The Hidden Jazz of Groups

I wore two hats today at a presentation by two of my friends, Dan Rubright and Leslie Peters. I was already planning to attend the “The Hidden Jazz of Groups” presented in the Cortex District of St. Louis. Dan asked me whether I could also shoot some photos of the presentation, which sounded like fun.

Dan and Leslie, who are married to each other, have combined their skillsets into a way that celebrates both individual differences and the magic of collaboration. Dan, who is both an exquisite musician and an educator, began the session by giving his insight into the process of creating jazz, and then moved on to discuss the wide variety of creating and combining sounds to create music. Leslie, an author and speaker on group dynamics, then joined in. It was a smart and unintimidating way to broach the topic of efficient group dynamics. These are a few of my photos from the presentation.

If you click on the video, you'll hear Dan’s impromptu performance of some of his music. His style is truly his own. I’m always delighted by the amount of music he can coax out of a single guitar.

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Exquisite nature macro photography with a cell phone

OK. In THEORY, anyone can clip a macro lens onto their phone and take cool photos. Sasi Kumar, a 20-year old man from India has made high art using only these simple tools. Apparently, he has an uncanny ability to hold his phone still while triggering the shutter. And he has lots of patience, enabling him to get the money shot. It is a delight to look at his work.

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My Awkward Love Letter to Plants

This morning I pretended I lived in a world without any plants.  I pretended I was an inventor.

My first client asked me to invent something she called “plants.” She was entirely concerned with function, not aesthetics. She had some very demanding requirements. Each of these living things would be rooted to one position for their entire lives. They would not be able to move. I said, “Oh, like sponges . . . ” She corrected me: “No, sponges are animals like you!” She handed me information showing how plants differ from animals, though there are many similarities too, since all plants and all animals have common eukaryote ancestors.

At first, I was relieved that my task was to design only plants, not animals, because this would save me a lot of work. There will be no need to design locomotion, vision, migration or hunting behaviors. There would not be a need for any sort of biologically expensive brain that would offer neural plasticity, the ability for an individual plants to learn. A bit more thinking made me realize that this was going to be incredibly difficult. How does one design the ability for organisms to survive day to day when they are stuck in one place? The more I thought about this project, the more daunting it seemed. [More . . . ]

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Becoming an Amateur Rock Jeweler

Over the past few months, I've been posting on my newly ignited passion for rock hounding, sculpting rocks and rock tumbling. SE Missouri is a great place to find beautiful rocks. I find most of my rocks in creeks 1 or 2 hours south of St. Louis. After tumbling them, I've handed them to many friends and acquaintances as mementos and for no reason at all. People love smooth polished rocks--I'm tempted to call it a human universal.

As I've created increasing numbers of tumbled rocks, I've learned that for a minimal cost, one can create necklaces and other jewelry with them. This is a photo of my first creation. I gave it to a dear friend who is moving away from St. Louis and it brought a big smile to her face. I'm late to this game--lots of people make jewelry. As with all handmade gifts, this is equal fun for giver and receiver.

Here are two other necklaces I just put together. Nature generates some awesome patterns. I couldn't see these patterns on the raw rock. Not until it was tumbled. Some beautiful rocks look ordinary when tumbled. Some ordinary rocks look beautiful when tumbled. You never know.

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Family Gymnastics Traditions

My grandfather, Robert Wich, was an amateur gymnast. Below, you'll see a photo of him doing a routine with his gymnastics partner (I'm assuming that this photo was taken in the early 1920's My grandfather is the one in the air).



I am trying to respect this family tradition, but I find it easier to do impressive acrobatics in my own way at the Oto-phay Op-Shay Branch of the YMCA. Here I am performing the rarely seen finger-balancing routine with my gymnastics partner, Edie White. I'm also attaching a close-up so you can appreciate the critical placement of fingers.



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