The Rising Body Count (via planetjan)

You absolutely must read this disturbing, yet hilarious blog post by my friend Planetjan. The video is beyond hilarious. Very clever, too. Love that British humor, a brilliant combination of erudition, wit, wisdom and slap-stickism.

I’m afraid blogging has taken a back seat to crowd control.  Yes, I started the year with eight additional students. Those eight extra students might as well be 20.  Forget Octo-mom.  I’m Octo-Teacher! I’m not alone in feeling overwhelmed by the she … Read More

via planetjan

In Search Of….Narrated by Leonard Nimoy

I loved this series, narrated by Leonard Nimoy from 1976 to 1982.  Note the disclaimer in the beginning, including the words “theories and conjecture. ” As many of us shiver this very cold winter, we can think back to some very cold winters in the 1970s when we were warned of a coming Ice Age. 

An update.   Baffin Island Midge Study – debunked for a 3rd time – nearby weather station shows no warming

Here’s my post on a dig of Ice Age mammals, which I visited in the mid-1970s. Hey, I’m not above giving my old posts a plug! The Natural Trap.

Happy Anniversary, Shuttlecocks!

Wedding parties often arrive on the south lawn of the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art to be photographed in front of the shuttlecocks. In fact, I don't think you're officially married in Kansas City until you make this ritual visit with your bridesmaids and groomsmen. If you elope, better show up here, too.

Fifteen years ago, four giant shuttlecocks landed on the grounds of the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City, Missouri.   Designed by sculptors Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen, the shuttlecocks received a mixed reception when they were first installed, but now they’ve become Kansas City icons.  They add a whimsical touch to the classical exterior of the Nelson-Atkins.  The contemporary glass Bloch Building (and it does look like glass blocks) addition to the east further lightens the mood.   The Bloch contains the museum’s contemporary and African collections nad provide access to the outdoor sculpture garden, which features the works of many artists, including Henry Moore.

The shuttlecocks are always ready to pose. Here's my friend Jan from California in her first visit to the Nelson-Atkins. Check out her blog by left clicking on this photo. (But only after you've checked out all of my photos!)

Bridal parties swarm around the shuttlecocks for wedding photos, impromptu soccer games arise among the sculptures, picnickers settle near them.   In the beginning, many people thought (and wished) the shuttlecocks were a temporary exhibition, but Kansas Citians aren’t letting go now.

Inside the Bloch are smaller Claes Oldenburg sculptures, (small is a relative term) including a large orange vinyl light switch that slumps from the wall.  A docent told me that Oldenburg’s first wife did the actual construction.  I need to find out more about her! 

Another wedding! Maybe you didn't believe me when I said you weren't married unless you stood in front of a shuttlecock.....A Kansas City Star photographer was shooting this bride and groom for a feature on the shuttlecocks when I took this photograph. They weren't the only wedding party there that day.

Here's the south side of the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, which from this perspective looks small compared with the giant shuttlecock.

Everyone enjoys the shuttlecocks.

Climbing on the shuttlecocks isn't allowed, but some people can't resist. It's better than the monkey bars! I've read that a motion detector is tripped when people climb on, and a voice on a PA system will warn art lovers to stand clear. I've never heard this warning, though.

A shuttlecock adorns the front of the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in this dramatic night view.

This shuttlecock looks lonely in winter.

A young visitor surveys the south lawn of the Nelson-Atkins Museum with one of Rodin's The Thinker and two shuttlecocks in the view.

 

ABOUT CLAES OLDENBURG AND COOSJE VAN BRUGGEN

(From http://nelson-atkins.org) Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen are artists/collaborators and husband and wife. In the 1960s, Oldenburg became one of America’s famous Pop artists. He is also known for creating the first soft sculptures made of fabric, many of which were foodstuffs—slices of cake, ice cream cones and hamburgers that are staples of daily life in America. As his repertoire grew, Oldenburg created typewriters, electric fans and toilets. The Museum’s Switches Sketch (1964) and Soft Saxophone, Scale B (1992) are classic examples of Oldenburg’s soft sculptures of familiar objects.

