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Thursday, November 1, 2007
PETROLOGICALLY SPEAKING
If you ever happen to be in Fontainbleau ... 
Friday, April 27, 2007
PETOSKEY STONE
Combining epram's psephological concerns with its interest in animal sculptures (and especially considering the problem with bear-sculpture-overpopulation here in Berlin), I was thrilled to discover this:
Located in the town of Petoskey, Michigan, it is made of that state's official stone, about which Wikipedia has the following to say:
A Petoskey stone is a rock, often pebble-shaped, that is composed of a fossilized coral, Hexagonaria percarinata. The stones were formed as a result of glaciation, in which sheets of ice plucked stones from the bedrock, grinding off their rough edges and depositing them in the northwestern portion of Michigan's lower peninsula.Here are a couple more pics:
Petoskey stones are found in the Gravel Point Formation of the Traverse Group. They are fragments of a coral reef that was originally deposited during the Devonian period, about 350 million years ago. When dry the stone resembles ordinary limestone but when wet or polished using lapidary techniques, the distinctive mottled pattern of the fossil emerges. It is sometimes made into decorative objects. Other forms of fossilized coral are also found in the same location.
In 1965, it was named the state stone of Michigan.
The name comes from an Ottawa Indian Chief, Chief Pet-O-Sega. The city of Petoskey, Michigan, is also named after him, and is the center of the area where the stones are found. The stones are commonly found on beaches and in sand dunes.
According to legend, Petosegay was the child of a descendant of French nobleman and fur trader, Antoine Carre and an Ottawa princess. Petosegay, meaning "rising sun" "rays of dawn" or "sunbeams of promise", was named after the rays of sun that fell upon his newborn face. In keeping with his promising name, Petosegay was a wealthy fur trader who gained much land and acclaim for himself and his tribe. He was remarked upon to have a striking and appealing appearance, and spoke English very well. He married another Ottawa, and together they had two daughters and eight sons. In the summer of 1873, a few years before the Chiefs' passing, a city began on his land along the bay of Bear Creek. The settlers christened the newborn city Petoskey, the English translation of Petosegay.
Monday, December 4, 2006
PROUDLY PRESENTING
It was a long time coming, but here it is, the cover artwork for the first release on epram.rec!
In this limited-edition, vinyl-only debut, the professional ornithologists of WURLDBURDWURKURZ! will be sharing some of what their small feathered friends have been telling them over the last few years. We can hardly wait!
Wednesday, October 11, 2006
POE AS ROOMOLOGIST
Picked up Paul Auster's "The Brooklyn Follies" at the airport earlier today and was delighted to be pointed, on page 15, to Poe's roomological text "Philosophy of Furniture" - check it out for some strictly prescriptive guidance on interior design, including a withering assessment of curtain sensibilities in the Netherlands, and this wonderful paragraph on carpets:
"Carpets are better understood of late than of ancient days, but we still very frequently err in their patterns and colours. The soul of the apartment is the carpet. From it are deduced not only the hues but the forms of all objects incumbent. A judge at common law may be an ordinary man; a good judge of a carpet must be a genius. Yet we have heard discoursing of carpets, with the air "d'un mouton qui reve," fellows who should not and who could not be entrusted with the management of their own moustaches. Every one knows that a large floor may have a covering of large figures, and that a small one must have a covering of small - yet this is not all the knowledge in the world. As regards texture, the Saxony is alone admissible. Brussels is the preterpluperfect tense of fashion, and Turkey is taste in its dying agonies. Touching pattern - a carpet should not be bedizzened out like a Riccaree Indian - all red chalk, yellow ochre, and cock's feathers. In brief - distinct grounds, and vivid circular or cycloid figures, of no meaning, are here Median laws. The abomination of flowers, or representations of well-known objects of any kind, should not be endured within the limits of Christendom. Indeed, whether on carpets, or curtains, or tapestry, or ottoman coverings, all upholstery of this nature should be rigidly Arabesque. As for those antique floor-cloth & still occasionally seen in the dwellings of the rabble - cloths of huge, sprawling, and radiating devises, stripe-interspersed, and glorious with all hues, among which no ground is intelligible-these are but the wicked invention of a race of time-servers and money-lovers - children of Baal and worshippers of Mammon - Benthams, who, to spare thought and economize fancy, first cruelly invented the Kaleidoscope, and then established joint-stock companies to twirl it by steam."
