A Divine Gas

So, I had an opportunity recently to spend an evening at the Seattle Art Museum. I'm afraid I'm only a little bit happier with the SAM than I am with the Olympic Sculpture Park, which I visited earlier this month. The new space is quite beautiful, and the lighting is much better, but I miss the majesty of the old marble steps with the Middle Eastern lions watching as you ascended into the space.

It is less crowded and they do have room for more. Unfortunately, I find their idea of "more" to be somewhat wanting. First, there's the huge art piece which consist of nine Ford Taurus's suspended from the ceiling with lit cables come out of them, called Inopportune: Stage One, which is free to anyone who walks into the lobby. Nifty, in a way, but hardly communicative: it looks like the sort of thing one takes on for the mere technical challenge. "Look, I can hang cars from the ceiling!" There's the piece Some/One, which is impressive for the amount of effort that goes into it, and it's nice to see it have enough floorspace.

There's a big new section on Pop Art, which is kinda fun if you're into that thing. It has Warhols, and the different galleries as you walk through them try to explain the evolution of modern art, with sections on impressionism, abstraction, surrealism. They've got a few Rothko's, which are important pieces for their day, but the Warhols just leave me cold. There's the flat anime-inspired Red Eyed Tribe by Chiho Aoshima (who's other work, A Divine Gas, I think is gorgeous and hilarious all at the same time), which was interesting but begs the question: is a photoshop-drawn mural that can be printed anywhere, anytime, really a fitting piece for a museum?

SAM really is a "thing you'll like if you like that sort of thing" place. I guess I wasn't muchly inspired by it. Then again, given the reasons I was there, I was distracted and not much in the mood to be inspired.

Coulda' told you that.

Mingle² - Online Dating

When bondage enthusiasts get bored: how to make a rope ladder

Rope Ladder

Normally, my oeuvre for this sort of thing is beautiful women, but when I'm bored I guess even a tree will do.

This weekend, I had to cut down some dry and dying branches from the oak tree in the front yard. This caused a lot of handwringing and consternation among the kids and their friends in the neighborhood, who loved that tree because it was just so darned climable. I experimented on Sunday with making a knotted rope ladder, but it didn't really work. Kouryou-chan had trouble getting the two strands of rope parted and it was just too hard to climb. Nylon is not a good climbing rope, and that's all I had.

I did a little research. Nylon holds knots reasonably well, especially self-reinforcing knots, and is reasonably weather resistant. I only needed it to last a summer or so anyway.

I found this lovely knot called the stepknot: you tie the rope off at the top of the tree, having two equally long strands dangle down. You take one rope and treble it, holding it in your fist so that it enters on one side and descends on the other. You should have two loops sticking out of opposite ends of your hand. On the side opposite where the rope in your hand descends from the tree, take the other strand and pass it through the loop and under the loose strand, then wind it around the bundle four to six times. Then pass the loose end through the other loop, which you should have been approaching with your winding the whole time. Pull both loops tight, much like a hangman's noose, and the two strands should now be falling out opposite ends of the step you've just made. Repeat as necessary.

It works great. Kouryou-chan immediately grasped it and climbed up the tree without a problem. The entire neighborhood had to try it out, so I guess it was a success.

An unusual celebration.

We celebrate all kinds of things here at LiveJournal. Usually, it's just birthdays, but sometimes we bring up other dates. I deal with my own birthday, as well as those of the kids.

But today is Omaha and my eighteenth year of wedded bliss... well, wedded something. No marriage is perfect, but to be successful a marriage must have perfect moments, and mine has had more than its fair share. Tough moments too, but in the end it's her wisdom, beauty, and sheer tenacity that I love the most. She has inspired many stories, many dreams, and many fine moments in life. She's given me one beautiful and brilliant child, and has put her all into raising both her and another child, so different but just as beautiful and just as smart.

I love her more than I can adequately write, and she deserves as much as I can give, and more.

Happy anniversary, sweetheart. I hope we have many, many more.