Hermenautic Circle blog

Part One

Most kids are fascinated by dinosaurs, and dinosaur-themed books, activities, and toys abound. The point of introducing dinosaurs here, however, is to set the stage for a basic introduction to evolution, and this presents the parent of small children with a big problem: There are shockingly few good resources available to explain evolution to the younger set.

Memo to the children's book authors of the world: Please, please put your talents to work creating evolution-themed books for small kids!

Reading

This list contains a few books on dinosaurs that worked well for us, but really, you can just go to the relevant section in your local library and pick out a few good volumes. You won't, by the way, find the Magic Treehouse books on this or any of my reading lists, although many kids and parents love them and they do introduce a wide range of historical topics that are relevant here. This is a matter of personal taste: I don't like the writing style, and I can't stand the whole girl-led-by-her-heart-boy-led-by-his-brain shtick.

This book is a great resource to have around, mainly for its marvelously detailed illustrations, which can spark all kinds of discussions about whatever topic is at hand. Some of the text is too dry or technical for small children, but that doesn't matter -- pick and choose. Over the course of several sittings, the first 80 or so pages of this book can provide a basic overview of evolution on earth from the beginnings of life to the advent of Homo sapiens. Aliki, Dinosaurs Are Different, and Children's book author and illustrator Aliki has published several good introductory books on dinosaurs, all within the excellent "Let's-Read-and-Find-Out Science" series.Natalie Lunis, A fossil with a name and story attached to it holds extra appeal for small children. Book publishers know this: There's a whole mini-industry of books about the famous dinosaur named Sue. This is simply the one we found at our library and liked. Scholastic's biography of Sue Hendrickson, Kathleen Weidner Zoehfeld and Lucia Washburn, The title says it all. Lisa Westberg Peters and Lauren Stringer, Our Family Tree: An Evolution Story

This was the closest I could find to an age-appropriate book about evolution. (Steven Jenkin's Life on Earth seemed too advanced, and I haven't yet tracked down a copy of Ellen Jackson's Film
Prehistoric Planet: The Complete Dino Dynasty

Extra-sensitive kids might find this BBC series too scary; my kids (who were freaked out by an old tape we found at a garage sale of The Land Before Time) loved it. Go figure.

Play

This one's a no-brainer; if you don't already have an array of little plastic dinosaurs in your house, they are easily and inexpensively acquired. Many different companies sell little dinosaur excavation kits, which my kids loved. Some children's and science museums have full-size faux dinosaur digs for kids -- ask around in your area.

Have other books or activities to recommend? Tips based on your own experience? Please share...

At the Age, Karl Quinn interviews Felix Francis on taking over his father's fiction franchise. Today is Dick Francis's 89th birthday, by the way - many felicitations to one of my particularly favorite writers!

Winners of the New Yorker "Critterati" contest - dress your pet as a character in literature (courtesy of my former student Emily Colette Wilkinson).

“109 Lighting Books” by Airan King. I agree it’s a “didactic sculpture,” but in an interesting way.

My former student Rebecca has apparently turned into a vampire...

Nostalgia: What’s the Role of the Past in Fashioning the Future? One of the better talks at Frieze with Owen Hatherley, Matthew Brannon, and Dan Fox.

[Image: "Moravian Mount" from New Local Zlín by Margaret Bursa].

In a recent post I included an image from Margaret Bursa's project New Local NY, which she produced while a student at the Bartlett School of Architecture. Bursa's tutors for that project were Mark Smout and Laura Allen, of Smout Allen; and I should right away that I'm consistently amazed at the quality of work coming out of Smout Allen's studios.

I thought, then, that I should take the occasion to share more images from Bursa's projects. You can check out her website here.

[Images: From New Local NY by Margaret Bursa].

New Local NY features "a ‘landscape of movement’," Bursa writes. It "takes the form of a condensed urban playground on the west side of Manhattan, overhanging onto the River Hudson," and it was at least partially inspired "by the ongoing relocation of immigrants and cultures to America, in particular Sokol, a Czech mass-exercise movement, promoting togetherness, flocking, fresh air and cultural pride."

