trillium wood

the trillium is this province's official flower. it's appearance in the nearby woods is a brief event that is the herald of late spring. the trillium has a lot of very interesting features, one of which is that it is spread by the work of ants and mice. "trillium seeds have a fleshy organ called an elaiosome that attracts ants. the ants take the seeds to their nest, where they eat the elaiosomes and put the seeds in their garbage, where they can be protected until they germinate. they also get the added bonus of growing in a medium made richer by the ant garbage." (wikipedia)
what i do know is that they grow in profusion in our woods and make for a very beautiful show at a time when nature is just beginning to flex its green muscles. on my walk i came across a few little clusters . . . after which i found some larger gatherings . . .
and then when i had walked as far east as i could i turned and looked back and saw that the woods were in fact filled with these tiny three-petalled beauties! but my favourite was this slightly past its prime becoming pink-petalled rendering of a trillium that was all on its own in a distant corner . . .

robert e. carter on self-cultivation

thirty-three years ago i stood and threw beer-bottles at a door. well past what could be called inebriated, i was engaged in something that i look back on with a degree of detachment but which i can recall with considerable clarity.

the person living behind the door opened it. a bearded man with a soft voice spoke to me. he invited me to stop throwing bottles at his door. then he invited me in to drink tea with him and to hear his poetry.

this man it turns out was bob carter, the master of the college in which i was living. i hadn't officially met him until that point. but sitting on his couch, drinking his tea, listening to his poetry, an awakening of sorts took place. i was drawn to see myself for what i had done and then for what i was. that he did this without anger, without malice, but with genuine kindness is a lesson that i apply to my own dealings with students whose learning and being curve has not reached a point of refinement.

here is robert speaking on self-cultivation. the idea that a person can refine their spiritual self through concerted and virtuous work.

more

less is more unless you are named "more" which is what today's short film is entitled. released ten years ago (1999) "more" was understandably nominated for an academy award. the film deals with the dilemma of work, success, and happiness and how to reconcile yourself to their disconnectedness, their mutually exclusive features or how to reconcile the three states into one. "more tells the story of an inventor who lives in a drab, colorless world. day by day, he toils away in a harsh, dehumanizing job, his only savior being the memories of the bliss of childhood. but at night, he works secretly on an invention that could help him relive those memories and spread their joy to everyone in his despair-filled life."

when he finishes his invention, it changes the way people look at the world. but success also changes him, for with it, he loses an important part of himself. directed by mark osborne, also famous for his work on "spongebob squarepants" and "kung fu panda", here is "more".



what good films are capable of providing -

scion iq concept car

as a non-driver, i'm intrigued by cars that somehow appeal through their appearance and then more recently through their engineered sensitivity to the environment. finding cars that are wicked to look at while carrying a limited degree of guilt about them is not that simple. of course beauty is in the eye of the beholder so designs that thrill me are not necessarily everyone's piece of cake. take for example the scion iq concept car, revealed at the new york international auto show a little while back.

photograph by: reuters/eric thayer, reuters

photograph by: richard drew/associated press


photograph by john marshall mantel for the new york times

if your curiousity is piqued then nip over to this lovely gallery of iq concept photographs.

into the heart of things

the nearby woodlot is a place filled with magic. if you step carefully and move with care then you are invited to share in all sorts of wonderful and lovely moments and experiences.

through the portal . . . and into a blessing of blossoms . . . and when i look at these tiny perfect little blossoms, whose fragility and softness are like a song, i think of tagore's line in his poem "my song" . . . "my song will sit in the pupils of your eyes, and will carry your sight into the heart of things".

you might like to visit my other blog "flow"

fleet foxes live inside the grand palais

a while back i featured a stunning video of the fleet foxes' song white winter hymnal. it was for me an introduction to the fleet foxes' beautiful harmonies and other worldly musical renderings. i'm really happy to share this incredible film shot in the grand palais. you can read the full-story of the creation of both this music and the film here.

but really, it's the music that arrives through these musicians that speaks the clearest.


Fleet Foxes - A Take Away Show from La Blogotheque on Vimeo.

morning comes early

waking to a tree in bud against a blue dawn sky . . .




