Engineer's Daughter

check mate, checkmate

Bay Area denizens might recognize the critter to the right as the light brown apple moth, an invasive species whose voracious appetite poses a danger to local crops.  Activists have been vigorously protesting plans to spray a moth-control pheromone over urban areas, citing concern about potential health issues.  And hooray, the plan has just been yanked.  From Grist:

The pheromone with the ominous name CheckMate LBAM-F keeps the crop-gobbling light brown apple moth from reproducing, but also has been linked to complaints of respiratory trouble in humans. Spraying had already been banned in one county pending environmental review. As part of the new moth-attacking strategy, officials will attempt to deter moth reproduction by introducing millions of sterile moths; the change of plans had nothing to do with loud public outcry, officials insist, but is thanks to scientific advances that have increased the availability of non-reproducing moths. Aerial spraying will still occur in rural areas.

The deadpan caption on the above photo in the SF Chronicle: "The light brown apple moth will meet many sterile moths."  Hubba hubba.

how darwin won the evolution race

Last Wednesday, June 18, was not only a full moon night but a day of many exciting and significant anniversaries.  Eighty years ago Amelia Earhart became the first woman to fly across the Atlantic as a passenger on that date, and then forty five years later Sally Ride became the first American woman to fly into space on June 18, 1983.  Perhaps most importantly, however, 150 years ago last week a paper arrived on Charles Darwin's estate from one Alfred Russel Wallace, a young ornithologist who was inspired with a new theory called natural selection during a malarial fever in Malaysia.  This, of course, was the exact same theory Darwin had spent the previous twenty years working on and gathering data about, and it was the devastation he felt upon reading Wallace's missive that spurred him to finally sit down and put his ideas to paper.  Who knows if he would have otherwise published On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, a book that occupies its own spot of importance not only in the annals of science but also on my bedside table.  In yesterday's Observer Robin McKie describes the large role that chance played in Darwin's career and gives a brief history of evolution and the four key parts of Darwin and Wallace's theory.  McKie also talks to David Attenborough, who has some choice words for fundamentalists who continue to argue for creationism and intelligent design:

'Opponents say natural selection is not a theory supported by observation or experiment; that it is not based on fact; and that it cannot be proved,' Attenborough says. 'Well, no, you cannot prove the theory to people who won't believe in it any more than you can prove that the Battle of Hastings took place in 1066. However, we know the battle happened then, just as we know the course of evolution on earth unambiguously shows that Darwin was right.'

As for me, I am living proof faith and science need not be mutually exclusive, and that they actually enrich each other quite a bit when a person has a curious and inquisitive mind.  Darwinist Christians, unite!

you make me make you

I made a quick jaunt into the city before my DJ shift this afternoon to see Suzanne Husky's delightful show at Triple Base, You Make Me Make You.  She has completely filled the gallery with her soft-sculpture tableaux, representing everything from a hipster art opening to a deforested field to the Berkeley oak-sitters in hand-crafted, stuffed figures.  The level of detail is amazing, and after three revolutions around the space I was still noticing new things like the flying manta ray overhead.  Even though she references many serious environmental and social issues, there are also scenes involving sex and nudity and Mae West.  Me, I just want one of her patchwork trees.  This Friday Triple Base is hosting a dinner lecture in conjunction with Husky's show featuring two local artists that I love, Amy Franceschini and Michael Swaine of Futurefarmers.  It's totally sold out but if anyone reading this has an extra ticket you know where to find me.

In other news, 11 episodes into Berlin Alexanderplatz and I'm starting to hallucinate Fassbinder.  I see everything in sticky oversaturated light, I hear German voices in my head, I obsess over where I could find a ruffled skirt like the one Franz's girlfriend, working girl Mieze, wears.  Franz has now given up any pretense of staying straight, making his living as a pimp and wearing a properly flamboyant striped suit.  But there have been extensive flashbacks to the violent episode that landed him in jail four years previous, and then sure enough we see his anger flare quite dangerously indeed at the end of Part 11.  That tendency toward rage, coupled with his blind naivete, leaves me not quite sure what to make of Franz.  His cluelessness about the complexities of Mieze's line of work even as it supports him and the way he blithely waltzes over to Reinhold's place just to have a chat with the man who caused his injury imply an innocence I'm not so willing to give him credit for.  SFMOMA is showing the last three parts both Thursday evening and Saturday afternoon, and I'm hoping I can make it to one of those screenings.  If not, I have them on DVD.  I'm dying to know how it's all going to turn out.

show 86

playlist

het is voorbij

My team is out of the Euro Cup, Cody's is dead, and I need a nap.  I will, however, be DJing tomorrow:
3 - 6pm PST, Sunday, June 22
KALX Berkeley 90.7fm
I'm also planning to check out Terrorbird's new DJ night at the Missouri later tonight.  And maybe Chapel of the Chimes pretty soon here if I can get in touch with my peeps.  Did I say nap?

inner space

I'm home sick today trying to rest up and recover from the remnants of jet lag and the possible ingestion of some rogue foodstuffs earlier this week.  But that doesn't mean I can't sit at my computer and type away about things that catch my eye, like SPACE.  40 years ago the British artists Bridget Riley, Peter Sedgley and Peter Townsend, inspired after a trip to New York, formed the non-profit SPACE to help London artists find affordable studio space.  Since then they have converted warehouses into "space to create" for artists and innovated the idea of open studios so that artists could sell direct to the public without a gallery middleman.  To celebrate their anniversary SPACE is currently showing art selected from its roster of 600 participating artists, including new work by Riley, Mark Wallinger, and Yinka Shonibare.  Funds from works sold in the show will go to support SPACE's future endeavors, ever threatened by rising property values.  The Guardian has images from the show's installation, as well as pictures of some SPACE artists in their studios.

