Category Archives: curves
On curves
Curved lines have an aesthetic that straight lines may only dream about. Football may be played on a grid, but everything else about the sport is based on a series of curves, beginning with the ball itself. The Arch in St. Louis is the paradigmatic aesthetic curve par excellence, yet no one thinks a set a goal posts has any aesthetic value at all. Curves are all around us and exist in direct contrast to straight lines, which try and create order in our chaotic world. Towns laid out on a grid are efficient but boring. A town such as Toledo, Spain, doesn’t have a straight street and doesn’t want one either and is a lot more interesting than any modern American city. The human body has no straight lines because it doesn’t need any. Many of us live with the straight line ilusion provided by a “ruler” or a “yardstick,” yet these completely utilitarian tools are both boring and anti-aesthetic. Though the straight line seems necessary and useful, it is predictable and repetitive. Curves, on the other hand, or on any hand for that matter, are unpredictable, tempting, desirable, sensual, suprising. Curves draw in the eye and offer a more pleasing solution to the problem of empty space than a straight line ever did. Where is the poetry in a square coffee cup which is antithetic to the experience of enjoying coffee? I love the paradox that are “straight leg” jeans which are not straight at all. Curves are ubiquitous, surround us warmly as the swoop and swirl around us, enclosing us in a world that is curved, not flat or straight, poetically arching and sinking below the horizon which is just another curve. One curve leads to another, a pitched ball, a crystal salad bowl, a parabolic antenna, a dinner plate, the trace of a perfectly thrown bowling ball as it makes another strike, the wheels on the bus. The utilitarian nature of the straight line will always clash violently with the curved line of the parabola.
On the phantom traffic jam
Today I was victim of a phantom traffic jam on interstate highway 35. By phantom I mean there were no wrecks, no single lane road construction detours, no weather hazards, no breakdowns, nothing. Nothing, yet south of Salado all three lanes of traffic came to a dead stop. The reason, of course, was the shear volume of traffic, the loss of a lane in Salado, and the narrowing of the final two lanes through an area of construction where some lane shifting occurred. It only takes one driver who slows down just a bit, maybe 2 or 3 miles an hour, which causes a wave to form in the following traffic. This ripple effect, which is characterized by stronger and stronger breaking by cars coming up from behind. The final result of this wave is that the traffic will eventual crawl to halt, and it can’t start up again until the cars that are stopped, start up again and allow a bit of space between themselves and the cars they are following. Overly aggressive driving and random lane changing only aggravate an already horrible situation. I was stuck in about ten miles of stop and go traffic that never got above five miles an hour until it left was just outside of Temple, Texas. After that, there were several slow downs at the traffic passed other construction areas, had to climb hills, cross bridges or navigate curves. All of these obstacles create hazards in the minds of drivers even when the lanes do not narrow and climatic conditions remain the same. Drivers perceive hazards even when there are none which causes them to slow down just ever so slightly, which is how a slow-down wave begins, ending in stopped traffic when the volume of cars is high enough. Traffic on a four-lane highway flows in a similar fashion to an actual fluid, so the backwards wave acts as interference in the flow of traffic, backing traffic up until it stops dead in its tracks. Today, Labor Day, was a bit of a perfect storm with everyone out on the road today, returning home, to school, or back to work on Tuesday. Part of the problem with I35 is that there is no other fast north-south artery between San Antonio and Dallas. The secondary roads are slow, filled with little towns, and plagued by a number of speed traps. If you are traveling north and south through central Texas, you will probably be on I35. Ergo, the volume today was very high, too high for the highway to handle in any serious way. Today’s traffic jam, which had nothing phantom to it at all, was very real and another symptom of an overused route that needs an alternative. The state keeps rebuilding and adding lanes, but today all of that construction was actually a part of why it became so dangerous and slow to all involved. The construction covers miles of highway, and all of it goes forward at a snail’s pace because in Texas you can work all year around–you aren’t trying to beat old Man Winter to the punch. The state of Texas will never be able to build enough highways to carry all of the traffic in central Texas, one of the fastest growing population centers in the entire United States. I don’t see planning, only patching. What barely carries the traffic today will be completely inadequate ten years from now, and phantom traffic jams won’t be a holiday weekend phenomenon, but an every day sort of thing, which means driving in central Texas will be exponentially that much more difficult.
