Aesthetics of Everywhere

11: William “Bill” James Sidis was the youngest person to graduate Harvard at age 16. In one of the lectures Bill gave at age 11, he explained four-dimensional space as “a speculative realm of incomprehensibly involved relationships.” At age 3, Bill taught himself to read Latin, learned nine languages before the age of 8, and throughout his childhood proved himself to be exceptionally smart. But he got burnt out at an early age following his early graduation from Harvard, trying to hide away from the constant storm of reporters by moving around and working menial jobs under false identities. Later in life, he wrote a number of books under an alias, including an extensive study of streetcar transfer tickets… (via The Memory Palace)

12: What helps keep people together in relationships may be the misattribution of arousal. For example, when we have breathtaking, novel experiences such as riding a roller-coaster with a person, we often partially attribute that heightened level of excitement to being with that person. Our minds aren’t great at distinguishing between the causes, and sometimes we aren’t aware of all the environmental or physical factors involved. There have been many experiments to explore this. Another example is an experiment in which the subjects are placed either in a cold room or a warm room. The subjects who were talking to another person in the cold room were less likely than the others to rate the conversation (or the conversation partner) positively. So it might mean you’re likely to stay with a person with whom you often have these exciting experiences – your terrifying skydiving trip gets your system pumping with adrenaline, which you attribute (partially) to your attraction to your date. This makes me wonder if maybe terms like “heartthrob” and “sweetheart” are more insightful than you’d think. (More here)

13: Over 15% of Singapore households are millionaires. I know Singapore’s a city-state, but still – unbelievable. (A million millionaires)

14: “Complete streets” are liveable, safer streets that recognize the needs of both drivers, cyclists, and pedestrians, making it easier to share the road. The widening of U St’s narrow sidewalks, for example, is one related plan in DC that focuses on making the street safer, not just more accessible to vehicles. (Discussion with David Alpert of GGW on the Kojo Nnamdi Show)

15: A SnorriCam is the name for a video camera mounted on an actor’s body, facing them, so that it stably records face-on while the background moves. This was named for the Icelandic directors, with last names Snorri and Snorri, who despite their shared names weren’t related by blood.

16: Modern night vision devices as used in the U.S. Army were invented by Professor William Spicer. The technology behind night vision may be attributed to several different sources, however.

17: Lake Tahoe is the 2nd-deepest lake in the United States, after Crater Lake in Oregon. Just another one of those debates that pop up between friends on long drives.

18: Honey shouldn’t be given to babies until they reach at least 2 years of age, because of the risk of infant botulism. Botulism is caused by bacterial spores that are sometimes present in canned foods (especially self-canned foods) and are commonly associated with honey. Because infants have weak immune systems, they are at greater risk of botulism poisoning.

Daily lessons learned are back! And they’ll continue for the rest of the year, since I don’t have any big trips planned for the rest of the year 2011. It’s true you learn something new every day, and writing it all down helps. Here’s the latest installation, with the first 10 days of July.

01: China has opened a 26.4 mile over-water bridge, the Jiaozhou Bay Bridge, connecting Qingdao city with the island of Hongdao. Many of the world’s longest bridge projects are located in China, including the three longest.

02: The sensation of “brain freeze” you get when you drink an iced drink or eat ice cream too fast is a result of your blood vessels constricting quickly. Still, it strikes me as strange how the feeling’s experienced towards the top-back of your head.

03: According to a woman I met from Australia, Australian accents are considered similar to the Surrey accent in the southeast of England. This area of England may be where the Australian English accent first originated. I wonder if the Surrey accent also demonstrates the upward inflections at the ends of sentences that is so characteristic of Australian English.

04: The St. Louis Gateway Arch is taller than the Washington Monument. Learned this from the game You Don’t Know Jack, which is a pretty entertaining game if you like quirky trivia. The arch looks like an impressive structure; never been to St. Louis myself. [Photo at right, which I snagged off the internet.]

05: The angklung is an Indonesian instrument made entirely of bamboo. It’s played by holding the instrument loosely by its upper section (the top horizontal beam of the frame) with your left hand, and moving it to the left and right with your right hand (holding the bottom tube). The sound is a pleasant hollow tone and each angklung produces a specific note – musicians need to play together in an ensemble to play all the notes of a song.

06: Not all bars give you a new glass or pitcher when you order another of the same beer. This was a relief to see because I had grown accustomed to bartenders performing the (seemingly) pointless act of giving you a new cup when you went up to the bar to get a refill on your beer. If it’s the same beer, I don’t see the point in giving a fresh glass every time. Just looks like it’s creating more unnecessary dishes… but feel free to chime in if there’s a counterpoint here.