The result is an intensely colorful, wind-powered megastructure, sitting comfortably astride the worlds of home craft and experimental architecture.

[Image: From New Local NY by Margaret Bursa].

Here are some amazing sectional sketches:

[Images: From New Local NY by Margaret Bursa; larger version one and two].

Then there is New Local Zlín, an earlier companion piece to New Local NY.

Zlín, Bursa explains, is the fading capital of the Bata shoe-making empire:

The Czech town of Zlín is the site of a social, industrial and architectural experiment begun by Tomas Bata in 1894. However, his shoe-making factories that were once the town’s driving force no longer operate and so the social and commercial structure of the town and its suburbs are in decline. Responding to the New Local Manifesto, a layer of facilities is laid over and interwoven into the residential neighborhoods where seven housing typologies are afforded dual functions of work and domestic life such the House of Drink, where both production and consumption are combined.

The images, again, are drenched in color and extraordinarily detailed.

[Images: "House of Drink," "Greenhouse," and town plan from New Local Zlín by Margaret Bursa].

The next project is a kind of tube-diorama: you look into the miniature landscape and see autumn trees, a ruined Greek temple, and a many-windowed architectural section standing in silhouette.

The project seems to come with the implication that, when you look inside a telescope, perhaps it's possible that you might simply be seeing a world inside the telescope—that is, an optical device that, instead of revealing new worlds from afar, actually contains local worlds within it.

[Image: From Layered Landscapes by Margaret Bursa].

Called Layered Landscapes, the project is a "compositional map," Bursa writes, and it comes complete with hardcover book and poster.

[Images: From Layered Landscapes by Margaret Bursa].

Finally, I have a weird affinity for sketches of archways, and so I'd be remiss if I didn't include this short series of brick studies—called, unsurprisingly, Brickscape.

[Images: From Brickscape by Margaret Bursa].

In any case, there's some great work in there. Check out Bursa's site for a bit more.

Internet-prompted reading crisis spurs CAAF to devote the month of November to reading nothing but Herman Melville.

When I first got an invitation to participate in this event, I knew I had to be a part of it!

Sponsored by Cabinet Magazine, it's part of the Performa festival. Event description: "A 90-minute relay race of sorts, featuring 25-35 writers and artists who will take turns reading aloud short texts related to the theme of speed while running on three treadmills positioned side-by-side. The velocity of the treadmills will be controlled by the Speed Demon, the somewhat sadistic MC who will oversee the performance."

Saturday, Nov. 14 at 6pm at Definitions Gym, 19 Union Square West (at 15th St.) - note corrected time

[Image: Michael Light, Bingham Pit photograph mounted and on display].

A beautiful new book of photographs by Guggenheim Fellow Michael Light has been released. Called Michael Light: Bingham Mine/Garfield Stack, and released by Radius Books, it includes an essay by "experimental geographer" Trevor Paglen.

[Image: Two photos from Michael Light: Bingham Mine/Garfield Stack].

Light, well known for, among other things, his aerial photographs of the American west, "pursuing themes of mapping, vertigo, human impact on the land, and various aspects of geologic time and the sublime," as Radius Books describes it, has put together a collection of 22 images from his surveys of the Bingham Pit and the Garfield smelter stack.

The sheer scale of each site—one a void excavated into the surface of the earth, the other one of the tallest structures in the United States—is mind-blowing:

Located at 8,000 feet in the Oquirrh Mountains—20 miles southwest of Salt Lake City—the Bingham Canyon copper mine is the largest man-made excavation on the planet. Its hole reaches more than half a mile deep and its rim is nearly three miles in width. It has produced more copper than any mine in history.

[Image: Michael Light, "Garfield Stack, Oquirrh Mountains and Ancient Beach of Great Salt Lake" (2006)].

Meanwhile:

The mine’s Garfield smelter stack, situated at the edge of the Great Salt Lake about 10 miles away, is the tallest free-standing structure west of the Mississippi River, and is only 35 feet shorter than the Empire State Building.

