Tag Archives: Italy

New Years Day 2017

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Happy New Year!

Here is the first sunrise of what we hope is a promising new year. It arrived exactly on schedule at 7:24 am with a certain amount of fanfare and flair. The Director, as is his wont, made the arduous climb up the 842 steps to the solar observatory in the very top of the East tower of the main building here at *The Institute to take the annual sunrise photograph. It being a tradition here at The Institute to record the ushering in of the new year with a photo taken to prove that sunrise did indeed occur and we can all rest easy.

Under an agreement with Lenny at the Better Business Bureau in Florence, Italy and Gino the guy that helped get the telescope out of the building without anyone seeing him at the Istituto e Museo di Storia della Scienza (renamed the Museo Galileo in 2010) in Florence, Italy, we have on permanent loan one of Galileo’s original telescopes. Yeah we know, quite a coup on our part.

Simply by duct taping a new D810 Nikon digital camera with 36 megapixels for prettier pictures and nice leather on the body to the eyepiece, we were able to make this image showing the sun peeping over the horizon. Seeing everything was all clear it continued its journey up into the heavens thereby officially starting the New Year. This is an Institute exclusive of which we are justly proud, and unavailable anywhere else on the Interweb. Below is a picture of the telescope prior to our duct taping our camera to it. Well, it does look a little ratty but remember this thing is 400 years old. Once we wrap some black electricians tape around it, it’ll look better.

So having done our duty yet once again, The Director, The Institute, and yours truly the author of this blog, wish you a very Happy New Year. May everything you hoped for this year become a reality. See you soon with a whole new year full of new and exciting adventures, journeys and observations as we continue to bring you all that *The Institute has to offer.

* Note: For those of you unfamiliar with The Institute and what it does, please see the page labeled The Institute on the Menu Bar above. That should explain everything. You shouldn’t have one single question remaining regarding The Institute after reading it. None. For those of you favored few who already know about the Institute, Nevermind. Return to your daily activities. Thank you for your support.

How About Some Art

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As a fallen away sculptor, which means for a long time I was one and now I isn’t but I still think like one, I can speak to art. What it means, how it’s done, where it comes from. For years  I worked and taught in bronze, stone, wood and I still see in three dimensions. My photography is based on how I used to conceptualize when I was creating a new piece of sculpture. I could not begin a new work unless I could see it from all sides, including the top and bottom. When it was firmly fixed in my mind then I could begin.

My photography is much like that. I want to be able to think I can see what the back of the sculpture in the image looks like. I want the flowers in the background to give it the depth it needs. Basically what I’m really waiting for is that new Nikon holograph camera, the D99000x HoloStill VR 1.2 mm Infi-Zoom with revolutionary non-removable lens that lets you move around inside the image after you take it. I have repeatedly queried Nikon on its release but they’re being really close-mouthed about it.

The sculpture in the image above is from a collection called Chapungu from Zimbabwe and is made by the incredible Shona sculptors there. The gorgeous stone used is from the serpentine family of stone and dug from the Great Dyke that runs across Zimbabwe and is called Springstone. This particular form of sculpture seems to bring out more emotion and story content that I have ever seen in other stone. I don’t care if it is Carrara marble from Italy or alabaster from the mines of Colorado. When you see the black forms from this grey stone appear you are seeing life caught in stone.

Art is in the eye of the beholder and I think that is what every beholder sees when they first view these sculptures. I know I did and I’m an art guy. You can be one too, whether you are or not,  just get out and look.

A Portrait Of A Man In Stone

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There have been many, many requests, well at least five, asking for more information about The Director. Who is this shadowy figure that controls the enormous empire that is The Institute? What does he look like? Is he nice? Does he talk or walk funny? Is he an American? Does he support the Women’s movement and their right to bear arms and/or children? Sometimes at the same time? Is he incredibly wealthy and overly generous? Does he like women who look like Christina Hendricks? Is he “LikesEmHot&Slow” on page number 300 of ‘Dating For Seniors Who Can Still Walk’ website ? Is he really as handsome, suave and debonair as they say? And of course the most commonly asked question, When can we see his picture?

Well all we can tell you is that The Director does not grant interviews. He is a very private person preferring to do his work behind the scenes, as it were, and so we cannot answer those questions. He also does not send out glossy, autographed 8×10 photos of himself suitable for framing, for 25.00 each plus postage and handling.