On the phantom traffic jam
Today I was victim of a phantom traffic jam on interstate highway 35. By phantom I mean there were no wrecks, no single lane road construction detours, no weather hazards, no breakdowns, nothing. Nothing, yet south of Salado all three lanes of traffic came to a dead stop. The reason, of course, was the shear volume of traffic, the loss of a lane in Salado, and the narrowing of the final two lanes through an area of construction where some lane shifting occurred. It only takes one driver who slows down just a bit, maybe 2 or 3 miles an hour, which causes a wave to form in the following traffic. This ripple effect, which is characterized by stronger and stronger breaking by cars coming up from behind. The final result of this wave is that the traffic will eventual crawl to halt, and it can’t start up again until the cars that are stopped, start up again and allow a bit of space between themselves and the cars they are following. Overly aggressive driving and random lane changing only aggravate an already horrible situation. I was stuck in about ten miles of stop and go traffic that never got above five miles an hour until it left was just outside of Temple, Texas. After that, there were several slow downs at the traffic passed other construction areas, had to climb hills, cross bridges or navigate curves. All of these obstacles create hazards in the minds of drivers even when the lanes do not narrow and climatic conditions remain the same. Drivers perceive hazards even when there are none which causes them to slow down just ever so slightly, which is how a slow-down wave begins, ending in stopped traffic when the volume of cars is high enough. Traffic on a four-lane highway flows in a similar fashion to an actual fluid, so the backwards wave acts as interference in the flow of traffic, backing traffic up until it stops dead in its tracks. Today, Labor Day, was a bit of a perfect storm with everyone out on the road today, returning home, to school, or back to work on Tuesday. Part of the problem with I35 is that there is no other fast north-south artery between San Antonio and Dallas. The secondary roads are slow, filled with little towns, and plagued by a number of speed traps. If you are traveling north and south through central Texas, you will probably be on I35. Ergo, the volume today was very high, too high for the highway to handle in any serious way. Today’s traffic jam, which had nothing phantom to it at all, was very real and another symptom of an overused route that needs an alternative. The state keeps rebuilding and adding lanes, but today all of that construction was actually a part of why it became so dangerous and slow to all involved. The construction covers miles of highway, and all of it goes forward at a snail’s pace because in Texas you can work all year around–you aren’t trying to beat old Man Winter to the punch. The state of Texas will never be able to build enough highways to carry all of the traffic in central Texas, one of the fastest growing population centers in the entire United States. I don’t see planning, only patching. What barely carries the traffic today will be completely inadequate ten years from now, and phantom traffic jams won’t be a holiday weekend phenomenon, but an every day sort of thing, which means driving in central Texas will be exponentially that much more difficult.
