Slow Start to Our Tree Study: Outdoor Hour Challenge #31

Our start on our study of trees was sort of slow. The boys have been spending all their free time with our new puppy and I guess the only way to entice them to a nature walk is to bring the dog along.

We have a number of trees that are starting to get their autumn color and my son brought to my attention that the sweet gum trees are making the rocks underneath them shiny.

Note the leaves that have already fallen from the tree.


The leaves are getting shiny too.

Here's what it says on Wikipedia:
"The gum resin, also known as liquid amber or copalm balsam, yielded by this tree has no special medicinal virtues, being inferior in therapeutic properties to many others of its class. It is a kind of native balsam, or resin, like turpentine. It may be clear, reddish or yellow, with a pleasant smell like ambergris."

This is my garden companion....she is watching a bird on the lawn with great intent in this photo. (Ignore the weeds in the photo...they were left there in the name of challenge #30 or at least I keep telling myself that is the reason.) She does her own kind of tree study and is an expert tree climber.

We took a few hours to go up to a local apple orchard. We all enjoy the apple harvest time of year and all of its yummy treats, both the kind you eat and the kind you can see, smell, and feel.


The trees were loaded with apples.




Now for the kind of treats we look forward to all year. Apple doughnuts. No explanation needed
except for maybe the fact that we each enjoy a different kind...with nuts, or crumbs, or glazed, or plain, or cinnamon sugar.

I think there is no better way to learn about a tree than to eat the fruits of its boughs.

Look at those pines in the background of the photo above....we should have gone over and investigated what they were. I really need to get more focused for this tree challenge.

If you haven't had time yet to follow the links on Mr. Linky for challenge #31, you really need to take a few minutes to do so. There are some very inspiring entries from families across the states. I was hoping some of the participants from the far reaches of the world would share their local trees. I know we have families participate from England, Spain, Brazil, Hawaii, and Alaska. I am sure we would all love to at least see some photos of their local trees as inspiration for this challenge. I am challenging you to take the challenge!

Have a great week. I am hoping to post my pine entry this week too. We certainly have enough subject matter for that challenge.

Barb-Harmony Art Mom

Not Well

Sneeze - The most amazing bloopers are here

Southern Exposures

For the last three months, The New York Times has been running an occasional series, "Going Down the Road", where writer-photographer teams revisit places highlighted in the classic American Guide Series of travel books of the late 1930s. The series has been a little sleepy so far, but yesterday I opened my paper to find the vibrant photograph, above, by Ruth Fremson and many more good pictures on the paper’s website.

Fremson drew the assignment of going to Eatonville, Florida, the first all-black town to incorporate in the country and the childhood home of Zora Neale Hurston. What particularly struck me about the photo-
graphs, though, was the degree to which many of them seem indebted to William Eggleston. This is not to take anything away from Fremson, who is an exceptionally talented photojournalist, but with a single artist sale of Eggleston’s coming up at Christies followed by a major retrospective at The Whitney it seems apt to reassert my contention that he is the most influential photographer of our time.

Eggleston’s early commitment to color, the consistency of his American vision, and his focus on finding something of note in the everyday and unexceptional opened up a whole new front in the aesthetics of photography. While there have been plenty of bad imitators since, before Eggleston I don’t think anyone would have thought much of a photograph like the last one pictured here of a general store selling both cowboy boots and food, or the image of a deflated but still stylish seventies era car – a seeming analogy for the state of both Eatonville and the country.

It’s been 32 years since Eggleston’s landmark show at MoMA accompanied by the book “William Eggleston’s Guide” and an interesting coincidence that Fremson’s pictures now appear in a similar guise – the photographer not as observer or pictorialist but as guide.

More images of Eatonville by Ruth Fremson:

Paul Newman. 1925 - 2008

Paul Newman was a unique celebrity in that the notion of celebrity seemed so removed from him. He loved acting but more for the craft than the rewards. His loved race cars, good food and wine, liberal causes, and according to one newspaper he gave more to charity in comparison to his own wealth than anyone has ever done.

Photographically speaking, he was never one for posing and so there are few iconic pictures of him outside of movie stills, with the exception of this one great photograph by Eve Arnold.

