What I'm Listening To, Early March 2022

 Trippy, gentle, relaxing: Panda Bear's "Boys' Latin."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=prBaZzYmQrI

Alan Watts + beats: INZO's "Overthinker."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=luQSQuCHtcI

Alan Watts + beats: "Alan Watts Chillstep Mix."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jbu-OTEHnf8

Enough with the mellow! Hyperstimulation for the ADHD brain:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Vd2nyk-4Lo

Friday Links: an Onion Video Series, Axolotl Husbandry, a Woodworking Blog of Note

 Amusement:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL0C7941B0228E0240

Axolotl information:

http://www.axolotl.org/

Jack Plane's sister blog, Orson Cart, is building a vardo (house on wheels):

https://orsoncartatlarge.wordpress.com/2020/12/07/a-vardo-part-one/

Friday Links: an Interior Wall System, Bowl Gouge Sharpening

Just a pair of YouTube videos this week.

First, I like this approach to paneling an interior wall, as demonstrated by Mr. Chickadee. I will be using rigid foam to insulate the Rib Lake shack , and I had planned on horizontal wood paneling nailed to battens nailed along the inside faces of the timbers. The added step of screwing the paneling pieces to their own battens to form larger, removable panels strikes me as a huge boost to subsequent repairability.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8fdm9R1Cbm0

Next, one of my current obsessions is bowl turning. I have watched many, many hours of YouTube videos on turning techniques, sharpening techniques, and pretty girls in tight-fitting tops that somehow end up covered with shavings as they turn giant bowls. As far as fine points of technique go, I find a couple of low-quality vids of David Ellsworth and Stuart Batty demonstrating to woodturning guilds quite enlightening. However, the champions of cramming pertinent information into the least time with the best videography are Dictum Tools, in a series of videos showing Nick Agar sharpening various gouge profiles and then demonstrating the geometry of the different cuts each can make. I can picture myself actually calling up this video on my iPhone while standing at the lathe for a quick refresher.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JMzNN_IMhUE

Friday Links: Freelance Writing, Tabletop Radios, Movies Within Movies, Romanian Village Photographer

 Only a few this week.

A nuts & bolts look at the world of writing for money:

https://countercraft.substack.com/p/everything-ive-learned-about-being

Some good-looking radios from a brand I hadn't seen before. I have one on order, I'll let you know:

https://www.sangean.com/products/all_products.asp

Nestflix: a directory of movies-within-movies (and tv shows). Yes, they have Logjammin'. Yes, they have McBain. But you can submit any they don't have.

https://nestflix.fun/

The photographs of Zaharia Cusnir. A village photographer in the Romanian/Moldovan border region from 1955-1970, Cusnir lived and died in relative obscurity. His negatives were found in an abandoned house, scanned, and now some are on this website. Some of the images are quite powerful: your heart goes out to the subjects. I will be spending more time with these over the weekend.

https://www.zaharia.md/en/about/

Friday Links: Rhetoric, Plant Preservative, Tandoors

 

Some rhetoric, some plant preservative, some good music, some instructions on building a clay tandoor. What else do you need?

 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Begging_the_question

 

https://www.mckenziesp.com/Plant-Life-Preservative-C4150.aspx

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TMKDxxJ6rI8

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ciZBwAG54iY 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vyOSXRCJlIg

Friday Links Come Early: July 2021

 Friday links are early this week. I'm taking Thursday and Friday off, so I'm turning off my desktop today.

https://www.musserforests.com/prod.asp?p=SMR

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ge6f3bDmWM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-yielLYZ5lo

 

https://www.timberlinesharpener.com/?doing_wp_cron=1626872506.8145170211791992187500

Random Friday Links July 2021

 

Here's an anticipated new feature: Random Friday Links

Every week at work, I leave my computer running, only turning it off on the weekend, for reasons having to do with the age of my computer and the amount of time it takes to boot up.

I am in the habit of not closing browser tabs I am intrigued by, or interested in. But then on Friday afternoon, I shut down the computer, only to start up the process again on Monday. I feel like it might be worthwhile to preserve these links in this ephemeral form. Here's the first entry.

