the fifteenth late friday night eclectic buffet

friday night and the burgeoning heap of ideas and interests and curiousities that is the golden fish research department has prepared its eclectic buffet for immediate release.

hey, props to my mate sid smith living up at whitley bay on the northeast coast of england. sid the official biographer of robert fripp throws his self, his experience of his family, and his vast and rich knowledge of music up onto his blog (see the link down the right-hand side of this blog). i nipped over the other day to see what sid’s up to and into and lo and behold a drop-dead-gorgeous tune was waiting there and with no further ado, i’ll link you here to gillian welch and david rawlings:


meanwhile outside in the returning late spring warmth . . . as my gardens slowly reemerge from their wintry prison and i find the tiny surprises - the little bulbs that i planted with my children last year that i (and they) had completely forgotten about - i am brought to a deeper gratitude for the return of the warmer months and then also for the amazing beauty of nature itself.

i have read many articles and bits and pieces of gardening books about why and even how plants create the colours they do in their stems and leaves and flowers, but i am still amazed when i see a little yellow petal which upon closer inspection reveals shades of yellow and speckles of other colours. it is so simple and yet such an extraordinary thing for a plant to have taken the soil, the air, the water, and the sun and to have formed this admixture into something so beautiful and magical. and that is what it is still to me - magic. here are a few little examples around my garden . . .

hides the sun
a dense fog in the morning:
waning winter

r.k. singh

the garden flew round with the angel
the angel flew round with the clouds
and the clouds flew round and the clouds flew round
and the clouds flew round with the clouds

wallace stevens

here's the line between winter and summer as seen on the surface of our swimming pool

the wind sings welcome

carl sandburg the wind sings welcome in early spring

(for paula) the grip of the ice is gone now.
the silvers chase purple.
the purples tag silver.
they let out their runners
here where summer says to the lilies:
“wish and be wistful,
circle this wind-hunted, wind-sung water.”

come along always, come along now.
you for me, kiss me, pull me by the ear.
push me along with the wind push.
sing like the whinnying wind.
sing like the hustling obstreperous wind.

have you ever seen deeper purple …
this in my wild wind fingers?
could you have more fun with a pony or a goat?
have you seen such flicking heels before,
silver jig heels on the purple sky rim?
come along always, come along now

here are three images i took at the side of my house where i have some limestone chunks, seen here with a beautiful piece of ice.
click on each image to make it bigger.

labradford and neil young

it’s been a while since i posted any music on here and i am happy to share a very cool mashup by 2fs of cunningly named labradford and the very talented, chronologically and stylistically resilient neil young.

matching the minimalist glitch electronics of labradford
with the piano and rough-edged keening vocals of neil young is an inspired choice. the shimmering spaciousness of labradford’s buzzing, hissing, scratchy contribution provides a richer even more melancholy edge to what is at best a very sad yet eternally relevant song given the very sorry state of so many of the world’s regions, immersed as they are in futile wars.


while you’re here, the same mashup artist has cleverly and serendipitously melded talking head’s “the overload” the last track on their 1980 release remain in light, with wire’s “the boiling boy”. the result is predictably but attractively sonically similar to early work by new order, the band that grew out of joy division.

e luxo so4/soldier. listen here.
boy boiling over: enjoy here.

if you’re interested in hearing more or want to drop some props over at the artist’s website then you should visit pay him a visit!.

bob randall: "the land owns us"

i came across today’s story through ode magazine. a magazine dedicated to providing an optimistic approach to sustainable living. in other words. a viewpoint that tempers the harsh realities of taking care of our planet with some of our baser requirements and our impulsive natures! in the latest online issue, ode mentioned bob randall. not a name i was familiar with, so i dug around and came up with some lovely and rich material.

bob randall, an yankunytjatjara elder and a traditional owner of uluru (ayers rock) is one of the “stolen generation” of the aboriginal people of australia. taken from his family at the age of seven, throughout his life bob has worked as teacher and leader for aboriginal land rights, education, community development and cultural awareness.

the premise here is that there is tremendous knowledge already here on our planet and that much of it is in the daily experiencing of the planet’s aboriginal people. their knowledge and perspective is one that people return to in times of crisis or even in times when they recognize that they are out of connection with the big systems, and even out of tune with their own knowing of themselves.

in these short films, bob shares the wisdom passed down to him from his ancestors about caring for the land.

the land owns us

oursness

ice garden

more images of the now long gone ice in my back garden.

the art of the mashup

so what’s a mashup? well the music version of a mashup can run the range from something that sounds right when mixed together with another song, right through to its more thoughtful iteration as a means of culture jamming - turning culture’s face back on itself. in-between those two forms lies the (for me) most fruitful territory in which music is connected both in terms of its form but also its content. the beat and the message flow side-by-side.

