A Good Sign

 

This past Sunday, we had a family outing to the Zuiderzee Museum. For the record, it is under-publicized and very nice, including a ferry ride to the museum ride proper that the Peanut loved. More importantly, the fact that we could take a whole day out for something fun means we've finally started to not be insanely busy.

What have we been up to, you ask? Well, there has been the normal teaching, researching, writing, crafting, mama-ing and so forth. Since February, though, we've also prepped our house, put it on the market, and sold it. We sold it in nine days, more or less on our own. Also, someone is now the proud owner of a green card. You guessed it, we're moving. We're moving to Chicago. We're moving to Chicago in just over two months.

Let the games begin!

Design and the Elastic Mind

My sister just told me she's going to the big city, New York City that is, to support a friend who's in the Museum of Modern Art's Design and the Elastic Mind show. Her friend's project is called Grow, and they are essentially aesthetically pleasing, organic solar panels. The effect is not only green (as in environmentally friendly) but also beautiful. No doubt a why it will be at the MoMa.

Looking at the Grow project lead me to the website for the Design and the Elastic Mind site. It's fantastic and very different from anything I've seen before! The site responds to your mouse moving across the screen and if you click on one exhibit, you get to see a small picture and links to related exhibits. The links are shown as colored lines that sweep across the page and connect a series of exhibits. It's really a site I would happily spend quite a bit of time getting lost in. My favorite exhibit so far is the Lily Impeller, a sort of natural geometry propeller for immersing in liquids. I wonder if they will develop a Lily Impeller attachment for my hand mixer!

Magnum Exhibit

I want to see this exhibit. It's a 60 years of Magnum photos retrospective showing at the Stedelijk Museum (modern art) in Amsterdam. My first encounter with Magnum, a photographic cooperative with a stunning website, was about five years ago when I bought their book of soccer photography. It was the perfect gift from an aesthetically inclined girl to a soccer obsessed boy. The images caught my attention because they captured emotions and spaces in a truly beautiful way. To tell the truth, it changed the way I thought about soccer; less as a boys game and more as something that brought people together in all kinds of places. My second encounter was going to World Press Photo exhibits and realizing that quite a few prize winners were Magnum photographers. So, I'm looking forward to seeing the exhibit. Just need to pick a day - and maybe find a companion...