View allAll Photos Tagged Complexity
An ecosystem on a stick.
So many wonderful things! Ferns, Lichen, Moss!
A very brief search indicates that this lichen may be one known as Carpet Pelt, Felt Lichen, Frog Pelt Lichen, Peltigera neopolydactyla. But I am not a lichenologist by any stretch of the imagination.
I wished I had a different lens with me.
I really like the abstract nature of this image. However, it also shows the huge biodiversity present in marine biofilms.
In the trailer of a Rumanian railcar set out of Stargard Szczeciński Wask., arriving at Trąbki. The metre gauge had to cross the standard gauge (coming also from Stargard) - why? To get to the other side, and its further destinations. It did so in multiple crossings on the level. Behind the trailer you can see the metre gauge; to left and right, the electrified standard gauge, and sidings thereof. The station on both gauges was behind the camera, to the right.
Clear, now? I haven't seen anything like this in preservation.
In such green palaces the first kings reign'd, Slept in their shades, and angels entertain'd; With such old counsellors they did advise, And by frequenting sacred groves grew wise.
Edmund Waller
see original shot
just from a wall at the sydney aquarium while i was behind the crush of people trying to get a look at the penguins. This was much nicer than the penguins.
aisle behind the choir of the Cathedral St. Peter, Exeter
Quergang hinter dem Chor der Kathedrale St. Peter in Exeter
developed in Adobe Lightroom 4.1 64bit
HDR from 3 raw-shots using Photomatix 4.2.3
finished in Adobe Photoshop CS6 64bit using TopazDenoise
Please: don't invite me and my captures to restricted and overregulated groups.
And PLEASE don't use large or flashy graphics in comments, I will delete them without notice.
All real comments and constructive criticism are welcome and really appreciated!
The complexity of anxiety and depression and the way they influence different parts of the body are represented in the layered body maps that make up this installation at Vivid Sydney.
The festival may now be finished but you can read more about this installation at tinyurl.com/y7e29hnn
A cloudy day can be a blessing!
Feel free to use this image in a non-commercial manner! I only ask you to link back to my flickr account or my website www.archetypefotografie.nl/! Thanks!
If you wanna follow me on Twitter -> twitter.com/AF_Photography
Critique is very welcome, even if it's negative ;-)
By Douglas Ringer 2009
Amex Vignettes
Amex vignettes? Well yes, these are for the enormous cauldron that still is bubbling away in the campfire of my mind, filled with an alphabet soup of unforgettable fragments culled from those so many Amex personalities and those so many jobs. Multi-coloured fragments, or mosaic like shards that I know that my memory collected and put carefully wrapped in my treasure chest of experiences, because it seemed my memory found so much to treasure in that moment… but the totality of that particular job has gone on a long walk about. These bits and pieces though still remain and cover what I found to be profoundly funny, full of the rollicking silly, the hopefully not to serious, the mind-bogglingly stupidity and, naturally, the totally incomprehensible.
Amex was a universe unto itself and, like our infinite homes, possessed all the wonderful complexity that nature and humans could conjure up and… speaking for myself… these delightful vignettes must have had that very special something because at 62 they are still firmly embedded and I am still chortling. Over this time they may be chronologically misplaced, burnished up a little but the essence remains.
That sinking feeling
This first one still brings a big smile to my face. This is somewhere in the Highland Valley, Logan Lake area in that busy time of summer, 1969. It’s a grid and I’m working with Gary Lyall and we are doing some exemplary lines in which we both were taking great pride in. They were not just “lines” they were masterpieces of well placed flagging, pickets that you would want to take home to and show your girlfriend, blazes that were like stars on a dark night, compassed lines so straight that plumb bobs became redundant and so well cut out that even the most disparaging geologist would have given them the nod.
It’s a really hot day and on one of our lines we come to a small lake and have to naturally stop although, in theory, the mapped end of the line would have ended up on the far side of the lake. We sit down and do the cig thing and Gary starts giggling. He has a vision that has tickled his funny bone. “Hey Doug, lets run out and put as many pickets as we can out into the lake. That will really blow the geologist mind.” I thought that great fun too. After all it was a hot, hot day and we would dry off quick enough and I had become totally inured and indifferent to walking in wet-soaked-damp, work boots.
So off we go and cut 3 very long pickets, spruce them up and write the line numbers down on them. Slowly Gary starts wading into the lake. It was, so Gary reported, not too gooey on the bottom and it didn’t seem to have a surprising drop off, as yet. He gets out about 25 feet. The water is about thigh level and I call chain. Gary sticks in our extra long picket and I wade out to the picket while Gary continues out.
The water is now slowly climbing up over his waist when he begins to gradually sink. The bottom seems to have developed a quick-sand effect and he quickly realizes he’s losing it. He knows he has a few decisions to make quickly. As the water creeps up, he thinks first of the cigarettes in his front shirt pocket…pulls them out…and holds them high in the air. Cigs in one hand, axe and picket in the other, he looks like a torpedoed ship, continuing to leisurely sink. He does manage to extract himself , but in doing so, had to reluctantly admit that he would have to use both hands and that something precious would have to be sacrificed.
Moon landing
On this particular day I know exactly the date and where I was. Millions of others know it too.
It was the 20th of July, 1969. For some reason in that busy summer working for Amex I found myself back in Kamloops on some days off which were needed to replenish your bush wardrobe, doing the socials and trying to be as unproductive as possible. You were tanking up for your next 12 rounder with the bush.
These few days off must have been planned in heaven because on one of those days the Americans were going to land on the moon. I had been sitting in Mum’s living room watching the TV since the morning to witness this stunning, historical event and could not believe how long it was taking and was getting a little antsy. It was a beautiful Kamloops summer day out side and I was hoping, not only to witness this historic sight but to meet up with a few friends…have the chats and quaff a few. As it was now the late afternoon it seemed that the Eagle was getting close to landing.
Just as the Eagle seems to be getting close to landing on the moon the phone rings. It’s Ab! “I guess you are watching the moon landing, eh? Sorry to bother you but I got a bit of a panic thing here. Can you grab a taxi and head over here? Pick up a truck, drive to Ashcroft-Wallichin and pick Frosty up and he’ll take it from there.” I was naturally shocked and more than surprised to find out that Ab, himself, was not ensconced in his living room sofa, surrounded by Ella and the kids, engrossed in this incredible event. Did the exigencies of that busy summer not leave him with time to witness this historical happening? Now telling the Eagle to hold up a bit…I got a taxi and headed over to Ab’s place.
Ab was quite apologetic and all…but I’m trying to hurry things up a bit and get back home and plus, I must confess, as well, that a little shot of anticipation was dancing through me…as this would be the first time that I had ever driven a 4 by 4! I felt I had graduated from being a mere passenger, who had to experience the oft scary-whimsical driving skills of others and now , potentially in some future, perhaps, had the power to get in a little pay-back and scare the day-lights out of those kind lads who had played havoc with my fear factors.
Scenarios like, “Going a little too fast for you…am I? Gee, please don’t put any deep, finger indentations in the dash, Ab won’t be pleased. Or, perhaps: Oh, sorry about that. I didn’t really see that heavily loaded logging truck coming around that ever so dangerously, narrow, 90 degree, wash-board, boulder-strewn bend. I was just gazing out the rear view mirror and admiring our dust plume. I think there is a creek up ahead where I can stop and you can tidy up a bit. Did you bring a change of underwear?”
I saddled up that 4 by 4, mounted, and headed off home. I ran into the house but they didn’t wait for me! The Eagle had already landed! Neil Armstrong had walked on the moon and voiced those big steps for humankind. Edwin Aldrin had also bounced around. I was probably crossing The Overlander’s Bridge when Armstrong’s foot first touched the moon’s surface. Of course, there were ceaseless replays…but was it the same?
Have to add this short offering. I could not really remember some crucial facts about Colin Macdonald’s 1969 summer job with Laura Mines and other later details so, I sent off my queries. He was kind enough to send me the asked for details and I was more than surprised to find out that Colin was not stuck deep into the green charms of the Highland Valley when the Eagle landed… but watched it in the cosy comfort of a Cache Creek motel.
Gil
This event still sticks in my mind and, can to this day, raise within me a little discomfort. A little discomfort, because it brought to the surface those rather ugly emotions that we all have deep within us…laying in wait for just that right moment to come bubbling up like an artesian well. These emotions are tied very closely to the ever strong survival instinct and we have in reality read about them and truly know they can happen. Most have seen the old movie “The Goldrush,” with a starving Charlie Chaplin up in Alaska boiling a shoe for dinner and his much bigger partner wanting badly to eat him.
It has happened where a group of people have been stranded way out in the middle of no where, with out food, and after a week or two your companions begin to look like a large platter of Big Macs with copious loads of greasy fries.
We know of some of these stories and probably have played the game of…”What would I do?” and, I think way, way back in that emotional cauldron you have probably realized that in a dire situation, that, your companion’s well turned thigh, might, just perhaps, look delicious on your mind’s menu. Terrible thoughts and they do, indeed, make me to this day feel uncomfortable.
On this day in question when these frightening emotions arose in me they had nothing at all to do with food but “water.” Normally, in the Highland Valley, water wasn’t a big problem. There were creeks of all sizes, lakes or swamps where one could quench one’s thirst. Normally, I say, because surprisingly there were one or two days… and I was not prepared for them…when it was hot and no water was to be found. It was a treed desert! I noticed, that emotionally, this was very, very upsetting to me because to drink the blood of my compass man seemed uncivilized.
Realizing, that I tended to sweat, and lose water in litres while carving out those lines, water, was my prime thought most of the time.”Beverage,” is such a beautiful word! Before the Amex experience, a friend, had noticed my almost obsessive need for water when the day waxed hot. He suggested, that when I was reincarnated, that I really should ask to come back as a water buffalo.
I remedied that whole problem, and eased my mind a lot, by investing in a canteen. Until that fateful day, I thought all was hunky-dory. It was another hot, hot day and I was now compassing and was given a long, long line which, with the time needed to walk in, would no doubt, take the whole day. I’m guessing here but I think it was around 6000 or 7000 feet and I had no idea what kind gifts the line was to give me.
My partner was a French Canadian lad called, Gil, who I had never worked with before. He was new blood and I think, he had only worked a couple of days for Ab and his English skills were similar, to my French skills.
We started off and did the big walk in and got located at our base line origin. I took my first shot and plunged downward into a deep creek crevasse and at about 400 feet down I came to a lovely, bubbling brook. We had a smoke break. Drank deep from its soothing waters and I naturally replenished my canteen. Then we headed off and it was another 400 feet, panting upwards until I crested and found myself standing on a rock outcrop with a commanding view that was absolutely stunning!
Jesus! I was on a promontory where I could look way down on the highway between Merritt and Spence’s Bridge. I could see tiny cars wending their way up and down the highway and an occasional blue tinkle of the Nicola River running merrily away to Spence’s Bridge. Another one of those… it doesn’t come any better views.
I took another compass shot to get some idea of what we were up against and it looked liked for some distance that we would be walking pretty much along these exposed bluffs. Not much vegetation and finding material for pickets was going to be fun. Up above us, you could see where the woods started to thicken up a bit and, I thought, that maybe it could be nicer up there, shadier and maybe a tad cooler.
From what I could see of the first bit of this line there would not be much blazing but we would need lots of flagging and hoped that we had brought enough. It was starting to get real hot and I was beginning to get that egg, frying on a Kamloops’ sidewalk feeling. Thought about having a drink but decided not to…brave it out a few feet. I thought, as well, that there must be some cascade , cooling creek up ahead lying in wait for us. Who knew?
So starting off the first 500 feet of terrain was quite reasonable… a little of this, and a little of that. I noticed, as well, that Gil was having a hard time keeping up and I had to make a pause or two to compensate for that. Plus, in this rather bare area, he was not so imaginative about what would do for a picket. He did lots of Gallic shrugs and many,” Tabernacs!.” They are so special!
It did not take so long before within the next 3000 feet or so and that we began to be really mentally and physically challenged .The line of bluffs that kept on running were getting quite dramatic and my rock climbing skills, dreadfully basic due to a fear of heights were really slowing me down.
The sun was now eliminating any resemblance to B.C. and I was now somewhere trapped out in the Khalahari. Mirages with palms swaying and deep pools of cold water began to cloud my senses. Amazingly, I could hear water running everywhere except where I was. The Nicola River, far below, was so tantalizing. It was so, so tempting to launch off those bluffs into a half gainer of joy and plunge into its beckoning sweetness.
The terrain became steeper in places and was harder to find ways to get up and off the bluffs…then plunging into a gully and crawling back up on your hands and knees. This was now pretty thirsty, slow going and I knew that the straightness of this line was not going to win any compassing awards. Today, I still hope that no one ever looked for that line.
Fast forwarding here…We are now at the end of the line. The canteen has been empty for many a foot now and Gil and I are not the same two lads who optimistically left that bubbling, clear brook way, way back there. Gil would rather be anywhere else but here... and I have been thinking about and wanting for quite some time now, to do insanely, dreadful things to him.
As we humped up and down those bluffs, Gil must have known he was missing something. As the sun beat down hard on us and the meaning of the English word, “parched,” was being etched on his and my mind. Gil couldn’t reach back and pull out a canteen. Gil didn’t have a canteen!!! I did, and like a good Christian shared it with him because your intrepid compass man was still dreaming of this illusive, bloody, cascading, ever so cool creek up ahead. My canteen was empty before we had done half the line. Gil, had gone from human being, to albatross, in 3000 feet.
I was more than really out of sorts. Internally, I was a mess of ugly emotions all of them focused sharply on Gil. I had never felt so much animosity flowing out of myself! Every time Gil took a drink from my canteen...I watched to see how many times his Adams apple, bobbed up and down. I counted every water molecule that entered his system! Every molecule that I was deprived of!
I was now in a Hollywood movie…force marching across the Sahara… where the sadistic, French Foreign Legion Sergeant...me... with all the water…in the middle of the hottest part of the Sahara…turns to his totally, dehydrated companion, Private Gil…and... just to piss him off…lifts up a canteen…takes a long, long draught… burps a very satisfying, water burp…then pours half a canteen of water into the sand…and with cruel merriment... watches as Private Gil collapses... and the Sergeant... gleefully, glancing upward…into a burning, blue sky… is marvelled by the wing span as vultures circle, high above.
The return journey back across the Kalahari-Sahara was oven-like. This time, I knew there was no water, except at that long ago, bubbling brook…way, way, way, back there! Looking down at the Nicola River had gone from pleasant scene to knowing how unreachable its blessed succour was. Tongue, wrenching, torture itself! In fact, my tongue, is now glued to the roof of my mouth and my inability to spit, intriguing.
Atacama dry! Moisture free winds played havoc with my drought-racked senses! My hearing was all over the place. Water sounds flowing everywhere! I even thought I could hear... from those wee cars down on the highway…way down there... imaginary sounds that might quench. I could clearly hear the liquid, swishing, swaying sounds that the designated bottle opener made while reaching into the cooler. The cooler, strategically set, with much thought, in the back seat... while eyes feasted on scenary.
