Autumn Tree Study: Our Family Outdoor Hour Challenge #36

We continued our tree study with the Sweet Gum or liquidambar tree in our backyard.


We had a huge wind and rain storm last night so the tree has lost most of its leaves.

Here were his observations:


The tree has just about lost its leaves. If you look carefully, perhaps clicking the photo to enlarge it, you will see a little bird on the branch of his tree- just the behind section.


The bark is ragged and rough.

I saw ants and a bit of moss on the trunk.

It didn't smell like anything.

The leaves under the tree were mostly yellow but some were reddish.


I saw the sticker balls on the ground and some were brown and a few were green and heavy.


Where the leaves have fallen off, there are little buds on the tree.

I think he did a pretty good job of observing his tree. He completed the Seasonal Tree Study notebook page for his journal and it is filed away with the other two pages.

One more season to go.
Barb-Harmony Art Mom

Outdoor Hour Challenge #37 Spruce Trees

“The Norway spruce is a native of Europe, and we find it in America one of the most satisfactory of all spruces for ornamental planting……We have spruces of our own-the black, the white, and the red spruces….The Douglas spruce, which is a fir and not a spruce, is also commonly planted as an ornamental tree, but it is only at its best on the Pacific Coast, where it is one of the most magnificent of trees.”
Handbook of Nature Study, page 675

As we wind down our focus on trees in the Outdoor Hour Challenges, I decided to skip dogwoods and willows since those trees seem like they would be better studied in the spring or summer. I will add them to the list of things to do this spring and we will revisit trees for a few weeks at that time.

This week we will read about and try to observe a spruce tree. This is not a tree our family has in our local area but we did observe lots of spruce trees while we were on our trip to Oregon. I thought they were beautiful trees and the cones were very interesting. So this week, try to find out if you have a spruce in your area and then search it out. If you do not have a spruce to observe, you can still read the section in the book and then spend your outdoor time observing a different tree, maybe one with cones. The Handbook of Nature Study explains that the spruce tree is widely grown as an ornamental tree so you may be surprised to find one in your town.

I found this website useful:
Range Maps of Spruce

Outdoor Hour #37
Focus on Trees-Spruce

1. Read pages 675-678 in the Handbook of Nature Study to learn about the Norway spruce and spruces in general. Since this is not the most widely known variety of tree, you may need to look it up on the internet or in a field guide to learn if you have this particular tree in your area.

2. Spend 15 to 20 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 spruce tree of any variety in your yard or on your street, use the ideas from the lesson on page 677 to guide your observation of the spruce tree. The Handbook of Nature Study explains that this is the perfect time of year to study the cones of the spruce tree so pay special attention to finding a cone to observe up close. One suggested activity is to hang a closed cone in a dry place and see what happens.

*If you do not have an spruce tree to observe or you have an additional time period for nature study, choose another variety of tree to observe. If you do not have access to an spruce tree, you can use your nature study time this week to study any tree with cones if possible.

3. After your outdoor time, spend a few minutes talking with your child about any trees you observed. Complete any of the suggested activities from the Handbook of Nature Study if you observed a spruce tree. Ask if your child has any questions that they would like to research over the next week. Make note of anything they are interested in learning more about and then look it up in the index of the Handbook of Nature Study. Read more about it if it is covered in the book or check your local library if you need additional information.

4. Make sure to give time and the opportunity for a nature journal entry. You could use the suggested activities and sketch and describe a cone scale, paying attention to the shape of the tip. If you would like to complete a notebook page, see the link below to choose one for your child’s journal. A nature journal entry can be as simple as a sketch, a label, and a date. Press any leaves you collected this week and add them to your nature journal later on.

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 notebook 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.

If you would like to print this challenge, here is a link to it in pdf format.
Outdoor Hour Challenge #37 Focus on Trees-Spruce
(all the tree challenges in one document)

Barb-Harmony Art Mom

Sad news

The Wellcome Library has been terribly shocked and very saddened by the sudden and unexpected death of Bridget Kinally, one of the Library's senior managers and a leading light. Bridget passed away in Greece on the 29 September, while on holiday.

Many readers would not have encountered Bridget in person - but all are beneficiaries of her professionalism and drive to see the Library collections rehoused, preserved, conserved, displayed, described, exhibited and taken to wider audiences. In her time at the Library she introduced professional collection management techniques and procedures, taking a key role in transforming a traditional research library into a landmark heritage organisation.

