Prunings XLV

Agnus scythicus


Now that we'll be posting some of the more interesting links and articles that we find out there as individual entries, our Prunings will be retired soon. But not before we reach L, because this auspicious initial calls for something special. But what? Any ideas?

Meanwhile, here are some blogs, discovered recently or otherwise:

Architectural Scholar

Buildings & Grounds

Check-in Architecture

Fantastic Journal

Metropolis POV

Paisajes Mineros


The First National Park of Mars

Phoenix Mars Lander

Artist-in-Residence-in-Mars

Phoenix Mars Lander


Surely we can hope that someday NASA will grant landscape architects access to the Phoenix Mars Lander, specifically to its multi-million dollar garden ho, if only to make intentionally artistic marks on the cryoturbated terrain of Vastitas Borealis.

When the spacecraft's primary goals have been achieved quite awhile back and in fact have been exceeded exponentially, surely scientists and mission administrators will universally agree then that the scientific return of its instruments — at the very near end of their operational life — can be outweighed by purely creative pursuits.

If not the Phoenix, then perhaps either of the two rovers, Opportunity and Spirit. They are certainly two of the best landscape photographers working anywhere, comparable to Ansel Adams, but they could also carry on the artistic and philosophical endeavors of Michael Heizer and Robert Smithson.

With their extendable rock abrasion tools, one can have a field day excavating swales in mathematically precise parallel rows that may or may not foreshadow the coming terraforming activities of terrestrial exiles. At the moment neither delineating accessibility and inaccessibility or co-opting distant terrain under one's control but perhaps soon there will be Martian ha-has marking territorial claims while simultaneously constructing views for the sole enjoyment of the privileged class in a socioeconomically stratified new world.

Or with their set of wheels, one can make patterned incisions in some patch of sandy soil. They seem to recall Richard Long in the beginning but a snapshot by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter later reveals that they are the outlines of future cul-de-sacs. The sad origin of Martian urbanism.

How about piles of rocks? Each one given names so as to weigh them down with cultural signification?

Or maybe none of the above because you consider these iconographies as ancient and irrelevant vocabularies. In which case, we wait to see what you come up with.

Grown-up Girlfriends Part 4

Okay,

In this chapter, we learn that every relationship is different. For each relationship, we achieve different levels of intimacy. The levels of intimacy are:

· Cliques
· Facts
· Opinions
· hopes and dreams
· feelings
· faults, failures and fears
· legitimate needs




Reading further, I learn that not all friends are on the same level. Nor should they be. Each relationship can serve different purposes for different people. The more intimate levels are harder to maintain, but more substantial.

To be more clear, the authors used the basket analogy to illustrate. Putting all friendships in one basket makes the relationship too stressful for both of you. Also, it doesn't give the friendship a chance to shine. Because you are too busy trying to make everything perfect. For example, I will highlight the most intimate stages of friendships. Baskets one and two.

In basket two, you have five to twenty friends . You talk beyond the surface with these friends. You share opinions and facts, often moving between levels.

Basket one holds one to four friends . These are your closest friends. You share your hopes and dreams. These are your friends of the heart; although they require the most time and trust, they are the most rewarding.

People With Disabilities are getting the recognition they deserve!

Happy Memorial Day, everyone!

Let me start this post by saying I'm sorry it's so late. I was able to spend the day enjoyably, surrounded by family. Besides the continuous worry over househunting, we were actually able to take a break from it all and spend time together . For example, we headed out on Saturday for a adventurous trip to Cedar Point. It was truly just that -an adventure! Both coming and going ..

On to today's post, I really don't know how to explain it, but I think the link explains itself. Take a look..

http://www.patriciaebauer.com/2008/05/25/hows-your-news-to-mtv/

Reflections on my current situation

Okay,

So lately I've realized strange circumstances causing me to reflect back on the changes have been in my life. I thought I would share just one of these with you. I came upon this post while I was simply searching for new material to talk about, but it ended up being just what I needed for the day. You know what they say God always provides us with the while we need rather than what we want. After all, he knows us better than we know ourselves. It's trusting in the relationship that's the hardest part.. That goes without saying.