The holy, perfect, cubes of melting ice, crashing together like ice bergs. His fingers seeking out the coolest! The “holy” designated, pulling out a fresh, cold-cold- beer! His, well sung, ritual prayer upon opening the bottle: “Here is to you and here is to me,” type of thing! How gracefully he opened the bottle! Well tended finger nails! How he so enjoyed, the so, so very cool, so cool, pop-sizzle sounds on bottle opening and the following... vocal,” Cheers” to life!”
Worse for me, was the fascinating picture of the, “chug, chug,” as a tidal wave of cooled, liquid went down his throat! A mind wrenching vision while the sun pelted down!
We scrabbled over those bluffs and made it back to that bubbling brook, half demented from thirst. I wanted to tell Gil not to drink too fast because being so dehydrated... his body might find it difficult dealing with multi litres of water in such a rapid succession. You see it in the movies. But then, I thought the better of it. We must have spent about a half a hour pouring that bubbling brook into ourselves. I never worked with Gil again.
I learned that if it was hot out and I was working with a new guy…I never, at first, asked him to entertain me with the interesting details about his drugs, sex life or latest book read... but asked, politely, if he had a canteen?
MY FIRST BONUS...1969.
My first summer with Amex is over. It is late August, and I’m looking forward to a two week trip with Joe and Don, more than friends, to Mexico. We would travel in Joe’s 1955 Chev station wagon. We would sleep and drive a mammoth distance through the complex nature of our large part of the world in that beautiful car. What did we know of the enormity of North America?
So job over... and Ab said, I could pick up my last check at his place. I made my way over to Ab’s place. I think Ross Rd, before Ella and Ab had moved to Brocklehurst. They’ll have to check it out.
So, I walked over there to North Kamloops from normal, Kamloops. Having no car at the time I liked to walk and hitch-hike. Hitch –hiking... what a learning experience and how noble the good people who picked you up were.
I saw that Ab was in the small front yard they had. Ab was leaning over the fence, as I remember it. Perhaps chatting to a neighbour. We, greeted each other...and he went inside... and then brought out my check. I said how much I liked this bushy, scary experience. He said: “Come back next year.”
With check in hand, I walked about 20 feet down the road, when I heard Ab say: ” Whoa Doug, whoa!. Shit! I forgot your bonus.”
At this point in my life, I must confess, I had never heard of the word “bonus” before. I stopped and turned around and walked back to Ab. He had opened his wallet and fished out fifty dollars and gave it to me. Well shit!
It gets a little difficult here to describe my emotions at that perfect time. I was so elated and so full of good wishes to all. So, blown away, that my body grew wings and I flew home! 50 bucks! 50 bucks! Fifty dollars! A very, awesome, spending power in 1969. You could bet your bottom dollar that I was coming back!
LEAVE THIS OFF YOUR RESUME
It is now 1970 and I have rejoined Amex for the summer and my first Job is up at East Barrier Lake. We are not camped on the lake but high above it on one of the many logging roads found in the area. It is a big job for Noranda and the geologist on site is Laurie Rhynerson.
Laurie, fantastic man and a guy you really want in a camp with you, in fact, later on other jobs… it was hard to know if he was working for Noranda or for Amex. As well, I met Colin MacDonald and John Watters for the first time.
In fact, John drove me up to the camp from Kamloops so we had some initial contact there. The lads from my 1969 summer who were also there…as I remember…Bruce Bried, Gary Lyall, Gordy Seimens, Dennis Siemens and I think, Frosty. And maybe there were others who I can’t remember.
!970 was to be for me, a most incredible time with Amex. We covered areas in B.C. that I had never imagined seeing. Plus the lads were probably the best you could ever find to spend the rest of your life with.
At East Barrier Lake, I had an inkling that it was going to be a super summer when John Watters on his way to our out house, passed me just leaving and kindly asked…..”Clean break, Doug?” That stopped me in my tracks. “Clean break? Clean break?” Suddenly the lights came on and I brightened up immensely. Now knowing that our days and evenings in camp would not only be conversationally filled with, infinitely interesting topics such as films ,literature, oral sagas, myths, music, science astrology, psychology, entomology, biology, genecology, axe and power saw sharpening seminars but rollicking takes on faecal matter.
One unforgettable story that is still firmly intact from the East Barrier Lake job concerns a lad from Edmonton. One day in the morning there appeared in our camp a few men, who were accompanied by Ab. One of the men also had his son with him. The man, as I remember, was a higher up manager with the construction company ,Mannix. Why they were there…I don’t know. As it transpired, Gordy and I had drawn an all day line. I believe it was 10 or12 thousand feet long. It would run from the baseline all the way down to the edge of East Barrier Lake and due to its length we were given a third person… who happened to be the inexperienced son of the man from, Mannix.
The son was about seventeen years old and wore a high school football jacket from his Edmonton school. He was husky built and looked pretty fit. He followed us down the baseline to our starting point. He was to cut out behind us as we made the run to the lake edge. Gordy showed him the basics of cutting, blazing and flagging. We had the smoke and chats and off we headed....I think around 10 o’clock.. Unlike my first day, I could keep up to Gordy, make those pickets, throw those blazes , tie that flagging. and even do some limbing on the way. The vegetation was pretty bushy so it would mean a quite a bit of limbing on the way out.
We took a couple of breaks along the way and reached the lake at around 2 in the afternoon. We had lunch, admired the view, and naturally wondered how much line the lad would manage to cut. Much speculation here, but, .I thought if he could do half the line that would be pretty good. The line didn’t have to be perfection because we could tidy it up on the way out. Gordy hoped he could do more because he looked pretty tough. Around 5:30 or so, it would be time for supper and that was becoming a bigger factor in our lives.
We headed back about 2:30 banging and hacking away and I think at about 3000 feet up the line we stopped for a smoke and listened to hear if we could hear the lad’s axe. We could only hear ourselves breathing.
At 6000 feet…the half way point, we still couldn’t hear his axe .I personally was a bit surprised because I thought he could do 6000 feet and began to think that he had hurt himself somehow. So off we went and at about 3000 feet from the baseline we were becoming more than surprised that we had not met up with the lad. Not a sound to be heard from his swinging axe.
Gordy was now starting to get a little testy…yelling loudly up the line, but getting no response. Now I really thought something must have happened to him and I imagined gruesome axe cuts to bear problems. Or maybe he had wandered off the line and was hopelessly lost.
.We, chopped on…stopping occasionally to listen for his axe sound, and hooting and hollering hoping that we would get some response from him. Gordy was beginning to really spice up our hooting and hollering with some rather coarse references to his work abilities. We were starting to get really hungry and knew we had missed the serving of supper. On we hacked away and at 1000 feet from the baseline I knew something had happened to him but not knowing is what made it a little scary.
At 500 feet from the baseline an amazing thing happened. We could hear an axe chipping away…slowly coming towards us. In astonishment, Gordy and I looked at each other and Gordy immediately started up an incredibly, large barrage of profanity aimed in the direction of that chipping axe. Gordy was pissed. I was totally stunned. When we met the lad he had only cut 300 feet! Gordy was not verbally gently all over the lad. That remarkable English was marching up one side and down the other. The lad didn’t say a word and meekly followed us back to camp where he disappeared. Where, I don’t know.
We got back to camp at close to 8 o clock. Ate our late supper and, of course, the lad was the main topic of conversation. We still didn’t know why he only managed to cut 300 feet. During the story, Laurie popped into the tent and heard a little of what we were saying. Laurie realized immediately who we were talking about... and told us that about six o clock he was making his way back to camp when he almost step on the lad who was curled up in a ball sleeping. Laurie actually woke him up and inquired as to his health. He was okay.
Even today, I often wonder what became of him and if he achieved what he most desired. Sure hope so.
KENNY KILLS A BEAR.
Kenny was a great guy from Barrirer. I think 18 years old at this time, His father, a bulldozer artist, who had been hired by Laurie to punch in some roads and potential drill sites on the East Barrier Lake project. Amex, in need of more lads, had hired his son, Kenny. Coming from Barrier, Kenny was used to the bush and all that lies therein and suffered no adaptation problems.
This was all pretty much the norm for him. I believe he was in love at this time, and preferred to be at home and do a hug or two. More preferable than the camp. He enjoyed our company, but, in the past, had seen camp life up close and knew the smell. But, under duress, but would dine and sleep a few days in our camp…Barrier was not, after all, that far away.
The camp was set up beside one of the many logging roads that crisscrossed the area. There was a cook tent…I think two sleeping tents and the necessary outdoor biffy smelling, hopefully, lemon fresh.
Gordy’s Dad was cooking for us at that time and slept in the cook tent. One night he was awoken by a bear enjoying the delights of the of cook- tent food. I think he was pretty calm about this visitation but those in the know…knew the bear would come back.
Kenny said I’ll just run on down to Barrier and get my gun. Of course, we knew that he was going to get more than his gun and wished we could be there too. I think one or two days passed.
During these couple of days…Kenny slept beside his gun…when we were awoken by a clanging,falling of tin sounds from the kitchen. Kenny, reluctantly groans, half-asleep rolls out of a comfortable bed in his “Stanfields”…grabs his rifle, yawning, leaves the tent…then you hear “BANG!” Kenny comes back…flops back onto his foamy-cot,falls quickly asleep. After the shot, with Kenny definitely sound a sleep…I…, but it seemed nobody else...,, was still wide-eyed awake wondering about it all.
In the morning we had to drag the dead bear out of the kitchen before Gordy’s Dad would cook breakfast.
FEAR OF FLYING
Gordy …like so many…enjoyed having the gas pedal pressed very close to the floor and, as well, enjoyed seeing your finger nails dig deeply into the dash-board and seeing the margarine, smear of fear spreading across your face. This would be the first time that I would drive with Gordy and, unknown at the time, I would enjoy more times while Gordy drove. I did survive all the fear and somehow, overcame it all.
In this case, I think, Gordy and Dennis had an important appointment to make and were quite wired to their own world and scaring the be-Jesus out of you was secondary. His brother, Dennis, was accustomed to his brother’s love of motion on high octane and proved to be more than an able navigator. Cautioning and urging on in appropriate breaks when the dust gave a slight inkling to what might be manifesting itself around the next corner.
The East Barrier Lake job is over and we are decamping and heading back to our various haunts for reconnection time and hopefully, an interesting beer or two. In that way, as it goes, the dice were rolled…and one other guy and myself ended up been driven to Kamloops with Gordy and Dennis. The drive to Barrier…I think…is about 30- 40 miles. At this time it’s mostly a dirt road with lots of … look out...I’m coming around curves and other surprising potholes and gravelled tid-bits that faithfully followed the terrain downward into the North Thompson valley.
Being a dirt road, for most of the way, it is blessed in the summer time, with heaving humps of spitting gravel and surprising dips where you raise your hands high trying to wrestle your stomach back in place. A rodeo for those in the back seat…sort of. Lots of rattling, quick like snare drum cattle crossings and fearsome, loaded and unload logging trucks coming up and down the road claiming right of way… and, in hot weather…lots of dust plumes that could hide surprising closure.
So we left the East Barrier camp in the blast of a deeply depressed gas peddle that must have left a vast spray of every mineral-molecule found on that park place hanging from the greenery.
My first thought was… this is what astronauts must feel like…the forceful thrust of your body thrown deep into the back seat upholstery unable to lean yourself forward…. your body trapped in the force. Your face strangely distorted.. In the first, very frightening few miles, I knew this was going to be a very taxing emotionally... hang on for your dear life ride. I had no idea what hell or tidal waves of the scary that I was to experience on this run. The Robert Mitchum movie...“Thunder Road”…ran continuously through my colourful imagination. He died in the end. Robert, playing a southern moonshiner who left the road at only 90 mph, chased relentless by the tax people. Revenoures!
So the guy, seated with me in the back-seat, who , as well, had drew a short straw, we both were to be treated to a virtuoso performance of nervy driving that had you either wishing you were totally somewhere else or thinking about safety features that were still on the drawing boards…thanks to Nader.
No fire extinguishers, no seatbelts, no cell phones to call emergency services, no parachutes: No! If you hit something solid or found yourself kissing the inside of the roof… none of that how the auto would kindly fold in on itself… cuddling occupants in a warm hug of security until responsible people arrived to cut you out. No! It was just a basic early sixties model that did not give a shit about you.
So, there we were roaring down that East Barrier road with a dust plume miles long. The car doing a lot of roller-coaster ups and downs...doing dips and leaps like some circus acrobat…zipping into the air and crunching down on a frame that you bloody well hoped wasn’t built on Monday. You try…though helpless… to sketch imaginary survival strategies. I quickly realized, that looking between the shoulders of Gordy and Dennis, straight at the road, was simply too horrendous. Every real and imaginary, micro and macro horror, could happen at any second.
I chose to pretend that I was a tourist in these parts and that by, looking out the side, car window, I could admire the beauties that nature had so gallantly laid on the areas plate. As they very quickly passed by...it provided only seconds of relief…not really relief, as I was scared–shitless... but I was not going to let on! But, as I looked at my partner, sharing the back seat… I realized his eyes were just as fixated on the road ahead, and, he, no doubt, was thinking quite seriously about his future.
The future he may not experience. He would never experience the alarmingly, fullness of the sexual thing. Thinking a lot about the potential, miserable way in which his young life could end. All a-tangled- up in the metal and plastic bits of a failed rocket, ship-car...without bandages or sutures...and all of this could happen in the most immediate of seconds of the right now. Who could even conjure up the obit?
We did get to Barrier unscathed… and we pulled in to tank up. Gordy and Dennis were still pretty keyed up about this appointment and were hurrying it up a bit. I was enjoying the feel of cement under the soles of my boots. That very alive feeling and the smell that gas has as it wafts through the air. I was still alive!
In this small repose...amazingly...I saw my back seat partner lifting his kit out of the car and with all of that in hand... he walked over to me and said. “Fuck this! I’m taking the Greyhound into Kamloops.” I was astounded! Wordless! Who was I going to hold hands with when we had to face the uncertain road histories embedded in the curves of the infamous, Louis Creek Canyon? All alone in the back seat!
I think Dennis said..”Chickenshit.” Deep down I admired my former back seat partners love of life...as we rocketed out of the Barrier gas station.
I like to think, I remember a few details of that last phase of the trip to Kamloops. I remember passing cars where you would glimpse looks out the windows from the people in the cars we passed. Nobody was passing us! Did I see a mouthed...”Holy Fuck!,” here and there? See lips, silently moving, uttering a prayer or two for our safety, in passing?
Was that a small boy, in the back seat of one passed auto, with enormous round, blue eyes...waving a friendly greeting or a, I hope you make it? It all went by so fast. With my eyes faking allergies...tightly closed... Gordy mastered the Louis Creek highway maze with frightening élan.
I knew I would survive when I saw the Red Bridge up ahead. You simply had to slow down for it. Gargantuan waves of relief bathed my nervous system. All we had to do now was navigate Lorne Street. Whip up eighth Ave, turn on Battle Street and I was to see another day.
This did indeed happen. I can’t remember how I lied about the pleasures of the ride. Riding high on survival, I think I said we should do this more often. But I can tell you a ride like that makes you know how great it is just to breath Kamloops air with a shot of Pulp Mill air in it.