in that way, a really good mashup is like an aural collage in which the seams of the tunes and samples are invisible or inaudible. the piece has a natural feel that doesn’t suggest the vast amount of assemblage that went on before it was released.

fans of mashups must definitely pay a visit to the site of dj earworm - a fun moniker that accurately describes the effect some of his music has on the listener as it gets into your head and stays there demanding repeated listenings. dj earworm is a generous soul posting his work online for free and also making available a how-to book on mashups. you can also get the same book at dj earworm’s site.

a super blog resource for a very very wide array of mashup talent and releases can be found over at uganda’s finest mashed potatoes (honest, i don’t make these things up!)

luke enlow produces worthy tunes including my two all-time favourite mashups:
mercedes beck featuring janis joplin and beck sharing a catchy foot-tapper of a chug-along groove.
imagine wild music featuring a really clever mashup of lou reed's walk on the wild side and john lennon’s imagine with a little tickle of g. love and special sauce’s blue’s music added just to bring it closer to the here-and-now.

fellow mashup artist alex h has a heap of great mashups as well as one really nice remix of coldcut’s tru-skool tune that you can listen to right here.

greener gadgets

the greener gadgets design competition has just drawn to a close and in its wake are some novel, clever and unusual ideas. the competition was a sidebar to the greener gadgets conference held in new york in february of this year.

the mandate for the competition was to create innovative solutions addressing the issues of energy, carbon footprint, health and toxicity, new materials, product lifecycle, and social development. a fairly lengthy and deep list that addresses what i would describe as the key criteria by which any new product should be evaluated as worthy of entry into the marketplace.

among the many notable entries, i was drawn to these very clever, easy to look at and green gadgets . . . . ”green eye” brings the power to make informed choices when buying something to its logical next step by allowing the consumer to scan a product’s bar code from which you are linked to a database that has determined that product’s footprint including the following details:
1. sustainability score based on current location
2. energy used
3. carbon footprint
4. logistics / locality
5. materials / packaging
6. health effects / toxicity
7. social aspect / fair-trade values
8. recycling / life cycle


the solarvoir addresses the fact that water consumption in most western homes has risen dramatically in the last thirty years. taking its inspiration from cisterns, the solar voir is a proposal for storing and reusing household grey water. by integrating it with the uv waterworks system which treats used water and converts it into potable water, the solarvoir will dramatically reduce the typical household’s water useage rate and its corollary carbon footprint.


the ”recycle” is a system to store energy generated during a bicycle ride that can be transferred to other uses such as electronics and lights etc. “micro generators create an electric charge during any movement of the bicycle. they are oriented to target the most common movements when riding a bike, such as bumps in the road and pedaling. When this electric charge is generated, it is stored in a lithium ion battery. this battery is attached to the charging unit while the user is riding their bike. after the ride, the battery can be easily removed and used to power any number of electronics. at one end of the battery there is a basic wall socket which provides universal adaptability to nearly every electronic device.”

to see more clever and creative green ideas, including the top three ideas in the competition then visit core 77’s greener gadgets design competition page.

china from the air

i love opening my mail box when i get home at the end of the day. it often contains surprises and given my sketchy memory, even subscriptions come as a surprise when they arrive! through the generosity of my aunt, national geographic has been arriving at my door for a few years now. through this magazine i get to see and read about places and features of this world that i otherwise might not know about and may never get to visit or see in person.

the latest feature on china is especially rich with incredible photography and some perceptive and revealing writing.

national geographic has a very rich web presence as well and this month they have posted a fantastic feature on china. highlight of the piece for me is a gallery of images of china from the air. ranging from the simply stunning image of limestone pinnacles lining the li river to the surprisingly mundane image of patio chairs and a satellite dish in a new suburban development in shenyang, the pictures are well worth a look.

solaris solar-powered lawnmower

one of the dilemma’s i am running into with the burgeoning range of “earth-friendly” products is the purchasing cycle that i am immersed in - items that have reached the end of their life and need to be replaced such as lawnmowers - and the appearance of products that i would buy for their ability to meet both my needs and those of my planet but which arrive after i have already made my less-friendly purchase.

a case in point is the appearance of the solaris lawn mower.
my old lawnmower - a classic two stroke - literally blew up firing oil and blue smoke with a memorable bang that caught the attention of several of my neighbours who fought their way through the cloud to see if i had survived the event.

needless to say i nipped out later that weekend and bought a newer “more efficient” model. i had thought about buying a hand mower but to be perfectly honest, those things work well on smooth small lawns. i have neither a smooth nor a small lawn and so i opted for a four-stroke machine that uses oil, gasoline and pollutes a bit less than the old beast , but pollutes nevertheless.

how much does it pollute? here are some sobering stats:

•according to the government of canada (one-tonne challenge) a typical gasoline powered lawn mower emits about 48 kilograms of greenhouse gas in one season.

