Wednesday, August 13, 2008

contemporary architecture

Ah, milkweeds in the summertime & their white plant sap.

Yui and I found ample insects in the field the other day. The Oncopeltus love this plant as much as the Papilio. I'm taken with the filigree of the circulatory, trusses and braces. Buckminster ain't got nothing on that.

Tuesday, August 12, 2008

prevencion de accidentes (armas de fuego)

As an addendum to the last post involving firearms, I want to just add two cautionary images from a didactic sheet meant for children in Mexico called "Prevencion de Accidentes" that I picked up in a stationary store down in Guanajuato this summer.

There are many accidents given as examples in these sheets: skateboarding in the street, playing with gasoline, cutting towards rather than away from you, etc., but the gun ones seemed apropos to the moment in the Various Stream.

In the one, the mother looks concerned she might in fact be getting done in by her teenage son, who has a particularly unsettling look on his face. In the other,the father almost seems to be inviting a certain form of disaster - although maybe he always has his kid load in pistol before starting the work day?

The recent Supreme Court ruling overturning the historical ban on handguns in DC is worrying enough that perhaps we should be distributing similar accident prevention sheets around - plastering them everywhere next to ones that also read something like "shooting people is for sissies."

Monday, August 11, 2008

pull!

Summer + rural Illinois = a rare opportunity this last weekend. Visiting with friends downstate means new things, and the thing this time was skeet shooting. Walter was kind and generous enough to take me out. My feeling about firearms can be mixed, but I did enjoy shooting at the fluorescent "clay pigeons" as the flew about in the air - apparently these things are supposed to be "fragile as eggs" - I'd say they are even moreso.

Skeet, or "trap," is also a Olympic sport including at the current Beijing Games. Oh yes, and the newest event this time around? > here

The video below shows that my aim wasn't always spot on - I guess that is what makes it a sport, after all?