Sculptural curl
Wednesday, 16 August 2006
Is this the trajectory of life? A Fibonacci curve of sorts?
(Not to be confused with Tribonacci numbers….)
Musings
Cease fire
Monday, 14 August 2006
Chihuly glass installation at Atlanta Botanical Garden, 2004.
Happy news today from the Middle East: truce in Lebanon! (And interesting interactive graphics, too.) Read here for some insights on what it’s been like to live through what’s been going on in northern Israel. Kudos to Leah for making these entries, and I breathe a sigh along with her that she can now move on to another topic….
Bush art
Saturday, 12 August 2006
Bottle cap art from Mexico (thanks SAK/JS).
Sometimes you have to let me get away with a picture and no comment….
Data stream
Friday, 11 August 2006
Sign from Oaxaca, years ago.
Below is table of some numbers I’ve been contemplating late this afternoon, estimated populations for some cities, with populations above 10,000 people, across Mesoamerica at the time the Spanish arrived in their grand quest for wealth and souls.
The obvious conclusion is that they encompass a wide variety of population densities—probably because the community is spread across rugged ground or substantial areas between the houses are allocated to gardens, although there may be other reasons. But what else?
| name | region | area (ha) | population | density |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Tenochtitlan* | Central Mexico | 1350 | 212,500 | 157.41 |
| Tzintzuntzan | West Mexico | 674 | 30,000 | 44.51 |
| Texcoco | Central Mexico | 450 | 24,100 | 53.56 |
| Mayapan | Yucatán | 420 | 21,000 | 50.00 |
| Zacapu | West Mexico | 1100 | 20,000 | 18.18 |
| Huexotla | Central Mexico | 300 | 17,100 | 57.00 |
| Yautepec | Central Mexico | 209 | 15,100 | 72.25 |
| San Juan Teotihuacan | Central Mexico | 250 | 13,500 | 54.00 |
| Chalco | Central Mexico | 250 | 11,000 | 44.00 |
| Otumba | Central Mexico | 220 | 10,700 | 48.64 |
| Naco | Southeast Mesoamerica | 160 | 10,000 | 62.50 |
*Where the center of Mexico City is now (the Zócalo).
Ingenuity
Thursday, 10 August 2006
Ick. Ick. ICK. (If you click, I warned you!)
Anthropologists call it intensification of production….
Mystery color
Saturday, 5 August 2006
When I took this picture, I don’t remember thinking the water had this strange, distinctive, remarkable color, but this is what the camera shows it looked like, unretouched. Lake Cumberland, earlier this week. Also, admire the surface tension….
Stay tuned! Coming tomorrow: picture of the new kitchen faucet! Installed!
Hacked!
Thursday, 3 August 2006
News of the day here: while we were gone, nefarious characters using computers in Turkey hacked our server, and tens of thousands of others. Thanks to Herculean efforts by our stalwart web guys (and hours spent being Herculean), we’re back online, more secure and updated than before. Kudos for all these efforts, and many others, that keep us online and functioning (usually) so seamlessly!
Now, this, the photo? Ah, that’s a hot plate!—spotted in the window of a decorate-it-yourself ceramics shop in Virginia-Highland.
And, it is hot! Here, in Kentucky on the houseboat, everywhere nearby. I’m not looking forward to the day, hour, or minute, when we get hit by the rolling blackouts, whether it’s this year or in the years to come. Maybe I’ll try to spend longer in the UP (a la Mouse’s Moom), to avoid them….
Color My World
Sunday, 30 July 2006
Sometimes when I browse the paintings at a gallery or museum, I like to look closeup, and be immersed in the color. Me, I don’t paint or watercolor, or any of that (no talent), but I do enjoy periodically taking a tiny piece of color-shapes, divorced from their overall context, as my visual world.
Getting High!
Saturday, 29 July 2006
Rarely, we face a conjunction of the stars that result in a back-to-back series of social engagements; usually our life is far more low key. Not this weekend!
Friends arrived from southwest of here yesterday afternoon, and we partied until the wee hours (mine, anyway!), and got up and laughed and told even more stories this morning. Obligations, sadly, took them away around mid-day.
Then, the next shift arrived, about an hour later, from east of here. Being stuck in Little A-Town, they wanted to do Big City stuff, so we hied off to the High Museum to check out the current exhibits mostly, and 1.5 galleries of permanent exhibits. Many galleries were closed for the latest upgrade, but we had pretty much taken in all our brains could absorb by the time we wandered back to the parking garage….
To refortify ourselves, we dined (first time for all) at Pacific Kitchen, an unalloyed success! Yum.
