Art Culture Politics
-
Stain? Ghost?
Searching to find out why leaves makes these stains on concrete, I find a lot of webpages dedicated to getting rid of them (bleach, blech!). I love the things! And find them deeply satisfying. In a cursory search, I didn’t get much further than the organic pigments in the leaf become embedded in the concrete’s…
-
Shaggy
Shagbark Hickory (Carya ovata) is one of the great trees of the eastern forests. This distinctive peely bark makes them easy to distinguish from most of the other species of native North American hickories. However, the Shellbark (C. laciniosa) is also known as Bigleaf Shagbark; its uncommon in rich bottom lands in the arteries of…
-
Thoreau’s Birthday
“I saw Brooks Clark, who is now about eighty and bent like a bow, hastening along the road, barefooted, as usual, with an axe in his hand; was in haste perhaps on account of the cold wind on his bare feet. When he got up to me, I saw that besides the axe in one…
-
George Bird Grinnell and Others
I went up to Woodlawn Cemetery to visit the grave of Herman Melville, and I stumbled upon George Bird Grinnell. Grinnell was born in Brooklyn and tutored by Lucy Bakewell Audubon, widow of John James, at the Audubon home in upper Manhattan. He started the first Audubon organization, believing the name should live on. Bird…
-
Declarations of No
Happy Fourth of July! The Revolution being unfinished, this may be a good time to consider the power of saying “no.” The collective power of it, I mean, for individual acts of rebellion are largely useless. History shows us over and over again that only the gathered power of people can counteract the power of…
-
Audacity
While in the Native Flora Garden the other day, I was surprised to find this, part of a series of stylish new informational panels:Actually, the BBG terminated its science staff last August, the final act of a long-term whittling away of the whole unprofitable notion of research at the institution that began with the new…
-
Mushroom Print
One of Lois Long’s lithographs for the collaborative work, Mushroom Book, she and John Cage created in 1972. It’s on display at the Horticultural Society of NY until Thursday. Cage was instrumental in re-starting the modern incarnation of New York Mycological Society. I was at “The Hort” to hear a lecture on using mushrooms for…
-
Notes for Further Reading and Doing
Reading: Rob Jett’s ebook The Red-tailed Hawk Journals: A City Birder in Brooklyn is now available. Rob has been documenting the Red-tails of Brooklyn for more than a decade and tells how he first came to these adventures. It’s a great story. Liam Heneghan has written a fine essay on the #1000UrbanMiles project he instigated.…
-
Audubon Part II
The second of three John James Audubon exhibits is up at the New-York Historical Society. These are the original watercolors JJA did for his printer in England. Go! (I snapped a few details before being busted by museum security; since I wasn’t using a flash, I thought it would be ok.)It was a curious experience…
-
He Xie
Ai Weiwei’s He Xie of 2010. At the Brooklyn Museum’s Ai Weiwei: According to What? exhibit, which just opened and runs through August 10th. The phrase “he xie” means river crabs — these are made of porcelain — and is also slang for the Chinese state’s censorship of the internet, because it sounds like the…
Backyard and Beyond 