Bridget's cultural awareness and her energy and enthusiasm were legendary. But she will be remembered primarily for her small, discreet kindnesses : her concern for family matters, her words of consolation, her unerring radar for someone in trouble - and for champagne and extravagant cakes when celebrations were in order.

Bridget's funeral will take place today - October 31st - and attended by many of us. She is survived by her partner, the curator and collection consultant, Robert Taylor.

Wellcome Images photostream on Flickr

A selection of highlights from the Wellcome Images collection has been made available on Flickr for browsing and sharing. In time we'll add additional sets so we'd like to see your comments on the images we've currently got up.

Browse the full collection at Wellcome Images.

Sky Watch Friday - Vroooomm

I'm treating you all to another picture from the Red Bull race last August.
I'm treating myself to a day outdoors. I'm probably the worlds worst patient, this cold now has me obsessing about the sod who gave it to me and the wrinkles in the rug. Definitely time to go out!

Visit other skywatchers around the world

Sharon Core

Sharon Core, a 1998 Yale MFA grad, sprang into the art world’s consciousness with her 2004 show at Bellwether Gallery, “Thiebauds”. A photographic re-creation of the artist Wayne Thiebaud’s famous food paintings, Core reversed the conventional practice of paintings copying photographs by painstakingly baking, coloring, arranging, and lighting her re-creations and then printing them the same size as the Thiebaud originals.

Four years on and now showing at Yancey Richardson, Core has found new inspiration in the 19th century still life paintings of Raphaelle Peale. Unlike the Thiebauds, however, this time Core has not copied specific paintings. Instead she has analyzed Peale’s work in terms of subject matter, composition, coloration, lighting, and scale in order to understand exactly how they are made and then proceeded to create her own new works in an act of art historical homage.

It’s a difficult feat to pull off, but Core has succeeded where many others have failed, primarily by the softness of her lighting and her mastery of 19th century composition and perspective. As Core fully understands, if you’re going to go for it, you’ve got to go all the way.

Eyes Right

This jaunty 1939 film made by the British Medical Association encourages the audience to use the National Eye Service, an organisation aimed at providing eye testing for people with low incomes. It provides an example of the BMA's involvement in promoting public health at that time. This video is one of over 500 historic moving image titles currently being digitised as part of the Wellcome Film project.

Open access and the Wellcome Trust

Presentation given on 29th October 2008 at UKSG conference on open access.

Mandating Open Access - Wellcome Trust

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: open access)

New acquistions - available via RSS feeds

The Wellcome Library now offers RSS feeds of recently acquired items. Organised by collection - such as Rare Books, and the History of Medicine Collections - these feeds provide daily updates detailing new Library acquisitions.

Registered readers can also set up weekly email alerts of newly available material which match your interests more precisely.

London Rail

....and today they announced a £2.4 billion reduction in railways spending.

A Smile

His smile stood out amongst the crowd of people hurrying in and out the tube station.

Amelia's World

I first met Robin Schwartz in the mid-1990s after she had just published her first book– a collection of black and white photographs of monkeys living in domesticated surroundings. As well as being unusual and good photographs, the underlying theme of the work addressed the question of what degree of separation there was between man and animal and by extension the whole question of animal rights. I kept a box of her prints at my gallery and showed them whenever I had the chance, but in general they were not what people were looking for. You can see some examples here in the Primate Portraits section.

Now just over a decade later, Robin has had her third book published (by Aperture), a series of edenic color photographs of her daughter Amelia interacting with a range of animals. If Robin is the animal photographer, Amelia is the animal whisperer – a child who clearly has an unusual gift and connection with other species. As Robin told me, “Amelia is fearless. When she first met a kangaroo, she stuck her hands down her pouch to feel the joey! Nothing spooks her.”

The multi-level collaboration, between photographer, daughter, and animals have inspired Schwartz to broaden her style from a journalistic genre to a more contemporary art aesthetic. The photographs play with art and photo-historical references and I can easily see these pictures gracing the walls of collectors and museums. It’s an extraordinary pleasure to see someone whose work has always been good move on so effectively.

P.S.
After posting the above, Robin Schwartz sent me this picture taken just last week.

Medical History Supplements - now online

The Supplements to the journal Medical History (from 1981 - 2004) are now freely available online at PubMed Central and UK PubMed Central.

Readers interested in Medical London may find the 1991 supplement particularly interesting, with contributions from Roy Porter and Anne Hardy, amongst others.

Wellcome!

For Wellcome Library news items, titbits, interesting facts and features, progress reports, and much much more - the Wellcome Library blog is the new place to see and be seen. Feel free to send us your comments on any of our staff-generated posts (we will make them public after some moderate moderation).