Unlike people, God's promises last. People may have the best intentions, but they are prone to make mistakes. For more information on why God's promises are everlasting, see one person's view at:

http://lifefaithdisability.wordpress.com/2008/05/21/god-in-your-desert/

Encouragement: Blessings From Readers

Okay ,


Today is starting to look up, thanks to my readers. As you know, moving is turning out to be a difficult change for me. Leaving my friends, the life I created for myself here etc. Anyway, I was feeling down yet again. But thanks to a reader who commented on my page, I was forced to look back on a earlier posts. That post featured inspirational quotes from famous people such as Helen Keller. The quotes that impacted me the most today were as follows:


6. No pessimist ever discovered the secret of the stars or sailed an uncharted land, or opened a new doorway for the human spirit.
8.When one door of happiness closes, another opens; but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one which has been opened for us
9.When we do the best that we can, we never know what miracle is wrought in our life, or in the life of another

That being said I just wanted to let you know your comments do mean a lot to me. They remind me why I do this blog and are such a big encouragement like a unexpected sunshine on a rainy day. Just to know I am reaching some one makes all the difference for me on my rough days. So thank you.

The Return of the Intergalactic Planetary Landscape Architect

Sarcos exoskeleton


Because someone was posting a bunch of Popular Science links to del.icio.us this weekend, we discovered an article about a wearable robot being developed by Sarcos for DARPA.

In the article, you will read about “the latest and arguably most advanced exoskeleton in existence”; other exoskeletons by other institutions who are competing with Sarcos for Army grants; the history of these machines; a cartoon character; and someone who is called the “Willy Wonka of robotics.”

Sarcos exoskeleton


There isn't much more we can say beyond that laundry list of items you'll encounter in the article, so we are left here with publicly fantasizing an Illinois — where Pruned is domiciled, in case you were wondering about this apparent arbitrary choice of geography — a future Illinois or a literary Illinois or an academic Illinois or even the real one wherein all landscape construction firms in the state have had their migrant workers, here legally or otherwise, outfitted with autonomous exoskeletons.

Because that vortex of immigration politics swirling around Capitol Hill has markedly reduced their labor pool, contractors have decided to invest in the development and, once perfected, in the deployment of these military gizmos, thinking that a lone worker wearing an Ellen Ripley couture can do the job of half a dozen workers, if not more.

Mowing the lawn and blowing leaf litter become a breeze. Pavers by the tons can be carried in one go. Stormwater bioswales get excavated without heavy machineries. A topiary wonderland complex in the love-hybrid style of Michelangelo and Bernini can now be sculpted without sweaty profusion.

The CEO of Caterpillar, an unavowed fan of Cinquecento garden design, wants to create for his palatial mansion located just outside the company's world headquarters in Peoria, Illinois, a replica of the Villa D'Este gardens, an exact copy, in fact, except that it will be planted with native vegetation of Plant Hardiness Zone 5a.

Despite the complexity of recreating late Renaissance, Mannerist and Baroque landscape elements, not to mention the signature terracing of the original site in contourless prairie country, the project is finished in record time. In one day.

Villa d'Este, Tivoli


Monumental projects and middling chores are done with ease and, of course, high profit margins.

But something else besides the economics of small businesses has changed.

The other has become a spectacle. Where before residents of the affluent northern suburbs of Chicago prefer to admire the beauty of their landscape without the thorny politics of immigration, race and labor, they now appropriate their laborers into their own aesthetic consumption practices.

In other words, instead of scurrying them away out of view or sending them home to their part of town just before the guests arrive to your Martha Stewart-inspired garden soirée, you let your pneumatic gardeners continue on with their work, instructing them to remain strategically framed by well-pruned maples, as in a Picturesque scene. When the canapé trays get passed around, you direct your guests' attention to the machine in the garden busy producing and maintaining landscape scenes of pastoral delights.

“So very Jean-Paul Gaultier,” the woman in the hat will say.

And if things get a bit boring, you clap your hands, dim the lights and your cybernetic living sculptures begin to perform a Carmontellian proverbe, titled, perhaps, Le Nord.