Tuesday, August 22, 2006
PIECES & BITS
Continuing on the turriphiliac note, just found out about the custom in medieval Italy of rich families buildings towers to show their status. Most have not survived, but there are still 13 in San Gimignano in Tuscany (down from an original total of 72!). Here is the skyline:
Also recently discovered the Lindwurm legend of the Austrian city of Klagenfurt, where a swamp dragon is meant to have terrorized the population and dined on virgins, until the plan was devised to build a tower at the edge of the swamp, and to use a bull speared on a giant hook to catch the dragon. When it took the bait, brave fighters swarmed out from their hiding place in the tower and managed to kill the beast. The city's coat of arms features the tower and the dragon, and there is a stone sculpture of the "Lindwurm" dating from the 14th century in the main square (twinned with another sculpture, added a century later, of a slaying hero on a tower). Here it is being taken away for restoration...
Friday, July 21, 2006
POSTURE
To mark the current focus on turriphilia over at socialfiction, here's a picture of a dream tower discovered in Berlin during a recent walk.
It is apparently abandoned, presumably part of the old gasworks that will have been replaced by the two globes in the background, which themselves seem not to be in service. This place and its amazing atmosphere immediately sparked multiple fantasies about having a crowbar or gaining access through some kind of imposture. Would make a perfect HQ for a cross between "Turriphiliacs Anonymous" and the CQT...
Monday, January 16, 2006
PIGNOSE
I've always loved the Bessie Smith song "Pigfoot" - but I've never actually seen a pigfoot for sale. Came very close this weekend, stumbling across "honeyed pig's noses" for 99 cents a piece. In the background you can see that they do sell lamb's feet, for 1.99 each. This was a stall in a covered market here in Berlin selling petfood. The list of bodyparts on sale was long, but it included oesophagus ...
Friday, December 9, 2005
PAINTING TECHNIQUE
On the theme of patterns recognized, the following from Leonardo da Vinci's "Treatise On Painting":
"I cannot refrain from mentioning among these precepts a new device for the imagination, which, although it may seem rather trivial and almost ludicrous, is nevertheless extremely useful in arousing the mind to various inventions. And, this is, when you look at any walls spotted with stains, or with stones of various patterns, if you have to invent some setting, you may be able to see therein a resemblance to various landscapes, graced with mountains, rivers, rocks, trees, plains, wide valleys, and hills in varied arrangement; or, again, you may see battles and figures in action; or strange faces and costumes, and an endless variety of things, which you can distill into well-drawn forms. And what happens with regard to such walls and variegated stones is just as with the sound of bells, in whose jangle you may find any name or word you choose to imagine."
Thursday, November 24, 2005
PHENOMENAL
Today's post on the socialfiction blog concerning "entoptic phenomena" provides a fascinating new angle on the American astronomer Percival Lowell (the cover star of Issue #2 of epram.org's Abweichende Linienfuehrung pamphlets), who recently became a posthumous hero of cartographic freestyle when eye specialists diagnosed the patterns he saw on the surface of Venus, to which he devoted years of attention and study, as shadows of blood vessels and other structures in his retina, since modifications made to his telescope inadvertently caused it to act not unlike an ophthalmoscope... 
If only I had known the word "entoptic" back then ...
Monday, October 31, 2005
PROFESSOR
Epram.org is currently in orbit around the Crystalpunk Workshop for Soft Architecture taking place in Utrecht, to which Tao Sambolec early on submitted an idea for creating indoor rain. This struck a chord, recalling childhood glee at the silly antics of Professor Branestawm, created by Norman Hunter in the 1930s and congenially illustrated by W. Heath Robinson, that past master of roomological graphics. I have scanned in a few of the amazing drawings from "The Incredible Adventures of Professor Branestawm" (1933). First, the one that most reminded me of the indoor rain contraption:
In the first chapter of this first of many Branestawm books, the professor invents a time machine and travels back two years with his friend Colonel Dedshott to the middle of a battle, where they interfere in history and help a revolution succeed, whereas in actual fact the king put down the uprising. Here is the head of the rebels:
Here's the professor researching potential alternative sources of electricity while on holiday:
This is one of the beautiful scenarios Heath Robinson is so good at that his name has become an adjective for just such set-ups ("That's so Heath Robinson!"):
And here is something that will seem familiar to any Teletubbies fan, as Branestawm's pancake machine is undoubtedly the inspiration for the unruly appliance that occasionally spews out huge quantities of tubby toast:
Let's hear it for Norman Hunter, W. Heath Robinson and Professor Branestawm!! Crystalpunk avant la lettre ...