In a nearly 9-page interview with Afterimage, Light comments:

I work with big subjects and grand issues, and I am fascinated about that point where humans begin to become inconsequential and realize their smallness in relation to the vastness that is out there. In my archival work I also enjoy inserting a certain kind of revisionist politics into big iconic subjects that are owned by the world, where I can tell a story through my particular prism, in a way that hopefully offers a fresh perspective.

This is part of his ongoing interest in taking apart "the fundamental building blocks of landscape perception and representation."

The book is available through Radius.

Caleb Crain revisits the to me utterly fascinating question of how John Keats actually talked.

(This post is a nice small example of how Caleb uses his blog to organize and annotate his more official publications.)

Also recommended: Lynda Mugglestone's Talking Proper: The Rise of Accent as Social Symbol. And there is a magical essay by Peter Holland, "Hearing the Dead: The Sound of David Garrick," in Players, Playwrights, Playhouses.

Bonus link: Marco Roth has a really lovely piece at n+1 about Caleb's self-published collection of blog posts The Wreck of the Henry Clay.

I received a wrinkled envelope containing an anonymous note made from letters cut from magazines. “Pssst.” was all it said. I looked up and down my beach, flitted to and from my skybox. Nope...no one there. I was intrigued. Who left it?

And then a link – literally – was sent to me - http://otherpeoplesplaces.wordpress.com/ *– detailing the exploits of SL’s premier cat burglar. I’d heard about him! Velvet unicorn paintings were being ripped off from around the grid and people were getting worried. I'd heard there was no building, no security system, he couldn't breach. As I pored over his journal entries I became increasingly excited - what did he want from me?

He wanted to meet. What do you wear when meeting a prowler? Nothing sparkly. He might grab it like a magpie. I tucked a pistol under my skirt and opted for trench coat and getaway thigh highs. I arrived at our agreed meeting place, palms sweating, gripping my notepad and pen.

And then there he was, right in front of me, knitted cap pulled firmly around his face, scratching his back with a lethal looking crowbar. Did I feel threatened? Yeah! I sat still and looked about. I was in his lair, surrounded by loot. He had taken me to his hub of operations. He began to talk and I was surprised by his gentle voice. Not at all what I expected.

He started prowling only lately, out of necessity, he told me. The recession had hit him hard. “It seems really unfair that people have pixel food in their fridge...and some have none.” Ah! A sensitive burglar. A bit like the amateur cracksman A. J. Raffles who justifies his thieving thus, “We can't all be moralists, and the distribution of wealth is all wrong anyway...” Mainly, our burglar prefers lifting collections of fantasy art that won't be missed, rather than decorative arts, furniture, or other objects. However, his sensitivity soared to new heights recently, exemplified by his – er - “adoption” of a baby that he found during a prowl, left alone, in a less than seemly home environment. “I know this is going to look all Limbergh baby and sh*t…and I don’t care. In the long run, this little tiger will thank me. And if worst comes to worst, in a few years...I have an accomplice...”

This burglar works hard. I asked how long it takes to scout a prospective home. “For every 20 places I find, 1 or 2 maybe are worth telling the story...All of this stuff...is not faked...these are not things I place in peoples homes. Everything you see here or in my stories is 100% authentic and found in their houses.” For each exploit, the burglar writes descriptions and shares the slurl so you can authenticate his movements if you care to (I tested out a few slurls and confirm their validity.)

I looked across at him, slumping slightly over the table, and sensed a bit of pathos about him...he seemed, to me, to be a lonely burglar. “What have you learned about people, from exploring so many homes?” I asked. “How do people express themselves?” He sighed. Through “Lots of porn. Lots of self-portraits. Lots of wolves.” I began to think it was less about the loot and more about revealing the proclivities of some of our residents. He serves as the Phantom Gourmet of SL aesthetics.

