|| 3/19/2010 || 10:55 am || 2 Comments Rendered || ||
Advertisement for the Barnum and London Circus in Athletic Park, Washington, DC – The National Republican, May 3rd, 1884
Over the years I’ve attempted to document bits and pieces of my neighborhood’s 100+ year history on this digital scrapbook. From a bird’s eye view of my neighborhood in 1885 to a map of my neighborhood in 1921, I’ve tried to learn as much about where I’ve been living as possible. Its hard not to when you realize that long after we are gone, the houses in this neighborhood will probably still remain.
The educational starting point was this article about my neighborhood history, which I pretty much copied in my first entry, and now that I have access to the thousands upon thousands of newspaper articles that were published around the time of the neighborhood’s development, I’m able to find some rather new and unique facets of my neighborhood’s history.
In time, I hope more old newspapers come on-line that show what happened on the land prior to 1884, but in the meantime, I’ll post more unique items that I find.
+ Read more about White Elephants
+ Read more about Jumbo the Elephant
|| 8/5/2009 || 12:39 pm || 1 Comment Rendered || ||
YouTube Video: Last Weekend in 25 Video Clips
I made this YouTube video yesterday evening after I downloaded all the photos and video I took from last weekend’s excursion to the to the Shenandoah mountains. The 25 video clips are played in sequential order, starting with me getting into my friend’s vegetable oil-powered Mercedes Benz, driving out of Washington, DC, driving through the country, seeing a spider eat a moth, lights projected on trees, a spider with eggs crawling through the grass, chasing a butterfly among lilies (probably my favorite scene), insects devouring a large dragonfly, a few clips of the band Stripmall Ballads performing, caterpillar at night, lightrope on a rock, an American Goldfinch bathing in a creek in the middle of the road, and driving back home.
All in all, I had a great time. I just wish I still wasn’t tired from hiking up and down the length of the property!
|| 3/27/2009 || 1:25 pm || 1 Comment Rendered || ||
World Wildlife Fund’s Zoomorphic Fantasy Maps
Click to view full-size image
I came across these zoomorphic fantasy maps a few weeks ago and smiled. They brought back fond memories of when I was in second grade and used to draw large futuristic cities during my free time in school. I prefer to think that those sketches were the visual result of the influence that Sim City had on me back then.
These black & white bird’s eye view sketches show an elephant (above), rhinoceros (below), and sea turtle (below) all include the text of the campaign: “Our life at the cost of theirs?” The aim of this campaign is to frame the encroachment of urban life within the scope of contemporary degradation of the natural ecosystems these animals live in. By drawing these imaginative urban areas within the outlines of the endangered animals, the artists present a poignant perspective of whether our urban societies can sustain their current growth without damaging the animal’s fragile habitat.
Since the original images are larger than the formatting I use here, I have shrunk them down for layout purposes. By clicking on the images, you can see them in full-size.
CITATION
Advertising Agency: Ogilvy & Mather, Mumbai, India
Executive Creative Director: Piyush Pandey
Creative Director: Sumanto Chattopadhyay
Art Directors: Mayur varma, Mandar Wairkar
Illustrators: Swapnil Nilkanth, Nishikant Palande
Copywriters: Sumanto Chattopadhyay, Karn Singh, Mandar Wairkar
[VIA Ads of the World]
View the other fantasy maps:
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|| 12/30/2008 || 3:48 pm || Comments Off || ||
Birds of Colorado: The Stellar’s Jay
Today I am flying back to Washington, DC, so I am going to post some pictures of the birds I saw when I was in Colorado. This third and final photographic installment is the Stellar’s Jay. I saw this guy eating tourist’s food at the edge of Bear Lake. They are named after naturalist Georg Wilhelm Steller and are probably one of my favorite alpine birds because of their beautiful blue feathers.
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|| || 12:43 pm || Comments Off || ||
Birds of Colorado: The Hairy Woodpecker
Today I am flying back to Washington, DC, so I am going to post some pictures of the birds I saw when I was in Colorado. This second photographic installment is the Hairy Woodpecker. I saw this guy from the deck of the cabin. I believe I saw this same specie about three weeks ago in Washington, DC. It was tapping on the dead tree in the backyard of the house three doors down from where I live.
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|| || 11:34 am || Comments Off || ||
Birds of Colorado: The Pine Siskin
Today I am flying back to Washington, DC, so I am going to post some pictures of the birds I saw when I was in Colorado. This first photographic installment is the small finch known as the Pine Siskin. I saw these tiny finches constantly feeding on the deck of the cabin. They remind me of the common sparrow, except they have little yellow fellows and a brown & white spotted breast.
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|| 12/28/2008 || 4:28 pm || Comments Off || ||
Elk outside of Rocky Mountain National Park
When were driving into Rocky Mountain National Park I mentioned that this massive RV lot outside of Estes Park was completely empty. When we were departing the park someone spotted three elk from the road and we stopped I took these grainy 3X-12X zoom photos.