Photographed in 1955 at an Actor's Studio class, it was taken the year before Newman was to make a mark in “Somebody Up There Likes Me” and three years before his first Academy Award Nomination for “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof”. When I asked Arnold how she happened to focus on him while doing a story on the famous acting school she had a simple answer, “He just glowed.”

The tributes to Newman are many and profound, but perhaps my favorite line about Newman came from Adam Sandler in his “Chanukah Song”:

Paul Newman's half-Jewish, Goldie Hawn too.
Put them together, what a fine-lookin' Jew!

Outdoor Hour-Weeds or Plants? Another Weed Post

“A weed is a plant growing where we wish something else to grow, and a plant may, therefore, be a weed in some locations and not in others.”
Handbook of Nature Study, page 512

This week as I was watering the garden and flower beds, I spent some time thinking about weeds. The boys and I discussed the definition of a weed and how our yard is filled with plants that we call weeds that others might actually cultivate in their gardens. The unidentified weed above is growing alongside a few things I planted and it has proven to be healthier and more prolific than anything I intended to grow.

The definition of a weed and a plant in my yard come dangerously close. If the plant has some redeeming value like a pretty leaf or a pretty flower or a colorful berry, I sometimes leave it in the ground.


The unidentified plant from above looks like it is covered in beads to me and it is hard to really call it a weed but since it is growing in my flower bed where I didn't plant it....it is a weed although I left it again this week and didn't pull it out.


This beauty of a weed actually is growing in the gravel along my walkway. It is so green when most of my yard is turning brown already. It has a delicate white flower with a little yellow trumpet center. The leaves are a pretty shape. I left it in the ground too.


This weed is found all over my yard. It has the softest velvet leaves. I hate to pull it out...so I don't. It is actually easier to pull it up when it is larger so leaving it in the ground really is a timesaver in the long run.


This blackberry vine is creeping under the fence from our neighbor's yard. We have a constant battle with blackberry vines. I do have two places that I let them grow in the corners of the front yard so I can harvest a couple dessert's worth of berries each summer. My husband whacks the vines as soon as he sees them. My husband considers this a "weed".

This little tiny red berry is on a creeping plant under my crepe myrtle. I have spent a lot of time pulling it up but decided it can just stay. It is no longer considered a weed but a ground cover. (See the tiny mimosa trees also growing among the rocks? More on mimosas below.)

Right now, the plant shown above is my biggest "weed" in the garden and lawn. Tiny little mimosa trees are growing *everywhere*. We cut down a huge mimosa tree earlier this year but the seeds from the leftover seed pods are sprouting by the hundreds, if not thousands. I was making progress pulling them up by making it a goal to weed out fifty seedlings a day but I grew tired of the chore and now they are everywhere again. I need to get back to working on them a little every day. My point is that some people might consider a mimosa a great tree in their yard and actually encourage its growth but for our family the mimosas have to go and so they are considered a "weed".

For more information on the weeds and seeds challenge, here is a link.

Barb-Harmony Art Mom

Street Fashion

London fashion week has finished. I don't think this outfit was paraded on any of the catwalks. However it is available from a store in Oxford St though.
6" heels or this? Hmm not much chance of me being fashionable.

