Sunday 9 June 2019

pollinators’ corner

Here is a selection of various insects visiting flowers in bloom, mostly daisies, around the backyard, taken in quick succession—and not including the elusive ones that were harder to photograph at the moment. What celebrity bug friends can you find and identify near you?

washington international

Opening in 1962, the same year as Eero Saarinnen’s TWA Flight Center at JFK, the Washington Dulles terminal did not meet the same practical obsolescence as its contemporary thanks in large part to a foundational masterplan researched and put together by design duo Charles and Ray Eames (see also here, here and here) with the rest of the design team (Saarinnen included), which premised the national hub in the below1958 animated short as modular and expandable airport.
While not stinting on aesthetics, consideration and convenience for the traveller were primary concerns in taking the long term perspective and creating a transportation artery that would not only connect the terrestrial world but beyond as well. Transiting through US airports is mostly these days a traumatic through forgettable experience and while many of the other amenities might be lost for the average passenger, a ride on Washington-Dulles’ mobile, vaguely militaristic “Departure Lounges” that still to this day ferry travellers to and from their planes rather than navigating endless, labyrinthine corridors of jetways are indelibly memorable.  Learn more at Citylab at the link above.

pfingstrose

On cue, our peonies (Paeonia officinalis oder echte Pfingstrose) are beginning to come into full bloom, coinciding with their namesake holiday Pentecost (Whitsunday, Pfingsten, seven weeks after Easter).
The plant was classified by Swedish botanist Carl Linnaeus (who formalised the binomial nomenclature above) in the family Paeon, retaining the mythology that an apprentice of Asclepius, the Greek god of medicine, began to surpass his master—owing to the fact that mortals probably respond better to treatment regimes and in general clinically more remarkable than immortals—and Zeus transformed Paeon into a peony to spare him from Asclepius’ wrath. The flowers have a long history of use in traditional medicine, both in the East and the West and have pharmaceutical merit.

Saturday 8 June 2019

culvert journal

Whether diverted, enlisted as part of the sewer system or simply buried under development, the notion of hidden and lost rivers and urban watercourses has been a particular fascination (previously) and we were especially pleased to come across some speculative spelunking both around London—courtesy of Things Magazine—and Toronto, via Maps Mania. While the London show is more testimony of lives reconstructed through artefact and mudlarking and the Toronto one is an interactive exploration, even connecting to tours that trace the routes of these former tributaries, both are pretty engaging and in both places, the secret, subterranean rivers and creeks have been championed to preserve their memory.

Friday 7 June 2019

gopher wood

Preciously, we learn from amicus curiรฆ, Lowering the Bar, that the under-construction Ark Encounter Christian theme park in Kentucky are suing their insurance underwriters for failing to honour claims of flood damage.
The faithful recreation of Ark of Noah (with technical details as specified in the Book of Genesis, except gopher wood due to it being a hapax legomenon and no one really knows what tree it is sourced from, if it in fact survived the deluge) was not damaged itself but rather a service road was affected by heavy rainfall and an ensuing landslide that caused work stoppage and outlays of around a million dollars to shore up the slope and to restore the access path, and it remains unclear whether the park’s policy might have an “acts of God” exclusion. Much more to explore at the link above.

7x7

horton plaza: a study of the postmodern ghost mall built to revitalise downtown San Diego

for hire: riotously brilliant hand-painted signs from South Bengal

big top: Germany’s touring Circus Roncalli replaces animal acts with holograms

cat walk: balloon apparel deflates on the runway and transforms into practical garments

normay: a projection map skewed by the mentions various places get from Donald Trump—via Maps Mania

team breakfast: a fun montage of musicians eating their morning meals, via Everlasting Blรถrt 

toward a concrete utopia: a revival in interest for Yugoslavia’s monumental architecture—previously

kranavatn

I found this campaign from the Icelandic tourism board especially shaming and the scold that I deserve since—especially owing to the fact the justifications of mandatory sorting of trash, deposits (Pfand) to encourage recycling are starting to hold less and less water or even a panic over Legionnaires’ disease tap water is generally clean and safe—I too am guilty of imbibing exclusively the bottled variety.
Like Kranavatn (Icelandic for tap water), it’s not out of fear for safety that I prefer to get my bottled water, which is even sourced not far from where we live and assuredly is piped in as well, but because I’ve come to prefer the carbonation—something I am confident that could be otherwise arranged. This is a small pledge for visitors that we could all make.

Thursday 6 June 2019

brigadoon

Denying the Orange Menace the opportunity to promote his golf course, Trump en route met with the Irish Taoiseach (previously) instead at quite another venue, the terminal of Shannon Airport—just down the hall from the Duty Free shop, the world’s first incidentally, at a hub that’s no stranger to trans-Atlanticism and corridor diplomacy.
The short, awkward press conference was painfully lacking in constructive mediation, however, with Trump comparing the spectre of the return of a hard, physical border between the Republic and Northern Ireland and possible flare up of sectarian violence under a no-deal withdrawal from the European Union to the monument to his proud monument to racism and xenophobia at the southern frontier of America. Though both may be manufactured crises both meant to forward an agenda, Varadkar indicated that any sort of wall was the last thing Ireland wanted.