teabowl

I built a Chinese Buddhist temple out of Lego yesterday. It’s not based on an actual temple and it’s pretty free-form. It’s fun to see what you can make out of a limited assortment of bricks… I’m particularly fond of the praying minifig in front of it. I turned his legs around so that he could ‘kneel.’

Some things seem to invite sarcasm. The price tag on these bunnies - seen at a Toronto pharmacy today - bills them as ‘realistic.’

Because, you know, they’re not pink or blue, and they’re made by a company called EARTHRITE…

Valentine’s Day is over, Easter is almost here - and retailers all over the world are ushering in the springtime with realistic bunnies.

To live is so startling it leaves little time for anything else. (Emily Dickinson)

Apparently, I’m the friendly blogger. This is because, whenever I write a review, I have mostly good things to say about my subject. Those of you who know me will perhaps be skeptical about this: I’m crusty and argumentative at the best of times, so reading my positive blog posts may seem out of character.

So I thought I’d quickly provide some context. I’m writing this blog because I like thinking and talking about culture (music, mostly), and I like to showcase and reflect on the things that I like. My reviews are more recommendations than ‘reviews’ - I’d like to think they are conscious of whatever idiosyncracies may be present in what I’m writing about, but ultimately, I’m saying, “Listen to this,” or “See this.”

This blog is a series of entries documenting a personal journey but not of the ‘personal journal’ kind. I’m not sure that I want to write a blog full of the things that I did every day (”Today, I had breakfast with…” or “My stomach was upset today after eating too much broccoli.”). I write about what pleases me, what I find remarkable, interesting or challenging. I write about things I believe others should hear, see or read.

Since I have almost no readership (according to Google Analytics), I also have to assume that almost nobody actually reads this, so we should be good :)

My blog fulfills a psychological purpose for me: I like to write and I crave the opportunity to editorialize about things. I also like putting some mindful, focused time into appreciating, or thinking about, something properly and with the care it deserves. In that way, Teabowl may be a meditation of sorts.

I’m in a shopping mall, in the food court. From around the corner, some distance away, I can hear the sound of throbbing rock and roll guitars. No distinct rhythm or melody, just a low ominous churning rock and roll growl, getting slightly closer.

David Byrne has an excellent blog, and this is my favourite post so far. Who hasn’t had nightmares about that Rammstein sound? :)

One of my permanent annoyances/constant amusements about living in the English-speaking world is what happens to my name when others try to pronounce it. My first name, Carsten, is a typical Northern German/Danish first name, widely used in Scandinavia and Germany. It means ‘Christian,’ I believe. In German, you’d pronounce it ‘Kah-stn.’ With a silent R and the vowel in the last syllable is sort of swallowed. For most of my adult life - since I’ve lived in English-speaking countries - I’ve been ‘Car-sten,’ with a pronounced R (level or rolling tends to depend on where you are… South Africans roll it one way, North Americans another).

My last name is where it gets interesting (I’m not sure if that should be ‘last name’ or ’surname’ - that’s another North America versus Europe discussion). Knoch is really hard to pronounce for any English-speaking person from just having heard or read it - none of the German sounds make any sort of sense to their tongues, teeth and palates. What I get most frequently is ‘Notch’ or ‘Knock.’ (At the pharmacy, they pronounced it ‘Notch’ and couldn’t find my prescription because they’d filed it under ‘T’. Still no medication for stupidity. Go figure.)

My parents lived in Canada for a couple of years before I was born. So for most of my childhood, I heard field reports about how North Americans would say our name. Their observations turned out to be accurate.

Pronouncing my last name properly isn’t really that hard. The K is pronounced (it’s not a silent K - English doesn’t have this in any convention or exception [think knight, knife…]). The rest of the word sounds Scottish, like the ‘och’ in Loch Ness. Knoch. How hard can it be?

I just saw an interesting piece on Deutsche Welle TV. Researchers at the Institute for the Foundations of Architecture at the University of Stuttgart in Germany have successfully built a rudimentary building using live trees and other materials. Dubbed ‘Baubotanik‘ (’Building Botany’), the idea is to exploit the natural characteristics (including growth) of living plants in conjunction with regular building materials in order to create a new kind of building.

So far, the group from Stuttgart has created a free standing bridge in 2005 (’Steg’), and a birding observation tower in 2007 (’Vogelguckhaus’). Pictures can be seen at their home page or on DW TV’s video on demand (German only).

I think this is very evocative and constitutes an interesting type of future construction, especially in areas where a low ecological footprint is required, such as nature reserves, zoos or botanical gardens. I was especially impressed by the idea that these would be ’self-repairing’ constructs - hurt trees can heal themselves, compensating for any harm by growing around it.