On cathedrals
It’s not that I’m an expert in Gothic cathedrals, but I do know my way around all that stone and stained-glass. I don’t have a favorite, but I like Salamanca a great deal. León has the best stained glass. Segovia is such a late Gothic that it isn’t really Gothic at all. Burgos is total class, and Seville is monumental. There is little question that all of that carved stone heaped up in such a way as to create a sort of enormous stone cave is impressive. The vaults, the aisles, the alters, the choirs, the organs, the chapels all add up to an impressively chaotic and fractured version of reality. The cathedrals raise their stone arms up to heaven in a imposing array of arches, vaults, columns, and flying buttresses. This is supposed to be a big house, God’s house. The Gothic cathedral is built with an underlying theme–the pointed arch, which is used thematically throughout the entire building. What is difficult, at times, to stomach are the multiple layers of decoration which have been hung on the inside of the cathedral like so much ugly makeup. Cathedrals are really about lines of force, the harnassing of stresses, gravity, wind, and curves, and how all of those intersecting lines add up to a massive pile of stone. In the end, the cathedral is not the natural or logical outcome of the building process. Form and function are at odds with each other from the initial corner stone to the final key stone, and the laws of physics will be trying to pull down that stone roof even before it is put into place. The Gothic cathedral is a metaphor, then, for the struggle between man and stone to create an anti-natural structure based on the creative genius of man and his imagination to challenge those same laws of physics that are used to make those stone arches stay in place. Cathedrals are a living paradox of contrasting laws of nature where man has choosen to put his alters and proclaim his faith. I could do without most of the Baroque, Roccoco, or Neo-classic decoration and just roam the unadorned aisles as bovedas and arches sore above my head, knowing full-well that the columns and buttresses are all working overtime to keep the stones off of my head. Elaborate interior decorations do not speak to either my faith in God or my faith in man. Regular blocking, clean curved arches, and colorful rose windows tell me more about the art and skill of the tradesmen that built the place than the awful aesthetics of those who determined what would go into them at some later date, centuries after the builders had left. Today these stone monstrosities are a tribute to persistence and craftsmanship that is both forgotten and unappreciated. Unfortunately, many of the Gothic cathedrals of Europe are now located in regional backwaters that have long ago lost their importance as centers of power or eclessiastical greatness, and local parishes struggle to keep the lights on and the stone roofs from caving in. Cathedrals, at least to some extent, are anachronistic dinosaurs leftover from a time when building a big building was a big deal that not just anyone could do. Today, the Gothic cathedral is dwarfed by massive sports arenas, megalithic sky-scrapers, and gravity defying bridges that the medieval stone mason might have dreamed about, but never built.
On cathedrals
It’s not that I’m an expert in Gothic cathedrals, but I do know my way around all that stone and stained-glass. I don’t have a favorite, but I like Salamanca a great deal. León has the best stained glass. Segovia is such a late Gothic that it isn’t really Gothic at all. Burgos is total class, and Seville is monumental. There is little question that all of that carved stone heaped up in such a way as to create a sort of enormous stone cave is impressive. The vaults, the aisles, the alters, the choirs, the organs, the chapels all add up to an impressively chaotic and fractured version of reality. The cathedrals raise their stone arms up to heaven in a imposing array of arches, vaults, columns, and flying buttresses. This is supposed to be a big house, God’s house. The Gothic cathedral is built with an underlying theme–the pointed arch, which is used thematically throughout the entire building. What is difficult, at times, to stomach are the multiple layers of decoration which have been hung on the inside of the cathedral like so much ugly makeup. Cathedrals are really about lines of force, the harnassing of stresses, gravity, wind, and curves, and how all of those intersecting lines add up to a massive pile of stone. In the end, the cathedral is not the natural or logical outcome of the building process. Form and function are at odds with each other from the initial corner stone to the final key stone, and the laws of physics will be trying to pull down that stone roof even before it is put into place. The Gothic cathedral is a metaphor, then, for the struggle between man and stone to create an anti-natural structure based on the creative genius of man and his imagination to challenge those same laws of physics that are used to make those stone arches stay in place. Cathedrals are a living paradox of contrasting laws of nature where man has choosen to put his alters and proclaim his faith. I could do without most of the Baroque, Roccoco, or Neo-classic decoration and just roam the unadorned aisles as bovedas and arches sore above my head, knowing full-well that the columns and buttresses are all working overtime to keep the stones off of my head. Elaborate interior decorations do not speak to either my faith in God or my faith in man. Regular blocking, clean curved arches, and colorful rose windows tell me more about the art and skill of the tradesmen that built the place than the awful aesthetics of those who determined what would go into them at some later date, centuries after the builders had left. Today these stone monstrosities are a tribute to persistence and craftsmanship that is both forgotten and unappreciated. Unfortunately, many of the Gothic cathedrals of Europe are now located in regional backwaters that have long ago lost their importance as centers of power or eclessiastical greatness, and local parishes struggle to keep the lights on and the stone roofs from caving in. Cathedrals, at least to some extent, are anachronistic dinosaurs leftover from a time when building a big building was a big deal that not just anyone could do. Today, the Gothic cathedral is dwarfed by massive sports arenas, megalithic sky-scrapers, and gravity defying bridges that the medieval stone mason might have dreamed about, but never built.