Witnesses For The Exploitation

Film companies have always had to sell bad merchandise as aggressively as the good. Maybe more so. None had such integrity as to spare us dogs gone mangy. That scene in Yankee Doodle Dandy where George M. Cohan dictates the telegram warning his public not to attend a disappointing play he’s written was not a gesture studios would emulate, despite being presented here as a refreshingly honest exchange between artist and audience. It’s a rare and welcome event when merchandisers get product so good as to sell itself. Witness For The Prosecution was that kind of gift for United Artists. They actually gave away tickets (seven thousand in NYC) so as to generate what they knew would be positive word-of-mouth. The offer was floated on Times pages other than amusement oriented ones in hopes of luring viewers not otherwise inclined to follow movies. Just mail in your request and UA would reply with free ducats to see Billy Wilder’s newest. 20th Fox also took reservations by mail in 1958 (paid in advance) for its two-a-day hard ticket engagement of The Roots Of Heaven, a picture they doubtlessly smelled from as far away as its African locations (final loss: $2.6 million). Big investment in bad pictures, or at least unwanted ones, translated to bucks passed down the line. Distributors were forced to mislead exhibitors, who in turn hid out behind office doors as disgruntled patrons left (or walked out on) their shows. More (and more) people began staying home to watch better old movies on TV. Was anybody’s crystal ball working that year? Wilder’s latest had been The Spirit Of St. Louis. It lost an epic four million. He’d roll dice shooting Witness For The Prosecution in black-and-white. Exhibitors hated black-and-white. They felt color was their only hedge against television. Clever plotting and (especially) Witness’ sock finish compensated for monochrome lensing and brought out the showman in Billy (that’s him behind the studio cop denying Sam Goldwyn access to his rented stage where Witness was shot). This was a picture to be sold on its element of surprise. Unless you'd read Agatha Christie’s short story or saw it enacted on stage (very popular there), chances are you’d not guess the switcheroo laying in wait. Pledge boards were set up in theatre lobbies and beckoned outgoing customers to promise in writing not to spoil the finish for others. They even had one on the set while Witness was in production, as shown here with Hedda Hopper dutifully signing. For purposes of this post, I’ll keep the faith as well, but would note what fifty years and countless imitations have done to make 1958’s surprise less of one in 2008. Certainly those observant of, for instance, Richard Gere’s onscreen contretemps with varied clients, patients, and love interests will be all too aware of how writers since have unashamedly pillaged Agatha Christie.

Witness For The Prosecution had class and mass appeal. One instance found said markets at war with each other as well as United Artists. New York’s opening in February 1958 saw Witness day and date at Broadway’s Astor Theatre and the Plaza art-house on West 57th Street. UA figured longhairs buying coffee concessions would like it as much as popcorn munching thrill seekers attracted by straight-to-the-point advertising (Unmatched In A Half-Century Of Motion Picture Suspense!). Left in the cold Little Carnegie, itself a frequent venue for high profile art films, smelled rats and sued UA after discovering execs of that company held ownership in the Plaza. The Little Carnegie asked to negotiate for the art house run of "Witness For The Prosecution", but was not given the opportunity, said reports. UA brass no doubt figured these were profits too great to be so recklessly shared. Would the court require the company to open bidding for its product and force administrators to get rid of interests in the Plaza? This was the sort of discord raised to the surface when moneymaking shows revealed themselves. Then as now, producers sought to hoard as much potential coin as possible, one way or the other. Small wonder profit participants saw (and continue seeing) so little bounty. Billy Wilder was in for five percent of the gross (in addition to a flat $100,000). I wonder how much he actually collected. Witness For The Prosecution took $3.364 million in domestic rentals, with $3.5 million more from foreign receipts. Star in name only Tyrone Power (Charles Laughton actually had the lead) was hot off the success of The Eddy Duchin Story. His marquee strength and willingness to share laughs (Laughton) and laurels (Marlene Dietrich’s unexpected alter ego) went a long way toward making Witness the ensemble classic it became. Would Wilder’s intended Kirk Douglas have been so generous? Power regarded himself an actor first and a movie star (distant) second. He’s terrific here once you’re on to the game his character’s playing. It’s a performance best appreciated in hindsight with all the plot’s evidence digested. To watch him near bursting a blood vessel on the witness stand creates viewer anxiety beyond what the script intended, for latter-day knowing calls up imagery of Power’s collapse within a year doing Solomon and Sheba where exertions led to an on-set fatal heart attack. His Witness character looks for all the world to be rehearsing for that unfortunate event to come. It is a performance perhaps too convincing for his (and our) own good.