Sarcos exoskeleton


During the day in sprawling backyards and exclusive golf courses around town, kids flock to them with xenophilic enthusiasm. “He is way cooler than Iron Man.”

There are no more furtive glances, only uninhibited gazes akin to birdwatching. Gawking as though they were fountains, temple follies or Reptonian livestocks.

Until, of course, they rebel.

One day a charismatic landscape architect, who's probably seen too many PBS documentaries on Che Guevara and Cesar Chavez, rides into town. Angered by the exploitative conditions of the migrant workers, he galvanizes them into action. First there are the casual meetings with the employers, then a letter-writing campaign to elected officials, followed by protest marches and the founding of a union and membership drives. All of which, unfortunately, fail to correct what he perceives to be unjust.

One night, then, he and his comrades break into storage depots across the state to gather up all the XOSes; the first strike in their rebellion begins at sunrise.

Atop an artificial hill divined up from the flat terrain by his soldiers in their former lives, the newly christened Spartacus, FASLA, surveys their objective, a sleepy ex-urb, hoping that he remembers well the lessons he had learned from reading J.B. Jackson.

The sun is now up.


Animaris geneticus, or: Intergalactic planetary landscape architect
The Bleex, or: Intergalactic planetary landscape architect, Part II

Living the dream, despite a disability

Everyone,



I hope everyone enjoyed my words of wisdom from last week. I forgot to pre-post on Friday, I'm sorry. My trip was eventful, starting with the birth of my second niece, Rebekah Lee and continuing with our various househunting adventures. As time goes on, I have become more convinced that events like these serve as "transitions" as we maneuver through the many different stages of our lives. These not only challenge our thinking and our way of life, but help us to mature as adults. In the end, the move does have family oriented goals, but I can't ever forget who I am and what I want from it...or I will forget myself and my dreams for the future.



Anyway, sorry for the ramble. These are just occasional thoughts that I have to get off my chest. I'm sorry also for posting this a day late, it's just that I have been overcoming a cold since I returned. As a result, I am not feeling very creative. But I was able to find this little gem of wisdom on the Internet. I thought it appropriate since the Olympics is coming up. The video features an unlikely runner trying his best to live a normal life, and accomplish the impossible despite the pessimism of others.

Please take a look:

http://video.msn.com/video.aspx?mkt=en-us&vid=8d590c86-01b9-4f62-9cc8-b08c2fd59e02&fg=rss&from=im_m_35-49

Prunings XLIV

Deep Underground Science and Engineering Laboratory


1) The National Science Foundation on a sprawling subterranean science laboratory that will allow “researchers to probe some of the most compelling questions in modern science.”

What are the invisible dark matter and dark energy that comprise more than 95 percent of everything visible in the universe? What is the nature of ghostly particles called neutrinos that pervade the cosmos, but almost never interact with matter, and what can certain kinds of extremely rare radioactivity and particle decay reveal about the fundamental behavior of atoms? Will this site help reliably predict and control earthquakes? What are the characteristics of microorganisms at great depth?


They might as well study the physical, psychological and social effects of living in underground communities, perhaps as an analogue of future lunar and martian urbanism.

2) The Guardian on post-water Barcelona. Remember that plan to import water to the city because of the severe drought? It's no longer being considered; it's being carried out.

3) Subtopia on Germany's involuntary park.

4) In chronological order, we make money not art, WorldChanging, Click opera and designboom blog on Atelier van Lieshout's SlaveCity, “a dark architectural vision of perfect efficiency, and sustainability-as-principle-of-oppression.” Zero carbon footprint, zero humanity.

5) The Wall Street Journal on cooking at the South Pole.

6) Buildings & Grounds on Peter Walker's celebrated Tanner Fountain.

7) Scientists at the Research Center Jülich on artificial photosynthesis.

8) The National Science Foundation on gasoline growing on trees.

A Real Columbarium in the Pacific

Tillamook Rock Lighthouse


There is actually a lighthouse, this one in the Pacific, that has been turned into a columbarium.

