A Collection via Links

Map of our world
The day just beginning in the US
And dusk falling in India

My main interest at this time is the EGG project, and I am an egg host myself. There are a number of pictures of me linked from that page, and there is a brief bio available, but here I will give you a broader picture of my background and other interests. But first an interlude. In late 1995 and early 1996, Lefty and I went to India for two months of travel, talks, and learning. It was such a beautiful experience. I offer a little slide show of Faces of India to give a hint of the flavor. If you would like more, there are many more pictures, with stories from the journey.

For a time, I was an impresario of sorts, creating a variety of shows and multimedia concerts with the help of friends, colleagues and students at Johnson State College in Northern Vermont. This was long ago, but some of the material I think remains interesting, and since this is a very personal page, it is a place where I can reminisce a little. Here's a nice poster for a Photography Show, presented by my photography seminar and advertized here by Archie and Jamie. Fine folks!

One of the first big concerts was called Time Respaced, or Space Retimed. We took over lovely Dibden Auditorium and completely "retimed" the space with plays, music, dance, and numerous small shows. It was long, some 7 hours, but we also "respaced" the time, creating a unique and internalized environment that was hugely enjoyable.

Easily the most challenging show was Spring Silence, an outdoor concert that filled a campus space with sound, movement, and light in a spiraling and progressively chaotic buildup to a climactic SILENCE, seven minutes long, after which the music and dance shifted into a "normal" mode. Fun, and the drama of that space of time remains with me, as does the memory of the peeper frogs' song that we suddenly could hear. Maybe I'll figure a way to play that for you.

We lived in Craftsbury, Vermont, from 1972 to 1980, in a great house overlooking the valley and the village. To Lefty's chagrin, I turned the livingroom into a printing shop with a splendid 1890's treadle-operated press and a nice collection of type. Some practical use was made of this magnificent machine, but it was the inspiration for some art pieces as well, including a limited printing of a tiny book introducing a series of Closet Concerts. Though this was "conceptual" art, some of the concerts were performed, including the Yerkes Collection, described on page 2 of the book, and two others, while there is some mystery about the last entries in the book.

But enough of that personal stuff, for now at least. Here are some perspectives of this incredible and precious world, available only in this century of technological wonders.

I'll start with a link to the the Blue Marble newsroom at NASA's earth observatory site. Other beautiful images are available at their Earth from Space site. There you will find many special treasures such as this picture of Nebraska, with my hometown, North Platte, about in the center. This is pretty detailed, and is big, about 500 Kbytes. The confluence of two rivers in west-central Nebraska, the North Platte and the South Platte, is revealed near the center of this west-looking, low-oblique photograph. Lake McConaughy on the North Platte River is seen near the northwest corner of the photograph. The river is 680 miles (1095 kilometers) long and originates in the Park Range of northern Colorado. Its waters are used for crop irrigation and grazing livestock in the area from near Guernsey, Wyoming, to below Bridgeport, Nebraska. North of Lake McConaughy and the North Platte River are the Nebraska Sand Hills (visible in the photograph), a maze of grass-covered dunes formed during the last glacial epoch. The South Platte River originates in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado northwest of Denver. After leaving the mountains and reaching the Great Plains, the river becomes a broad, shallow stream. It supplies water for cattle grazing and irrigation of agricultural crops (irrigated field patterns lie south of the river in the photograph). At the confluence of the two rivers near the city of North Platte, the river becomes the Platte and flows eastward 310 miles (500 kilometers) before joining the Missouri River south of Omaha. Much of the Platte River is used for irrigation and the production of hydroelectric power.

And here is another place I like. Cairo, Egypt. Also a large image, though not like the Nebraska shot. This is only about 150 K. Cairo, the capital of Egypt, is visible near the center of the photograph. Cairo is the largest city in Africa, with almost 10 million people in the greater metropolitan area, and is located at the southern apex (east side) of the Nile River. Roads and railroads radiate from central Cairo. Giza, the third largest city in Egypt, with more than 1 million people, is located along the west bank of the Nile directly across from Cairo. The dark green areas are the intensively cultivated, irrigated agricultural lands along the Nile River and on the fan-shaped Nile River Delta. The grayish areas show the locations of numerous towns and cities on the delta or on the floodplain where there is less vegetation. Cairo International Airport is barely visible northeast of the city. The desert area southeast of Cairo is part of the Arabian Desert, which extends southward along the western edge of the Gulf of Suez. The most famous landmarks, of course, are the pyramids, which are indeed awesome. You can see them and their context in this satellite image of the Giza Plateau. The lower of the two large ones is the "Great" pyramid of Cheops, and the other is Chefren's. To the left of Chefren's pyramid is an oblique lighter area leading to the Sphinx, with its two great paws extending to the left, next to a rectangular temple complex and a teardrop shaped open area.

One more of the NASA photos (about 150 K): New York City and Lower Hudson River Valley, New York, U.S.A. October 1993. New York City, the most populous city in the United States, is the focal point of this low-oblique, northwest-looking photograph. The entire waterfront of the lower Hudson River, in the lower left quadrant of the photo, is lined with wharves, piers, and docks. The large amphitheater-shaped bay east of Rockaway Point is Jamaica Bay. John F. Kennedy International Airport is located on the northeast side of Jamaica Bay. The East River separates Long Island from Manhattan Island, one of five boroughs of New York City. The rectangular feature in the middle of Manhattan Island is Central Park. Toward the northwest third of this picture, a swath of hilly terrain mixed with numerous lakes trends southwest-northeast. This terrain is the result of the glacial scouring during the last ice age. It is evident by the red and brown coloring of the forest foliage that this photograph was taken in the fall.

And here is yet another visualization of the Earth. It shows the globe from two points of view, and then an oblique look at a flattened map verison of the earth. These were put together by John Walker as possible starting points for displaying the individual eggsites as "bumps" whose height changes to reflect the size of deviations. In the meantime, John has created movies that do this with music, using a dynamic map similar to that shown at the top of this page (you will need a Quicktime player to see these).

A pretty variation of an earth map with nicely detailed topology is shown here, in a 500K image. A variety of other maps and satellite images can be found through these links. Some beautiful renditions of the nighttime earth are among the many spectacular perspectives on our globe which can be found on the internet.

Meanwhile, lest we think the global perspective is all about images on the grand scale, it is important to look again. Here is a site that pays heed to the crystaline beauty of snowflakes, an example at the other end of the spectrum.

If you are interested, I'll put up some magnificent birds. Let me know. Meanwhile, here is a beautiful, natural example of how we might relate to each other, and share our world.

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