With pipe

i thought the girl in the red dress looked interesting, and that was even before i saw that she was smoking a pipe! you rarely see pipes, and even less on young ladies.... :)

i think anyways people smoke much less here in boston than for example in the netherlands. in new york, however, it seemed that more people were smoking. in the netherlands it is forbidden to smoke inside, but just right outside most buildings it is ok; here you often cannot even smoke outside the building, you have to go a little further away....
someone just told me that chances are that there is not only tobacco inside, but something that would be legal... in the netherlands.... can you get arrested for that? just wondering.....

Listening stone

i did not know a title for this post, until i looked up the name of the artwork... :)

i never thought of this stoneface as listening, but it actually makes sense. it is made from granite, by joseph wheelwright. it is in the de cordova museum in lincoln, where we have been many times, by now. the park is beautiful, this time we brought a blanket and had a small pinic in between all the sculptures. the museum is nice too, and exhibitions change rather regularly.... if you come to the park by bike, entrance is free!! isnt that nice? i think in general the museums in the us (the ones we saw and that are quite some, by now), are very nice,but i think this museum is my favorite!

behind the listening stone you see another artwork; its a 1936 chrysler equipped with monitors and speakers. its named "requiem to the 20th century" by nam june paik. he is considered to be the first video artist, and his work is in collections all over the world. here is a quote from him that i like: "Our life is half natural and half technological. Half-and-half is good. You cannot deny that high-tech is progress. We need it for jobs. Yet if you make only high-tech, you make war. So we must have a strong human element to keep modesty and natural life." and this one too: "The only way to win a race is to run alone".

Customized MBTA

on saturday we were in the green line, and saw those 2 chairs! i really had to suppress the urge to go and sit on them, as we had to stand. no clue whom they belonged to. perhaps it was some sort of social experiment? who is going to sit on such a chair?

or maybe it was because the MBTA is trying to renew itself? i read in the newspaper this morning that the MBTA (which stands for massachusetts bay transportation authority, or the T, in short) is thinking of selling "station naming rights". as such, the T would incorporate both the station name and a corporate brand into the renamed facility. in doing so, they could avoid an increase in fare prices, which would be a good thing (although i think the T is really cheap, especially compared to the netherlands, where it is ridiculously expensive) but can you imagine the weird names wealthy people could come up with? or mc donalds could name a T stop after itself? hmmmmpf, i think its not a good idea; we would have to replace our shower curtain that has a map of the subway system each time someone buys a new T stop!

i think they should start smaller; why not selling seats on the T? then you are guaranteed to always have a seat! the bigger the seat, the more you paid... ;) and ofcourse, you can customize your seat, as above. that just must have been a pilot experiment. it worked, nobody sat on them!

The extraordinary..

in the ordinary. that kind of photos i like a lot... like this one, for example. each time i see that pic, i have to laugh! picking up your dog's shit is perfectly normal here, as are perfect wedding photos, but the 2 dont usually go together.

above is funny too, with the tree rat! i didnt take this pic, however, it was tim. i saw him taking this pic, but i thought "ow, boring, just someone reading in the sun". hahahha, didnt look careful enough!

yesterday's post generated a lot of responses, that was interesting. i am still thinking about it. i guess this is the solution; everyone, especially those against "taking pictures of strangers" (or watching strangers, for that matter, in particular children) should watch minority report. that movie shows perfectly why people cannot be punished (or whatever) for something they have not (yet) done... it is entirely possible they never will! moreover, free will is not possible when your every move is regarded as potentially malicious. that brings us to 1984 from george orwell: we already have the security cameras.... lets leave it at that!

