Sideways Station

Around and up and also down

Some time ago I posted an article on my liking for random walks, in which I outlined an insanely complicated method to get to places you weren't planning to see. Recently I found another way to go to randomly explore the world, without getting up from my chair. 

A few days ago, as I was preparing to leave for Prague, I tried to find some information on the city’s railway station. I can’t remember why, I have been to so many places (at least virtually) since then. I happened on a page with a 360 degree spherical picture of Fantova kavárna or Fanta’s Café, originally the main hall of the station as it was built in 1871 by the architect Josef Fanta. The picture was on a website called 360cities.net which, I have discovered, is a wonderful tool for random travelling. 

I soon ended up in other places in Prague, my favourites I think being the Bethlehem Chapel, a medieval crane and the wonderful Strahov library, where the picture is so detailed that I am quite confident that I will one day spot a bookworm about to take a bite out of one of the ancient volumes. 

I have found it very difficult to stop travelling on 360 cities and have discovered a lot of places I had never heard of. My suggestion is to start from a city you went to a long time ago or one which you have always dreamed of visiting. Take your time with the pictures, look around and up and also down (count the cigarette butts or see if someone's dropped a coin) and when you have finished go somewhere else in the vicinity by clicking on one of the white arrows you will see. There may be other photos in the vicinity which aren't linked, though. For example, I spent a long time on the square outside the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg without finding an arrow which would take me in, so I had to search for the museum to find pictures of the interior.

When you have seen enough of a place and if, like me, you like random travelling and walking, click on the green globe icon you'll see among the white arrows which will take you somewhere “far far away” and start looking around the new place it lands you at. 

Here are a few of the places and situations I wasn't looking for but ended up looking up and liking:

A lovely tree in France,

Casa de los Azulejos - Mexico City

Monterosso in the Cinque Terre - Italy

A dog watching a goose cooking somewhere in Germany

A  bay with fishing  boats in Vietnam

The night sky in Chilean Patagonia

The forest of ten thousand peaks, Guizhou, China

Someone's greenhouse in Texas

A storm brewing over the Himalayas in Nepal

Something entitled "Hotel Ship Wreck Dance Hall" in Szeged, Hungary - (not quite sure what happened here)

Coral reef fish in New Caledonia

 

http://www.360cities.net/image/h-tre-pleureur-jardin-botanique-de-bayeux#371.10,-0.39,84.7

http://www.360cities.net/image/casa-de-los-azulejos-mexico-df#765.00,14.60,39.4

http://www.360cities.net/image/monterosso-al-mare-view-to-the-divided-town-liguria-italy#-338.84,-22.39,70.0

http://www.360cities.net/image/dogtv#1507.73,6.98,86.7

http://www.360cities.net/image/fishing-boats-in-the-mui-ne-bay-vietnam#378.09,1.60,10.0

http://www.360cities.net/image/torres-del-paine-at-night#823.15,-88.92,56.8 

http://www.360cities.net/image/guizhou-xingyi-wanfenglin-5the-forest-of-ten-thousand-peaks-guizhou-province#357.21,12.66,90.0

http://www.360cities.net/image/my-greenhouse#539.85,-5.01,98.6

http://www.360cities.net/image/brewing-storm-over-the-himalayas-nepal#168.44,-18.84,62.1

http://www.360cities.net/image/szoke-tisza-hotel-ship-wreck-dance-hall-szeged#20.72,4.18,32.1

http://www.360cities.net/image/coral-reef-fish-new-caledonia#491.38,23.50,28.5

 

Rome's New Traffic Plan ?

I keep on walking past this hoarding half-way down via Giulia, in the one ugly spot on one of Rome's most beautiful streets. I always wonder, "Is this Rome's new traffic plan?" Because that's what it says at the bottom: Rome - Traffic and Mobility Action Plan.

And I wonder “When is this going to start? It looks exciting. Am I ready for it? What is going to happen?”

On and on it goes. Yards and yards of fancy dresses and solemn notices.

It's only when you get right to the end, you discover what is happening. It’s just two different messages one on top of the other. The top says "The Friends of Via Giulia Association Wishes You Happy Holidays".