Called the Tillamook Rock Lighthouse, it sits on a rugged island just off the coast of Oregon state. From above it looks like a solitary Greek monastery sitting precipitously on a promontory, one of only a few in the Athosian peninsula to escape a future deluge.

And it just might look like an ideal sanctuary to store your remains, a picture-postcard perfect locale where your family and friends might at least enjoy visiting, with a phenomenal view to alleviate their grief.

Tillamook Rock Lighthouse


Tillamook Rock Lighthouse


Except, of course, for a couple of things:

1) Eternity by the Sea Columbarium, the company who owns the lighthouse and who converted it into a cemetery, lost their license in 1999 because of inaccurate record keeping and because their columbarium isn't technically one. The urns, which are supposed to be placed in niches, rest instead on boards and concrete blocks.

When the company tried to get a new license in 2005, their application was rejected. They now spend most of their time and money on lawsuits filed against them.

2) The sea is so treacherous that a helicopter is the only way to reach it — that is, if the owner of the island, the Oregon Coast National Wildlife Refuge Complex, even allows you passage to the lighthouse in the mild weather of spring and summer when seabirds are nesting.

Tillamook Rock Lighthouse


But if you're one who's not looking for a peaceful rest in your unconscious days of being dead; actually prefers the thunderous sound of ocean waves constantly slamming into the rocks; doesn't mind sharing quarters with cormorants and common murres; and is thoroughly amused by the image of Charon as a helicopter pilot ferrying your soul across the Styx on whirring oars, then simply contact the proprietors.

They're still making offers for space. Even if they don't have a license.


A Little Columbarium in the Atlantic
A Little Columbarium Forest in the Arctic
On cemeteries

Dos personas en el centro de Sevilla

Dos personas en el centro de Sevilla



POSTSCRIPT #1: Many have asked for the complete text; we relent: “Dos Personas encadenarons sus brazos al suelo en una galería subterránea a cuatro metros de profundidad para evitar, o al menos retrasar, el desalojo y derribo del inmueble que ocupan en el centro de sevilla.” Original.

The Village Unvanishes

Barcelona Village


The ruins of a medieval village above Barcelona, under 150 feet of water at the bottom of a reservoir since the 1960s, has “re-emerged into the light.”

An 11th-century church spire, entombed in the murky depths for decades, towers once again over dry ground. And that is because “in a year that so far ranks as Spain's driest since records began 60 years ago, the reservoir is currently holding as little as 18% of its capacity.” To make matters worse for the people depending on its waters, climate scientists have forecasted “still drier conditions to come in the approaching decades.”

So what other remnants of civilizations lie patiently waiting at the bottom of reservoirs to once again bath in the glow of the sun?

Or more interestingly, not ruins of villages or cities but a monstrous beast birthed by a landscape suffering from too much water, concocted in a toxic stew of asphyxiated forests, leftover sewage and drowned lives, incubated by climate change. Cloverfield in the Mist.


Seuthopolis

Encouragement: Truly Loving Someone

Hello,

Here is installment number two for this week. This post was brought to you by my Google alerts. One of the links offered in my e-mail was related to the importance of truly loving someone with a disability. The author has a interesting and worthy prospective on the issue. Please feel free to take a look.

The website can be accessed at:http://lifefaithdisability.wordpress.com/2008/05/05/outdo-one-another/

Boullée in North Dakota

Safeguard Program

From the HABS/HAER collections in the Library of Congress comes these gorgeous photographs of an anti-ballistic missile complex in North Dakota.

Several such sites were planned as part of the Safeguard Program, but only this was ever completed. And after being in operations for just 4 months, it was deactivated.

Safeguard Program

In the years since, countless drunken youths and their spray paints have made pilgrimages to these Pharaonic ruins of the U.S. Army. No doubt one of them must have wondered whether if it was simply a matter of coincidence that this pyramid, whose walls he was pissing on, resembles the unfinished pyramid in the Great Seal of the United States, its once radar equipment being the Eye of Providence, the all-seeing eye.

