Tuesday, July 21, 2009
July 21
Days of rain reported for rest of week, at least according to NOAA. My Accuweather widget begs to differ with the federal prognosis, which always tends to be gloomier and more downbeat - and hence more accurate than Accu. The government tells you to be prepared and expect the worst, the private sector says just smile, plan that picnic and hope for the best. It's good for business.
And it's drizzling right now. Most of what I have to do this week is outdoors and involves electricity. Water and juice mix with shocking results. Plus I hate getting wet. I'm a sailor. Staying dry and un-drowned is our preoccupation. Worst of all is biking in wet weather. You can't use an umbrella (well maybe you can) and all the water's flying up from the street, so you get probably ten times as wet as a pedestrian. Plus your braking is reduced. Why doesn't Smart Car make a pedi-version. To me they look like they must be pedal-powered anyway or maybe propelled Fred Flintstone style. I might be able to fit in a small toolkit if there was no passenger. By the way, did you know that those cute windup toys are made by Daimler-Benz? Smart. Freddie says that they have special vertical parking lots in Berlin just for them.
Left the house, chilly, turned back for my wool sweater. Biked downtown. When I hit the South End it started to shower and then after Blackstone Park just plain rain all the way to Beacon Hill. Arrived wet, but wool-wet and if you're wet in wool you're still warm, fairly dry, and breathing, not soaked in sweat. I'll take it over any miracle fabric any day.
Did my thing. Maria turned up! The hot Brazilian beauty. We chatted. Missed her racing out to catch a lull in the storm. Got caught on the last leg of the way back too. Walked under a streaming umbrella for awhile pushing the bike, fording streams between stretches of sidewalk. Shot the shit with Charles for a second. Stripped, dried and tried to decide what to do next, if anything.
According to E.B. White he used to regularly arrive at the New Yorker early in the morning and diligently begin writing by typing, The. Then often around noon he'd continue by adding, hell with it, and go out to lunch. An inspiration.
Monday, July 20, 2009
Economy . 1 | Walden X
Walden X is an experiment in living, a modern resetting of Henry David Thoreau's classic tale of Life in the Woods. Why? As any sensible person, and maybe the man himself, might ask.
First - we love it. Although we find it and Thoreau stranger with each passing year. No doubt due to the loss of some of our natural elasticity, as he identifies the source of similar problems. So, love.
Second - it's difficult to read in print but it's almost impossible online. To that end we've broken up, but not edited, the text into logical, easily readable units. HD does have an undeniable tendancy, even to his fans, to run on.
Third - images. This will be an illustrated Walden with modern and period photographs and graphics. Thoreau was magical at setting scenes with words. He lived just at the beginning of photography and no doubt had he lived longer or been born later would have been one of its masters, an Ansel Adams, Edward Weston or Elliot Porter.
Fourth - Notes. Thoreau delights in his arcane Harvard erudition and obscurity, sometimes name dropping and checking faster than his Crimson companion a century later in the Wasteland. Plus the passage of time has just plain clouded part of his passing references. We plan to offer nice notes in small pop up windows to clarity and amplify these passages.
Image ... Thoreau Cove.
WALDEN - Economy
When I wrote the following pages, or rather the bulk of them, I lived alone, in the woods, a mile from any neighbor, in a house which I had built myself, on the shore of Walden Pond, in Concord, Massachusetts, and earned my living by the labor of my hands only.
I lived there two years and two months. At present I am a sojourner in civilized life again.
I should not obtrude my affairs so much on the notice of my readers if very particular inquiries had not been made by my townsmen concerning my mode of life, which some would call impertinent, though they do not appear to me at all impertinent, but, considering the circumstances, very natural and pertinent.
Some have asked what I got to eat; if I did not feel lonesome; if I was not afraid; and the like. Others have been curious to learn what portion of my income I devoted to charitable purposes; and some, who have large families, how many poor children I maintained.
I will therefore ask those of my readers who feel no particular interest in me to pardon me if I undertake to answer some of these questions in this book. In most books, the I, or first person, is omitted; in this it will be retained; that, in respect to egotism, is the main difference. We commonly do not remember that it is, after all, always the first person that is speaking. I should not talk so much about myself if there were anybody else whom I knew as well. Unfortunately, I am confined to this theme by the narrowness of my experience.
Moreover, I, on my side, require of every writer, first or last, a simple and sincere account of his own life, and not merely what he has heard of other men's lives; some such account as he would send to his kindred from a distant land; for if he has lived sincerely, it must have been in a distant land to me.
Perhaps these pages are more particularly addressed to poor students. As for the rest of my readers, they will accept such portions as apply to them. I trust that none will stretch the seams in putting on the coat, for it may do good service to him whom it fits.
To be continued ...
July 20
Got out Rooscape News #10. Only 5 days late. Moving up, getting ahead. Horrible typo. Just to test you. Spot it or lose the spelling bee.
Birds stripping the sour cherry tree bare - Baltimore orioles, blue jays, grackles, house finches, house sparrows, starlings. Seldom seen such a varied flock feeding all at once.
