The World’s Fountains

In a parallel Universe, I once wrote a blog for a local Louisville company: Pond And Fountain World. (link included). In so doing, it has allowed me to study and roam around, looking at an absolutely fascinating subject. Not only does the blog feature what they sell – currently-retailed pond and fountain accouterments, including an excellent selection of pre-made fountains, ready to deliver and install – but it also gives me the right and reason to explore the entirety of the world of fountains, internationally.

Wow! What a treat. Below from The University of Connecticut’s Waterbury Campus:

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The designs of those who build these things come from a creativity one can only guess at in its artistic purity, apparent freedom and in their sometimes overal simple immensity. “Mind-boggling” comes to mind as we tour the most outlandish and absolutely breath-taking water-art sculptures, sitting as so many do in the public squares of our major cities. From the work of Lawrence Halprin in Portland, Oregon –

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My great good friend, Steve, gets to sit at the bottom of Halprin’s Ira Keller Fountain in the face of the seeming vastness of the fountain while it crashes down, so nearby:

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These gorgeous civic fountains are now becoming less formal and more amenable to “audience participation” these days – a welcome respite from an overly-litigious society in general, which I welcome wholeheartedly:

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Here is Halprin’s stunning blend of  “The Natural” and “The Modern” work at the FDR Memorial in Washington, DC, shown here at night –

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Fountains were initially creations which were fed from aqueducts – the original plumbing apparatus, dating back at least 2,500 years. Often, these aqueducts would send water downwards, creating the pressure which allowed the newly-minted fountains in Greece, for initial historical example, to spurt water out for public and private consumption. Fountains and public water sources, fed by the rivers, lakes and streams in the mountains, began appearing around 260 BC in Ancient Greece. The notion of “siphoning” became pioneered and created works which could allow water to run or not run, depending on opening and closing a valve.

In the end, aqueducts would literally terminate in city centers or plaza’s where the resulting pressure and large quantities of water supplied could be more fully appreciated by attaching art work and form to the terminus.

The Trevi Fountain, in fact, Rome’s famous “Fountain Of Love” featured by Hollywood so many times, was just this sort of product.

Trevi Fountain at Night

(Picture credit here to Tour Of Rome, along with the quote below, capsulizing better than I could, a brief history of its construction.)

“There had been a source of water at this site for over a thousand years, although it was not until 1485 that Pope Nicholas V commissioned Gianlorenzo Bernini to create the fountain, but the project had to be abandoned when Pope Urban VIII died in 1644. Then in 1732, Niccolò Salvi was employed by Pope Clement XII to continue with the work, with the result being the Baroque masterpiece that completely dominates the little square today.”

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For me, it is the mixture of “chthonic” elements – fit for the Gods alone – which assemble in the primordial primitive juxtaposition of the  jagged rocks which also seem  to be emitted by and to be so “at one” with the building behind. Like our own consciousness, we see a remarkable blend of the absolutely most Elemental mixed with the modern human and more mundane elements of muscle, posture and expressions. A fountain like this hits our perceptions in mental regions usually reserved for art. But then, who said fountains are not art?

Another personality who found the Lunatic Fringe of Modern Fountains is a Japanese designer named Isamu Noguchi. Below is his what is arguably his most famous work – his famous “Nine Floating Fountains”, constructed for the Osaka World’s Fair in 1970.

Here it is in daylight, obviously on a windy day –

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And below is the night-time look for which it has become so famous:

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But Mr. Noguchi was not done. He obviously loved the impractical and the utterly whimsical – and he was a master at it:

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He also had a definite sense of humor!

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We owe debts of gratitude on an unimaginable scale to the artists who have taken our technologies and our appreciation for Water Art to absolutely absurd but-always-interesting lengths.

Some of them have driven cities and countries to drink! Take Mr. Vaillancourt’s concrete irritation to the city of San Fransisco’s more “proper” sensibilities as an example. “Please”, many said, “take it!”. 😉

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Some folks just need a sense of humor!

Can’t we all be friends?

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Fountains are very nearly a “First Love” for me. It would not take much to get me all the way there, either.

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Can I get some Love for the Paris Stravinsky Fountain???

No???

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Unique Public Fountains & Spaces

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My best friend Steve settles in, hard by the Ira Keller Fountain in Portland, Oregon, during their wonderful visit there a couple years back. The Keller Fountain offers a full body experience which can be especially refreshing on hot Summer days. Fountains such as this were designed to enjoy up close and personal, a wonderful civic experience amid the workaday world and the hubub therein.

Public edifices are like smiles – no one forces you use them. They are a response to an urge to appreciate ourselves and therefore make absolutely no real rational or intellectual sense. Like anything which is beautiful, the wonder is implicit as we adore what we see. I believe beauty lights us up inside by its contagious nature. I think that’s why God invented beautiful men and women. I mean, you can have too much mud, let’s face it.

