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My starting point was the 1995 online article "Strolling Among Sculpture on Campus" by Jennifer Sheppard, which gives a good overview of many of the pieces as well as hints on where they can be found. I also bought a copy of the "Sculpture of Princeton University" guidebook from the Art Museum shop, which cost around $5 and has drawings and more detailed descriptions for 24 of the works on campus. It also has a map which proved invaluable in locating many of the pieces.
As I've gone along, I've been adding the pictures to a set on Flickr called (unsurprisingly) "Princeton Artworks", as well as building an interactive Google map which shows where each of the artworks are, to the best of my abilities. On my wanderings I also came across what I considered to be artworks but which weren't in the book, for example the many tiger statues that are dotted around campus.
You can click on a marker below (or in a larger size map) to go on your own virtual tour:
View Larger Map
I think that the project made me look at the artworks in a different way than I might have just walking past them every day. Looking for interesting angles for my photographs also gave me a reason to spend more time looking at them, and I think that in some cases this made me appreciate them more - particularly the ones that I initially didn't find that interesting. Also, searching them out gave me an excuse to explore the campus and in doing that I stumbled across other things that I wouldn't otherwise have found.
It's hard to pick favourites, however if I really had to choose then Upstart 2 and Mastadon VI are probably the ones that I liked the most from the official collection. I also liked the metallic tiger statues outside the stadium - it was seeing pictures of these elsewhere that got me started. Of the "serendiptiously found" works, I think maybe Clouds Nine is the one that I would pick as my favourite. But really I think that all the artworks have something in them that I like - I didn't take pictures of the ones that didn't.
You could argue that the project isn't really complete: there were a few pieces that I wasn't able to find, such as Eduardo Paolozzi's "Marok-Marok Miosa" (I think it has been relocated or stored for now), and other sculptures or murals that could also be considered artworks. However for now I think it's enough. So I hope that you enjoy looking at the map and the pictures.
You don't usually get advance warning that history is going to be shown live on TV, but yesterday I stayed at home and watched Barack Obama's inauguration proceedings for much of the day. (It was cheaper than going to Washington DC, and warmer).
I don't remember paying much attention to previous US presidential inaugurations so I think that the 10 week gap between the election of a president and the time when they actually take power initially came as a surprise (back in the UK the winners assume power the day after the election). Although I suppose it's intended to smooth the transition from one administration to the next, it seemed to mean that George Bush more or less disappeared from view after November (the odd shoe-flinging incident aside) while Obama has been warming up on the sidelines, not yet in the game.
I really enjoyed watching yesterday's inauguration events and the carnival atmosphere that surrounded it - on TV the crowds were so large that the colours were strobing on the small screen in Kyle's bedroom - and I'll admit that I also clapped and whistled along at home. As with all these formal state occasions there are certain traditions to observe and rituals to be performed, and I had some interest in seeing the mechanics of the transfer of power (for example, I learned that the transfer occurs at 12 noon regardless of when the incomg president is actually sworn in). But what I found more than a little thrilling was to actually see those rituals come to life, and to feel the oath of office become something more than just words spoken by the latest successful job applicant. I can't compare it with previous years but yesterday with Obama it felt like a powerful connection was made with the past, all the way back to the origins of the United States, that the presidency is not just a job, it's a calling.
Something else that struck me again was just how historically significant the election of a black man to the office of president really is here; I don't know if I would have really appreciated how strongly people feel about it if I hadn't spent time here. But aside from that I think that Obama is someone special. I find his speeches really inspiring - he appeals to great ideals - but I also sense that he is a pragmatist: he seems to recognise that there is a real opportunity now to move forward by laying aside blame for past mistakes (whoever made them) and instead looking together for how things can be made better.
I like that he is pushing the responsibility to make a difference back onto the American people, treating them as adults and reminding them of the role that they have to play to fix the mess that everyone is in now: the greater world is made through individual actions and decisions. If the previous administration made people feel powerless over the course of their nation then I think Obama sees his first job as reversing that, to make people feel that what they do matters again.
Today is Obama's first real day in office and so we finally get to see him in action, and see how he lives up to the expections that people have placed on him. To me Barack Obama feels like a very different kind of politician, someone who sees politics and the office of president as the medium through which he can achieve greater good, rather than being ends in themselves. I hope that as a result we'll ultimately see a model of a very different kind of politics, although it won't happen overnight (if ever). It's an exciting prospect.
