The Weekly Web

Image courtesy of the American Museum of Natural History

My round-up of the best of my online ramblings over the past week begins with the Shamans of Siberia. The American Museum of Natural History in New York City has a comprehensive program of events and activities that run throughout the year. I have visited the museum twice and hope to visit again during my trip to New York over the coming summer. I signed up for their email newsletters several years ago, and each issue always makes me wish I lived much closer to the museum than my current address some ten thousand miles away. 

The latest newsletter had several links to items of interest, and I thought this would be a good time to mention an ongoing program called Shelf Life, which presents a series of short videos highlighting the Natural History museum’s ongoing conservation programs. In Shamans of Siberia in 360, we get to look at an expedition to Siberia that took place from 1897 to 1902.

The Jesup North Pacific Expedition (1897–1902) was conceived and directed by Franz Boas, the founder of American anthropology. The expedition aimed to investigate the links between the people and cultures of the Pacific Northwest Coast of North America and the eastern Coast of Siberia. Boas was also concerned about documenting cultures that he and many other anthropologists feared would soon be lost to colonialism and acculturation.

The video below is one of the new style of documents that presents footage in 360 degrees. Make sure you enlarge the video to full screen, and then use your cursor to manipulate the film to see everything around the camera.

Read more here…

The ‘Protector’ and ‘Fitzjames’ (in the background), c.1885 at Largs Bay. State Library of South Australia

South Australia’s “hell afloat”

InDaily is an online publication out of Adelaide, Australia—my home town. The site has been publishing a regular series, Time and Place, which focusses specifically on important South Australian events and achievements. The entry: South Australia’s “hell afloat”, provided information about an aspect of the state’s early history I knew nothing about, and I suspect that few others did—or still do.

Between 1880 and 1891 the hulk Fitzjames, colloquially known as ‘hell afloat’, served as a Reformatory for over 100 boys aged from eight to 16 years of age. The first 35 of these were transferred from the Boys’ Reformatory at Magill on 5 March 1880. Some had been sentenced for having committed serious crimes, while others had been found guilty of petty theft, or deemed uncontrollable or neglected.

Read more here…

More Time and Place stories here…

Sumida River, Tokyo.

36 Hours in East Tokyo

One of the most daunting cities for foreign visitors, Tokyo is a manic, hyperactive assault on the senses. But steady your focus and you’ll notice that a distinct strand of traditional elements also weaves through the Japanese capital. Even without leaving Eastern Tokyo, here defined as the area east of the Imperial Palace, a visitor can experience the enormous breadth of what this mesmerizing metropolis has to offer. From boutiques blooming in abandoned spaces to new ramen shops taking root amid glittering high-rises, Eastern Tokyo promises — now more than ever — to leave even experienced travelers wide-eyed with wonder.

Read more here...

National Portrait Gallery, London

50 Free Things to Do in London, England

Actually, this Guardian newspaper series dating from 2012, originally ran to 200 free things to do in London. I have included links to Parts 3 & 4 of the series, but Part 2 seems to have disappeared. Even the Guardian website does not seem to know where it is. Be aware that some of the details provided in the articles may have changed in the five years since first publication.

See Part 1: Central London...

Part 2: I will update this post when (and if) I find part two of this series

See Part 3: North London...

See Part 4: West London...

Photo by Dan Winters / Courtesy NASA / JPL-Caltech / MSSS

Interstellar Travel — Don’t Hold Your Breath

This story by Burkhard Bilger (The Martian Chroniclers), published in the New Yorker in April, 2013, is a ‘long read’, but is worth the time taken to read in full. Mars of course, is the next planet humans have long set their eyes and hearts on to send a manned mission to. The fascination with the red planet is the belief that some form of life (however basic and primitive), exists on some primal level. 

The search for life on Mars is now in its sixth decade. Forty spacecraft have been sent there, and not one has found a single fossil or living thing. The closer we look, the more hostile the planet seems: parched and frozen in every season, its atmosphere inert and murderously thin, its surface scoured by solar winds. By the time Earth took its first breath three billion years ago, geologists now believe, Mars had been suffocating for a billion years. The air had thinned and rivers evaporated; dust storms swept up and ice caps seized what was left of the water. The Great Desiccation Event, as it’s sometimes called, is even more of a mystery than the Great Oxygenation on Earth. We know only this: one planet lived and the other died. One turned green, the other red.

If humans ever do make it to Mars, and survive long enough to reproduce and populate that planet, it will be long after I have moved on to whatever other dimension awaits—if any. Personally, I can’t see the point of exporting the full gamut of human foibles and failings to another planet—unless the first hundred crews are manned by politicians, and that is never going to happen. If we can’t get this world sorted out, what makes anyone think we can do so on a planet as harsh and barren as Mars? But that’s just the cynic in me talking. I’d love to read your comments on this topic. In the meantime, you can read the full article here…

Friday Photo #9: Cheeky Monkey

Click image to view larger size…

One of the first places I visited on my return to London in March 2008 (after an absence of over 30 years), was London’s Natural History Museum in Kensington.