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|| 12/27/2008 || 12:34 pm || Comments Off || ||
Photos of Dorothy the neighborhood doe and her friendly herd
This morning I was greeted by Dorothy the neighborhood doe and her friendly herd that live near my mom’s remote property in the mountains of Colorado. The leading deer named Dorothy apparently has grown up in the area and even comes when called by her name.
Below are 9 more photos that I took when she & her herd came by the house:
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|| 8/30/2008 || 10:14 pm || Comments Off || ||
A Polar Bear In Denver
On Wednesday, August 27th, 2008, after the Iraq Veterans Against the War concert & march, I attended Ralph Nader’s “Open the Debates” rally at the University of Denver’s Magness Arena. At the end of rally I saw a polar bear inside the arena and decided to film this rare sighting.
Related Vimeo:
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|| 8/29/2008 || 10:41 pm || Comments Off || ||
A Black Bear in Rocky Mountain National Park
When I told my mom about going to Denver she mentioned that she & my step-father had been hiking in Rocky Mountain National Park earlier the week before and had spotted a black bear for the first time. When they were hiking down the trail they came across this black bear chowing down on termites in the trunk of the tree. They waited for awhile before the bear walked off. She sent me these two photographs for proof.
Last month I was in Rocky Mountain National Park for 24 Hours and didn’t see any large wildlife.
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|| 8/20/2008 || 7:43 am || 1 Comment Rendered || ||
A video of an American Goldfinch eating my sunflower’s seeds
In May I received two sunflower seedlings from an exhibitor at Artomatic and I decided to plant them alongside two tomato plants in a large plastic pot on my third floor deck. After diligently feeding them about 5 quarts of water each day, they bloomed in mid-July. A few years back I harvested the seeds from a sunflower plant too prematurely and ended up with partially matured seeds that were unusable. This year I decided to not cut of the heads of the plants to ensure that the seeds would mature and could be used for next year’s planting.
Last week on Thursday, August 14, my 3rd floor deck was visited by a curious guest who announced that it was time to harvest the seeds. I had seen an American Goldfinch before, but in the 4 years years that I’ve lived in the Shaw neighborhood of Washington, DC, this was my first sighting. I found that his coloring matched the sunflowers perfectly and made me wonder if the specie obtained its yellow coloring generations ago by feeding on sunflowers?
After noticing him return to the plant a second time, I decided to place a camera on a ladder, hit record, go inside, and remotely film him eating my sunflower’s seeds. It’s a no-frills video, just the wildlife of Washington, DC. At about 6:20 there is the obligatory police siren that one can never seem to escape from in this city. At about 9:15 a Mocking Bird swoops down and attacks the American Goldfinch. You can see the Mocking Bird follow the American Goldfinch in the lower corner about a second later, but the American Goldfinch returns and continues to eat for a few more minutes.
The day after recording this video I decided to cut the heads of the sunflowers and harvest the seeds, but due to the mess recently left on the deck, he’s been back with a hearty appetite and has eaten a few more of the smaller heads. No biggy. I hope he comes back next year.
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|| 8/10/2008 || 11:14 pm || Comments Off || ||
OUROBOROS : A Sluggish Time-Lapse Short Video
The Ouroboros is a serpent or worm who eats its own tail. It has been used to represent many things over the ages, but it most generally symbolizes the ideas of cyclicality, unity, infinity, and for this short video, a Great Grey Slug.
Saturday night I was in Baltimore over at a friend’s house and we noticed some slugs crawling up the walls on her back porch. A couple hours later I found the slug on a metal spike and decided to bring it inside to make a time-lapse recording of the slug moving around. After watching the recording a few times, I noticed that it appeared that the slug was always moving in a circle.
Unlike previous short videos that I’ve made recently, I decided to add some music to give it some extra zest. I believe chose I Concerto in A minor, Op. 102 ‘Double Concerto’ – III. Vivace non Troppo performed by Isaac Stern, but I’m not 100% sure because the MP3 that I was given about a year ago did not have the proper citation.
Make sure to look closely at the hole in the side of the slug its a rather interesting breathing apparatus. Also, if you look even more closely, you’ll see my reflection in the pots & pans in the background.
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|| 5/23/2008 || 10:43 am || Comments Off || ||
A New & Arabesque Map of the Hirshhorn Museum & Sculpture Garden
:: saved at 6,480 x 5,040 ::To celebrate the new procedure I decided to get around to editing the Library of Congress‘ copy of Willem Janszoon Blaeu‘s Nova totius terrarum orbis geographica ac hydrographica tabula, which was published in Amsterdam in 1606. I removed the original map from the center and kept the decorative border similar to Nova et Accvratissima Totivs Terrarvm Orbis Tabvla, A New Map of the Terraqueous Globe : according to the the Ancient discoveries and most general Divisions of Geospatial Art, America as a Cloverleaf, and A New And Accurate Map of the World by John Speed. However, unlike the previous antique map mash-ups, which usually feature the earth laid out in two hemispheres, this map uses a rectangular space (Mercator?). The beauty of this open layout is that I can place any of my previously made maps inside of this 402-year-old template.
