Weekly Photo Challenge: Fresh
In honor of the first day of Spring, March 21.
Posts tagged ‘weekly photo challenge’
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Writing on the Wall?
Almost every civilization, including our democratic society, has constructed walls, mostly for keeping the “other” out. Sometimes the “other” is an enemy, where conquering, exploiting and enslaving citizens becomes the objective. In other cases, walls are built to keep out those whom society deems as undesirable.
A wall never works. Technology eventually catches up and produces mechanisms to scale the ramparts. Past civilizations continued to build higher and stronger fortresses, but eventually these walls were breached and societies fall, as opponents becomes hell-bent in destroying the barrier. Walls carve a separation that perpetuates the wounds on both sides, and the effects of the wall continue to influence people’s lives in terrifying ways.
Our ancestors have been on both sides of the wall, as conquer and vanquished. Will we ever be able to deconstruct the barriers in our minds to realize peaceful coexistence with our neighbors and put a stop to our perpetual compulsion of building and destroying walls?
Before I built a wall I’d ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out,
And to whom I was like to give offence.
–Robert Frost, Mending Wall
St. Malo, walled city in Brittany, France. Built in the 12thC, rebuilt in the 17thC, destroyed during WWII, and again rebuilt by 1960.
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Orange on White, Like a Creamsicle
Photograph rebloged from J. R. Blackwell, photographer for Philadelphia Weekly.
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Weekly Photo Challenge: Binge on Orange
Orange is that funny color that either burnishes into a soft and soothing tone or shouts out its presence. Either way, we can count on orange to catch our eye.
Reward . . . Of Fostering a Cat
When my son asked if I could take in a homeless cat, I paused because I didn’t have familiarity with cats. In addition, she was pregnant. I had no idea what would be involved in looking after this animal and her perspective brood.
I needn’t have worried. Mamma cat did everything right, giving birth and taking care of her seven kittens. Our reward for taking her in . . .
We kept Momma cat and Sweetie Bumpkins (on the left), and we were lucky to find good homes for the other kittens.
Celebrating Symmetry in Needlework
My grandmother probably never thought of herself as mathematician, yet she had an understanding of rotational, translational and reflective symmetry. Fiber arts, especially as practiced by women, was seriously neglected in the cannons of artistic works until the 1970s. The feminist movement brought attention to the culture of women’s lives and their contributions as craftspersons and artists. Many women created quilts and other fabric art in hardship by gathering and sewing together little pieces of cloth, sometimes transforming even rags into art for their home.
I have no familiarity with mathematical subjects of plane and spacial symmetries, but I do know that nothing makes a room look more cozy than a quilt on a bed.
Scale: The “Big Chair” and the Metaphor
What’s the big deal about a chair? Actually, this chair is so big, about four times larger than a typical chair, and it’s a work of art that has taken on a life of its own. Jake Beckman, a student at Swarthmore College, conceived and built the original chair, which found a place among the other standard-sized Adirondack chairs that dot the stretch of lawn in front of the main hall on campus. Even The Colbert Report featured a segment about the famous chair.
Several years ago the original chair fell apart and was discreetly removed from the lawn. However, the campus community, becoming attached to the Big Chair, clamored to bring the chair back. Jake agreed to return to rebuild the structure, and the chair resumed its place with the others.
I guess I wasn’t the only one beginning to think metaphorically about the Big Chair. Some unnamed inventives would come by during the night leaving the chairs in different arrangements, such as the Big Chair leading a line of the other chairs or the Big Chair in the middle of a circle. One morning the Big Chair stood upright while a semicircle of normal chairs tipped down in front of the Big Chair.
Now I was thinking hard. The chairs assumed the metaphor for power dynamics . . . and not just at Swarthmore! I thought about “Big Chair” people, folks that tell us what to do or think: politicians, pundits, advertisers, bosses, CEOs, presidents, board of directors . . . and I’m sure you can think of many more. Do we perceive these folks as big in influence, power, authority, and wealth and get drawn into a mindset that binds us to a deferential attitude? Many normal chairs sit on the lawn–there is strength in numbers when we act collectively. And normal-sized chairs serve a real function. We wouldn’t make 25 more Big Chairs!
On reflection, perhaps we do need the Big Chair–reminding us to keep the right perspective.
Depth of Feeling
Several years ago a friend invited to me attend a circus, as her company provided free admission to employees and their guests. I hadn’t been to a circus since I was a child, so I had few expectations of what the show might bring.
During one of the acts, the elephants reared up, one after the other, the hot, glaring lights reflecting off their skin. The bright spotlights washed out some of the color and the creatures appeared as stark images under the harsh lamps. The circus transformed into melancholy display, as I had become a spectator to another view of the performance.
UPDATE: March 6, 2015, Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus to Phrase Out Elephant Acts.
More stories about elephants:
Elephants Reunited
Newspaper Article Describing Training 1930s
ASPCA Circus Cruelty
Should Animal Circuses be Banned
Elephants
Sonnet & Shadow: Weekly Photo Challenge
Sonnet XCVIII
From you have I been absent in the spring,
When proud pied April, dressed in all his trim,
Hath put a spirit of youth in every thing,
That heavy Saturn laughed and leapt with him.
Yet nor the lays of birds, nor the sweet smell
Of different flowers in odour and in hue,
Could make me any summer’s story tell,
Or from their proud lap pluck them where they grew:
Nor did I wonder at the lily’s white,
Nor praise the deep vermilion in the rose;
They were but sweet, but figures of delight,
Drawn after you, you pattern of all those.
Yet seemed it winter still, and you away,
As with your shadow I with these did play.– William Shakespeare
Psalmboxkey's Blog 
Written
on 03/20/2015