Oldenburg and van Bruggen’s first collaboration was in 1976, when the sculptures Trowel I (1971–1976) in Otterlo, The Netherlands, and Trowel II (1976) in Purchase, New York, were commissioned. The artists married in 1977 and have since executed more than 40 large-scale sculptures worldwide. Whimsical works like the soft sculptures are based on everyday objects from popular culture. By making ordinary objects the focus of their art rather than depicting more traditional, heroic and commemorative subjects, they challenged conventions and reinvigorated the history of sculpture.

Created on a monumental scale, works such as Clothespin (1976) in Philadelphia; Spoonbridge and Cherry (1988) at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis; Typewriter Eraser, Scale X (1999) at the National Gallery of Art Sculpture Garden in Washington, D.C. and Shuttlecocks (1994) at The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art continue to delight and surprise visitors.

Oldenburg was born in 1929 in Stockholm, Sweden. Van Bruggen was born in 1942 in Groningen, The Netherlands. She died in 2009.

Come to Australia!

Come to Australia!

This is a very unofficial commercial to “promote” tourism to Australia.  The official tourist marketing slogan is  ”Where the bloody hell are you?”  This video won’t help!  My friend Anita, who recently moved there, sent it to me,  now that we’ve already paid for our plane tickets…..Not to worry, she says, she hasn’t seen any of the really dangerous creatures yet.  The trouble is that you don’t see them first.

Sign on a Sydney beach. I don't plan to get wet! I'll be in the shade sipping a nice, cool drink. (See story about The Sunshine Vitamin below.)

Blackout

If we didn't have electricity, how could we have fabulous lighting displays like this!

 After a day of temperatures in the high 60s on Friday, a thunderstorm tore through our city during the night.   We woke to freezing temperatures and no electricity. 

Candles seem romantic, until you have to rely on them for your lighting.

The winds were 60 to 80 miles an hour and tore down trees and knocked down power lines, including a couple of poles on a nearby street.  Some people said they thought their houses were going to blow over.  How did I sleep through that?  Our house was unscathed, except that our bird feeder was flung into the backyard and smashed.  How do the birds hang on in the trees? 

Almost 50,000 houses lost power in the area. Strangely, only half of the houses in my subdivision were affected — all of those just east of mine were fine.  My neighbor’s Santa Claus on the motorcycle was (above) still burning bright when we left the house to find a warm, illuminated place to hang out.  I’m seriously addicted to electricity.  Every blackout, I have new appreciation for our ancestors living life in the cold and mostly dark. We were only without electricity for a day, but it seemed much longer.

I’m grateful for the KCP&L workmen who worked all day on the problem.

When I was finally able to turn on my computer, it rasped and growled for half an hour, probably angry to be so rudely jolted.  I hear ya!

Full Moon

The full moon hung like a huge ornament over the Christmas lights of the Country Club Plaza shopping center in Kansas City on Saturday. When we rounded the curve of Ward Parkway in our car, the sight was breathtaking. At a red light on a bridge over Brush Creek, I jumped out and snapped a couple of shots. I knew they were blurry, but we'd stopped traffic so I couldn't get any more. A woman, who had walked onto the bridge, was also photographing the scene. "Isn't it crazy beautiful!" she exclaimed. I agreed. Next year, I'll set up a tripod and take a proper photograph. This year, you have to pretend it's a painting by Claude Monet.

The full moon adorned the glowing Bloch Building on Saturday. You can see the moon in the center between the trees. Actually, this photo was taken one day after the moon was full, but it's still an impressive sight (much more so in person, really!) On Friday night, the moon appeared 14 percent bigger in our sky, because it was at its closest point to Earth this year. It was also 30 percent brighter than some other full moons during the year, according to space.com. The moon makes a trip around Earth every 29.5 days, but the orbit isn't a perfect circle. On Friday night, the moon was 221,560 miles (356,567 km) away. The average distance is 238,855 miles (384,400 km).

You can't see the moon here, but the Bloch Building creates its own glow. The Bloch, a new addition to the Nelson Atkins Museum of Art, houses contemporary art.

Moonlight illuminates the sky above the Nelson Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City on Saturday. One of the Nelson's four giant shuttlecock sculptures, by Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen, looks as if it just landed on the front lawn. There are four shuttlecock sculptures among the many sculptures in the Nelson's sculpture garden, including a dozen monumental bronzes by Henry Moore and a cast of The Thinker by Auguste Rodin.