Monday, September 19, 2005
PSEPHOLOGICAL FREESTYLE (again)
While 77.7 percent of Germany's citizens were down at the polling station doing their democratic duty yesterday, epram.org was down at the fleamarket with the remaining 22.3 percent, and there was a 4-yr-old boy (lovingly watched over by his 10-yr-old sister) selling pebbles gleaned from a Baltic coast beach during his summer holidays. They were carefully divided into different groups, some allegedly had a "comforting shape", others would "get warm in your hand in five minutes" ... The going rate was 25 cents, and they were not going like hot cakes, but we bought several ...
Monday, August 15, 2005
PURSUIT AND TIE
Not sure if you'll need to sign up (free) with the New York Times to see this, but it's a beautiful cartoon by Barry Blitt of an armchair acrobat performing a death-defying feat of roomological self-deception in his pursuit of ignorance ...
Friday, August 5, 2005
POTENTIAL
Thanks to Agent Sesame (Moss Bank) for the link to this page of subway systems of the world, presented on the same scale, a piece of cartographic freestyle that would have fitted perfectly in Abweichende Linienführung.
Lots of other good stuff at fakeisthenewreal, too, including a great comparative timeline, like superimposed city tours, except this is navigating the life of Elvis via the history of U.S. involvement in SEA and vice versa - infinite potential for this very useful tool.
Tuesday, July 5, 2005
POUTING SPOUTS AND GUTTERSNIPES
In response to the gravely gorgeous post at socialfiction.org today, here's another gargoyle link sent to epram.org last week by Agent Rectangle (Brixton Moose).
I can't link directly to any pictures, but do check it out. Includes a delightful feature on 'The Birth of a Gargoyle'...
(of course, gargoyles are the favoured beasts of all turriphiliacs ...)
Friday, July 1, 2005
PSEPHOLOGICAL FREESTYLE
Those interested in the profoundly mind-altering potential of pebbles might like to check out this short story by Virginia Woolf entitled "Solid Objects" ...
Thursday, March 17, 2005
PEAK OF PEATINESS
At the crossroads between outlandish cartographic freestyle and desperation over the impossibility of describing the taste of an Islay malt that has been aged in oak for 16 years, check out this idea for visualizing tastebud impact ...
Map or compass? Guess I'll find out when I've had a dram or two ...
Tuesday, March 8, 2005
PBUH
In a Review of Mosque Architecture, the following nugget:
"The minaret is the tall needle-like column used to call for prayers (Adhan). Its height is mainly determined by how far the call is heard, a method which until recently did not require the modern amplifier. The minaret is also given a symbolic meaning giving the highest position to the declaration and attestation of faith, "Shahada". The declaration of "Allah is the greatest" and "there is no God except Him and Mohammed (pbuh) is His messenger", and the rest of the wording of Adhan is in fact a daily confession of Islam of that particular community or city. This noble meaning has been undermined by the articulation of skyscrapers, which dominate Muslim urban landscape including the city of Makkah itself."
Friday, February 18, 2005
PARTS & PARCELS
Received an announcement about an exhibition by Sophie Tottie that has as its title a useful piece of obscure map terminology:
"ISOLARION is the term used for the 15th century maps that describe specific areas in detail, but that do not provide a clarifying overview of how these places are related to each other on the face of earth."
Wednesday, January 5, 2005
PEPPERPOT PENANCE
The second oldest lighthouse in the UK, completed in 1328, is on the Isle of Wight. Originally, it was part of a larger building, but all that now remains is the tower itself, standing on the headland like a 14th-century space rocket.
More, including details of the not-entirely-turriphile motivation for its construction, here and here.
