Spring!

( spring playground shadows ... sol lewitt style : )

(learning to use macro is awesome!)

More Fun with Seed Pod!

Cambridge Cleaned.

This past weekend I participated in the first annual Cambridge initiative, Clean Cambridge, to de-trash the area. Clean Cambridge provided the trash bags, recycling bags, gloves, and enabling/ commemorative t-shirt ... and us volunteers provided the scrutinizing eyes followed with collecting hands. The event lasted two days. On Saturday, I collected items along the Charles from along the park and banks nearest the Weeks Foot Bridge. On Sunday, I joined a larger team in Central to clean up one of my favorite places in Boston.

Here are a few photos of less-trashy objects I found:

(mystery seed-pod ... at first I thought it was some kind of toy weapon component

(mystery seed-pod to scale ... had a lot of trouble shooting these in-focus)

(little plastic soldier guy ... reminded me of the tin soldier story)

(pretty ... and yes, sharpened in iPhoto)

(quite a few that got away)

There was this HUGE splash at one point which nearly startles me into the river. Of course, I didn't see the fish, but I bet it was the Grandaddy of all Charles bass. Honest.

Also, along the shore, the waves rolling broken glass around on the river stones made an incredible bell-like tinkling sound. I always die a little inside when something indicative of a negative result creates an interestingly appealing result. That said, the sound was a little like fairies. Yup, I went there. Fairies. Deal.

Happy spring.

Picking up Trash

Greetings from Cambridge.

This Sunday's tale describes collecting trash along the Charles River and within Central Square.

Saturday morning I quickly donned some rugged pants and the green t-shirt provided to me the day before by a representative from the Clean Cambridge initiative. I re-packed the rubber gloves, freezer gloves, trash bags, and recycling collection bags also provided by Clean Cambridge into my own back before heading out to the Weeks Foot Bridge at 8:45. By 9:05, I was lunging left and right to gather up cigarette butts from the trails I frequently run on.

Things that caught my attention:
- the bell-like tinkling sound of broken glass rolling around in the wake of crew chase-boats tossing mini-waves onto the river banks.
- the GIGANTIC fish that startled me. Or at least I think it was huge. I, uh, didn't really see it ... but the waves were HUGE.
- the still-full can of Bud. Tempting, but not tempting enough. Gone.
- being told by a well-meaning passer-by that the city already had a clean-up crew on that area.
- cleaning an area on the waterline only to look back ten minutes later and see that a whole new raft of junk had floated in.
- all of the rowers - Go Team.
- SO MANY lolly-pop wrappers. Wtf. I didn't know the really glassy sugar pops on those long strips were that popular.

Some trash of note:
- cool fishing lure.
- most of a Boomerang (when was the last time anyone saw one of those? Or played with one?).
- little toy soldier.

Some nice interactions:
- two runners passed by and said, "thanks".
- a woman from Germany visiting with her husband on their way West stopped and chatted with me in German!
- a running friend stopped by and said, "hi".
- some adorable dogs, including a Yorkie, stopped by and also said, "hi".
- some guy with a camera told me that picking up the trash was a, "tall order". Nice phrase, guy.




is an event sponsored by Mayor Simmons and the Mayor's Volunteer Corps as a city cleaning initiative. prompted this outing. They supplied the green t-shirt and I brought given the perfect excuse to spend a few hours on Saturday and Sunday out picking up cigarette butts.

Sunday:
Cheerily chatting with my teammate about school, living in boston, running, health, our common dislike of smoking,

Other Works from the Rose.

Dream date: Wassily Kandinsky and Julie Mehretu ...

This work reminds me of a book cover for Man of LaMancha ...

Morbid. But so chipper in a 50s eery kind of way.

::sighs::

Hand print in the wall. Great hand.

(names and titles to come - all rights to these works are held by the Rose as far as I know)

Hoffman at the Rose.

The following images are clips and wholes of paintings by Hans Hoffman currently on display at Brandeis' Rose Art Museum. I was attracted to some of these for their colors and composition, and to others because their popularity despite the lack of representational rendering made even more acceptable the use of abstract color splashes and squiggles for American painters. Kind of funny - I mean, Hoffman must have had a good sense of humor, and what I perceive as a general acceptance of this kind of work is pleasantly gleeful.

Out to the Rose.

On my way out to Waltham via back roads, I passed by a UMass Waltham complex. I had no idea this existed! It is grand, and isolated, and ivy-covered.

I also discovered a variation on the rotary sign which I had not seen before. When I stoped to take the photograph, a little boy screamed "gross" out the window of a maroon mini-van. It took me a second to realize that he was referring to the squirrel in the road rather than my spandex-clad self. As far as roadkill goes, the squirrel lying close behind me was actually rather intact. That kid has some rude-awakenings ahead of him.

The question-mark sign leaning up agains the rotary sign-pole is a nice commentary on rotaries in general : )