But they fit together so neatly for 95 percent of the way that I am still tricked every time I walk by. And since fate has put this combination into our hands, perhaps we could do something with it. I still think it would be a brilliant traffic plan. I am not sure how it would be implemented in full. But I can imagine the first morning, with everyone got up like that. Surely traffic would be smoother if everyone was dressed so. The cats, the dogs, the pigeons and the seagulls would stop to watch as well.

Africa, slowly, from the sky

The April 19 issue of the New Yorker had an interesting article by Lauren Collins on the American photographer George Steinmetz. His speciality is taking pictures from a motorised paraglider which  he flies low and slow (27 mph is the one speed it has). With it he can get the angles which he wants, whereas "trying to get a pilot to put a plane exactly where you want it is like trying to get someone else to scratch an itch".

The picture above is of a salt-making site at the village of Teguidda-n-Tessoumt in northern Niger.

My favourite photograph in the article was one of Beni Isguen, one of the five walled villages in the M'zab region of Algeria, which seen from above looked like the inside of a multi-coloured electronic device. Unfortunately I haven't been able to find it on the Internet. However, you can see a number of  other wonderful photographs which he has taken of Africa in this video. 

George Steinmetz - African Air from George Steinmetz on Vimeo.

There is another video about the Arabian desert here

And you can find more photographs at http://www.georgesteinmetz.com/. It took me a while to find out how to see all the photographs so here's what you need to do: under Images, you will find a drop-down menu of projects. If you select one of them a photo will appear, but each project has a dozen or so others which can be seen if you click on "View Story" at the bottom right of the screen. 

The future as it was

When I was a small boy I had a book about science which ended with a few pages tof illustrations of how life would be in the 21st Century.

I am pretty sure that it told me that we would farm the sea. (I think there was some kind of marine combine harvester in action). Nuclear power would be a perfect solution to our energy needs, so safe that we all might have miniature power plants underneath our kitchen sinks.

As in all such predictions there would be flying cars which would transport individuals down the city's canyons and land them safely on the roofs.

There wasn't much else I could remember and one night I thought I would try and see whether I could re-locate them on the Internet. Of course, if I had thought about it for a few more seconds I would have never tried. I couldn't remember the title of the book or the title of the section. One day, I predict, we will be able to search for things which we can't remember at all. We will also be able to key in a number and recall what we were thinking at 10.35 am on a Tuesday forty years earlier. But I didn't come up with a complete blank because I came across a website called Paleo-future from which I have lifted most of the pictures in this post.

The picture above is from Collier's Weekly, January 12, 1901 and provides a glimpse into the way the future would be in 2001. Flying machines, as I said, are always present. Luckily this prediction hasn't come true. Since I imagine myself as a pedestrian in any case I am terrified by the idea of all the shadows these flitting vehicles would cast, the noise they would make and the danger they would pose when they came in low to land.

I would much prefer the following system. 

Airships, though slower, have always seemed a more civilised way of traveling to me. This is a prediction of how the world would be in 2000 from Hildebrandt's German Chocolate.

Here is a more daring prediction, this time from France 1910. 

You will have noticed that there doesn't seem to be much of an attempt to predict changes in attire in the year 2000. I suppose that this is because of the fact that most predictions are extrapolations and it is hard to extrapolate fashion. When people do bother to depict future clothes nine time out of ten it is a copy of the basic Flash Gordon model.

One attempt was made by Vanity Fair in 1939. The text says: Gilbert Rhode banishes buttons, pockets, collars, ties. The man of the next century will revolt against shaving and wear a beautiful beard, says the designer of boilers, pianos, clocks, and metal furniture. His hat will be an an antennae - snatching radio out of the ether. His socks disposable, his suit minus tie collar and buttons.

 

The clothes aren't quite right, but the beard and the antenna hat are pretty close. I mean, who in their right mind could have predicted designer stubble and surely the antenna is basically the same idea as being permanently connected through your iPhone.

As I said, most predictions are based on extrapolation and ,since history does not usually follow that pattern, the safest prediction you can make is that predictions are going to be wrong and that any ones we make are going to look as funny to people in a hundred years time and these ones look to us.