Frog pond

we walked by the frog pond this afternoon, in the boston common. it was hot, so all the kids were in the water, playing. it was such a beautiful sight!! last year at july 4th, we saw this for the first time, and i now see i placed this picture of it on my blog, exactly one year ago!

the fountain gave a pretty rainbow from one side, but from the side on this picture, i liked the pond even better.... but... as we were taking some pictures, a member of the staff, guarding the pond came up to tim saying it is "not cool" to take pictures of kids. they told him he was not allowed to take pictures, "especially of the children". he then asked to see the regulations for that, and the guy answered "do you really want that?" "well, yes" so then he was brought to another guy, who simply stated the same.  they then even said that he "could get into serious trouble". well, thats just sad.... do they also prohibit parents taking pictures? another kid might end up on their picture! and what about people without cameras, but also without kids, watching all those kids play, because it is such a lovely sight? can they get into serious trouble as well? should we perhaps all close our eyes while walking in public places? or, in order to let privacy prevail, we should close down all the parks and stay at home?

here once more the photographer's rights......
now we're at it. we went to this exhibition "kids are people too", inside the hotel commonwealth. in boston. it displayed photographs of kids from various photographers. some were staged, which i did not really like, but there were also photos from Harold Feinstein, which he took in New York during the 50s and 60s and they were simply marvellous.... click here to see some of his work. the exhibition is only until July 12th...!

Living proof

when we were walking around cambridge (from the mall to the cinema, how american!), we passed this parking lot with the sign "living proof. visitor". that was funny!

around that area are a lot of biotech companies located. so i thought that living proof might be one of them... and well.. it seems to be a startup that aims to apply innovations in science to address beauty challenges; they sell hair products... and this is their slogan:"science is beautiful. we are living proof" hahahaha. as a scientist... hmm... i should just refrain from giving my opinion... here you can read a little more about science and my friend sylvia's opinion, if youd like..

living proof is also a song by cat power! she is an american singer/songwriter and i found her by coincidence, when i was once bored and typing random things into google.. :D then i got her CDs, played them in the lab, and i liked it a lot, but the others not that much.. :)

and tims shirt says; "rock is dead. and paper killed it" but to understand that, you have to be an american, having played rock, paper, scissors....

Ooh laundry..

this is in melrose, where we live. we biked there on sunday, while it was raining a little. i am so glad we have our own washing machine! while a normality in the netherlands, here most apartments do not come with a washer. often you have to goto the basement, with quarters you have been collecting the entire week to be able to wash (8 quarters per wash or so!). in our previous apartment we actually had a washer in the basement, but it was so dirty that we went to the laudromat down the street......

ah well, lets not get started on the washing machines here.. :) good night!

Beach scene

this was a while back already; end of may, when there finally was a warm day without rain. everyone was out on the beach in revere.... 

these children were very cute, especially the girl. she was very busy removing water from the sea with her red bucket. her mom was more interested in her phone, and had her picture taken with it.. :) (she is now checking whether she is satisfied)

Charles river

yes, we were in a canoe on the charles river yesterday! the weather was great... so that was really nice.. many boats were there, too, already in place for the fireworks later that day. the river banks were full with people as well, entire families on blankets, waiting the entire day for the fireworks that only started at 10.30 that evening.

i still dont understand the concept. americans go and sit all day in the hot sun to have the best spot to see the fireworks, but as soon as it is done, they all run out as fast as possible, not taking one moment to contemplate.... well, what should they contemplate.. something, anything! nope, all they think of is getting out of there as soon as possible... :)

Independence day

we went to see the july 4th fireworks! on the .... bridge (the one that takes the red line from cambridge to boston). and above what i saw.... loads and loads of people... and then some firework... :)

ah well... an excellent day. it was very hot! in a canoe on the charles river in the afternoon; i was in the middle so did not have to paddle... :) neither did i have to carry the canoe to the water. after that a BBQ in the sun on a roof terrace in the blazing sun. hahaha, celebrating independence day with.... mostly dutch people! its been long since i have been surrounded by so many dutch...

and now im real tired. good night!

Real Texan

 

this man was one of the few walking beings we saw in downtown dallas, when we were in texas. it didnt happen to us, but i heard from several people that walking in dallas is an anomaly. if you do so, it can very well happen that a cop comes up to you to ask whether everything is OK, whether your car is broke down or whether you lost your way... :)

here are some more photos from texas, also from the wedding celebration, which was the reason we went there...