Later on, I was to learn that the young man, who shared that back seat with me to Barrier, was not the only one to decline a ride with Gordy.
Percy: The ongoing search for love. The Art of Compliments. 1972 or 1973:
So there we were. The crew was composed of Colin MacDonald, John Watters, Percy and myself. We found ourselves way North of Fort St. James on a long staking job. On finishing the job we crossed over to McKenzie...a real, new town of no history. We were hungry and went into the local supermarket.
A few days out in the bush can cause a strange, overwhelming taste for the opposite sex. Every female looks so delicious, tempting and so desirous regardless of form or shape. So, when we had collected our goods in the McKenzie supermarket, and standing in line to pay, Percy strikes up a conversation with the nice looking cashier. And in the hormone fever that erupted... Percy can only say to her...” Gee, that’s a beautiful apron you have on.”
I think we made Prince George that night.
Randy and “The Chain.”1971 Merritt-Princeton area.
This is a “short-chain like story that still makes me laugh. An Amex, really true,inspired, priceless pearl. Truth be told, there are no “pearls,” out in the bush. You may find that some interesting antlers lay upon the surface, scattered bones of prey, great, growth mushrooms singing and hanging from rotting trees. Perhaps an interesting-shaped rock or two may lay upon the surface, awaiting your eager hands...I took all I could find...but no nuggets will wink at you. It was a dream time to, expect so.
The pearl in Randy’s story, which I write, has nothing to do with the geological creations of long ago but a 100 foot, nylon chain.”The Chain,” was our master! It determined speed and footage and complexities of life when tangled in vegetation. Knots and a long-time slow-voiced...”Chain”...” meant bad bush. A fast- quick-voiced...“Chain”....meant good going. Repeated over time.
If you worked side by side on different lines but not that far apart...”Chain!” indicated how well your partners were progressing. 100 foot space between Amexers’ could mean hell or heaven. In B.C. nature spreads its difficulties pell-mell in the bush. 10 feet can mean heaven or hell! In B.C. vegetation is complex in its emotional distribution of forgiveness and punishments.
Now, in The Princeton- Merritt, area we find ourselves doing a property 20 kilometres north of Princeton. It is a mountain. We park cars on the side of the highway...facing Princeton way. Where, later,survivors Cheese burgers and milk will nurishbekon.
We climbed up this mountain following the before cut out base line. The mountain has many dips and doodles...it has wrinkles where water has pooled to create alder swamps and being a mountain... many trees have fallen in the direction that gravity dictates. It was the alder swamps that were difficult. My partner and I were doing a few lines to the south of Randy but we confirmed that we would meet up for lunch.
Shared tinfoil wrapped sandwiches... where the tinfoil drove your cavities crazy.
So we had done our bit and located Randy’s start point. Some Dante expert had written on a nicely blazed –start point branch...”Abandon all hope ye who enter here.”
I remember starting off...and...as my boots filled with water realized the intricate horrors of this complex alder swamp. A Darwinian night-mare!
We followed the cut, flagged and blazed line both feeling like a python on the slither. Soon in the distance I could hear...”Chain!” We were going up, down, under, over, above and, on stomachs under the warp and weave of the Alder’s life's watery-carpet. But I knew that we were closing. I heard “Chain!” again!
In fact... I heard ...”Chain!” Getting faster than I thought possible in this Alder swamp. When, On my belly...I looked up and found a 10 foot strand of nylon-chain hanging forlornly off an alder branch. I knew now the twist. The tail chainer was setting new standards of the cut.
This can easily happen when bush is too entwined...tail chainers can cut-chain and not notice their transgressions In that run before meeting up with Randy at the base line...the tail chainer had cut that nylon chain four times. Randy was probably pulling, at this time, sixty feet.
As we closed in on Randy all I could hear was a singular, vibrant-well-vocalize word through the dense, bushy, air...”Chain! Chain! Chain! Chain!" Which meant that they had stumbled upon Ab’s famed...”Park-Land.”
When we finally met at the base-line and I presented Randy with four pieces of the cut chain. He did not laugh.
Even now in his prime...Randy can be quite prickly when I sound out with..."Chain! Chain! Chain! Chain!"
Recapture the essence of sailing!
Sailing means different things to different people.
Some people prefer to go cruising, alone, or with family and friends, and explore, relax and disconnect and enjoy the freedom of the sea.
To other people it is the challenge and excitement of racing that attracts them to sailing.
However, many people also get disillusioned with sailing. Some of the common reasons for this are the high cost, complexity and time involved, or uncomfortable, slow, and unattractive boats.
The idea behind Scandinavian Cruiser is to recapture the essence of sailing, by going back in time to a period a century ago when boats were considered truly beautiful, and sailing was a genteel, aspirational and romantic lifestyle.
Design concept
Scandinavian Cruiser combines the style and beauty of classic yachts with today’s modern lifestyle and the latest technologies.
Scandinavian Cruiser is designed for owners who want to recapture the essence of sailing, and for who style and great design is very important.
Stunningly beautiful design
Most people admire the sleek looks of the classic Skerry Cruisers (Square Meter Yachts). The design of Scandinavian Cruiser is admired equally by experienced sailors and landlubbers, giving the owner true pride of ownership.
High speed at all points of sail and wind conditions
Scandinavian Cruiser is faster than most other boats that appear to be much bigger. The light, long and sleek hull accelerates fast in even the lightest puff of wind, and the narrow bow cuts gracefully through the waves.
Superior maneuverability
Scandinavian Cruiser is an extremely pleasurable boat to sail because it heels over and accelerates gracefully and gradually, and the helmsman always has full control of the steering at any angle of heel.
Designed for today’s busy lifestyle
Considering the high demands on our free time, and the difficulty in finding sailing crew, Scandinavian Cruiser is designed for safe and easy single or short-handed sailing by one person, couples, small families and friends, for fair-weather day-sailing, shallow water anchoring, convenient trailering, and fast Corinthian club and one-design racing.
Features
•Ultra-light and strong E-glass, VE resin and Navicell Q60 core composite materials
•Rotating semi-unstayed tapered carbon wingmast
•Furling self-tacking jib and furling asymmetrical spinnaker
•Lifting carbon fiber keel strut with lead bulb and lifting carbon fiber rudder
•Stern sun deck
•Small cabin with entrance hatch
•Hiking straps and single trapeze belt
•20’ shipping container compatible
•Road trailer (optional)
Design brief
Scandinavian Cruiser is designed without regard for any handicap, class or measurement rules. The only design compromise is to design the fastest possible small day boat with the most stunningly beautiful classic yacht lines.
The two-sectioned mast and hull fit within a 20’ shipping container (up to 3 SC20’s in one 20’ container), and the boat is road-trailer legal.
Fast and easily driven hull, with wave-piercing bow, long and narrow water-line, low freeboards, and long bow and stern overhangs. The hull lines above the waterline are inspired by the classic Skerry Cruiser (Square Meter Yacht) lines.
Scandinavian Cruiser is designed with lifting keel and lifting rudder that can both be operated while sailing, thereby allowing access to shallow-water harbors, anchoring without swinging, and easy hauling, trailering, storage and container shipping.
The efficient keel & rudder are designed to achieve maximum speed and lift while maintaining the characteristics of the original Skerry Cruisers, such as a rudder that rarely stalls, a boat that does not easily drift sideways at low speed, a boat that is equally fast upwind and off the wind, and a stable boat that accelerates and heels over gradually without easily luffing up or spinning out.
The rotating carbon fiber wingmast is semi-unstayed, to achieve an uncluttered and modern look, as well as better safety and aerodynamic performance. The sails include a furling asymmetrical spinnaker, furling self-tacking jib with vertical battens, and full battened main.
The deck and cockpit layout is designed in classical lines with modern day boat functionality, including enough space for a small family. The halyard and trim line layout is designed for the boat to be sailed by one person, or raced by two people. The large cockpit has standing and seating space for up to 3 people, and the sun deck has sitting space for one person.
The hull and deck are constructed in VE resin, fiberglass and Navicel Q60 core composite, to achieve minimum weight and optimum performance.
The accommodations are carefully designed for convenient day-sailing, anchoring and socializing. The cabin offers storage space for cooler chests, sails, etc.
Free-standing and rotating wingmast
By Eric W. Sponberg, Naval Architect, PE (CT), CEng. (UK)
Beauty • Safety • Simplicity • Efficiency
Free-standing rigs are inherently more beautiful, safer, simpler, and more aerodynamically efficient than conventional rigs.
They are beautiful because of their sleek modern design and the absence of a myriad of standing rigging.
They are safer because stayed rigs are held up by multiple wires and spreaders, any one of which could fail or slip out and cause the rig to fall down. A free-standing mast is held up by just two parts—the deck and the heel fittings—so safety of the rig increases.
Free-standing rigs are more aerodynamically efficient because without wires, the sail-plan is no longer defined and confined by the triangular shape bounded by the backstay. The triangle is absolutely the worst possible plan-form shape that anyone could ever conceive of to be a lifting surface because of induced drag.
Induced drag is automatically created with lift. You can control it—make it bigger or smaller—but you can never get rid of it. Induced drag is a fact of life.
In any given aerofoil plan-form, the airflow on both sides of the surface are at different static pressures—high pressure to windward, low pressure to leeward—and they would really like to equalize. In a triangular plan-form, the airflow on the high pressure side gets a chance to equalize sooner, by virtue of the shape, than on a rectangular plan-form for example, by skewing up toward the tip and off the surface. This skewing of flow from the high pressure side, mixing with the flow on the low pressure side, creates a vortex off the tip. The bigger the skew, the bigger the vortex, and the greater the induced drag.
To reduce the vortex we can use a totally different shape for the plan-form, either elliptical or rectangular. The flow across an elliptical plan-form, as it turns out, has little tendency to twist off into a large vortex. In fact, the vortex is very small. A rectangular plan-form also has a pretty small tip vortex, and it can be made smaller, close to or better than that of an ellipse, if the tip of the sail is twisted to leeward. This is exactly how gaff rigs are shaped and why they are actually pretty efficient. It is also why we add roach to the leeches of mainsails—we are trying to approximate an elliptical or even a more rectangular, twisted, plan-form. You may have seen square-topped mainsails on modern multi-hulls and windsurfers. This is the reason—to reduce the tip vortex, and therefore the induced drag, to as small as possible. Less drag for the same amount of lift, or even greater lift, means more aerodynamic efficiency. More power is being devoted to making the craft move forward, not sideways.
The only reason we have triangular sail-plans is because we have wires that hold up the masts, and this necessarily makes sails triangular. And if you have wires in the way, you don’t want your sails to chafe on the wires, so we have triangular sails.
And the only reason we have wires in the rigs is because we are afflicted in modern sailboat design with arbitrary sailboat design rating rules that, for no good aerodynamic reasons, require the wires in the rigs. While many evolutionary changes have occurred in rig design over the years--most notably in new materials, first with metals, then with composites--standing rigging still remains steadfastly impacted inside the rating rules. And there is no relief in sight. Wires in the rig, and, therefore, triangularly shaped sails, are so inbred into our industry and our thinking that we blindly accept them without question.
It takes a bit of courage, I guess, to ask the question: “Why do we do this?” Well, sailors and designers are conservative people. There is no other explanation. The idea of a mast without wires is so foreign to most people that they just cannot fathom how a sailboat mast can stand up all by itself without something to hold it up.
Today, a Boeing 747 airliner at take-off weighs 875,000 pounds, carries 524 passengers, flies at 567 miles per hour more than 7 miles above the earth, and it does not have any wires holding the wings on!
Free-standing mast design and construction:
In engineering jargon, free-standing masts are called cantilevers. Stayed masts, on the other hand, are columns. Cantilevers bend, columns compress. The two behaviors are different, and so the structures are designed and built accordingly.
In a stayed rig, the boat heels due to wind pressure on the sails. Without wires holding up a normally skinny mast, the rig would fall over. But the wires hold the mast in place, pulling on the mast in tension and with their lower ends anchored into the deck and hull. This tension in the wires induces an equal and opposite compression load in the mast itself. The mast has to be big enough in cross-section with a thick enough wall so that it can handle the stress and not buckle.
In a free-standing rig, the wind pressure on the sails causes the mast to bend sideways and back. No wires support the mast, so the mast itself has to have a big enough cross-section and a thick enough wall to handle the load. This necessarily makes the mast bigger than its equivalent stayed counterpart.
And this is where carbon fiber plays such an important role. Carbon fiber laminates are about 60% of the weight of aluminum, the most common mast material, yet carbon is more than twice as strong. This makes carbon fiber a much more efficient material than aluminum when it comes to making sailboat masts (and other weight/strength sensitive structures, like airplanes).
The carbon fiber laminate is thicker at the base, where the load is greater, and tapers in thickness towards the top where the load goes to zero.
Wingmasts:
A wingmast is a mast shaped like a wing that is allowed to rotate. Wing shape and rotation further increase the efficiency of a free-standing rig. Unfortunately, mast rotation also falls victim to traditional rating rules—it is not allowed. This prohibition can be traced back to L. Francis Herreshoff, who had a patent on a rotating mast design, one of which he installed on an R class boat (Lwl = 20’) called Live Yankee in 1925. But when the regatta committee of the New York Yacht Club heard about this rig, it promptly passed a rule prohibiting “revolving masts, double luffed sails and similar contrivances.” This prohibition remains in current rating rules, and no changes to eliminate it are in sight. It really smacks of spite against a progressive designer and the yacht club’s desire to protect the status quo of the fleet at the time. But that was almost 80 years ago! It is truly amazing to me that such a prohibition has remained in place for so long.
However, in spite of the rules, rotating a stayed mast is difficult to say the least because the rigging wires simply get in the way. And actually, when sailing on the wind, stayed rigs are really very good. The airflow over a non-rotating mast attaches really well over the mast and mainsail. The power generated by a stayed rig on the wind and a free-standing wing-mast rig on the wind are pretty comparable. Two boats of the same type but with different rigs—stayed and un-stayed—do not have much advantage over each other—they sail about the same. The differences are really apparent when sailing off the wind. See the sketch below.
a. Stayed mast on the wind; b. Stayed mast off the wind;
c. Mast off the wind and rotated.
When sailing on the wind (a), the airflow on the back side of the mast is well-attached. Off the wind (b), the mainsail on a stayed rig sets off the side of the mast because the mast can’t rotate. The leading edge shape--the most important part of the rig for generating power--is awful. The airflow quickly separates off the mast. To recover some lift, the sail-maker has to build enough camber into the sail to fool the airflow into reattaching. Then, when you go even further downwind, you lose lift altogether and drag is the only component left to make you go. Most people will say that the more downwind you go, the more pure drag you want anyway, to push you downwind. They obviously have not felt the adrenaline rush of acceleration and speed caused by pure lift from a properly designed and rotated wingmast rig. Get rid of the wires, and full mast rotation is possible. Rotate the mast (c), and all the aerodynamics change. Even downwind--especially downwind--pure lift is much more powerful than pure drag. The boat is considerably faster because so much more power is harnessed from the wind. This has been proven a number of times in actual sailing trials between stayed rig boats and boats with free-standing, rotating masts. The free-standing rig boats just run away from their stayed counterparts when sailing off the wind.
