this weekend

I'm hoping to get some pool time in. Also:

• blueberry-picking and then lunch here
• the state fair (this weekend or next)
  
• art fair in Lakewood
• Peter Sellers and other funny people
• canoeing
• high season at the farmer's market
  

Happy weekend.

Photo from Square America.

drive-in movies

Hiroshi Sugimoto's drive-in series from 1993. From top to bottom:

Hi Way 39 Drive-In, Orange
Rosecrans Drive-In, Paramount
Stadium Drive-in, Orange
Winnetika Drive-In, Paramount

berry picking

Berry-picking basket of twined and plaited red cedar bark, with plaited strap and vintage glass beads.

Blueberries and raspberries are in season right now. I'll be spending my morning tomorrow picking some. I wish I had something so lovely to put them in.

canoeing

This looks fun. I'm trying to plan for a canoe trip in August.

imaginary outfit: late summer expeditions

August is nearly here. Ever since I got past kindergarten, August has signaled the end of summer, long days to be too hot and too bored, a dead time, a month for things to wither and leave exoskeletons behind. It used to frustrate me. As I've gotten older, I find this stoppage liberating. It is a month without expectation now. No school looms. Fall is coming, but not yet. No holidays to reorder life around. It's a free space. I'm planning on filling it with expeditions.

love vigilantes

I'm listening to this version of this song a lot these days.

views

I got to see Linda Adato's aquatinted etchings when I was in Michigan a couple of weeks ago. I particularly love the views of the back yards - all the roof shapes. Reminds me of my neighborhood.

dome building 101

Buckminster Fuller, Elaine de Kooning and Joseph Albers at work on the Supine Dome.

Buckminster Fuller and students hanging from his Autonomous Dwelling Facility with a Geodesic Structure, 1949.

printed materials

Above: Programs for concert by pianist David Tudor, July 4, 1953. Program printed on cigarette wrapper by BMC Print Shop. Tommy Jackson, printer.

Below: Cover of photographic viewbook, ca. 1950. Cover has "BMC" laundry stamp design by Ruth Asawa.

black mountain

Summer session brochures from Black Mountain College, 1941. From here.

collaborators

Variations V was performed on July 23, 1965, by the Merce Cunningham Dance Company with music by and performed by John Cage, Malcolm Goldstein, Gordon Mumma, James Tenney, and David Tudor, with films by Stan VanDerBeek, and video by Nam June Paik. Robert Moog had built special antennas, actually modified theremins, that were positioned throughout the stage to trigger musical events when dancers passed by.

suite by chance (space chart entrance and exit)

When I choreograph a piece by tossing pennies—by chance, that is—I am finding my resources in that play, which is not the product of my will, but which is an energy and a law which I too obey. Some people seem to think that it is inhuman and mechanistic to toss pennies in creating a dance instead of chewing the nails or beating the head against a wall or thumbing through old notebooks for ideas. But the feeling I have when I compose in this way is that I am in touch with a natural resource far greater than my own personal inventiveness could ever be, much more universally human than the particular habits of my own practice, and organically rising out of common pools of motor impulses.

Merce Cunningham, The Impermanent Art.

Above, his space chart for Suite by Chance, 1952. Ballpoint pen and pencil on colored graph paper. MoMA.

merce

Merce Cunningham, April 16, 1919 - July 26, 2009.

Photo taken at Black Mountain College 1953 by Frank Jones. Found in the North Carolina State Archives.

phooey on a formula life

It's never as clear as it is in the movies. People don't know what they are doing most of the time, myself included. They don't know what they want or feel. It's only in the movies that they know what their problems are and have game plans for dealing with them. All my life I've fought against clarity – all those stupid definitive answers. Phooey on a formula life, on slick solutions. It's never easy. And I don't think people really want their lives to be easy. It's a United States sickness. In the end it only makes things more difficult.

John Cassavetes (via we are independently wealthy)

sunday tune: guided by voices - echos myron

sunday tune: guided by voices - gold star for robot boy

only 240,040 miles

DESTINATION MOON - WOODY
by science-fiction

If you ever wondered how rockets work, this cartoon explains it.

this weekend

Wear helmets.

Also:

• Buster Keaton
• works in progress
• 5th store-a-versary
• old school hip-hop dance party (last Saturday of every month)
• Christmas in July
• (500) Days of Summer

You could also go to the planetarium. Happy weekend.

