The above named byproduct of the annual rice harvest (see also), the left-over straw (็จฒใใ) was traditionally used a feed for livestock, fertiliser and for weaving doormats and other household items, but the use of industrial materials over the years has led to a lot of surplus, and inspired the Niigata farming community to concoct a creative solution, first organised in 2007, with artisans sculpting monumental figures over a wooden framework. Subjects are wild animals and creatures from mythology, including the beaked sea-going yลkai called Amabie. Learn more from Hyperallergic at the link above.
Tuesday 14 September 2021
Monday 30 August 2021
6x6
headgear: Languagehat is no longer neglecting the latter portion of its remit
on seeing the 100% perfect girl one beautiful april morning: a pair of short stories from Rysuke Hamaguchi adapted for film
aggregate accessory fruit: the curious, circuitous route of the misnamed garden variety strawberry
like astrology for businessmen: a look at the Myers-Briggs personality test
strokenteelt: see strip cultivation at work in the Netherlands
erm: a discussion on intonation and a hummed “I don’t know”
Saturday 7 August 2021
inosculation
These gemels (from the Latin for pair, like Gemini) marked by foresters to not chop down (there’s some light logging in our woods but done fairly surgically with deference to unusual or aged trees though I wish we could protect them all with apotropaic magic) results from the above natural phenomenon (Anastomose) in which the roots, branches or trunks grow together. Conjoined specimens are colloquially called “husband and wife” or “marriage trees” and were possibly the sites of nuptial ceremonies.
Sunday 1 August 2021
schmetterlingsflieder
Graced with half a dozen flitting European peacocks (Tagpfauenauge, Aglais io), H got this flowering shrub Buddleja davidii as a present from his colleagues, commonly known as the summer lilac or simply, appropriately a butterfly-bush. The ornamental plant is native to Hubei in Central China and named after the European missionaries and botanists Reverend Adam Buddle and Father Armand David who first collected and described it for the West, and just put in the ground. With the fragrance of honey and a rich source of nectar for pollinators, the perennial plant flowers in the summertime for six weeks, thriving in more temperate areas to the extent that this opportunistic and “perfect”—as in botanically being both male and female, self-propagating plant is sometimes classed as a noxious weed. We defer judgement to the butterflies, however.
Tuesday 6 July 2021
aconitum napellus
Encountering yet another highly toxic flower in the woods (previously), this example monk’s hood or wolfsbane (Blauer Eisenhut, I think this sort of buttercup is specifically the subspecies Aconitum tauricum, named after Alpine Gaul) is also now cultivated as a garden plant for its complex, scalloped inflorescences and general hardiness returning year after year. In ancient times, according to Avicenna and other sources, the sap of the plant was used to make poisoned-tipped arrows and spears, and has been used throughout the ages to the present day for dispatching enemies. Even handling the plant can led to organ failure and death—so despite the beauty of the blooms, I can’t understand the appeal of having it in one’s flowerbed (growing them outlawed from the early Middle Ages onward with transgressions subject to capital punishment), and who would have thought the deadliest things in the forest was the flora rather than the fauna.
Sunday 4 July 2021
cap and gloves
A couple of weeks ago, I passed a few fine exemplars of Martagon lilies, which we’ve learned about before, whilst walking through the woods, and slowly as the weather waxes warmer and the ground soaks up all the spring rains, here’s hoping we stay we’ll irrigated to help the forest recover from some punishingly dry years, the lilies are being replaced by another pink perennial, the common foxglove (Digitalis purpurea). Called Fingerhรผte (finger hat or thimble) in German, the flower was named by our botanist friend Leohart Fuchs (see previously) building off the Latin designation with rather fearsome etymological battle surround the above Anglo-Saxon name, arguments back and forth on whether it's a perversion of some other name regarding its toxicity or supposed pharmacological merits since people couldn’t possibly believe that foxes wore such flowers a stockings to muffle their movements whilst hunting—could they? Stemming from folk medicine and herbalist, a compound isolated from the foxglove is used in cardiac therapies but is highly deadly for humans and other animals (like the lily up top) if touched or ingested.
