Chase Me, Chase Me

 

A few days ago I was walking in the woods a few miles from where I live and noticed a sign about how a local conservation group had dredged the pond in the woods to encourage more wildlife to the area. When I got there I discovered a small pond about 10m across, and it stunk. There was no obvious inlet or outlet so the water was just sitting there looking lifeless.

However, from the corner of my eye I noticed something zoom around the edge of the pond. It was a light blue dragonfly flying around the perimeter of the pond and then disappearing. I watched for a while and then noticed a brown dragonfly hovering and dipping it's abdomen into the water - clearly a female ovipositing her eggs. I then realised that the two must have just mated and whilst the female was depositing the eggs the male was 'keeping guard'.

I walked slowly around the pond and then spotted the blue dragonfly on the branch of a small bush on the waters edge - that's where it had been disappearing to.

On my return home I identified the dragonflies as Broad Bodied Chasers (Libellula depressa) - very common in the UK but it was the first time I'd seen one.

Wikipedia has a page here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libellula_depressa


I'll head back to the pond again this summer and see if any other wildlife has colonised it.

Catch You Later!

Glass Beach

Glass Beach is situated near Fort Bragg in California. There are actually 3 Glass Beaches situated near each other but it's the third site which is usually referred to as Glass Beach.

In 1906 a dump was created for Fort Bragg residents to dispose of their waste. By 1943 this site had filled up and a new site was opened which by 1949 was also filled. A third site was then opened which was filled by 1967 and was subsequently closed. Over the following decades the waste was cleared and recycled but the broken glass and pottery that had been dumped there was left behind and became rounded by the action of the sea tumbling it over the pebbles.

Glass Beach has been a tourist attraction for many years and attracts tens of thousands of people each year. Visitors not surprisingly want to take away a souvenir; some take a few glass pebbles but others take bags and buckets of pebbles away with them. This has meant that depth of glass pebbles has reduced from around a foot (30cm) to just a thin layer today. Collecting is banned on the beach but this does not stop peoples collecting.

I've not personally visited the area but I was made aware of its existence whilst searching for music samples. Soundiron is a company producing deep-sampled instrument libraries. They've recorded numerous sounds from Glass Beach which are available as a set of samples for the Kontakt player.

Below is a track created by Soundiron using the Soundiron Glass Beach set:




If you want to visit you should do it sooner rather than later as the pebbles are disappearing fast.

 

My little blog is now 2 years old!

 

Catch You Later!

Credits:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glass_Beach_(Fort_Bragg,_California)http://www.zmescience.com/other/glass-beach-10102011/
http://soundiron.com/products/glass-beach
https://soundcloud.com/soundiron/freewayland-soundiron-glass-1
http://beachblissliving.com/best-sea-glass-beaches-america/

1972 - Part 2

Last September I posted about the 1972 Great Universal Stores mail order catalogue that I'd found. Well now I'm back with more!

This time, where possible, I've included the prices for you to compare. As most of my readers aren't from the UK here's a link to XE.com to convert £ (GBP) to your local currency:

http://www.xe.com/currencyconverter/

So let's make a start with Courtelle knitted trouser suits:

 

 

Dicel and Tricel tops and skirts. The print on the right is Aubrey Beardsleys 'The Peacock Skirt' from 1893:

 

 

 

Cotton and Dicel tops from Hardy Amies:

 

 

 

Fabulous greens from Contesa:

 

 

 

Cotton/Terylene 'young mans' jacket and trousers:

 

 

 

Yay! - Father Ted's back and looking slick:

 

 

 

Too lazy to exercise? No problem with Valor and Ablec massagers:

 

 

 

Curling tongs and stylers from Pifco and Remington, and wigs from John London:

 

 

 

Before Dyson there was, of course, Hoover. Here's their Hooverette, Constellation and Dustette:

 

 

 

Beautiful, retina-burning, electric-shock inducing nylon carpets:

 

 

 

Boom shake the room! Yes, Dunlop really did have a rubber flooring material called Semtex:

 

 

 

I hope you've enjoyed the second trip back to 1972! The next time we head back in time it'll be for the instalment you've all been waiting for - the Underwear Edition!

 

 

Catch You Later!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Streamliners

When I'd seen Art Deco posters like the one above I had assumed that these were imaginative flights of fantasy - an idealised version of 1930s streamlined technology. Then, by complete chance, I found this picture on Tumblr:

 

This is a New York Central Railroad Mercury which operated from 1936 to 1959.

