Beautiful Bokeh

Roadside Wisconsin & Sore Legs

~Chris

We're just back from a weekend getaway at a place in Wisconsin called Fountain City which is absolutely not a city and we didn't see any fountains either. The hills in Buffalo County are perfect for a cycling getaway: Car-less roads, beautiful scenery, and TONS of leg-breaking climbs and terrifying descents up & down the bluffs and ridges. Seriously it's some of the best riding I've seen in the country. I can't believe it's not crawling with racing teams and riders

Brenda found us a great cottage to rent that was about half-way up the bluff behind the town which made for a perfect HQ for my daily rides. It was huge, had a jacuzzi bath for two, a full kitchen, and an incredible view of the Mississippi (when the leaves aren't on the trees). It felt like we were living in a treehouse.

I managed to rack up close to 8k feet of climbing in just 3 days which isn't bad considering we also spent a lot of the time exploring the area and the surreal roadside attractions they have over there. There's a place called Prarie Moon where there are lots of Herman Rusch's.....uh, sculptures? I guess most of them have been removed or sold off but there are still a few odd ones you can see there. He was one of those Dementia Concretia type guys evidently.

We also couldn't resist checking out the famous "Rock in the House." Here's the deal, via roadsideamerica.com:

"On April 24, 1995, a 55-ton boulder suddenly rolled 400 feet down a cliff along the Mississippi river and plowed into the 2-bedroom house of Maxine and Dwight Anderson. When the dust settled the Anderson's found a huge, coin-shaped rock where their master bedroom used to be. The rock is still there today. John Burt, a local real estate investor, bought the house -- with the rock still firmly wedged inside it -- and turned it into a tourist attraction: The Rock In The House."

I love that the "55 ton" bit was obviously an afterthought. Maybe they were concerned would-be rock gawkers were passing them by because they didn't understand just how heavy the rock really is.

"Honey! Let's stop and see the rock in the house!"

"Pffffff. That thing couldn't be much more than 20 or 30 tons...not stopping."

So anyway we gawked at the 55 ton rock and it's definitely in a house...we got our $2 worth I guess. Nobody is there, by the way, there's just a lock box with a handwritten sign to pay a buck. I think it may be a while before Mr. Burt turns a profit on this "attraction."

If you're ever in the area, we highly recommend the Hawks View cottages, the Monarch Tavern, and if you come after July you should sample from the local vinyard: Seven Hawks. We got a sneak peak by way of a complimentary bottle in the cottage and it was surprisingly great. You can't get it yet but we discovered that they're opening a shop downtown soon.

Miya Ando Stanoff

Miya Ando Stanoff is my favorite living minimalist artist. I have two of her pieces and I never get tired of them. The only type of "canvas" she ever uses are thin, steel panels which she works on using things like acid, sharp tools and blowtorches. It shouldn't be relevant I know, but I also love that she's literally the descendant of a sword maker. A recurring theme with me and my tastes is the concept of precision and that's a concept I get out of her works. She describes them as "quiet meditative environments" but I find them pleasingly bleak and dark myself.

She's got a showing coming up at the Newhouse Center for Contemporary Arts in Staten Island.

If you can check it out, I highly recommend it.

Cinematic Titanic has been christened!

We went to the launch party of the new project from the original MST3k team last night. The Cinematic Titanic was christened not with a bottle of champagne but with cheap rail drinks at the ACME comedy club here in Minneapolis. We misunderstood the description evidently because while we knew the whole cast was going to be there, we were expecting to see a screening of their first film The Oozing Skull which is currently only available on DVD. Instead we saw just a few clips, and the rest of the evening was each cast member in turn doing standup routines, followed by a Q&A with everybody.

The place was packed with aging geeks (I include myself) to the point of discomfort but we were happy that the turnout was so good. Everybody that loved Mystery Science theater wants these guys to be back in our lives and to succeed again. I haven't seen the first film yet, but the reviews are really promising and the promo is encouraging as well.

The standup routines weren't very good, I must say, but then again with very few exceptions (Sarah Silverman, etc) standup comedy's not really my thing. But even though the acts were mediocre, none of us cared much at all really. People were laughing hard and couples looking at each other I think less because they thought it was funny and more because they were high on the fact that Joel, Tom Servo and the gang were not only back, but right in front of us. Joel's act was a fairly weak carrot-top style prop-act but i really enjoyed it just because he's so god damn endearing. J Elvis (original Tom Servo) Weinstein's bit was the best I think, followed by Mary Jo (Pearl) Pehl's.

They finished up with a live, acoustic performance of the MST3k theme song that Joel says he and Weinstein wrote at a local Denny's, and which Weinstein says they wrote at Alice's.