Sunday 27 June 2021
8x8
into the bantaverse: a bot ghost-writes a Star Wars story—see also
green guerrillas: the role that radical gardeners play in fostering community out of urban blight
earth, wind and fire: combine basic elements and create new substancesas an alchemist—via Waxy fourth world: celebrating the life and career of trumpeter and electronic music pioneer Jon Hassell (*1937)in frame: see the untrimmed, original version of Rembrandt’s Night Watch (previously) thanks to the help of a curating algorithm
homo longi: recently discovered ‘dragon man’ skull may be a transitional species from Neanderthal to modern humans
ine bay: hidden, historic boathouses (ไผๆ นใฎ่ๅฑ, funaya) in Kyoto—via Nag on the Lake’s always excellent Sunday Links
the skeleton crew: our friendly artificial intelligencer (previously) trains a neural network to write a horror story
Wednesday 23 June 2021
breatharians
As Slashdot reports, a research team studying molecular plant physiology under the auspices of the Max Planck Institute and the University of Naples is demonstrating that making food from air, isolating carbon-dioxide with a spark of energy from a solar cell in a process that mimics photosynthesis, is poles more efficient than growing food crops, such as soy, corn, wheat or rice. Feeding microbes in a bioreactor produces as a nutritious by-product a protein powder suitable for consumption.
Friday 11 June 2021
6x6
lp: an over-sized mural of well-used record sleeves adorns a corner of a Reno brewery
it’s impolite to point: helpfully finding one’s cursor with an array of candid photos—via Things Magazine
kokedama: an installation of a floating forest (ๆ นๆดใ, root wash—no pot) by Nomad Studio
zeckenalarm: Ze Frank (previously) delivers true facts on the dangerous little tick
the amusement park: a long-lost 1973 public service announcement from Dawn of the Dead creator George Romero about the nightmare of ageing in America
bierdeckel: various graphic designers create coasters capturing historic moments from the UEFA European Football Championship
Sunday 6 June 2021
centaurea nervosa
Though no peonies or poppies (though our late-bloomers might be inspired by these) in the garden just yet, we’ve got quite a nice spread of these thistle-like plants that sprout at the edge of the deck in late spring. Called less charitably knapweed, Flockenblumen or bluets are commonly known as centaury in deference to the centaur Chiron who taught medicinal use of plants to human though Achilles, Aeneas, Asclepius and other Greek heroes. Ranging widely in colour from yellow to purple, the ornamental plant native to the Alps is the source of the colour cornflower blue and is useful alongside agricultural crops as a more appetising food source for insects. The bumblebees and other pollinators absolutely adore them and we are pretty partial to them as well.
catagories: ⚕️, ๐ฑ, ๐, myth and monsters, Rhรถn
Thursday 20 May 2021
bombylildรฆ
While in Europe we don’t have humming birds (Kolibris), we are lucky enough to have these uncanny important pollinators called the fly bee or the humblefly (Wollschweber). Our garden is absolutely full of them but I’ve never managed to capture a picture of one until now when I spied one resting on a flower (see also), which by the end of the season can grow quite substantially and present like their avian cousins but less so than the equally camera-shy Hummingbird Hawk-Moth (Taubenschwรคnzchen) that hovers and has a proboscis for nectaring. We’re visited by them too and maybe if I’m patient, I’ll be able to get a photo.
brood x
For the emergence of the seventeen-year cicadas in North America—what was going on in the early summer of 2004, we are treated, via Messy Nessy Chic to this graphic depicting the stages of conventionalisation, deconstruction of the periodic insects (Magicicada septendecula and two other closely related species, tribes, see previously) as illustrated by Hugo Froelich (the periodical being from Syracuse, New York and the contributor not the classical German actor) in 1905 (that year being an emergent one for Brood XXX on a thirteen-year cycle as assigned by entomologist Charles Lester Marlatt at those geographical climes) for Keramic Studio Magazine
Monday 10 May 2021
your daily demon: gusion
The eleventh spirit on the Demonological Calendar ruling from today through 14 May presents as either a baboon or as having the chimerical condition defined as xeno- or theriocephaly (from the Greek for beast-headed). Controlling forty-five legions of devils and giving the powers of prophesy and reconciliation of friendships, Gusion is countered by the Shem HaMepohrash angel Lauviah and can be summoned with aloe vera.
