Artificial Light

Since mid-February Fiber artist and Yarnbombing pioneer Suzanne Tidwell has been fitting knitted sleeves around trees at Anderson Park in Redmond, WA. This Thursday, March 8, the exhibit of 50 trees outfitted with brilliantly colored "tree cozies" opens to the public. The exhibit is free, and will be up until June 8th. Tidwell is also hosting two Knit-In events at Anderson Park on March 10 and 17 at which knitters can learn about the art form and contribute to additional sleeves for the installation. More here.

Inventory

by Richard Hoffman

What I have given to sorrow,
though I have poured out
all I am again and again,
does not amount to much.

One winter’s snows.
Two loves I could not welcome.
A year of mostly silence.
Another man I might have been.

To Hell With February

February is the month where people start thinking about Spring. They’ve endured November, December, and January, the holidays are well past, and now February -- which is just dark and cold. Personally, I’ve always been kind of depressed in the month of February. I used to joke around with friends in college that February was coming and it kind of took on a persona. This is when I was living in Buffalo. February is darkness and brutal cold and all gray and ice and dirty snow. It’s a disgusting month that must be stopped.

From an interview with Shane Jones at Bookslut.

It's a perfect moment to pick up Shane Jones' charming novel Light Boxes. Jones was born in Albany and educated in the impressive poetry program at the University of Buffalo. In 2009, at the tender age of 29, he published Light Boxes, his first novel, as a “chapnovel” by Publishing Genius in an edition of 500 copies. Light Boxes, now published by Penguin in considerably larger numbers, is a small and bewildering fable of a town battling to free itself from the brutal hold of the month of February, which has maintained its grip for 300 days. When the despairing townspeople, led by the valiant Thaddeus, suffer reprisals from February and its priests for trying to break the weather, a group of former balloonists don bird masks and instigate a rebellion. It's a lovely little book, full of sadness and magic.

A fine interview with Shane Jones at 3am Magazine.

Biking Lake Baikal

A Eugene, OR-based crew is now exactly half-way through the first ever human-powered winter circumnavigation of Lake Baikal in northern Russia. The lake - which is surrounded by mountains and boasts an average winter temperature of -19°C - is completely frozen at this time. The team of 5 bicyclists is riding entirely on snow and ice for an estimated 43 days.

Lake Baikal is the world’s deepest lake, holding nearly a fifth of the world’s fresh water supply, and is also assumed to be the oldest, with an age of over 25 million years. It is home to 1,200 indigenous animal species, and is the focal point of the environmental movement in Russia. In addition to simply challenging themselves to a super human feat, the cyclists are riding in support of an international effort to build a recreational trail system around the lake.

The team website is chock full of equipment specs and technical information, covering everything from gearing ("One of the unique features about our bikes is the 2-speed single speed drive-train...The chain is tensioned with adjustable sliders in the frame and there are no derailleurs.") to clothing choices ("While we expect some days of moderate temperatures around -15 degrees C, we must also be prepared for winter storms and periods of cold down to -40 degrees.") to the fact that normal bicycle grease freezes around -15 Centigrade. Fascinating stuff.

You can follow their progress on this map, or on Twitter, or on their Facebook page, where they also regularly post gorgeous photos, like the one above.

I caught wind of this story via Bike Juju, a terrific blog on the cultural and artistic impact of bicycles. Made right here in Seattle! Kudos!

Baby it's c-c-c-cold outside

Katie Paterson is a Scottish artist whose works claim a very unusual middle ground between sight and sound. Past works have included launching snow from a thousand catapults and recording the sound as it landed; creating invisible fireworks that explode with black sparks; and beaming radio transmissions of music to the moon in order to record the results as they bounced back to her earthly receiver. In her latest piece, Paterson recorded the sound of 3 melting glaciers on Iceland (Langjökull, Snæfellsjökull and Solheimajökull). She then pressed the recordings onto ice records made of melt water from those glaciers. The records were played on 3 turntables until they were completely melted, which took around 2 hours. You can listen to one here.