Cool Stuff — Here in the Bonny Glen

May 5, 2009 @ 6:15 am | Filed under: Links

Scott sent me this link to 50 Strange Buildings of the World. Some of them will really mess with your head. I’ve been in one of them! But how did I not know about the Kansas City Public Library? Awesome.

The backyard art bag has been an even bigger hit than I expected. It has become the Paint Anywhere, Anytime bag. Rilla seems to mightily enjoy the independence it affords her: at any given moment she might be seen busily setting up her little workspace on the kitchen table or living room floor: painting board, a sippy cup of water, a piece of paper commandeered from the printer, and her paint set from the art bag. I think I’ll make it even easier and stock paper and painting boards in a kitchen drawer so it’s all right there together. I love to see her painting so much! And when she leads, Wonderboy usually follows.

Umami. Did you know about this? The “fifth taste”? Jane knew it existed—she read about it in a Muse article, of course. I read about it in a fascinating article by Rowan Jacobsen, author of Fruitless Fall, the book on bee colony collapse I mentioned last week—about which more later. Much, much more. Wow.

I think I had a bunch more links and tidbits I was going to share, but it’s my turn on the Wii Fit. Gotta go wake up my sleeping Mii. It’s been a while.

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Charlotte (Matilda) says:

I don’t know if the hole house should count. It was an old house in Houston scheduled for tear down that some art students altered. It was left standing for about 6 months but is gone now. The rest were really cool!
Posted on May 5th, 2009 at 8:34 am
Elizabeth H. says:

Funny, I read about umami in the Daily Telegraph a few weeks ago. Apparently it’s in breastmilk too.
Posted on May 5th, 2009 at 12:39 pm
Anna says:

Oh! I’ve been by the Air Force Chapel and the Sculptured House. I’m adding the KC Library and Chapel in the Rock to my list of “must-see.” Only because they’re easily visited. There are others I’d love to see… when I become a world traveler.
Posted on May 6th, 2009 at 3:13 pm
Eileen Smithdeal says:

Thanks for leading us to the “village Of Joy” site(with the weird houses). My kids and I are having so much fun looking at all the neat stuff over there. Check out the 3-D sidewalk art. So Neat!!!!
Posted on May 6th, 2009 at 7:12 pm

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“Exploration,” says John Stilgoe, author of Outside Lies Magic, “is a liberal art, because it is an art that liberates, that frees, that opens away from narrowness. And it is fun.”

Yes: it is so, so much fun, and that is why I write these posts all chattery with excitement over this or that connection the kids made today. (Or that I made myself!) I know I get carried away, but that’s the point, isn’t it, that way leading on to way has carried me away?

And yet—and yet—I think we are at once ‘carried away’ and made more fully present in the now, more rooted, by these relationships between ideas about things past and future. The joy of connection makes me want to celebrate this moment, this brief encounter with wild-haired child and broad-trunked tree, bus going by, sign on church wall, Scottish warlord creeping over the tower wall and startling the English soldier’s wife who has just put her babe in arms to sleep by crooning that the Black Douglas won’t get him. Child, laughing, shouting “Dinna ye be sae sure aboot that!” across the courtyard outside the library. How can I not celebrate this freedom?

(from a post called Way Leads on to Way)

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Every day is complicated, messy, and full of friction. And every day has glorious or cozy moments worth celebrating. I seldom bother to chronicle the friction and the mess because writing time is fleeting and precious—and childhood even more so. I’d rather capture the small joys that I might forget—or take for granted—if I don’t take time to set them down in words.

(Excerpt from this post about Real Life, quoted here because I don't want anyone to be under the impression that things are always perfect around here! Heaven knows we are anything but. Perfect, frictionless, orderly? Nope. Happy? Most of the time!)