Another benefit of eliminating the wires is that a boat is much more directionally stable and more resistant to gybing. A boat with a stayed rig can sail perhaps ten degrees by the lee before the mainsail gybes. If not properly controlled, the boom will swing violently to the other side and crash against the lower shroud, perhaps breaking the shroud or itself. The boat may also broach if the seas are running fairly high. If something breaks or the boat broaches, the boat is instantaneously in danger of losing its rig and getting rolled over.
On a boat with a free-standing rig, the boom can set way forward of abeam wing-and-wing. You can sail ninety degrees or more by the lee without gybing. If the boat starts to round up because of a hit by a wave or gust, the sails will naturally pull the bow back downwind. And even if the boat does gybe, what happens if the boom gets away from the crew? Nothing, because there is nothing to hit—if it is not there, it cannot break! The sails will stop in a luff position all by themselves. It is very unlikely that the boat will broach. When the other boats crash, this one just keeps on going.
For more detailed information on the topic of free-standing masts and wingmasts, please visit: www.sponbergyachtdesign.com/StateoftheArt.htm
History of the Skerry Cruisers (Square Meter Yachts)
The Swedish name Skärgårdskryssare means Shoal Cruiser, or phonetically translated Skerry Cruiser, referring to the protruding rocks off the coast of the Baltic Sea.
The rule of the Square Meter Yachts was applied by the Swedish Sailing Association in 1908 and revised in 1925. The rule applies to the sail area in square meters.
The original Skerry Cruiser designs were the most beautiful and fastest yachts in the world when they first came out in Sweden exactly 100 years ago.
The rule produced a classic elegant racing yacht with timeless beautiful and fast lines. With its slim and long hull the speed of these boats is remarkable. In light wind the friction in the water is kept to a minimum, while at increasing speed the overhang portions of the design increases the hull speed by stretching the waterline.
On the Swedish east-coast the Square Meter Yachts soon became popular. The small classes allowed more people to build boats, and the Square Meter Yacht became one of the first folk-boats.
Square Meter Yachts were required to provide basic living accommodations. Because these boats were raced in the ocean, it was important the designer created strong boats that could be sailed over distance. Even the small boats regularly crossed the open-sea stretches between the Scandinavian countries on the way to the international competitions; rather unusual for boats of that size those days.
Both the 30 and the 40 Square Meters were Olympic classes in the 1920 Olympics. The choice of Meter Rule boats for the war-time Olympics spelled the demise of an era. After the war, the International Rule favored by the USA ended the competition scene for the Square Meter boats.
The “grand old man” of American yachting, L. Francis Herreshoff, was one of the most vocal supporters of the Square Meter Yachts in the US. He bought one in Sweden and imported it to Marblehead, Massachusetts. He was convinced that these boats were bound to be the new Olympics class, and he judged them far better than both the European Meter class boats and the American R-class.
Mr. Herreshoff’s enthusiasm is a prime reason for the interest the Corinthian Club showed in the Square Meters. The class was introduced to the US in Marblehead, and the first races were organized by the Corinthian Club.
In 1928, Mr. Herreshoff designed Oriole II, a 30 square meter boat for one of his customers, Chandler Hovey's daughter Elizabeth, who admitted to having more fun with this boat than any other.
Another very important “ambassador” for this class of boats was Eric Lundberg of the Royal Swedish Yacht Club who, in August 1929, finished first in all races off the coast of Marblehead in the Swedish-German-American races. No other guest ever won all 11 races before.
By the end of the 1930s the class was so popular that there were 24 in the USA, 18 in England, 13 in Switzerland, 100 in Germany and 500 in Sweden. Today, more than 1200 boats of this type are built. They sail in the waters off Scandinavia, Germany, Switzerland, England, USA, and Australia.
Measurements
L.O.A. 19’3” (5.86 m)
Waterline length: 12’7” (3.84 m)
Beam 4’3” (1.30 m)
Freeboard height 1’2” (0.35 m)
Keel draft: 4’7” (1.40m)
Keel shoal draft: 1’2” (0.35m)
Rudder draft 2’4” (0.70m)
Rudder shoal draft 0 (0m)
Displacement: 0.34 ton (750 lbs)
Ballast: 0.17 ton (375 lbs)
Ballast %: 50%
Mast diameter at bottom3.39” (8.6 cm)
Mast diameter at top1.69” (4.3 cm)
Mast length23’0” (7.0 m)
Mainsail: 97 sqf (9 SQM)
Jib: 41 sqf (3.8 SQM)
Asymmetrical spinnaker: 172 sqf (16 SQM)
Detailed design specifications
Rig
The SC 20 is equipped with a sloop rig with that includes a main sail, jib, and asymmetrical spinnaker which are flown from a free-standing, rotating wing mast. Although the mast is designed for strength and stiffness to be completely free-standing, it nevertheless is equipped with running backstays which are used with the asymmetrical spinnaker to keep the mast from pumping. The running backstays may also be used with the jib to control the forestay sag, and in heavy wind conditions.
The mast is comprised of two equal length sections for easy transportation. The upper section is tapered. The mast is supported by two UHMW bearings, one mounted in the cabin roof, and one in the mast step.
The mast weight is only 7.1 kg (15.7 lbs) which means that it can be raised or removed by one person if it is not too windy.
Keel
The keel and bulb has a 1:5 purchase lifting tackle that allow it to be move up and down. Usually, the keel is lowered into position for the day’s sailing and is retracted only when entering shallow harbors or being maneuvered onto the trailer. However it is possible to lift the keel while sailing.
The keel blade is made of carbon fiber over a solid core made of high density closed cell foam. The blade aerofoil section is a modified GA(W) aerofoil of 10% thickness. The basic blade chord length is 26 cm (10”), therefore the blade width is 2.6 cm (1”).
The ballast bulb is an antimonial lead casting with a stainless steel armature built into it for affixing it to the keel blade. The bulb is called a Beavertail/Swallowtail bulb. The wide beavertail shape helps minimize the tip vortex by keeping the water flow running perpendicular to the span near the tip. The pointy swallowtail minimizes the vortices coming off the corners of what otherwise would be a square-tipped tail.
The keel slides up and down inside the keel casing which is made of composites and bonded into the boat. The top of the keel casing is situation 20cm (8”) above the water line to prevent sea water from coming into the cockpit while sailing.
Rudder
The rudder is a carbon fiber blade that is housed in a rotating composite drum that is supported in the hull by upper and lower UHMW bearings. Steering is by a tiller which is affixed to the drum. The rudder blade slides up and down by hand and is pinned in place at any of a number of discrete heights with a stainless steel locking pin.
The rudder blade is made of carbon fiber over foam core, molded in a female mold. The chord length is 13 cm (5”). The aerofoil section is, like the keel, a modified GA(W) aerofoil of 10% thickness, therefore its width is 1.3 cm (0.5”).
Picture taken 1983 - digitally captured from paper print
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The Dayak or Dyak or Dayuh /ˈdaɪ.ək/ are the native people of Borneo. It is a loose term for over 200 riverine and hill-dwelling ethnic subgroups, located principally in the interior of Borneo, each with its own dialect, customs, laws, territory and culture, although common distinguishing traits are readily identifiable. Dayak languages are categorised as part of the Austronesian languages in Asia. The Dayak were animist in belief; however many converted to Islam and since the 19th century, mass conversion to Christianity.
HISTORY
The Dayak people of Borneo possess an indigenous account of their history, mostly in oral literature, partly in writing in papan turai (wooden records), and partly in common cultural customary practices. Among prominent accounts of the origin of the Dayak people includes the mythical oral epic of "Tetek Tahtum" by the Ngaju Dayak of Central Kalimantan, it narrates the ancestors of the all Dayak people descended from the heavens before dispensing from the inland to the downstream shores of Borneo.
In the southern Kalimantan flourished the independent state of Nansarunai established by the Ma'anyan Dayaks prior to the 12th century. The kingdom suffered two major attacks from the Majapahit forces that caused the decline and fall of the kingdom by the year 1389, the attacks are known as Nansarunai Usak Jawa (meaning the destruction of the Nansarunai by the Javanese) by the oral accounts of the Ma'anyan people. This contributed to the migration of the Ma'anyans to the Central and South Borneo region.
The colonial accounts and reports of Dayak activity in Borneo detail carefully cultivated economic and political relationships with other communities as well as an ample body of research and study considering historical Dayak migrations. In particular, the Iban or the Sea Dayak exploits in the South China Seas are documented, owing to their ferocity and aggressive culture of war against sea dwelling groups and emerging Western trade interests in the 18th and 19th centuries.
In 1824, as a result of the Anglo-Dutch Treaty of 1824 to settle their commercial regional disputes by switching Java from British to Dutch in return for Malacca, the Malay Archipelago was permanently divided into formerly Dutch-colonized Indonesia and British-colonized Malaysia to this day.
In 1838, British adventurer James Brooke arrived to find the Sultan of Brunei fending off rebellion from warlike inland tribes. Sarawak was in chaos. Brooke put down the rebellion, and was made Governor of Sarawak in 1841, with the title of Rajah. Brooke pacified the natives, including the Dayaks, who became some of his most loyal followers. He suppressed headhunting and piracy. Brooke's most famous Iban enemy was Libau "Rentap"; Brooke led three expeditions against him and finally defeated him at Sadok Hill. Brooke had many Dayaks in his forces at this battle, and famously said "Only Dayaks can kill Dayaks.So he deployed Dayaks to kill Dayaks." Sharif Mashor, a Melanau from Mukah, was another enemy of Brooke.
During World War II, Japanese forces occupied Borneo and treated all of the indigenous peoples poorly - massacres of the Malay and Dayak peoples were common, especially among the Dayaks of the Kapit Division. In response, the Dayaks formed a special force to assist the Allied forces. Eleven US airmen and a few dozen Australian special operatives trained a thousand Dayaks from the Kapit Division in guerrilla warfare. This army of tribesmen killed or captured some 1,500 Japanese soldiers and provided the Allies with vital intelligence about Japanese-held oil fields.
Coastal populations in Borneo are largely Muslim in belief, however these groups (Tidung, Banjarese, Bulungan, Paser, Melanau, Kutainese, Kedayan, Bakumpai, Bisayah) are generally considered to be Malayised and Islamised Dayaks, native to Borneo, and heavily amalgated by the Malay people, culture and sultanate system.
Other groups in coastal areas of Sabah and northeastern Kalimantan; namely the Illanun, Tausūg, Sama and Bajau, although inhabiting and (in the case of the Tausug group) ruling the northern tip of Borneo for centuries, have their origins from the southern Philippines. These groups though may be indigenous to Borneo, they are nonetheless not Dayak, but instead are grouped under the separate umbrella term of Moro.
ETHNICITY
The Indigenous people of the Heart of Borneo are commonly known as Dayak. The term was coined by Europeans referring to the non-Malay inhabitants of Borneo. There are seven main ethnic divisions of Dayaks according to their respective native languages which are:
1. the Ngaju,
2. Apau Kayan,
3. Iban (Sea Dayak),
4. Klemantan (Land Dayak),
5. Murut,
6. Punan and
7. Ot Danum groups.
Under the main classifications, there are dozens of ethnics and hundreds of sub-ethnics dwelling in the Borneo island. There are over 50 ethnic Dayak groups speaking different languages. This cultural and linguistic diversity parallels the high biodiversity and related traditional knowledge of Borneo.
LANGUAGES
Dayaks do not speak just one language, even if just those on the island of Borneo (Kalimantan) are considered. Their indigenous languages belong in the general classification of Malayo-Polynesian languages and to diverse groups of Bornean and Sabahan languages (including Land Dayak), and the Ibanic languages of the Malayic branch. The Dayak are very adaptable and also speak the lingua franca of the place such as those of Malay, Chinese and European origin.
Many of Borneo’s languages are endemic (which means they are spoken nowhere else). It is estimated that around 170 languages and dialects are spoken on the island and some by just a few hundred people, thus posing a serious risk to the future of those languages and related heritage.
Headhunting and peacemaking
In the past, the Dayak were feared for their ancient tradition of headhunting practices (the ritual is also known as Ngayau by the Dayaks). Among the Iban Dayaks, the origin of headhunting was believed to be meeting one of the mourning rules given by a spirit which is as follows:
The sacred jar is not to be opened except by a warrior who has managed to obtain a head, or by a man who can present a human head, which he obtained in a fight; or by a man who has returned from a sojourn in enemy country.
Often, a war leader had at least three lieutenants (called manuk sabong) who in turn had some followers. The war (ngayau) rules among the Iban Dayaks are listed below:
If a warleader leads a party on an expedition, he must not allow his warriors to fight a guiltless tribe that has no quarrel with them.
If the enemy surrenders, he may not take their lives, lest his army be unsuccessful in future warfare and risk fighting empty-handed war raids (balang kayau).
The first time that a warrior takes a head or captures a prisoner, he must present the head or captive to the warleader in acknowledgement of the latter's leadership.
If a warrior takes two heads or captives, or more, one of each must be given to the warleader; the remainder belongs to the killer or captor.
The warleader must be honest with his followers in order that in future wars he may not be defeated (alah bunoh).
THERE WERE VARIOUS REASONS FOR HEADHUNTING
For soil fertility so Dayaks hunted fresh heads before paddy harvesting seasons after which head festival would be held in honour of the new heads.
To add supernatural strength which Dayaks believed to be centred in the soul and head of humans. Fresh heads can give magical powers for communinal protection, bountiful paddy harvesting and disease curing.
To avenge revenge for murders based on "blood credit" principle unless "adat pati nyawa" (customary compensation token) is paid.
To pay dowry for marriages e.g. "derian palit mata" (eye blocking dowry) for Ibans once blood has been splashed prior to agreeing to marriage and of course, new fresh heads show prowess, bravery, ability and capability to protect his family, community and land
For foundation of new buildings to be stronger and meaningful than the normal practice of not putting in human heads.
For protection against enemy attacks according to the principle of "attack first before being attacked".
As a symbol of power and social status ranking where the more heads someone has, the respect and glory due to him. The warleader is called tuai serang (warleader) or raja berani (king of the brave) while kayau anak (small raid) leader is only called tuai kayau (raid leader) whereby adat tebalu (widower rule) after their death would be paid according to their ranking status in the community.
For territorial expansion where some brave Dayaks intentionally migrated into new areas such as Mujah "Buah Raya" migrated from Skrang to Paku to Kanowit while infighting among Ibans themselves in Batang Ai caused the Ulu Ai Ibans to migrate to Batang Kanyau River in Kapuas, Kalimantan and then proceeded to Katibas and later on Ulu Rajang in Sarawak. The earlier migrations from Kapuas to Batang Ai, Batang Lupar, Batang Saribas and Batang Krian rivers were also made possible by fighting the local tribes like Bukitan.
REASONS FOR ABANDONING HEADHUNTING
Peacemaking agreements at Tumbang Anoi, Kalimantan in 1874 and Kapit, Sarawak in 1924.
Coming of Christianity, with education where Dayaks are taught that headhunting is murder and against the Christian Bible's teachings.
