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2011-11-23T09:13:00.001-08:00

http://pinefir.tumblr.com/

easier

The Feeling of Today

2010-02-11T21:51:00.001-08:00

Randolph Drive

2010-01-01T19:58:00.000-08:00

Dreaming of vacation homes.

Registan

2009-12-23T01:02:00.001-08:00

Laszlo

2009-12-08T14:09:00.000-08:00

Oatmeal

2009-11-16T22:14:00.000-08:00

Most High

2009-11-09T15:43:00.000-08:00

Laying Low

2009-11-08T15:54:00.000-08:00

Same Face

2009-10-18T11:28:00.000-07:00

Teenagers

2009-08-21T09:03:00.000-07:00

Today is Dustin's 13th birthday. He is a best best friend who just lost his hearing. Fortunately Mom has a pack of pups to help him out.

Time to Swim

2009-07-28T23:43:00.001-07:00

Best Friends

2009-07-18T11:53:00.001-07:00

James Dean + Leonard Rosenman, composer

Stromatolites

2009-06-22T13:49:00.000-07:00

"
Preserving Words

This is what my work looks like to begin with—you see these long yellow sheets, then I go over them with pens, pencils of different colors, signifying different generations. The feeling of a pen or the machine-gun-like clatter of a typewriter appeals to me. But also, I'm afraid of erasure. I'm terrified of the notion that at any moment a computer may collapse and destroy what one has done.

Periodic Gifts

I sometimes give people elements for their birthdays, so one or two things may be missing from my collection here. I'm into the heavy transition metals now, which begin with the atomic number 72 and go through 79. The hafnium isn't there anymore. I gave it to a friend for his 72nd, and I think the tantalum has to go because someone had his 73rd yesterday. And since I'm 75 now, I'm rhenium. You can see there a rhenium rod with which I stir my coffee. Rhenium is a fairly rare element, the last natural element to be discovered. You won't find rhenium rods too commonly, and I doubt if they've ever been used to stir a cup of coffee before. It's a rather noble metal, like platinum, so hopefully I won't come down with an unprecedented case of rhenium poisoning! I won't be able to get a decent specimen of 76, osmium, which is very difficult to get. Although I have a gram or so here. It's the only slightly blue metal there is. Iridium is 77, and platinum is 78, gold is 79. Recently a friend of mine had his 80th birthday. I wrote him in a letter, "I'm sorry it's 80, not 78 or 79. I enclose a bottle of mercury." He says he has a little for his health every morning.

Heavy Metal

I'm particularly fond of handling my iridium slab; I will occasionally discover it in my hand, unconsciously caressing it. Besides osmium, iridium is the densest material on this planet so it's very heavy. I've had rough isomorphs made in copper and tin, but I wanted one exactly like this in a metal that glitters in the same way but is much lighter. So at the moment I'm waiting on one cast in indium. I like very dense elements; I also like very light ones. I guess I just like improbable things and extremes. For instance, this iridium is somewhat improbable in that it's startlingly heavy. You have expectations shattered when you pick it up.

Mind's Eye

This is some reference material for a book I'm working on about aspects of vision, consisting of various essays and case histories. It will end with my own visual story, the ocular melanoma in my right eye, which now gives me a 30-degree blind spot that my brain "fills in" with background colors and patterns. The filling in with patterns is slower than colors—it takes about 20 seconds and tends to fill in from the edge, like ice crystallizing on a pond. People think sometimes I specialize in the odd. But the odd for me is a window into the normal. For example, it wouldn't occur to you that color and movement would give you a whole visual world just like this, but if something happens so that you lose stereo or color or movement you realize they all have to be treated separately, somehow orchestrated, and you really begin to get an idea of the complexity and wonder of things. As a physician I'm concerned with people's welfare and I try to help them, but I also regard diseases and damage as experiments in nature. These days, I am the subject of an experiment.

Archaic Landscapes

I very much like stromatolites, which have been around for billions of years. There's a place in Australia, Shark Bay, where they still exist. I went there, and in a little museum, they had the original of this painting, which enchanted me. This is an imagining of the Archaean era, the Earth as it was 3.5 billion years ago, with volcanoes and these cushion-like stromatolites. For some reason, it pleases me very much."

-Oliver Sachs, Workbench 05.11.2009, 10:42 AM from Seed Magazine.

Undulus

2009-06-07T21:27:00.000-07:00

"If approved, the strangely choppy Undulus Apparatus would be the first new cloud classification in the World Meteorological Association's International Cloud Atlas since the 1950's "-National Geographic

Found

2009-05-18T10:39:00.000-07:00

I keep discovering small, dreaded lock's in my hair. I looked on the internet for pictures of what life might be like for me without a brush, but I was very very disappointed. I don't mind these ones, but I think I'll use a comb for now.

I wouldn't mind a furry top like these guys, though.

Clear Glass Clear

2009-05-12T15:44:00.000-07:00

Hwy 90

2009-05-11T11:32:00.000-07:00

Graha

2009-04-26T20:50:00.000-07:00

The Long Way

2009-04-23T20:33:00.000-07:00

French yachtsman Bernard Moitessier (1925 - 1994) on board his 12 metre steel-hulled ketch, the 'Joshua', off the coast of Brazil, 10th March 1969. He is taking part in the Sunday Times Golden Globe Race to circumnavigate the globe single-handed, although he later withdrew from the running.

Photo: Keystone/Getty Images

Mar 10, 1969

Best

2009-03-03T20:52:00.000-08:00

Present Presents

2009-03-02T17:01:00.000-08:00

Future Free Light Box

2009-02-23T15:58:00.000-08:00

First Homes

2009-02-23T15:45:00.001-08:00

Dad
Mom

Mooooving

2009-02-17T22:39:00.000-08:00

Most Fuzz

2009-02-14T22:16:00.000-08:00

Extreme work

2008-12-20T16:25:00.001-08:00

Past Room of Lethargy

2008-12-08T14:58:00.000-08:00

Love rocks and sand and ocean and and and..

2008-11-27T16:32:00.000-08:00

Let it flow, it floats back to you.

2008-11-21T22:53:00.000-08:00

Continent as Telescope

2008-10-30T22:19:00.000-07:00

Sam + Jherek. Sam is moving.

Nick is excited because Kaz is home!

Mo, Drums (Jherek's amazing father), and Bass (Jherek's uncle)

Bye Sam.

The New and Enjoyable Game of the Garden of Love

2008-10-19T23:34:00.000-07:00

Natural Drought

2008-08-09T23:32:00.000-07:00

The Open Door

2008-08-08T23:19:00.000-07:00

The Swan of Elegance

2008-06-20T23:45:00.000-07:00

Maple Syrup

2008-03-30T16:30:00.000-07:00

Alphabet of Nature (i.e. getting older and older)

2008-03-02T16:45:00.000-08:00

The Past Begins

2008-01-24T22:17:00.001-08:00

Past Lives

Olafur Eliasson

2008-01-21T22:08:00.002-08:00

Tile for Yu-un

77drum

2008-01-21T19:30:00.000-08:00

Family

2008-01-17T22:41:00.000-08:00

Grandma, Uncle, Grandpa

Mom and Turtle

Uncle

Uncle, Uncle, Mom

Mom and New Car

Mom and Rabbit

mom + grandma

Grandpa, Uncle, Mom, Grandma, Uncle

Grandma, mom

Breading their butter

2007-04-28T17:13:00.000-07:00