I wouldn’t call Wilder’s showmanship a gimmick because unlike hucksters of the Bill Castle variety, he actually had the goods and delivered on them. Besides, when a personage we trust like Charles Laughton goes on camera in the trailer to guarantee a series of climaxes that I defy you to guess (his words), we can be sure, as doubtlessly were audiences in 1958, that this will indeed be a courtroom thriller picking up where others leave off. Despite high-flying legal histrionics (and clearly objectionable ones under anyone’s rules of law), Witness For The Prosecution was sold as a legitimate meditation on questions of justice and guilt. Panels of experts representing the police and local bar, discussing finer points of Witness’ Old Bailey showdown, regaled Miami radio listeners and even took the stage in some theatres for post-verdict commentary. It was a tribute to Wilder’s (and author Christie’s) craftsmanship that audiences were willing to suspend their disbelief so completely as to take such forums seriously. For all its fun, Witness For The Prosecution furnishes seeming confirmation that, as Laughton’s character puts it, the scales of justice may tip one way or another, but ultimately they balance out, a Code mandated resolution already on its last legs when the picture was made and perhaps not one Wilder would have chosen had he addressed the subject ten years later. We’ve had sufficient inundation of murders gone unpunished in movies since as to make Witness For The Prosecution seem almost non-conformist. In 1958’s Code context, the ending was a surprise without being too surprising.

Do we take Wilder’s brilliance for granted? I appreciate him best when confronted with modern attempts at thrillers like Witness For The Prosecution, but that’s no fair criteria because there are no thrillers today remotely like Witness. Wilder films defy genre classification in any case. It’s belittling to label Witness as merely a thriller. How many such films have laughs as abundant amidst so much murder and betrayal? Nowadays it’s all darkness at the expense of wit. Wilder knew enough about the former (the real kind, unlike that cadged from old movies, or heaven help us, comic books) to recognize the value of mining the latter where he could find it. That’s a facility he shared with other great directors of his generation. I happened to watch John Ford's The Searchers last night and noted again comic asides throughout. Yes, Ford’s humor was of a broader sort, but would his drama play so well minus the relief? Funereal frontiers are the only ones we’ve crossed in the last forty years it seems. No wonder westerns died. Of course, any funeral Wilder stages would have its share of laughs. He lifted weights off Christie's serious approach to Witness For The Prosecution as a matter of policy, reversing that procedure in the following year's Some Like It Hot by putting real menace in the way of Jack Lemmon and Tony Curtis’ cross-dressing antics. I’m amazed at what Wilder and Laughton do with simple props on a single set in Witness For The Prosecution. Cigars, monocles, a window shade, thermos bottle, a cane to conceal cigars --- was any of this Agatha Christie’s invention? Without having read her story, I’m guessing not (now watch someone correct me and pull down my reverence for Billy a notch or two). Someone wrote that Laughton received only $75,000 to do Witness against Tyrone Power’s $300,000. I don’t disdain Power for collecting such cumulative reward for his twenty years of unbroken boxoffice, and I’d venture Laughton’s love of the craft made whatever payment he received seem (to him) more than equitable. What’s inarguable here is that at no time in film history was $75,000 better spent. I even ran Laughton’s trailer speech over and over just so he could de-fy me again and again (if you have this DVD, please get it out and watch a master turn his hand to promotion). What a joy it must have been for Laughton to seize a part so beautifully written, and who but Wilder could have made it possible? I looked at imdb. The actor only had seven feature credits in the whole of the fifties. Were we then so rich in performing talent as to excuse such neglect? Wilder’s appreciation of his player’s screen histories made him second to none at casting. Look at the referential placement of George Raft, Pat O’ Brien, and Joe E. Brown in Some Like It Hot. Wilder was confident we’d know them well from late shows at home and called upon that immediate recognition to lend his twenties story the roar of so many classics these people had done before. Playing upon images associated with Laughton, Marlene Dietrich, and Power made Witness For The Prosecution a kind of career summation for all three. For Wilder and these iconic players, it is a lasting monument.

A different Approach

Is he going to play it or hit some-one with it?

The Intrepid Fox

Don't know what happened to the Intrepid Fox. I found an old review that talked about the scary patrons, goths and hard rockers, then it talked about the even scarier loos.
Looks a little sad now.
According to an article in the Independent in March this year, 27 pubs a week closed in 2007. What is taking their place is a little uncertain. I'll do more research and sometime in the future do an update on this post.