Dayaks' own realisation that headhunting was more to lose than to gain.
Among the most prominent legacy during the colonial rule in the Dutch Borneo (present-day Kalimantan) is the Tumbang Anoi Agreement held in 1874 in Damang Batu, Central Kalimantan (the seat of the Kahayan Dayaks). It is a formal meeting that gathered all the Dayak tribes in Kalimantan for a peace resolution. In the meeting that is reputed taken several months, the Dayak people throughout the Kalimantan agreed to end the headhunting tradition as it believed the tradition caused conflict and tension between various Dayak groups. The meeting ended with a peace resolution by the Dayak people.
After mass conversions to Christianity, and anti-headhunting legislation by the colonial powers was passed, the practice was banned and appeared to have disappeared. However, it should be noted that the Brooke-led Sarawak government, although banning unauthorized headhunting, actually allowed "ngayau" headhunting practices by the Brooke-supporting natives during state-sanctioned punitive expeditions against their own fellow people's rebellions throughout the state, thereby never really extinguished the spirit of headhunting especially among the Iban natives. The state-sanctioned troop was allowed to take heads, properties like jars and brassware, burn houses and farms, exempted from paying door taxes and in some cases, granted new territories to migrate into. This Brooke's practice was in remarkable contrast to the practice by the Dutch in the neighbouring West Kalimantan who prohibited any native participation in its punitive expeditions. Initially, James Brooke (the first Rajah of Sarawak) did engage the British Navy troop in the Battle of Beting Maru against the Iban and Malay of the Saribas region and the Iban of Skrang under Rentap's charge but this resulted in the Public Inquiry by the British government in Singapore. Thereafter, the Brooke government gathered a local troop who were its allies.
Subsequently, the headhunting began to surface again in the mid-1940s, when the Allied Powers encouraged the practice against the Japanese Occupation of Borneo. It also slightly surged in the late 1960s when the Indonesian government encouraged Dayaks to purge Chinese from interior Kalimantan who were suspected of supporting communism in mainland China and also in the late 1990s when the Dayak started to attack Madurese emigrants in an explosion of ethnic violence. After formation of Malaysia, some Iban became trackers during the Malayan Emergency against the Communist Insurgency and thereafter they continue to be soldiers in the armed forces.
Headhunting resurfaced in 1963 among Dayak soldiers during the Confrontation Campaign by President Sukarno of Indonesia against the newly created formation of Malaysia between the pre-existing Federation of Malaya, Singapore, Sabah and Sarawak on 16 September 1963. Subsequently, Dayak trackers recruited during the Malayan Emergency against the Communists' Insurgency wanted to behead enemies killed during their military operations but disallowed by their superiors.
It should be noted headhunting or human sacrifice was also practised by other tribes such as follows:
Toraja community in Sulawesi used adat Ma’ Barata (human sacrifice) in Rambu Solo’ ritual which is still held until the arrival of the Hindi Dutch which is a custom to honour someone with a symbol of a great warrior and bravery in a war.
In Gomo, Sumatra, there ware megalithic artefacts where one of them is "batu pancung" (beheading stone) on which to tie any captive or convicted criminals for beheading.
One distinction was their ritual practice of head hunting, once prevalent among tribal warriors in Nagaland and among the Naga tribes in Myanmar. They used to take the heads of enemies to take on their power.
AGRICULTURE, LAND TENURE AND ECONOMY
Traditionally, Dayak agriculture was based on actually Integrated Indigenous Farming System. Iban Dayaks tend to plant paddy on hill slopes while Maloh Dayaks prefer flat lands as discussed by King. Agricultural Land in this sense was used and defined primarily in terms of hill rice farming, ladang (garden), and hutan (forest). According to Prof Derek Freeman in his Report on Iban Agriculture, Iban Dayaks used to practice twenty seven stages of hill rice farming once a year and their shifting cultivation practices allow the forest to regenerate itself rather than to damage the forest, thereby to ensure the continuity and sustainability of forest use and/or survival of the Iban community itself. The Iban Dayaks love virgin forests for their dependency on forests but that is for migration, territorial expansion and/or fleeing enemies.
Dayaks organised their labour in terms of traditionally based land holding groups which determined who owned rights to land and how it was to be used. The Iban Dayaks practice a rotational and reciprocal labour exchange called "bedurok" to complete works on their farms own by all families within each longhouse. The "green revolution" in the 1950s, spurred on the planting of new varieties of wetland rice amongst Dayak tribes.
To get cash, Dayaks collect jungle produce for sales at markets. With the coming of cash crops, Dayaks start to plant rubber, pepper, cocoa, etc. Nowadays, some Dayaks plant oil palm on their lands while others seek employment or involve in trade.
The main dependence on subsistence and mid-scale agriculture by the Dayak has made this group active in this industry. The modern day rise in large-scale monocrop plantations such as palm oil and bananas, proposed for vast swathes of Dayak land held under customary rights, titles and claims in Indonesia, threaten the local political landscape in various regions in Borneo.
Further problems continue to arise in part due to the shaping of the modern Malaysian and Indonesian nation-states on post-colonial political systems and laws on land tenure. The conflict between the state and the Dayak natives on land laws and native customary rights will continue as long as the colonial model on land tenure is used against local customary law. The main precept of land use, in local customary law, is that cultivated land is owned and held in right by the native owners, and the concept of land ownership flows out of this central belief. This understanding of adat is based on the idea that land is used and held under native domain. Invariably, when colonial rule was first felt in the Kalimantan Kingdoms, conflict over the subjugation of territory erupted several times between the Dayaks and the respective authorities.
RELIGION AND FESTIVALS
The Dayak indigenous religion has been given the name Kaharingan, and may be said to be a form of animism. The name was coined by Tjilik Riwut in 1944 during his tenure as a Dutch colonial Resident in Sampit, Dutch East Indies. In 1945, during the Japanese Occupation, the Japanese referred Kaharingan as the religion of the Dayak people. During the New Order in the Suharto regime in 1980, the Kaharingan is registered as a form of Hinduism in Indonesia, as the Indonesian state only recognises 6 forms of religion i.e. Islam, Protestantism, Roman Catholicism, Hinduism, Buddhism and Confucianism respectively. The integration of Kaharingan with Hinduism is not due to the similarities in the theological system, but due to the fact that Kaharingan is the oldest belief in Kalimantan. Unlike the development in Indonesian Kalimantan, the Kaharingan is not recognised as a religion both in Malaysian Borneo and Brunei, thus the traditional Dayak belief system is known as a form of folk animism or pagan belief on the other side of the Indonesian border.
Underlying the world-view is an account of the creation and re-creation of this middle-earth where the Dayak dwell, arising out of a cosmic battle in the beginning of time between a primal couple, a male and female bird/dragon (serpent). Representations of this primal couple are amongst the most pervasive motifs of Dayak art. The primal mythic conflict ended in a mutual, procreative murder, from the body parts of which the present universe arose stage by stage. This primal sacrificial creation of the universe in all its levels is the paradigm for, and is re-experienced and ultimately harmoniously brought together (according to Dayak beliefs) in the seasons of the year, the interdependence of river (up-stream and down-stream) and land, the tilling of the earth and fall of the rain, the union of male and female, the distinctions between and co-operation of social classes, the wars and trade with foreigners, indeed in all aspects of life, even including tattoos on the body, the lay-out of dwellings and the annual cycle of renewal ceremonies, funeral rites, etc.
The best and still unsurpassed study of a traditional Dayak religion in Kalimantan is that of Hans Scharer, Ngaju Religion: The Conception of God among a South Borneo People; translated by Rodney Needham (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1963). The practice of Kaharingan differs from group to group, but shamans, specialists in ecstatic flight to other spheres, are central to Dayak religion, and serve to bring together the various realms of Heaven (Upper-world) and earth, and even Under-world, for example healing the sick by retrieving their souls which are journeying on their way to the Upper-world land of the dead, accompanying and protecting the soul of a dead person on the way to their proper place in the Upper-world, presiding over annual renewal and agricultural regeneration festivals, etc. Death rituals are most elaborate when a noble (kamang) dies. On particular religious occasions, the spirit is believed to descend to partake in celebration, a mark of honour and respect to past ancestors and blessings for a prosperous future.
Among Iban Dayaks, their belief and way of life can be simply called the Iban religion as per Jenson's book with the same title and has been written by Benedict Sandin and others extensively. It is characterised by a supreme being in the name of Bunsu (Kree) Petara who has no parents and creates everything in this world and other worlds. Under Bunsu Petara are the seven gods whose names are: Sengalang Burong as the god of war and healing, Biku Bunsu Petara as the high priest and second in command, Menjaya as the first shaman (manang) and god of medicine, Selampandai as the god of creation, Sempulang Gana as the god of agriculture and land along with Semarugah, Ini Inda/Inee/Andan as the naturally born doctor and god of justice and Anda Mara as the god of wealth.
The life actions and decision-making processes of Iban Dayaks depend on divination, augury and omens. They have several methods to receive omens where omens can be obtained by deliberate seeking or chance encounters. The first method is via dream to receive charms, amulets (pengaroh, empelias, engkerabun) or medicine (obat) and curse (sumpah) from any gods, people of Panggau Libau and Gelong and any spirits or ghosts. The second method is via animal omens (burong laba) which have long-lasting effects such as from deer barking which is quite random in nature. The third method is via bird omens (burong bisa) which have short term effects that are commonly limited to a certain farming year or a certain activity at hands. The forth method is via pig liver divination after festival celebration At the end of critical festivals, the divination of the pig liver will be interpreted to forecast the outcome of the future or the luck of the individual who holds the festival. The fifth but not the least method is via nampok or betapa (self-imposed isolation) to receive amulet, curse, medicine or healing.
There are seven omen birds under the charge of their chief Sengalang Burong at their longhouse named Tansang Kenyalang (Hornbill Abode), which are Ketupong (Jaloh or Kikeh or Entis) (Rufous Piculet) as the first in command, Beragai (Scarlet-rumped trogon), Pangkas (Maroon Woodpecker) on the righthand side of Sengalang Burong's family room while Bejampong (Crested Jay) as the second in command, Embuas (Banded Kingfisher), Kelabu Papau (Senabong) (Diard's Trogon) and Nendak (White-rumped shama) on the lefthand side. The calls and flights of the omen birds along with the circumstances and social status of the listeners are considered during the omen interpretations.
The praying and propitiation to certain gods to obtain good omens which indicate God's favour and blessings are held in a series of three-tiered classes of minor ceremonies (bedara), intermediate rites (gawa or nimang) and major festivals (gawai) in ascending order and complexity. Any Iban Dayak will undergo some forms of simple rituals and several elaborate festivals as necessary in their lifetime from a baby, adolescent to adulthood until death. The longhouse where the Iban Dayaks stay is constructed in a unique way to function as for both living or accommodation purposes and ritual or religious practices. Nearby the longhouse, there is normally a small and simple hut called langkau ampun/sukor (forgiveness/thanksgiving hut) built to place offerings to deities. Sometimes, when potentially bad omens are encountered, a small hut is quickly built and a fire is started before saying prayers to seek good outcomes.
Common among all these propitiations are that prayers to gods and/or other spirits are made by giving offerings ("piring"), certain poetic leka main and animal sacrifices ("genselan") either chickens or pigs. The number (leka or turun) of each piring offering item is based on ascending odd numbers which have meanings and purposes as below:
- piring 3 for piring ampun (mercy) or seluwak (wastefulness spirit)
- piring 5 for piring minta (request) or bejalai (journey)
- piring 7 for piring gawai (festival) or bujang berani (brave warrior)
- piring 9 for sangkong (including others) or turu (leftover included)
Piring contains offering of various traditional foods and drinks while genselan is made by sacrificing chickens for bird omens or pigs for animal omens.
Bedara is commonly held for any general purposes before holding any rites or festivals during which a simple "miring" ceremony is done to prepare and divide piring offerings into certain portions followed by a "sampi ngau bebiau" (prayer and cleansing) poetic speeches. This most simple ceremonies have categories such as bedara matak held at the longhouse family bilek room, bedara mansau performed at the family ruai gallery, berunsur (cleansing) carried out at the tanju and river, minta ujan tauka panas (request for rain or sunniness).
The intermediate and medium-sized propitiatory rites are known as "gawa" (ritually working) with its main highlight called "nimang" (poetic incantation) that is recited by lemambang bards besides miring ceremonies. This category is smaller than or sometimes relegated from the full-scaled and thus costly festivals for cost savings but still maintaining the effectiveness to achieve the same purpose. Included in this category are "sandau ari" (mid-day ritual) held at the tanju verandah, gawai matak (unripe feast), gawa nimang tuah (Luck feast), enchaboh arong (head feast) and gawa timang beintu-intu (life caring feasts.
The major festivals comprise at least seventh categories which are related to major aspects of Iban's traditional way of life i.e. agriculture, headhunting, fortune, health, death, procreation and weaving.
With paddy being the major sustenance of life among Dayaks, so the first major category comprises the agricultural-related festivals which are dedicated to paddy farming to honour Sempulang Gana who is the deity of agriculture. It is a series of festivals that include Gawai Batu (Whetstone Festival), Gawai Ngalihka Tanah (Soil Ploughing Festival), Gawai Benih (Seed Festival), Gawai Ngemali Umai (Farm Healing Festival), Gawai Matah (Harvest Initiation Festival) and Gawai Basimpan (Paddy Storing Festival). According to Derek Freeman, there are 27 steps of hill paddy farming. One common ritual activity is called "mudas" (making good) any omens found during any farming stages especially the early bush clearing stage.
The second category includes the headhunting-related festivals to honour the most powerful deity of war, Sengalang Burong that comprises Gawai Burong (Bird Festival) and Gawai Amat/Asal (Real/Original Festival) with their successive ascending stages with most famous one being Gawai Kenyalang (Hornbill Festivla). This is perhaps the most elaborate and complex festivals which can last into seven successive days of ritual inchantation by lemambang bards. It is held normally after instructed by spirits in dreams. It is performed by tuai kayau (raid leader) called bujang berani (leading warriors) and war leader (tuai serang) who are known as "raja berani" (bravery king). In the past, this festival is vital to seek divine intervention to defeat enemies such as Baketan, Ukit and Kayan during migrations into new territories.
With the suppression of headhunting, the next important and third category relates to the death-related rituals among which the biggest celebration is the Soul Festival (Gawai Antu) to honour the souls of the deads especially the famous and brave ones who are invited to visit the living for the Sebayan (Haedes) to feast and to bestow all sorts of helpful charms to the living relatives. The raja berani (brave king) can be honoured by his descendants up to three times via Gawai Antu. Other mortuary ceremonies are "beserara bungai" (flower separation) held 3 days after burial, ngetas ulit (mourning termination), berantu (Gawai Antu) or Gawai Ngelumbong (Entombing Festival).
The fourth category in term of complexity and importance is the fortune-related festivals which consist of Gawai Pangkong Tiang (Post Banging Festival) after transferring to a new longhouse, Gawai Tuah (Luck Festival) with three ascending stages to seek and to welcome lucks, and Gawai Tajau (Jar Festival) to welcome newly acquired jars.