We've had more snow here in New Jersey over the last couple of days and it looks really pretty, as long as you don't have to get anywhere in a hurry.
Yesterday was Martin Luther King Day, which is a public holiday for many people, including the schools, so I saw quite a few families out playing with small children in the snow. It wasn't enough to give Kyle a "snow day" off from work but at least some students at Princeton were able to build some cute snow-people. (Why is that we assume that the largest figure is the dad, the smallest one is the child, and the one in between is the mum?)
Today isn't a public holiday, but judging from the pictures on the television a lot of people have taken the day off anyway to see the inauguation of Barack Obama in Washington DC today. They don't have any snow but it is pretty cold both here and there, so I'm glad to be inside watching the events on TV this morning - it's like New Year all over again!
We've been to Hawaii a few times now - this was my fourth trip with Kyle - and people often seem aghast and think that you must be loaded to be able to do it so many times. The truth is that Hawaii is an expensive place to visit and stay, but saved up some money for this trip and offset the cost by using frequent flyer miles and travelling during the off season (Hawaii's winters are still better than many of the recent summers I remember back home in the UK).
During our two week stay we spent a week each on the islands of O'ahu and Maui, with a day trip to Kaua'i (pronounced to rhyme with "Hawaii", if it helps). We stayed in Waikiki in a really great studio apartment in the Pacific Monarch, a few blocks back from the beach with a really great view of the ocean as well as the mountains. It was great to wake up in morning and be able to look out over Waikiki, and spend time having breakfast on the balcony.
Waikiki is often looked down on as not being the "real Hawaii", and it's certainly true that it's not particularly representative of the islands as a whole. It's also true that the beachfront does look like a giant stripmall. But Waikiki does have a kind of mad energy that is really fun to experience, and both Kyle and I love it.
We also found a few gems that were new to us: the nightly free hula shows on the beach front were a real eye-opener, as they featured real Hawaiian performers (both musicians and dancers) performing a variety of modern and traditional songs and hula dances. I love the fact that Hawaii has this whole traditional culture and I felt like I understood more about it after seeing these shows. There was also a great open market in Kapiolani Park (past the Aquarium) on the Sunday which featured crafts and local goods. Another treat was seeing the King's Guard at the Kings Village, who lower the Hawaiian flag each night and then perform a routine where they juggle with their rifles. Afterwards they pose for photos and when you get to hold one of the guns you realise how heavy they are. So it's pretty amazing.
(Also in the King's Village we found a small musuem of vintage Hawaiiana, including a lot of cheesy stuff from the 1950s to the 1970s. I really loved seeing that stuff! But I think that the museum was only temporary, so I don't know if it will still be there in future.)
The other great thing that we did while on O'ahu was to take two of the Robert's Hawaii tours. The first one was the Grand Circle Island Tour, which takes you by bus around O'ahu to see the rest of the island outside of Waikiki. Kyle and I had ventured into O'ahu on our previous trips so we'd seen some of the places before, but still this was really great - beyond the city the island is very green - and our driver Duke was a local Hawaiian who was able to take us to places that I think we would have had some difficulty finding otherwise. He was also able to give us lots of backstory as well as a favour of what it's like to live in Hawaii these days. Basically, it may be paradise, but if you're a regular working stiff then the wages aren't so great.
The second tour we took from O'ahu was actually a day trip to the island of Kaua'i, which Kyle really wanted to visit since she had heard so many people say that it is their favourite island. This trip involved getting up at some ungodly hour to catch a plane to Kaua'i, before getting on the bus there. The great thing about the tours though is that the Roberts people really look after you, so long as you turn up at the start. On Kaua'i we were on a small bus with a great driver called Nani, who also had lots of stories about growing up and living on the island (including stories about the storms and how things have changed over the last 40 years). She was also incredibly helpful, taking pictures of people (even when they weren't in tour group).
Kaua'i itself was really beautifu, the most lush and green of all the islands that we visited, and we were part of a great tour group that included some Australians and even an ex-pat Brit from Birkenhead. It wasn't an island that I knew much about before going there but I think it would be fun to visit for longer than a day if we ever get to go back again.
After spending a week on O'ahu, we spent the rest of our vacation on the island of Maui. This was also a new island for Kyle and me, and although we'd done some research it was still pretty much unknown territory for us both. It's always a surprise to me that in many ways each of the islands is so different from the others, both in terms of the geography (which also influences how you can get around) and also just the things that you can see there. We stayed in a condo apartment in a small development in Kihei, which suffered from a few air circulation issues but which I really enjoyed, and also felt like a good base location from which to explore different parts of the island. (Across the road there was also a great Indian restuarant called Shangrila-By-The-Sea.)
