Showing posts with label Culture. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Culture. Show all posts

November 19, 2008

The Sea Organ, Zadar, Croatia



I was listening to KUSF today, when the dj started playing this weird Sea Organ music. I had to look it up...

"The musical Sea Organ (morske orgulje) is located on the shores of Zadar, Croatia, and is the world’s first musical pipe organs that is played by the sea. Simple and elegant steps, carved in white stone, were built on the quayside. Underneath, there are 35 musically tuned tubes with whistle openings on the sidewalk. The movement of the sea pushes air through, and – depending on the size and velocity of the wave – musical chords are played. The waves create random harmonic sounds."

That description is from oddmusic homepage, which has some other great instrumentation listed in the gallery section, like the gas tank orchestra and the Excedrin thumb piano.

November 12, 2008

The Oxford Project



From The Oxford Project website:

In 1984, photographer Peter Feldstein set out to photograph every single resident of his town, Oxford, Iowa (pop. 676). He converted an abandoned storefront on Main Street into a makeshift studio and posted fliers inviting people to stop by. At first they trickled in slowly, but in the end, nearly all of Oxford stood before Feldstein’s lens.

Twenty years later, Feldstein decided to do it again. He invited writer Stephen G. Bloom to join him, and together they went in search of the Oxford residents Feldstein originally shot in 1984. Some had moved. Most had stayed. Others had passed away. All were marked by the passage of time.

What emerges is a living portrait of Small Town, USA, told with the words and images of its residents—then and now—and textured by their own words. It tells the compelling story of one archetypal American community—its struggles, accomplishments, failures, and secrets—and how it has both changed, and stayed the same, over the course of the years.