•there are about 8 million gasoline powered lawn mowers sold per year in north america and europe.

•gas-powered lawn mowers are very inefficient, which means that despite their small size they produce a lot of air pollution. in fact, running an old gas-powered lawn mower for one hour can produce as much air pollution as driving a new car 550 kilometers, says the ministry of the environment for canada

•a gasoline-powered lawn mower run for an hour puts out about the same amount of smog-forming emissions as 40 new automobiles run for an hour, says the california environmental protection agency, air resources board.

so the bottom line is that the replacement of every 500 gas mowers with non-gasoline-fueled mowers would spare the air:
 
•212 pounds of hydrocarbons (smog ingredient)
•1.7 pounds of nitrogen oxides (smog ingredient)
•5.6 pounds of irritating particles
•1,724 pounds of carbon dioxide

so i won’t lie and tell you that i am rushing out to buy this product because i won’t be buying one for a while yet. but i will buy it (or something equivalent) when the purchase cycle comes around again.

as mentioned above, the solaris solar-powered lawnmower has arrived and in fact was just released through home depot just over a week ago . . .

it is not cheap, checking out of the shop at around $570.00 and that’s exclusive of the solar powering station
which you can look at here. the charging station checks out at $250.00. so basically you’re dropping $870 plus tax for a lawnmower which puts it beyond the reach of most people in the market for such a machine. the premise is sound though and i remain optimistic that two things will happen in this area. one, the government will offer a rebate for the purchase of an earth-friendly machine, and two the prices will come down as the technology becomes easier and cheaper to produce.

more detailed information about the solaris lawnmower and associated products can be obtained from the manufacturer.

landsat 7

i don’t have many books devoted to photography but my favourite would have to be a collection of landsat images that was given to me as a birthday present many years ago. the most recent landsat satellite landsat 7 was launched nine years ago today!

here’s an artist’s rendering of landsat 7 orbiting the earth.

the landsat program was first launched in 1972. since that time, nasa has sent a series of earth-observing satellite missions jointly managed with the u.s. geological survey to collect information about earth from space. this science, is now commonly referred to as remote sensing. through these images, scientists have been able to study the planet from several perspectives, not the least of which has been the evaluation of the changes caused by both natural processes and human practices.

my own interest in the landsat images has been twofold - firstly for the sheer thrill of seeing this planet from a very different perspective, and secondly to view the planet as a dynamic work of art. many of the landsat images would not look out of place as beautiful works of art in their own right regardless of what they depict.

when you see these images it’s only fair to point out that these are not true colour images but are as seen through a range of spectrums, sometimes nasa creates composite images drawing together images from several points across the light spectrum. the results though are absolutely stunning! here are a few that i have selected . . .





nasa’s earth as art gallery contains a selection of the most popular images but for a more complete selection as well as technical and other sorts of information you should visit the landsat homepage.

"landsat imagery courtesy of nasa goddard space flight center and u.s. geological survey"

romaine jerome's day night watch

in switzerland - the recognized home of haute chronological machinery - romaine jerome builds timepieces that are from another world - literally.

take this example. featuring a bezel mode of rusted steel forged with authentic parts of the titanic. that’s right - the titanic - the famed ocean liner that creased an iceberg and went to the bottom with tremendous loss of life! its case is made of titanium and blackened steel. its black dial integrates recovered coal from the titanic.

the “titanic - dna” as it is named, also features a tourbillon movement (famously and expensively invented by swiss watchmaker abraham-louis breguet) freeing it from the surly bonds of gravity that ultimately mess up any timepiece’s ability to maintain accurate time.

jerome’s most recent piece is likely his most extraordinary to date - and that’s saying something when you look over his collection. the good people over at bored space have announced that jerome has just sold a three hundred thousand dollar watch named the day and night watch at the baselworld watch and jewellery show.
beyond its interesting (some may say unappealing) appearance, the day and night watch possesses the unique quality of telling you whether it is day or night. like its similarly expensive stablemates, the ‘day and night’ watch uses the complicated tourbillon movement.

salomeja neris

salomeja neris was born in what we know as lithuania. a somewhat controversial poet through her association and cooperation with the communist authorities, salomeja nevertheless produced some lovely poetry.


here she is in 1928 . . .


you will waken

you will waken in the deep of night...
woodland winds will summon you to roam
and the birch will wave at its full height,
greeting swans and cranes returning home.

meanwhile spring will strew the sky with stars,
off will all the gates and fences blow.
through the gaps in cracking snow-drift bars
soon a blade of grass will peep and grow.

spring advances, eager for a fight,
flooding streams, announcing winter's fall.
you will waken in the deep of night...
listen to your homeland's springtime call!