Monday, January 3, 2005
PRESERVATIONIST PAIN
For all you turriphiliacs out there, there's an interesting article in today's New York Times about Ernest Flagg and the Singer Tower, once New York's tallest building, and the tallest building ever demolished (in 1967) until 9/11:
"In the 1890's, Flagg had denounced the growing crop of skyscrapers, and by the turn of the 20th century he was horrified by the darkened streets and raw side walls produced by such buildings. But in the rough and tumble of New York real estate, the opinions of a Paris-trained architect had low priority, and Flagg shifted his focus to reforming skyscraper design.There is also an earlier article by Flagg among the documents in the ever-excellent online urban planning resource put together by John W. Reps.
The earliest tall buildings had risen directly from the edges of their plots, presenting bulky fronts and unattractive rears. In a 1907 article in The Times, Flagg lamented the resulting "wild-Western appearance." He urged that skyscraper towers more than 10 or 15 stories high should be set back from the property lines, so that the tower occupied only one-quarter of the lot. All four sides could then be treated architecturally, and "we should soon have a city of towers instead of a city of dismal ravines," as Flagg put it in the article."
Tuesday, November 30, 2004
PIPPED AT THE POST
Even as the wheels of epram.org grind to a seeming halt, the insatiable curiosity of socialfiction.org surges onward in all directions, not stopping short of doing other people's research for them. Today's post on the socialfiction blog is one that should have been *here* weeks if not months ago: the translation of that piece of cartographic freestyle by Novalis (for source see original post):
"Men travel in manifold paths: whoso traces and compares these, will find strange Figures come to light; Figures which seem as if they belonged to that great Cipher-writing which one meets with everywhere, on wings of birds, shells of eggs, in clouds, in the snow, in crystals, in forms of rocks, in freezing waters, in the interior and exterior of mountains, of plants, animals, men, in the lights of the sky, in plates of glass and pitch when touched and struck on, in the filings round the magnet, and the singular conjunctures of Chance. In such Figures one anticipates the key to that wondrous Writing, the grammar of it; but this Anticipation will not fix itself into shape, and appears as if, after all, it would not become such a key for us. An Alcahest seems poured out over the senses of men. Only for a moment will their wishes, their thoughts thicken into form. Thus do their Anticipations arise; but after short whiles, all is again swimming vaguely before them, even as it did.Apart from expressing my deep gratitude for this find, any further comment on this text will have to wait ...
Sunday, November 7, 2004
PERTINENT
In response to the posting of a T.E. Hulme quotation on the socialfiction.org blog yesterday, here is a pertinent statement by the same writer concerning the poetics of the pedestrian (or vice versa) as a foretaste of some comments that may follow here some day about the geopoetics of Kenneth White and other related thoughts:
"Visual meanings can only be transferred by the new bowl of metaphor; prose is an old pot that lets them leak out. Images in verse are not mere decoration, but the very essence of an intuitive language. Verse is a pedestrian taking you over the ground, prose--a train which delivers you at a destination."(Thanks once again to Agent Clout for pointing out this nugget.)
Friday, September 24, 2004
POINTY-LISTIC
Stumbling around in the Circassian outback, I just happened upon this great example of vernacular turriphilia:
(For some reason, the picture won't always load here, but it is there: see it by right-clicking on the "broken image" icon to "view image".)
Friday, July 30, 2004
PALEONTOGRAPHY
epram.org is grateful to Agent Clout (Oxen Berry) for passing on this piece of vintage cartographic freestyle by the German Romantic poet Novalis (Friedrich von Hardenberg, 1772-1801):
"Mannigfache Wege gehen die Menschen. Wer sie verfolgt und vergleicht, wird wunderliche Figuren entstehen sehn; Figuren, die zu jener großen Chiffernschrift zu gehören scheinen, die man überall, auf Flügeln, Eierschalen, in Wolken, im Schnee, in Kristallen und in Steinbildungen, auf gefrierenden Wassern, im Innern und Äußern der Gebirge, der Pflanzen, der Tiere, der Menschen, in den Lichtern des Himmels, auf berührten und gestrichenen Scheiben von Pech und Glas, in den Feilspänen um den Magnet her, und sonderbaren Konjunkturen des Zufalls, erblickt. In ihnen ahndet man den Schlüssel dieser Wunderschrift, die Sprachlehre derselben, allein die Ahndung will sich selbst in keine feste Formen fügen, und scheint kein höherer Schlüssel werden zu wollen. Ein Alkahest scheint über die Sinne der Menschen ausgegossen zu sein. Nur augenblicklich scheinen ihre Wünsche, ihre Gedanken sich zu verdichten. So entstehen ihre Ahndungen, aber nach kurzen Zeiten schwimmt alles wieder, wie vorher, vor ihren Blicken." (from 'Die Lehrlinge zu Sais', 1798-1799)Will try to find or do a translation of this soon. The many geological references are probably due to Novalis having a day job on the administrative staff at a salt mine.
