folk art beauty

My eye is drawn to folk art. I love this example, by Danita (she goes by her first name only), an artist in El Paso whose shop on Etsy can be visited here.

The title of this work is "Never leave home behind."

Good advice.

Two ways wonderful

Click here! http://www.freerice.com/

Your children (or you!) can have a few minutes of fun, improving your vocabulary skills (wonderfulness #1) and then, for every word you answer correctly, corporations donate 20 grains of rice where it's needed (wonderfulness #2).

Thanks to Melanie for this (and a million other things).

Wag the Dog.

I'm not (for once) actually thinking of dogs right now, but rather of this evocative expression. My friend Melanie recently told me a story about clover, which is yet another example of instances when the wealthy and powerful didn't have an ideal circumstance, so they created it. I realized that I now have something of a collection of these, which I share with you.

1. Clover. Prior to the 1950's, grass in one's yard was a rare thing. The most common ground covering was clover, and people liked it in their yards. It's a lovely deep green color, once it takes root it's extremely hardy, it tends to edge out other things so you have good coverage with it, it takes little water to be happy, it takes nitrogen from the air, not the soil, so it's not soil-depleting the way many grass varieties are, and it's a helpful plant for friendly, honey-producing bees.
But. Herbicides were in development in the 1950s, and try as they could, they couldn't come up with a chemical that would kill weeds, but not kill the innocuous, broad-leafed and therefore susceptible clover. The answer was to reclassify clover as a weed, and now the only hurdle to mass sales of herbicide to private home owners was to convince them that clover was, indeed, an enemy weed. A nationwide ad campaign was launched regarding the danger of allowing your babies to frolic in bee-harboring clover. Within ten years, no one's yard had clover, and almost every one's garage had gallons of herbicide.

2. Breast milk. Until the 1930s, every child born in the US was breastfed. In the rare event a mother couldn't or wouldn't breastfeed a new baby, a lactating relative would typically do the job, or a hired wet nurse. Some housekeeping books from the era included a recipe for "infant formula," the primary ingredient being usually Karo syrup, which worked okay in a short-term emergency. A company decided to market the Karo syrup formula, and sales were all right, but wouldn't sales be better if mothers could be convinced that the formula was actually better than breast milk? A nationwide ad campaign, which later became a worldwide ad campaign, ensued. Mothers were convinced. Breastfeeding was almost completely wiped out in my generation. When people realized that the formula companies claims were patently false, breastfeeding rates surged again, but to this day they are scandalously low, and dangerously low in developing nations.

3. The Chicago River. At the end of the last century, Chicagoans had a problem--their river was so polluted, sludgy, and disgusting that it smelled. Rather than reduce pollution, city leaders decided to reverse the flow of the river. And they did. In 1900, they completed a canal (which moved more earth than the more famous Panama canal project 10 years later), which ingeniously flushed the Chicago River in the opposite direction. Now they got their clean drinking water from Lake Michigan (billions of gallons a day), and their waste water moved on down the Mississippi. This was a great thing for Chicago. This was not such a great thing for St. Louis.

4. Street Cars. A few years later, horse-less carriages were invented. They were fun and fabulous for the very wealthy, but automobile makers could clearly see that they were not going to become the mode of transportation for the populous. This was because cars were very expensive to buy and operate, and, even more notably, the ordinary citizens of American cities had their transportation needs met: by street cars. Or called trolleys in some places. They were efficient and universally used. Need to go to another city? People took the train. Until a few automobile manufacturers, some of the wealthiest people in the country, purchased street car lines and train routes and purposefully and systematically tore them up. Need to buy a car now.

Question for today: what story are we buying right now, that makes perfect sense to us in this moment, is actually a crazy example of the tail wagging the dog to further some one's nefarious purposes?

Dover publishing--good stuff

I'm a fan of Dover Publishing. Dover books are, by design, very inexpensive, and they cover a huge variety of topics. Their children books, both for reading and for crafting, are wonderful to behold. But they've got stuff for grownups, too. They also produce an extensive collection of clip art--beautiful. I'm on an e-mail list with them, and about once a month they send me news of their latest in clip art, along with a few free samples (pictured here). Good fun. You can sign up by sending an e-mail to DoverEditors@doverpublishing.com. Or check out their website for yourself here.

In honor of Earth Day

Here's website that it appears everyone has discovered but me--until now! It has a very young, urban, hip feel. I feel a little bit of a visitor from another country on this site, but I still love it. Have a look around. Happy Earth Day!

http://treehugger.com/

Artist Trading Cards

Have you encountered this phenomenon? I think I know some creative souls who would really enjoy being a part of this. Google "artist trading cards" and you'll come up with lots to look at. I like this one: http://www.artjunction.org/atcs.php

Story of the little house, continued

If you've been reading this blog since, oh, more or less the beginning, then you may remember that there's been construction going on across the street from me. There was a little brick house there, a 1950's ranch that matched, exactly, every other house on this street. But the old woman who lived there, Carmen Wilkenson, a retired elementary school teacher, reading teacher, children's book author (as far as I can tell, a kindred spirit and I wish so much I met her) died just before we moved in across the street from her.

Her house was accidentally flooded by its negligent caretakers, and unsalvageable, it was demolished.

Then the construction began. Once it looked like this.

I have to tell you, it's been a long six months for the neighborhood. While there wasn't anything especially surprising about the constancy of loading, unloading, trucks, people, and noise, a few things have surprised me. There have been a great many crews--the roof guys, the siding guys, the garage door guys, the wall board guys, the landscaping guys....and on and on. Some have made more of an attempt than others to restrain their noise and presence in our neighboohood. When it was cold, the indoor crews started their generator around 7am, and it stayed on until 7pm most nights, along with their bright, bright lights. Some have parked right in front of my house, eating lunch in their car, doors open to get air and block the sidewalk, talking loudly and occasionally spitting. Some have taken more notice of us than others, stopping to observe my coming and going from my car. Once I stopped in my living room, idly thinking of something else and observing the growing house outside our picture window, when I realized that a member of the crew was likewise paused, and staring right into my window. We were having something of a staredown. I thought I'd wait him out, remind him of who was at work and who was in the "privacy" of her own home. But, after a second or two, I turned first. The most recent crew, the landscape guys, have brought along with them a radio and have appointed themselves the neighborhood DJs. Needless to say, I'm so glad to see that they seem to be nearing completion.

I took this photo a few minutes ago. And yes, that's a toilet on the front porch of the new (million dollar) house across the street. There's something about that toilet that spurred me to write this rather whiny post. Why couldn't they leave it in the garage? Or in the entryway? Could they throw the neighborhood a bone and try to keep a semblance of aesthetic grace? I hope it's a joke, something meant to get a laugh from another crew member, and not just complete unconsciousness.

Whining now complete. We'll now return to our usually scheduled programming.