For now, here are some Wellcome links for the curious:

Wellcome Library catalogues
Wellcome Collection
Wellcome Images
Digitisation projects
Digital curation
Wellcome Trust

The Wellcome Library is part of the Wellcome Trust, which funds innovative biomedical research, in the UK and internationally, spending over £600 million each year to support the brightest scientists with the best ideas.

Political Science

Joe Raedle. Getty Images

A scientific study of recent news pictures comes to the unavoidable conclusion that we are faced with a significant photogenic-ness gap between candidates.

Jim Bourg. Reuters

Alex Brandon. AP

Joe Raedle. Getty Images

Men at Work #3

'What do you think? Shall we take him in? Did you believe that story about the pigeon stealing the bag?'



On Friday Sharon of Phoenix Daily Photo awarded me the BFF (blogging friends forever) award.

Thank -you. I am grateful you felt my blog was worthy of an award.



I am aware that some awards contain viruses (I am not saying this award does), however, I have decided not to put any blogger award links on my site just to err in the side of caution.

Bored in Nature

"Some children are born naturalists, but even those who aren't were born with natural curiosity about the world and should be encouraged to observe nature."
Charlotte Mason, vol 2 page 58

"They get so used to reading about marvels of nature and never seeing it for themselves that nothing interests them. The way to cure this is to let them alone for awhile and then start something totally different. It's not the children's fault that nature bores them; they are naturally curious and eager to explore the world and everything in it. There's a poem that says that the person who can best appreciate God is the one who is familiar with the natural world He made."
Charlotte Mason, vol 2 page 6

Sometimes, despite all my efforts, my boys just are not as interested in nature study as I am. I can take them to the most fascinating places to explore and they just want to sit and talk or take a walk by themselves. The setting is perfect and the subjects abound but they are more interested in throwing rocks or digging a hole.

I can't force them to be interested when this happens.

How have we learned to handle this? I allow them the space and time to experience nature on their own terms.


It may look like they are not taking much interest but later on when we are driving in the car or talking at the dinner table, they relate things that they noticed as they had a little freedom.


They learned a lot about the properties of bullwhip seaweed as they tried to use it to tie the driftwood together for this beach structure.


They experienced the redwood forest on their own terms as they searched out Big Foot beyond every bend in the trail.


On every beach they made circles in the sand. It became a tradition.

Nature study does not always go according to my plan. I have learned to keep my options open and let things happen as the day unfolds. Honestly, I learn more as well because they most likely will find something that I wouldn't because they have their own eyes. My eyes see one thing and they see something completely different if I allow them the space and time to find what interests them in our nature study.

Barb-Harmony Art Mom

Two Sets Of Killers

There’s plenty of good scholarship on Mark Hellinger and The Killers. His papers went to USC and numerous writers have dug in and thoroughly covered this Citizen Kane of film noir. Would that as much documentation was available on all classic films! We’d remember Hellinger lots better had he lived longer. As it is, there were but three independent productions completed prior to his death in 1947 at age 44 (that's him below boarding the train with Edmond O'Brien and the premiere print of The Killers). All give testimony of promise vast but cut short. Was any filmmaker more ideally suited to thrive in a postwar market dominated by crime subjects and darkish tone? Hellinger was tattling on Broadway in the twenties and covering rat-tatting underworlds besides. His stuff was good enough to be syndicated beyond NYC papers. Fifteen million readers nationwide were engaged by his reportage, so this was no Joe Franklin unknown beyond city limits. Hellinger went Hollywood and naturally ended up at Warner Bros. His first meet with production chief Hal Wallis must have gone badly because they hated each other right off. Rudy Behlmer’s great collection of studio memos, Inside Warner Bros., reveals vitriolic communiqués as posted by an independent-minded Hellinger who’d always resist marching studio chalklines. He was proof that sometimes it’s the most talented who get screwed most royally. Things became so bad with Wallis that Hellinger finally quit. The Killers was initiated after a war corresponding hitch and was among first of winner-take-all independent set-ups wherein men bet farms against success of one movie and borrowed themselves into hock so as to get it made their way. Hellinger’s name and reputation got him $875,000 from the Bank Of America to produce The Killers. Universal floated the rest and agreed to release it. Failure would have translated to a negative repossessed by the bank, a state of affairs others came to know when poverty deprived them of rights to the very films they’d bled to make. None of Hellinger’s three (including Brute Force and The Naked City to come) entered those jaws (and for sure, Bank Of America built up a stout library of its own through the late forties and profited nicely selling seized pics to TV well before major studios let go their backlogs). The Killers, or rather Ernest Hemingway’s The Killers, was marketed on proven names of both that author and Mark Hellinger. You could do such in 1946 with writers prominent enough and audiences that actually read books and followed columnists. 1944’s To Have and Have Not owed measure of its success to a link, though tenuous, with Hemingway, while Hellinger’s rep was sufficient to place him on-camera in a trailer for 1939’s The Roaring Twenties, which he’d co-written at Warners. Both were tough guys with battlefield experience, real ones as opposed to soundstage mock-up. Scripting participants on The Killers had recently looked down gun barrels as well. John Huston was among these. He penned on the quiet so as not to reveal violation of his WB pact. The Killers was only a short story as far as Hemingway took it. The first eight or so minutes disposed of his part. Huston and Anthony Veiller, with assist from Richard Brooks, followed in EH’s big tracks to fill out a remaining hour-and-a-half. Coming in behind Hemingway’s opener was literary equivalent of following Jolson at the Winter Garden. No wonder The Killers emerged so studied and efficient (too much so? Some say yes).