He did consent however to provide one image that he had done while he was tooling around Europe, or what is now known as the EU, by the famed sculptor Phenofantabulo, a stuttering, semi-literate Italian who was as crazy as an outhouse rat but a savant when it came to capturing the likeness of someone in stone. This image became so popular in Venice, a suburb of Italy, that you can still find it gracing the bottom of the many abutments that hold up Venice’s bridges. There you can see his eternal gaze fixed steadily on the waters of the canals as they slosh back and forth sluggishly before emptying into the Bay of Fundy or whatever they call that bay by Venice. The Director has a fondness for this image as he often will be found staring vacantly into any moving stream of water nearby, and as he is being guided back to The Institute will say “Did you see that?”  Sometimes he will say it more than once. It’s best just to agree with him and say “Yes, yes we did.”

For those of you clamoring to see what The Director looks like the portrait above will have to suffice. Although we did mange to squirrel away a few hundred of his regular pictures we got off his driver’s license when he was down staring at the river. So the 25.00 dollar offer still stands. Let us know if you want one.

Spa Day

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It’s Friday again, I know, how could that happen, it was just Monday a minute ago but it is. And as you know this is the day we give you ideas on what to do over the weekend. This weekend we thought we might offer something a little different. Last weekends suggestion of jetting off to Cape Disappoint on the Washington coast in your private jet was a big hit with some of you. Actually very few of you but the ones who went said it was great.

This weekend we decided to scale it down a bit and offer something for the ladies out there. That’s a big fat Spa day! Guys can go along too, but I’d recommend skipping the pedicure session Saturday morning. Ladies and some who aren’t really, like spa days and find it a big treat to go to them and have stuff done to them that they can’t get done in the privacy of their own homes.

So what can you do at a spa and more importantly what can be done to you in a spa, you might ask. Well lucky for you, you’ve come to the right place for answers. Listed below, in no particular order, are spa treatments you can order at your local spa, or if they’re unavailable there, where you can go this weekend to get them.

First is a Snake massage.

Hop over to Israel where you can get a massage from several non-venomous snakes as they slither up and presumably down your spine. Cost $70 US.

Or try your choice of the Tea, Coffee,red wine, sake, or Ramen noodle bath in Japan.

This is one is a little closer to home and I’ll bet to ladies hearts. That’s the chocolate wrap you can get at the spa in Hershey, Pa. They will wrap you or more concisely smear chocolate all over you and they mean all over and then leave you alone for a while. As a guy I have to wonder why they would leave you alone for a while but women do some strange stuff so we’ll just leave it at that.

Gold. In Japan, they give you a gold facial. That’s gold painted on your face for as long as you want it there. The cost, a measly 250 bucks, and I gotta say that if you can afford the plane ticket to Japan and back that’s pretty darn reasonable.

How about a cactus massage? In Mexico you can get rubbed, whacked, stroked or whatever with a spineless cactus paddle and pay for it. The cost $245. It doesn’t say whether that is in peso’s or dollars

And for those of  you with more agrarian roots there is a Wet Hay Wrap in Italy where you get wrapped in wet hay harvested from the meadows of Alpe di Siusi between mid-July and early August then lie on a special 100° waterbed until they harvest you I guess. As a special bonus for those of you who make it you receive a foot treatment where a fish named the Garra Rufa eat away whatever may be lurking on your feet.

I saved the most special treatment for last. That’s the Fanny Facial.  I know it seems like a contradiction in terms but that’s how it’s listed. In New York City, like where else except maybe most of California, can you get a fanny facial? I mean it’s strange even asking the question. What happens is you go in and ask for this deliberately, obviously they don’t just give you one without asking, then they perform a exfoliation of the fanny areas with a papaya-mint scrub, followed by a micro-current therapy where they apparently zap your hiney with low-voltage current to remove in their words, “any lumps or bumps from your butt”, then the whole business is finished with an organic spray tan so your fanny glows like the noon day sun. This has got to be special people. The cost was not revealed but I got to say it has to be worth it.

So those are just some of the treatments available to the Spa goer. Yes they may seem a little irregular to those who don’t frequent spas regularly or that only go to low rent ones where these special treatments aren’t available but our job is to bring you the newest and trendiest things out there, and these were certainly out there.

The ladies pictured above have just completed Yellowstone’s interpretation of a spa which is, as you can see, a snow spa, where you can spend a leisurely hour or two in the sub-zero waters of the Yellowstone river, then be rubbed down by brawny park rangers with snow before finishing the day next to a warm geyser. Upon asking we found that the Fanny Facial is not offered in Yellowstone.

There you have it. That’s the special weekend activities for you ladies. I’m sure you can’t wait to “hit the spa” as they say somewhere I’m sure. For you guys I might remind you that there’s a game on almost every minute of the weekend and beer in the fridge. Just give her the credit card and don’t ask.