The Blue Lagoon, near Reykjavik, Iceland. I’ve always wanted to go to Iceland. I don’t know why, but I’m drawn to the north and the barrens. Today I found a travelogue of a trip to Iceland last year undertaken by Sky and Telescope writer Paul Deans. It just reinforced my desire to go there. If i had US$2775, I might consider this trip for myself. There’s no question it would make great blogging material…
Fountain Monument Robert Smithson – Monuments of Passaic The American sculpter and landscape artist Robert Smithson has a website containing drawings, films, photographs and writings. Much of his art plays with maps and scrawls on both the literal and metaphorical landscape. In the late 1960s he fell in with a bunch of artisits who were playing with the ideas of monuments, messing with the notions of time, marking, remembrance and location that define monuments. Instead of causing us to remember the past like the old monuments, the new monuments seem to cause us to forget the future…They are not built …
At CBC they have recently been discussing the redesign of cities and a beautiful and thought provoking flash presentation called Visionary Cities has been put up at CBC Webone. On it are clips and photos on preserving urban nature, honouring the past, and creating user friendly spaces. And if you read nothing more, the looped soundtrack consisting of a uniquely Canadian soundscape of water, wind, loons, traffic, children playing, crickets and other elements is a great wall of sound to bring a few minutes of relaxation to your day.
Here is a list, with vivid descriptions, of 35 canoe strokes. All your favourites are here, including the J-stroke, C-stroke, draw, pry and sweep. But included are a whole bunch of specialized strokes like the slice, the thumb-up rudder, sculling draw, the high and low brace and the Cross Stationary Bow Draw (also known as a Duffek). Each stroke comes with what amounts to a little three part poem about its execution, such as this one for the cross stationary bow draw: Cross Stationary Bow Draw Catch Rotate to the offside Feather blade across the bow Power Plant blade, with …
I am really grooving on Dervala’s blog these days. And it is getting cooler by the day as she pokes around central Canada, bringing her sharp eye and lucid prose to our forested heartlands. Her notes on Canadian culture have been great, and they were topped recently by this brilliant take on the “I Am Canadian” rant, featuring a distinctly Irish theme: (lifts pint) Howya. I’m not a potato farmer or a hod carrier and I don’t live in a thatched cottage, or drink whiskey, or own a horse and cart I probably do know Jimmy, Mary or Sin�ad from …