Universal got its licks in before crime sagas went stale. Flash-backing had already become a familiar device. I wonder how long it took for patrons to get sick of it. Double Indemnity and Mildred Pierce paved that structure’s way for The Killers. What sold Hellinger’s package was sex and a how-to on planning, executing, and bungling The Big Caper. Unknowns (in her case relative) Burt Lancaster and Ava Gardner looked mighty good on posters and stills. The fact they delivered on that promise led The Killers to a mighty gross. Lancaster’s screen test had been leaked to gossipers and they were atwitter over Hollywood’s unveiling of its newest caveman. He was what saved an otherwise problematic title for women, and ads such as one shown here were careful to target that select (and selecting) group. Similarities with Citizen Kane might have been better noted had more people gone to see Orson Welles’ 1941 inspiration for much of how The Killers spun its narrative. Certainly others down the line pinched ideas off Hellinger’s (and director Robert Siodmak’s) film. How many would experience déjà vu watching Out Of The Past the following year, with Robert Mitchum recognized at his end-of-the-line gas station much as Lancaster was in The Killers? Indeed, newcomer Burt would make repeated stops behind eight balls in pursuit of noirish schemes gone wrong, a chump you’d vote most likely to be fall guy at your next armored car robbery (The Flame and The Arrow came not a moment too soon to rescue him from sameness of such enterprise). Ironic that Mark Hellinger would share his contract for Lancaster’s services with old Warner nemesis Hal Wallis, now producing independently as well, and releasing through Paramount. The Killers was photographed by Woody Bredell, a Universal ace who’d lent distinction to visuals in their horror films as well as Deanna Durbin vehicles in which she looked by far her best for his camera. Too bad Criterion’s DVD falls short of what Bredell delivered in 1946. I assume Universal sent over what element they had (or was lying on a nearby shelf) when the lease was negotiated, but surely The Killers needs a restorative look-in. 16mm prints from years back could be, often were, astounding, depending on which New York lab reels were heisted from. Woody Bredell’s name in collecting days generally meant liquid whites and rich blacks. A lab’s effort to capture these made all the difference. I had Reel One of The Killers from a poorly timed print and the remaining two reels from an exquisite source that got every bit of value from one of the most spectacularly photographed of all noirs. A revisit to the camera negative (if it exists), followed by Blu-Ray release (what fairyland am I living in?) would go a long way toward reaffirming The Killers’ genre supremacy.