One of my favourites, again from the Hildebrants Deutscher Kakao and Deutsche Schokolade enterprise is one called the Wasserspaziergang, or Water Walk, though perhaps Water Promenade reflects the tone more effectively. I wonder whether prolonged exposure to chocolate fumes could have had anything to do with this vision. Anyway this is how we were going to spend our Sunday morning.

I think that the balloon pressure would have to be set very accurately. Any deviation from the exact value and the spazierganger would have started to float upwards or sink into the water. I also think that walking, say, on the Rhine might not have been a good idea, since the current would probably have carried you down to Holland, making you miss your Sunday lunch.

One thing which must have seemed a certainty was a moving sidewalk. Here is one complete with travelling benches, although shorter skirts might have made the thing a bit safer.

There is actually an interesting film of a prototype presented at the Paris Expo in 1900. On one of the versions I saw someone commented that it was interesting to see that boys were just as obnoxious then as they are today. Strange, because the comment which came into my mind was that guards were just as obnoxious then as they are today. (See the one who gives the boy a clout round the head). 

To see all the other things we missed having, visit www.paleofuture.com

Angelic Landings

(This is a revised version of something I posted in August 2008 with the title "The Metaphysical Olympics. Click on the pictures to enlarge and make your own judgements.).

I often think about this peculiar painting of the Annunciation by Lorenzo Lotto. As you can see,    God doesn't seem to have much confidence that the angel is going to carry out his instructions properly and Mary is just about to exit the canvas. (I'm sure there must be a never-discovered version where she has already hopped out). But most of all, I think about the cat which has jumped up in panic. What set it off? Just the sight of a big thing with wings ? Some angelic smell ? Or do angels move air when they come down and land ?

This one certainly seems to have come down fast. It looks to me a bit like a gymnast trying for a good score when exiting from a somersault. Perhaps overdoing it a bit and so appealing more to the crowd than to the judges. And thinking of that gave me the idea of organising the first Metaphysical Olympics. For the time being we only have one event - Gymnastics for Angels or Gymnangelastics.

One advantage in having angels compete is that they probably don't take steroids. However there are also some problems. It is to be hoped we will never have to subject any to sex tests. And then there is the small matter that they don't seem to turn up as often as they used to. Because of this, I have decided that we are going to judge the event by the way they perform in pictures of the Annunciation. Specifically, we will be focusing on how well they landed.

So here are some of the favourites as well as some of the outsiders in the Gymnangelastics event. Dutch and Flemish painters are unfortunately under-represented because most of them seem to prefer to depict the angel as it walks in through the  front door or else have it comfortably seated as if it had been served a cup of tea before bringing up the delicate subject it was called upon to discuss.

(click to enlarge)

Beato Angelico
Beautiful wing position (and beautiful wings), hands in expressive but not overly flamboyant position. However the angel has not been able to completely check its forward motion.
Very good.

Alessio Baldovinetti
Quite a big wobble here. Wings OK but not outstanding. Hands-crossed position looks like a hasty attempt to regain balance.
Average

ù

Botticelli
Big disappointment here from Botticelli, who surely must have been considered a contender.Very bad form in general, everything pointing in different directions and looking very unstable. Perhaps just about to tip forward onto the ground or grab Mary's garb.                          

Underperformer.

Caravaggio
Go back and practise some more.
Non-starter.

David
Knees somewhat too far apart, hand gestures not perfect, robe not completely under control and wings in in-between position, but all in all a very impressive performance. Might just be a surprise medallist.
Dark horse.

 

El Greco

Almost certain to get injured landing like that.
Are you insured?

 

Fra Bartolomeo
Just slightly tilted and askew, but another possible surprise.
The other Brother.

Gentile Bellini
Not perfect (I think you are supposed to land inside the house), but so dynamic and expressive it is very likely some of the judges will be swayed.
The menace from Venice

 Grunewald

A completely different approach: flamboyant and deliberately rough-edged.

Walk on the wild side

Leonardo da Vinci
Most people's favourite. Turbo-spoiler wings, perfect poise, frozen motion and landing almost exactly half-way between  the two cypress trees.  Flawless.

