for you, flowers blooming

*

Also: how to find stillness with a stone.

growing the great pumpkin

This year, the largest American pumpkin weighed two thousand and fifty-eight pounds, while the world record is held by a 2,323.7-pound pumpkin grown by a Swiss gardener named Beni Meier, who works as an account manager at a software firm for his day job. In photos of Meier and his pumpkin, the victorious gardener raises a puny fist into the air while the monstrous greyish-orange fruit bulges and sags, as far removed from a tidy jack-o’-lantern as Claes Oldenburg’s soft sculptures are from the everyday objects they represent.

Nicola Twilley, "Growing the Great Pumpkin."

globemakers

Bellerby & Co., makers of handmade and bespoke terrestrial and celestial globes. The art is in sectioning and attaching flat maps to spheres so that nothing is lost or distorted.

Discovered thanks to Slate.

drawing with kandinsky

Wassily Kandinsky drawing at the Galerie Neumann-Nierendorf in Berlin in 1926, filmed by Hans Cürlis. Discovered thanks to Open Culture.

moon, mars and venus

Filmed on February 20, 2015.

polkagris

Originally posted December 10, 2011, but too wonderful not to share again.

the weight of mountains

A beautiful and educational film by Temujin Doran 'about the processes by which mountains are created and eventually destroyed ... based upon the work of British geographer L. Dudley Stamp.'

eyespots

Via A London Salmagundi: 'Peacock butterfly flashing its eyespots to scare off predators.'

first steps

Last weekend I slipped, fell and managed to break both of my elbows. Everything is turning out better than expected, but it has made for a wobbly start to 2014. I'm feeling a bit like this little guy – a little uncertain on my feet, but eager to get moving.

the jaguar shark

a loop

I love the scene at 11:56 where Sandy Dennis discusses her career as a super, the merits of different items in the hardware store and the importance of overalls with a hammer loop.

"Oh ... oh. There you are."
"What is it?"
"It's a loop. There's an expert. When you have striped overalls and a loop on the side like that, that's it. That's the whole show. That's an expert, a master handyman. Do you know what you can hang in that loop? Anything – a hammer, a chisel, a ruler, a stick. It simply does not matter, as long as you have a loop. That's it."
"You know, I think you'll have a loop one day."
"Do you? Do you really think that?"
"I'm sure of it."

conformity

32 metronomes fall into line.

clouds

men throwing rocks with the other hand

One minute and seven seconds of men throwing rocks with their non-dominant hands, filmed by Juan Etchegaray. Hilarious and mesmerizing.

Discovered at A London Salmagundi.

the scared is scared

Bianca Giaever asked a six year old friend what her movie should be about, and this is the result. It's seven minutes, but worth watching the whole thing. Kids are wise little beings.

'ripples of hope'

Robert F. Kennedy, from the Day of Affirmation speech delivered at the University of Cape Town, 1966:

Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring, those ripples build a current which can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance.

I wasn't familiar with this, and listening to it gave me heart after a week and a half of feeling hopelessly small.

Discovered thanks to President Obama.

chaffinches

Migrating chaffinches at Falsterbo, Sweden, 10/2/12. By phonescoper, via A London Salmagundi.

how aluminum cans are made

mothlight

Stan Brakhage, Mothlight, 1963: "created without the use of a camera by ... pressing moth wings, leaves, and other organic objects between two strips of Mylar tape and then rephotographing it by running it through an optical printer." (Walker Art Center)

'everybody wants gold and a mermaid'

Like a modern-day pirate, 75-year-old Ray Ives has been scouring the seabed for treasure his whole life. The former commercial diver has plundered the deep for over fifty years, bringing to the surface anything that glittered — even gold. In a shipping container near the water, Ray tends his museum of cannon, bottles, bells, swords, portholes and diving gear.

I've watched this four or five times since I first saw it last year. Can't remember if I've shared it here or not, but thought I would. It makes me wish I was a diver.

Directed by Amanda Bluglass and Danny Cooke. More here.