Originating from collections within the British Museum, the landmark Alfred Waterhouse building was built and opened by 1881. The museum is home to life and earth science specimens comprising some 70 million items within five main collections: Botany, Entomology, Mineralogy, Palaeontology and Zoology. Given the age of the institution, many of the collections have great historical as well as scientific value, and include specimens collected by Charles Darwin.

The foundation of the collection was that of the Ulster doctor Sir Hans Sloane (1660–1753). Sloane's collection, which included dried plants, and animal and human skeletons, was initially housed in Montague House in Bloomsbury in 1756, which was the home of the British Museum.

Walking through the building taking in the many displays, my attention was captured by the sight of hundreds of carved monkeys climbing the internal walls and support structures of this magnificent building. Like the gargoyles which were the subject of a previous Friday Photo (Friday Photo #4: London Gargoyle), these monkeys and other decorations represent an age when workmanship and beauty were greatly prized and appreciated.

There is much to see and appreciate in the Natural History Museum, and not all of it is behind glass cases. The next time you visit this building, take the time to look around and see how many of these cheeky monkeys adorn the main entry hall, and marvel at the skilful hands that created these objects of delight and splendor.

Note: visible in the photograph are at least 18 similar monkeys on the curved column on the far wall to the left of the monkey shown here in close-up. Presumably someone knows the exact number of monkeys

Visit the Natural History Museum here…

Photograph: Cheeky Monkey, by Jim Lesses

Location: Natural History Museum, London, England

With thanks to Wikipedia for the background information on the Museum

Friday Photo #4: London Gargoyle

Click on image to view full size

London is full of buildings that were constructed in an age when owners where not just interested in throwing up any old edifice, but wanted buildings that would last. Buildings with character. Buildings with charm and personality. Buildings that appealed with their unique individuality.

Imagine the amount of time, effort and craftsmanship – not to mention, money – that went into creating the hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of gargoyles adorning thousands of buildings across Britain, and indeed the rest of the world. Will we ever see their like again? Which entrepreneur today; which Board of Directors; which construction magnate will direct their architects to design buildings that are not just functional – but aesthetically pleasing, not just to their owners, shareholders and users, but for generations to come?

Whose imagination sparked this cheeky gargoyle? Whose skilled hands wielded the tools and materials to craft this one individual character? This one, out of countless millions?

Did the artisan delight in the shape and form of this creature? Did he find – or hide – some deeper meaning in its pose and expression? Was he offering a not so subtle comment on the wealth and standing of the building’s owner? It’s eventual occupants?

We will never know. We are left forever to wonder and speculate. And finally, to appreciate and enjoy.

Location: Building façade in Carmelite Street, London, EC4

Photographer: Jim Lesses, September 30, 2008

Note: Click on image to view full size.

Ten Things for Ten Dollars (more or less)

~ The Hostel Bookers website is featuring a number of cities where they say you can see 10 things for $10. That is, ten dollars per selected attraction or event. Well, more or less.

I’m not sure about the math, and I guess it all depends on the exchange rates you achieve at the time you are travelling, but I like the idea behind the series. It is good to know that not everything has to be a constant attack on your credit card whenever you travel.

There are cheap things to do in every major city in the world, and in fact, using the resources of the internet, you can easily find a host of free things to do in all the cities selected for these online features.

So far, the site has created lists for the cities of New York, Edinburgh, Paris, Barcelona, Rome, Athens, Amsterdam, and London.

The articles focus on the not quite ‘top tier’ attractions. Sites that might be your second choice, rather than your first. For example: instead of fighting your way through the thousands of tourists swarming over the Forum and the Colosseum in Rome, they recommend a visit to Ostia Antica, the remarkable ruins of ancient Rome’s port city.

In Athens they suggest a visit to the Agora (market) that surrounds the Acropolis, and I agree. I spent several hours exploring this area and was surprised by the many ‘hidden’ treasures this site holds. Developed in the 6th century BC, the Agora was once the focal point of Ancient Greek society. It was here that Socrates first talked philosophy and where St Paul tried to convert people to Christianity.

I can also vouch for the full English Breakfast they recommend on the London feature. I would start each day with the ‘Builder’s Breakfast’, which as its name suggests is a meal fit for the British working man. For £5, you can expect each ‘Full English’ to consist of bacon, eggs, sausage, baked beans, fried tomatoes, toast and a large pot of black tea. It may not be the healthiest way to start the day, but it was cheap, filling, and enough to see you through several hours of brisk walking around London’s busy streets.

I can only say, I wish I had the information in my hands before I visited New York, London and Athens, last year. London especially, I found to be very expensive, and if it hadn’t been for the fact that museums and galleries offer mostly free entry, I’m not sure that I would have been able to see very much at all during my all too brief stay there.

Thankfully, New York was much more wallet friendly, and I was surprised at the range of reasonably priced attractions on offer. Of course, there is so much to see and do in New York anyway, that you could spend days, and weeks, simply walking around that great city before you felt a need to pay to see the major attractions that virtually every tourist or visitor has on their list of ‘must see’ sites.

Anyway, if you are heading to any of the cities listed, take the time to explore the links to your location of choice and see how much money you can save by visiting some of the recommended sites.