I read with great interest Don Siegel’s memoir account of directing (and largely writing) 1964's redo of The Killers. To have started out as a movie for television, the project merited unusually close supervision by Universal chief Lew Wasserman. Since The Killers was planned to be the first feature film for vid premiering, it’s likely Wasserman focused on delivering a quality product so as to secure an ongoing commitment from NBC. The plan was for The Killers to lead off a series of movies for the network. A director with feature experience who could also shoot quickly and for a price was needed. Siegel took much of the project’s burden upon himself, his assigned writer tired and bored by the hacking game, but anxious withal that his credit be maintained. Gene L. Coon was the journeyman in question. Now there’s a name branded into memories of any of us who abided sixties tele-series. Coon was all over Wagon Train, Star Trek, The Wild, Wild West, and dozens more. Cheap sets, process screens, and Gene L. Coon seem to go hand in hand --- all are among Universal truths of that era. So then is The Killers, which abounds in these, plus offbeat casting and crisp Siegel handling way beyond standards of TV movies to come from this company. Remember Fame Is The Name Of The Game, The Longest Hundred Miles, The Borgia Stick? So many made and virtually all disposable. NBC wanted fresh product for Saturday night’s primetime slot, thus the deluge. To advertise these as "movies" was something akin to false advertising. NBC allotted $250,000 toward production of The Killers, an unrealistically skinflint figure for anyone expected to deliver decent product. Universal was said to have actually spent past $900,000. A theatrical release might have been necessary to recover overruns, never mind that The Killers was rejected by NBC on grounds it was too spicy, expensive (?), and violent for TV screens. NBC vice-president Mort Werner was circumspect about this initial (and in his mind, failed) effort. We've learned to control the budget. Two new 'movies' will get started soon, and the series (of movies for the network) probably will show up on television in 1965. Maybe Universal recognized sales potential to theatres and decided The Killers was simply too good for NBC (Siegel’s film would in fact never run on that network). It was certainly no worse than a lot of what they were putting on paying screens. Universal merchandising at least cared enough to supply exhibitors with a set of attractive door panels (above) in addition to other accessories, so it wasn’t a matter of The Killers being tossed to wolves.

Theatrical release pin-pointed selling for various territories and action crowds they catered to (any attempt to lure a discerning audience with the Hemingway credentials is apt to be aborted and ineffectual, said Variety). New York’s July 7, 1964 premiere was saturated among neighborhood theatres with The Private Lives Of Adam and Eve as co-feature (ad above), while our own Starlight Drive-In first-ran The Killers with Universal’s The Lively Set and a direct appeal on behalf of both film’s Hot Cars, Hot Thrills, and Wild Women (also above). You’ll note shifting emphasis in these ads. Selling points were plentiful as pitched to a minor league of nabes and ozoners. Urbanites got Lee Marvin aiming his piece with further emphasis on Angie Dickinson (violence and sex as enticement), while we of the South were drawn to racing art and its accent on speed (plus the sex). Did The Killers give satisfaction then? Probably so, even if grossing potential in such markets was limited. $949,260 was Universal’s take in domestic rentals. There might have been as much in foreign (such themes traveled well), though I don’t have figures for that. Violence in The Killers is said to be tame now. Only if one’s inured to Lee Marvin’s particular line in menace, says I, for he seems chilling as ever, if not more so, amidst metro-sexed and sensitized leading men presuming to carry his banner today. As to matters of bloodletting, The Killers reflects Hollywood in transition, with John Cassavetes spilling not a drop in his first reel death scene, despite being shot multiple times, while Lee Marvin's later drenched in the stuff for a gory finish that no doubt did give NBC the vapors and forecast explicitness to come in features. The stock car race is Siegel’s centerpiece. He talks about that sequence a lot in his book. They went out and shot an actual event with multiple cameras, hoping to catch something exciting and get production value from bleachers filled with onlookers. Had things changed so much since 1914 when Mack Sennett took Charlie Chaplin along to perform against the similar background of Kid Auto Races At Venice? There is too the matter of Ronald Reagan in his last acting role. He’s at least as capable and lots more interesting than anyone else they could have gotten for his price. Did a reluctant Reagan do The Killers as a personal favor to his agent as some claim? He smiles but fleetingly before twirling Angie Dickinson with a deathless moment slap. Reagan doing this in the forties was one thing ... seeing a soon-to-be California governor land such a blow (and looking like Reagan of the White House in the bargain) gives real power to an otherwise unremarkable scene. It’s loaded all the more for nowaday viewers hauling their own social and political baggage to screenings. Siegel and crew would never have seen it coming, but it’s Reagan who’s a lightning rod for crowd reaction to The Killers, his mere presence a cue for cheers and boos (or boos and cheers, depending on which red or blue state you're in). How many slaps delivered forty plus years ago resonate so loudly still?

Pondering

This weekend friends and I visited several exhibitions of famous photographers.
It is still photomonth with so many fantastic photos to look at. One of the galleries we visited was the Barbican Art Gallery to see the works of Robert Capa, Gerda Taro, Geert van Kesteren, Omer Fast, Paul Chan and An-My Lê. I also saw the current exhibition of Annie Leibovitz's work at the National Portraits Gallery.
All these famous photographers manage to portray so much emotion in their work. It is both inspiring and intimidating.
I'll just continue plodding on and maybe one day I will take a photo worthy of mention.