Monarch Butterflies Complete Annual Migration to Mexico

Dec. 3 – Millions of butterflies have found sanctuary in Mexico as they complete their annual migration from North America, according to a Reuters News report.

The Mexican government has plans to massively expand the sanctuaries in the coming years, according to Monarch Butterfly Reserve Director, Concepcion Miguel Martinez.

A news video about the 2008 migration is here.  Monarch butterflies complete their annual migration to Mexico.

Monarch Watch director Orley “Chip” Taylor is one of the scientists interviewed in this article from National Geographic about the Monarch Butterfly migration. Internal Clock Leads Monarch Butterflies to Mexico.  Dr. Taylor is also featured in the New York Times video above.

More about Monarch Watch here.

Newly hatched Monarch butterflies cling to Chip Taylor as they harden their wings at the Monarch Watch open house at the University of Kansas in September 2008.

Monarch Butterflies hang out at the screen house at Monarch Watch at the University of Kansas in September 2007.

MONEY, MONEY, MONEY

What economic meltdown?  What 700-billion-dollar bailout? Forget about it!   These music videos about money will make your worries disappear!

 Liza Minnelli and Joel Grey sing “Money” from “Cabaret.”

Here’s ABBA singing “Money, Money, Money.”

The Beatles sing “Money.”

Pink Floyd performs “Money.”

Weird Al covers Dire Straits’ “Money for Nothing.”

Don’t Fence Me In!

Hedge apples are the fruit of the Osage Orange tree, but unfortunately they aren't aren't edible. Too bad, because they seem to be everywhere in early fall in the Midwest.

Devon, England, has some of the most ancient and renowned hedgerows in the world. I haven’t been there in person, but Paula of Locks Park Farm in Devon (link below) took her readers on a virtual tour of the hedgerows on her farm.  You could almost hear the song thrush singing in the trees as we “walked” along the path.  It was a sunny day after weeks of rainy weather in the Devon countryside.  In her photographs, the rose hips, crab apples and elderberries are explosions of color among the green leaves.  Somewhere dormouse nests (Alice in Wonderland!) are hidden in the hedges.

I told her we have ”old” hedges here, too — not a thousand or more years old, of course.  One hundred and fifty years old is an ancient hedgerow here in the Midwest.  Our hedgerows consist mostly of Osage Orange trees, Maclura pomifera, which were planted densely together to confine cattle in the days before barbed wire.  Because these trees are so durable, they still mark the pastures, even though fencing is now used.  Paula describes her county’s hedgerows as part of a patchwork field system and imagines ours as vast fields, which in the Midwest is often true.  There’s a Cole Porter song that begins “Oh, give me land, lots of land under starry skies above, don’t fence me in.”  Everyone from Bing Crosby to ABBA has sung it.  (Videos below.)

Osage Orange thorns make a menacing hedge.

Osage Orange wood is very dense and prized for bows, tool handles and other uses.  It’s sometimes called ironwood, because it’s so hard to cut. Other plants, including varieties of dogwood shrubs and wildflowers such as goldenrod and sunflower, grow among the Osage Orange trees, providing homes for wildlife.  The trees were named for the Osage Indians of the area, for the color of the wood and for the fruit, called hedge apples, which are about the size of a large orange.  They aren’t toxic, but they’re not a good food source, either.

Hedge apple "harvest" in my neighborhood. Hedge apple cider, anyone?

Extinct animals such as the giant ground sloth and the mammoth from 10, 000 years and longer ago may have eaten hedge apples, but now only squirrels seem to find any part of them nutritious.  They tear apart the apple to get at the seeds, leaving a mess.  A few other animals, such as horses and cattle, will eat the fruit, but it’s not very good for them.  

In my neighborhood, Osage Orange trees grow in a wild area at the edge of the landscaped areas, and the hedge apples fall on the street and are smashed by passing cars.  To learn more click on all about the osage orange tree.

To read Paula’s beautiful post and see the gorgeous photos of the Devon hedgerows click on “our amazing hedges.”  A video of Bing Crosby and the Andrews Sisters singing “Don’t Fence Me In” is below the photograph of a partial hedgerow in my neighborhood. Beneath Bing Crosby is a video of ABBA singing ”Don’t Fence Me In” on the Dick Cavett Show.