"i am a dance—play up, there! the fit is whirling me fast!

i am the ever-laughing—it is new moon and twilight . . .

elements merge in the night—ships make tacks in the dreams...

i swear they are all beautiful;

every one that sleeps is beautiful—everything in the dim light is beautiful"

walt whitman (from "the sleepers")

you might like to visit my other blog over at flow.

josef hoflehner's black and white world

josef hoflehner's photography leaves me breathless. entirely black and white, it captures the grey scale in all its glory with soft, muted edges, delicate shadows, and a clear sense of beauty. natural and manmade subject matter are treated with equal care and reverence. fog and mist abounds.

these are a few of my favourites.

biwako sticks, japan.

pensacola beach, florida.

unplugged. iceland.

unleashed in the east.

dauphin beach fence. alabama.

my favourite works are contained in his shorelines portfolio and in his snowscapes portfolio. however, his work spans the globe and you might like to wander through the hundreds of incredible images he has assembled.

here are josef's portfolios. if you'd like to read and see what he's up to then you really should nip over to his blog.

to purchase his works then artnet has a dedicated page.

oslim the human beatbox

my son and i just watched and listened to this guy. i've got nothing to say beyond this guy's skills are outrageous!



and here's his equally talented beatbox buddie "daichi"!

efterklang returns - again

efterklang have appeared on this blog before. here and here. i love that their music appears to come out of nowhere. it has a feel of the northern hemisphere. it is simple and yet also rich and filled with emotion. details that might be overlooked in a lush environment rise up and capture the imagination. like little patches of colour in winter.

the overall effect is of gentleness, spontaneity, kindness, happiness, creativity.

comprised of simple elements that collectively form a rich tapestry - efterklang apears here through the miracle of two short films generously hosted by dailymotion through a collection of short films of musicians called "the take away shows".

the first is entitled "echo wave". the director nate chan says, "with such a large band, literally what is the most obvious way to get intimate? throw them into the smallest room of the venue (the kitchen at bottom of the hill) and let them squeeze every little note out. fortunately for us, efterklang was in a very giving mood and offered a new song, echo wave." here 'tis.

Efterklang - Echo Wave
Uploaded by lablogotheque

the second is entitled "mirador". the same director (nate chan) says, "when I got word that efterklang was about to embark on their first us tour, it was as if the sky had opened up and heaven was coming down on earth with horns; a choir, and the crazy danish running around the streets of san francisco! i was full of anticipation and curious to find out how they would handle a stripped down version of their own songs."

Efterklang - Mirador
Uploaded by lablogotheque

the world is wet today

on friday i rode home through a torrential downpour that included a heavy hailstorm! my back and arms had red marks where the hail had hit hard enough to leave a mark. a guy looking out his window called out to me as i rode past - "least you've got your helmet on" - which was a good point because i would have been in a lot more pain had i not! the hail was just slightly smaller than marbles.

when i got home i found my boy and my girl on the front porch watching it all come down. yes, they're my children! i find proofs like that everyday!!

all that aside, in the ranks of emotive aristocracy, the effect of rain on me would be placed well near the top of the pyramid. i love its smell, its feeling on my skin, its sounds, its appearance in pools and puddles, the effect it has of drawing me to its edge while sitting or standing comfortably inside a shelter. right at the very edge of the falling rain. there's metaphor inside that.

i love the rich sensual straightforward writing of raymond foss. here's his reflection on rain.

a spring rain

the world is wet today
luxurious, damp, drenched
drops hug the leaves,
anoint the still budded lilac blossoms
before their blooming
rich purple and plum
made richer by their watery skin
new leaves under the weight
droplets heavy, hanging
bowing the white pine needles
undersides exposed to drink
drink in the morning
hushed in the rain
temperature near the dewpoint
sprouts of just planted flowers
eager from the parched soil
new puddles bloom too
on the ground, the driveway
collect and gather
without the smell of summer rain yet
tears splash and spread
silent shimmers, heralds, messengers
in the spring rain

mother's day

this is my little bruvver and i. a very long time ago.



