Sunday, July 31, 2011

Remembering A Funny Guy




"I can’t imagine I’m alone in thinking Mac was one
of the funniest people I’d ever met. So, it would be really great to hear
from some of his friends and readers who keep returning to this site.
What things did Mac say, do, or post
that was hilarious to you?"


Sarah Multiverse is looking for a laugh over at Macbots... Got any?


Meanwhile, I've added a few items to the sidebar for those interested.



Wednesday, July 27, 2011

Thursday, July 21, 2011

Fort, as in: Fortean



"CHARLES FORT WAS AN INTELLECTUAL adventurer, a deep-dyed scholar of the weird whose work paved the way for generations of researchers. Writing in the early 20th century, Fort pursued unexplained phenomena with feverish intensity and a rare sense of humility. 

"Fort's Lo! is a classic work of studied iconoclasm, a restless ensemble of anecdotes that produces a singular sense of unease mingled with awe, gape-jawed amazement-and a pang of existential fright. Fort's parade of scientific anomalies frames the larger anomaly that is human existence. Lo! is a book with the capacity to rewire brains and sculpt new lenses for seeing the unexpected, the unexplained - and perhaps for glimpsing our own role in Fort's mystitying cosmic scheme.

"This book is a singularity, a focal point so rich with heretical memes that it's infected an entire century with its bizarre implications and sense of the inexplicable. Perhaps if Charles Fort had never existed, we would have been forced to invent him, or someone like him. But it's doubtful we could have improved on him. Lo! is something new and correspondingly startling: a crack in the veneer of orthodoxy and an impassioned plunge into the deep black waters of a most enigmatic planet." 

- Mac Tonnies, via the cover of Charles Fort's "Lo!" (1931), Cosimo Books edition, 2004



Wednesday, July 20, 2011

Wednesday, July 13, 2011

Light Art Performance Photography







"The light art performance photography (briefly LAPP), is one-shot long time bulb exposure Photography, performed additionally with movement of light.

LAPP originates on a real-time basis directly in front of the camera. Created between opening and closing the shutter. The pictures shown here are in each case one single photo, not a result of working on the computer. With especially developed light and luminous tools they are projected on the sensor. within a performance, form and color by light arrange such complicated figures and light forms."


Wrongly filed under "Digital Graffitti" on this amazing site, the photos above, plus a number of other wonderful light photographs can be found here. (Hint: When you get to this page, just click near the thumbnail bar at the bottom of the page to see the entire strip; drop-down menus at the top.) Enjoy!

Note: This link has a permanent spot - along with other eye-candy, on the sidebar of Trans-D, in the continuously updated "Not Necessarily related - and related - Digital Delights" section.



Monday, July 11, 2011

UFO? Cosmic Bioplasma?






No... Jellyfish!


Are there any animals on this planet as cool and as marvelous to watch? I think not. A Scottish reader once informed Mac that "tonnies" was the Scottish word for jellyfish. I don't know if this is true or not, but Mac was thrilled.








Saturday, July 9, 2011

A Visit to Kauffman Memorial Garden


Entering the Garden in October (click to enter)


"I really like this garden and try to make the occasional pilgrimage. Refreshingly Zen, especially after prolonged exposure to the damned suburbs."

- Mac Tonnies, posting about Kauffman Memorial Garden, May of 2006






Kauffman Memorial Gardens, in Missouri, hosts an amazing variety of flora and fauna which is on view - for no fee - throughout all the seasons of the year. To your right, an exotic butterfly - the moth-like Owl Morpho.  To your left, a winter shot of an interesting phenomenon, the frost flower.


One of the Garden's several dancers.


Spring








Summer





All of these photos (and many more) can be found on the wonderful Kauffman Memorial Garden blog. Previous posts regarding Mac and the Garden can be found here and here. In a sense, the whole of Kauffman Memorial Garden has become a monument to Mac, and he has become (literally) a portion of its fabric.

For more information about the Garden, go here, or here.

If you ever make it there in real-time, drop a line.



(Photo credit for all photos: Kauffman Memorial Garden)

(This recreated post is dedicated - with love - to Robert and Dana Tonnies.)