Confronting Having and Not Having

Often I hear various kinds of facts and figures to make sense of affluence and poverty at the international level. But this series of photographs of families in a variety of countries, along with their weekly food intake and its cost, makes the comparison more real than most. These images capture not only size of the intake but also its nutritional value.

For Aussies reading this, the dollar amounts are American. Currently $US1 = $A1.136 or $A1 = $US0.88.

Italy : The Manzo family of Sicily - Food Expenditure for one week is 214.36 Euros or $260.11


Germany : The Melander family of Bargteheide - Food Expenditure for one week is 375.39 Euros or $500.97


US : The Revis family of North Carolina - Food Expenditure for one week is $341.98


Mexico : The Casales family of Cuernavaca - Food Expenditure for one week is 1,862.78 Pesos or $189.09


Poland : The Sobczynscy family of Konstancin-Jeriorna - Food Expenditure for one week is 582 Zlotys or $151.27


Egypt : The Ahmed family of Cairo - Food Expenditure for one week is 387.85 Pounds or $68.53


Ecuador : The Ayme family of Tingo - Food Expenditure for one week is $31.55


Butan : The Namgay family of Shingkhey Village- Food Expenditure for one week is 224.93 Ngultrum or $5.03


Chad : The Aboubakar family of Breidjing Camp - Food Expenditure for one week is 685 CFA Francs or $1.23

That a family in Chad is only able to spend $1.23 a week on food is quite shattering!

Pictures of people, particularly in the context of their families, make such inequities of wealth real and palpable!

Descent into the Bottom of the Garden - A Safari

Apart from lizards, cicadas, grass hoppers, different types of beetles, slaters, ants, a type of burrowing grub, millipedes, wasps, cockroaches, moths, mosquitoes, lady birds, dragon flies ... and so on and on and on, my bonsai-bijou garden is visited nearly every day by the most amazing number of different bird species - Indian Minors, sparrows, finches, honey-eaters ... and the following, captured by my trusty digital camera ...







Can you spot the elusive blue bird in the last photograph? On the branch, extreme bottom left.

Of course, no self-respecting garden fails to be stocked with a squillion types of spiders. Even of the poisonous variety - as evidenced in a recent raid by this deadly red back.


Less deadly dragon flies and and ladybird beetles also pop in less threateningly from time to time.



But nevertheless I'm now seeing venturing into the garden more like going on safari ...


... and wonder whether I need the safari jacket, pants and (most importantly) safari pith helmet?

Well, maybe only a butterfly net ...

Matisse 'Boy with Butterfly Net' 1907 - Minneapolis Institute of Arts

... to go with the trusty Nokia E90!

Hidden Image Stereograms

Two Dolphins

Stare at this image - let your eyes go out of focus and try to look 'through' the picture, allowing a flat back ground to withdraw to the back and three dimensional figure/s come forward. You'll see two dolphins! Best to first click on the image and enlarge it - makes it easier to see the creatures.

There are two 'sets' of information in this image that allows your brain to translate the flat representationless image into the three dimensional picture of dolphins.

This hidden image stereogram is based on the principle of the stereoscope of Charles Wheatstone (1838). The viewer looked through the invention at two photographs of the same subject, but photographs taken from slightly different positions.


The two slightly different photos fed slightly different information to each eye. And the brain put all the information together into a three dimensional image.

Here are a few more stereograms...

Saturn and its Rings

Shark

Vase with Leaves

Two Dinosaurs

Don't be disheartened if at first you don't succeed. Just try try again. The key seems to be to really relax - a glass of wine or beer might help.

By the way, which stereogram/s did you like best? My faves are Saturn, and the dolphins.

Things that Stay in the Mind

I was living in Paris for part of 2003 - at 17 rue du bourg de Tibourg in Le Marais, a gay-friendly area right in the centre of the city. The arrondissement is full of gay nightclubs, and businesses catering to the pink dollar or 'euro rose'. My Metro station was Hotel de Ville.

One day, I was in the underground station and about to get two tickets from the auto-dispensing machine. And realized I didn't have any change. I started to discuss the problem with my partner when the woman behind us offered to pay. She was a working-class woman in her late 50's, perhaps a cleaner. Shabbily dressed. But determinedly cheerful in the face of poverty.

I profusely thanked her and started to make arrangements to return the not insubstantial amount. But she refused repayment with 'No no, it's just a pleasure to help you' and a great beaming smile. I was absolutely knocked out by her gesture - particularly in a city (somewhat justifiably) hardened to the millions of demanding tourists that invade each summer.

I know I will never forget this woman. I think it was her sense of empathy, followed by a generosity she could not really afford. Merci beaucoup!

Sei Shōnagon (清少納言), (965-1010s?) - Japanese Heian Court Lady and Writer

Lady Sei Shōnagon (清少納言) by Kikuchi Yosai（菊池容斎）

I picked up a book in Mary Martin's bookshop when I was living in Adelaide. And flipped through. Coming across this poetic 'list':

Elegant Things

A white coat worn over a violet waistcoat.
Duck eggs.
Shaved ice mixed with liana syrup and put in a new silver bowl. (Liana stems and leaves are for sweetening)
A rosary of rock crystal.
Wisteria blossoms.
Plum blossoms covered with snow.
A pretty child eating strawberries.

The volume was the famous Pillow Book (枕草子 makura no sōshi) of Lady Sei Shonagon, who served the Empress Consort Teishi at the C10 Heian court of Japan. She is only known through this work, considered to be of great literary beauty, and the most detailed source of the social life of the period.