Or if the military counts among its ranks a cabal of Freemasons constantly and surreptitiously finding ways to channel their aesthetic inclinations, in the face of institutionalized prohibition against self-expression and individuality. Sculpted berms here, geometrically-patterned rows of exhaust stacks there, mastaba-shaped radar facility right over there, chalked footpaths everywhere.

The U.S. anti-ballistic landscape as a subset of Land Art.

Safeguard Program

Safeguard Program

Safeguard Program

One of his companions, a blogger of the built environment, will later report these inebriated musings, speculating further that those anonymous soldier-bureaucrat-architects must have been great admirers of the unbuilt works of Étienne-Louis Boullée. As an homage, they designed the radar building in the form of the master's pyramidal cenotaphs.

Safeguard Program

Even their monument-complex are pierced with holes, this blogger will blog, although they are not cosmically aligned. You will not see stars; they do not form constellations. Rather, they are aligned to millions of city dwellers halfway around the world, under surveillance, targeted for total erasure.

A Little Columbarium Forest in the Arctic

Columbarium Forest

Alas, the auction for the Point No Point Lighthouse has been cancelled. Something about safety requirements of the U.S. Navy.

However, there are some alternatives, for instance, this flippin' ship.

R/P FLIP (Floating Instrument Platform)


Known formally as the R/P FLIP, it's a mobile research station used by the Scripps Institution of Oceanography principally to “study how sound waves behave under water,” but during its 40 years of operation it has also collected data on the “way water circulates, how storm waves are formed, how seismic waves move, how heat is exchanged between the ocean and the atmosphere, and the sound made underwater by marine animals.”

You can see it position itself vertically, as well as the crew, refrigerators, stoves and coffee pots adjusting to the changing spatial configuration, in this short video.

The ship is the only one of its kind, but surely hundreds should be built, each one interning the pulverized remains of the dead. Or housing a single occupant. One could be the family mausoleum of a Greek shipping magnate. Thousands. Tens of thousands.

A not-so-little forest of columbaria bobbing about in the future ice-free waters of an auroral Arctic.

Should their ballast decay and the whole vessel sinks to the bottom of the ocean, it will simply be a return to standard practices.

Or how about floating wind turbines?

Floating Wind Turbines


This must be where the billion-dollar burial industry enters the potentially billion-dollar green industry.


On cemeteries

Important message on the Pledge of Allegiance

Hello everyone

Over the next week, you will notice some interesting posts. This is because I will be out of town. My family and I are headed to Virginia to accomplish a variety of tasks. The first and most important, I may actually be there for the birth of my second niece, Rebecca Lee. We may be also looking at houses.

Thankfully, that doesn't mean my readers have to go without my "words of wisdom" for a week. I can put posts up to be published for a later date. As a result, here is my first installment. I was given this as a forward from a friend. This e-mail highlights the daily significance of those freedoms that we often take for granted. As a matter of fact, many of these freedoms are a issue of controversy right now. One of those being the Pledge Of Allegiance. Here is one presidential candidates view. In the words of John McCain:

John McCain's remarks about the Pledge of Allegiance


In light of the recent appeals court ruling in California , with respect to the Pledge of Allegiance, the following recollection from Senator John McCain is very appropriate:


'The Pledge of Allegiance' - by Senator John McCain
'As you may know, I spent five and one half years as a prisoner of war during the Vietnam War. In the early years of our imprisonment, the NVA kept us in solitary confinement or two or three to a cell. In 1971 the NVA moved us from these conditions of isolation into large rooms with as many as 30 to 40 men to a room.

This was, as you can imagine, a wonderful change and was a direct result of the efforts of millions of Americans on behalf of a few hundred POWs 10,000 miles from home.

One of the men who moved into my room was a young man named Mike Christian.
Mike came from a small town near Selma , Alabama . He didn't wear a pair of shoes until he was 13 years old. At 17, he enlisted in the US Navy. He later earned a commission by going to Officer Training School Then he became a Naval Flight Officer and was shot down and captured in 1967. Mike had a keen and deep appreciation of the opportunities this country and our military provide for people who want to work and want to succeed.