Best of all was that they said a live performance of the first film is now secured for the State theater later in the spring. I think I may hold off on getting the movie and just go see that. I really hope it's good. I love those guys. How can you not.

P.S. The ACME comedy club is a terrible venue. Don't go there unless it's the only place you can see the original cast from MST3k launch a new project. Seriously it's bad.

What is it with Crispin Glover?

Is Crispin Glover insane? Psychotic? Merely eccentric? A genius? A student of Andy Kaufmann? I got definitive answers to these questions tonight but oddly, the answers didn’t clear much up for me.

We spent the evening with the one and only Crispin Glover tonight.

Crispin is currently touring with the first two films of his “it” trilogy What is It? and It is fine! Everything is fine! He’s personally bringing the films to as many cities as he can. Besides the film content, he treated us not only to an amazing reading of several section of each of his eight books accompanied by a slide show of his illustrations and photographs, but also to an extended Q&A afterward along with a book signing.

Like almost all my friends, I’ve been fascinated with Crispin for years and years. Ever since the famous David Letterman incident and maybe a bit before, he’s been a gawk-worthy one-man sideshow act, a modern day freak. Listening to his music, reading his books, seeing him in interviews, even through most of the acting roles he’s picked, it’s impossible not to imagine that he is way beyond eccentric... waaaaay beyond. But he’s also seemed somewhat more complex since he somehow manages to get roles in many of my favorite films and his performances are incredible. We often fantasized about what Crispin the person was really like? What would it be like to hang out wit him? I never imagined that one day he would take himself out on the road for all to come gawk at up close and in person!

The film itself didn’t disappoint in the slightest. It was precisely what we expected, except perhaps we were surprised to see an actual narrative that could be actually followed. But even so, the film’s weirdness quotient was off the charts and up there with the weirdest of all time. And it wasn’t just generic weirdness that you can get on any public cable channel...it was that well-known Crispin Glover exclusive, mesmerizing brand of weirdness. All the hipsters in the audience who came just so they could say they saw the crazy Crispin Glover film with the down syndrome cast and the mass killings of snails went home happy I’m sure.

But for me, the most shocking thing wasn’t the film at all, but two very unexpected things:

The first, was that his performance (it was more-or-less a poetry reading) of his books and the accompanying artwork/photographs was genuinely amazing. I mean we were laughing “with him” at the right spots, hanging on his words. We were no longer gawking at the sideshow freak but instead marveling at the (admittedly bizarre) works of art that he’d created. I’ve only ever seen excerpts from his books, which were designed to make them seem like the scrawling of a madman. But the fact is, those books have legitimate artistic merit and I recommend them sincerely.

The second, came during the QA session in which Crispin revealed himself to be very very far from insane or even strange-for-strangeness’s-sake. But instead he proved he is incredibly smart, very articulate, and absolutely nothing like the persona we see in interviews. I have a whole new opinion of the man now, no kidding.

But while much of the enigma that is Crispin Glover was cleared up for me, the fact of the movies, books and music he makes remains. Please understand these things may be the strangest works any human has ever created. I am not exaggerating. And although I maintain they do have legitimate artistic merit (some of them may even be great), they are so over-the-top strange that it is almost impossible to imagine that the same man I heard in the QA is the author of these works. Crispin very clearly and succinctly explained his take on the problems of the systems of the mainstream hollywood studios in general. More specifically, he convincingly detailed the barriers that exist (even before the sad ratings system gets involved...at the level of the green light) to filmmakers who wish to include taboo topics without simultaneously making it clear that the filmmaker is calling those topics out as bad. Watching him reason so well and speak so clearly was startling. It was like a scene in Flowers for Algernon. So while much of the enigma was removed, the new paradox makes him an even larger enigma to me.

However the highlight of the evening, for everyone I’m sure, came at the very end. The lights were flashing indicating he was way over due to wrap it up, but he took one last question. A slacker-looking guy asked “What were you thinking when you assaulted Merryl Streep in the green room of the David Letterman show?” He was all “uh.....what?” and we all thought it was just that he didn’t want to go there and talk about the Letterman thing. But then he said, “I think you have some wires crossed, but if you wanted to ask me about that night, I’ll tell you guys the truth. I never do to the press because I like mysteries, but I’ll tell you here, now, if you like.” He then launched into an unbelievably detailed first-person account of the entire week leading up to the show, and let us know exactly what happened that day and why. And it was awesome. :)

The Orrery Has Landed!

It’s here!

It was several months in the making, but the waiting was worth it. The Orrery has arrived and it is absolutely stunning.

Eugene did an amazing job, and I think he had fun making it because he’s hinting he may make another one, perhaps to sell, so if this sort of thing interests you he can be contacted here.

