Beautiful Bokeh

"Greetings from the Orrery #2!"

It turns out the "swiss guy" I mentioned in the last post who helped Eugene with some calculations is the person who commissioned the second orrery (which has just been completed and is en route to Switzerland). His name is Sergio Pinease and after reading my post he wrote me and I thought his note was so incredibly charming that I thought I'd share it (with his permission):

I have seen on your web site that you mentioned the new version of orreries Eugene made.

By the way: I am the Swiss guy who tried to support Eugene with some calculations on my own. Just that you know: I am not a mathematician and I also did for the first time such calculations but it was fun to find a way to understand the mechanism Eugene wanted to implement and calculate the best possible combinations of teeth for the gears.

I am really amazed what Eugene was able to do without having orrery experience. Don’t be jealous about the year ring. Instead you really should be proud that you had the idea to commission one and that you entrusted Eugene with this job. Also the many ideas about the quantity of planets and that one turn of the handle should be 2 weeks are yours!

I wanted to say thank you to have started with this and that you also made some pictures of your orrery available on the web.

I am really looking forward to the arrival of the orrery and to play with it and perhaps meet Eugene once. Perhaps in some years there are so manyEugene orreries that there will be an orrery meeting of all people who bought one from him.

Best regards,

Sergio Pinese

 

We've been corresponding since and it turns out he's a really interesting guy who (understandably) is fascinated by automata and "cool things that do cool things when you turn a crank." I hope he enjoys his new orrery but I'm still jealous of the "date ring" :)

Eugene's Orrery Factory

After building our orrery, Eugene Sargent became something of an internet celebrity for a little bit (being posted on boing-boing may have helped a little). One thing I think surprised both of us was the number of people out there who would love to own a hand-built orrery (it's quite a bit more than none!). It turns out some of them were so intrigued that they also commissioned Eugene to make more. He's been at it for a while now and the new models are absolutely beautiful, I must say. I'm especially jealous of the 'date ring.' Ours only has a single mark which indicates the orrery's birthday so to go back or forward in time from that point requires some math. Speaking of math, evidently one of Eugene's new customers is from Switzerland and has helped him improve the accuracy of his calculations. Now he can honestly say his orrerys come with "swiss precision." But while I'm jealous of some of the improvements he's made, we can take some pride in the fact that ours is engraved #1. :)

Here are some other things Eugene's been up to if you're interested: Eugene's Recent Art

Living in Stereo

~brf

View-Master blew my mind as a kid.  I thought it was so cool that by viewing two tiny, nearly-identical images- one for each eye- I could experience a hyper-realism that somehow looked more authentic and vivid than the same image appeared using only my own eyeballs.  I finally got the opportunity to pick up a 3D camera of my own and have spent the last few months and countless rolls of film experimenting.

I bought a TDC Colorist- a fairly standard, relatively inexpensive stereo camera produced in the late 1950’s.  No rangefinder, but for this kind of stereo photography the depth-of-field is more important than precise focusing.  It’s an extraordinarily simple technique:  Two exposures are made simultaneously and from a distance apart that more or less matches the distance between the average person’s eyes.  When seen simultaneously through a viewer- a single image per eye- the ‘stereo’ effect is created. Groovy.

Stereo photography is nearly as old as photography itself:  By the mid to late 1800s it was already a hugely popular form of entertainment as a means for people to experience foreign lands, cultures, and events.  Oh yeah- and porn.  Lots and lots of porn.  Being relatively cheap and inexpensively mailed, it was an easily accessible amusement for most anyone interested in most any subject.  Advantageous, too, that the stereograms could be handily concealed within the pages of a book or gentleman’s wallet.

Stereo photography seemed a natural companion to my affinity for roadside attractions so I have been taking the Colorist along on any adventure where we might encounter a souvenir stand or anything weird, wonderful, and made of concrete.  The choice of subject matter plus use of ultra-vivid, super-saturated color slide film has been delivering delightful results.