Outdoor Hour Challenge #32 Pine Trees

Just a little trivia before this week's challenge. As of this moment, September 25, 2008 at 8:00 PM PST, there have been 624 Outdoor Hour Challenges posted on Mr. Linky. That means that 624 nature study sessions have happened all over the world by mostly homeschooling families that have been shared on the various thirty-one challenges. I am humbled and excited that I have been able to be a part of all that time spent outdoors. I am always inspired by every single entry in some way. Thank you for sharing your lives with me.

Now to the challenge for this week.

This may be a difficult focus since everyone has different kinds of trees in their area but I am going to attempt to cover a variety just to get you started and to show you how the Handbook of Nature Study can help you in your local area. I used the poll on my sidebar to gather data about what trees would be an appropriate choice for each challenge.

This week we will start with pines since 87% of those polled responded that they had pines in their location. The Handbook of Nature Study highly recommends studying at least one kind of pine tree in the field and then the leaf/needle or the cone indoors, one specimen per child. I realize that not everyone will have the ability to study a pine tree up close so do the best you can. Even if you do not have any pine trees in your area, you can still start to learn the difference between evergreens and deciduous trees.

Here is a very short video that will introduce the difference between deciduous and evergreens.
How Stuff Works: Season

Here is a web page that has lists of pines by region-worldwide! Make sure to scroll down to find your particular area.
Answers.com-List of Pines




Outdoor Hour Challenge #32
Trees-Pines

1. This week read in the Handbook of Nature Study pages 670-675 to learn more about pine trees. Even if you don’t think you have any pines in your area, it is still interesting to read the information for future reference. Make sure to note the ideas suggested for studying pines in the lesson at the end of the section.

2. Spend 15 minutes outdoors this week with your children in your own yard or on your own street. This week you will have two suggested activities.

*If you have a pine tree of any variety in your yard or on your street, use the ideas from the lesson on page 674 and 675 to guide your observation of the pine tree.
Some ideas to get you started:
What is the general shape of the pine tree?
Is there one central stem running straight up through the center of the tree to the top?
What color is the bark? Is the bark ridged or in scales?
Study the pine leaves. Why are they called needles? How many needles in the bundle?
Does it have a cone?

*If you do not have a pine to observe or you would like an additional activity, take some time to lay under any kind of tree that is available. Look up at the branches. Listen to the sounds of the leaves. Try to spot some kind of wildlife in the tree. Have your children tell you with their words what they experienced while under the tree.

3. After your outdoor time, spend a few minutes discussing any trees you saw. Talk about anything that interested your child. Maybe they brought home a leaf or a cone to examine and you could look at them with a magnifying lens. This would be a good time to look up any pine trees you observed in your field guide and see if you can learn more about your particular pine tree.

4. Make sure to give time and the opportunity for a nature journal entry. If you observed a pine tree, try to complete exercise 10 of the lesson on pine trees: Draw a bundle of pine needles showing the sheath and its attachment to the twig; the cone; the cone scale; the seed. Sketch a pine tree. You could also include a leaf or needle rubbing in your nature journal this week. If you would like to complete a notebooking page, see the link below to choose one for your child’s journal.

5. If you identified a tree this week, add it to your list of trees in the front or back of your nature journal. You can also use the Running List notebooking page from the link below. Make a note indicating whether it is an evergreen or a deciduous tree.

6. Post an entry on your blog sharing your experiences and then come back to the Outdoor Hour Challenge post and add your blog link to Mr. Linky. All the challenges are listed on the sidebar of the Handbook of Nature Study blog.

Here is a link if you are interested in printing this challenge out:
Outdoor Hour Challenge #32 Trees-Pines
(includes all the tree challenges in one document)

Barb-Harmony Art Mom

Weekend Video - Couric & Palin

I try to refrain from putting too much about politics on this blog, so I'm sorry if anyone finds this offensive, but this excerpt from yesterday's broadcast of Katie Couric's interview with Sarah Palin has to be seen to be believed. Comments please.

P.S. (late addition to the post)

A friend just noted that Sarah Palin's performance reminded her of last year's famous South Carolina Miss Teen USA contestant.

P.P.S.