Film still from Destination Moon.

imaginary outfit: astronomer, mount palomar

I wish I was the sort of person who loved calculus and higher mathematics. If I had been, I might have ended up an astronomer. I took one astronomy class in college, and despite a professor whose every exhalation was a dry dour dusty dismissal, I managed to enjoy it. Taking the tarnish off the stars was beyond his power. There is something intoxicating about the job of measuring stars and galaxies, charting light and its path, seeing the sky tracked and mapped with endless and overlapping elliptical orbits, being the latest in a long line of obsessive night watchers and recorders to set eye to lens and pen to paper.

In the end, the equations scared me off, scuttling crabwise across endless blackboards, confusing and many-directional, trailing into corners and symbols and dusty smudges. They proved unmasterable. I remain only a blind admirer, dazzled by lights in the dark, ignorant of the precise beauties of galactic motions. To admire is joy enough, but I still would like to visit Mount Palomar.

something delightful for thursday afternoon, 1:38 pm

Joanna just posted the most smile-inducing clip I have seen in a long time. It's a perfect mid-afternoon pick me up.

star man

One of my favorite songs of all time.

This version of Space Oddity is more surreal to me than this one because I first knew David Bowie as Ziggy Stardust. I can only imagine how startling it must have been for this relatively clean-cut guy to morph into a flame haired androgyne.

In related David Bowie news, I can't wait to get my hands on a copy of this.

dropping through space

To fall into the void as I fell: none of you know what that means. For you, to fall means to plunge perhaps from the twenty-sixth floor of a skyscraper, or from an airplane which breaks down in flight: to fall headlong, grope in the air a moment, and then the Earth is immediately there, and you get a big bump. But I'm talking about the time when there wasn't any Earth underneath or anything else solid, not even a celestial body in the distance capable of attracting you into its orbit. You simply fell, indefinitely, for an indefinite length of time. I went down into the void, to the most absolute bottom conceivable, and once there I saw that the extreme limit must have been much, much farther below, very remote, and I went on falling, to reach it. Since there were no reference points, I had no idea whether my fall was fast or slow. Now that I think about it, there weren't even any proofs that I was really falling: perhaps I had always remained immobile in the same place, or I was moving in an upward direction; since there was no above or below these were only nominal questions and so I might just as well go on thinking I was falling, as I was naturally led to think.

Italo Calvino, The Form of Space

Images: Ralph Crane's photos of a trampolinist in a space suit imitating the falling movements of a cat, to find out how astronauts can move in space, 1968. From the LIFE Archive.

about space of a different sort

I have a guest post up today at Design Crisis. It's all about Barbie dream houses and unreasonable expectations ... you can check it out here.

(Thanks to Erin and Karly for asking me.)

eternal moonwalk

I forget who sent this to me, but it is pretty rad. You can submit your own moonwalk here.

fallen to earth

Meteorite necklace by Erica Weiner. The pendant is a fragment of the Campo del Cielo Meteorite, originally discovered in 1572 by Spanish explorers.

meteor shower

I love this painting. I would buy it in a second.

Meteor Shower by Sarah McEneaney, found at the ever wonderful Now Voyager.

star rise

This floors me. Via notcot.

another girl, another planet

later, take in a movie

From .momax. via Ffffound.

start your day like an astronaut

the moon

Every night when the sun went down in the town where we lived
The empty streets were lit up by reflected light from a distant sun
Bouncing off a glowing ball of rock and we just laid on the roof
And watched the moon, the moon, the blue light of the moon
We didn't talk and silently we both felt powerful
And, like the moon, my chest was full because we both knew
We're just floating in space over molten rock
And we felt safe and we discovered that our skin is soft
There's nothing left except certain death
And that was comforting at night out under the moon

geological samples

Aesa fools gold rocks and nuggets necklace. Not really moon rocks, but more likely to be collected by me on an expedition.

the object of the mission

Julius Grimm's 1888 painting of the moon:

The painting shows the moon as it can never be seen in reality: fully lit across the entire surface at once. The painting’s highly textured surface faithfully represents the actual landscape of the moon, which Grimm determined with precision by examining the shadows cast during the various lunar phases. When lighted from the direction Grimm indicated with a painted arrow, the ridges of paint cast shadows that create the photorealistic effect of the painting.

Via but does it float.

40 years ago today

July 20, 1969: Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin became the first humans to walk on the Moon.

Photo of Buzz Aldrin from NASA. You can see restored footage of the moon walk here.

sunday tune: inspiral carpets - saturn 5

sunday tune: can - moonshake

thrilling interplanetary adventures

Sadly, modern astronauts do not dress this way.

this weekend

Read a big book. Alternatively:

• celebrate a birthday
• bike in Old Brooklyn
• a last night for internal compasses
• night, sleep, death and the stars
  
• The Philadelphia Story
• sidewalk prop sale
• here and now (and some great markdowns)
  
• Harry Potter at the drive-in
• taste Tremont
  
• polish your telescope
  

No matter what: have a good weekend.