07: In the U.S., certain fictional phone numbers are set aside for use in movies and television shows by the Motion Picture Association of America. These begin with “555″ and are not usually given out by phone companies, so that real phone customers aren’t continually harassed by people trying to call their favorite stars. However, Universal Studios is a notable exception. They own the phone number (212) 664-7665, which they’ve used in a few recent flicks and allegedly just keeps ringing when you call it. (via Mashable)

08: The hagfish, misleadingly nicknamed the slime eel, is the only animal that has a skull but no spine. One species of hagfish is caught in the northwest Pacific and exported live to Korea as food – their slime used in similar fashion to egg whites.

09: According to the World Health Organization’s “World report on road traffic injury prevention”, 1.2 million people die in traffic accidents each year. Approximately 85% of these types of deaths occur in low- or middle-income countries. Whereas in most high-income countries car deaths take the lives of car drivers, in lower income countries, the deaths are primarily among pedestrians, passengers, cyclists, motorcyclists, and those taking other modes of transport such as buses. (Source)

10: Watermelon is originally from southern Africa. We had a few people guess on its origins at a picnic, and the most specific we got was my aunt’s answer of “Africa! Because everything comes from Africa.” Today, however, China grows the most watermelon worldwide – over 63 million metric tons were produced in 2008.

I leave for Korea this Thursday! My brother and I are taking a trip to South Korea for a few weeks, and my boyfriend will join us for part of the trip as well.

Our plan is to go first to Busan by train. We’re spending a little time on Haundae beach, letting the 13-hour time difference catch up with us. Busan is on the southern coast and the urban primacy of Seoul is notable – though Busan is the 2nd-largest metropolitan area, its population is only about a third of Seoul’s population. Over 20% of South Korea’s more than 48 million people resides in Seoul. To contrast, the NYC metro area is home to just over 6% of the USA’s population.

We’ll make a quick stop in Daegu, meet up with a friend of a friend who is teaching there, then head all the way north to Seoul. While in Seoul, we’re going to make a day trip to hike Seoraksan mountain. Korea is known for its gorgeous (and plentiful) mountains, and Koreans love to hike. I’ve heard that Korean is 75% mountain, and I wouldn’t be surprised if that were true. It’s a very social pasttime, often done in groups and followed with plenty of consumption of makkoli (a milky Korean rice wine) afterwards. My grandmother and my mother both used to spend a lot of time hiking with friends when they lived in Korea. Hiking is always fun, and even better in a completely new setting.

Besides hiking, we’ll of course do some sightseeing, museum-hopping, and shopping. We’ll eat tons of delicious Korean food – but probably not any live octopus, unless we gain some foodie fortitude points there. When my boyfriend joins us in Korea, we’re staying in a hanok (traditional Korean house) for 2 nights so he can get a feel for old Korean-style living, even amidst the modern bustle of Seoul. It’s his first time in South Korea. My brother and I have been once before – we took a family trip in 2006 to Seoul and Jeju island, but most of our time was spent visiting family, which was exhausting.

On our list of things to do around Seoul:

• Temples, at least Gyeongbokgung and Changdeokgung Palaces, and more if we have extra time and energy
• Korean bathhouses/saunas (jjimjilbang)
• Karaoke, cheap drinking, street food… What combination could be more Korean?
• Seodaemun Prison
• Bike along the Han River, maybe a river cruise
• Noryangjin fish market
• Performances such as Nanta
• Dongdaemun Design Plaza and Park, designed by Zaha Hadid

Useful tip:

KakaoTalk is the best way to keep in touch with people in Korea! My brother turned me onto this a couple days ago. KakaoTalk is an app for iPhone, iPod Touch, and Android phones that allows you to communicate lightning-fast with one or multiple friends at a time.

It uses your normal data plan or a wifi network if it’s available (and I’m told Seoul even has wifi in its subways).

Add your own suggestions in the comments! My next blog post will be direct from South Korea, the country that clocks probably the fastest Internet speeds in the entire world.

01: The Gerewol ritual performed by Niger’s Wodaabe people is a culturally sanctioned way of setting aside one’s marriage vows for a night. In the rare occurrence of a rain that brings temporary relief from drought conditions, the Wodaabe people come together to celebrate Gerewol. The men make up their faces with a variety of brightly-colored paints and perform an extended dance lasting around 5 hours for the female judges, who can choose a partner to take for the night – whether or not either of them are married. (From Human Planet: Deserts. Described here.)