I asked CW to pair these sets for me and describe the best way to view: 

"If you have some talent viewing random dot stereograms (those posters of 3D sailboats and unicorns and stuff you used to find at the mall) you can see the 3D effect of these images right here on the screen without any goggles or viewers. Hold your head about 18" or so from your display, make sure your eyes are level (don't tilt your head), and defocus your eyes until you see a 3rd image between the two: that middle image will be in 3 dimensions. If you can do it, it's awesome. If you can't, sorry... it's hard for some people." 

This relaxed eye-crossing method of viewing stereograms doesn’t work for me- I find it tedious and a little uncomfortable, but evidently most people have no problem.  I use an awesome illuminated viewer that really makes the slides look great, and an old-timey stereoscope for printed cards.

Baba na Mama Africa

My parents were here last week. They just left to go back home to Bunda, Tanzania where they've lived for 6 years and will live for the rest of their lives. It's obviously very hard to see them so it's really really great when we get the chance. We took a cab to Manny's, my Dad's favorite to place in minneapolis & the cab driver was from Kenya—my parents had a conversation with him in Swahili which was fun to watch even if I wasn't in on the jokes they were telling. My parents are missionaries. People who know me well know that I'm not religious (an athiest in fact), but they also know how highly I value behaving well and living a moral life. There are bad kinds of missionaries, we've all seen them in movies, but there are good kinds as well. My parents are without question the second kind. They're over there being good to people and having an effect, the scope of which I doubt even they realize. I can't express how proud I am of them. While they were here we mostly just relaxed, hung out, and talked. They've had lots of adventures since the last time we were together and it's always fascinating hearing them tell them. Oh we also played Tiger Woods 09 on the PS3 and Dad murdered me.

f-stop swap!

We checked out the latest edition of the f-stop swap camera swap meet this weekend. It's an odd mix of collectors of specialized antique camera stuff and vendors of more modern equipment as well so there are usually things for both Brenda and I to come home with. Last time we spent too much but this time, though we saw lots of awesome stuff, we managed to confine ourselves to a lens a piece. She got a funny looking telephoto for her old Leica and I got my first fisheye. We also ran into my old friend Charles Murphy who, it turns out, is a photo geek of the first order. Was fun catching up with him & chatting lenses & stuff. One of the coolest things I saw was a 3D camera with a VHS instruction video hosted by Vincent Price. I also liked all the tiny little spy cameras. Afterwards we went to Monte Carlo to play with our lenses. Here are my first two fish-eye lens shots ever: One of our kind bartender, and one of brenda playing with her own new toy.

45th Parallel

There's a lot of stuff and countries half-way between the Equator and the North Pole but one of my favorites is our friend Scott's vodka distillery. It's named after the famous circle of latitude on which it (roughly) is located. It's not far from Stillwater, MN and is therefore within reach of a bike ride so I rode my bike over and met Brenda and our art director (*cough* designer) friend Han Lin and we took a tour of the thing. It was just us and Scott who was nice enough to walk us through the entire process from corn to bottled vodka to packaged bottles and it reminded me of those episodes of Mr. Rogers when he showed us kids how they make violins or whatever. It's incredible how many parts of the process you can tweak that affect the taste in spite of the fact that the ingredient list is incredibly short. We were also impressed by the look of the imported german distillery equipment he bought and couldn't help but suspect that some of its aesthetic awesomeness was intentional. The tour ended with the hoped-for tasting session which did not disappoint. If you live in MN or WI, try some. There are lots of places to find it in Minneapolis...Manny's, Red Stag, the W bar, and a bunch more.

ValleySCARE!

We've been looking for an excuse to go to Valleyfair for a while, on account of how we both love roller coasters, and it's so close and all. We found out our friend Targetgirl Tina was working in the Dr. Dementia magic show and that the whole park had been spookified for halloween so we checked it all out last night and had a blast. They spared no expense on the fake fog. Seriously, walking around the park there are places where visibility is zero. It actually looks surprisingly cool with all the plastic scary stuff and made-up people walking in and out of the fog. We went through a haunted house thing and I had one legitimate scare when I realized the hand I was holding on to wasn't brenda's but was some teenage zombie girl's instead. I think I made an embarrassing sound.