I anticipate no annotation, to explanation, no explication for these links. Just check 'em out. Or not.

https://ashesstillwaterboats.com/making-a-canoe-paddle/

https://ensorings.com/products/elements-classic-silicone-ring-gold

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3sKmX40HA6Y

https://app.crackingthecryptic.com/sudoku/6D4r2QfF7N

https://www.qajaqusa.org/content.aspx?page_id=22&club_id=349669&module_id=358631

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6ifqKK_voU

Dolly Rathebe: Good Stuff (What I'm Listening To)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ro5QkFLMZ7Y

Hungarian Photo Archive

Thanks to Hyperallergic (an arts e-newsletter), I have discovered Fortepan. Fortepan is a treasure trove of photos taken in Hungary (or by Hungarians) in the 20th century. 

---minnow traps, 1941


The photos can simply be looked at in simple chronological order, or searched by subject. Use Google Translate to find the Hungarian word for your subject. Usually this results in awkward half-fitting results, but you can go from there. I found the above image by searching for "halasz," which Google Translate tells me is Hungarian for "fisherman."

Rib Lake Sounds

The link below is to a folder on my Google Drive called "Rib Lake Sounds."

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1iKH5Vi3ExCCtMrtgmKeunqWvG3_Mal0j

The files in the folder are all .wav files. If you can't play them on the folder, you'll have to download them. Maybe I need to use Soundcloud or a similar audio file hosting service.

For a long time I've wanted to make my own recordings of nature sounds in places I love. This past winter, I bought a digital recorder for working on videos for Highland Woodworking. I usually use this recorder with an external microphone, for voiceovers. But it also has a pair of built-in mics that do pretty well, so I decided to give it a try, even though when I looked at various sites devoted to recording nature sounds, I was led to believe the result would be of low quality.

During a May trip to my place in Wisconsin, I set up the recorder on a tripod, started it recording, and walked away for an hour or so. I had to experiment a bit with the recording level, and once I came home I snipped off the bits where you can hear me walk away at the beginning, and then walk back up to the recorder at the end. You might hear a car in the distance. You might hear an airplane, or a dog. To be honest, they bother me far less than I expected.

Track Notes

"Marsh Morning of May 4th" is a typo, it was recorded May 14th. I left the recorder near the edge of a pond full of cattails, mostly hoping for blackbird song. I got that and more. This track is the only one in which wind noise is an issue - - even though the mic was covered with a wind sock. So picture a sunny, breezy morning overlooking a pond.

"May 15 Dawn" is my favorite so far. How many species of birds can you count? How many can you identify? I'll start you off with ovenbirds and veerys. Perhaps you'll need good earphones, or speakers with good bass to catch it, but there's a ruffed grouse drumming most of the way through. There is also the sound of occasional drops of water falling off the trees and onto my deck; the night before it had rained. I rolled out of bed at 5 am and set up the recorder on the deck to make this one, so imagine the light slowly rising as you listen.

"Frogs at Pond" is was taken just after sunset on May 14th. Sorry for the volume! They were quite loud. In fact, they hurt my ears. As I set up to record, when I put on the headphones and listened through the microphones, I was able to reduce the levels so they weren't painful. Wood frogs, spring peepers, chorus frogs - - - and is that the elusive mink frog?

"Afternoon Breeze in Pines" is the recording I wanted to make when I first thought of this project. There is a high spot on my land where most of the trees are red pines about 50 years old. I love to sling a hammock between two of them and listen to the wind in the pine needles. Probably the first sound in nature that made an impression on me, certainly before Kindergarten. I think I captured it, though you can also hear running water down below; spring runoff was near its peak when I visited.

A general note on "why": Anyone who knows me well won't be surprised to hear I spend lots of time daydreaming about being in the woods of northern Wisconsin. This has motivated a lot of photography and a few videos over the years. But at work, and in the car, I can't be gazing lovingly at photos. On the other hand, I can have the sounds of home in the background. And, obviously, sound recordings tap into a whole other emotional dimension.

ps) there are several "unreleased" tracks in the vault, including one recording made where two small streams meet. That one is of very high quality, but when it plays I have to pee every 7 minutes. The world isn't ready for it.