02: Anaheim peppers are a mild pepper that look like a longer bell pepper. I hear it’s a good choice if you can’t handle the spicier kinds of pepper.

03: Greenfield economics describes building on new territory – on land that has no prior restraints or regulations, or previous land-use history. It’s the tactic of building big new homes (think suburban sprawl) rather than renovating old ones. Greenfields are usually found in suburban or rural areas, sites that haven’t been developed previously. Brownfield economics, on the other hand, is based on redevelopment of existing sites, which may be abandoned or have fallen into deterioration. There’s a great discussion on greenfield vs. brownfield economics in the comments section of this post.

04: The ovenbird is an adorable little brown-and-white warbler with a stripe across its head and stripes on its chest. With the help of a friend, we were able to identify this bird I saw in Franklin Park as an ovenbird. More on its name, via Wikipedia:

The nest, referred to as the “oven” (which gives the bird its name), is a domed structure placed on the ground, woven from vegetation, and containing a side entrance. Both parents feed the young birds. The placement of the nest on the ground makes predation by chipmunks (Tamias) a greater concern than for tree-nesting birds. Chipmunks have been known to burrow directly into the nest to eat the young birds.

05: Mitigation is a strategy used in court that aims to tell the defendant’s life story. Its use may be one of the factors in the decline of death sentences in the United States.

06: Pabst Blue Ribbon (or the beer whose name is often shortened to PBR) gave us the ‘six-pack.’ At the time, it was called the ‘Handy-Six.’ Marketing research showed that this was the maximum amount of weight a housewife would be willing to carry with her groceries. Watch the commercial for the Pabst Blue Ribbon Handy-Six here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LyMEDCu2CgI

07: The Elks Club, officially dubbed ”The Benevolent and Protective Order of the Elks,” is a society formed in 1868 in NYC to perform charitable acts. According to a friend who lives near one in DC, they’re also committed to drinking and loud parties which often upset the residents of the neighborhood (as with most fraternities, I guess).

08: In Werner Herzog’s Cave of Forgotten Dreams, there’s a postscript that talks about a tropical biodome habitat that’s become home to over a hundred albino crocodiles. The glasshouse in which they live is heated by a nuclear power plant that’s a few miles from the Chauvet caves in southern France. I need some verification that this exists, however – the only references to it that I can find online point to this same film.

From ‘The Return of the Native‘ in the Urbanophile blog:

The act of moving away from home unmoors us from the limits of our origins. It’s no surprise that the college educated are more likely to migrate. It isn’t just the skills, it’s that four years away from home opens a world of possibility in our eyes. Even at 22, if you return, it’s to a difference place than you left, because you’re a different person. Because those who didn’t leave haven’t experienced this change, there’s an estrangement from your past. You no longer fit in. There’s something wrong. The cliche is true: you can never go home again.

The full post is worth reading for a discussion on “boomerang” migration in the United States.

15: Irredentism describes the position of a state claiming a territory owned by another state, “on the grounds of common ethnicity or prior historical possession, actual or alleged. Some of these movements are also called pan-nationalist movements. It is a feature of identity politics and cultural and political geography. Because most borders have been moved and redrawn over time, a great many countries could theoretically present irredentist claims to their neighbors.”

16: Learned how to play the board game Settlers of Catan!

17: The greater metropolitan region around Jakarta is known as Jabodetabek, and is one of the largest urban areas in the world (whether that means it’s the 2nd largest or the 7th or anywhere in between depends on who you’re asking, though).

18: Learned how to cook a risotto. Lots of fun simmering down. We cooked a nice, one-hour mushroom risotto that turned out pretty well.

19: From one of my best friends (who is an amazing cook and the one who taught me what a roux is), I learned that there are five sauces known as the mother sauces in French cooking. They’re described in more detail than I can probably comprehend here: The 5 “Mother” Sauces.

20: Charlottesville, VA has a really cute downtown historic area, which is worth a visit. We met some punk kids playing guitar and drums outside, and bonded over a mutual love of the Ergs! and Lemuria. Charlottesville is also one of the only places on the east coast where you can get spudnuts, which are yeasted donuts made popular on the west coast. Didn’t get to try any, but my friend Michelle says they’re good.

