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 for the ages, but rather against the ages. They are involved in a systematic reduction of time down to fractions of seconds, rather than in representing the long spaces of centuries. Both past and future are placed into an objective present. This kind of time has little or no space; it is stationary and without movement, it is going nowhere, it is anti-Newtonian, as well as being instant, and is against the wheels of the time-clock.
— Robert Smithson, Entropy and the New Monuments
Link via Caterina
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 leading edge away from hull
Shaft angle varies from about 45 degrees to
vertical with hands stacked,
depending on desired effect and
pressure on blade
Recovery
Slice paddle out of the water to onside
Or slice forward and out and do bow draw
and cross forward stroke, this would
be called a Duffek Maneuver
Dervala mentioned in her comments that she has perfected her solo J-stroke. I can tell you that once you have mastered that, it’s a skill you never forget, like riding a bike.
Stepping into a sleek cedar strip canoe on a misty morning with glassy black water beneath me is the best heart medicine there is.
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
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 Ireland
and I’m sure they’re really, really good crack.
I have a Taoiseach
not a Prime Minister
I speak English and Irish
not Received Pronunciation
and I never say ‘Top o’ the mornin’ to ye’
I’m too cool to sew a shamrock on my backpack
but I believe in peace keeping, NOT policing.
SPONTANEITY, not respectability
AND THAT MICHAEL FLATLEY’S HAIR IS A TRULY PROUD AND NOBLE ANIMAL.
‘FECK’ IS BETTER THAN ‘CRIKEY’
TACKIES ARE TRAINERS
A PRESS IS A CUPBOARD
AND THE PLURAL IS PRONOUNCED ‘YE’ NOT ‘YOU’. ‘YE!’
IRELAND IS THE LARGEST CONSUMER OF TEA IN THE WORLD (per head)
THE FIRST NATION IN RIVERDANCING
AND IT IS THE MAINLAND
MY NAME IS DERVALA
AND I AM A PADDY
Cool, eh?