I hate to lay it on, but I just saw this Jimmy Kimmel clip explicating Miss South Carolina's answer and it had me laughing out loud. FYI - he starts the analysis at 1:43 into the clip. Hopefully he will perform the same service for Sarah Palin.

Skywatch Friday - A day at the beach

The last photo on my day at the beach last Saturday

Follow the other skywatchers this week.

I am away in Paris for a few days, I wont get a chance to visit you all and comment until later next week. Have a good weekend.

Chasing Dragonflies: Outdoor Hour Challenge #28

Somehow the dragonfly challenge week went past and then it slipped my mind.....I must make up for it now. :)

If you read my blog with any frequency, you will remember that I recently had an up close and personal experience with a beautiful dragonfly. You can read about it HERE.

We also had observed lots of dragonflies on our camping trip to Yosemite back in July. You can read about it HERE.

Now as far as recent encounters...there have been plenty. We have just not been able to photograph any for the blog.

Now today there was a large group(Do you call it a swarm?) of dragonflies in our backyard. I attempted to get a video but you have to watch it carefully to see they whizzing by the camera. It is only a minute long so if you can stand it, I encourage you to watch. As a sidenote, the birds chirping in the background are unusual for our area. I could never see what they were and they were the original reason I stepped out on the back deck in the first place. So enjoy the birds and the dragonflies. :)


Another great challenge where the whole family learned so much about the focus.

Barb-Harmony Art Mom

Dragon's Beard Candy

Every time I see this candy being made I am fascinated with how sugar can in what seems like seconds, become these fine threads. It is then wrapped around peanuts and sesame seeds making a small sweet.
One of the Chinese restaurants in Soho often has a chef out the front on the street demonstrating this technique to passers by.

Judith Joy Ross

Untitled from the series "Easton Portraits". 1989

Sometimes it only takes one picture. In 1990 I was at the Museum of Modern Art viewing John Szarkowski’s final exhibition, “Photography Until Now” when I was stopped in my tracks by the last photograph in the show – a small but luminous 8 x 10 inch print on printing out paper of three young girls in bathing suits looking shyly at the camera while behind them, in the distance and out of focus, a teenage boy observes the proceedings. The picture was so visceral in its textures, so full of incipient narrative, and so intelligently composed, I knew this had to be the work of a brilliant photographer and without seeing one more of her pictures, I tracked her down and offered her a show.

We ended up doing two shows - the first a survey of her “Easton” pictures, photographs of children from her hometown of Easton, Pennsylvania; and the second of her pictures of visitors to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington D.C.. While taking pains to avoid showing the Memorial itself in order to convey a more universal sense of loss, the portraits nevertheless carried all the emotional weight of their subjects' experience, the sadness of the bereaved, and the tragic results of war.

Below: Untitled photographs from the series: Portraits at The Vietnam Veterans Memorial, Washington, D.C., 1983/1984

For the last decade, Judith has been represented by Pace MacGill where Peter MacGill, the son of a preacher (and with his own strong antiwar sentiments) has steadfastly supported her work. Now through October 11, you can see her latest series, close-up portraits of protesters to the Iraq war shot all around Pennsylvania and in Washington D.C. and Tempe, Arizona. The show has its own small catalog along with a larger book, "Living With War - Portraits", that puts together all of Ross's series connected to war.

Taken with a cumbersome 8 x 10 view camera, the process that goes into making the pictures requires an unusual complicity, and evidence of the rapport between the photographer and the subject fills the frame. Like all of Ross’s work, it’s a reflective and deeply personal essay, but it asks the question – what are you doing to be true to your beliefs? What does it take to get you out of your regular routine? It’s a subtle but powerful call to act.

Annie Hasz, Easton, Pennsylvania, 2007

Patrick McCann, March on Washington, 2007

Julian Lovas, Allentown, Pennsylvania, 2006

Ora Knowell, March on Washington, 2007

Betty Compton, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, 2007

Jessica Haynes, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, 2006

Canon John C. Fowler, Allentown, Pennsylvania, 2006

Layne Cole, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, 2006

Art Landis, Sellerville, Pennsylvania, 2006

Ellen Buck, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, 2006