"a mother's love liberates". maya angelou

thankyou for having us mum!!

happy mother's day to mums everywhere!!!

blaine brownell - change in the material world

one of the key features of the world we are welcoming is the arrival of materials that are going to bring about a positive change in how we build and design objects. if (like myself) you are intrigued by what is happening out there that will soon become commonplace but stil has a lot of that 'wow' factor about it then you really need to know about blaine brownell.

in the talk you get to hear today, blaine discusses such cool new products as sphelar, a solar material made of a matrix of black spheres that allows light to be captured from all angles, not just from the angle of incidence. what's extremely exciting about it to me is that it'’s flexible, and can be made into wearable clothing, like a jacket that can power your mobile phone.

another amazing material is photovol glass, which is transparent, but provides shade and most amazingly it generates power!

cabot corporation is making a superinsulator called nanogel - which is the lightest human substance on earth. believe it or not, it’'s 99% air, 1% quartz, and can be used to fill polycarbonate sheets - this means that windows can be translucent, but also highly insulating, which means that having windows no longer means the same as having heat leaks.

here's blaine describing the status quo and how it needs to and will change as a result of the incredible diversity of materials that are being created each and every week.

The 4 Keys to Becoming Successful In MLM @ Yahoo! Video

if you want to know more then go here and sign up for blaine's newsletter in which a new product that will change this world is profiled each and every week.

nils udo - redefining nature

"to design with flowers.
to paint with the clouds.
to write with water.
to record the wind of may or
the path of a falling leaf.
to work on a storm. to anticipate a glacier.
to arrange water and light....
to take in a forest or a prairie....

to open up the living,
three dimensional spaces of nature.
with the slightest possible intervention, to electrify and transform the spaces of nature
into the spaces of art..."

these are the words of nils udo. nils works with nature . when i say "works with" it is really more of a manipulation, a readdressing of the properties of nature and applying them to an aesthetic that essentially redefines the purpose of the natural materials that he uses in his work, while also drawing attention to their natural and beautiful properties. his work has much in common with that of andy goldsworthy but to me, it has a softer presence about it.

"waterhouse". spruce trunks, birch branches, willow switches and lawn plantings.

"untitled". brookbed, bindweed blossoms.

rameaux de douglas.

the spring of joy: mary webb

longtime golden fish readers will know that one of my favourite authors is the english writer mary webb. among her writing is a beautiful collection entitled "the spring of joy". a collection of heartfelt love letters to nature, "the spring of joy" makes for a gentle reminder to enjoy the simple places, to be aware of the little moments and details, for it is easy to experience them in totality but more fulfilling to enjoy them in their most intimate setting.



from her book "the spring of joy" . . . "if you will go out on some june morning, before the earliest bee comes droning by, when the stripes of sunrise lie right across the awakening earth, you will know the fascination of shadows. on such a day they are almost as blue as chicory. as a child, i remember standing awe-stricken at the strange beauty of a well-known field in the magic of a june dawn. it had a line of tall trees in its eastern hedge, and if you watched while the sun rose, you saw what had been a wide, grey expanse suddenly spanned by swart, prostrate giants. perhaps the memory of such fresh delights, like dew in the flower-cup of life, may linger even after the flower is gathered. quite early on a summer morning, if you look down an ugly street in a busy town, you will scarcely know it. the rows of houses have ceased to look dull, and have become the opposing camps of light and darkness; the street is a tessellated pavement of blue and yellow; the bush that looks so pathetically inadequate by day throws quite a forest of obscurity and becomes mysterious. the shadow of a tree upon any house blesses it, weaving with its cool, hypnotic gestures a soothing quiet; but the place, of all human habitations, where it best loves to linger is a village street. there each life is framed in garden and orchard; companies of spirit-shapes go trembling up and down the humble walls and roofs all day from the multitude of surrounding leaves; in the highway the sunshine sleeps by the shadow of an ivied wall--disturbed only once in an hour, and then simply turning in its sleep. if those other shades, the troubles of life, have become too dense and shouldered out the light, so that the sick imagination sees them as crouching beasts of prey, a pilgrimage to such a tranquil place in lilac time may help to set things right again. the slightly blurred colours of reflections--water-shadows--are more vivid than reality, as if water were a brighter medium than air; what they lose in strength of outline through the motion of the current, they gain in dreamy charm. were ever forget-me-nots half so blue as those that gaze skyward from clear water? did you know all the sweetness of flushed wild-rose faces until you saw them sleeping in a stream? some spell lies on rivers where willows bend over them and transfuse them with tender green, with depths of swaying leaf-reflections, lighter in the centre, where the over-hanging tracery shows the sky, very dark at the sides, where the grassy banks are steep and the leaves thick. coming round a curve, you stop with a sudden intake of the breath, dazzled by a blaze of glory. there stands on the bank and there lies in the flood a tree of beaten gold, gently moving against the sky, gently quivering in the water, flinging largess of its yellow money into the vistaed gold of its reflection. the sun makes each leaf transparent, and the whole picture is ardent as the face of some angel of a flaming star. as the spirit strives to gather some of the beauty, it longs to be less finite, less bounded; it desires an infinite future in which to reflect universal loveliness."