salomeja neris
(1904 – 1945)

these are images taken recently in my back garden of flowers emerging against a backdrop of ice. click them to fill your screen!

julian beever chalk artist

my daughter came across this man’s work and thought that it deserved a spot on the golden fish blog. she and i both trace our appreciation for the fine art of the street chalk artist back to the famous scene in mary poppins
when the film literally unfolds as bert, the banks children and mary poppins herself jump inside one of bert’s chalk drawings on the sidewalk. what was initially a mere landscape drawing is transformed into a real parallel world - complete with a stream, merry-go-round, a race course, and turtles that transport bert and mary downstream on their backs!

nowadays, chalk artists can be found alongside street performers, buskers, and hot dog/sausage vendors in major cities around the world. many chalk artists focus on incredible renderings of old masters’ paintings. julian beever is in an entirely different region of the chalk art world.

hailing from melton mowbray in leicestershire, a town more commonly associated with its lovely namesake melton mowbray pie, and the magic stilton cheese, julian beever has elevated the noble art of purloining coins in exchange for clever renderings of masterpieces on concrete using little more than chalk. now i should mention before i go on that sidewalk chalk is not your standard calcite product being comprised mainly of gypsum.

here's a familiar site to parents of young children or to anyone associated with sidewalk chalk drawings.

what differentiates beever from many other sidewalk artists is that he employs the technique of trompe l’oeil, literally “trick-of-the-eye”, that creates the illusion of a three dimensional object or scene while actually being a two dimensional painting or drawing.

here are just a few examples of beever’s work:

art and artist
batman and robin
coca cola
into the well
revealed
shifted
toy sailboat


and here are a whole lot more !

here’s film of beever creating a work for the aveeno company:

here’s some video of julian beever creating a work of art for america’s independence day;


another incredibly talented street artist to spend time looking into is kurt wenner.

design and the elastic mind

the museum of modern art in nyc is hosting an exhibit entitled design and the elastic mind a great title that is more than backed up by the content. the conceptual ground floor for this exhibit reads like this “over the past twenty-five years, people have weathered dramatic changes in their experience of time, space, matter, and identity. individuals cope daily with a multitude of changes in scale and pace‚ working across several time zones, traveling with relative ease between satellite maps and nanoscale images, and being inundated with information. adaptability is an ancestral distinction of intelligence, but today’s instant variations in rhythm call for something stronger: elasticity, the product of adaptability plus acceleration.” nice!

this premise is opened out to a much greater extent here.


the site is rich, very very detailed and dense but well worth an exploration. the exhibit is grouped under the general headings of “thinkering”, “people and objects”, “design for debate”, “visualization”, “thought to action”, “all together now”, and “super nature”. specific subject matter covers the spectrum from computational origami to a series of projects in which data harvested from the internet is translated into a visual representation that graphically delineates the relational pieces of the data so that (for example) a dating service might reveal a single person represented by a small balloon, surrounded by a set of balloons each of which represents people that that person may have dated, this exhibit presents hundreds of topics addressed by out-of-the-box thinkers and organizations, each of which will leave you excited for the future.

the actual site interface itself is an interesting one to navigate requiring a degree of intuition and an equal degree of patience as you decode the symbols, determine which dots activate which elements and so on. this is perhaps an accidental feature of the whole piece but one which makes for little moments of excitement as you discover a little nook or niche that you hadn’t expected.

other cool features include a series of fascinating google earth mashups, a section devoted to what is termed local and individual power which consists of projects that are generated through renewable sources and even a pair of shoes that store energy from the process of walking and running which is later used to power small personal appliances.

i am very interested in biomimetics right now and was very happy to discover a section devoted to “biomimicry”. here’s an example of one application of biomimicry to aid in the design solution of a small vehicle developed by mercedes-benz.

the boxfish:
the process towards a design solution developed by nature . . .

flowers through ice

the other day i got home after a really good bike ride - wind behind me, big sky, sunshine, and my legs weren't hurting too much. i decided to take a look around my back yard and take some pics of the last bits of snow and ice. i took a couple of pics of the frozen over swimming pool, more to gloat over in the hot hot summertime than anything. i thought that as i was out i would take a look in the little collector bucket and make sure that nothing was doing the backstroke in it.

inside the bucket was a semi circular chunk of absolutely clear ice. the ice was roughly twenty centimetres across and over the course of the hour in which i held it, it changed shape and even its internal architecture - veined with air bubbles and radiating striations. i spent one glorious creative hour of my life taking one hundred and ninety pictures of that piece of ice in various locations in and out of my home. from that i culled just over fourty images which i will share here in little groups over time.

today's set is of flowers around my home as seen through the block of ice.

roses, carnations and ferns.

click on each image to enlarge it.