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You don’t stop laughing because you grow old.
You grow old because you stop laughing.

(thanks Nicole)

New York, New York

The images above are but a few from a lovely post that I stumbled across by ephemera-nut Eric Baker on Design Observer.

Winnipeg, Canada… late on a long day.

My good friend Gregor the programmer just sent me this link for Scroll Clock, along with the note “someone has too much time on their hands.” My favorite is still this old-school “Flip-Style ‘Pata Pata’ Clock” screensaver however… which I’ve been using for several years.

Now that it’s almost the witching hour, I’ll head outside to take in the last of the Leonids (annual meteor shower) for a bit—they promise to be brilliant in the perfectly clear starlit sky…

Which seems like a perfectly fine reason… if you think about it.

Winnipeg Beach, Manitoba

More people have expressed interest in the quirky assemblage weathervanes that I’ve been making—so I thought I’d post the latest. Domestic Goddess (a tongue-in-cheek composition dedicated to Ev’s alleged culinary prowess) now graces the top of a wooden pole in front of her ceramics studio.

This piece invokes the heroic narrative of “harnessing the domestic beast” and comprises a large chromed-copper kettle, an old wooden kitchen shelf shaped as a wing (adorned with sheet copper, spoons, and knives), metal shoe-trees as secondary wings, serving forks as tail feathers, a railing banister with a wood-fired ceramic arrowhead as a directional pointer, a ceramic dragon-head (chained to the kettle with ball-chain from vertical blinds with a brass lock)—all topped with a found copper and brass angel figurine (perhaps a Christmas ornament from a former time) brandishing a brass trident. Bearings from an old roller-skate wheel provide friction-free swiveling action.

(Thanks Matt!)

Kabul, Afghanistan

It’s eight years ago today(!) that the United States, backed by coerced “coalition partners,” launched its war in/on the hapless nation of Afghanistan under the moniker Operation Enduring Freedom. Tens of thousands of lives have been lost, and tens of thousands more have been seriously injured. There are no clear indications of what it would take to actually “win” this particular war (which suits the hawks and those who continue to profit from ongoing conflicts such as this manufactured, never-ending “war on terror”)—in fact it’s unclear such a misadventure even can be “won” or how one would measure such a victory. The majority of the world (including most U.S. citizens, of late) is firmly opposed to the ongoing military operations and occupation of Afghanistan. It’s time to finally end this senseless conflict!

(I know my expressing a pacifist stance here, on my blog, is “safe” and does not involve a lot of effort or courage—yet it is at least something that I can do. I hope that many of the two-hundred or so of you who visit this blog each day will, if you agree, also take action and lend your voice in opposition to this inane war—and I welcome you to let me know what you are doing in this regard… please do contact me. While a solitary voice here and there may seem quiet and weak, many voices joined together can have the powerful and moving influence of a mighty choir).

“You can no more win a war than you can win an earthquake.”
—Jeannette Rankin

This is just a tiny detail (!) of a much larger infographic that I’d highly recommend you view in full, here.

Information is Beautiful has many other great visualizations, here.

The little community art project that began five years ago in Germantown, Maryland keeps growing. I have posted about PostSecret before, here, here, and here… folks from around the world continue to mail in their anonymous secrets for all and sundry to peruse and ponder—clearly the need for catharsis is an ongoing part of our Zeitgeist.

I hope you love birds too.
It is economical…
It saves going to heaven…

—Emily Dickinson (1830-1886)