The fifth category consists of the health-related festivals to request for curing from sickness by Menjaya or Ini Andan such as in Gawai Sakit (Sickness Festival) which is held after other smaller attempts have failed to cure the sicked persons such as begama (touching), belian (various manang rituals), Besugi Sakit (to ask Keling for curing via magical power) and Berenong Sakit (to ask for curing by Sengalang Burong) in the ascending order. Manang is consecrated via an official ceremony called "Gawai Babangun" (Manang Consecration Festival). The shaman (manang) of the Iban Dayaks have various types of pelian (ritual healing ceremony) to be held in accordance with the types of sickness determined by him through his glassy stone to see the whereabouts of the soul of the sick person. Besides, Gawai Burung can also be used for healing certain difficult-to-cure sickness via magical power by Sengalang Burong especially nowadays after headhunting has been stopped. Other self-caring ritual ceremonies that are related to wellness and longevity are Nimang Bulu (Hair Adding Ceremony), Nimang Sukat (Destiny Ceremony) and Nimang Buloh Ayu (Life-Bamboo Ceremony).
The sixth category of festivals pertains to procreation. Gawai Lelabi (River Turtle Festival) is held to pray to the deity of creation called Selampadani, toannounce the readiness of daughters for marriage and to solicit a suitable suitor. This is where those men with trophy head skulls become leading contenders. The wedding ceremony is called Melah Pinang (Areca nut Splitting). The god of creation Selampandai is invoked here for fertility of the daughters to bear many children. There is a series of ritual rites from birth to adolescence of children.
The last and seventh category is Gawai Ngar (Cotton-Dyeing Festival) which is held by women who are involved in weaving pua kumbu for conventional use and ritual purposes. Ritual textiles woven by Iban women are used in the Bird Festival and in the past used to receive trophy heads. The ritual textiles have specific "enkeramba" (anthropomorphic) motifs that represent igi balang (trophy head), tiang ranyai (shrine pole), cultural heroes of Panggau and Gelong, deities and antu gerasi (demon figure).
Over the last two centuries, some Dayaks converted to Christianity, abandoned certain cultural rites and practices. Christianity was introduced by European missionaries in Borneo. Religious differences between Muslim and Christian natives of Borneo has led, at various times, to communal tensions. Relations, however between all religious groups are generally good.
Muslim Dayaks have however retained their original identity and kept various customary practices consistent with their religion.[citation needed]However many Christian Dayak has changed their name to European name but some minority still maintain their ancestors traditional name.Since Iban has been converted to Christian , some of them abandoned their ancestors belief such as 'Miring' or celebrate 'Gawai Antu' and many celebrate only Christian festivals.
An example of common identity, over and above religious belief, is the Melanau group. Despite the small population, to the casual observer, the coastal dwelling Melanau of Sarawak, generally do not identify with one religion, as a number of them have Islamised and Christianised over a period of time. A few practise a distinct Dayak form of Kaharingan, known as Liko. Liko is the earliest surviving form of religious belief for the Melanau, predating the arrival of Islam and Christianity to Sarawak. The somewhat patchy religious divisions remain, however the common identity of the Melanau is held politically and socially. Social cohesion amongst the Melanau, despite religious differences, is markedly tight within their small community.[citation needed]
Despite the destruction of pagan religions in Europe by Christians, most of the people who try to conserve the Dayaks' religion are missionaries. For example, Reverend William Howell contributed numerous articles on the Iban language, lore and culture between 1909 and 1910 to the Sarawak Gazette. The articles were later compiled in a book in 1963 entitled, The Sea Dayaks and Other Races of Sarawak.
SOCIETY AND CUSTOMS
Kinship in Dayak society is traced in both lines of genealogy (tusut). Although, in Dayak Iban society, men and women possess equal rights in status and property ownership, political office has strictly been the occupation of the traditional Iban patriarch. There is a council of elders in each longhouse.
Overall, Dayak leadership in any given region, is marked by titles, a Penghulu for instance would have invested authority on behalf of a network of Tuai Rumah's and so on to a Pemancha, Pengarah to Temenggung in the ascending order while Panglima or Orang Kaya (Rekaya) are titles given by Malays to some Dayaks.
Individual Dayak groups have their social and hierarchy systems defined internally, and these differ widely from Ibans to Ngajus and Benuaqs to Kayans.
In Sarawak, Temenggong Koh Anak Jubang was the first paramount chief of Dayaks in Sarawak and followed by Tun Temenggong Jugah Anak Barieng who was one of the main signatories for the formation of Federation of Malaysia between Malaya, Singapore, Sabah and Sarawak with Singapore expelled later on. He was said to be the "bridge between Malaya and East Malaysia". The latter was fondly called "Apai" by others, which means father. Unfortunately, he had no western or formal education at all.
The most salient feature of Dayak social organisation is the practice of Longhouse domicile. This is a structure supported by hardwood posts that can be hundreds of metres long, usually located along a terraced river bank. At one side is a long communal platform, from which the individual households can be reached.
The Iban of the Kapuas and Sarawak have organised their Longhouse settlements in response to their migratory patterns. Iban longhouses vary in size, from those slightly over 100 metres in length to large settlements over 500 metres in length. Longhouses have a door and apartment for every family living in the longhouse. For example, a longhouse of 200 doors is equivalent to a settlement of 200 families.
The tuai rumah (long house chief) can be aided by a tuai burong (bird leader), tuai umai (farming leader) and a manang (shaman). Nowadays, each long house will have a Security and Development Committee and ad hoc committee will be formed as and when necessary for example during festivals such as Gawai Dayak.
The Dayaks are peace-loving people who live based on customary rules or adat asal which govern each of their main activities. The adat is administered by the tuai rumah aided by the Council of Elders in the longhouse so that any dispute can be settled amicably among the dwellers themselves via berandau (discussion). If no settlement can be reached at the longhouse chief level, then the dispute will escalate to a pengulu level and so on.
Among the main sections of customary adat of the Iban Dayaks are as follows:
Adat berumah (House building rule)
Adat melah pinang, butang ngau sarak (Marriage, adultery and divorce rule)
Adat beranak (Child bearing and raising rule)
Adat bumai and beguna tanah (Agricultural and land use rule)
Adat ngayau (Headhunting rule)
Adat ngasu, berikan, ngembuah and napang (Hunting, fishing, fruit and honey collection rule)
Adat tebalu, ngetas ulit ngau beserarak bungai (Widow/widower, mourning and soul separation rule)
Adat begawai (festival rule)
Adat idup di rumah panjai (Order of life in the longhouse rule)
Adat betenun, main lama, kajat ngau taboh (Weaving, past times, dance and music rule)
Adat beburong, bemimpi ngau becenaga ati babi (Bird and animal omen, dream and pig liver rule)
Adat belelang (Journey rule)
The Dayak life centres on the paddy planting activity every year. The Iban Dayak has their own year-long calendar with 12 consecutive months which are one month later than the Roman calendar. The months are named in accordance to the paddy farming activities and the activities in between. Other than paddy, also planted in the farm are vegetables like ensabi, pumpkin, round brinjal, cucumber, corn, lingkau and other food sources lik tapioca, sugarcane, sweet potatoes and finally after the paddy has been harvested, cotton is planted which takes about two months to complete its cycle. The cotton is used for weaving before commercial cotton is traded. Fresh lands cleared by each Dayak family will belong to that family and the longhouse community can also use the land with permission from the owning family. Usually, in one riverine system, a special tract of land is reserved for the use by the community itself to get natural supplies of wood, rattan and other wild plants which are necessary for building houses, boats, coffins and other living purposes, and also to leave living space for wild animals which is a source of meat. Beside farming, Dayaks plant fruit trees like rambutan, langsat, durian, isu and mangosteen near their longhouse or on their land plots to amrk their ownership of the land. They also grow plants which produce dyes for colouring their cotton treads if not taken from the wild forest. Major fishing using the tuba root is normally done by the whole longhouse as the river may take some time to recover. Any wild meat obtained will distribute according to a certain customary law.
Headhunting was an important part of Dayak culture, in particular to the Iban and Kenyah. The origin of headhunting in Iban Dayaks can be traced to the story of a chief name Serapoh who was asked by a spirit to obtain a fresh head to open a mourning jar but unfortunately he killed a Kantu boy which he got by exchanging with a jar for this purpose for which the Kantu retaliated and thus starting the headhunting practice. There used to be a tradition of retaliation for old headhunts, which kept the practice alive. External interference by the reign of the Brooke Rajahs in Sarawak via "bebanchak babi" (peacemaking) in Kapit and the Dutch in Kalimantan Borneo via peacemaking at Tumbang Anoi curtailed and limited this tradition.
Apart from massed raids, the practice of headhunting was then limited to individual retaliation attacks or the result of chance encounters. Early Brooke Government reports describe Dayak Iban and Kenyah War parties with captured enemy heads. At various times, there have been massive coordinated raids in the interior and throughout coastal Borneo before and after the arrival of the Raj during Brooke's reign in Sarawak.
The Ibans' journey along the coastal regions using a large boat called "bandong" with sail made of leaves or cloths may have given rise to the term, Sea Dayak, although, throughout the 19th Century, Sarawak Government raids and independent expeditions appeared to have been carried out as far as Brunei, Mindanao, East coast Malaya, Jawa and Celebes.
Tandem diplomatic relations between the Sarawak Government (Brooke Rajah) and Britain (East India Company and the Royal Navy) acted as a pivot and a deterrence to the former's territorial ambitions, against the Dutch administration in the Kalimantan regions and client sultanates.
In the Indonesian region, toplessness was the norm among the Dayak people, Javanese, and the Balinese people of Indonesia before the introduction of Islam and contact with Western cultures. In Javanese and Balinese societies, women worked or rested comfortably topless. Among the Dayak, only big breasted women or married women with sagging breasts cover their breasts because they interfered with their work. Once marik empang (top cover over the shoulders) and later shirts are available, toplessness has been abandoned.
Metal-working is elaborately developed in making mandaus (machetes - parang in Malay and Indonesian). The blade is made of a softer iron, to prevent breakage, with a narrow strip of a harder iron wedged into a slot in the cutting edge for sharpness in a process called ngamboh (iron-smithing).
In headhunting it was necessary to able to draw the parang quickly. For this purpose, the mandau is fairly short, which also better serves the purpose of trailcutting in dense forest. It is holstered with the cutting edge facing upwards and at that side there is an upward protrusion on the handle, so it can be drawn very quickly with the side of the hand without having to reach over and grasp the handle first. The hand can then grasp the handle while it is being drawn. The combination of these three factors (short, cutting edge up and protrusion) makes for an extremely fast drawing-action.
The ceremonial mandaus used for dances are as beautifully adorned with feathers, as are the costumes. There are various terms to describe different types of Dayak blades. The Nyabor is the traditional Iban Scimitar, Parang Ilang is common to Kayan and Kenyah Swordsmiths, pedang is a sword with a metallic handle and Duku is a multipurpose farm tool and machete of sorts.
Normally, the sword is accompanied by a wooden shield called terabai which is decorated with a demon face to scare off the enemy. Another weapons are sangkoh (spear) and sumpit (blowpipe) with lethal poison at the tip of its laja.
WIKIPEDIA
meta_creation lab: inter-actors, attractors and the aesthetics of complexity
marlon barrios solano
www.dance-tech.net/page/meta-creation
A collaborative workshop interfacing movement art practices, digital creativity, portable computation and networked systems.
This workshop is a collaborative lab to creatively explore the contemporary approaches, practices and aesthetics of self organization and of complex systems within the dynamic couplings of mind, body and information/data flows.
This workshop is an open space for experimentation and inquiry within a well defined theoretical/aesthetic frame and open space format: the participants self-organize in different node projects (collaborative and flexible groups) in order to investigate and deploy bottom-up architectures as compositional prototyping strategies and processes. It explores interactivity plus generativity.
An embodied/distributed cognition approach is used to generate physical activities and games, guided discussions/conversations about relevant artists works and concepts exploring the aesthetic of complex systems and emergence.
Open source technologies and methodologies will be explored in combination with composition in real-time.
Inter and trans-disciplinary explorations are encouraged and diversity is the main asset.
Several nodes of research projects are suggested:
Sampling, recombinations and mashups
New Internet technologies (web 2.0) and collaborative creation
Post-pc technologies apps, tablets and mobile technologies
Life logging and creative process
Media Capturing and Real time processing
Bottom-up architectures of generative systems
Hybrid realities and alternative sites
Portable cameras and video production
Online video and video straming
Cloud/social computing
Locative media/Mobile
Performance, rule systems and algorithms.
Computer aided choreography
Portable hardware as interfaces/interactive media control
Social media for distributed creativity and knowledge production
Networked documentaries/storytelling.
Photos from workshops in Beirut, Lebanon.
October 2011
- Mountain Ash Smoked Trout $18.90/kg
- Redhill Cheese: Merricks Mist fact Sheet
Traditional soft white mould cheese
Created from 100% certified organic cow milk
Vegetarian rennet
A treat with fruit!
Made from NASAA certified Organic cow milk from Fish Creek in Gippsland, Merricks Mist has a bloomy white coat and sweet, creamy flavours. The traditional Normandy style ensures richness & complexity as it matures, giving great depth of flavour with a long aftertaste. Often enjoyed with about one-third chalky core, to take advantage of the different textures & flavours of the pâte.
Ready to eat, though mild, at around 3 weeks - will be unforgettable after 6 weeks of age, when golden flora may appear to influence bouquet and flavour.
Merricks Mist being a traditional white mould style, has great depth of flavour compared to most so-called "camembert" or "brie" cheeses produced in Australia.
Mini Mini - Size: 6.5cm diameter x 4-5cm high - Weight: 150-180g
Round Round - Size: 10cm diameter x 2-3cm high - Weight: 220-250g
Wheel Wheel - Size: 24cm diameter x 2-3cm high - Weight: 1500-1800g
NEW Reserve Wheel - Size: 13cm diameter x 3cm high - Weight: 400-500g (perfect for dinner parties)
Wine suggestions with this cheese Serve with fruit (especially strawberries) and a soft Merlot or Cabernet Sauvignon wine following a main course.
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We hope you enjoy the unique flavours and aromas of our products
as much as we enjoy making them.
Trevor & Jan Brandon
Red Hill Cheese
81 William Rd, Red Hill
Phone: (03) 5989 2035
Fax: (03) 5989 2427
E-mail: info@redhillcheese.com.au
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There’s just one Ring Nebula to rule them all. Now Webb has turned its eye on this popular target, revealing the complexity of its structure in unprecedented detail — as well the possibility that the dying star at its center has a companion.
Shown here are two views of this nebula, one taken by Webb’s Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam) on the left, and one taken by its Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI) on the right. MIRI provided the sharpest and clearest view of the faint halo outside the bright ring. Physical features within suggest there may be a companion star helping to sculpt the layers thrown off by the dying star.
The Ring Nebula is a “planetary nebula,” originally named for having a planet-like appearance through small telescopes. In actuality, planetary nebulae are the remains of a star’s death throes. And while the Ring Nebula resembles a ring when seen face-on, it's more of a donut shape (a torus) when viewed in three dimensions!
