MommaLibrarian's Commonplaces

Faceless?

Face Blind - no matter how long you look

Photo by: Jeremy Brooks/flickrCC 

You cannot form a mental image of the person.  I have always thought the, by contrast small problem with people that I have, was due to some character flaw; a lack of sympathy with others.  I am constantly surprised by my own face.

Two famous people with face blindness, Oliver Sacks and Chuck Close, discuss this with the host of Radio Lab.  There is a recording from the World Science Festival, June, 2010.  

Oliver Sacks, M.D. and author

  Self Portrait of Chuck Close

Summer and cilantro

 Cilantro 

Parsley 

I have just made a fair sized amount of Tabbouleh with cilantro instead of parsley.  Should be interesting.  Bought it unlabeled at a farmer's market and did not ask. 
At least the tomatoes are excellent, also home grown.  SUMMER

Scary thoughts

How do you think a mentally impaired person would react to being taken into this building?

Frank Gehry designs brain research center in Vegas

Lisa Katayama at 10:56 AM Thursday, Jun 17, 2010

Frank Gehry's latest project is the Lou Ruvo Center for Brain Health in Las Vegas, where people research degenerative brain diseases. I like how the crazy contours and irregularities are counter to what we typically imagine health-based organizations to look like.

Frank Gehry main page [via Dezeen]

Image: Matthew Carbone

Would we all ride buses

If they came by this often and were going within a few blocks of every destination?  Probably not - we are CAR PEOPLE!

LillTschudi+LondonBuses+1949+MetropolitanMuseumOfArt-NYC

Shared by Blue Lantern

The Unknown Art of Lill Tschudi by Neil Philip
l. . . Tschudi linocuts. Though they are typical of the Grosvenor School in London where Tschudi studied, they share with their contemporaries, the Japanese Sosaka Hanga printers, a desire to make art from the rhythms of modern life. At her best, Tschudi captures the magic that viewers found in the kinetic energy of 20th century technology the kinetic energy. In London Buses, the dynamic red vehicles appear to reshape the street as they nose through.

Note the billboard advertising Bovril - something only the English could love.

For things English!

"For Harthover had been built at ninety different times, and in nineteen different styles, and looked as if sombody had built a whole street of houses of every imaginable shape, and then stirred them together with a spoon."  p.22 The Water-Babies: A Fairy Tale for a Land-Baby

"... and another was bold enough to tell him that his house was ugly, but he said he lived inside it, and not outside; and another, that there was no unity in it, but he said that that was just why he liked the old place.  For he liked to see how each Sir John, and Sir Hugh, and Sir Ralph, and Sir Randal, had left his mark upon the place, each after his own taste; and he had no more notion of disturbing his ancestor's work than of disturbing their graves.  For now the house looked like a real live house, that had a history, and had grown and grown as the world grew; and that it was only an upstart fellow who did not know who his own grandfather was, who would change it for some spick and span new Gothic or Elizabethan thing, which looked as if it had been all spawned in a night, as mushrooms are."

 

criminals were too embarrassed

"Vaernet said one of the ways he got rid of the criminal element was by bringing lots of women and children into the park. The criminals were too embarrassed to behave badly in front of women and children, he explained, so they went away."  How a "mad viking" saved a crime-ridden park in San Francisco
Mark Frauenfelder at 3:25 PM Thursday, Jun 10, 2010

See this amazing video of Brooks Park today

Victory of the Mad Viking, San Francisco from Spots Unknown on Vimeo.

Brooks Park History

Established: 1978
Location: Shields Street at Ramsell
Bus: #29; M and K Street Car
Contact: Peter Vaernet, (415) 586-1451

Photo: San Francisco History Center, San Francisco Public Library.

Located on the most southwestern hill in San Francisco, with sweeping views of the Pacific Ocean, the Farrallones and Mt. Tamalpias, Brooks Park was once the playground for Ohlone Indian children during their summer season stay on the shores of nearby Lake Merced. Wildlife roamed the area -- grizzly bears, elk, and foxes -- as well as a wide variety of birds. Native plants covered the hills, and were used by the Indians for food, medicine, basket-weaving and fish bait. Many of these plants have survived and are still growing on the park's six-and-a half acres.

Modern Greece

At lunch on Hellenic island of Hydra when I saw these donkeys carting computers up to a conference

This really gives me a big smile.








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