 

Wow - so they were real! A quick search on the web turned up plenty more photos:

 

 

This is a New York Central Railroad 20th Century Limited train operated from 1938 to 1945, also seen in this painting:

 

 

 

Below is The Aeolus from 1937 operated by the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad:

 

 

 

The more I looked, the more I found. Streamliners were operated across the world.



 

In the United Kingdom the LMS Coronation Class locomotives were operated from 1937 until 1964 although their streamlining was removed by 1949 as it provided little benefit and was unpopular with maintenance teams:

 

 

 

In 1937 the Soviet Union introduced the IS20-16 Iosef Stalin which operated until at least 1962:

 

 

 

Below is the unique Soviet 2-3-2K which operated from 1937 to at least 1957:

 

 

 

Another unique streamliner was the US PRR S1:

 

 

 

Czechoslovakia had the ČSD 386 Series which operated from 1937 until 1948:

 

 

 

This is just a brief introduction to the myriad designs of streamliners which operated across the World from the 1930s to the 1950s and beyond.

 

For more information I'd recommend the following excellent websites:

 

http://www.dieselpunks.org/

 

http://lattercars.com/2015/01/the-most-beautiful-streamline-designs-of-locomotives/

 

http://io9.gizmodo.com/the-zeppelin-train-the-aerotrain-and-other-classic-str-1564713752

 

 

Catch You Later!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Credits:

http://www.dieselpunks.org/

http://dev.fortwaynerailroad.org/page/4/?post_type=event

http://cruiselinehistory.com/1940s-and-1950s-the-golden-age-of-american-passenger-trains/

http://io9.gizmodo.com/the-zeppelin-train-the-aerotrain-and-other-classic-str-1564713752

http://www.oil-electric.com/2012/03/rail-quiz-7-solution-city-streamliners.html

http://lattercars.com/2015/01/the-most-beautiful-streamline-designs-of-locomotives/

http://www.tumblr.com/

http://en.wikipedia.org/

 

 

 

 

Artists and Illustrators of Vietnem

My art posts seem to be more popular than any others so I thought I'd give you another one!

This one was a bit more tricky to research as there is very little information available on the web about Vietnamese artists when compared to artists of other countries. Consequently, the information here is brief but I'll add more if I find anything later.

Bùi Xuân Phái

(1921-1988)

http://www.buixuanphai.com/
 

 

(Hanoi street)

Huynh Kim Lien
http://killien.deviantart.com/gallery/

Lê Quang Đỉnh (Dinh Q. Lê)

(1968 -)

 

 

Do Bien Thuy

 

 

Kaa Studio
https://www.behance.net/kaaillustration

 

LeUyen Pham

(1973 -)

http://www.leuyenpham.com/

 

(The Twelve Days of Christmas)

 

 

Phuong Thai (Tamypu)
https://www.behance.net/tamypu

 

 

 

 

Raven Ngo (Nguyen Phuong Ngo)

https://www.behance.net/ravenngo

(Ordinary Day)

 

 

Thai Thanh Do

https://www.behance.net/dothaithanh

(from the Penguin Queen's Museum)

Thuy Com

https://www.behance.net/thuycom

 

(Girl in the Sunny Place)


Turine Tran
http://www.turinetran.com/

(The Meadow)

If you have any further information on the featured artists or if you know of any more please add a comment below.

Also, on behalf of Blogger may I apologise for messing up the font size and colours - I've tried to fix it but it's having none of it.

Catch You Later!

 

 

 

 

Credits:

http://blog.roomtoread.org/room-to-read/illustrators/
http://www.illustrationweb.com/artists/TurineTran/view
https://www.behance.net/gallery/9298763/Penguin-Queens-Museum-Picture-book
http://www.buixuanphai.com/about.htm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B%C3%B9i_Xu%C3%A2n_Ph%C3%A1i
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dinh_Q._L%C3%AA
http://idiommag.com/2010/02/dinh-q-le-at-p-p-o-w/
https://www.facebook.com/kaaillustration/
https://www.behance.net/kaaillustration
http://www.leuyenpham.com/
http://www.noevalleyvoice.com/2007/May/Pham.html
http://fullscream.com/phuong-thai-a-k-a-tamypu-on-storytelling-and-childrens-book-illustratons/
https://www.behance.net/tamypu
http://blog.roomtoread.org/room-to-read/2015/10/how-a-boys-first-trip-across-the-mekong-delta-will-help-grow-childrens-book-publishing-in-vietnam-.html
https://www.behance.net/ravenngo
https://www.behance.net/thuycom
http://www.turinetran.com/
http://killien.deviantart.com/gallery/