Rubens
You can't deny the talent, but a rather hard landing.
Heavyweight.

Simone Martini
Much simpler than some of the others, but bordering on perfection.
Shades of gold

Terbruggen
A Dutch follower of Caravaggio and having the same kind of problems in making contact with the earth.Never Land

 

Tintoretto

Seems to have knocked a number of the house's walls down and to have involved the holy spirit in a stuka dive.
Spectators advised to stand back.

And then of course there is Lotto. Pretty good but something is not kosher. I have great confidence in the intuition of cats and until the issue is clarified Lotto will suffer a one-point deduction.

These are of course my personal opinions. I am no expert on gymnastics or angels, so you might want to contribute your own scores. 

By the way, I took all these pictures from a fantastic resource - The Web Gallery of Art where you can organise your own exhibitions by searching by keywords. Searching for "Annunciation" gave me 540 different paintings. You could, for example, try and find all the pictures of St. Sebastian they have. (Perhaps useful for an archery event at our Olympics).

How our bodies were in the 1950's

Since this picture has a reference to Stuttgart, I am assuming that it is a German representation ofthe way our bodies work. From the style I would guess that this is from the 1950's. It is all very industrial with lots of cogs and iron. Today we would probably portray things differently with integrate circuits and wireless connections. Of course, in order to be really up-to-date, we would have had to outsource and offshore a lot of these functions. If you are surprised at how much German has changed since the 1950's, the text on this copy is in Turkish. I picked it up from the pharmacy on Turnacıbaşi sokak.


Here's an enlarged view of the head. Is this the way yours works? Is that a spider's web or is it some old scentific apparatus ? If those are people deciding in the upper right compartment, I think I have about twelve. And today I have a cold, so I really do feel that I have those 1-ton cast-iron wheels going round and round in my nose.

Etceteras for the next 25 kilometers - Good Road Signs

It's the etceteras you really have to watch out for.

Hold on to your hats when crossing railway bridges ?

Women can dance the samba on the pedestrian crossing.

Siblings crossing.

Kids kicking the stuffing out of triangles.

A warning to people in wheel-chairs ? Or to alligators (wheel-chairs being hard to digest) ? Or to vehicles trying to drive through in-between.

When wet, the wheels on the left-hand side may end up on the right-hand side.

a

All pictures from Icons, Taschen

Volcanic money

I remember that the first time I was given this 100 rupiah banknote in Indonesia I thought to myself, "Is this really the best way to promote confidence in currency stability?"

You can't read the writing clearly in this picture, but I can assure you that the island towards which the sailboat seems to be sailing is Krakatoa or Krakatau, which has erupted several times. The most famous eruption was in 1883. According to Wikipedia its power was equivalent to 200 megatons of TNT - about 13,000 times the nuclear yield of the Little Boy bomb that devastated Hiroshima.

I think it would have been even more interesting if they had also added the motto on the US dollar bills "In God We Trust", perhaps just underneath the volcano.

However, this could have been a useful logo (with the addition of thick fog) for some of those incomprehensible financial instruments which began to explode last year.

This banknote was printed from 1992 to 1999 if I am not mistaken. But if you really want to test people's nerves, you could always issue something with a picture of Mount Tambora, also in Indonesia. Mount Tambora's eruption in 1815 was the biggest in recorded history. It caused climatic abnormalities and 1816 became known as the Year Without Summer. Crops and livestock perished in much of the Northern hemisphere, causing the worst famine of the 19th Century.

Maybe there will be a Central Bank brave enough to print a Mount Tambora note with the motto "Keeping our fingers crossed".

Dormouse Day Semi-Automatic Sleep Generator

I've moved the Dormouse Day Semi-Automatic Sleep Generator to a page of its own.

The Exterminating Angel (Re-post)

This is something which I originally put up in February 2008, but a lot of people (well, more than one) told me that they spent quite a long time staring at it and it is also a reminder to order this most sedative of insecticides (which also has cosmetic effects) now since stocks tend to run out in early May.

The second in a series : "Not A Buñuel Film".

Do you want to sleep well ? Only with Durma-bem (Sleep-well),

the most powerful destroyer of all insects. (Old Portuguese Advertisement)