Following up on the word "Alkahest" - in true Cerotto di Intonaco style - led to the English translation of one of Balzac's novels, originally entitled "La Recherche de L'Absolue" ... (to be continued) ...
Thursday, June 3, 2004
PLAYGROUNDISM
Following the subliminal emergence and final explicit expression of socialfiction.org's interest in vernacular architecture, it is time to mention the phenomenon of "adventure (or junk) playgrounds", something epram.org has been pondering for a while now as an oft-seen real-world version of what so many urban theorists etc. have done on paper or as models, i.e. desire-driven building in constant flux (or something to that effect).
There are countless playgrounds of this kind, many have websites where you can see what they look like. Here's a picture of a vernacular disco built at RaBauKi playground in Siegen, Germany:
Found a few things about this topic online, including the following quote from the landscape architect C.Th. Sorenson, who observed children playing on building sites and went on to develop the first junk playgrounds, or "Skrammellegeplads", that opened in Denmark in 1943, later developing into the "Byggelegepladser" (building playgrounds):
"Children quickly tire of the inflexible iron-mongery of fixed playground equipment. Static objects have a place in the total play picture but alone they are not enough. Children soon tired of these novelties went back to their more exciting play in the streets, or found more creative amusement on wasteland. Here at least they could move things around to their liking build houses with old bricks, and timber; and light a fire or channel muddy ditch water into rivulets and pools.Also worth a look is the article Beyond Playgrounds for a historical (if slightly Illinois-centric) account.
Thursday, June 3, 2004
PATHLESSNESS
In an interview in 1970, Robert Smithson, creator of "Spiral Jetty", refers to an intellectual dispute known as "The Mountain Controversy" according to which "for a long time people thought mountains were evil because they were so proud compared to the humble valleys". The Dictionary of the History of Ideas has a chapter on this, including a discussion of Thomas Burnet, author of the seminal "Sacred Theory of the Earth" (1684):
No previous writer had felt or shown anything approaching Burnet's mountain-paradoxes. A majority of preceding writers had been uninterested in hills or mountains, some had actively disliked them, a few had shown momentary response to "Mountain Glory," but among all previous writers interest in mountains had been secondary. In Burnet it was primary. His theory had developed as a result of his experience in 1671 of making the Grand Tour with the Earl of Wiltshire, to whom he dedicated the first edition of Telluris theoria sacra. When he crossed the Alps and Apennines, "the Sight of those wild, vast and indigested Heaps of Stones and Earth did so deeply stir my Fancy, that I was not easy until I could give my self some tolerable Account how that Confusion came in Nature."From the start, this debate appears to have been shaped by the mindset of the thinkers involved, by vertigo and by the landscape in which they grew up:
On the question of mountain-origin and the place of hills in the scheme of things, the two greatest Reformation thinkers stood opposed. Their dual attitudes were in part a result of psychological factors (as indeed may have been true of various of their predecessors) since Calvin spent many years among Swiss mountains, while Luther was a lowlander whose one journey over mountains filled him with terror. Calvin would never agree that Nature was other than beautiful. He did not believe that God had cursed the earth. Ugliness read into her was the result of man's lapsed condition. Nature, created by God, was beautiful; Calvin's belief that original Nature included mountains is shown by his map of Paradise in the Geneva Bible (1560). With Augustine he acknowledged that some of the original earth had been damaged by the Flood, yet beauty remained even though the wilfully blinded eyes of man could not behold it.Interestingly, some of the anguish experienced as a result of these religious positions was the result of translation difficulties, something Luther knew all about, with a crucial exegetical difference resulting from the difference between "terra" and "humus".