On feet
Feet are very odd appendages. At once they are both strange and elegant with their knobby bony protuberances, calluses, odd looking nails, and toes. Due to the heat in central Texas, we see a lot of bare feet, feet in sandals, naked feet, but if you live in Minnesota, they cover up their feet just to make sure nothing freezes off, especially the toes. I know that toes are there for balance and ease in walking, but some people have long toes, other stubby toes, still others are fat. There don’t seem to be any rules about what toes should look like. Some women paint their toe nails and create a completely enticing sexy panorama red glossy luxury. Yet we all know that toes are really there to find the corner of the coffee table in the dark. Toes are also there to fill out the ends of your shoes, which would be all empty and hollow without the toes. Ballet and tap dancers need their toes to pound on the stage and make noise. Professional kickers do not use their toes to kick field goals anymore, using that bony spot on the side of the foot just below the big toe. Some people refuse to cut their toe nails like Howard Hughes and end up with weird creepy claws for feet. Some people love to kick off their shoes when they relax so that they can show off their beautiful feet. I have never frostbitten my feet, but I’ve come close a couple of times. Having cold toes is not a pleasant experience, but soaking your tootsies in hot water with Epsom salts is pure pleasure. Slippers were invented to protect both the foot and its toes, but stubbing a toe is nature’s way of reminding you to wear your slippers. Getting a toe stepped on will make you scream bloody murder. Bad shoes or shoes that don’t fit properly will make your feet hurt, and blisters are a reminder that good shoes are always necessary for hiking around monuments, museums, and mountains. My second toe is longer than my big toe. Foot health is often an indicator for the general health of the body, so if you get athlete’s foot, you haven’t been taking care of yourself or your feet. Flip flops do not really constitute footwear. Naked feet can be either very good or very bad–depends on your repressions and obsessions. You can almost tell, if you are Sherlock Holmes, a person’s life story by examining their feet, which wear the scars of a thousand battles. Stepping on hot tar is not good for feet. Getting a foot rub by someone who cares can be quite delightful and might lead to dancing. When your feet hurt, not much else makes any sense. Are you one of those people who love to rub their feet together while you watch a movie or television? Or do you hate to have your feet touched at all? Regardless of your feelings toward your feet or the feet of others, to state the obvious, every has two feet, and it’s always good to put your best foot forward, never put your foot in your mouth, always wear clean socks, and never let the toe jam accumulate in any serious way. No es lo mismo que te duelen los pies que te huelen los pies. They are just not the same.
