Archive for the tag blurry
Kind of blurry, member of The Cloud Appreciation Society
We are pleased to announce that on January 21, 2010 ‘Kind of blurry’ became official member 20331 of The Cloud Appreciation Society.
The Cloud Appreciation Society is an organization based in the UK promoting an interest in clouds, and has over 20,000 members all over the world. Read more about it in this previous article.
www.cloudappreciationsociety.org
Lost in the mists of time, and other idioms with fog
(section in progress)
To be in a fog or to be in a haze
Fig. confused, not alert; dazed; not paying attention to what is going on around one Read the rest of this article
To be on cloud nine, and other idioms with clouds
(section in progress)
To have one’s head in the clouds
Fig. to daydream; to be unaware of what is going on from fantasies Read the rest of this article
Confessions, X
Excerpt from Confessions, X, VIII by Saint Augustine
[...] And I come to the fields and spacious palaces of memory, where are the treasures of innumerable images, brought into it from things of all sorts perceived by the senses. There is stored up, whatever besides we think, either by enlarging or diminishing, or any other way varying those things which the sense hath come to; and whatever else hath been committed and laid up, which forgetfulness hath not yet swallowed up and buried. Read the rest of this article
How high is that cloud?
If you feel curious to know how high (or low) a cloud is, you can learn now how to calculate it.
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Height = 125 x (outside temperature ºC – dew point ºC)
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Sketch of the Past
Excerpt from Virginia Woolf’s ‘Sketch of the Past’ (1939)
In certain favourable moods, memories –what one has forgotten– come to the top. Now if this is so, is it not possible –I often wonder– that things that we have felt with great intensity have an existence independent of our minds; are in fact still in existence? And if so, will it not be possible, in time, that some device will be invented by which we can tap them? I see it –the past– as an avenue lying behind; a long ribbon of scenes, emotions. There at the end of the avenue still, are the garden and the nursery. Instead of remembering here a scene and there a sound, I shall fit a plug into the wall; and listen in to the past. I shall turn up August 1890. I feel that strong emotion must leave its trace; and it is only a question of discovering how we can get ourselves again attached to it, so that we shall be able to live our lives through from the start.
Courtesy of The Society of Authors, literary representative of the Estate of Virginia Woolf www.societyofauthors.org
Presbyopia
Noun
1. Inability of the eye, due to ageing, to focus on nearby objects
The Cloud Appreciation Society
The Cloud Appreciation Society is an organization promoting an interest in clouds, with news, forums, photograph gallery and members area. It has published as well an amount of books in different languages, such as ‘The Cloudspotter’s Guide’ and ‘The Cloud Collector’s Handbook’. Read the rest of this article
Kasumi, spring mist
霞 【かすみ】 kasumi, (spring) mist [frequently translated as 'haze']
朝霞 【あさがすみ】 asagasumi, morning mist
夕霞 【ゆうがすみ】 yūgasumi, evening mist
遠霞 【とおがすみ】 tōgasumi, distant mist
Don Quixote recovers from madness
Excerpt from Miguel de Cervantes’ ‘Don Quixote’
(’El ingenioso hidalgo don Quijote de la Mancha’) (1605-1615)
My judgment is now clear and free from the misty shadows of ignorance with which my ill-starred and continuous reading of those detestable books of chivalry had obscured it. Now I know their absurdities and their deceits, and the only thing that grieves me is that this discovery has come too late, and leaves me no time to make amends by reading other books, which might enlighten my soul. I feel, niece, that I am on the point of death, and I should like to meet it in such a manner as to convince the world that my life has not been so bad as to leave me the character of a madman; for though I have been one, I would not confirm the fact in my death.
Yo tengo juicio ya, libre y claro, sin las sombras caliginosas de la ignorancia, que sobre él me pusieron mi amarga y continua leyenda de los detestables libros de las caballerías. Ya conozco sus disparates y sus embelecos, y no me pesa sino que este desengaño ha llegado tan tarde, que no me deja tiempo para hacer alguna recompensa, leyendo otros que sean luz del alma. Yo me siento, sobrina, a punto de muerte; querría hacerla de tal modo, que diese a entender que no había sido mi vida tan mala, que dejase renombre de loco; que puesto que lo he sido, no querría confirmar esta verdad en mi muerte.
Nothing in nature [...]
P.H. Emerson, Naturalistic Photography for Students of Art (1889)
Nothing in nature has a hard outline, but everything is seen against something else, and its outlines fade gently into that something else, often so subtlely that you cannot quite distinguish where one ends and the other begins. In this mingled decision and indecision, this lost and found, lies all the charm and mistery of nature.
P.H. Emerson, The misty river, ca. 1890 / print ca. 1895 photogravure print, 15.0 x 19.6 cm.
All of this that is happening to me
Excerpt from Miguel de Unamuno’s ‘Niebla’ (1914)
All of this that is happening to me, and happening to others about me, is it reality or is it fiction? May not all of it perhaps be a dream of God, or of whomever it may be, which will vanish as soon as He wakes?
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Disappearing candy floss
Piña colada, barbapapá que se va
Piña colada, barbapapá que se va / Piña colada, disappearing candy floss (2004) © elBulli Restaurant Photography by Francesc Guillamet
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The foggiest place in the world
Current satellite image of the Grand Banks
© Environment Canada / NOAA Polar Orbiting Sat imagery
The foggiest place in the world is the Grand Banks off the island of Newfoundland, Canada, with over 200 foggy days each year.
Fog is frequent here as the Grand Banks is the meeting place of the cold Labrador Current from the north and the much warmer Gulf Stream from the south. The cold Labrador Current runs over the Grand Banks, and when warm air passes over this water, a dense fog forms.