We also dug the Ritual of Fire gang which is a bunch of hot chicks looking mean & playing with fire to tribal drum beats until some giant bald voodoo-king-god-type-guy comes out and sprays like a big 15 foot flame out of his mouth which I guess signals the whole voodoo fire ritual was a success because they immediately disappeared, presumably to go have a fire orgy somewhere.

And of course Tina was awesome in the magic show which had a mad scientist theme...Thomas Dolby soundtrack, etc. The crowd was big and really responsive (mostly adults, I guess cause it was late) and thanks to Tina we got to go back stage and talk to the magician and the rest of them afterwards. Really cool buncha guys. The magic was solid...more theater than amazement in places but there was one trick in particular that left us pretty baffled. It involves a lemon...the most mysterious fruit there is. Also there was an reasonably family-friendly S&M bit in which Tina reveals that she is not fucking around when it comes to bullwhips. She killed. We also rode a few of the big rides which only made us want to go back soon to do the rest of them. Roller coasters rule.

A Panoply of Things-on-a-Stick

~Chris

We went to check out the Minnesota State Fair this week. Brenda had never been, and I hadn't been in years. All the expected stuff was there, and didn't disappoint. The giant pig was giant. The huge array of food on-a-stick was huge, and on-a-stick. The succulent turkey legs were succulent, etc. We had heard a rumor of chocolate covered bacon but failed to find it. Everyone we asked about it had heard the same rumor but nobody seemed to know where it could be found. Oh well, the bacon-on-a-stick we did find was unbelievable. I could have spent the whole time sitting there eating those bad boys, but we managed to tear ourselves away to go see the sideshow acts. On the way it was a little sad seeing all the modern funhouses, de-fanged as they are compared to the golden age of dangerous funhouses of the past. We enjoyed the sideshow acts even though they, too, were intentionally cheesy versions of the real acts from the old days. The exception was the toothless sword swallower and the fire-eating girl. Those two were for real and really fun to watch.

There was a really fascinating, ancient little person working in some behind-the-scenes capacity, who wasn't actually part of any act (as far as I could tell). I desperately wanted a portrait of him but I got a deadly scowl from one of the MCs when I looked like I was going to try for a shot so I backed off.

I also won a samurai sword when the weight guesser failed to guess my weight within 3lbs. The bad news was that she guessed I was over 20lbs heavier than I am. :(  Oh well, I got a sword. All in all, successful fair mission I think.

More pics on Flickr

Whips, Guns, Tanks & Zombies

OK, so, our friend and "master of the bullwhip" Dante and his partner "Targetgirl" Tina invited us to join them at something called Shooter's Roundup where they were not only going to be doing their whip show but Mr. Dante was also planning on attempting to regain his world speed-whipping record and he needed our help in documenting that. That by itself would have gotten us there but there was also the promise that there might be a real tank we could drive so we were all over it.

The world record attempt turned out require dozens of grueling attempts. To break it, Dante needed to execute almost 4 whip cracks per second for an entire minute and it's hell on his forearm (he had to keep icing it down between tries). It's also so fast that it's incredibly hard to count the cracks. On the second day he got so close that we couldn't really tell until we analyzed the video tape that he'd done it, but he definitely had!

So it  turns out that this Shooter's Roundup is a surreal, M A S S I V E gun event put on by a gun mogul named Larry Ahlman who owns what has to be the largest gunshop/shooting range dynasty in the state. Thousands of people were there to see hundreds of presenters/shows/gun demonstrations/events. It was like a theme park only the "rides" were areas where you could do things like grab a tommy gun and shoot up a car or watch a famous trick shooter do trick shooting, etc. It was so weird. Obviously the crowd was mostly big-bellied people who wish they lived in a red state. I put on a t-shirt with bombs on it and tried to blend in but it was tricky without a big belly.  Still I have to say some of the stuff was a blast.