Most excellent photo from here.

lift off

Today's the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 launch, the first manned mission to the moon.

Photo from NASA.

i feel like this guy

It's been a long, long day.

Found at Cute Things Falling Asleep (where else?)

greetings from michigan

I'm enjoying some of the Wolverine state's myriad attractions today, and will be back tomorrow.

Happy Wednesday.

Vintage postcard from here.

imaginary outfit: walking around the art fair

I haven't been to the Ann Arbor Art Fair in a couple of summers - for a while, it was an annual tradition for my mother and me to go up for a day or two and wander around looking for gold before stocking up on Weck jars at Downtown Home and Garden and heading home with a cooler full of Michigan produce and other treats from The Produce Station (it's debatable whether we enjoy the art show or the food shopping more - Ann Arbor is a city particularly rich in markets).

It's almost always roasty in Michigan this time of year, so a sundress, sandals, and a wide-brimmed hat make an ideal uniform. If I can find something with a hint of edge, so much the better. A big bag is a necessity for stowing away water bottles and any small treasures that happen to find their way home with me, and somehow, a few always do.

Off we go.

for the widows in paradise, for the fatherless in ypsilanti

Sean's sister lived for a while in Ypsilanti, and she and all her friends called it Ypsi (yipsy) which we found hilarious. I figured I would share this random funny anecdote with you in case this song leaves you a little melancholy - it usually does me, but still I love it.

my neighbor to the northwest

Headed to Ann Arbor today to go to the Art Fair tomorrow. I can't wait - Ann Arbor is a great little town.

Charm available here.

it's own form of success

David Fullerton's work for the Sisyphus Office Exhibition has been all over the internet, with good cause. It's pretty brilliant.

When I had a cubicle job, finding a colored paperclip could make my day. Those were sad times.

conversations with a computer

Daniel Everett, Conversations with a Computer.

Artist statement:

Contained within the operating system of Mac computers is a rudimentary electronic psychotherapist program. Meant to simulate a Rogerian therapist, it engages the participant in a cyclical conversation by taking his or her statements and roughly reconfiguring them into questions. I met with this program three times a week for a month in order to discuss my fear that I was disappearing completely. These are three stills from our conversations.

Via Beautiful/Decay.

sunday tune: discovery - swing tree

Currently satisfying my need for something summery and poppy.

sunday tune: discovery - so insane

deadline

Fun with post-it notes. Directed by Bang-yao Liu. Music by Röyksopp.

cherries and maters

Some glimpses from inside the cherry processing plant (a.k.a. my kitchen). When you pick ridiculous amounts of ridiculously cheap sour cherries, you have to suffer the consequences. (I would have never made it without this nifty gadget.)

In addition to canning a double batch of preserves, making a few jars of clear sour cherry jelly and freezing a few pounds for winter pies, I concocted a couple of quarts of homemade maraschino cherries:
I predict these will be my new best tool to win friends and influence people.

In other news of round red things, my cherry tomatoes are so pretty and chromatic I am having a hard time picking them:
But I have to snap out of it. The mozzarella is sitting lonesome in the fridge, and it probably isn't healthy to live on sour cherry jelly, no matter how delicious it is ...

this weekend

Follow the sun.

Alternatively:

• bbq
  
• 19
• the next step
• City Lights
• Dr. Lee's handiwork
  

There's also this, but I am dubious.

Photo by Neil Krug.

it's more fun to take the bus

This was my dad's dream ride back in the day. We had VW buses and vans growing up, but never the actual campmobile with the pop-top.

making your own tracks

Rare models from 1976-77. Only about 1,500 Blazer Chalets were made, and probably a comparable number of the GMC Casa Grande. They came outfitted with curtains, a dinette table, an icebox, a two-burner stove and slept four.
I'd like to find one and make tracks. I am a fan of the two-tone color scheme.

Images from here and here.

yurts

Joanne Warfield's photographs of yurt frames in Afganistan, 1977. Found here.

displaced

The number of people forcibly uprooted by conflict and persecution worldwide stood at 42 million at the end of last year amid a sharp slowdown in repatriation and more prolonged conflicts resulting in protracted displacement. The total includes 16 million refugees and asylum seekers and 26 million internally displaced people uprooted within their own countries, according to UNHCR's annual "Global Trends" report ...

dadaab

DADAAB, Kenya (AP) — The bloody conflict in Somalia has created the world's largest refugee camp, with 500 hungry and exhausted refugees pouring into this wind-swept camp in neighboring Kenya every day, the U.N. refugee agency said Friday.