As part of the change in treatment, the Vietnamese allowed some prisoners to receive packages from home. In some of these packages were handkerchiefs, scarves and other items of clothing.

Mike got himself a bamboo needle. Over a period of a couple of months, he created an American flag and sewed on the inside of his shirt.

Every afternoon, before we had a bowl of soup, we would hang Mike's shirt on the wall of the cell and say the Pledge of Allegiance.

I know the Pledge of Allegiance may not seem the most important part of our day now, but I can assure you that in that stark cell it was indeed the most important and meaningful event.

A Little Columbarium in the Atlantic

Point No Point Lighthouse


It's about that time of year again, a few weeks before the anniversary of this blog when we go searching for something special to treat ourselves with. For the first anniversary, we ordered a few of these architectural notecards by Andrew Zega & Bernd H. Adams. Last year we looked into getting a weather modification machine, specifically this portable hurricane, before deciding to buy a couple more notecards.

This year, we'll probably just order yet more notecards, although what we really want is this lighthouse, pictured above, which is being auctioned off by the fantastically named U.S. Office of Property Disposals. It's located in Chesapeake Bay about 5 nautical miles from the nearest shore. It has “elements of the Second Empire architectural style,” we read.

When the auction ends, perhaps we'll learn that Zega & Adams gave the winning bid. They plan to remodel it into a chinoiserie pavilion, so that they can reenact some of the wildest garden debaucheries of Marie Antoinette.

Or preferably, we find out that a fan of Arnold Böcklin is the new owner. He wants to convert the building into a columbarium.

In still weather or rougher seas, the dead will metaphorically cross the Styx to their final resting place, which in its former life illuminated and guided the lost but, like them, is now extinguished.


On cemeteries


A Little Columbarium Forest in the Arctic
A Real Columbarium in the Pacific

Prunings XLIII

Flateyri


1) Dwell on L.A.'s blind spots and interstitial spaces. Geoff Manaugh interviews CLUI's Matthew Coolidge.

2) The Stranger on the topography of terror, or: How Seattle's famed Freeway Park became “a garden of earthly delights—for the city's crazed murderers and inhuman rapists.”

3) Cabinet Magazine on geophagia.

[S]oil eating is poverty and hunger's most extreme outpost. It is an activity that is charged with a strangely archaic quality where a lack is miraculously turned into a surplus. In his febrile state of hunger, the soil eater transforms the clay of the bed river into filling food. He is set within a hallucinogenic landscape where the very ground he walks on is transformed into nourishment.


4) Deborah Fisher on her Monuments to Vanishing Cities.

5) AlterNet on the National Mall redesign. “Critics of the redesign [...] are complaining that the National Park Service's proposed redesign, still in its formative phase, is a subtle attempt to restrict [the] time-honored ability to congregate and complain.” NPS disagrees.

6) BBC News on uranium-eating fungi for “toxic war zones.”

7) culiblog and Cornell Mushroom Blog on growing food in transit.

‘Made in Transit’ is a supply chain concept in which the food grows on board a vehicle on the way to the supermarket, shifting the paradigm of packaging from preserving freshness to enabling growth, and shifting ‘best before’ to ‘ready by.’


8) Edouard François, who designed this marvelous aviary, takes on garage doors. See it?

Mobile Art Park

Mobile Art Park


When we were fantasizing about Venice as a reconfigurable jigsaw puzzle, we had in mind, among other things, PARA's submission for an ideas competition to “rejuvenate” the “ruins” of New York City's Roosevelt Island.

Called Mobile Art Park, it's a cultural and sports complex conceived as a “network of floating barges.”

The barges form a migrating network that extends throughout the regional waters of New York’s five boroughs and beyond. Linking together in multiple combinations, the barges accommodate different events at the scale of the entire Southpoint site. Dispersed throughout the city, the barges bridge culturally disparate enclaves with the vibrant communities of artists already thriving in the city.


Each barge, then, could hold a tennis court, a skatepark, a farm and a farmer's market, a forest or a combination thereof. There are wind turbines as well.