My favorites:

—Robert & Tina's whip performance...obviously I'm biased but they were on fire and did some amazing stuff that we hadn't seen before, not to mention the new world record.

—Tank driving...driving a real tank is more fun than my vocabulary allows me to adequately describe.

—The .50 cal sniper rifle...for $7 a shot, one could grab the most powerful sniper rifle on earth and combine extreme precision/accuracy with the loudest sound you've ever caused all in one trigger pull. Incredible feeling, and surprisingly, not much recoil at all.

—Zombie Shooting...the best concept had to be from the Zombie ammo guys who would give you a gun and let you shoot the shit out of some zombies. Really simple, great idea. Only wierd thing is that they only had rifles when anyone who's played video games knows the anti-zombie weapon is the shotgun. Still...super fun.

 

More Roadside Attractions

~brf

1880 Town:  Surprise hit!  We had never even heard of this one; when we encountered it in the middle of nowhere it looked unimpressive and we would not have stopped had we not been hungry and looking for a way to photograph the ‘man walking dinosaur’ sculpture on the side of the freeway without actually pulling over on I-90.  (There isn’t a way.)   1880 Town is a fantastic collection of authentic late 1800s buildings and relics.  Most structures are remarkably well-preserved, some having been trucked in from all over the state. Visitors are encouraged to enter the buildings to check out the period-appropriate surroundings (and in some cases, the actual original contents from that exact home or barbershop or saloon).   We bought sarsaparilla from a guy with a handlebar mustache and drank it in the cool comfort of the saloon while a pretty girl sang cowboy songs on stage.  There is also a sizable museum of ‘Dances With Wolves’ set props and memorabilia, as the movie people rented quite a lot of artifacts from the proprietor to make their sets authentic.  That wasn’t so interesting to us so we skipped that bit, but there is a ton of awesome cowboy and rodeo memorabilia crammed into every inch of the main building that was worth poking around in.

Incongruously, there is a ‘50s Santa Fe Train Diner on the premises.  Burgers were passable, but we were starving.
http://www.1880town.com/

“Have you ever experienced a place where the laws of nature seem to have gone completely berserk?  Cosmos Mystery Area. See it. Feel it.  SURVIVE IT.”  Oh, hell yes were were stopping here.  Weirdly, our first attempt at locating Cosmos was a bust:  Charlotte, our GPS, had the attraction in her list of POI, but guided me repeatedly to the same little row of Stepford houses no matter how many times I verified the address.  Could Cosmos’ power extend to scrambling GPS signals?  We finally found a Cosmos brochure in a Rapid City pub, and we followed its ambiguous squiggly line map until we found actual road signs pointing us in the right direction.  Some enterprising college boys constructed a cleverly-built cabin on a wooded hillside and started charging people for demonstrations of the area’s "awesome power".  Water flows uphill, strong men are reduced to weaklings while tiny women seem to have boundless strength, people change height, and things just look weird.  I love these places.  Pressed penny machine was broken, sadly.  http://www.cosmosmysteryarea.com/

Reptile Gardens:  It was for this one attraction that I absolutely put my foot down and insisted we visit.  I remember it being a glorious showcase of creepy and interesting things, and thirty years later it does not disappoint.  The same family has owned and operated it for its entire 70+ years.  They’ve made some really great improvements since my last visit (updated facilities for the animals, no longer permitting children to ride the giant tortoises) but none of the roadside attraction charm has been lost.  There is still a huge pit of dozens of alligators, crocodiles and caymans that mostly lay motionless, piled in what looks like the most boring reptile orgy ever.  Sometimes one will endeavor to heave his bulk over all his friends to get to the pool, which occasionally elicits a hiss from some gator who has been trod upon too heavily.  The dome houses hundreds of varieties of exotic plants, snakes, lizards and frogs, plus a seriously big-ass crocodile named ‘Maniac’, who, at about 16 feet long and 1200 pounds, is among the top three largest in the world.  The story and photos describing Maniac’s transport from Sydney to Rapid City are amazing. 
http://www.reptilegardens.com