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Below, we catch a stunning work of man in this constructed waterfall and a couple of huge lakes on the Papa John’s Pizza campus in Louisville. It’s a wonderful place to walk, with a landscape just completely enriching to experience. The scale is pretty much off the charts – an installer’s Paradise, with tiny little projects abounding.

Catching the corporate Paradise urge, enlivening our outdoors with splendid works of architectural and constructed resemblances of Nature Herself, we go to Seattle and visit the amazing waterfall built by my friends at Teufel Nurseries for the Microsoft Campus. This one needs to be seen to fully appreciate.

I’m a huge urban fountain fan. I love seeing a bustling population all buzzing around these “human flypaper” structures. Humans are plain drawn to water – it’s a trait we probably manifested back when we were fish – (I’ll ask a couple of my older friends to verify) – our children seem to believe water is magical, even when contaminated with mud. It’s just that cool!

So what we get with these designs are not just the wonder of water itself, acting on us in all of water’s ineffably strange and subtle manners, but we also get to grade the structures made to support it all. This one below generally gets an “A”.

I guess it deserves it. 😉

This one below – The Magic Fountain – is in Barcelona – just another of the many reasons I need to see that town. The lighting alone on this stunning public fountain is absolutely Galactic Class:

Breath-taking, really, isn’t it?

Fun-loving civic projects – both publicly and privately-funded provide more grist for the Beauty Mill. For the vast majority of us, a puddle can be a world in and of itself. When placed in the hands of ambitious designers, they take on another entire realm of Wonder, such as this Singapore Fountain, the largest in the World:

It just doesn’t stop. Fun, vibrantly colorful, aided by lighting and engineering trickery, we look at such things and laugh. Their reason to exist is so tentative, yet so enabling for us all to catch our Souls as they smile.

 

Barbecue – Owensboro Style

Officially known as “The International Barbecue Festival”, what once began as the world’s very most original Barbecue Festival (at least I had ever heard of), has become a well-oiled machine of smoke, smoke and more smoke and a carnivorous spectacle of truly epic proportions. The competition is lively and extremely well-attended as various teams prepare a uniquely Owensboro selection of meats and the Kentucky (gumbo-like) Burgoo with extreme focus and preparation. It’s a free picnic for thousands, with a truly delicious reward sold for less than restaurant fare – just better. The festival is an unending people-watching thrill complete with a hundred sideshows from music to special custom and restored cars as well as those from the local race track, Owensboro’s legendary preparation grounds for NASCAR and even other racers such as Darryl and Mike Waltrip, the various Green brothers, Jeremy Mayfield and Nicky Hayden, world champion Gran Prix motorcyclist.

With an excellent Bluegrass/Gospel garage band behind me, my contribution to pictorial self-love below. Strains of plaintive Hank Williams (Sr.) tunes and gospels such as “I Saw The Light” poured out of these geezers like nobody’s business, occupying my friend Jason and myself no end as their sincerity blasted out like manna from Heaven. Yes, that is a barbecue stain on my sweatshirt.

Owensboro has long been known at least regionally as a center of excellent barbecue work. The Old Hickory Restaurant and the Moonlite Barbecue Restaurant have existed for decades, run by families who’ve had 3 and 4 generations plying their barbecue expertise to a grateful public. The surrounding farms of Owensboro have always supplied endless amounts of products, forming  the ingredients of the famous Burgoo, from the corn and onions to the Mutton, pork and chicken which form the 2 and 3 meat recipes of this incredible dish. Below, competitors prepare the soup for judging and for the public. It is Sunday morning now – I’m home and my stomach is still distended from all the “Judging” we did. 😉

As can be readily seen, this is no average soup-making.

The levels of production were truly off the charts. Below is the prep for the finished barbecued chicken, a major draw. It turned out – which I did not know – there was a specific time for a literal “finishing” of the process, after which the cooking part of the event would shut down. Chicken seemed to be the criterion, although there was ample pork and mutton being barbecued. Nevertheless, people such as ourselves gnoshed our way through and up until the magical 3 PM Chicken Deadline. We tried the Burgoo’s of the 2 past champions and were able to clearly declare a winner – which was filling and way cool. Room was left for further competitive devours, but it was becoming a close thing in my belly, frankly.

The Owensboro Fog of pure hickory smoke was alive and nearly overwhelming for those of us who got up close and personal to the teams doing their work. Needless to say, I still reek and the inside of my nose remembers the event in vivid detail.

Easily the most impressive part, as we toured the hard work of these teams, was the professionalism and coordination as they turned 30 whole chickens at a time using what looked like fence panels, rotating them over the large burning hickory chunks below. The temporary setups all seemed rather easy to assemble and break down, burning away in the middle of the street when completed, surrounding the local county Courthouse.

At the end – after 3 – the tear down commenced and was equally fascinating.

The thick layer of sand laid in as they built the walls of their cavernous pits protected the city street below as the hickory flamed out above it. Within two hours, the wood had burned down to ashes, a Bobcat came in and scooped the remainder of the affair into a truck or two and there was no trace of the event, outside of the lingering smell, a not-unpleasant smoky odor which will probably remain for a century or so. I mean, THAT was some smoke!