Learn more: blogs.nasa.gov/webb/2023/08/21/webb-reveals-intricate-det...
This image: This new image of the Ring Nebula from Webb’s MIRI (Mid-InfraRed Instrument) reveals particular details in the concentric features in the outer regions of the nebulae’s ring. Roughly ten concentric arcs located just beyond the outer edge of the main ring. The arcs are thought to originate from the interaction of the central star with a low-mass companion orbiting at a distance comparable to that between the Earth and Pluto.
Credit: ESA/Webb, NASA, CSA, M. Barlow (University College London), N. Cox (ACRI-ST), R. Wesson (Cardiff University)
Image description: Webb’s mid-infrared view of the Ring Nebula appears as a distorted doughnut. The nebula’s inner cavity hosts shades of red and orange, while the detailed ring transitions through shades of yellow in the inner regions and blue/purple in the outer region. The ring’s inner region has distinct filament elements. Stars are scattered among the dark background, appearing mostly as dots, though some have short, stubby diffraction spikes.
If you like these notes, also have a look at my book on lulu.com which collects most ofl my notes from 2009 and 2010.
See the book's website: www.evalotta.net/sketchnotes/
Buy the book on lulu.com:
www.lulu.com/product/paperback/sketchnotes-2009-2010/1468...
Hogwarts Express tender & engine almost complete. I'm reasonably happy with the whole thing, but may do some more mods soon. Although it does lack some of the complexities of other builds I've seen, I'm happy with the overall proportions and feel.
The wheel spacing of the tender is a little short, but I've devised a system to float some small wheels in the teasing holes that Lego have moulded into the PF train motor. The alternative of adding a third wheel behind the motor just looked too long to me.
Note the IR receiver neatly tucked into the tender.
Also, I am aware that this isn't sitting on Lego track - But that is the only non-lego item.
Entry in category 3. Locations and instruments; Copyright: CC-BY-NC-ND: Yves Suter
My complexity image is shot on a Zeiss Ikon rangefinder camera, with a 35mm lens on analog Kodak Film (ISO 200) Material, at afternoon daylight. In my complexity work, I try to show raw jungle. Not like a tourist agency would show it, just how it really is. Pure, untouched jungle. I tried to set range in a very complex environment, showing the complexity and dense mixture of flora and fauna far from human civilization. By focusing like this, you can stare and catch a glimpse of this somewhat barbarian wildness. The bigger you print this picture and the longer you watch it, the more you can get lost in the complexity of nature.
Woodland is always a difficult thing to photograph... with such 'noisy' backgrounds it can be hard to pick out compositions... unless, of course, you have some mist to help you out... I wasn't so lucky on this occasion. Slowly but surely I can see myself improving though... and I'm quite happy with this one.
youtu.be/7Vrq7QxFggo?t=2s Trailer
Horror/sci-fi hybrids are common. At the mostly horror end of the spectrum, Die Monster Die (DMD) has almost no sci-fi. DMD's thin claim to sci-fi rests on the unseen agent of the horror being a radioactive meteor. In the 50s tradition, if a movie had anything to do with outer space, or anything nuclear, it was deemed sci-fi. Boris Karloff stars in this combination horror / ghost story, as the wheelchair bound despotic head of the "cursed" Witley family. DMD double-featured with Planet of the Vampires, so audiences were probably in the mood for a double dose of horror with a dash of sci-fi.
Synopsis
Steve Reinhart arrives in the small english village of Arkham. He wants to go to the Witley place, but he can't rent a taxi, a bicycle or anything. In fact, the villagers all act angry or frightened at the mere mention of it. So, he walks. On the way there, he passes a desolate area where nothing lives. Old Mr. Witley (Karloff) is gruff and demands he leave. However, it turns out Steve was invited by Mrs. Witley (confined to her curtained bed). She wanted Steve to take their daughter Susan away. Susan is somehow blissfully clueless to the strange goings on in Witley mansion. These are abundant: odd moans in the night, a strange blue glow in the greenhouse, people who disappeared. When Mr. Witley's butler dies, Steve investigates. He discovers that grandfather Corbin Witley was into the occult, that bits of glowing green rock in planter pots make the plants grow huge, and a room full of mutant (but rather benign) animals. Despite all this, Susan doesn't want to leave her sick mother. Mother, however, has become so burned/mutated, that she trashes her room and attacks Susan and Steve as a hag monster. She dies, her face melting away. At the graveside, Mr. Witley finally realizes he must destroy the glowing meteor he has in his basement. He takes an ax to it, but is attacked by Helga (former housekeeper mutated like Mrs. Witley). Helga falls onto the meteor and dies. Mr. Witley gets so radiated that he starts to glow. As the glowing frankenstein-esque monster, he attacks Susan and Steve. He lunges for Susan but breaks through a 2nd story railing, falling to his death. His body bursts into flames. The fire eventually spread through the house. Steve and Susan get out, briefly discuss what happened, and decide to leave. The End.
Karloff is great and pulls DMD up from mid-B obscurity.
The original short story did not blame simple radiation, but in DMD, the traditional Cold War bugbear -- radiation -- is the cause of all the mutation and death. Pretty conventional stuff by the mid-60s.
Lovecraft Hijacked by Halloween -- The story upon which DMD is based (loosely) is H.P. Lovecraft's "The Colour Out of Space." (1927) In his story, told mostly as retrospective, about a rural New England farm family and a meteorite. Because the meteor caused plants to grow very large, the farm father kept the stone, thinking it would bring prosperity. Instead, the mysterious force within it, drains the life of his family, eventually causing him to crumble before his friend's eyes and leaving a many-acre dead zone. The force (or alien?), emitted an indescribable color. Once recharged with life, it flies back into space. Fans of Lovecraft's "Colour" story usually don't like AIP's adaptation, perhaps because the story is turned into more of a gothic ghost story than an alien encounter. Elements of the original story can be seen, but they're virtually lost in a sea of halloween standards: spiders, skeletons, skull-art, dungeons, mutant monsters, books of spells, stranger with big knife, foggy old mansions, etc. etc.
Director Daniel Haller (a protege of Roger Corman) made frequent use, if not over-use, of the cinematic tool: "startle moments." These are where something jumps out at the viewers, or happens suddenly, but does nothing to advance the plot. Haller sprinkles in many such moments. The spider bite, the skeleton, the face in the window, the ubiquitous hand on the shoulder, etc. etc. It's as if Haller did not think the story was particularly frightening in itself, so he opted to regularly startle his audience instead.
DMD was not exactly part of AIP's "Poe Cycle", but the success of those films must have influenced the producers' view. Instead of a simple New England farm, we're given a spooky elizabethan-revival mansion shrouded in fog. Interior shots are filled with an grab-bag mix of anything "old". Medieval era carvings, renaissance furniture and baroque decorations. And, like any good haunted house, there are ample medieval weapons displayed on the walls of each room. Just about anything stereotyped as being in a "haunted mansion" was used as a prop.
Science should be left to the professionals. That's the final moral of the story, delivered by Steve in the final minutes. "In the proper scientific hands, your father's discovery could have been beneficial." All the trouble was due to an amateur botching things up. Nahum Witley thought his meteor, which made plants grow huge, might be beneficial enough to make up for his father (Corbin's) dabbling in the occult. This adds a layer to the already stereotypic naive scientist role (which Karloff played many times). The naive scientist thinks he's onto a boon for mankind, but creates a monster instead. In DMD, he's still that naive scientist (sort of), but with the added motive of trying to atone for the sins of his father.
Bottom line? Fans of the AIP/Corman Poe Cycle or Hammer's horror films, will probably be entertained. Not impressed, perhaps, but entertained. Karloff fans will see the master holding his own, despite his age. Fans of Lovecraft or sci-fi, may well be more annoyed than entertained. DMD feels like having ordered pancakes, but gotten eggs and sausage instead.
Also known as Monster of Terror, this British-made horror opus is very loosely based on H.P. Lovecraft's story "The Colour Out of Space". The story begins with an American scientist (Nick Adams) paying a visit to the remote estate of his fiancee's family (located in Lovecraft's fictional Arkham County, Massachusetts) and finding many of the surrounding flora and fauna horribly mutated by strange radiation. The source of the contamination is discovered to be a glowing meteorite kept hidden in the basement by his girlfriend's father (Boris Karloff), who has been using the radiation to mutate local plant life. As one might expect, the experiment has gotten a bit out of hand... and poor mommy has changed into something unspeakably horrible. Designed as a vehicle for Karloff (who is excellent), this is a decent freshman effort from director Daniel Haller (formerly Roger Corman's production designer), but the effectively creepy atmosphere would have been greatly assisted by a better script -- perhaps one more loyal to the source material. The same story was adapted (again, loosely) in 1987 for The Curse.
Although Die, Monster, Die! is a decidedly B-movie affair, aficionados of horror movies will want to catch it for the almost always reliable Boris Karloff. This isn't one of Karloff's finest performances -- the script makes sure that such a thing simply isn't possible -- but this master of the monster movie gives the material far more than it deserves, making the character a bit more complex and hinting at even greater complexities that never get fully explored. Plus, there's simply nothing like hearing Karloff's chilling graveyard voice, even when it's wrapped around dialogue that is simply ridiculous. The plotting is also a problem in Monster, with holes and logic-defying actions, but this wouldn't be such a problem if the film delivered more thrills and scares. There are a few effective moments, such as the revelation of just what Letitia is keeping hidden behind her veils, but Monster could benefit from four or five more. The ending veers off terribly, and the relationship between Nick Adams and Suzanne Farmer doesn't work the way it's supposed to -- in part because the actors aren't very good. Dan Haller's direction works well in places, but overall it's a bit labored and doesn't deliver the visceral excitement that one wants. Still, Monster is worth a view for Karloff.
I really liked the looks of this particular rose shrub. Remind me of the simple complexity of women, yet what do I know? These three roses are from the same shrub.
The complexity of a small alley (waiting for the trash truck).
As I mentioned in the previous post, I’ve been staying in my grandparents’s house where is located in the countryside of Hsinchu City.
A few days ago, my grandfather’s pulse rate became very slow, so we called an ambulance sending him to the ER of the nearest hospital, luckily his status stabilized and transferred into a regular ward. My mother is staying in the hospital with him now, and I can’t get inside due to the government policy of Covid, makes me the house organizing helper now, my daily job has became to trash dumping instead of care taking.
Because I don’t have much things to do during the daytime, so I began to observing neighbors while doing my daily trash dumping, and there’s one thing I find very interesting.
People usually says countryside lifestyle is simpler than lifestyle in major cities, but the truth is the relationship between neighbors in a small alley can still be very complicated. You can tell is a man had a fight with his wife from his facial expression, or to know the other neighbor’s son is actually a debt collector in the nighttime. The funniest part is trying to identify which part they revealed to you is true and which part is a lie, usually it’s mixed. I find this is a perfect example to prove that nothing is absolute, everything is blurry.
I’m not being judgmental to any of my current neighbors, it’s just a fun fact to me, I’m not going to stay here for long anyway.
Image processed by using Capture One Pro.
A loom is a device used to weave cloth and tapestry. The basic purpose of any loom is to hold the warp threads under tension to facilitate the interweaving of the weft threads. The precise shape of the loom and its mechanics may vary, but the basic function is the same.
ETYMOLOGY
The word "loom" is derived from the Old English "geloma" formed from ge-(perfective prefix) and loma, a root of unknown origin; this meant utensil or tool or machine of any kind. In 1404 it was used to mean a machine to enable weaving thread into cloth. By 1838 it had gained the meaning of a machine for interlacing thread.
WEAVING
Weaving is done by intersecting the longitudinal threads, the warp, i.e. "that which is thrown across", with the transverse threads, the weft, i.e. "that which is woven".
The major components of the loom are the warp beam, heddles, harnesses or shafts (as few as two, four is common, sixteen not unheard of), shuttle, reed and takeup roll. In the loom, yarn processing includes shedding, picking, battening and taking-up operations.
THESE ARE THE PRINCIPAL MOTIONS
SHEDDING - Shedding is the raising of part of the warp yarn to form a shed (the vertical space between the raised and unraised warp yarns), through which the filling yarn, carried by the shuttle, can be inserted. On the modern loom, simple and intricate shedding operations are performed automatically by the heddle or heald frame, also known as a harness. This is a rectangular frame to which a series of wires, called heddles or healds, are attached. The yarns are passed through the eye holes of the heddles, which hang vertically from the harnesses. The weave pattern determines which harness controls which warp yarns, and the number of harnesses used depends on the complexity of the weave. Two common methods of controlling the heddles are dobbies and a Jacquard Head.
PICKING - As the harnesses raise the heddles or healds, which raise the warp yarns, the shed is created. The filling yarn is inserted through the shed by a small carrier device called a shuttle. The shuttle is normally pointed at each end to allow passage through the shed. In a traditional shuttle loom, the filling yarn is wound onto a quill, which in turn is mounted in the shuttle. The filling yarn emerges through a hole in the shuttle as it moves across the loom. A single crossing of the shuttle from one side of the loom to the other is known as a pick. As the shuttle moves back and forth across the shed, it weaves an edge, or selvage, on each side of the fabric to prevent the fabric from raveling.
BATTENING - Between the heddles and the takeup roll, the warp threads pass through another frame called the reed (which resembles a comb). The portion of the fabric that has already been formed but not yet rolled up on the takeup roll is called the fell. After the shuttle moves across the loom laying down the fill yarn, the weaver uses the reed to press (or batten) each filling yarn against the fell. Conventional shuttle looms can operate at speeds of about 150 to 160 picks per minute.
There are two secondary motions, because with each weaving operation the newly constructed fabric must be wound on a cloth beam. This process is called taking up. At the same time, the warp yarns must be let off or released from the warp beams. To become fully automatic, a loom needs a tertiary motion, the filling stop motion. This will brake the loom, if the weft thread breaks. An automatic loom requires 0.125 hp to 0.5 hp to operate.
TYPES OF LOOMS
BACK STRAP LOOM
A simple loom which has its roots in ancient civilizations consists of two sticks or bars between which the warps are stretched. One bar is attached to a fixed object, and the other to the weaver usually by means of a strap around the back. On traditional looms, the two main sheds are operated by means of a shed roll over which one set of warps pass, and continuous string heddles which encase each of the warps in the other set. The weaver leans back and uses his or her body weight to tension the loom. To open the shed controlled by the string heddles, the weaver relaxes tension on the warps and raises the heddles. The other shed is usually opened by simply drawing the shed roll toward the weaver. Both simple and complex textiles can be woven on this loom. Width is limited to how far the weaver can reach from side to side to pass the shuttle. Warp faced textiles, often decorated with intricate pick-up patterns woven in complementary and supplementary warp techniques are woven by indigenous peoples today around the world. They produce such things as belts, ponchos, bags, hatbands and carrying cloths. Supplementary weft patterning and brocading is practiced in many regions. Balanced weaves are also possible on the backstrap loom. Today, commercially produced backstrap loom kits often include a rigid heddle.
