Claudia Vaz, desenho animado, 195

"Mais uma vez venho participar desta coluna com uma nova tattoo. Como todas as 7 tattoos essa também tem uma história. Como já contei para vocês sempre pesquiso muito antes de fazer uma tatoo pois acho que além de uma arte, tem que ter um significado, se tatuar por tauar naum rola.

Quando era pequena assistia um desenho que retratava uma tribo indígena protegida por animais que ficavam em forma de estátua de madeira no centro da aldeia, no qual os espíritos saim dela sempre que surgia um perigo eminente aos moradores desta aldeia. Por ser Técnica Ambiental e me identificar com a natureza, uni o útil ao agradável tatuando animais. No Xamanismo, que é um ritual a mãe terra o totem do urso (como é chamado), cada animal tem um significado. No meu totem, o urso é o personagem principal, seguido de um alce, um guaxinin, um puma e um lobo. Espero que gostem!!!"

Claudia Vaz

An Anniversary Unearned

30 April, 2010 HO CHI MINH CITY – Vietnam marked the 35th anniversary of the Communist victory in the Vietnam War with a grand military parade Friday through the former Saigon, with the government basking more in its economic achievements than its historic military defeat of the United States.


While this date is clinically the end of the Vietnam War, we were all aware it was over months even years before. Troops withdrawal had begun nearly three years prior to the ultimate surrender, which was an end only for the U.S. and not for the Vietnamese who had suffered under imperialists of one flag or another for decades.


So it might be hard to remember where you were on April 30th of 1975. It was a Wednesday, I was working the late shift at the pharmacy. We did see a shot of the U.S. embassy above on the CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite, but there was little celebration. The anti-war movement had won but fifty-six thousand Americans and hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese had died in the futile struggle for nothing more than a discredited foreign policy.


Nixon had already been run out of office in disgrace in '74. There was talk of healing the wounds of war but little was being done for the surviving veterans who still today carry the scars of this national hubris. All in all, not an anniversary to celebrate and apparently not a milestone from which the country has learned the lessons of attempting to impose democracy on other cultures.

Tatuagens de Pedro Martins, Reino Unido

Oi pessoal acho o vosso site bastante bom e é sempre bom podermos contar com a ajuda do próximo, meu nome e Pedro sou Português, de Lisboa mas vivo no Reino Unido, tenho foto de algumas tattoos que fiz. Um abraço para todos os amantes da arte.

For Your Alternate Reading Pleasure

I began the month with a picture dump, for symmetry I penultimately end with a link dump, with pictures of course!

I had the pleasure to attend the inaugural seating of the Oakland Secret Kitchen, now it appears Eva has a website, which can only tempt locals and make those far from the Bay drool over their separation from the super secret suppers. I will report as the months and morsels roll on.

Lots of the olde poker crew complain that Amy does not update her personal blog enough any more. While that may be partially true, the quality of her commentary remains outrageously spot on, currently she equates bookies and Goldman Sachs. For those who need a more regular fix, you can always check out her day job. 

Staying in my olde haunts, while deeply immersed in poker I always read Dr. Pauly's Tao of Poker; I now consider it a sinful pleasure. But mirroring my own turn from poker to a more complete, if dyspeptic, view of life; I read his Tao of Pauly with a more camaraderie than before. Pauly plays with more sharp objects than I do and I wear chain mail when I venture out, he is more likely to go commando.

Somewhere in that same universe, the one described as birthed from poker but no longer there; this is where you and I find Brad Willis (Otis to his poker buddies). I get pleasure from reading, not from all reading, but when I do locate that pleasure center, well like any addict I tend to go back there time and time again . . . hence my penchant for Brad's writing on his RapidEyeReality site.

Another olde friend has launched her own website or blog or educational resource or alternate view of life on this rock. Clearly something completely different but I am back where I spent the 90s and far, far from the world both of poker and from what is often referred to as ordinary reality. If you have a passion or an interest in words like indigenous, sustainable, ecological, contra and far-out in a different realm --- you might want to check out Tina's view on the world. 

And now for yet another something completely different. One of my olde college roommates has been playing in a band for over a decade and now they are, well, nearly mainstream or at least moderately profitable, which means they can afford new sheet music. If you are fortunate enough to live the greater Boston area. I can without reservation recommend a night with the Party of 9. Check here for a sample of their faire.

And finally, I don't know him but I was sent a handful of his Hawaiian surf photos and just had to pass them on. You know I have a thing for web art that acts like a cyber flashbulb. The artist is Clark Little, his website is full of incredible images from the island surf. Below just one example.

Priscila Nascimento, reprodução de Laura Costa, 194

"Olá!