oh my!

in the quieter moments . . .

one of the lovelier features of the magical profession i belong to is to be able to take my class into the woods. there's running and yelling and discoveries and trips and stumbles and ... well you know, it's magic!!

in the quieter moments there are little places like these . . .

paul colinet - between night and day

paul colinet spent quite a bit of time associating with the surrealists, particularly rene magritte. his writing reflects something of their perspective in its juxtaposition of the ordinary with the extraordinary.



the bell's dress

she's morning's residence. she's as clear as she is
invisible, as tranquil as forgotten lands.

her hair is golden, her smooth windows exchange
glances.

she appears in bold alluring colors, a pretty basket of
dew, protected by a long crystal rifle.

on the doorstep, a bush shakes off his medals.

the door is open, but the bush hesitates forever: he
doesn't see he's invited.

gently, the house empties, she jingles her dress, her
heart rustles: the dazed bush doesn't understand.
it's a very complicated game.

from time to time, the glass rifle speaks all alone and
shatters some small thing.

paul colinet


to read more of paul's writing visit this page.

gins and arakawa - sheltering hope

a long ago blog entry by kay itoi sent me back in time to my high school years when i briefly toyed with the idea of becoming an architect. the small details of not having the math, science, or art marks to justify such a choice relegated it to the heap of might-have-beens that i occasionally reflect on.

for much of my teen years i lived in suburbia - still do - and i longed (and still long) for something architecturally different and unique. it's tough growing up in suburbia when you look at the homes around you and see the same range of dated solutions to the challenge of providing shelter. my own sense is that most suburban homes have very little to do with the actual needs of their owners nevermind their aesthetic sensibilities. much of what i see corresponds to a sense of entitlement and defines the need to be connected to something that suggests whatever degree of wealth or "landedness" the owner wishes to convey to those who live nearby or are simply passing through.

when i was much much younger, expo 67 came around. do you remember that? it was set in montreal and among its many highlights was a structure that in some way defined not only that particular moment in time but described an aspiration to a way of thinking about structures that resonates quietly through to today. the structure i'm thinking and writing about was named habitat. habitat was "designed to integrate the variety and diversity of scattered private homes with the economics and density of a modern apartment building. modular, interlocking concrete forms define the space. the project was designed to create affordable housing with close but private quarters, each equipped with a garden. the building was believed to illustrate the new lifestyle people would live in increasingly crowded cities around the world." (wiki)

here's habitat during the day. (click in the image to enlarge it)

and in the evening.

to the casual eye it's a scruffy mishmash of cobbled together bits. but look, and think about what you're looking at, and really what you're seeing is a concrete representation of what most people aspire to which is a space that is uniquely their own that accepts the connection we all have to each other. there is something much more human about that structure than there is in the rectangular prisms, each of which contains hundreds of smaller rectangular prisms that dominate our downtowns.

oh and the blog entry i mentioned right at the beginning. well here's what it's talking about:

now how cool is that?!! designed by the architectural collaborative madeleine gins and arakawa this structure defines for me the quintessence of that point at which shelter meets human need and most especially the need to express uniqueness. they have also designed a hotel.