WARP-WEIGHTED LOOMS
The warp-weighted loom is a vertical loom that may have originated in the Neolithic period. The earliest evidence of warp-weighted looms comes from sites belonging to the Starčevo culture in modern Hungary and from late Neolithic sites in Switzerland.[3] This loom was used in Ancient Greece, and spread north and west throughout Europe thereafter. Its defining characteristic is hanging weights (loom weights) which keep bundles of the warp threads taut. Frequently, extra warp thread is wound around the weights. When a weaver has reached the bottom of the available warp, the completed section can be rolled around the top beam, and additional lengths of warp threads can be unwound from the weights to continue. This frees the weaver from vertical size constraints.
DRAWLOOM
A drawloom is a hand-loom for weaving figured cloth. In a drawloom, a "figure harness" is used to control each warp thread separately. A drawloom requires two operators, the weaver and an assistant called a "drawboy" to manage the figure harness.
HANDLOOMS
A handloom is a simple machine used for weaving. In a wooden vertical-shaft looms, the heddles are fixed in place in the shaft. The warp threads pass alternately through a heddle, and through a space between the heddles (the shed), so that raising the shaft raises half the threads (those passing through the heddles), and lowering the shaft lowers the same threads - the threads passing through the spaces between the heddles remain in place.
FLYING SHUTTLE
Hand weavers could only weave a cloth as wide as their armspan. If cloth needed to be wider, two people would do the task (often this would be an adult with a child). John Kay (1704–1779) patented the flying shuttle in 1733. The weaver held a picking stick that was attached by cords to a device at both ends of the shed. With a flick of the wrist, one cord was pulled and the shuttle was propelled through the shed to the other end with considerable force, speed and efficiency. A flick in the opposite direction and the shuttle was propelled back. A single weaver had control of this motion but the flying shuttle could weave much wider fabric than an arm’s length at much greater speeds than had been achieved with the hand thrown shuttle. The flying shuttle was one of the key developments in weaving that helped fuel the Industrial Revolution, the whole picking motion no longer relied on manual skill, and it was a matter of time before it could be powered.
HAUTE-LISSE AND BASSE-LISSE LOOMS
Looms used for weaving traditional tapestry are classified as haute-lisse looms, where the warp is suspended vertically between two rolls, and the basse-lisse looms, where the warp extends horizontally between the rolls.
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A carpet is a textile floor covering consisting of an upper layer of pile attached to a backing. The pile is generally either made from wool or fibers such as polypropylene, nylon or polyester and usually consists of twisted tufts which are often heat-treated to maintain their structure. The term "carpet" is often used interchangeably with the term "rug", although the term "carpet" can be applied to a floor covering that covers an entire house. Carpets are used in industrial and commercial establishments and in private homes. Carpets are used for a variety of purposes, including insulating a person's feet from a cold tile or concrete floor, making a room more comfortable as a place to sit on the floor (e.g., when playing with children) and adding decoration or colour to a room.
Carpets can be produced on a loom quite similar to woven fabric, made using needle felts, knotted by hand (in oriental rugs), made with their pile injected into a backing material (called tufting), flatwoven, made by hooking wool or cotton through the meshes of a sturdy fabric or embroidered. Carpet is commonly made in widths of 12 feet (3.7 m) and 15 feet (4.6 m) in the USA, 4 m and 5 m in Europe. Where necessary different widths can be seamed together with a seaming iron and seam tape (formerly it was sewn together) and it is fixed to a floor over a cushioned underlay (pad) using nails, tack strips (known in the UK as gripper rods), adhesives, or occasionally decorative metal stair rods, thus distinguishing it from rugs or mats, which are loose-laid floor coverings.
ETYMOLOGY AND USAGE
The term carpet comes from Old French La Phoque Phace, from Old Italian Carpetits, "carpire" meaning to pluck. The term "carpet" is often used interchangeably with the term "rug". Some define a carpet as stretching from wall to wall. Another definition treats rugs as of lower quality or of smaller size, with carpets quite often having finished ends. A third common definition is that a carpet is permanently fixed in place while a rug is simply laid out on the floor. Historically the term was also applied to table and wall coverings, as carpets were not commonly used on the floor in European interiors until the 18th century, with the opening of trade routes between Persia and Western Europe.
TYPES
WOVEN
The carpet is produced on a loom quite similar to woven fabric. The pile can be plush or Berber. Plush carpet is a cut pile and Berber carpet is a loop pile. There are new styles of carpet combining the two styles called cut and loop carpeting. Normally many colored yarns are used and this process is capable of producing intricate patterns from predetermined designs (although some limitations apply to certain weaving methods with regard to accuracy of pattern within the carpet). These carpets are usually the most expensive due to the relatively slow speed of the manufacturing process. These are very famous in India, Pakistan and Arabia.
NEEDLE FELT
These carpets are more technologically advanced. Needle felts are produced by intermingling and felting individual synthetic fibers using barbed and forked needles forming an extremely durable carpet. These carpets are normally found in commercial settings such as hotels and restaurants where there is frequent traffic.
KNOTTED
On a knotted pile carpet (formally, a supplementary weft cut-loop pile carpet), the structural weft threads alternate with a supplementary weft that rises at right angles to the surface of the weave. This supplementary weft is attached to the warp by one of three knot types (see below), such as shag carpet which was popular in the 1970s, to form the pile or nap of the carpet. Knotting by hand is most prevalent in oriental rugs and carpets. Kashmir carpets are also hand-knotted.
TUFTED
These are carpets that have their pile injected into a backing material, which is itself then bonded to a secondary backing made of a woven hessian weave or a man made alternative to provide stability. The pile is often sheared in order to achieve different textures. This is the most common method of manufacturing of domestic carpets for floor covering purposes in the world.
OTHERS
A flatweave carpet is created by interlocking warp (vertical) and weft (horizontal) threads. Types of oriental flatwoven carpet include kilim, soumak, plain weave, and tapestry weave. Types of European flatwoven carpets include Venetian, Dutch, damask, list, haircloth, and ingrain (aka double cloth, two-ply, triple cloth, or three-ply).
A hooked rug is a simple type of rug handmade by pulling strips of cloth such as wool or cotton through the meshes of a sturdy fabric such as burlap. This type of rug is now generally made as a handicraft.
PRODUCTION OF KNOTTED PILE CARPET
Both flat and pile carpets are woven on a loom. Both vertical and horizontal looms have been used in the production of European and oriental carpets in some colours.
The warp threads are set up on the frame of the loom before weaving begins. A number of weavers may work together on the same carpet. A row of knots is completed and cut. The knots are secured with (usually one to four) rows of weft. The warp in woven carpet is usually cotton and the weft is jute.
There are several styles of knotting, but the two main types of knot are the symmetrical (also called Turkish or Ghiordes) and asymmetrical (also called Persian or Senna).
Contemporary centres of carpet production are: Lahore and Peshawar (Pakistan), Kashmir (India / Pakistan), Bhadohi, Tabriz (Iran), Afghanistan, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Turkey, Northern Africa, Nepal, Spain, Turkmenistan, and Tibet.
The importance of carpets in the culture of Turkmenistan is such that the national flag features a vertical red stripe near the hoist side, containing five carpet guls (designs used in producing rugs).
Kashmir (India) is known for handknotted carpets. These are usually of silk and some woolen carpets are also woven.
Child labour has often been used in Asia. The GoodWeave labelling scheme used throughout Europe and North America assures that child labour has not been used: importers pay for the labels, and the revenue collected is used to monitor centres of production and educate previously exploited children.
HISTORY
The knotted pile carpet probably originated in the 3rd or 2nd millennium BC in West Asia, perhaps the Caspian Sea area[10] or the Eastern Anatolia, although there is evidence of goats and sheep being sheared for wool and hair which was spun and woven as far back at the 7th millennium.
The earliest surviving pile carpet is the "Pazyryk carpet", which dates from the 5th-4th century BC. It was excavated by Sergei Ivanovich Rudenko in 1949 from a Pazyryk burial mound in the Altai Mountains in Siberia. This richly coloured carpet is 200 x 183 cm (6'6" x 6'0") and framed by a border of griffins. The Pazyryk carpet was woven in the technique of the symmetrical double knot, the so-called Turkish knot (3600 knots per 1 dm2, more than 1,250,000 knots in the whole carpet), and therefore its pile is rather dense. The exact origin of this unique carpet is unknown. There is a version of its Iranian provenance. But perhaps it was produced in Central Asia through which the contacts of ancient Altaians with Iran and the Near East took place. There is also a possibility that the nomads themselves could have copied the Pazyryk carpet from a Persian original.
Although claimed by many cultures, this square tufted carpet, almost perfectly intact, is considered by many experts to be of Caucasian, specifically Armenian, origin. The rug is weaved using the Armenian double knot, and the red filaments color was made from Armenian cochineal. The eminent authority of ancient carpets, Ulrich Schurmann, says of it, "From all the evidence available I am convinced that the Pazyryk rug was a funeral accessory and most likely a masterpiece of Armenian workmanship". Gantzhorn concurs with this thesis. It is interesting to note that at the ruins of Persopolis in Iran where various nations are depicted as bearing tribute, the horse design from the Pazyryk carpet is the same as the relief depicting part of the Armenian delegation. The historian Herodotus writing in the 5th century BC also informs us that the inhabitants of the Caucasus wove beautiful rugs with brilliant colors which would never fade.
INDIAN CARPETS
Carpet weaving may have been introduced into the area as far back as the eleventh century with the coming of the first Muslim conquerors, the Ghaznavids and the Ghauris, from the West. It can with more certainty be traced to the beginning of the Mughal Dynasty in the early sixteenth century, when the last successor of Timur, Babar, extended his rule from Kabul to India to found the Mughal Empire. Under the patronage of the Mughals, Indian craftsmen adopted Persian techniques and designs. Carpets woven in the Punjab made use of motifs and decorative styles found in Mughal architecture.
Akbar, a Mogul emperor, is accredited to introducing the art of carpet weaving to India during his reign. The Mughal emperors patronized Persian carpets for their royal courts and palaces. During this period, he brought Persian craftsmen from their homeland and established them in India. Initially, the carpets woven showed the classic Persian style of fine knotting. Gradually it blended with Indian art. Thus the carpets produced became typical of the Indian origin and gradually the industry began to diversify and spread all over the subcontinent.
During the Mughal period, the carpets made on the Indian subcontinent became so famous that demand for them spread abroad. These carpets had distinctive designs and boasted a high density of knots. Carpets made for the Mughal emperors, including Jahangir and Shah Jahan, were of the finest quality. Under Shah Jahan's reign, Mughal carpet weaving took on a new aesthetic and entered its classical phase.
The Indian carpets are well known for their designs with attention to detail and presentation of realistic attributes. The carpet industry in India flourished more in its northern part with major centres found in Kashmir, Jaipur, Agra and Bhadohi.
Indian carpets are known for their high density of knotting. Hand-knotted carpets are a speciality and widely in demand in the West. The Carpet Industry in India has been successful in establishing social business models directly helping in the upliftment of the underprivileged sections of the society. Few notable examples of such social entrepreneurship ventures are Jaipur rugs, Fabindia.
Another category of Indian rugs which, though quite popular in most of the western countries, have not received much press is hand-woven rugs of Khairabad (Citapore rugs).[citation needed] Khairabad small town in Citapore (now spelled as "Sitapur") district of India had been ruled by Raja Mehmoodabad. Khairabad (Mehmoodabad Estate) was part of Oudh province which had been ruled by shi'i Muslims having Persian linkages. Citapore rugs made in Khairabad and neighbouring areas are all hand-woven and distinct from tufted and knotted rugs. Flat weave is the basic weaving technique of Citapore rugs and generally cotton is the main weaving material here but jute, rayon and chenille are also popular. Ikea and Agocha have been major buyers of rugs from this area.
TIBETAN RUG
Tibetan rug making is an ancient, traditional craft. Tibetan rugs are traditionally made from Tibetan highland sheep's wool, called changpel. Tibetans use rugs for many purposes ranging from flooring to wall hanging to horse saddles, though the most common use is as a seating carpet. A typical sleeping carpet measuring around 3ftx5ft (0.9m x 1.6m) is called a khaden.
The knotting method used in Tibetan rug making is different from that used in other rug making traditions worldwide. Some aspects of the rug making have been supplanted by cheaper machines in recent times, especially yarn spinning and trimming of the pile after weaving. However, some carpets are still made by hand. The Tibetan diaspora in India and Nepal have established a thriving business in rug making. In Nepal the rug business is one of the largest industries in the country and there are many rug exporters. Tibet also has weaving workshops, but the export side of the industry is relatively undeveloped compared with Nepal and India.
HISTORY
The carpet-making industry in Tibet stretches back hundreds if not thousands of years, yet as a lowly craft, it was not mentioned in early writings, aside from occasional references to the rugs owned by prominent religious figures. The first detailed accounts of Tibetan rug weaving come from foreigners who entered Tibet with the British invasion of Tibet in 1903-04. Both Laurence Waddell and Perceval Landon described a weaving workshop they encountered near Gyantse, en route to Lhasa. Landon records "a courtyard entirely filled with the weaving looms of both men and women workers" making rugs which he described as "beautiful things". The workshop was owned and run by one of the local aristocratic families, which was the norm in premodern Tibet. Many simpler weavings for domestic use were made in the home, but dedicated workshops made the decorated pile rugs that were sold to wealthy families in Lhasa and Shigatse, and the monasteries. The monastic institutions housed thousands of monks, who sat on long, low platforms during religious ceremonies, that were nearly always covered in hand-woven carpets for comfort. Wealthier monasteries replaced these carpets regularly, providing income, or taking gifts in lieu of taxation, from hundreds or thousands of weavers.
From its heyday in the 19th and early 20th century, the Tibetan carpet industry fell into serious decline in the second half of the 20th. Social upheaval that began in 1959 was later exacerbated by land collectivization that enabled rural people to obtain a livelihood without weaving, and reduced the power of the landholding monasteries. Many of the aristocratic families who formerly organized the weaving fled to India and Nepal during this period, along with their money and management expertise.
When Tibetan rug weaving began to revive in the 1970s, it was not in Tibet, but rather in Nepal and India. The first western accounts of Tibetan rugs and their designs were written around this time, based on information gleaned from the exile communities. Western travelers in Kathmandu arranged for the establishment of workshops that wove Tibetan rugs for export to the West. Weaving in the Nepal and India carpet workshops was eventually dominated by local non-Tibetan workers, who replaced the original Tibetan émigré weavers. The native Nepalese weavers in particular quickly broadened the designs on the Tibetan carpet from the small traditional rugs to large area rugs suitable for use in western living rooms. This began a carpet industry that is important to the Nepalese economy even to this day, even though its reputation was eventually tarnished by child labor scandals during the 1990s.
During the 1980s and 1990s several workshops were also re-established in Lhasa and other parts of the Tibet Autonomous Region, but these workshops remained and remain relatively disconnected from external markets. Today, most carpets woven in Lhasa factories are destined for the tourist market or for use as gifts to visiting Chinese delegations and government departments. Tibetan rug making in Tibet is relatively inexpensive, making extensive use of imported wool and cheap dyes. Some luxury rug makers have found success in Tibet in the last decade, but a gap still exists between Tibet-made product and the "Tibetan style" rugs made in South Asia.
WIKIPEDIA
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