21: From the National Building Museum’s Intelligent Cities website:

An estimated $127,275,000 more could stay in the local economy if a city could reduce its car ownership by 15,000 cars. All the more reason for bike commuting and public transit. And this isn’t fantasy: from 2005 to 2009, Washington DC gained 15,862 people, while car registrations decreased by 15,000. More walkable cities make for more intelligent cities.

It’s been awhile since I’ve last been to the Hirshhorn. It’s really obvious because this is the first time I’ve seen this. There’s a great film by Cyprien Gaillard playing in the Hirshhorn now – and has been since last November. It’s Desniansky Raion, a 30-minute, tri-partite film that includes as part of it some strangely captivating footage of a street fight in St. Petersburg. This kind of organized street brawl has a can’t-look-away, car crash kind of appeal… at the same time, it’s so bizarre because it feels absolutely mundane. The post-Socialist surrounds make for an appropriate setting for a midday Fight Club…

Gaillard’s also done interesting work taking Polaroid photos of a variety of sites (of both proven and questionable importance) over the course of about three years, and his over 900 photos at-a-tilt are collected in his Geographical Analogies. This, too, you can find in the Hirshhorn museum. They’re arranged in 3×3 diamond grids displayed in a few cases. Gaillard on his own is worth a fresh visit to the Hirshhorn before the exhibit closes March 27th.

And the piece by Hans Op de Beeck, Staging Silence, in the Black Box – interesting too.

Upcoming at the Hirshhorn: Looks like they’re currently setting up a large exhibition of Blinky Palermo. From what I could see, they’re blocking off the entire 2nd floor of the museum for it.

It’s true: You learn something new every day. I’m starting a running list of one or two things I learn each day in 2011. Here’s the summary of what I learned each day in January. It’s a long list… click on to see the rest after the first week.

1: Learned what a body roll is (in dance, not automobiles). Also, all real bellydancers should have a belly.

2: I wrote 60 new posts in 2010 and my top ten most popular blog posts of last year were:

Thanks, WordPress stats!

3: Galaxy Hut is a sweet spot in Arlington with a cool (non-bro) crowd and an even cooler beer list. Or, as my friend Hyunoo summed up: I learned that beer is still good.

4: Urban scaling is an alternative way to rank cities – perhaps some of our larger cities are not unusual cases after all. According to this kind of analysis, NYC could be perfectly “normal” for a city of its size.

5: People do a wide range of research projects under the Fulbright Program, including research on topics like fashion. Browsing through some of the project topics is great.

6: Local music appeals to me because of the connections you make with people based on a mutual passion for music and community-building. Writing a nice letter to a stranger can make their day, and a reminder that a friend of a friend isn’t such a stranger after all.

7: Learned what a cassoulet is. “Each bean tastes like it was read a bedtime story.” I also read up on West Timor (the Indonesian part of Timor) and the Indian Ocean earthquake disaster of 2004, which devastated Indonesia.
Read the rest of this entry »

Wandering towards Jemaa el-Fna square, we were thankful for the reprieve from the inland heat of Marrakech (34 degrees Celsius and rising!) and of course for the free wireless Internet access so we could get in touch with friends and family back home. The Moulay Abdeslam Cyber Park is accessible from Mohammed V Avenue, an easy stop for checking your email if you’re going to Jemaa el-Fna. Though gates of the park are only open during the day, we were still able to log onto the wireless network after hours.

If you didn’t bring a laptop or other wireless device, there are small computer stations throughout the park. Supposedly there is a museum of telecommunications as well, but we didn’t have a chance to check that out. Other than this Cyber Park, there weren’t a lot of places to access free public wifi in Morocco – especially in a way that seeks to combine functionality and eco-aesthetics. According to the website, there is a multimedia tour of the garden built on a GIS (accessible by the computer terminals).

Shady spots in the Cyber Park

Computer terminal for public use

Sharing some photos from a day hike up Jbel Toubkal in Morocco. This is the highest mountain in the Atlas Mountains and in all of North Africa. We hiked up to Sidi Chamharouch, which is a Muslim pilgrimage site. [I also added a "Mountains" page to my blog so I now have an easy place to keep some posts grouped by theme! I'll add one for street art as well.]

On the Toubkal trail

On the Toubkal trail - hillside village

Sheep on Toubkal

Loaded down on the mountain - it's important for hikers to stay on the mountain-side of the trail, because the mules are really wide with their loads and can easily knock you off

Stopping for a photo

Entering town

Mosque - non-Muslims not allowed inside

Mosque

Crossing the valley

Returning from the hike

Friends ahead, mountain behind us