We did quite a lot on Maui: we visited the 'Iao Valley and saw the 'Iao Needle (the guidebooks make it look like an arduous hike but it's about a 5 minute walk from the carpark), visited the town of Lahaina (home of the world's second largest Banyan tree) and the Maui aquarium (expensive, but a great place to see turtles up close), and went to the summit of Haleakala to watch the sun rise over the clouds. We also had lunch at Longhi's in Wailea (expensive but well worth it) and took a trip on the Reefdancer, which is a "semi-sub" that lets you see the reef and its inhabitants without having to don snorkel or SCUBA gear.
(The Reefdancer trip was also fun because the woman diver turned out to be yet another Brit, who was mistaken for an Australian by a lot of people on the boat. When I talked to her she asked me "Which part of Australia are you from?", and I told her "The same part as you.")
We took our last Roberts tour on Maui, this time a trip on "the Road to Hana", which is actually a circular trip around the south-eastern "bulb" of Maui which passes through the sleepy little town of Hana. The guidebooks all rave about driving this road, which features many different waterfalls and other sights on the way, but both Kyle and I were glad we took the tour rather than driving it ourselves since the road is narrow (sometimes only a single vehicle wide), winding, and often yet close to the edge of high cliffs! Hats off to our driver Tai who drove us around whilst providing an entertaining commentary. I did wish a few times that we'd had more time to stop in some of the places, but the great thing about the tour was to get a chance to see so much in a single day.
Our last day in Hawaii was actually Thanksgiving, so we watched a bit of the Macys Thanksgiving Day Parade on TV and then went down to the beach for an hour. It was pretty quiet and we watched a lone snorkeler and a couple of kayakers paddling around in the ocean.
In spite of having spent over 2 weeks there, we were sad to leave Hawaii at the end of the trip (although snagging first class seats with my frequent flyer miles on the way back took the edge off a little), I was already thinking about what I'd like to do next time. I think that the tours were the biggest eye-opener for me - they can be expensive, but with Roberts at least you definitely get what you pay for, plus what you're saving is your own time in Hawaii. I think in future if there is a specific activity that I want to do then I would look at seeing if there is a tour to do that activity.
So that's our Hawaiian vacation in a (rather large) nutshell. If you're interested in checking out the pictures then mine are on Flickr:
Kyle also has best of Hawaii and full Hawaii albums, as well as blog postings from the first week of the trip (starting with this one) that have more details about what we got up to. Enjoy!
Anyway: I'd meant to write something about that trip shortly afterwards, but really I do suck at blogging. It came out of an offer Chris had made to meet up with him one day for a visit to the city between Christmas and New Year. I was able to take the Surburban Transit bus from Princeton directly to the Port Authority bus terminal, which was easy for me.
First stop was lunch at the Hell's Kitchen location of Vynl (that's not a typo), which was glitzy glam, all mirrorballs and glass. Then we headed off to the Rockefeller Center to see the famous Christmas tree, and visited Radio City, where Chris suggested we take the tour so we could look around inside. Radio City is an Art Deco mecca and well worth the visit - I took a few pictures but I could have taken more - and we even got to see some a little of the Christmas Show and the Rockettes performing one of their trademark set pieces (collapsing in slow motion at the end of the Parade of the Wooden Soldiers - I didn't know that this was so famous, but Kyle knew what it was the instant I described it), followed by a brief opportunity to meet a Rockette.
Our tour guide talked a lot about the design and engineering of the auditorium, and Chris told me that it's truly amazing, so it was a little disappointing not to be able to actually go into it and see for myself. After the tour we were turned loose to wander around the lobby of the building for a bit. It was really neat to be able to see so much of the interior still looking good in all its 1930s goodness.
After leaving Radio City we met up with Christine to wander the streets looking for bars (as well as visiting "Love Saves the Day" briefly). Perhaps I should have tried to see more but New York is a pretty big place and I was only there for the afternoon - besides which, who's to say that visiting a few bars isn't as equally valid an experience as visiting the Metropolitian Museum of Art? It was fun just to walk around the streets, ride in a couple of taxis and talk politics over a drink.
