I spent most of the last week in Philadelphia, visiting relatives. They live near Fairmount Park, which is huge. Several times on visits I have walked down into the park and when I came to a T in the road I always turned left. No particular reason.
This time I turned right and wound up in a place called Valley Green, next to a hundred and fifty year old inn (still in business), looking at Wissahickon Creek and a bridge that was rebuilt at the turn of the last century. Here's a photo (I no longer bring a camera on trips... I just go to Flickr and find what I saw in someone else's pictures. Very convenient, but unfortunately few tourists take pictures of my relatives...)
Edgar Allan Poe wrote an essay about the creek, although he seemed more interested in discussing the American sense of inferiority to Europe. (He says the Philadephians never noticed the beauty of the creek until an English woman wrote approvingly of it.)
One odd thing... the ducks and geese there begging to be fed, were quite at peace with each other. Where I live ducks and geese always seem to fight each other. But on the Wissahickon they even swam in formation together. Interspecies harmony.
Friday, September 21, 2007
Tuesday, September 11, 2007
Sticky Art
I just found this on a blog. Mark Jenkins does amazing art, including sculptures made out of Scotch tape. Wow.
Monday, September 10, 2007
Top of the heap
To end our Learning 2.0 mardi gras I am supposed to comment on my favorite thing out of everything we did. Here are a bunch in descending order.
1. Flickr. It works. It lets you share your photos and borrow others you would never know about. I typed in "turtle pile" and found this one. My one frustration: whenever I ask Flickr to send email to a friend, the friend doesn't get it. What am I or Flickr doing wrong?
2. YouTube. Specifically figuring out how to put a video into a blog.
3. Mashups. Actually getting to use one, although I haven't been about to make it do everything I want yet. I am in contact with the guy who created the program and am hoping to fix it.
4. Anne-Mare Dietering's lecture on Learning 2.0 I'm still unpacking some of the stuff she talked about.
5. Unconference. Not directly Learning 2.0, but in some ways the non-digitlal (analog?) equivalent. I think I'll be hearing more about it in years to come.
1. Flickr. It works. It lets you share your photos and borrow others you would never know about. I typed in "turtle pile" and found this one. My one frustration: whenever I ask Flickr to send email to a friend, the friend doesn't get it. What am I or Flickr doing wrong?
2. YouTube. Specifically figuring out how to put a video into a blog.
3. Mashups. Actually getting to use one, although I haven't been about to make it do everything I want yet. I am in contact with the guy who created the program and am hoping to fix it.
4. Anne-Mare Dietering's lecture on Learning 2.0 I'm still unpacking some of the stuff she talked about.
5. Unconference. Not directly Learning 2.0, but in some ways the non-digitlal (analog?) equivalent. I think I'll be hearing more about it in years to come.
Friday, September 7, 2007
An Encounter With Mr. Browne
While working with our hundreds of volumes of the Congressional Serial Set I met an old friend today. Volume 1342 of the Serial Set is a report on the mineral resources of the west written by J. Ross Browne.
Browne, an Irish-born gentleman, may be unique in world history. He is the only person I know who made a living by writing 1) government reports and 2) humor.
I know. As a combination it doesn't flow like cup and saucer, does it?
Here is Mr. Browne describing part of our state in his best officialese:
Port Townsend, on the bay of that name, is the county seat. It is the site of the customs-house of Puget Sound; the marine hospital is located here, and at the head of the bay is the military post, (Fort Townsend). The bay is six miles long, four wide, and an excellent harbor.
DId you stay awake through all that? Good for you. Now here is the same Mr. Browne (slightly edited by historian Murray Morgan) writing in one of his unofficial books:
Port Townsend is indeed a remarkable place. The houses, of which there must be at least twenty in the city and suburbs, are built chiefly of pine boards, thatched with shingles, canvas and wood slabs. The streets of Port Townsend are paved with sand, and the public squares are curiously ornamented with dead horses and the bones of many dead cows.
This of course gives a very original appearance to the public pleasure grounds and enables strangers to know when they arrive in the city, by reason of the peculiar odor, so that, even admitting the absence of lamps, no person can fail to recognize Port Townsend in the darkest night.
Oddly enough, the citizens of Port Townsend were not appreciative of Browne’s attentions. But it can be argued that one result of his scandalous description was that when a gold rush hit the Pacific Northwest the only town in the area that every miner knew of – and flocked to – was the wicked city of Port Townsend. Proving, I suppose, that there’s no such thing as bad publicity.
Browne, an Irish-born gentleman, may be unique in world history. He is the only person I know who made a living by writing 1) government reports and 2) humor.
I know. As a combination it doesn't flow like cup and saucer, does it?
Here is Mr. Browne describing part of our state in his best officialese:
Port Townsend, on the bay of that name, is the county seat. It is the site of the customs-house of Puget Sound; the marine hospital is located here, and at the head of the bay is the military post, (Fort Townsend). The bay is six miles long, four wide, and an excellent harbor.
DId you stay awake through all that? Good for you. Now here is the same Mr. Browne (slightly edited by historian Murray Morgan) writing in one of his unofficial books:
Port Townsend is indeed a remarkable place. The houses, of which there must be at least twenty in the city and suburbs, are built chiefly of pine boards, thatched with shingles, canvas and wood slabs. The streets of Port Townsend are paved with sand, and the public squares are curiously ornamented with dead horses and the bones of many dead cows.
This of course gives a very original appearance to the public pleasure grounds and enables strangers to know when they arrive in the city, by reason of the peculiar odor, so that, even admitting the absence of lamps, no person can fail to recognize Port Townsend in the darkest night.
Oddly enough, the citizens of Port Townsend were not appreciative of Browne’s attentions. But it can be argued that one result of his scandalous description was that when a gold rush hit the Pacific Northwest the only town in the area that every miner knew of – and flocked to – was the wicked city of Port Townsend. Proving, I suppose, that there’s no such thing as bad publicity.
Thursday, September 6, 2007
Home away from home
My sister has been reading my blog and started fooling around with Flickr. She found this very striking photo. It is Collesano, a town on the northern edge of Sicily. Our paternal grandparents were born and raised there. The photo almost looks computer-generated, but if you click on it and see the full-screen version there is more detail visible.
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