We spoke about his greatest challenge so far (the Gorean castle) and he offered a few tricks and tips for maneuvering around security systems (which he may share with us). Although the burglar works alone, he asked me to ask you for tips and comments. If you know of a place that begs exploration, drop him a line via his blog and he’ll follow up.

As for future goals? “I think a visit to a Linden's home soon is in the cards.”

*Be warned, his discoveries are NOT PG-rated.

Has it really been six months since I posted an incident report from the Park Rapids Enterprise? Well, trust me, it was worth the wait. The newest edition spread out before me on my dining room table is a gold mine.

I present to you the full gamut of what the males and females of the greater Park Rapids, Minnesota area were up to in the mere four-day span of October 15-18. Enjoy the theft, drugs, nudity, noise, bad wedding behavior, snowmobile capers, and mysterious moaning and ice cubes.

Miscellaneous: Oct. 15: A small black car was reported traveling at high rates of speed on a Nevis Township Road; A domestic was reported in White Oak Township; A brick was reported thrown at a window in Park Rapids; A fight between females was reported in Park Rapids; A Park Rapids caller reported waking up to find a younger male sitting at the dining room table moaning, ice cubes are all over the floor; A possibly abandoned car was reported in Park Rapids; Oct. 16: An Akeley caller reported "having problems" with a male's items being stored in his garage, the male is in jail; A Lakeport Township caller reported he was going to dispose of pain medication for his mother, who died, and himself and he found them gone; Several speed and other warnings were issued in Akeley; A driver was reported to be repeatedly crossing the center line in Helga Township; Citations were issued in Nevis for speed and lack of proof of insurance; Park Rapids caller requested a welfare check on a young boy, 8 or 9, who's in a parking lot on a bike talking to people in cars; Oct. 17: A Nevis Township caller reported to speak to a deputy about a vehicle she and her husband may purchase from Craig's List, some things appear to be fraudulent; A vehicle was vandalized in Park Rapids; Snowmobile windshield damage was reported in Todd Township; A caller reported her ex-stepmother has her two children in Minnesota (Lake George Township) without her permission, Florida authorities told her she had to contact the sheriff's department here for assistance in retrieving them; Two trucks were reported mudding on Helga Township property; Identity theft was reported in Akeley; A hitchhiker was reported in Fern Township; Gunshots for more than an hour were heard in Rockwood Township; Oct. 18: A Helga Township caller complained of a driver "messing around by his property"; Lakeport Township caller reported she and her husband are "having issues" and he is letting the air out of her car tires; A caller reported trespassers on the land he leases from Potlatch in Hart Lake Township; A Helga Township caller reported that two males who smell strongly of alcohol have been in his bathroom yelling for over five minutes; A naked man was reported coming out of the woods in Farden Township, crossing Highway 2 and heading back into the woods southbound; A party with loud music was reported in Farden Township; Loud music was reported in Park Rapids; A small amount of drugs was reported in Park Rapids; A Park Rapids caller asked for officer assistance in retrieving "stuff" from an ex-girlfriend; Squealing tires were heard in Park Rapids; A vehicle was reported all over the road in Park Rapids, vehicle pulled into a parking lot and a male got out yelling; Possible smell of drugs was reported coming from a Park Rapids apartment; Animal related: Oct. 15: Straight River Township caller reported cows in the yard are destroying hay bales; A "dog call" came from Nevis Township; Deer shining was reported in a Clover Township field; A dog was reported barking through the night in Hubbard Township; A German Shepherd was chasing deer in Park Rapids; Oct. 16: Dogs were running in traffic in Akeley, taken to the animal shelter; A deer was hit in Todd Township; Oct. 18: A black Lab was "hanging around" in Hubbard Township, neighbors were feeding it but now they're gone; A barking dog was reported in Park Rapids, "happens every weekend;" Burglaries, thefts: Oct. 15: Theft from a residence was reported in Park Rapids; Oct. 17: A shed break-in was reported in White Oak Township, a refrigerator, microwave, and other items were taken; A Todd Township caller reported two males were hired to steal her boyfriend's snowmobiles, caller states she received a call from a female who's a family member of the alleged thieves who states the males were getting a truck and trailer to pick up the snowmobiles; A pole barn break-in with a generator taken was reported in Henrietta Township; A residential break-in was reported in Akeley; Oct. 18: Theft of a tip jar was reported in Lake Emma Township, male suspect is part of a wedding party, they have it on camera; A vehicle window was broken and a CD player stolen in Park Rapids; Fires: Oct. 16: A grass fire was reported in Henrietta Township; Oct. 17: A vehicle was on fire in Guthrie Township, everyone safe and out of the vehicle; Accidents: Oct. 15: A rollover was reported in Park Rapids; Oct. 16: A rollover was reported in Henrietta Township, vehicle's on its roof but driver is out.

