found: a real treasure

i indulged my hankering for poking around a flea market today. there's one every weekend over across the fjord and although it's horribly smoky in there from all of the smokers, i braved it today. and i'm happy i did, because i found this beauty:

the lens says "Jos. Schneider & Co. Kreuznach No. 275350 Xenar :4,5 F-19,5cm"

the body says "Hüttig A.G. Dresden, Modell 1907."

i don't know anything about it.

i just thought it was beautiful.

i am going to try to take pix through the viewfinder with my D60 and macro lens

if any of you know more about these cameras than i do, please share!!

articles of interest

in light of my concern about living an insufficiently intellectual life, i bring you articles of interest:

1. on the architecture of airports. a review of a couple of new books on airports and why air travel went from glamorous futuristic ideal to drudgery (which i don't agree with, except when i transit at heathrow.  or charles de gaulle).
2. apparently the danes, those happy folks , have come out on top of the happiest in the world survey, again for 2008.  this article, written by a brit who has lived in denmark for years explains why.
3. because i can't resist another small shot at sarah palin, i give you this article, likening her as a phenomenon to the pet rock.
4. i'm always interested in language and how it expresses...well...anything at all. this article explores why we express abstract feelings as temperatures. is there an actual psychological connection between coldness and being excluded?
5. and because i travel so much, this piece on travel writing from world hum caught my eye. tho', i was a bit surprised to see someone being referred to as postmodern in a headline. i thought postmodernism was so over.

all of these links came from arts & letters daily, which i use as my homepage, in an attempt to remind me to keep a life of the mind alive on a daily basis. and i've been doing that for years, not just since i attended the symposium for peter. i guess when something becomes routine, it loses its meaning for us. so, this morning, i really had a look, rather than sailing immediately past into my gmail.

happy weekend everyone!

meaningless guttural sounds

a funny diversion that i return to again and again. you have to love norwegians making fun of danes.



kamalåså

sorting diversions

i've spent the past hour sorting my scrap stash (no, i'm definitely not procrastinating, why do you say that?). and i discovered a few things.

a minor addiction to sassafrass lass products:

enough cool halloween-related stuff to make some decorations for sabin's upcoming halloween party:

and along the lines of sorting, i keep seeing sorted books stories in the blogosphere and so i had to give it a whirl. (no, i'm NOT procrastinating, why DO you keep saying that?)

first attempt:

and then this one:

and one more, i couldn't resist using "before i forget" again, it just starts things off so well:

you should give it a try too. i suspect it could get a bit addictive.

and i offer one more small diversion. an article about diagramming sarah palin's sentences. it's a doozy! :-)

so much for living a more intellectual life, eh?

an intellectual life

today i drove across the disturbingly windy øresundsbro (that's a bridge) to sweden to attend an all-day symposium in honor of my father-in-law. it's the one that upset me so much when i received the invitation a few months ago. i was pleased to see that there is still a glimmer of being pleased that i'm crossing a border to another country, even tho' it's pretty much like going to another state. i do apparently retain some of my former awe of living in europe (to be said to oneself in a hushed tone). but, i digress.

as i listened to a danish architect speak about urban planning and how he has basically lived his life in a reaction to the modernism of mies van de rohe and le corbusier, and a retired seagoing captain speak about regional cultures and identities and a rector of a university speak about the meaning of an entirely new field invented by my father-in-law, it struck me that i am living an insufficiently intellectual life.

how much time do i spend thinking about what makes cities tick? what makes a great urban space a great urban space? and how do our surroundings affect us? what effect will places like dubai have on the people who live there? you might think that i would have no business spending any intellectual energy on such questions, but you would be wrong. perhaps if i devoted more time to these questions, i would get to the bottom of what makes me uncomfortable about singapore's pristine, clean, safe streets.  would i be able to live there and keep my sense of self as i know it? should i even want to? should i be more open to change than that? shouldn't i ponder those questions in a bit more depth?

and the question of culture and identity is certainly relevant for a person who is going on ten years outside the country of her birth. what remains of the culture and identity i grew up with and what has been layered on top of it? and what does that mean to my identity? who am i today because of the things i've experienced. why is it that i can take the piss with sarah palin's cross-eyed flute performance when my adelaide from guys & dolls in the miss south dakota pageant was no doubt no better or more successful? what aspect of who i am today distances me so far from that person that i was that i'm ok with that?

what am i really doing with the chance i'm being given to write about one of the most important industries in the world? 90% of the stuff on the planet is transported by ship at some point and there is an enormous shortage of people to sail those ships. and i'm writing about that these days (when i'm not experiencing a total writer's block). am i doing enough with that chance? i could have a real effect on an industry that's undergoing an enormous change. have i devoted sufficient intellectual energy to the questions before me?

after today, my answer is that i could do better. and if i do, it would make peter proud. wherever he is. and for some reason, that seems really important.

just when you thought you had seen it all

there's more:



oh yes, now i'm totally sure she's qualified to be a 72-year-old's heartbeat away from the oval office.

procrastination with a capital "P"

why oh why oh why do i procrastinate? what is it that i think i get out of it? not much, truth be told. self-recrimination. panic (in the end). feelings of guilt for lack of productivity? but somehow, i am not able to work myself out of the procrastination rut i'm in this week. it doesn't make me feel the least bit good, so why do it?

i pondered this as i made gocco prints this morning for my latest swap. it seems that what i'm procrastinating is finishing several articles (all of which are open on my screen), not things like this, tho' the last time i participated in a swap, i also procrastinated it. so who knows what will trigger my tendency to procrastinate?

there's something so satisfying about little frosting peaks of ink in yummy colors.

(hmm, wonder if it's time for lunch.)

these are my most favorite colors..blues and greens. they make me feel relaxed.

sabin had doodled this design on a paper, so i snagged it.

i even made a couple of moleskine notebooks 

(perhaps one day i'll stop procrastinating that etsy shop)

this tree is one that sabin drew when she was 4.

i've long been wanting to do something fun with her drawing.

i decided that during october, we would eat a more vegetarian diet here at our house. less meat. we don't really need meat at every meal. it will be healthier and easier on the grocery bill. but now that october 1 is here, i'm already thinking, that seems like a lot of work, so maybe another time.  what is going on with me?

i have three half-finished articles open on my screen. i am now on day three of spending long stretches staring at them. what is it? why can't i wrap them up? i guess it's not so much procrastination as a block of some sort. but how do i clear it out? i thought perhaps indulging in creativity would help. the repetitive motion of printing gocco cards has given me plenty of time to think. so maybe it's time to give it another go. or perhaps i'll wait 'til tomorrow...