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Mist formation
by Harry Geurts
Clouds found on the earth’s surface which obscure visibility to less than 1000 metres are called fog. Ground fog or low lying fog refers to fog located below eye level. Fog is formed when vapour-laden air cools down or when cool air and warm air mix together. The names given to sorts of fog in meteorology reveal the conditions under which a given sort is formed.
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Cloud streets
by Gunther Können
When you know about them, you will notice them: cloud streets. They occur in coastal regions if the wind blows from sea. They consist of individual cumulus clouds, which are organized in parallel lines or streets. The distance between two streets is typical 1.5 km. On the Frisian island Terschelling, where I spend a few weeks any year, I usually spot such streets a few times during each stay. They occur there during south-western wind, that is when the wind direction is parallel with the island. Over Terschelling, about 4 km wide, there are usually three of these streets; between them the sky is clear. If you are unlucky enough, such a street keeps you many hours out of the sun. Over the sea there are no clouds at all.
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The mascletá correguda
Urban spaces at the origins of a tradition
The mascletá as we know it today seems to have its origin in an act of movement: the mascletá correguda or ‘runned mascletá’. In the mascletá correguda, long strings with fireworks (the so-called traca) are disposed along the streets of a village or neighbourhood. The fireworks are lit at one extreme and explode all along the way, allowing people to run under the exploding fireworks or along with it, ‘accompanying the fire’.
Haarlem’s crown of clouds
Meteorology in the paintings of Jacob van Ruisdael
by Franz Ossing
Dutch landscape painting of the 17 century has gained a unique place in art history; for the first time landscape played a role of its own due to its realist naturalistic reproduction. But the ‘realism’ in the paintings of the Dutch ‘Golden Age’ must not be wrongly interpreted that they represent a linear copy of nature (de Vries 1991), as an early form of landscape photography. The paintings have to be understood as compositions, composed of realistically reproduced elements where the whole is much more than a summary of the single parts. Hedinger (2001) has called this an ‘invented reality’ of landscape.
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My own beliefs
Laura d'Ors, My own beliefs (2009)
To Leopoldo Lugones
Excerpt from Borges’ ‘The maker’ (1960)
Leaving behind the babble of the plaza, I enter the Library. I feel, almost physically, the gravitation of the books, the enveloping serenity of order, time magically dessicated and preserved. Left and right, absorbed in their shining dreams, the readers’ momentary profiles are sketched by the light of their officious lamps, to use Milton’s hypallage. I remember having remembered that figure before in this place, and afterwards that other epithet that also defines these environs, the arid camel of the Lunario, and then that hexameter from the Aeneid that uses the same artifice and surpasses artifice itself:
Misty
by Erroll Garner
A kind of amnesia
Laura d'Ors, A kind of amnesia (2009)
The mascletá
A symphony of explosions
The mascletá is a (mostly) daytime firework show consisting on rythmic sound explosions. It is based in the use of the so-called ‘masclet’ (a kind of powerful firecracker), whose explosion receives the name of ‘thunder’. The word’s etimology lies in the Valencian word for ‘male’. It is probably related to the loudness of the sound, what was considered masculine, and to the fact that these fireworks explosions were dedicated exclusively to holy men; whereas celebrations for holy women had a lighter, more feminine character. The origin of the mascletá lies probably in the purifying character of black powder, to scare evil spirits. Today, mascletás are common in weddings and other celebrations.
The mascletá is a very austere show, it has no colours or shapes to decorate, it is based on the beauty of the pure explosion. It normally lasts for 5 to 10 minutes and follows a strict order. In this sense, we can consider them authentic symphonies of noise.
Reference
Laura d'Ors, Reference (2009)
Hedgehog in the fog
Hedgehog in the Fog (Ёжик в тумане, Yozhik v tumane) is a 10′ 1975 Soviet animated film directed by Yuri Norshteyn. Dreamlike and deceptively simple animated story of how a curious little hedgehog takes a detour through the mysterious fog on the way to see his friend Bear, gets lost and finds his way out again. Hegdehog in the fog’s main theme is the concept of Enlightment and release from the mist of civilization. It is considered one of the best animated films of all time.
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Nor even now am I awake
Excerpt from Calderón de la Barca’s Life is a dream (1635)
Nor even now am I awake
Since such thoughts my memory fill,
That it seems I’m dreaming still:
Nor is this a great mistake;
25 June
Excerpt from Franz Kafka’s Diary (1914)
I paced up and down my room from early morning until twilight. The window was open, it was a warm day. The noises of the narrow street beat in uninterruptedly. By now I knew every trifle in the room from having looked at it in the course of my pacing up and down. My eyes had traveled over every wall. I had pursued the pattern of the rug to its last convolution, noted every mark of age it bore. My fingers had spanned the table across the middle many times. I had already bared my teeth repeatedly at the picture of the landlady’s dead husband.
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Blur building
Diller Scofidio + Renfro
The Blur building was built by New York-based architects Diller and Scofidio on Lake Neuchâtel at Yverdon-les-Bains, Switzerland on occasion of the Swiss Expo 2002. The Blur building uses various forms of water –mist, dew, fog and drinking water– as the substance of its architecture. Water is pumped from the lake, filtered and shot as mist.
Die Verschwindung von Haus 8
Laura d'Ors, Die Verschwindung von Haus 8 (2007)
A Swiss mountain
Laura d'Ors, Swiss mountain (2006). Opening performance for d'Ors exhibition at Kunstenlab (NL) by Sabine Mooibroek. Mountain costume by Laura d'Ors
Souvenir
Laura d'Ors, Souvenir (2006)
A vague memory
Laura d'Ors, Een vage herinnering (2006)