Liens du Moment: 2/19

Posted on February 19, 2008 by Varg

Sharon Jasper has been Snopified
Welfare Queen decries Public Housing
Snopes

Preservation Hall’s John Brunious obituary from the New York Times
John Brunious, 67, Louisiana Trumpeter, Is Dead
NY Times

I wonder why this and Sunday’s Decatur street shooting aren’t mentioned among the many claims of the NBA All Star game being such a lovely weekend?
Tank Arrested Amid Claims of Police Brutality
contactmusic

Times-Picayune series on coastal erosion won and evironmental reporting award. I remember this series and it was quite deserving of the honer. Conragtulations to Times-Pic staffers Bob Marshall, Mark Schleifstein, and Matt Brown. Exalt to Dan Swenson who programmed and designed this awesome flash interactive map.
‘L.A. Times,’ ‘Times-Picayune’ Win Environmental Reporting Award
Editor and Publisher

“The LIGO facility is 5-miles long and is located in Livingston, Louisiana”
LIGO Livingston Observatory
LIGO

3 thoughts on “Liens du Moment: 2/19”

maitri says:

February 20, 2008 at 3:21 pm

Not only is Livingston Parish home to the national headquarters of the KKK, it contains one of the world’s 15 laser interferometry grav wave observatories, one of 2 in the US! I was floored when Mark Folse told me about this a while back, but it makes sense given that each site requires flatness and expanse.
Varg says:

February 20, 2008 at 6:40 pm

As soon as I get a free weekday I’m going up for the tour. I’ll try to avoid Mr. Ayak though. Bummer about the eclipse.
candice says:

February 20, 2008 at 7:39 pm

Varg, my parents just went (tours for adults are on Fridays, by the way) and they loved it. Said they had the science museum part of the place to themselves.

Also, apparently the main equipment is being upgraded right now, so to see things in action, better to wait until summer.

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Rejoice!

I say that a lot. I sign many pieces with it. I do this because I believe our lives are a true happenstance. A brilliant occurence from nothingness. We are so rare. We are so unlikely. And simply being born isn’t enough. From there we must survive, endure. So each morning, after our Sun departs and is reborn again. Please, for the sake of your ancestors and the Universe in general, hoist that cup of joe up and say, “Rejoice.”

Ours is a soulful existence. No matter how many McMansions, polyester fabrics, auto-tunes, modified foods and social networks we surround ourselves with, we are all still native, passionate beings made of ancient matter. We are organic and we have soul.

Wood also has a warm, soulful quality. Wood has a memory. It retains smells, traumas, events. It even has a calendar. This is why I have chosen it as my medium, for its old soul. I like to think the wood in my work is in its third incarnation. First a tree, then a home and now art. If you have a room that needs a little soul, get a piece. A room can never have enough soul.

My inspiration and subject matter comes from many sources, among them: Humanism, old ballads, trickster tales, flora and fauna, science, myths and folklore, stringed instruments, brass bands, amber spirits, lady vocalists, general relativity and quantum mechanics. Some of my pieces are there just to make a short, simple statement about what’s important in life. Some are more diffuse and abstract in meaning. A personal drama, an enduring line from a poem or novel, a poignant song lyric, the legacy of an important person, a fleeting thought … these are the subjects of my art.

I use hearts often because they are a very abstract way of depicting the human soul without also employing the very subjective human form. The symbolic heart is an apt representation for a person’s experience and essence. A body can immediatly conjure happiness, sorrow, youth, age, anger, bliss. These emotions can get in the way. Sometimes it’s simply about the experience.

I am the son of a sailor and a social worker, the grandson of a gypsy, a dancer and a nurse. I spent my youth moving from port city to port city, watching a lot of road go by and reading World Book Encyclopedia. After my parents settled down on the Gulf Coast, I was a miscreant youth, destroying cars and taking the wrongs things too seriously and the right things not serious enough. Eventually I began replacing my imagination with experience.

I will use any salvaged wood but prefer swamp cypress and longleaf heartwood pine.

I despise waste. Particularly the waste of organic matter. Trees are magnificent. They were here before we arrived and they’ll be around after we are gone. I’m making an effort to save as much wood as possible. Creating art is fun too. But beyond communicating with folks, but beyond making money ad providing for myself, beyond rescuing flooded parts, beyond reveling in the ethereal aroma of heartpine that hasn’t seen the light of day in 400 years, beyond all that, I am trying to make a simple comment on waste.