Dadaab, just 50 miles (80 kilometers) from the Somali border, is home to more than 280,000 refugees in an area meant to hold just 90,000.

So far this year, the U.N. refugee agency has registered nearly 38,000 new arrivals, UNHCR spokesman William Spindler said Friday. The vast majority of them are fleeing violence and poverty in Somalia as Islamic insurgents try to topple the government.

"It is hunger and destitution that drove us from our country," Abdullahi Abdi Dahir, 50, said earlier this week. He fled Somalia with his wife and their five children, the youngest just 3 months old. "All we need now is something to eat and a shelter for the family."

Photo of the N-0 block of the Ifo refugee camp in Dadaab by Andreas Lascaris.

this camping world

I had always thought of camps as ephemeral things, as fleeting event spaces. Certainly the summer camp season passes and images of disaster areas fade, but camp spaces endure. In fact, we are immersed in this camping world, both ideological and experiential. We camp with the kids in our backyards, we arrange ourselves into partisan camps, we watch as camps overflow with twenty million refugees, we fill arenas with disaster victims, we speculate about the location of terrorist camps, and we marvel at North America's burgeoning RV culture. Camp spaces have become our environment.

Charlie Hailey, Camps.

(I bought this book when I was in Chicago. It's pretty terrific, and beautiful to boot.)

imaginary outfit: camping in the back yard

My parents have a wooden platform set up near the river that runs by their house. Next year, they plan to get a canvas tent and set it up there all summer long. Friends and children will be welcome to stop by and camp out whenever they like.

I can't wait, and I can't wait until someday when I have a yard and can outfit my own personal summer camp. One of the best things about backyard camping is that you don't have to haul things very far, so all kinds of old fashioned, heavy-duty camp equipment works just fine. You can also wear whatever you want. You don't have to be constrained by practicality the way you do when you go actual camping far from washers and dryers and stain treatment options.

This would be my own little set up. Maybe I don't need a house after all. Just a spot to pitch a tent near a house ...

if you all come over and pitch a tent, maybe it will be like this

Only without the bands. And the terrible mud. Photos from Glastonbury at The Big Picture.

It looks like magic.
I think I may need to move somewhere teepee friendly.

for next time

Cath Kidston teepee photographed by Marcus Nilsson for Country Living, August 2009.

I covet this.

backyard camp outs and other things

This Saturday, on the spur of the moment, me, Sean, my sister Rachel and her boyfriend Viresh all decided to camp out in my parents' backyard.

Nora was in charge of overseeing the gear.
I felt a little sheepish looking at all we had loaded into the car for one night until Rachel and Viresh showed up in full backpacker regalia, strapped, packed, and loaded for bear. Clearly, the only thing my family loves better than camping is camping gear.

After we set up the tent village, we headed east to hear my dad play at a local winery.
The lake was busy with boats skittering around like waterbugs, and we stood a long while and watched them in the falling light. There's nothing like being near water to make you hungry, so after the gig was through, we wandered down the street in search of carbonated beverages and cheeseburgers. Fortunately, we happened to be near a pretty good joint.
Fully fed and watered, we enjoyed some fireworks ...
... before heading home to enjoy pyrotechnics of another variety.
After ghost stories, it was time to turn in.

When I woke up, the world was green and it smelled like breakfast.
My dad was frying up bacon in a cast-iron skillet over the fire, and my sister had gone into the kitchen to con my mom into making homemade waffles. Proof positive that camping in the backyard is pretty much unbeatable.
Next, it was time for camp activities. We picked sour cherries (30+ lbs!) at a nearby farm:
birdwatched:
and played in the creek.
We capped the day with a big family dinner, and it was time to break down camp.
We all want to go back next weekend.

sunday tune: the prophets - you wonder why

Songs for backyard barbecues today.

sunday tune: the starfires - i never loved her

With the Linda Rodgers Dancers.

geometric fireworks

this weekend

I will be exercising the art of relaxation. Also, that of fireworks-watching. Happy weekend.

Hannah font by Travis Stearns found here.

starting now

Completely killer. Originally seen here.

for last-minute picnics and trips to the beach

The sweetest summer bag from yes, have some. I love this one, too (the fabric is tiny linked hands).

Andrew and Crystal have a knack for great projects.

for unseasonably chilly summer days

Epice scarf at Bird.

for standing on piers, looking at boats

I have a strange, sudden obsession with navy shoes.

plus one

Screening tonight at the CMA.

shapeshifter