Sunflowers, goldenrod, dogwoods and other plants grow in the remnants of a hedgerow in my neighborhood.

Generation Tattoo

 

 

Sinizen, a reggae band, is featured on the cover of "Rock n Tattoo" magazine in April 2010. The link to the magazine and the band's website is at the bottom of this post.

Sinizen Grass Roots Culture.

 

Go to FREE DOWNLOAD of Sinizen’s new album (at left) by clicking on Grass Roots Culture.

When I was growing up, the only “person” I knew with a tattoo was Popeye the Sailor Man.  Now, I can’t go anywhere without seeing one or more tattoos on one or more people. 

It won’t be long until at least half of the population has a tattoo. The Pew Research Center reports that 36 percent of people age 18 to 25, and 40 percent of those age 26 to 40 have at least one tattoo.  Like in many trends, rock  and rap musicians led the way with tattoos.

One of the hazards of getting a tattoo is that you might change your mind. Angelina Jolie has had a few tattoos removed or covered over. Here her children's geographical coordinates cover Billy Bob's name and a dragon, which is still partly visible.

Soon the public won’t see tattoos as shocking and cutting edge, but as mundane.  My father, an aviation engineer, said that when engineers start doing something “wild,” then it’s just about to go out of style. So let an engineer with a tattoo be your barometer for the end of the tattoo trend.  Clear skin will then be the rage for rebels.  (Well, maybe not.)  

Tattoo trends themselves go in and out of fashion.  Neck and hand tattoos are more popular, but the ”tramp stamp,” the tattoo on a woman’s lower back, is becoming passe, the local newspaper recently reported. 

At my hair salon a while ago, a manicurist asked me about my daughter’s first solo trip to visit friends in California.  I told her: “She had a great time.  Best of all, no piercings and no tattoos.” 

Ryan is a member of the band Sinizen. He's also an artist. The link to his website on redbubble is in my blogroll at the right under Shameless Promotion.

I hadn’t gotten the word that this woman was now the proud new bearer of a “tramp stamp.” I just assumed she’d agree that “no tattoos” was a good thing.  I also didn’t know that my daughter had, in fact, gotten not just one but two tattoos in California.  Two tiny stars on one foot, one matching a star on her best friend’s ankle. Not only am I not on the cutting edge, I’m also out of the loop.

I don’t care. No tattoos for me, thanks.  I don’t like my freckles. Why would I want more marks?  And once it’s inked, it’s permanent! (Although tattoo removal is a growing industry!)  That first girlfriend you’d love to the end of time?  Now, you have to ink over her name with a giant dragon.  Did you and your BFF get matching roses on your shoulders?  Now, you find out she’s a skunk. About those Japanese characters that were supposed to say “Love and Peace”?  They actually say “I’m a stupid tourist.”  That dolphin on your belly?  Now it’s a whale.

With a dozen or so tattoos, Angelina Jolie is more inked than most people her age, but almost 40 percent of Americans ages 26 to 40 have at least one tattoo, according to Pew Research Center.

In our society, we may see tattoos as marks of rebellion or outsider status, but there was a surge of tattoos in the Victorian Era, led by two English princes, including George, who later became King George V.  Read about it in the Victorian Era. Tattoos hold different meanings in different societies. In some, tattoos are signs of status or membership in a group, club, clan or criminal syndicate. Some tattoos are meant to frighten or even to attract. 

“Hey, gorgeous, I’m crazy about those blue lines on your chin.”

Maori man.

Tattoos could be useful, too.  Tattooed sailors could be identified when they washed ashore. Tattoos also had more sinister uses when they marked prisoners.

Tattoo is a Polynesian word, and some of the most elaborate tattoos were created in New Zealand and Borneo.  In the early 19th century, a Maori named Hongi was introduced to King George IV, who admired his tattoos.

Whatever else you might think about tattoos, you might agree that many tattoos are incredibly beautiful as art.

Sinizen’s website.

Tattoo n Rock Magazine.

You can read about the history of tattoos at The Tattoo Museum.  An article about tattoos in the New York Times can be read here: Tattoos Gain Even More Visibility