gins and arakawa meld art, architecture and a deeply spiritual understanding of the place of human beings in this world and in particular of their right not to have to die. as you might expect, their thinking is not only practically but philosophically out-of-the-box. here's a taste: "do you want to live in an apartment or house that can help you determine the nature and extent of interactions between you and the universe? what lengths would you be willing to go to, or how much inconvenience would you be willing to put up with, in order to counteract the usual human destiny of having to die?"

to learn more about the extraordinary work of gins and arakawa and the thinking behind it then you should visit their website.

planting trees

yesterday i visited a friend's home. home for her is a beautiful hundred acres of ponds and grasses and woodlot and fields and gnarled trees like inkblots scratching at the sky. stone fences and wooden fences and tangled undergrowth through which bright flashes of blue wind-rippled water can be seen. it reminded me of these delicious words in their depiction of a place left to nature, filled with the tiniest and most lovely details.

"deserted is the place; the orchard trees
neglected; close against the creaking door
dry weeds are -clustered, and the passing gust
snow flakes of drifting thistle-down; no more
bright roses bloom along the garden path
nor lift their burning petals to the sun;
the straggling, scarlet briars have overgrown
the narrow way; the dingy gate no one
now enters; in deep grass the slim stream hides
and speaks no word where solitude abides."

herbert bashford



i helped plant a hundred trees with a friend who travelled out there with me. it's so satisfying to help a new life begin. afterwards i wondered: what will their lives be like? what animals will call them home? what times will the world pass through in their lives that they won't care a scrap about? what will they know each day? how will the change from winter to spring feel after the seventh or eighth time. whose home will they visit and then leave? what will they know in that home?

streetwise rain

on the big curve
the streetwise rain falls with indifference.

this day full of promise
that ended so easily with sleep.

shines darkly.

the slick vistas of glistening pavement
offer no promise beyond
the quick mercury vapour-glow
that waits even as we wait for the morning.

filling empty spaces with light.

and always on . . .

"just in case" . . .

someone should pass by and need light
to guide their way.

steve ball: "the airport exercise"

from guitarist steve ball comes "the airport exercise": a stunning piece of music featuring the work of steve, robert fripp, tony levin, pat mastelotto, j.g. bennett, and david lavallee.

this track is very generously provided by steve as a taste of what you will find sometime in summer of this year when "steve ball sketch box" is released to an unsuspecting public.

from the opening soundscapes over which the words of john godolphin bennett arc with an even more pertinent sense of insightful clarity than when they were first spoken, through to the detailed guitar playing of steve, you will find this a compelling and challenging piece of music worthy of attention beyond merely listening. i can hardly wait to hear the remaining pieces of music that steve will include in what promises to be a powerful release.

queen of the may . 1944

the first of may. a time for young men and women to frolic or to engage in symbolic wrappings of long streamers around may poles. nathaniel hawthorne captured the depth of this tradition in his beautiful piece of writing "the maypole of merry mount" which you can read here on scribd.

a more current - well relatively current - rendering of the maypole festivities has been recently recdiscovered by the people at the british film institute. deeply immersed in a war with no apparent end in sight, the scenes in this film will have brought hope and an unimaginable degree of joy to a nation ravaged by trauma and sorrow. this film takes an unexpected and fascinating turn . . . well read the description provided by the providors of the footage . . .

"unseen for years due to the fragility of the materials, 'springtime in an english village' offers an extraordinary and unexpected snapshot of rural life in wartime. after a fairly predictable opening - farmers ploughing fields, cute baby animals gambolling - it finally gets down to business. the film is about that most ancient of english traditions: the selection and crowning of the queen of the may. but what is so surprising is that 60 years ago the village of stanion in northamptonshire chose to honour a young girl - apparently the daughter of an african merchant seaman who had been evacuated there during the war. consider the times and the cultural circumstances of those times to place this in context.

"it's hard to know quite how literally to take the proceedings. the film was made by the colonial film unit for the purpose of screening throughout britain's african and caribbean colonies - to demonstrate 'typical' life in the uk - at a time when the government was on the lookout for cheap labour."

regardless, it is a lovely and charming film from an england that exists only in the hearts, written word, and film of a time long past. have a look . . .