Anyway, it was a great day out for me and my two hosts were excellent guides who also bought all the drinks, so I owe them big - thanks guys if you're reading this. Unfortunately I don't know if I'll have a chance to see them again before I head back to the UK but hopefully I'll catch up with them time later in the year - maybe in New York again, when the weather is slightly warmer!
"Addicted to Plastic" seemed a bit more focused than the "Trashed" film, in that it concentrated solely on the manufacture, use and disposal of plastic products. It begins with a trip to the North Pacific Tropical gyre, a region in the middle of the Pacific Ocean which due to the action of ocean current systems has become an enormous "garbage patch" of discarded plastics.
Essentially anything that gets washed out to sea eventually ends up in the gyre. As the film points out, for a material that is supposedly disposable plastic is incredibly durable - it doesn't break down naturally, so every piece of plastic ever made still exists somewhere. In the gyre large pieces of plastic can be seen floating on the surface (some now homes to marine life like limpets, mussels and crabs) but mostly the plastic objects are broken into smaller and smaller pieces which are either eaten by fish and birds which mistake the fragments for food, or eventually become so small that they form a "soup" of plastic particles that are absorbed by filter feeders such as jellyfish.
This is bad news in lots of ways - at a macro level, the birds ingest large amounts of plastic products which fill their stomachs and kill both them and their offspring, while at a micro level the plastics also bind toxins at much higher concentrations than the surrounding seawater. So animals at the bottom of the food chain which consume the poisoned plastics contain high levels of toxins which are propagated up the food chain (ultimately to us).
"Addicted to Plastic" uses the state of the gyre as a starting point to investigate the origins of modern plastics (initially a way to use the waste products of fuel production), the reasons why we now consider them to be disposable (the very ubitiquity of plastic products makes us blind to them), the effects that large amounts of plastics in our environment has on us physiologically (for example, via the leaching of chemicals from plastics into our water and food), and what the future might be (for example, better recycling efforts and the development of "bioplastics" which are biodegradable).
After the screening the director Ian Connacher got up for a lively Q&A session. He was a witty and engaging speaker and I think gave some great answers to the questions that came up, as well as elaborating on some of the things that in my opinion weren't covered so deeply in the film. His feeling was that the solutions should include better recycling of plastics along with increased use of the new environmentally-friendly plastics. He touched on some of the frustrations of current recycling efforts, and in particular the distinction between "true" recycling (where for example used plastic bottles could be recycled into new plastic bottles) and "downcycling" (where the recovered material is lower-grade and cannot be used for the same products).
(Interestingly though the one potential solution that he didn't seem to talk much about was that of reducing consumption. I don't know why, as it seems obvious that the less we consume the less there should be to discard.)
"Addicted to Plastic" was a really great documentary. Afterwards I think I realised again how ignorant I am about the origins and effects of the plastic products that I use and that I throw away, and I'd recommend the film to anyone that is interested in learning more after reading this. In the meantime, it's pretty easy to find out about the state of the North Pacific Tropical gyre, which is the principal image that stayed with me after watching it - just type the phrase into Google - but here's a 2m:40s film on YouTube about the garbage patch anyway, just to get you started.
Yesterday Kyle and I went to see some of the events at the Princeton Environmental Film Festival, which is taking place at Princeton Library (though since she had to work, I saw some of them on my own).
The first was Tom Weidlinger's film "Swim for the River", which followed a guy called Chris Swain during his attempt to swim the length of the Hudson River in 2006. As part of this effort Swain comes into contact with the various communities along with the effects of industrial use of the river both in the past and in the present day. A couple of things that he discovers on his trip are pretty shocking, for example the massive amounts of industrial waste being pumped into the river from a factory at Glenn's Falls, and an underground oil spill leaking into the water at Newtown Creek. But equally depressing was the fact that none of this is particularly hidden, most people just don't seem to see it any more - they're no longer connected to the river.
I was interested in the film because it reminded me of the growing outdoor swimming movement in the UK which broke into the mainstream last year. The Outdoor Swimming Society is one example of many local and national organisations promoting the benefits of outdoor swimming while also campaigning for better public access and cleaner water. I think that there are similar problems in the UK to those highlighted in "Swim for the River", to do with people not feeling a sense of connection with the lakes and rivers around them. I think that you care more about something if you have to swim in it. After the film Jim Waltman of the Stony Brook-Millstone Watershed Association led a discussion and said that he was inspired by the film to do something similar here, so I hope that goes well.