I brought home the First and Second Place chicken, lol. I wonder if I have the fortitude to attack it this early?

Oh, inasmuch as the entire event is so close by the Smothers Riverpark, I took my friend Jason around to check it out. It is doing very nicely indeed.

NOT in the park, but well worth a picture, was this cluster of Irises we encountered on our walk in. Something looking this good deserves a gratuitous inclusion, just for looking so ridiculously pretty.

Musings Among The Fading Blooms

While waiting for Summer, remarkable things happened. Spring sprang, then sort of faded like some sort of temporary enthusiasm of Mother Nature’s. Her blooms were absurdly rich this year, all struggling to get there at the same time, much like the huge and , clamorous 20 horse Kentucky Derby field – an event which always signifies real Spring to Kentuckians.

It lent this amazing philosophical sense to my morning walk around the hood where I found myself concerned about the nature of permanent things – which led to musings about more temporary things….things such as me, for example. Which led to musings about aging. Yes, this is going to be a completely depressing subject today because you just know aging is always such a draggy thing to speak of. After all, there are supposedly no merits to the process and, in the end, you accomplish a few steps closer to Death and not much more, according to Conventional Wisdom we are all so terribly well aware of. I mean, we read, don’t we?

I turn 65 this July 6th. I can’t even believe it. Thus, all this leads to pondering what gifts and what grotesqueness are in store those who are aging and crossing barriers of retirement and Social Security eligibility. We all understand the great sustenance a family provides. Not that I have any personal experience with this (ahem, daughter) but Grandparents experience some pretty cool emotions in welcoming tiny little people into the world who are direct descendants  There is also some righteous pleasure in watching our children run to repeat the foolishness we also experienced in child-raising. How divine to watch the advent of unconditional love – it’s really quite the event.

But what else is there? Honestly, is aging merely a bitterness, the Cosmic Joke played on the Eternally Young where rude Nature intrudes with palsies, weaknesses, poorer skin tone and occasional forgetfulness? Is God or Nature so cruel? Or is our culture so obsessed with Youth and the marketing of us all that we devalue that which doesn’t sell? Are we used up after work is over? How angry should we be as our faculties begin failing and we become more susceptible to pain and, often, illness? I’m not saying for a moment I am there whatsoever, but I certainly know those who are.

Eric Hoffer:  “The misery of a child is interesting to a mother, the misery of a young man is interesting to a young woman, the misery of an old man is interesting to nobody.”

Now how true is that? We expect misery and it offers us the theory that allows us to ignore their semi-chronic complaints. I think that leads to Hoffer’s next quote:

“The best part of the art of living is to know how to grow old gracefully.”

So here we land. Back to where we started.

Social Reality

Naturally, I have another take on what we who are aging – gracefully or not – can offer. In fact, I have quite a lot to say on the matter. Primarily – first and foremost – I have to believe it would be a shame for the accumulated wisdom inherent in this crowd of amazing people to go un-addressed and unstated. In fact, I have a hard time imagining a bigger scale of robbery to those who need it most – those younger than ourselves. The scale of achievements accomplished by my friends dwarfs me at my least humble moments.

What many of us have endured and overcome is yet another entire realm of courage and fortitude. Sure many of us have lived reasonably predictable lives – we followed the conventions and rituals of career and family unquestioningly. For those of us to whom this applies, it could very well be that you took your time growing up, yet here you are, standing with giants. Will you enjoy this moment or, once again, take the easy way?

I grow tired, personally, of our quiet. I feel obligated to at least make an effort to take part in complicated and contentious elements of life. When I watch the political processes of this truly blighted Century act out, I cringe at the amazing level of not only a self-destructive compliance but in the ignorance passing as some sort of wisdom.

I lament the loss and subsequent escape of common sense. Common Sense should be a Player, for Pete Sakes. I yearn for the day when Twain’s quote about “Truth” once again means something:

“A lie travels halfway around the world by the time the Truth puts its shoes on.”

It is my conviction that we are abdicating our responsibility in maintaining an intellectual balance in the affairs of our critical thinking as a country and society. Since it sort of “got away from us” during all the recent bizarre cultural wars inspired by nothing more than politics, I believe we should act to “get it back”. I am hoping our restlessness as older folks who actually experienced the history so often being misinterpreted by agenda-driven politicians will inspire us to at least laugh!

I feel some responsibility for what comes next. This is not about voting or parties – it’s about experience, common sense and hopefully the return of some compassion as a weapon most effective of all in the maturation of an entire people.

Because what older folks learn in the end is that humility and compassion complete the journey and make it all mean something.  Many of us are learning this. It leads to yet another relevant Hoffer quote:

“Compassion is the antitoxin of the soul: where there is compassion even the most poisonous impulses remain relatively harmless.”

I could – and will – go on. Let’s say our piece, is what I’m saying. To those around us and on social media. It is “growing old gracefully” to express yourself.