didn't really discover it because other people were already there' point. 

As for the first, while the Indians undoubtably got ravaged in their encounter with Europeans, throughout history populations have sloshed back and forth taking and losing land. In fact, prior to the arrival of the Europeans the Indian tribes had been long engaged in chronic warfare with each other, with their areas of control shifting as their fortunes ebbed and flowed. If you had the misfortune of being a captive atop an Aztec pyramid you were already being ravaged.

As for the 'Columbus didn't really discover it' snark, Columbus isn't only, or even principally, known for being the first European to step foot on the soils of the Americas. We know other Europeans had travelled that far already. Rather, his voyage led to something theirs did not, the meaningful connection of the two hemispheres. As I've said in an earlier Columbus Day post, "The world changed from an academic's sphere to a physical globe on which the oceans were routes to all its lands." That is the importance of his achievement. 

His discovery was world altering. We have a term for its consequence -- the Columbian Exchange. Columbus's discovery led to the opening of transatlantic trade, and with that plants, animals, diseases, and people passed from one hemisphere to the other. Wheat, corn, potatoes, rice, barley, cattle, pigs, and horses all crossed the Atlantic to the benefit of all. Unfortunately, diseases did as well, much to the detriment of the Amerindians. That transfer greatly impacted both sides of the Atlantic. It shaped the world we live in today, and that is the legacy of Columbus's voyages and the true reason he is to be remembered. 

Carl Blechen paintings

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Carl Blechen (1798 – 1840) was a German Romantic painter. He was one of the later Romanticists and his work, while still overly dramatic, is more grounded than the earlier Romanticists. He is best known for his landscapes. His mental health gradually deteriorated and he died of a total mental breakdown.

Carl Blechen self-portrait

Hey, That's No Way to Say Goodbye

Get ready for a leave taking weekend with Sophia Ammann.

 

Making bamboo chopsticks

This video shows the Yamachiku factory in Japan. It is the only company in Japan that still makes bamboo chopsticks. The video covers the entire process, from harvesting the bamboo to the finished product. They certainly take their chopsticks seriously. Turn on the captions and they explain the steps.

If you want to buy some of their chopsticks they have an online store. I quite liked their chopsticks for eating potato chips -- who wouldn't need a pair of those? There is a video of them in operation below.

For those interested I have an earlier post, The ins and outs of chopsticks, that points out that there are actually differences between Chinese, Korean, and Japanese chopsticks that can make them awkward to use by the different nationalities.

 

Paintings of trucks

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These are paintings of trucks. New trucks, old trucks, abandoned trucks. Some are working trucks, some are personal vehicles. 

I'm, always amused by Europeans who think large American pickup trucks are frivolous and ostentatious. They tow things, like the family boat, haul things, and can operate in bad weather and on suboptimal roads. They are much more utilitarian than they seem when spotted just sitting in a parking lot.

Pourquoi t'as fait ça?

Get ready for an admonishing weekend with Ladaniva.

 

The children of your brain

Retro Smokebot
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The Secret of the Machines - Rudyard Kipling

We were taken from the ore-bed and the mine,
We were melted in the furnace and the pit—
We were cast and wrought and hammered to design,
We were cut and filed and tooled and gauged to fit.
Some water, coal, and oil is all we ask,
And a thousandth of an inch to give us play:
And now, if you will set us to our task,
We will serve you four and twenty hours a day!

We can pull and haul and push and lift and drive,
We can print and plough and weave and heat and light,
We can run and race and swim and fly and dive,
We can see and hear and count and read and write!

Would you call a friend from half across the world?
If you’ll let us have his name and town and state,
You shall see and hear your crackling question hurled
Across the arch of heaven while you wait.   
Has he answered? Does he need you at his side?
You can start this very evening if you choose,
And take the Western Ocean in the stride
Of seventy thousand horses and some screws!

The boat-express is waiting your command!
You will find the Mauretania at the quay,
Till her captain turns the lever ’neath his hand,
And the monstrous nine-decked city goes to sea.

Do you wish to make the mountains bare their head
And lay their new-cut forests at your feet?
Do you want to turn a river in its bed,
Or plant a barren wilderness with wheat?
Shall we pipe aloft and bring you water down
From the never-failing cisterns of the snows,
To work the mills and tramways in your town,
And irrigate your orchards as it flows?

It is easy! Give us dynamite and drills!
Watch the iron-shouldered rocks lie down and quake
As the thirsty desert-level floods and fills,
And the valley we have dammed becomes a lake.

But remember, please, the Law by which we live,
We are not built to comprehend a lie,
We can neither love nor pity nor forgive.
If you make a slip in handling us you die!
We are greater than the Peoples or the Kings—
Be humble, as you crawl beneath our rods!
Our touch can alter all created things,
We are everything on earth—except The Gods!

Though our smoke may hide the Heavens from your eyes,
It will vanish and the stars will shine again,
Because, for all our power and weight and size,
We are nothing more than children of your brain!

 

August Macke (1887-1914)

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August Macke (1887-1914) was a German artist who travelled extensively in his brief life. He died young. You can tell he was interested in form and color, with his work becoming increasingly abstract as his art evolved. While classified as an Expressionist, he almost certainly would have drifted further into the Abstract movement had he lived. 

August Macke