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by Marja-Leena by Marja-Leena elf academy
Have you ever wanted to be an elf?
The Elf academy is being set up in Rovaniemi, Lapland where you can become a certified elf.
This is the right place, after all it is the land of Santa and Santa tourism.
(Image: Helsingin Sanomat)
by Marja-Leena giant datura
We have a spot next to the front door where we keep a planter of seasonal flowers. This past spring we bought a tall blue glazed ceramic pot to replace the ancient rotting wood one. Filling the tall pot with a rich mix of soil and compost, I put in a jasmine vine, red pelargoniums and yellow sanvitalia. It looked lovely as it bloomed away.
Sometime later I noticed an interesting looking volunteer peeping out, not a weed I thought so I left it to see what it would be. It did not take long to grow bigger and bigger with leaves twice the size of my hand. I suspected it to be a datura, but I’d never seen one this big, as if it was on steroids! The poor pelargoniums are so shaded that they hardly flower anymore.
Recently a flower emerged, a large creamy trumpet pointing up, with a faint tropical sweet scent, and I knew it to be a datura, possibly the the inoxia species.
The golf ball sized spiky fruit is fascinating, isn’t it? And look at this tiny visitor.
One gardening site stated that compost is not a fertilizer, only a soil amendment. Hrrmph, I thought, not so. I grow good tomatoes with only compost and now this monster plant is further proof! I think the writer was just interested in selling their fertilizers.
I wonder if the mail person is getting worried that this monster plant will come out and grab him one day as he reaches around it to push our mail in the slot, heh.
These interesting stories about the myths, magic and medicinal uses of datura top it all for me.
by Marja-Leena ancient chewing gum
During this morning’s amble through my blog list, imagine my surprise reading this at Mirabilis:
A 5,000-year-old piece of chewing gum has been discovered by an archaeology student from the University of Derby. Sarah Pickin, 23, found the lump of birch bark tar while on a dig in western FINLAND. (emphasis mine)
The story comes from BBC News, which offered more interesting related links, such as to the University of Derby, UK, home of the dig’s volunteers.
Most intriguing for me was to find and learn about the Kierikki Stone Age Centre, the area of the dig. Located in northwest Finland, just north of the city of Oulu, it is about 200 km. south of the Arctic Circle. This discovery is also posted on the Centre’s website in English, and has some good photos of Sarah Pickin, this piece of “Neolithic chewing gum” (shown above), plus her other finds of a slate arrow and part of an amber ring.
Finland doesn’t often come up in international archaeological news, so this was cool for me. Who would think dirty old gum could be so interesting? Amazing proof that there were humans living so far north 5,000 years ago.
by Marja-Leena visualizer
While we were watching Brian Eno’s 77 Million Paintings the other day, the mesmerizing images he’d been able to produce made me think of the wonderful hypnotic dancing colours, lines, dots, shapes that the ‘visualizer’ produces on this screen in response to music played in iTunes on my Mac. it’s fascinating to watch these visual effects in time to the music and I really should be playing it more often.
I don’t understand the technology behind the visualizer but wonder if it’s similar to what Eno uses.
Today I was going through some of my photo files and came across a group of photos that my husband had taken a few years ago of some of these images on the screen. These few stills just don’t begin to capture the constantly evolving patterns, but I felt like posting some of them here, just for fun.
And just because I’d been thinking about the visualizer. And just because I still wish I knew how to create something like this.
by Marja-Leena fireworks
Happy July 4th to my American readers!
Enjoy the fireworks
A hot screensaver for Macs
Wish I’d found it for Canada Day.
by Marja-Leena peachfuzz visits
There was a lot of commotion going on in the solarium this morning though it sounded like birds on the roof.
Meet our latest visitor to our solarium – Peachfuzz – who thought maybe it was too cold outside.
He was chattering a lot and wondering how to get down from there.
He is thinking this is a nice spot to see what is going on until he saw Opa coming after him!
You are not going to catch me, said Peachfuzz!
I think I can squeeze between these pickets if I can hang on to the wall!