Image: Agora, Athens, Greece.

Photograph: Jim Lesses

Friday Photo #2: Autumn Creepers, London

Note: Click on image to view full sized.

Taken just a few days before I left London before my return to Australia in late September 2008. I was attracted by the autumnal colours of this wall creeper in St. Bride’s Passage, near St. Paul’s Cathedral.

I am repeatedly attracted to examples of how nature adapts to urban environments and often survives and thrives in the most unlikely places. City workers hurry past views like this and barely give them a second thought – assuming they notice them at all. But for me, it is precisely these splashes of colour (representing nature at its most delightful), that make city living bearable.

It is discoveries like this that make hours of walking busy city streets worth the effort. You never know where the surprises are, or what they might be. And yet they are everywhere, waiting to be discovered by the alert observer.

Location: St. Bride’s Passage, EC4, London, England.

Photograph: by Jim Lesses, September 30, 2008.

Note: Click on image to view full sized.

Top 10 Destinations for Opera Lovers: Part 2

~ Frommer's asked the editors of OPERA NEWS magazine, whose European Travel issue hits newsstands mid-April, to come up with the top 10 destinations that should be included on every opera lover's roadmap this year.

I listed the first five (in no particular order), in an earlier posting on this blog.

Here are the last five top destinations for lovers of opera.

FRANCE: Paris
Has any place inspired more operas than Paris, perhaps the most romantic city on earth? Paris's newest home for opera is the spacious but somewhat chilly Opéra de la Bastille, which boasts an unrestricted view of the stage from each of its 2,700 seats, but the city's most famous operatic landmark remains the opulent nineteenth-century Palais Garnier, familiar to lovers of Broadway's Phantom of the Opera. Don't miss a chance to visit Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, an Art Deco masterpiece that is one of Europe's prettiest theaters, or the devastatingly elegant Théatre du Châtelet. Also worth a trip is the Salle Favart, its frothy good looks an apt metaphor for the light-hearted attractions of its home company, the Opéra-Comique.

THE UNITED STATES: Civic Opera House, Chicago
Chicago's Civic Opera House is one of the most beautiful buildings in a city that prides itself on its architecture. Built in 1929, this ageless amalgam of Renaissance revival and Art Deco has superb acoustics, excellent sightlines and sumptuous public spaces, including a handsomely proportioned lobby designed by Jules Guerin. The theatre was home to several Chicago opera companies before its most distinguished tenant, the Lyric Opera of Chicago, arrived in 1954. The Lyric established the City of Big Shoulders as an international opera capital, offering the opera world's brightest stars in top-notch productions. After the Lyric season ends in late winter, Chicago's opera lovers hold on until spring, when the adventurous Chicago Opera Theatre presents its three-opera season at the slick new Harris Theatre for Music and Dance in Millennium Park.



SWEDEN: The Drottningholm Court Theatre
Built in 1766 for the Swedish queen, Lovisa Ulrika, the Drottningholm Court Theatre-located in the Royal Domain of Drottningholm, only a short bus or boat ride from the capital city of Stockhom-is a thing of exquisite artifice. The theatre was a beehive of musical and theatrical activity during the late eighteenth century, but when Lovisa Ulrika's son (and political enemy), King Gustaf III was assassinated-an event used as the basis for Verdi's opera Un Ballo in Maschera,-the theatre fell into disuse; it was a storage facility for much of the nineteenth century. Drottningholm was recalled to life in the 1920s and now presents a brief summer season each year, with the repertory usually drawn from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Spring and summer tours of the theatre and the palace grounds are relatively infrequent, in order to spare its eighteenth-century charms from the wear-and-tear of twenty-first-century life. Early booking is advisable.

THE UNITED STATES: Santa Fe Opera
In 1957, New York conductor John Crosby started an opera company in a highly unlikely locale: the breathtaking mountains of northern New Mexico. Crosby's impossible dream has endured: every July and August since then, Santa Fe Opera has presented an imaginative, exciting mix of familiar classics, rarely-performed treasures and brand-new works, their casts generally populated by the best young singers in America. Opera lovers from all over the world have been thrilled by Santa Fe's singular natural beauty, an element in the company's appeal celebrated by its dramatically proportioned adobe theatre, which has unequalled views of the high desert landscape - and the heart-stopping beauty of its sunsets. Daytime hours in Santa Fe can be spent sampling the myriad charms of the city itself and of its thriving local community of world-class artists and artisans.

ENGLAND: Glyndebourne Festival Opera, Sussex
The thoroughly English character of Glyndebourne Festival Opera reflects the personality of its eccentric founder, John Christie, who developed the ambitious scheme to offer festival-quality opera performances on his East Sussex estate beginning in 1934. Christie's original theatre was eventually replaced by a completely new facility in 1994, but the abiding presence of the Christie home and the continued involvement of Christie's descendants in festival life have allowed Glyndebourne to retain much of its original atmosphere. The operas of Mozart have been at the core of Glyndebourne's repertory for all of its existence, but more esoteric fare - including some world premieres - is also among the company specialties.

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Image courtesy Civic Opera House, Chicago