Steinbach, Manitoba

Earlier this year, my recently-retired, older brother Ernest James Peters (Jim, aka Ernesto for the duration of the trip) went on a 13,000+ km, 45-day road trip with his brother-in-law Bob Banman (aka Roberto), driving down through 7 Central-American countries to the Panama Canal, where they were joined by their wives for the return trip. Jim has posted a click-through trip photo-album (produced in Picaboo, here) that I thought some of our far-flung relatives might enjoy.

I had posted several times about bro Jim’s road-trip exploits earlier—here, here, here, and here.

Jinan, China

Best “61st” wishes to longtime friend and former Icograda president Guy Schockaert. Thanks to another longtime friend and former Icograda board colleague Ahn Sang-Soo for the photo of Guy, taken this past weekend… sooo apropos.

Montreal, Canada

INDIGO’s Mother Tongue project has been drawing in some excellent contributions from the far corners of the planet (of which a small sampling are shown above).

(Sorry… links are broken).

On the U.S.-Canada border (just south of Vancouver)

“A provocative new sculpture has opened at the U.S.-Canada border crossing near Vancouver, BC. It’s a billboard advertising… well, nothing.

So instead of your usual glimpse of cheeseburgers and red-faced car salesmen, you’ve got a snarl of stainless steel rods vaguely reminiscent of TV static, but surrounding only the clean air of Blaine, Washington.

Clearly it’s some kind of pinko Canadian stunt, right? A passive-aggressive commentary on Americans’ conspicuous consumption? Wrong! Non-Sign II is the brainchild of the Seattle art and architecture firm Lead Pencil Studio. Even crazier: It was commissioned by the U.S. federal government, which usually regards high art the way one would a dead rat.

Lead Pencil Studio’s Daniel Mihalyo sheds light on the concept:

Borrowing the effectiveness of billboards to redirect attention away from the landscape… this permanently open aperture between nations works to frame nothing more than a clear view of the changing atmospheric conditions beyond.

Which sounds nice and poetic and non-threatening, but clearly, this thing is a monument to everything America’s not. Hey, Tea Partiers: The commie conspiracy has arrived at last, and it looks like a big ol’ pile of hair clippings!

How the installation came about: Lead Pencil Studio was shortlisted for a project to design public art at a new northern-border control station through the GSA’s Design Excellence program. The concept had to go through two rounds of approval, and Mihalyo insists the jury was “excited about the proposal from the start and the second round involved only small refinements and pragmatic issues.”

Well, we think it is awesome, and we’re elated that the government’s supporting Lead Pencil Studio. Headed by Mihalyo and Annie Han, they’ve built a career on blurring the divide between architecture and art; questioning the idea of consumer culture has been a recurring theme. They’ve produced a raft of evocative installations: outdoor scaffolding in the middle of the Oregon grasslands, full-scale shops (without any merch) in an old shop, and so on. Think of them as a sort of Christo in the age of Christine O’Donnell.”

Images by Ian Gill courtesy of Lead Pencil Studio. (Re-blogged from an original post here)… with thanks to friend ‘Segun Olude for the link.

The mountains of Piemonte, Italy

“The ibex of Northern Italy don’t need to worry about equipment malfunctions, difficult-to-obtain life insurance, or their peers calling them foolhardy. They just do what they do, without ropes or inhibitions…” (from a link in today’s Alpine Club of Canada e-letter).

I’ve long marveled at the genetically hard-wired abilities of sheep and goats when it comes to rock climbing (and I’ve posted on this before, e.g. here and here). Don’t underestimate the sure-footedness, balance, and sheer gumption of the mystical Ibex either (stambecco in Italian, Steinbock in German). These pictures speak for themselves (yes, the tiny specs in the lower photo are what you think)…

Origins unknown—if you find out, let me know?

(Thanks to a tip by “Jay,” this may the source)?

All across the Excited States of America…

Let me start by saying… I love you guys (and gals, goes without saying), I hate you guys, and I’m increasingly ambivalent about all you good-ole guys and gals and your overly-polarized, ever-narrowing worldview…

As an animated fraction(!) of the USA’s three-hundred-and-ten million citizens head out to vote today, please be aware that the “rest of the world” watches your amnesic roll to the right and political shenanigans with equal measures of concern, disbelief, and revulsion. It seems that crass, opportunist partisanship has trumped the very basic premise of engaged citizenship and shared civility that your great (OK, formerly great) nation was based and built upon… sad, very sad indeed. I’m sure I’m not alone in remembering an America of the past that seemed worth celebrating in aspirational song...

Images: an assortment of placards, signs, and shirts shown out and about the U.S. in recent days… 

New York, New York

Joy Garnett is a painter whose work is based variously on news photographs, scientific imagery, and military documents she gathers from the Internet,“examining the apocalyptic-sublime at the intersections of media, politics, and culture.” As such, she has become well-known for her appropriation of journalistic images in her paintings (upper image).

Susan Meiselas is a well-known freelance photographer who joined the standard-setting Magnum Photos co-operative in 1976. She has published several books of her photographs, among them, Nicaragua, which tells the story of the Sandinista revolution by means of extraordinary documentary photography—including what has become the iconic image of “Molotov Man” (lower image).

It seems a confrontation over authorship and rights was inevitable. Read an excellent article here (co-written by Joy and Susan, laying out their opposing viewpoints) that appeared in Harper’s.

“Who owns the rights to this man’s struggle?”

Thanks to Rene Wanner for the source/link.

Johannesburg, South Africa

South African low-fare airline Kulula Air has been gaining worldwide exposure of late thanks to its creative, humorous livery. One of their Boeing 737-86Ns, named “Flying 101” is covered nose to tail with details and funny remarks about the plane. The captain’s window is marked with the big cheese (”captain, my captain!”), the co-pilot’s window with co-captain (the other pilot on the PA system) and the jump seat is for wannabe pilots.

Additional captions on other parts of the plane include:

•  galley (cuppa anyone?)

•  avionics (fancy navigation stuff)

•  windows (best view in the world)

•  wing #1 and #2

•  engine #1 and #2 (26 000 pounds of thrust)

•  emergency exit = throne zone (more leg room baby!)

•  seats (better than taxi seats)

•  some windows = kulula fans (the coolest peeps in the world)

•  black box (which is actually orange)

•  landing gear (comes standard with supa-fly mags)

•  back door (no bribery/corruption here)

•  tail (featuring an awesome logo)

•  loo (or mile-high club initiation chamber)

•  rudder (the steering thingy)

•  stabiliser (the other steering thingy)

•  a.p.u. (extra power when you need it most)

•  galley (food, food, food, food…)

•  boot space

•  ZS-ZWP (OK-PIK) = secret agent code (aka plane’s registration)

•  overhead cabins (VIP seating for your hand luggage)

•  fuel tanks (the go-go juice)

•  cargo door

•  aircon ducts (not that kulula needs it… they’re already cool)

•  front door (our door is always open… unless we’re at 41 000 feet)

•  cockpit window = sun roof

•  nose cone (radar, antenna, and a really big dish inside)

Thanks to Christina Weese (a GDC Listserv colleague) for the link. Congratulations to the in-house design team at Kulula Air for their clever, well-crafted design scheme…