frida kahlo

The new Frida Kahlo show at SFMOMA has blockbuster written all over it, and I've never been so happy to have my membership as today when I got to jog past the lengthy line and go in through the express entrance.  It's still pretty crowded inside the exhibit, but with a little bit of patience and courtesy it's possible to get up close to everything.  And it's well worth the trouble to do so, because the detail in Kahlo's paintings is astonishing, as when she's depicting a pantheon of deities and other assorted characters in 1945's Moses.  It was these less familiar works from private collections that I really lingered over, though I was also completely blown away by how powerful The Two Fridas is in person, the pain of her relationship trauma made almost physically palpable.  It is impossible to ignore her gaze looking out at you from the many self-portraits, serene even when her heart is spurting blood or when her body is encased in a steel corset.  I don't know many women who wouldn't recognize that look.  I think that is why she has become such an icon, her lack of fear about making her own pain visible in her work, like being the first artist to ever paint about the agony of miscarriage.  I confess the show is a bit smaller than I expected, but it is mighty.  It ends with a couple rooms of photographs from Kahlo's personal collection, and the one of Diego Rivera with a kitten on his shoulder taken by Tina Modotti has to be seen to be believed.  There is also a short video that shows her with Rivera, holding his hand, putting flowers in her hair, radiant.  I might have gotten a little misty-eyed, watching it.  Coming up at the end of July and through August the museum will be screening a series called Angel of Fire: Kahlo, Mexico, and Film, featuring work by the likes of Buñuel and Eisenstein.  I'll be there.

zoo architecture

I'm fairly conflicted when it comes to zoos.  Removing animals from their natural habitats to stand in a cage for the amusement of passers-by seems a questionable practice at best.  Certainly I and many people like myself would visit a zoo because we love animals and appreciate the chance to see some beautiful critters, but then you also get yahoos like the ones at the SF Zoo last winter who think it's a good idea to taunt the animals.  We saw how well that turned out for both man and beast in that particular instance.  But when the animals can roam free like at the Living Desert in Palm Desert, or when their behavior is taken into consideration like at the new Norman Foster-designed elephant enclosure at the Copenhagen Zoo, that makes me feel better.  Reminiscent of Foster's Great Court at the British Museum with its similar glass ceiling, the Elephant House in Copenhagen puts the elephants first, giving them plenty of room to roam as well as the proper environments for their feet and skin, but also provides for their visitors and keepers.  Conservation and education should be a zoo's primary concerns, and Jonathan Glancey describes how good the Copenhagen elephants have it:

Indian elephant numbers are perilously small, with as few as 35,000 surviving in the wild as humans continue to encroach on their land. The new Elephant House at Copenhagen Zoo represents one well-meant attempt at "payback". And elephants, remember, never forget.

World-class architecture for animals; I love it!  I have plans to visit Copenhagen myself in the next few years, but in the meantime I'll just drool over the photos in the Guardian gallery.  They also have some shots of the beautiful tensegrity aviary at the London Zoo that I espied from the top of Primrose Hill.

public service announcement

Apologies to those who don't read LiveJournal...

It has come to my attention that some of y'all are leaving comments on the LiveJournal feed of this blog.  I never see those.  I don't read the feed of my own blog on LJ, and I didn't create the feed so I don't see comment notifications.  I don't think LJ even sends comment notifications on feeds.  So if you'd like me to see your comment, leave it right on Engineer's Daughter.  There's a lovely comments field for each and every post.  You just have to click through.  I don't want to miss what you have to say!

I now return you to your regularly scheduled Thursday.

fully charged

Iron Man - Good dumb fun.  I mean, I'm the type of girl whose favorite superhero movies are Batman Begins and Ang Lee's Hulk, so there were many times I found myself just rolling my eyes at yet another gratuitous explosion.  Jon Favreau doesn't have a subtle directorial bone in his body, shamelessly referencing everyone from Leone to Otomo.  But the movie is worth seeing for Robert Downey Jr. alone as the brainy playboy and weapons heir Tony Stark who stumbles his way into sudden moral realization and then develops a badass armor suit, the better to fight evil.  The nice twist in the tale is that the evil is being perpetrated by the armaments his own company created, a message about the United States' involvement in foreign conflict that came across pretty loud and clear but in my opinion could have been hammered home even harder.  Chances are more people have seen Iron Man than Taxi to the Dark Side though, so I'll just hope something is getting through.  And OK I'm definitely not immune to a little tech fetishization, and the anthropomorphized robots were awesome. 

From comic books to Fassbinder.  I'm still trying to keep up with SFMOMA's screenings of Berlin Alexanderplatz by watching the DVDs at home at my own pace, and I finished Part 7 tonight.  The staging cotinues to rock my world, and I'm noticing when the camera moves around the characters or when it remains still for long stretches of time and just lets the action unfold.  I love Fassbinder's taste for the surreal: the pleasure district Franz ambles through seemingly untempted by the various delicacies on display (possibly because he's just been metaphorically castrated?), the silly scene he acts out with his drinks before downing them, the menacing background music that plays every time Reinhold speaks, an appearance by Udo Kier.  Franz has broken his oath to stay straight after being somewhat naively roped into a burglary job by fruit vendor Pums, and similar to when Adam and Eve ate from the forbidden tree the penalty was immediate.  Despite the way he runs through women (except for the ever-present Eva) I'm starting to develop some affection for Franz, but I'm not sure that's entirely wise.