Distorted Obey

have you ever seen Obey? i think it was the ica museum in boston who was selling obey tshirts and all, and from that moment on, i have seen obey at many places. every time i think; "ah, obey". it reminds me of communism propaganda, but i didnt look into it.... although it always made me wonder "now what is this? who is that? and.... why?" luckily, there is the internet to tell me everything and now im looking at pictures and reading about fairey since almost an hour (i wanted to go to sleep, actually!)

well, obey has been around since 1989, and is a creation of shepard fairey. originally an image of andre the giant (a french professional wrestler and actor) that fairey eventually altered stylistically and semantically into the obey giant. he created it at the rhode island school of design, in providence (it has a nice museum that we visited a few months ago!). it got distributed by the "skater community" and started to show up in many cities, all across the USA, and eventually the world. but why? at that time Fairey declared the campaign to be "an experiment in phenomenology". and directly stolen from wikipedia: "it is intended to inspire curiosity and cause the masses to question their relationship with their surroundings".

in fact, i discovered fairey made a lot of very interesting posters. look at this one for example! exactly how i feel about american cops.... or america's finest cop. as the ICA writes on their website when they displayed his first solo exhibition: "The content of Fairey's work is a call to action about hierarchies and abuses of power, politics and the commodification of culture" yup, i agree!

and look, also this famous hope poster of obama is his!

Some milk?

a collection of milk bottles was standing somewhere on the street in chinatown. im just wondering why... to show the huge variety of milk they have here? this is just a small subset. fat free milk, skim milk, 2% fat milk, hmmm.. there are a whole lot more.. but i dont know, as i never drink milk. i do drink buttermilk, and from that they have only one, sometimes 2, varieties. and yes, it took me a while to figure out that buttermilk is what we dutch call "karnemelk". actually, its not entirely the same. sometimes i miss the dutch karnemelk, just like i miss the cheese, a lot, at the moment. and biking around. and people that just act normal, and say what they think... ;) instead of fake politeness...

hmm, but let me not get into that. and certainly; not everyone is like that, just like the netherlands is not perfect... ;)

Looks like

this building has a face! no?

this is close to harvard square. saw it once already while driving by, but recently we finally walked there, so i had to take a picture....

Fast food

for only 5 dollar 50.... in chinatown.. but i thought this street looks rather sad...!

Tree rat

tree rat (in dutch; "boomrat") is a whole lot easier for me to pronounce than squirrel. 

they are not shy at all, and do whatever necessary to get some food... even holding out a helping hand... or is that to get some food... ? :)

Purple lollipops

purple is my favorite color, since a while now, and these gigantic flowers were just amazing. they made for great photo opportunities for many people, young and old... :)

in the public garden, boston, on sunday afternoon.

after that we went to see the movie "beginners"; the father of the main character wears a purple sweater (actually, he wears a robe) when he tells his son he is gay, and now, after his wife passed away, wants to explore this side of himself... well.. it could have been a hilarious movie. or a very sad one. or both. but it was not really either of those.....

American badass

if forgiveness is the way..... then.... here something to think about.. :)

Is it?

depends on what it is... i guess...
this is somewhere on a building in the center of boston.

Ieeekkk jellyfish!

when my sister was here, we went to the boston aquarium. that was the first and the last time. it was over-over crowded, the building as old, dark and depressing and the entrance fee high (even though we had discount through work). the only thing i liked were the jellyfish.. :) jellyfish have no heart, bones, eyes, brain or heart, and are made up of 95% water, yet they are able to kill other animals, in some instances even human.

the other amazing thing is that they have green fluorescent proteins (GFP); so they emit light. we saw some tiny jellyfish that were emitting many different colors of light. they were in a corner of the aquarium, and not many seemed to notice them. i watched them for quite a while, so beautiful! unfortunately, the pictures were crap (you thus have to visit the awful aquarium yourself, just to see them!). nowadays, GFP is widely used in laboratories as it is a very useful tool in microscopy. the people who discovered and developed GFP, received the nobel prize in chemistry in 2008.
by now, scientists have made many different colors of fluorescent protein. here you can see a plate of bacteria, all expressing another color of fluorescent protein! science can be fun.... ;)
enough lecturing... good night!