On feet
Feet are very odd appendages. At once they are both strange and elegant with their knobby bony protuberances, calluses, odd looking nails, and toes. Due to the heat in central Texas, we see a lot of bare feet, feet in sandals, naked feet, but if you live in Minnesota, they cover up their feet just to make sure nothing freezes off, especially the toes. I know that toes are there for balance and ease in walking, but some people have long toes, other stubby toes, still others are fat. There don’t seem to be any rules about what toes should look like. Some women paint their toe nails and create a completely enticing sexy panorama red glossy luxury. Yet we all know that toes are really there to find the corner of the coffee table in the dark. Toes are also there to fill out the ends of your shoes, which would be all empty and hollow without the toes. Ballet and tap dancers need their toes to pound on the stage and make noise. Professional kickers do not use their toes to kick field goals anymore, using that bony spot on the side of the foot just below the big toe. Some people refuse to cut their toe nails like Howard Hughes and end up with weird creepy claws for feet. Some people love to kick off their shoes when they relax so that they can show off their beautiful feet. I have never frostbitten my feet, but I’ve come close a couple of times. Having cold toes is not a pleasant experience, but soaking your tootsies in hot water with Epsom salts is pure pleasure. Slippers were invented to protect both the foot and its toes, but stubbing a toe is nature’s way of reminding you to wear your slippers. Getting a toe stepped on will make you scream bloody murder. Bad shoes or shoes that don’t fit properly will make your feet hurt, and blisters are a reminder that good shoes are always necessary for hiking around monuments, museums, and mountains. My second toe is longer than my big toe. Foot health is often an indicator for the general health of the body, so if you get athlete’s foot, you haven’t been taking care of yourself or your feet. Flip flops do not really constitute footwear. Naked feet can be either very good or very bad–depends on your repressions and obsessions. You can almost tell, if you are Sherlock Holmes, a person’s life story by examining their feet, which wear the scars of a thousand battles. Stepping on hot tar is not good for feet. Getting a foot rub by someone who cares can be quite delightful and might lead to dancing. When your feet hurt, not much else makes any sense. Are you one of those people who love to rub their feet together while you watch a movie or television? Or do you hate to have your feet touched at all? Regardless of your feelings toward your feet or the feet of others, to state the obvious, every has two feet, and it’s always good to put your best foot forward, never put your foot in your mouth, always wear clean socks, and never let the toe jam accumulate in any serious way. No es lo mismo que te duelen los pies que te huelen los pies. They are just not the same.
On the apple
One of my favorite foods, I’ll eat apples in almost any form: fresh, sauce, caramel, pie, juice, cider, baked. Those round red (or yellow or green) orbs of juiciness are to die for. Especially, this time of year when the fresh apples are starting to appear in the supermarkets. I have already written here about making pie, and apple pie is my favorite. As a five-year-old in kindergarten we peeled apples, chopped them up, and fried them with a little lard to make apple butter. Apple butter is to die for on fresh crunchy toasted home-made bread. I like to put grated apple into oatmeal with a little brown sugar and cinnamon. Perhaps what I most like about apples, however, is the simplicity of the fruit itself. Just wash it and start eating. Yes, a little juice might go up your nose in the first bite, but you wipe your chin off and plan your second bite. Red apples look very inviting, but it is the party-colored apples that really have all the flavor. I believe that apples grow everywhere in the world. In Spain they make a naturally fermented cider that when served cold is a most delightful taste sensation. The apple is, of course, the paradigm for all snacks, given by Eve to Adam when he just couldn’t get enough. Does anyone honestly blame him for taking and eating the apple? Would you have done anything differently? When I was in cross-country a number of years ago, we would often plan our routes to include an apple orchard, or at least until the sheriff showed up and told us to stop. There’s a small restaurant in northern Spain in Santillana del Mar called Casa Cossio that serves the most delicious baked apples for dessert, cinnamon, sugar, a twist of orange. It leaves you wanting more. Until I got my braces on as a teenager, fall was all about buying a bag of caramels and some apples and making candy apples. It gets all over your face, your hands, stuck in your teeth, makes an enormous sticky mess, but it is so worth it. As I eat my caramel apple I can feel the cool breezes of October, smell the dry leaves that have already fallen from the trees, stared at the dead gray sky which threatened snow. The big debate when eating apples is, I guess, whether to peel or not. Apple skin has never bothered me, although it will get stuck in your teeth, but that’s what floss is for, right? Apple juice, especially when doctored with cinnamon and other spices–cloves and all-spice–fills a room with glorious smells when heated. On a frigid January day nothing will thaw out a frozen snow shoveler like a nice, hot mug of spiced cider. You might even forget, if just for a moment, that the ice is hard, the snow is deep, that the wind is out of the north, and that the windchill factor is double-digits below zero. Hot apple cider has a way of mending what is broken in your soul, of giving your tired, aching muscles hope, of making winter an okay place to be. On a hot summer day in Texas, you pour it over ice and add a twist of lemon and the heat doesn’t seem nearly as horrible as it is. The apple pie is the perfect dessert–no debate there. I’m not allergic to apples or anything they might put in a crust, so if I am eating out, I can usually trust the apple pie to hold me over until the next meal. The apple is composed of gracious, sensuous lines and curves that suggest erotic pleasures and unnamed delights. The apple lives in its own metaphors, subverting its own innocence while giving boundless pleasure to its consumers. The next time you eat an apple, I suspect you might have a new appreciation for this simple fruit.
