Issues and Inspirations Blog

Stereoscopic Views of Old Japan

Beautiful and hand-tinted, using web animation to show the stereo effect. Interestingly, Nick and I had our honeymoon in Japan in 1985, and I took along an antique Kodak stereoscopic camera. If I can figure out how to do this, I would love to put my stereoscopic slides online like this. 

Clean energy: technological breakthrough?

In this week's issue of Newsweek, there is an article about a startling, so-crazy-it-just-might-work plan to produce an endless supply of clean energy through nuclear fusion - NOT fission as in nuclear plants - and a Lawrence Livermore scientist and his team are about to try it out in a $3.5 billion test. If it works, this experiment has the potential to save us all, and the planet from further global warming. Here's the ultimate kicker: the name of the scientist is Moses.

Read the story here: http://www.newsweek.com/id/222792

Center for Biological Diversity

This is one amazing organization that really gets things done for the earth's creatures. They have a 90% success rate in litigation to protect all animals, and I have been donating to them for years. Here is their latest newsletter; you can see their amazing accomplishments. Please join them and help continue their important work during this time of holiday giving. Just a few dollars is enough to help. 

 

Evian Babies

Here's a nice feel good video...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_PHnRIn74Ag

And the sequel...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J7x_rh4-ruk

 - thanks to Kurt Barnhart for this heads up! Literally.

3D Murals of John Pugh

Stunning!!!

Miranda Rae Sings in Chicago

Here is the newest of my daughter, Miranda's performances. She is a junior at Columbia College and was one of a dozen singers from the school chosen for the year-end showcase.  Isn't she great?

Keith Loutit's Tilt-Shift Movies

My son Sam alerted me to the most amazing videos I have ever seen. Keith Loutit is a Sydney-based artist and photographer who has captured our living Lego-type world.  These are real people and real events happening, captured with a tilt-shift lens and time lapse photography. But somehow because of everyone's diminutive size and the vastness of the area and the speed of the people and events, we see ourselves more like small dolls or insects with a furious sense of purpose. Click here to see Keith Loutit's Bathtub IV.

John Updike

In memory of this great writer, here is a quote that seems fitting:

"And another regrettable thing about death is the ceasing of your own brand of magic, which took a whole life to develop and market -- the quips, the witticisms, the slant adjusted to a few, those loved ones nearest the lip of the stage, their soft faces blanched in the footlight glow, their laughter close to tears, their tears confused with their diamond earrings, their warm pooled breath in and out with your heartbeat, their response and your performance twinned. The jokes over the phone. The memories packed in the rapid-access file. The whole act. Who will do it again? That's it: no one; imitators and descendants aren't the same."

John Updike

Sam Gorski and Niko Pueringer in the News

Movie Trailer for "Infected" is now online here!

My son Sam and his filmmaking partner Niko Pueringer are featured in a newspaper article today! They are completing work on their feature movie called "Infected." These are photos of them done in my studio before they flew back to Los Angeles this week. Sam and Niko both graduated last year from the University of Wisconsin, Madison. And they are off to a great start!

Link to the full article is here

Niko Pueringer

Niko Pueringer (left), Sam Gorski (right)

Sam and Niko editing (and composing soundtrack)

Eileen Margaret Woods Jonosek 1916-2008

A personal note. My mother died unexpectedly Wednesday morning after being hospitalized after a fall in her apartment Monday. She lived here in Stillwater near me in her own apartment. She was 92. She had been weakened by heart disease but still lived independently with her cat and was still very mentally sharp.  

As she willed her body to the University of Minnesota medical school there was no funeral but we held a memorial service Friday at the apartment building where she lived.

My mother was from England and everyone loved her. I was the closest to her of all my sisters. She outlived 2 husbands and 10 members of her immediate family.  She was also my dearest friend.

I am going to spend the next few weeks as executor of her modest estate and clearing out her apartment.

Photography is so important. I put off asking anyone to do a photo study of me and my mom although I should have. She was a great lady. Now I lost my chance.

Enjoy your parents while you still have them.