A common naming practice I’ve noticed in old map is the use of “New & Accurate” and since I like to play around with words, I changed Accurate to Arabesque to create a visual pun. The source map was about 6,500 pixels wide, I underlaid a rotated 9,000 x 6,000 copy of Hirshhorn Quilt to fit perfectly in the center of the new map. I think it would be fun to actually hand-color the engravings on this map to match other copies of this map which have the various figures colored in. The LOC’s copy is uncolored which means that its actually easier to add color to it than if it were already colored because pigment matching is not needed.
: detail of the planet Goddess Venus :
Across the top (left to right) you have the planet gods:
Drawn within each of these engravings are the signs of the Zodiac that the planets rule:
Below I dissect the rest of the border of the map:
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|| 4/3/2008 || 1:28 pm || Comments Off || ||
Remedia Amoris / The Cure For Love by Ovid
Remedia Amoris (Love’s Remedy or The Cure for Love) is a 814 line poem in Latin by the Roman poet Ovid written around 5 BC. The aim of the poem is to teach young men how they can avoid idealizing the women they love and to give assistance if love brings despair and misfortune.
I discovered this poem when I was researching antique stained glass sundials and I came to the initial conclusion that Ovid’s prose is visually interpreted on Blaeu’s world map from the mid-1600s (detail above). Late last night I found both the latin and translated version of the poem, so I decided to do something I wish there was more of on the internet: a side by side layout which shows the original Latin on the left and the translated English on the right.
To add a unique visual element to the poem, I made the line number (which came from the Latin text) the color of the English translation. This involved quite a bit of manual coding, but I think it makes the latin / english comparison easier and slightly more visually engaging. By using red & white type face and numerical indention, the layout looks like a creve coeur or broken heart when scrolling. I bolded one section for emphasis related it’s discovery [hint: around line #185].
There are a few translation discrepancies that I’ve found thus far and there are many others which come across slightly convoluted and require more inquiry, but overall the poem is quite interesting. It includes topics like tree grafting (Genetic Engineering Version 1.0), having multiple lovers, travelling, and what to do and not to do when getting over a relationship. It’s interesting how much things have changed in the last 2,000 years, and as cliche as it may sound, how much our emotions have stayed the same. We all face the same relationship troubles and like Ovid, there will always be people telling you how to deal with them.
If you’ve got about 45 minutes to spare, here is
Ovid’s Remedia Amoris / The Cure For Love:
(You might need to widen your browser window to view the on-line polyglot correctly — it was originally design for a previous layout on this website. Drag the lower right hand corner to make the screen wider. Some browsers you can adjust the font size to achieve a similar result.)
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|| 11/1/2008 || 5:06 pm || Comments Off || ||
The Washington Minarat – A poorly designed public service advertisement currently on Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority buses
Friday afternoon I went with Liz Glover to the Huffington Post’s DC office to shoot a video with Jason Linkins. When we were done filming indoors, we went outside and shot some humorous man-on-the-street interviews around the White House. On the way back to the office, I spotted the advertisement above on the side of the WMATA bus and decided take a few photos.
Now I had read about a similar public awareness campaign related to rat abatement that compared DC to an unnamed metropolis, but this graphic takes the hilarity to a new level.
1) All praise the holy rat sun! After all, 2008 is the Year of the Rat! The rat is associated with aggression, wealth, charm, and order, yet also associated with death, war, the occult, pestilence, and atrocities. The rat’s sun will set January 25th, 2009, but I suspect they’ll stick around for the Ox.
2) Behold the Washington Minarat! Shaped similar to a campanile, there is a curious minaret to the left of the mighty sun rat. When did the Washington Monument transform itself into a part of a mosque? Did the graphic designer purposely exclude the Washington Monument? If the designer was trying to imitate the campanile at the Basilica Of The National Shrine Of The Immaculate Conception they did a very very poor job. Maybe they were mocking the war in Iraq? The first minaret was constructed in 665 in Basra, Iraq during the reign of the Umayyad caliph Muawiyah I.
3) Height restrictions are the answer! The reality is that the skyline of Wahsington, DC is mostly uniform without any building being taller the width of the street, plus twenty feet. This means that the varied skyline in the advertisement above does not represent Washington, DC, but most likely another unnamed metropolis.
Not photographed bonus advertisement on the back of the bus was a parody of the Got Milk? campaign, which asked the viewer “Got Syphilis?”
Later in the evening I went to a friend’s house who happened to have a fake rat. I decided to take a photo of the pointy kitty sitting on my leg. Some day I’d love to take that fake rat and add a small remote control car to the underside of it in order to create a rat than can “run” around.
Anyways, expect the interviews we filmed to be on-line shortly and in the meantime watch out for the rats.
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