On the apple
One of my favorite foods, I’ll eat apples in almost any form: fresh, sauce, caramel, pie, juice, cider, baked. Those round red (or yellow or green) orbs of juiciness are to die for. Especially, this time of year when the fresh apples are starting to appear in the supermarkets. I have already written here about making pie, and apple pie is my favorite. As a five-year-old in kindergarten we peeled apples, chopped them up, and fried them with a little lard to make apple butter. Apple butter is to die for on fresh crunchy toasted home-made bread. I like to put grated apple into oatmeal with a little brown sugar and cinnamon. Perhaps what I most like about apples, however, is the simplicity of the fruit itself. Just wash it and start eating. Yes, a little juice might go up your nose in the first bite, but you wipe your chin off and plan your second bite. Red apples look very inviting, but it is the party-colored apples that really have all the flavor. I believe that apples grow everywhere in the world. In Spain they make a naturally fermented cider that when served cold is a most delightful taste sensation. The apple is, of course, the paradigm for all snacks, given by Eve to Adam when he just couldn’t get enough. Does anyone honestly blame him for taking and eating the apple? Would you have done anything differently? When I was in cross-country a number of years ago, we would often plan our routes to include an apple orchard, or at least until the sheriff showed up and told us to stop. There’s a small restaurant in northern Spain in Santillana del Mar called Casa Cossio that serves the most delicious baked apples for dessert, cinnamon, sugar, a twist of orange. It leaves you wanting more. Until I got my braces on as a teenager, fall was all about buying a bag of caramels and some apples and making candy apples. It gets all over your face, your hands, stuck in your teeth, makes an enormous sticky mess, but it is so worth it. As I eat my caramel apple I can feel the cool breezes of October, smell the dry leaves that have already fallen from the trees, stared at the dead gray sky which threatened snow. The big debate when eating apples is, I guess, whether to peel or not. Apple skin has never bothered me, although it will get stuck in your teeth, but that’s what floss is for, right? Apple juice, especially when doctored with cinnamon and other spices–cloves and all-spice–fills a room with glorious smells when heated. On a frigid January day nothing will thaw out a frozen snow shoveler like a nice, hot mug of spiced cider. You might even forget, if just for a moment, that the ice is hard, the snow is deep, that the wind is out of the north, and that the windchill factor is double-digits below zero. Hot apple cider has a way of mending what is broken in your soul, of giving your tired, aching muscles hope, of making winter an okay place to be. On a hot summer day in Texas, you pour it over ice and add a twist of lemon and the heat doesn’t seem nearly as horrible as it is. The apple pie is the perfect dessert–no debate there. I’m not allergic to apples or anything they might put in a crust, so if I am eating out, I can usually trust the apple pie to hold me over until the next meal. The apple is composed of gracious, sensuous lines and curves that suggest erotic pleasures and unnamed delights. The apple lives in its own metaphors, subverting its own innocence while giving boundless pleasure to its consumers. The next time you eat an apple, I suspect you might have a new appreciation for this simple fruit.