Ok, here it goes, one leap and I am out of here. I am a flying squirrel! I hope they left the door open!
(**Stolen from an email sent by my husband to the grandchildren – too delightful not to share here!)
by Marja-Leena Art’s Birthday
Today, a unique birthday is being celebrated around the world: Art’s Birthday. That’s not Art as in someone named Art but as in art, the kind of stuff created by artists. Art is now 1,000,044 years old.
I didn’t know this! My eye was caught by an article in the Vancouver Sun (unfortunately available online by subscription only) titled A big draw: celebrating Art’s Birthday, Canadian artists follow lead of Frenchman Filliou by Kevin Griffin. I’ve quoted some of his words above. Griffin also wrote: In giving art a birthday, Filliou wanted to draw attention to the idea of art as permanent creation and He believed art should be part of daily life.
There’s some interesting history in the article that I wish you could read. So, I learn there’s a website for Art’s Birthday with some history at the ‘chronology’ link. According to this site:
‘Art’s Birthday’ is an annual event first proposed in 1963 by French artist Robert Filliou. He suggested that 1,000,000 years ago, there was no art. But one day, on the 17th of January to be precise, Art was born. According to Filliou, it happened when someone dropped a dry sponge into a bucket of water. Modest beginnings, but look at us now. Filliou proposed a public holiday to celebrate the presence of art in our lives. In recent years, the idea has been taken up by a loose network of artists and friends around the world. Each year the Eternal Network evolves to include new partners – working with the ideas of exchange and telecommunications-art.
In Vancouver, the Western Front joins in with a Festival from January 14 – 20, 2007 Art’s Birthday 2007: The 100th Anniversary of Radio: network vs propaganda.
PHOTO above: Robert Filliou lighting the cake at Art’s 1,000,010th Birthday Celebration, Aachen 1973. Photo: Neue Galerie, Stadt im alten Kurhaus, Aachen (scanned from – Robert Filliou: From Political to Poetical Economy, Morris and Helen Belkin Gallery, Vancouver, 1995, ISBN 0-88865-308-5). From Art’s Birthday
by Marja-Leena computer art
Got a little time? Get a cup of your favourite brew and a biscotti and relax with these entertaining though time-consuming links that are all about using the computer to create art.
1. Brian Eno’s 77 Million Paintings. ” … it raises questions about the concept of the ‘original’ in art… Millions of Brian Eno originals will be created and then disappear only to be replaced by millions more.” Thanks to Hydragenic.
2. Argentinian software artist Leonardo Solanas’ Dreamlines ” is a non-linear, interactive visual experience. The user enters one or more words that define the subject of a dream he would like to dream. The system looks in the Web for images related to those words, and takes them as input to generate an ambiguous painting, in perpetual change, where elements fuse into one another, in a process analogous to memory and free association.
I tried “cave art” (above image), “Leonardo da Vinci” and my own name – cool to recognize suggestions of familiar pieces transformed and transforming! Thanks to Tuumailua (a Finnish blog).
3. William Zauscher’s videos on YouTube are highy entertaining and very funny, sometimes to the point of pain (don’t choke on that biscotti!). View his renditions of Bach and some operatic pieces. Thanks to Ionarts.
A little later – I hope everyone had a great Boxing Day, or St. Stephen’s Day, or Tapanipäivä, depending what country you live in! We went for a long vigorous Nordic pole walk with a short stop in a local gift shop for some very nice half-price gifts to add to our gift bag for friends we are seeing on the weekend. No crowded mall, no parking hassles, no gas, just fresh air and exercise to burn off some of those extra calories. Cheers!
by Marja-Leena winter story 2006
I’m very proud to share my grand-daughter Lael’s 4th annual Winter Story, done with a little help from mommy and daddy, of course. It’s now on a special blog so you can see the past winter stories as well, should you be a new reader. Enjoy!
Our family will soon be gathering together in our home. We will have our Christmas Eve feast followed by carolling by the piano while we await Santa’s arrival. He always comes to the homes of Finns and Germans first, you know.
Merry Christmas everyone! Iloista Joulua kaikille!