Hides for Habitat drop boxes at the Two Inlets Country Store, last November.

Robert Anton Wilson will be my guest on The Media Squat this Monday evening.

Alas, he’ll be visiting via magnetic recording tape, and not in the flesh. He’s the next in our series of Media Squat Classics – people whose ideas and approaches form the basis of the media squat ethos.

“What is more visually appealing, (a) a Pall Mall butt floating in a coffee mug, or (b) those new Pop Art place mats in the Crate & Barrel catalog? If you answered (a), do we have a genre for you.” – My favorite tweeter, Colson Whitehead, on what to write next.

At the Independent, a brief review by Christopher Hirst of Peter Williams' Snail. The table of contents at the University of Chicago Press website makes me think I really should get a copy of this one...

Geoff Dyer has a very interesting piece at the Guardian on John Cheever's journals (the whole piece is well worth reading in its entirety):

What he does not say – how could he? – was that the forms in which he gave dramatic expression to this sense could be enlarged manifestations of confinement, that the hard-won craftsmanship that stood him in good stead at the New Yorker worked against his being able to plumb the complex depths of his being. Only in the shapeless privacy of his journal could he do that. If he was "writing narrative prose" Cheever believed that "every line cannot be a cry from the heart". So he stopped crying. In the journals, meanwhile, he wept "gin tears, whiskey tears, tears of plain salt" and stopped worrying about narrative. The irony is that, while he was instinctively hostile to the splurging of "the California poets", his own best writing would derive from a sustained 40-year word-binge with no thought of form or – at least until very near the end – of publication. A further irony follows: the consummate craftsman ended up being reliant on the posthumous intervention of an editor to turn this repetitive mass of bellyaching, "booze-fighting" and self-lament into a book with immense narrative power.

At Science News, Rachel Ehrenberg on phantom limbs (link courtesy of GeekPress):

Seven people who had an arm that had been amputated above the elbow were encouraged to learn a particular arm movement that defies biomechanics — turning a hand that’s bent 90 degrees at the wrist the last quarter of a full turn that the hand won’t do. The study participants practiced by imagining that they were moving the phantom limb for five minutes per hour every day until they had achieved the impossible movement or had given up (this took one to four weeks depending on the individual). Four of the participants were successful in feeling the sensation of the impossible movement, the researchers report.

“This shows that body image is constructed in a dynamic manner — it can be changed,” says V.S. Ramachandran, director of the Center for Brain and Cognition at the University of California, San Diego. Previous work by Ramachandran and others has shown that the sensation of a perpetually clenched and painful wrist that often accompanies a phantom limb can be relaxed with a mirror-based therapy: the patient clenches and then unclenches the remaining hand while looking at a boxed mirror that makes it appear both arms are intact. By visualizing both hands unclenching, the patient feels a release in the phantom limb.

To corroborate that the individuals had really learned the new movement (after all, the scientists couldn’t see the phantom limbs) the researchers had them perform a task known as left-right hand judgement before and after their training. The ability to twist the phantom wrist in a new way allowed the participants to react to this task faster than they could before they had learned the impossible move.

Each of the participants who achieved the impossible move also described developing a new wrist joint that allowed the impossible movement. And three of the four reported that moves that were previously possible for the phantom limb were now difficult with their new wrist.