Tuesday 27 April 2021
the planet on the plate
Via Kottke’s Quick Links, we are directed towards the announcement of one influential cooking website that going forward (the policy change has been essential in effect for over a year to overwhelmingly positive reception) won’t promote any new recipes with beef as an ingredient—the decision based on sustainability and “not giving airtime to one of the world’s worst climate offender.” Rather than being anti-cow, Epicurious—whom hope others follow—acknowledges that giving up meat alone is not a panacea for our predicament and that in a broken food system, soy, seafood and most everything else is potentially problematic but it’s definitely a start and a signal to the industry at large.
Sunday 25 April 2021
guerrilla greening
Via Colossal, a Honolulu-based design consortium imagines the transformation of some of the iconic urban corridors of world cities transformed through an aggressive and transfixing shift away from the concrete jungle to something living and sympathetically breathing with us. Learn more about their work and the study that’s gone into these visualisations at the link above.
catagories: ๐ก️, ๐ฑ, ๐, ๐ฝ, architecture
robigalia
One of a number of Roman celebrated during this time of year to ensure a good growing season and bountiful harvest, the feast of the for the god Robigus was held on this day in the agricultural outskirts of the city.
The god, which was designated as the divine representation of fungal blight or rust needed to be propitiated in order to ensure that the crops wouldn’t spoil in the fields. Understood as a separate, corrupt manifestation of the same infestation that could be harnessed for fermentation, the games held at this time with their attendant feasts (see also) were also marked by rather dark sacrifices that expressed their anxieties over crop failure—especially for one this late in the growing seasons that wouldn’t be easy to recover from. Whereas animal sacrifice generally was reserved for livestock that was part of the Roman diet and was shared in a communal meal, Robigalia rather gruesomely demanded a dog with a red coat—that matched the rust disease—as form of homeopathic magic.
Other observations included a celebration of—for whatever reason—of male sex-workers, professional female prostitution having had their own honours in the previous days, specifically on Vinalia urbana, the grape harvest on 23 April. Though without the cruel bits, thankfully—or the fun bits either, I suppose, the holiday is preserved in Western Christianity with the same day of prayer and fasting known as Rogation (from the Latin to beseech—to ask God for protection from calamity) and was done to cleanse the body and mind in anticipation of the Ascension and farmers often had priests bless their crops, often holding mass and processionals in the fields.
Saturday 24 April 2021
the best laid plants
Featuring just like on my window ledge at my work-week apartment a Money Plant next to a Calathea Rattlesnake (Goeppertia), we were intrigued and quite enjoyed exploring this helpful guide, brilliantly illustrated for caring for our household botanical friends. Via ibฤซdem, How Many Plants features quite a voluminous identification and upkeep section and will even let one assemble a fantasy league of potted-plants should space have become an issue though one can never have too many.
catagories: ๐ฑ
Monday 19 April 2021
timelapse
Via Kottke’s Quick Links, we discover the latest suite of features from Google Earth—which has been giving us a privileged perspective on our planet for fifteen years now—includes a chronological dial that allows one to peer into the past four decades of satellite telemetry with a cache of some twenty-four million archived images (see also here and here) to better visualise the toll that de-forestation, desertification, intensive mining and agriculture, urban-sprawl, pollution and global warming takes on the environment.
Friday 9 April 2021
7x7
tsugite: software that generates traditional Japanese joinery (previously) that can be 3D printed or precision cut
prince albert in a can: a collection of fish tin labels from a digital museum dedicated to the Portuguese canning industry
cosmic nature: artist Yayoi Kusama exhibits at New York’s Botanical Garden
tune-dex: the real-fake book of jazz standards, essential to musicians in the 1970s
dingbat: thirty select works of Mid-Century Modern print for inspiration
beer is proof god loves us and wants us to be happy: brew theorems post US National New Beers’ Eve ahead of the anniversary of rescinding parts of the Volstead Act that allowed for consumption of higher proof beer
ukiyo-e: the unintentional ASMR of a master printmaker at work
your daily demon: marbas
Governing from today through 14 April, this fifth spirit and infernal president, ruling thirty-six legions, presents as a lion until brought under the control of the exorcist—whereupon Marbas dispenses wisdom on mechanical conundrums and has the potency and power to both cause and cure disease, leading some to source the name to barba, Latin for beard as well as the plant hellebore—a toxic herb used in witchcraft to summon (and banish) demons.