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Rachel came by around 8:30am, we picked up Whit at 10:30am and by 11:00am we were at the New York Botanical Gardens. Rachel is a floral arranger and this was my first visit to the gardens with someone so familiar with the aesthetics of plants. She oooh’d and aaah’d as I had my first time finding flowers so impossibly captivating that a portion of my brain refused to believe they were evolved. No, these lotuses must be made, designed to be more vibrant than a neon bar sign. Evolution is a war where standing still means continuous improvement and adaptation. What war could spawn such beauty?

From 2012-08-14 New York Botanical Garden and Museum of Modern Art

I know this is not the case. I know that each of these blossoms is either a direct adaptation or secondary exaptation that helps these flowers attract pollenating insects and that our enjoyment of them too was secondary until breeders began laying their genetic path. Each of these above facts makes them more not less beautiful although the awe response moves from amygdala to neocortex.

Whit is doubled over in laughter at a sign in the sensory garden that says “LOOK” with Braille beneath it.

From 2012-08-14 New York Botanical Garden and Museum of Modern Art

We next went to the Museum of Modern Art. I had never been, Rachel had, and Whit was a member. The top floor held an exhibition space on children which was very well done. The most moving piece there was a set of drawings done by kids showing planes in a dog fight. I remember my friends scribbling the same and smiled until I realized the date and time: Spain during the Spanish Civil War. We had imagined our dog fights, they had not.

From 2012-08-14 New York Botanical Garden and Museum of Modern Art

A floor down lied my four favorites of Magritte, De Chirico, Sheeler and Wyeth. The Wyeth was near a bathroom and I wanted my picture taken in front of it. I stood and waited for the crowd to clear but my presence made the crowd persist so I dodge over a piece until they dissipated and I got my shot or more accurately Rachel got my shot. Christina’s World is my poster child for underdetermination. The print looks like a meditation on distance, or feminine rights, or some other thing until one learns that the woman depicted has polio. This picture shows how she got around.

From 2012-08-14 New York Botanical Garden and Museum of Modern Art

The next object I stared at unflinchingly was Charles Sheeler’s an American Landscape. Charles Sheeler is probably the only artist who I like enough and that is unknown enough that I could become a leading scholar on them. His depictions of American industry are both patriotic and haunting. He paints portraits of technology and progress almost entirely devoid of humans or their affects. I first saw A Classical Landscape in a textbook in 10th grade and have loved him since.

The final two pictures were Magritte’s Empire of Lights, II and Dali’s Persistence of Memory. I much prefer the former as an original work and he matter-of-fact depiction of the impossible challenges the viewer to remember the limitations of painting. What is on the canvas is only as real as the paint it is made of and no more.

Persistence of Memory was quite small. I figured it’d be 16″x20″ or so not the 9.5″x13″ of its actuality and getting a shot in front of it was tough as it is comparatively dark. Compare this to Les Demoiselles d’Avignon which is almost 64 square feet.

We saw Starry Starry Night, we saw the masters of Suprematism, and we saw more Monet than I ever again wish to. The next floor down was 1940-1980 and very quickly I lost interest. Conceptual art by and large doesn’t move me as I think the concepts artists reflect upon are small and much better expressed in science and math. A fractal or algorithm shows repetition much better than several not quite identical boxes.

We went to PizzArte for dinner and I threw keto to the wind consuming four slices of very good pizza. Almost immediately insulin stalked my blood stream and I nearly fell asleep at the table. Whit thought I was faking it until I started slumping over and had trouble asking questions.

The ride home was quiet and the day was over before 10. It had been a while since I’ve had one stop so early.

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John and Val Hewins and I went to New York City today and caught the train out of Hamilton Station. We took Hamilton to Penn Station, Penn Station to Grand Central, and Grand Central to the New York City Botanical Gardens. On each of these stints I got to either listen to an audiobook or sleep and I gained a new appreciation for not needing to entertain married couples.

Val was a delight to watch at the Gardens as she has the keen mind of trained scientist. She would find a plant with some interesting mechanism and reason backwards why it was that way based on the biological and environmental forces placed on the plant. As Dawkins points out it is not the case that biology makes sense with evolution but biology only makes sense with evolution.

After the Gardens we hit some key sites and wandered south for ramen at Minca Ramen. I asked if we could go to the Big Gay Ice Cream Shop and they hesitantly agreed. When we got there, Val was surprised “wow, it’s actually called the Big Gay Ice Cream shop. I thought you were just being… you.”

Throughout the day I became aware that I walked much faster than Val and John such that were were three minutes late to everything. We were in no rush and their company was nice so it proved to be no bother. Another benefit of John and Val was that we seemed to all enjoy kind of just drinking in our surroundings but wanted to make conversation so we had long stretches of silence punctuated with commentary on what we had just seen since our last silence break.