The bronze gears in the main gear stack looks awesome when it’s in motion. It’s really fun to crank! The motion is incredibly smooth, but a chart for oiling points was included (being a cyclist, oil is always handy so no problem. Besides, it’s not like this thing is going to be cranked non-stop).

I really love the fins on the feet. I hadn’t seen those until it came out of the box. I also like how the muscular aluminum frame contrasts with the hyper-precision of the CNC-machined bronze gears. There is a small shaft to the right of the main shaft which turns at one revolution per moon orbit around the earth. The moon orbits smoothly on extremely tiny 2.5mm diameter ball bearings.

We definitely made the right decision on the cranking ratio...one fortnight instead of one moon orbit. It’s extremely easy to turn and still gives plenty of planetary motion satisfaction.

Sarah Moore, a student in Arkansas, found out about what Eugene’s been doing the past few months and documented it and made a nice little “making of the orrery” video:

So now we have an orrery. Sweet.

Visiting the Orrery

Here it is, our baby, almost-toothless orrery.

That’s Eugene’s hand pointing to the toothless gear which will ultimately drive Mars. The shape of the main structure is very clear now. That’s the crank on the left.

While we were in Arkansas visiting my little brother and his wife & new baby, we also stopped in to check out the orrery progress in person. The thing is really coming along!

There are a few planetary gears left to be made, and a lot of teeth cutting still to do (earth’s gear has 294 teeth for example). Also the planets are just white blobs right now, but it’s definitely taking shape and it’s easy now to visualize what it will be like when it’s done.

It was great seeing Eugene again after all these years, and after we ogled at and drooled on the little orrery-to-be, we walked around his farm with his mother Sid and petted the goats. Their farm is beautiful.

Eugene thinks he’s found his rhythm now and expects to wrap sometime in December. Getting the orrery for christmas would be awesome so I hope he can do it.

He also says he plans for the feet to have fins. Fins.

The first-ever photograph of someone holding both an orrery and a rooster at the same time?

Eugene at the helm of the CNC machine.

Breaking Ground on an Orrery

Remember that room in the Dark Crystal with the huge machine that made the planets all fly around? Did your grade school teacher use an electric model of the solar system to show you how Copernicus kicked Ptolemy’s ass in the who-revolves-around-whom fight?

Those things are orreries and we want one.

Brenda and I have commissioned our first work of art, and it’s an orrery. We’ve hired a very old friend of mine Eugene Sargent to design and build it. He’s an artist now working out of Northwest Arkansas. He’s never built an orrery but it happens he’s just taken delivery of a brand new CNC machine and he is itching for a project to try it out and this is perfect.

The reference images we gave him included some actual orrery replicas but also good portions of sci-fi, steam/clock punk stuff as well obviously.

Working only from a verbal brief and a collection of reference images (above), he’s passed the designing phase and bits and pieces of it are starting to come together. We gave him a ton of freedom to make it his own, as we wanted it to be original and not simply a quasi-replica of an ancient one. However we did impose one restriction in that we wanted it to be hand-cranked, not motorized in any way. He did some calculations and we agreed that the goal would be to have one crank be equivalent to one fortnight. That would keep the speed of the “planets’ under control, but would still be fast enough to make it fun to crank.

Well he’s been at it for a while and we just received an update along with some photos he took of the gear designs. It’s looking awesome. We definitely went to the right guy for this...there is a shitton of math involved in making this work, and Eugene’s brain is as adept technically as it is creatively. Get this: He’s not even using CAD software (!) but instead has written his own C++ programs to generate the “G-Code.” Presumably “G” is the kind of “code” CAD machines need in order to make badass orreries.

Incredibly, he’s even forging the bronze himself. The disks you see on the left were liquid metal until he cast them into shape. Unbelievable the amount of trouble he’s going to to make this thing.

The rough plan, evidently, is for each planet to have its revolution speed set by a unique, large cog, and all the primary planetary cogs will be arranged in a kind of stack. With their unique cut-outs, that should make for interesting patterns when the planets are in motion.

Speaking of planets, how far out should we go? We’re not sure yet. Poor controversial Pluto is almost certainly off the list. Most of the original orreries didn’t go out that far obviously since those outer planets were discovered later, and they revolve so slowly it would be pretty boring to include them anyway. It’s looking like Jupiter or Saturn might be as far as we go. Saturn is a pretty slow revolver itself but you know....it has rings. So maybe out to Saturn. We’ll see. Part of it depends on what Eugene thinks makes sense based on the design he’s selected.

Another topic we’ve settled is whether there should be a moon orbiting the earth, as it orbits the sun. We have decided there should most definitely be a moon. It just doesn’t seem like an orrery without at least one orbit-within-orbit goin’ on.