So far as such matters were concerned, Luther's theology was consistently pessimistic. In his commentary on Genesis he went further than most predecessors in his gloom. Adam and Eve, Cain and multitudes of men had sinned before God sent the Flood to wipe out most of mankind. Luther specifically mentioned the emergence of diluvian mountains where fields and fruitful plains had once flourished. Since the Deluge, man has continued to sin; in the not too distant future Luther anticipated the destruction of all mankind and the death of the world. Following in general Augustine's conception of the seven ages of man, Luther insisted that the world would not complete its sixth age. He dated the end of the world as approximately 1560. "The last day is already breaking.... The world will perish shortly." The earth, in itself innocent, has been forced to bear man's curse. The world degenerates and grows worse every day. Luther's is an intensely pessimistic picture.
Without wanting to go to absurd lengths here, it is interesting, as everyone talks about the "Passage of Venus" and the birth of modern astronomy, to think about the similarly tortuous "Kopfgeburt" of modern geology ...
Friday, May 21, 2004
PROSOPOPOEIA
Been looking through the online catalogue for last year's auction of the entire contents of André Breton's apartment at 42 Rue Fontaine in Paris, and came across this photo taken by Helen Levitt at an unspecified location in New York City around 1950 - perhaps it is the belated epram.org contribution to the psy.geo CONFLUX ...
Tuesday, March 23, 2004
PATCHWORK
As I suspected, these volkswalkers have a whole different angle on documentation - just keep sewing on those patches and everyone can read you like a book (unfortunately, the photo is cropped so we can't see his hatpins!). And judging by the look of this venerable volkswalker at the Tulsa Oktoberfest, it really does do you good ... (besides medieval pilgrims, what comes to mind most here is the system of proficiency badges awarded within the scouting movement, which are also worn all over the uniform, so that you know immediately what skills another person has, quite efficient in a swarm brain kind of way) ...
Monday, March 22, 2004
PUNCTURING
During further research into the hatpin business, I came across a "bawdy cockney song" entitled "Never Go Walking Out Without Your Hat Pin".
Don't you just love the way search engines so swiftly solve so many of life's riddles ...
Sunday, March 21, 2004
POPULARISTIC
Plans to launch a collaborative peripatatic jukebox were scuppered this evening by the discovery of just such a list of songs about walking. That chapter is now closed, except to say that the song that would have topped my chart, "The Way I Walk" by The Cramps, was not on the list.
However, the same page includes a reference to something called "volksmarching," which was new to me. Following this up, I found the following definition:
"Volksmarch - a walking event. Also termed volkswalk. In Germany, these events were originally termed Volkswanderung - "volkswandering." Reportedly this was difficult for American military stationed in Germany to understand and so they started using the term Volksmarsch. It evolved into Volksmarch in the United States. Those feeling that the term was too foreign, coined the word - Volkswalk."Browsing further on the sites of the American Volkssport Association (AVA) and its parent organization, the Internationaler Volkssportverband (IVV), more revelations awaited me ...
When I first read John Burroughs' essay "Footpaths" (1881), the following phrase puzzled me: "But no good can come out of this walking mania that is now sweeping over the country, simply because it is a mania and not a natural and wholesome impulse. It is a prostitution of the noble pastime." But then, in the about.com brief history of walking article, the following explanation:
"1860-1903: the Pedestrian Age - walking is the leading sport in Europe and America. Big money comes to walking as long distance walkers earn more per race than today's basketball players, the equivalent of 100 years of salary of the day."Looking at the IVV website, I then found that this craze had indeed continued to flourish, and that the foundation of the IVV was motivated by increasingly harsh conditions within the sport, excluding all amateurs and even leading to several deaths through exhaustion. The IVV was formed in 1968 to promote non-competitive walking events. Initially, it tried to join the German Athletics Federation, but was dismissed as a "bunch of flaneurs" (Spaziergänger). Although I suspect that John Burroughs would not have liked this friendly, non-competitive sport any better than the hardcore version of his day, might the practice of volksmarching render people more susceptible to the delights of algorithmic walks, superimposed city tours and the like? Judging by their various websites, volkswalkers certainly see themselves as part of the same tradition (see history link above).