Best Rose

Rest of the pictures:

[flickr album=72157631490843356 num=20 size=Thumbnail]

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Barker’s Dam is an artificial body of water in Joshua Tree that is arresting when one stumbles upon it via a desert path.  Photographing the dam in the early morning was compelling so Steve and I left a little after 6 to get to Joshua Tree National Park.  The ride was dull and the roads in the park itself had numerous “DIP” signs that Steve initially interpreted as “DERP” signs.  I thought this was a good idea for a sign and could be used to mark areas where someone was involved in a dumb accident like hitting a mailbox.

Here are my two cheesecake shots of Joshua Tree.

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Water in the desert at Barker's Dam.

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Pano of Joshua Tree Path, it's a big-un if you click through.

Before walking to Barker’s Dam, I received a text message; I’m not quite sure how as this is where I was at the time:

Where I got the message

I’d find it funny if the same hills that held some of the oldest petroglyphs in the Southwest also aided in modern communication through some collection of reflection and absorption of RF.

On the way in, there was some volunteer stroking a bighorn sheep that was probably struck by a car.  He insisted it was “barely alive”, but based on its stillness and the congregating flies, I think he clung to something beyond the pall.

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If it's alive, it's terribly well trained.

On a much less morbid note, I did a keen action merge of Steve.

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Don't look too closely at the shadows.

Our next stop was further west where, after some difficulty we met with Eddie, the littlest Interrobanger.  We went to In-and-Out Burger where I found a fact of triumph: While in Canada for GP: Toronto, someone asked for a double-double for breakfast, which, while sounding to me like a sandwich, is a coffee build, leading to the following:

Me: I am white man from far away lands not familiar with your strange cuisine.  What should I get?
In-and-Out Burger Attendant: Get the quad.  It’s four patties.
Me: How about something smaller?
Attendant: Try a double-double.
Me: Is that what it’s called?
Attendant: Two patties with cheese.  It’s very popular.
Me: Is it legitimately called the double-double?  That’s not a cute name or an abbreviation or something?
Attendant: That’s what it appears as on the receipt.
Me: Thank you, you may have won me an argument.
Attendant: Glad to help.

So tiny

The choice of Russian dressing as a topping seemed peculiar as did the number of people who stopped to say hello to Eddie as we ate.

Steve and I dropped off Eddie and again traveled West to meet Quinn in San Pedro.  While waiting, I took what is probably the best HDR of a flower I’ve ever taken.

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This sucker's going on me wall

Meet-ups are a function of flow.  There’s always the retreat of playing the same video game, but that’s terribly uninteresting as that’s what one does most of the time.  Quinn was genial and has an encyclopedic knowledge of film.  Only my habit of wikipedia-ing movies of cultural significance allowed me to keep up.

Quinn, master of film reference.

The harbor area of San Pedro had a timed fountain that erupted in rhythmic patterns in which children were playing.  After the sequence was over, there was a pause and it repeated.  My favorite part of the sequence was when a kid thought the fountains had stopped, would bike across and get jacked in the face by a jet of water.  Bayesian analysis should be taught earlier.

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The Child Slayer

Our last two adventures in San Pedro were to visit a restaurant that charged $8.95 for fountain drinks and to see a consignment shop with large chested manikins.

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On to the Salton.

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Reverse mounting a lens is a common practice for giving macro capabilities and I wanted to give it a try in the wild but doing so can be somewhat tricky as the lens itself often gets in the way as the focal distance is measured in millimeters.  This is what I got from a standard reverse mounted 50mm lens.

20100911-3901-HDR-MacroChurchville The wider the lens, the more dramatic the macro effect becomes but the more light is required and the thinner the plane of focus.

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At a full 17mm at f/4.0, the focal plane was thinner than I could make out with my eye.

The longer the focal length of the regular lens the weaker the macro effect is, which can be good when you want more distance to work with a la:

20100911-3992-HDR-MacroChurchville BEES!

The variable focal distance could lead to some odd cases like geometry such that the plane of focus was inside the lens.  200mm and focused at 4 feet near f/11 led to a depth of field thick enough for actual pictures of things.

20100911-3928-HDR-MacroChurchville YOU CAN MAKE OUT BOTH SIDES OF THE PETAL!

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Periodically, I get mailing labels in the mail from veterans groups soliciting donations.  Normally, they have flags or poppies or planes on them but recently they’ve gotten more… femenine.  My name’s caused some confusion throughout time.  Statistically “Terence Robinson” is an African-American 46-year old while “Terry Robinson” is a 52-year old white woman.  So, I’ve received applications to the United Negro College Fund and an invitation to the Society of Black Actuaries.  American’s United to Support Disabled Americans has provided me 30 labels with the most Georgia O’Keeffe-esque flowers on them.  I really want to respond “I will support your cause if you properly identify my sex”.