Finished Budget Bathroom Makeover project for our client.
Started Image and Walden X sections of Garden Journal, seen above and below here.
Fireside Chat | Radio Roofscape . 1
One of the sweetest surprises since Roofscape's launch on June 1 has been Radio Roofscape. We never imagined what an important part of the magazine it would become, or how quickly. RR adds listeners daily from around the world - Indonesia, Bangkok, Germany, Nashville. London - gets props whenever we program (and at other times too), brings readers to the magazine and adds followers on Twitter.
Radio Roofscape has but one mission - to help you get your party on and shake that thang. Whatever it takes - R&B, jazz, rock, house, hip-hop, soul, reggae, blues, gospel, classical and more are all in the mix. Unlike almost all radio stations we freely mix together many different forms of music and even step out beyond music. We've definitely got the broad flapping American ear, as Thoreau put it.
To accommodate these many styles, we mix in discrete sets of music. A set can be a single track or maybe up to 20 tunes, the average probably being 6 to 8 cuts. Each set features a particular style of music and/or has the focus of a special theme.
For example - one set near the top of our current playlist is Girls Night Out. Miley leads off with G.N.O., the inspiration for the set, and the party continues with Joni Mitchel, Neil Young, Christina Aquilera, The Cheetah Girls, Pet Shop Boys, Prince, Donna Summer, until Gwen Stefani's Harajuku Girls takes us out.
The next set includes some modern classical cats - Phillip Glass, John Cage, Roger Zahab and Anoushka Shankar. Where else are you going to get that? Now I know this may sound like the recipe for a train wreck but, as Mark Twain quipped (quite aptly) of Richard Wagner's music - It's not as bad as it sounds.
Now, of course, you can't always be up, so sometimes we take things down tempo and chill out or even go spoken word. Another set further on features Kenneth Patchen, Robert Frost, Gary Snyder, Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg and William Burroughs - reading 103rd Street Boys from Junkie. Definitely not Radio Disney. But it is fun.
Some of the tracks also have videos which stream right on the page. The video window, however, stays at the top of the page, so you may have to scroll back up from the current position in the playlist. The videos are fun because you can really learn the Hoedown Throwdown or bust some moves, get your church on and Stomp all at the same time with Kirk Franklin.
Some sets are inspired by our listeners and/or guest DJ's. We met country singer Mandy Barnett via Twitter and I immediately programmed her gorgeous tune The Whispering Wind. Later Dan Duran - a serious jazz cat, although I think he just graduated middle school - was hanging out and we built a country set together off her song (songs are programmed backwards), then we swung into a jazz thing with Louis Armstrong doing St. James Infirmary as the pivot.
So that gives you an idea of what we're doing Up on the Roof with our funky little ten watt worldwide transmitter. We can't sign off, however, without thanking our wonderful hosts who hekp make this all happen - BLIP.fm. I don't know how you did it, but you guys are brilliant.
We love you all madly. As Duke used to say closing his shows.
Image ... Wind Chimes. The South End, Boston.
Garden Bridge | Image . 1
I was going through a box of photos looking for a print to give Frederike for her birthday. This was on top of the pile and after flipping through the stack I came back to it. And she liked it!
Her print is somewhat different, however, a one-off. Boxes of Epson printing paper come packed with a stiff, white, smooth protective cardboard sheet. I call it a backing sheet and began printing on them. It makes a very diffuse, watery, painterly image that works well for some photographs. As you can see, this image is already headed in that direction and printing on a backing board took it even further, which was just right.
Fred's is unique because I've stopped printing altogether in recent years. The Web is my only medium now. I've left paper behind and a small grove of trees is still standing somewhere as a result.
The scene is the view into a garden in Boston's Fenway Victory Gardens. A low, slightly arched foot bridge spans a small stream, the banks lush with greenery. I've tried to find the spot again from time to time but it's gone, or perhaps eluding me. There are almost 500 gardens in the Fens, however, so it might just be hard to find. But I think it's probably gone. People come and go and things change fairly fast, nothing stays the same. Except in photographs.
The image was probably made in 1999 or 2000. The camera is an Olympus D-620L, the same one which still works well and continues to inspire me. We've covered many miles and made myriad pictures together and we're still on the first roll of 'film'.
This is a sort of image I always seem to be on the lookout for. Something really simple. But satisfying somehow. Maybe minimal is the word. I enjoy seeing how little you need, how basic and stripped down things can get and still have a wholely satisfying image that you can look at again and again with pleasure. That the viewer can interpret and project meaning onto as they will and make their own. I call this the modern method. Kind of like the lyrics of REM or some of the Stones songs. You make your own meaning.
Image is a new addition to our journal. I find people's photographs fascinating and enjoy getting people to talk about them. Which usually requires, yes, at least a thousand words. ... Steve.
Happy birthday, Fred!
Saturday, July 18, 2009
Swoozay | Twitpic . 5
Swoozay.
Name: Susalka.
Location: at the corner of sunny days.
Bio: i love little things passionately.
Twitpic is our current favorite pic picked from the public timeline of Twitpic, the new site hosting images for Twitter.
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