Mobile Art Park

Mobile Art Park

Mobile Art Park

Mobile Art Park

Having been reminded recently of MVRDV's Dutch Pavilion languishing in the now shuttered grounds of Expo 2000 in Hannover and also the ruins of Expo 1992 in Sevilla, we propose that in a future universal exposition, all buildings should rest atop floating platforms. Or are actually the floating platforms themselves. Each one would be built by the participating nations in their own ports, anchored there until the start of the expo nears and the armada needs to be assembled.

In this world's fair, the overall theme could be future coastlines, perhaps established by Adriaan Geuze of West 8. He is hired as creative director, because he once curated The Flood.

In his program brief, he will call attention to the fact that “around the world cities are situated on low-lying coastal zones and in delta regions where rivers enter the sea. These are amongst the most fertile areas and are well linked by sea and land to the world. But these are also cities with populations in the millions that are now highly vulnerable because of the threat of flooding.”

Of course, Adriaan Geuze will have plenty of solutions to combat this threat to showcase at the host city, New Orleans.

Or it could be the first ever major international event to be held on international waters, just offshore from Burma's Irrawaddy Delta with a satellite venue a few miles from Bangladesh's Ganges-Brahmaputra Delta.

As its national pavilion, the U.S. will send the supercarrier USS Nimitz, which accidentally rams into Zaha Hadid's pavilion. Tant pis.

When the expo ends, each pavilion will return to their home port, becoming art centers or public open spaces or artificial reefs.


Floating Pool

Two perspectives on Mother's Day

Everyone,

With Mother's Day fast approaching, I thought I would focus today's blog on just that. Mothers. I don't know about you, but I don't think I could ever live without mine. I have always loved my mother. For how dependable she is and how she always cares for me. That will never change no matter what circumstances may bring. Over the years, though, I've seen it develop into something different. Something deeper than I ever imagined could happen. A friendship. Today, she not only see me as her daughter. But as a woman with the same dreams and desires as anyone my age.

This idea got me thinking..There are in fact two different ways for me and just about anyone to look at Mother's Day. The first perspective is the most obvious. Taking the day to honor our mothers, for the women they are and the lessons they've taught us. These can be unique among families; for me, the lessons consisted of three important categories.

  • Faith
  • Endurance
  • Perseverance

Growing up in my mother's friendship, I have learned to appreciate my mother's stories. They have taught me much about my family history, helped to explain how I react to things, and explain what traits have been passed down from generation to generation. I have also learned to view my mom as the individual she is. Too often, it is difficult to separate one's position from the individual. Don't get me wrong, she will always be my mother. But she is a woman first and foremost. She has the same types of fears, hopes and dreams that I do. It took me a while to realize this, but once I did.. wow , everything changed. I began to see my mother in a different light. I don't know, how it happened.. but it did. Slowly..

One particular moment I remember is in the day she decided she was going to learn to play the piano. She was so determined. She wasn't going to let anything stop where from accomplishing this lifelong dream. After only briefly discussing this with us, there was a piano in our front room. And to this day, you can hear her practicing her scales whenever possible. She is getting pretty good actually, for as much as we tease her about it. Sorry mom.

On the other hand, I have also began to to view Mother's Day in a more womanly way. Some day, I hope to have children of my own. That's a dream of mine, but if I can't, I realize I have a even bigger opportunity to touch people's lives through the opportunities God gives me in the future. This is exactly what happened to Joni Erickson tada. She was able to touch the lives of so many just through her work with Child Evangelism Fellowship.

For more information on the organization, go to. Http://www.cefonline.com/

Venice on Stilts

Venezia


Speaking of Venice, there were some reports a couple months ago telling us that officials are “pursuing [a] proposal with great interest” that could save the city from sea level rise.

According to Agence France-Presse, “Local officials and engineers are planning to lift buildings under operation 'Rialto' by up to one metre (3.3 feet) using piston-supported-poles to be placed at the bottom of each structure. This will take around a month per building if each structure is raised by eight centimetres (3.14 inches) a day.”

