Evan Hadfield’s Rare Earth channel was on a combined vacation / COVID break / existential reassessment but is now back and this 9 minute video is the second of the newest episodes. It examines one particular aspect of the fusion of Mayan and European cultures in Guatemala, about which I know absolutely nothing, so Hadfield could be handing us a load of hooey yet what would I know? But Hadfield’s presentation is interesting if not colorful and now I can pretend that I know something about Central America beyond anything B. Traven wrote. Furthermore, as Hadfield put it: “Maximon was a wild thing to stumble across. Who knew that God could be so unassuming?”
Month: January 2022
Sidney Poitier: Nobody You Can Boss Around
Sidney Poitier: a class act…
In the 10 days since we learned of Sidney Poitier’s death there have been hundreds of tributes to Poitier—an undeniable icon. Most of these tributes have focused on Poitier’s brilliant acting, for which he received innumerable awards, as well as his advocacy for Civil Rights. As CNN notes, for example, in 1963 Poitier joined Harry Belafonte on a dangerous mission to fund Civil Rights work in Mississippi.
Many tributes also acknowledge Poitier’s humble beginnings. The youngest of seven, Poitier grew up in the Bahamas, without electricity and running water. His parents were tomato farmers who traveled to Miami by boat in order to sell their produce. On one of those trips, Poitier’s mother was pregnant with him and gave birth while on the job in Miami, making him a US citizen.
In 1937, when Poitier was 15 years old, his parents sent him to the United States to live…
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citiblossoms
Photo / graphic by Roman.
Early Puddle
Photo / graphic by Roman.
But really, puddles are always in season in Chicago…
Hollow
Photo / Graphic by Roman.
Up!
Photo / graphic by Roman.
“…on such a winter’s day…”
Go Away
Photo / graphic by Roman.
I’m not sure what it is about fences and real estate. One has to wonder if it is anything like boxes (really, any shape delimited) and cats: If I fits, I sits. And why do people feel more secure, or at least less vulnerable, when presented with a fence? At least property managers seem to think so. For my part, fenced property implies a lack of security, that there is a real threat in the neighborhood to life or property. It’s no accident that all the buildings I’ve lived in have not had fences, at least when I moved in, even if they had other arrangements for channelling traffic.
In this case, there was a climb-resistant fence with an overhang to make over-topping a challenge and with cameras as witnesses. It doesn’t exactly say “friendly neighborhood” does it?
But that wasn’t really what got my attention. It was what the fence did to the sunlight at close angles. I might have messed with contrast and brightness, but I took a different route to simplify the image…
“Chado”
If I were to say the Child’s day began well enough but then everything just fell apart, further complicated by serious Mother — Daughter issues… Well! The video wouldn’t sound like much fun. But this short video from Dominica Harrison has some amazing, demented animation. The screen full of awards is absolutely no surprise. Judge for yourself:
Weather Report
I’ve not done any reviews lately, so let me pretend to do one by merely introducing you to a new product from the National Weather Service: the Winter Weather Liason. It’s experimental and maybe not fully functional, but a web portal to current winter storm conditions is a nice and useful idea, me thinks. Here is a screenshot of the home page on Friday, 12.31.2021:
Note that in addition to local radar and storm reports, it also has a page of strategic traffic/weather CAMS
I’m looking forward to how this site works today and how it develops over time.
Yip Abides 