Monday 29 June 2009

bob the builder

Over the weekend, H and I worked more on the living room and hung strips of wallpaper. The bit of color was an accent--a single strip off-set from the wall's center. To make sure the paper was self-same and perpendicular to the floor and the paste was swabbed economically, H needed a heavy weight, a plumb-bob, and what proved to be the handiest object, the right size and the right amount of heft, was my little copper and iron crucifix suspended from a lenght of kite string. Incidentally, it was the same little cross that has been on tour with us in Rome and overlooking the plaza pictured. I told H he looked as if he were fishing for nuns.

Wednesday 24 June 2009

in-situ

Previously, I've mentioned the unease that major construction projects give me around the workplace. Of course, the US army has to make good on its commitments, regardless of how delays and set-backs have made the particular building project in question moot or obsolete. In the past, the army has whipped up this procrastination into a fine art--having all the contractors paid just in time for base-closure and hand-over of facilities back to the German government. Looking at some of the work they are doing now, it appears that the construction firms have gotten wise to this tactic, and, in order to save themselves the extra work a year later, are putting a nice local touch on sidewalks, breezeways and pedestrian malls. It's as if they are terraforming the base in prepartion for an eventual take-over. There's even plans for a Biergarten. The work the teams are doing is very nice, though it doesn't fit the overall junkyard character of the place that hasn't been re-done--but I imagine there is still just enough time for all the just-in-time re-engineering.

Tuesday 23 June 2009

mitfahrgelegenheit

One resource bearing search results in the forefront leaves one with this icon as the only graphic-representation of car-pooling. What if this war-time propaganda is the only notion of ride-sharing, our small effort for economy and to shrink our carbon-footprint, is the only entry that is distilled into the Encyclopedia Galactica? America isn't known for its subtlety, is it? Sort of in the same way one of the first live television broadcasts was the Hindenburg bursting into flames. Most people, I think, still assume this type of stance to car-pooling to work--that it is common-sense, maybe a bit noble--but still, most people don't consider themselves part of this horsey-set. There were relatively few follow-up campaigns--no mascots for ride-sharing. Even hitchhikers were roundly condemned as murderous vagants. Like suburbanites and small-city dwellers, no one would take public transit if they didn't need to. I yet have some reservations about the inbound journey, thinking of what errands I need to accomplish during the day and the extra stops I'll need to make afterwards. The lessened environmental impact and the conversation on the way home, however, make up for any imagined inconvenience--not to mention the respite from having to be behind the wheel.

Monday 22 June 2009

touสนษ™l

Since settling in and having long ago abandoned old linens, like with the pillows, to packing-related missions, I have felt uninspired to order new towels. Towels are some of the most genuinely innovative pieces of handiwork in existence. One can use them far beyond the conventional shower--they can be used as a sling or a brace or a tourniquet, to wipe up all sorts of spills and splashes, be worn as a skirt or a superhero cape or swami turban--and can feel better and more luxuriant than few things. I think that I keep threatening to order some to dampen the rush to buy an expensive set from the boutique. New towels should be things one comes across spontaneously or they fall from the heavens fully-formed and in a gift basket. By myself, however, I find myself also very non-committal and reluctant to buy anything but one patchworked item at a time. We do need to hold some in reserve in order to practice some restraint with the laundry, but there is also the matter of the decor of the bathrooms. One could be decidedly nautical but we are veering away from that style. I like Frog Royalty too well to keep with bleached sea shells and sand dollars. The other bathroom is more modern and industrial, which I like as well, except for the decorative tiles which have little metallic silver accents on every three or four tiles. They are not harsh and glaring but it looks like something that would grace the dressing-room of Jem and the Holograms or if Charlie Sheen's interior decorator trophy-wife in Wall Street had designed it.

Saturday 20 June 2009

Terpsichore

There is no Muse of blogging--at least, not the likes that Robert Herrick or some sentimental poet would sing odes to, beseeching inspiration. If there were a blogging Muse, I'd wager that she'd be by turns loud and whiney, impatient and absent, and more than just a little bit raunchy. The word museum comes from a place to worship the Muses but I don't know that I'd like to make a special trip to this one's temple--Terpsipornai we could name her, delight in harlots, or perhaps she already exsists in the sister Clio, Muse of History, whose name means to "recount" or to "make famous." There's no Muse of journalism either, and yet there's no shortage of commentary and analysis for every topic, accessible or not. Maybe that's why the news business is collapsing. Maybe the trick is to pick a subject and stick to it--the well never seems to run dry then. There is no longer the Johan Daily, nor would I have the fortitude to publish such a thing--although there's always the pleasant unmentionables, there is no ephemeral news-cycle that I would care to share. The Muses were all about inspiration for improvisation, in any case, and not about research and re-worked rehearsals.

Thursday 18 June 2009

electro smog

A cellular telephone has been developed that holds a charge stolen out of the ether, sort of like a self-winding watch that powers itself from the kinetic energy of the wearer walking about. This gadget is like an antenna for stray electric impulses and receives them like a radio. A few months earlier, researchers should that a light bulb could be coaxed to life, wirelessly, from domestic background radiation.
It's a pretty nifty idea, to be able to divine electricity out of its surroundings--but it does illustrate how already choked our households are with electro smog. I'd much rather see the realization of the Broadcast Energy Transmitter that G*I* Joe had. Remember that? It seems a lot cleaner and safer. Wind-up toys were pretty nifty, as well, and I think that sort of refined tinkering is an art lost to battery-power.