The rest of the day seemed more focused on "trash". The second event I saw was a talk on "Garblogging" by Leila Darabi, who has a trash-related blog at everydaytrash.com. Much of her talk was a shout-out to various other "garbloggers" (who include artists, "dumpster divers", and people who are just trying to live sustainably) but it was also interesting to hear her own story of how she got into writing on the subject in the first place.
In the evening we went to see Bill Kirkos' film "Trashed" (warning: the website has a soundtrack so you may wish to turn the sound down on your computer before visiting it) which is broadly about the waste management industry in North America. The screening included a short Q&A with the director himself, and was followed by a talk by author Elizabeth Royte about her books "Garbage Land" and "Bottlemania". There was a lot to take in from both the film and the talk, but one of the general points that I took away was again just disconnected we are from both the production and disposal of things that we buy and consume. Where does this stuff come from? What's required to make it? Where does it go once we throw it out? We're so habituated to throwing things away that we're almost blind to the sheer volumes that we're disposing of. And why do we think of some things (particularly plastics) as being throwaway in the first place?
I think that "Trashed" had more immediate impact because as a film it was able to show things that are normally unseen - the size of landfills and the amount of rubbish being taken there. It's pretty depressing stuff. But there were some hopeful things too, like Ray Anderson's company Interface transforming themselves into a sustainable enterprise.
I won't say that I had any kind of epiphany or that I'm suddenly going to transform my life. I'm still processing what I saw and heard yesterday, and the main feeling I'm left with is that I'm pretty ignorant about the impact that I have on the world with the way that I live. I find myself wondering if the proliferation of blogs about sustainable living reflects the fact that it's neither obvious nor straightforward to make a big difference. But that's no reason not to try, so I'm going to check out what other people are doing (beginning with the advice on Sustainable Dave's site) and start from there.
The start of the year seems like a good time to look back at the last 12 months and think about the things that I would have blogged about at the time. Some of the nonsense that I got up to included cycling 90 miles across the Pennines from Warrington to Chesterfield with my friends Ronan and Charles, and driving 140 miles to Cardigan Bay in Wales to take swimming classes with Swimming Without Stress. As a result of the swimming classes, which are based on the Shaw Technique, I also started taking lessons in the Alexander Technique. Aside from that I went swimming outdoors for the first time (if you don't count the sea): two swims in Hatchmere Lake in Cheshire (the first in May involved a 26-mile round-trip cycle ride from my house and back, the second in September was with a friend and the water was chilly to say the least). I also made a trip out to Nantwich's outdoor brine swimming pool at the end of the summer, and watched the demolition of the Tinsley cooling towers near Sheffield.
And of course, I have this great opportunity to make an extended visit to New Jersey to spend time with Kyle, which has been really fantastic and which included our two-week vacation in Hawaii (which, um, I have still failed to blog about, although some pictures are available if you're interested). It has been and continues to be great to be able to spend so much time together. That adventure goes on!
Of course as well as looking back, New Year is also a time for making resolutions and setting goals for the next 12 months. I don't usually bother with any of that stuff, but over the last few days I thought about a few changes that I'd like to make in life. Many of them are quite simple and small but I think that they could make a big difference to me if I keep them up. They include resolving to talk to people at the swimming pool when they join my lane and then start swimming around apparently at random. I'd also like to stay more focused on finishing projects that I start (sort of "doing less with more"), and remember that saying yes to one thing often means saying no to something else. I'd also like to cut down on my consumption (I was particularly inspired last year by Kyle's last year resolution to reduce her bottled water consumption).
There are some other things that are a bit more specific. I'd like to find ways to enjoy my swimming more again, and to get back to practising my Alexander Technique exercises more regularly (as well as taking the lessons again). I want to answer my emails more promptly (already doing ok with that) and be more spontaneous with my blog postings (that last one's going to be tough I'll admit - this post has already taken seven days to write). I'd also like to try boxing (but more the training than actually fighting with another person) and to finish and deploy the web application that I'm (sporadically) working on right now.
I realise that most of these aren't really tangible goals yet with, y'know, real deadlines and stuff. But then this is life and not project management. And I know that research indicates that both writing things down and publicising your resolutions makes it more likely that you'll stick to them. And since one of my resolutions is to blog more spontaneously, I'm going to end there for now - and simply wish you all the best in your own attempts to make the world a better place in 2009.
Good luck!