A Page from a Manuscript Copy of 'The Pillow Book', Sei Shonagon

Her writing consists of a strange mixture of things - lists, court gossip, poetry, observations, complaints and so on.

She has an aesthetically sensitive response to nature ...

Clouds

I love white, purple and black clouds, and rain clouds when they are driven by the wind. It is charming at dawn to see the dark clouds gradually turn white. I believe this has been described in a Chinese poem that says something about 'the tints that leave at dawn'. It is moving to see a thin wisp of cloud across a very bright moon.

... and a sensory and visceral power of observation ...

One has carefully scented a robe and then forgotten about it for several days. When finally one comes to wear it, the aroma is even more delicious than on freshly scented clothes.


During the hot months it is a great delight to sit on the veranda, enjoying the cool of the evening and observing how the outlines of objects gradually become blurred. At such a moment I particularly enjoy the sight of a gentleman's carriage, preceded by outriders clearing the way. ... It is still more delightful when the sound of a lute or flute comes from inside the carriage, and one feels sorry when it disappears in the distance. Occasionally one catches the whiff of the oxen's leather cruppers; it is a strange unfamiliar smell but, absurd as it may seem, I find something pleasant about it. On a very dark night it is delightful when the aroma of smoke from the pine-torches at the head of a procession is wafted the air and pervades the carriage in which one is traveling.

... and a personal reflective approach to literature.

Letters are commonplace

Letters are common place enough , yet what splendid things they are! When someone is in a distant province and one is worried about him, then a letter suddenly arrives, one feels as though one were seeing him face to face. Again, it is a great comfort to have expressed one's feelings in a letter even though one knows it cannot yet have arrived.

Something of Sei Shonagon's character is revealed in the following, an elite position not that is not quite so comfortable to read today.

The way in which carpenters eat is really odd. When they had finished the main building and were working on the eastern wing, some carpenters squatted in a row to have their meal; I sat on the veranda and watched them. The moment the food was brought, they fell on the soup bowls and gulped down the content. Then they pushed aside the bowls and gulped the vegetables. ... They all behaved in exactly the same way, so I suppose this must be the custom of carpenters. I should not call it a very charming one.

Finally, a poem using the response to a feature conventionally considered unattractive in the human face to view something particular in nature.

Ah, what a house this is,
Where the eyebrows of the willow's leaves
Grow so impudently broad
That they make the spring itself loose face!

There are lots of similar goodies in the Pillow Book. Just right for filling in a few spare moments. Rather than something to read straight through.

A Lingering Dream

I just woke from a dream. And it lingers on over the day.

I was on a train, noisily rattling somewhere on a warm summer day. A soft breeze caressing my skin.

There was a beautiful young guy standing beside me, holding onto the next handle strap and swaying side-to-side with the movement of the train. He was fresh-faced, with dark hair and lightly tanned. Slightly smiling - a small gap between his front teeth. Full wide lips. Eyes shut, to better savour the balmy wind.

He swayed round, to be right up against me.

I expected he would open his eyes and move away.

But he didn't. I could feel his body tentatively nudging mine. The silky softness of his face against mine.

And then I was awake.

It's hard to share such an experience. Re-reading this, it seems I've captured the way it was for me. But I'm wondering whether it conveys anything much to anyone else? Perhaps it's as difficult as it is to catch what he actually looked like. Which seems to change for me as the day progresses!

I long for such dreams, but they rarely visit.

Classic Vintage Photographs

Denny Lister - Colt Magazine 1970

I've got a strong interest in vintage photographs. And, apart from any aesthetics that might be involved, I also actually like the 'time' journey they provoke. But this journey can be at a cost.

Let me explain. Lots of these older photographs I look at are 'dated' in some way or other. And this is not to diminish them in any way. All such images are ultimately locked into their era.

But there are a few photos that seem timeless - and become, in a special sense, 'classics'.

The initial one of Denny Lister in a 1970 Colt Magazine is one of them. And the following one of Ed Manning, also from the 70's, another.

Ed Manning - 1970's

These two pictures could both have been taken yesterday. Or the day before. Or last week.

To Get or Not To Get a Miniature Pinscher

I was sipping a coffee (alright it was a latte) in my local caf not too long ago, and an incredibly cute miniature-type dog gaily scampered by, dragging it's owner behind it. It was a very serious person magnet. And I must confess I was out of my seat with the best of them, latte abandoned, and down on my knees, in the non-sexual sense!


It was a miniature pinscher. And, counter to expectation, the breed was bred up to those thigh ripping monsters used as guard dogs and whatnot. Rather than the usual other way round. So none of those misshapings, bulging eyes ... . All perfectly proportioned - in small.


They come in a variety of colours - as well as the classic black and tan - even in one litter. The pressure of choice!



I guess this is the next stage.


Followed by 'I want that one!


Adorable, no?

What do you reckon about a name?

OK, OK, OK - A VERY HAPPY NEW 2008 YEAR GUYS !!!

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Postscript to 'Hadrosaur or Duck-Billed Dinosaur Skin'

After posting on Hadrsaur skin and things, I remembered something amazing given to me by my grandmother. It was a 360 million year old fossil of jellyfish, which left fern-like skeleton traces in limestone called graptolites. The specimen was found by Mr A Keble in 1936 at Sheepwash Creek, near Bendigo, Victoria, Australia. One half was presented to an American academic on a three-month sabbatical from Berkley University, an Associate Professor W. Berry. The other half was given to the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford University.

One of my fav-or-ite things!

For Volker.