And finally, on an anthropological note: one interesting detail is the custom among these walkers of issuing hatpins (yes, hatpins) as souvenirs of their walks:
"Hatpin - Especially in the Northwest, people enjoy collecting hatpins from the various walks they attend. These souvenirs are not awards, and can be purchased in any quantity desired and without participating in the event. Many events offer both an award and a hatpin. Remember that the award must be earned. To confuse you further, please note that some awards are actually pins.... but usually are larger than a hatpin."One can imagine this as a potential solution to the dilemma of documentation: a hat full of hatpins as a wearable encrypted record of one's walks, readily decipherable to those in the know. Not unlike the pilgrim's badges of the Middle Ages.
Must check out the supply situation here in Berlin. Maybe soon there will be epram.org hatpins ...
Saturday, March 20, 2004
PIXELACHE
Exciting news: in 10 days' time, epram.org will be taking part in a locative media workshop focusing attention on the Rautatieasema in Helsinki, a railway station unlike any other.
To celebrate this, instead of speculating about what this trip might bring, here's a sneak preview of an upcoming addition to the WALKAHOLICS ANONYMOUS section of the epram.org website, sighted last week in Berlin's Wedding district and posted here on behalf of a compulsive rambler who would prefer to remain nameless.
Thursday, March 18, 2004
PERSPECTIVE
Urgent message to all readers of this blog:
drop everything and go read the OOP-P MANIFESTO (blog entry for Thursday, March 18, 2004). It might change your life ...
Tuesday, March 9, 2004
PROCRASTINATION
Although I have masses of stuff to be blogging about, all my spare time is currently being squandered on playing TETRIS at the site Wilfried posted the other day. When I've beaten the current high score of 30 million, I'll be back with exciting news about what epram.org is up to.
Just one thing though: did you know that TETRIS was originally developed as a form of remedial treatment for people with chronic turriphilia? Some incurable cases have even doubled their pleasure by playing the game on actual tower blocks ...
Friday, February 27, 2004
PARTICIPATION
Copies of "Abweichende Linienführung - Jenseits der Stammstrecke" will be on show at the Nomads + Residents' "Traveling Magazine Table" in NYC and elsewhere
http://www.artingeneral.org/ScriptFrameSet.html?http://www.artingeneral.org/aig/resources/nomads.htm
If you know anyone who has similar publications, pass it on ...
Wednesday, February 18, 2004
PAPER CANOE
Found this book at Project Gutenberg the other day:
http://www.gutenberg.net/browse/BIBREC/BR1082.HTM
Account of an amazing voyage of 2500 miles, from Quebeck to the Gulf of Mexico, during the years 1874-5, by Nathaniel Bishop, dedicated with overwhelming courtesy to the cartographers who helped it succeed.
A couple of quotes from the introduction (all i've read so far):
"TO THE SUPERINTENDENT, ASSISTANTS, AIDS, AND ALL EMPLOYEES OF THE UNITED STATES COAST SURVEY BUREAU, THE "VOYAGE OF THE PAPER CANOE" IS RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED, AS A SLIGHT EVIDENCE OF THE APPRECIATION BY ITS AUTHOR FOR THEIR INTELLIGENT EFFORTS AND SELF-DENYING LABORS IN THE SERVICE OF THEIR COUNTRY, SO PATIENTLY AND SKILFULLY PERFORMING, UNDER MANY DIFFICULTIES AND DANGERS."
"The maps, which show the route followed by the paper canoe, have been drawn and engraved by contract at the United States Coast Survey Bureau, and are on a scale of 1/1,500,000. As the work is based on the results of actual surveys, the maps may be considered, for their size, the most complete of the United States coast ever presented to the public."
When i've finished the book, I'll post a review here (if this blog is still up and running by then) - anyone out there already read it?
Wednesday, February 18, 2004
PATHETIC
Having suddenly discovered an unused block of time in my daily schedule, I decided to give this a try. Now, instead of always mailing interesting links and discoveries to Wilfried at socialfiction.org to put on his blog, I'll stick them here straight away.
Interested to see where this goes, if anywhere - not sure i'm much of a natural born blogger ...