Project Rialto


Project Rialto


Project Rialto


There is another project, one that is actually being realized, to save Venice. Called the MOSE Project, it involves constructing adjustable barriers at the three entrances to the Venetian Lagoon. While these barriers may protect the city from future floods, buildings whose lower levels are already submerged will remain inundated, continuing to rot at their foundations. In other words, there is really no change in the status quo.

Project Rialto, on the other hand, will restore access and functionality to once flooded floors. There is also the possibility of lifting the building still higher if needed, for instance, if sea level rise exceeds the design parameters of the barriers and overtops them. Meanwhile, the city and its neighborhoods may begin to resemble what they were like before things started sinking.

Of course, we have to wonder why would you want to revive an image of its past? It won't reverse the exodus of its citizens or prevent it from becoming an open air museum.

Why not use this opportunity to play around with the built environment? You could, for instance, jack up this palazzo up higher than 3.3 feet. Or that palazzo by a towering 50 feet.

Sculpting negative spaces, reconfiguring campi, creating a second piazza.

Better yet, you slip in a barge under them. Venice as a tectonic jigsaw puzzle, its mini-island pieces floating but firmly tethered for most of the time until the curator of a future edition of the Architecture Biennale wants to rearrange things.

Or until the Art Institute of Chicago decides to organize a blockbuster exhibition on Venetian palazzos or Tate Britain on Turner's Venice. When their entreaties for loans are answered, chunks of the city will unmoor themselves from the lagoon. Once equipped to ward off Somalian pirates, they will simply sail away, leaving behind some scaffolding wrapped with full-scale photographic replicas of the borrowed architecture to let disappointed tourists know what they are sorely missing.


Galveston on Stilts

London as Venice

London as Venice


This is lovely. It's London re-imagined in 1899 as La Serenissima-upon-Thames. Go see.

Of course, when London gets flooded for real by the middle of this century, the city will not look quite as charming. No Lonely Planet devotee would want to go there during his gap year. Instead, it would most certainly become a pestilential swamp, ridden with malaria and mutagenic superviruses, a methanous bog slowly digesting St. Paul's.

London as Venice


And behind every crumbling facade, a coven of sub-humans patiently waits for the night when they can continue their hunt for Will Smith.

The Machinic Landscape of Tulips

Tulips


Spotted yesterday on Der Spiegel is the above photograph of tulip farms in the northern Netherlands. No doubt artificially induced to coincide with Mother's Day in the U.S. and in many other countries this month, we see the fields explode in Suprematist technicolor.

It's Nature turned into a machine, detached from the natural cycles of time and geography — in other words, detached from itself — re-landscaped here to service a $40 billion global flower industry.

Tulips


Once harvested the flowers will embark on a whirlwind journey. They will pass through greenhouses, cutting rooms, auction houses and conveyor belts — in fact, through a massive industrial complex not unlike the gargantuan automobile assembly plants of the Big Three — before then being loaded on to trucks and cargo planes, enlarging their carbon footprint en route to points elsewhere, where they may be placed in quarantine spaces by customs officials with other flowers similarly displaced from other growing regions till they are finally allowed to continue on to neighborhood flower shops and awaiting mothers.

Tulips


Unnaturally but beautifully assembled bouquets as mobile landscapes.


Salt Ponds

The sparrow

Pop quiz..

Do these words sound familiar?

"I sing because I'm happy, I sing because I'm free. For His eye is on the sparrow and I know he watches me."

This popular refrain as well as complete song was written by Civilla D. Martin in 1905. That song as well and many others remains a constant source of hope and strength for Christians today. Looking further, the lyrics bear a strong resemblance to that of Matthew 10: 29. In this verse, Christians are reminded that nothing happens without God's permission- that's what makes him sovereign. On a personal level, this weekend has taught me that simple lesson. I'm still trying to comprehend why things are happening the way they are, and why I'm reacting to them the way I am. As the result, I think I am going to take a few days to sit back and reflect on my life.

So please don't worry..

You can also go to http://library.timelesstruths.org/music/_/Martin_Civilla_D/?sortby=author
to find other inspirational songs

God go with you,
Debbie.