Essa é minha segunda tattoo. Assim como a primeira, ela foi feita em novembro de 2009 pelo Tino do Led's Tattoo, um cara super gente boa, experiente e talentosíssimo! Pedi a reprodução desse postal da ilustradora Laura Costa, que faz parte de uma série de postais com imagens de trajes típicos de diferentes regiões de Portugal e de países que falam português. A série pode ser vista nesse link.

Escolhi a imagem que representa a Ilha da Madeira, pois minha família, por parte de pai e de mãe, nasceu lá. A tattoo foi concluída em duas sessões. Na primeira foi feito somente o contorno e, na segunda, o preenchimento. Na minha opinião, o trabalho se destaca pelo grau de detalhe que o artista conseguiu reproduzir. Trabalho muito caprichado, que valeu cada centavo e a dor (que descobri ser suportável!). Esse foi o primeiro passo de um projeto de fazer três imagens femininas que representam minha história e constituem quem eu me tornei. Não vou adiantar as próximas, mas pode deixar que mando fotos quando elas estiverem prontas!

Espero que tenham se interessado pela história!

Grata pelo espaço."

Priscila Nascimento

Full Pink Moon

Tomorrow morning (Wednesday 28th) at 8:18 AM EDT [5:18 PDT] will be the exact moment of the next full moon, which means tonight will be the fullest those of us in the Americas will see the moon this month. I will have to hope for an opening in the clouds later tonight because right now its grey and raining across the San Francisco Bay, hopefully where you are, there will be better viewing.

Early civilizations often named the full moons and the months they appeared. Since I am in currently in a part of the world previously populated by "native american" tribes. I thought it might be interesting to look at those labels. So the Wolf Moon in January is in the Wolf month and the Harvest Moon is well you got that one, right?

Tomorrow's is the Pink Full Moon and that might need some explanation. Apparently the moon namers were mostly Eastern and Northern tribes, so the relevance might be lost on us Californians. The grass pink or wild ground phlox is a widespread flower of spring in many parts of the Eastern U.S., hence the pink of the Pink Full Moon. Other lunar names for this month include: the Egg Moon, the Full Sprouting Moon and for those more coastal tribes -- the Full Fish Moon.

In some years the Full Pink Moon is also the Pascal Moon, which sets the date for Easter. The pagan and now christian usurped spring holiday is held the first Sunday after the first full moon following the vernal equinox. Vernal equinox was March 20th this year, followed by a Full Worm Moon on March 29th, so we had an early Easter this year on April 4th.

Wherever you are, take a peek tonight at the Pink Full Moon. I am sorely tempted to make some Pink Floyd Dark Side of the Moon reference. Well wait, I guess I just did.

Next month, the Full Flower Moon.
---
photo credit: NASA

Physics of a Sunset

About six weeks ago I slept for the first time in the Berkeley apartment, I noticed that first night the sun was setting just a degree or two north of the Marin side of the Golden Gate Bridge. Since that was mid-March the sun was progressing north and I wondered when I would see a sunset directly over the bridge. After reaching its furthest point north on June 21st, a rough estimate would have the sunset back to the bridge around the fourth week of August. So the second part of the question was: just how far does the sun move each day?


I wondered if my distance from the Marin Headlands was a factor (that's the land on the other side of the Bay those of you who don't live around these parts) but I quickly realized that the horizon (where the sun sets) is nearly equidistance from me at all times and the intervening land masses had nothing to do with my calculations. I did, however, correctly intuit that latitude had to make a mathematical difference. Since I was dealing with a tilting planet around a semi-constant axis. I made the only rational decision I could with my decades old calculus.


I went to google.


Between the solstices (approx. June 21st & Dec. 21st), the sunset point changes by about 62.6 degrees in half a year (about 183 days), for an average of 0.34 degrees per day. Near the equinoxes (March 21st, Sept. 21st), the sunset point changes about 0.51 degrees per day; near the solstices, it hardly changes at all. Which means the sunset appears to shift faster around the equinoxes and almost not all all near a solstice.

If you live south of 40 degrees, the change from solstice to solstice is less; if you live north of 40 degrees, the change is greater. Berkeley is at 37 degrees 87 minutes.

The earth's axis is inclined to its orbit by 23.5 degrees. The shift in the sunset point between solstices is roughly given (in degrees) by the formula [2 * 23.5 / cos (latitude)] but this is only an approximation. For a precise calculation, we need to use spherical trigonometry, which I will hold for another time. Nerds may proceed on their own.


What I clearly did notice was that the point of sunset did move quickly right around the time I moved in, near the equinox, in fact by the second week just a line of sight projection seemed to suggest that by the summer solstice the sun would be out of sight to the north. This, of course, assumed a constant movement, which google has help me discover is not the case. Already the daily progression to the north has slowed from the near breakneck half a degree a day when I moved in.


Come summer solstice, I will still have a sunset and somewhere in late August, I will post a week or so of pictures when the sunset beams through the Golden Gate.