Photo credits: Ramesh Kidangoor
These Rathas (chariots) are the most extraordinary of all the monuments in Mamallapuram. These monolithic shrines near the beach are carved out of granite boulders. There has been much fanciful speculation about them, mostly by people uninformed that similar such monuments exist elsewhere in India. These particular rathas are among the oldest and well-preserved vimana models in Tamil Nadu. Continue reading
Yanacocha Reserve, Ecuador
Wandering around Mattancherry : the vibrant murals covering the walls of Mattancherry Palace as well as each and every street; Dockers carrying sacks of produce urging you to move out of the way; Those boats that look more like works of art…not to mention the art installations on the docks… The streets that surround Spice Harbour, a development Raxa Collective is currently working on, are full of colours, spices and, yes goats… Continue reading
Recently disignated as a World Heritage Site by UNESCO, the Western Ghats and Periyar Tiger Reserve are among India’s prime ecological hot spots The rich and productive banks of the Periyar reservoir attract Wild Dogs that gather near the lake looking for Sambar Deer and Wild Boar. Continue reading
Malcolm Gladwell brings to our attention an economist/planner/idea guy who might not otherwise have found his way to our reading list. In his usual writing style, Gladwell makes the man, by reviewing his biography, irresistible. Toward the end of the review, what is described as one of the economist’s key contributions provides a perfect counterpoint to these ideas. We like this guy because he chooses voice over exit (click the image to the right and it is definitely worth reading to the end):
In the mid-nineteenth century, work began on a crucial section of the railway line connecting Boston to the Hudson River. The addition would run from Greenfield, Massachusetts, to Troy, New York, and it required tunnelling through Hoosac Mountain, a massive impediment, nearly five miles thick, that blocked passage between the Deerfield Valley and a tributary of the Hudson. Continue reading
Periyar is popular for its bio-diversity and rich in butterfly population. The impressive species diversity of 160 butterflies in Periyar underscores the crucial relationship between plants and animals. The Golden Birdwing Butterfly is common in the entire region of the Western Ghats. Continue reading
An article recently published in n+1 examines a utopian futurist form of an idea that seems oddly symmetric with Seth’s posts about the history of exploration using Iceland as a case study. Looking back, we see much in common with explorers, pioneers, pilgrims and adventurous thinkers of all sorts. Looking forward, we are inclined to embrace smart, creative, enthusiastic group efforts to resolve seemingly intractable challenges. Especially when they involve living on boats. We recommend reading the following all the way through:
To get to Ephemerisle, the floating festival of radical self-reliance, I left San Francisco in a rental car and drove east through Oakland, along the California Delta Highway, and onto Route 4. I passed windmill farms, trailer parks, and fields of produce dotted with multicolored Porta Potties. I took an accidental detour around Stockton, a municipality that would soon declare bankruptcy, citing generous public pensions as a main reason for its economic collapse. After rumbling along the gravely path, I reached the edge of the Sacramento–San Joaquin River Delta. The delta is one of the most dredged, dammed, and government subsidized bodies of water in the region. It’s estimated that it provides two-thirds of Californians with their water supply. Continue reading
New research shows that cabbage, carrots and blueberries are metabolically active and depend on circadian rhythms even after they’re picked, with potential consequences for nutrition. Photo by Flickr user clayirving
Smithsonian has an article about a surprising natural phenomenon, which may not impact your feelings but should get your thoughts stirred up a bit:
You probably don’t feel much remorse when you bite into a raw carrot.
You might feel differently if you considered the fact that it’s still living the moment you put it into your mouth.
Of course, carrots—like all fruits and vegetables—don’t have consciousness or a central nervous system, so they can’t feel pain when we harvest, cook or eat them. But many species survive and continue metabolic activity even after they’re picked, and contrary to what you may believe, they’re often still alive when you take them home from the grocery store and stick them in the fridge. Continue reading
Tompkins County, NY
Tholpavakoothu
Tholpavakoothu is a traditional form of shadow art using leather puppets. It is an important part of the temple festivals in Kerala, especially in Palakkad. The performance spans seven to 21 days; the belief being that the Devi witnesses the performance. Continue reading
Ponies for export, Reykjavík. Collodion print by Frederick W. W. Howell. Bequest of Daniel Willard Fiske; compilation by Halldór Hermannsson; Cornell University Library Rare & Manuscript Collections.
Before jumping into the expeditions of William Watts into the Vatna Jökull (which, by the way, is pronounced /’jœ:kytl/ or “yokutl” as opposed to the “yokull” that most of us might expect), I thought I’d share some of the interesting and amusing impressions of British and French travelers regarding their encounters with the famous ponies and dried fish over and over again around the island.
This post will cover the horses and the next will examine the stockfish. There are a large number of images in the archival collections I am exploring this summer, and it would interesting enough just to share those and let them speak for themselves. But my task is to harvest history, so for now I will resist images and focus on ideas (sharing more images as the ideas take shape). Continue reading
Courtesy of Jairaj Singh
A customer at the Fact & Fiction bookstore in New Delhi.
Our friends at the India Ink blog site offer a cross-generational look at the world of books in our part of the world:
In the summer of 1984, two years before I was born, my father, Ajit Vikram Singh opened a small corner bookshop, Fact & Fiction, in South Delhi’s Vasant Vihar area, Continue reading
Our newspaper bag unit is a permanent, exciting work-in-progress. Using upcycled newspapers provides us with an alternative to plastic bags in our two shops at Cardamom County– the Raxa Collective store and the via kerala shop. It is also a way to work with more people in our community. We have been working at making this unit a sustainable entreprise with many collaborators since the beginnings of Raxa Collective in 2011.
This week Isabel and I continued to survey coffee producers and visit cafetales (shade coffee plots) while we also began interviewing ex-coffee producers (people who planted coffee but either have stopped harvesting it or never did) and conducting more conversational, open-ended interviews with coffee producers. Additionally, a baby cow was born on the farm and we have officially started to become sick of rice, beans, and soup.
Last week I wrote about the technical problems with shade coffee. This week I’ve learned much more about the social elements constraining it. One of the most common things we heard people say this week was that they don’t have time to work on their cafetales. By this they mean that they don’t weed it, fertilize it, or spray it to control pests and diseases. All they do is simply harvest it when it’s ready. It also means that they’re not willing to give up time from their other crops to dedicate to coffee. “Si carga, carga. Si no carga, no carga.” If it produces, it produces. If it doesn’t, it doesn’t. This attitude shows a serious lack of commitment and is also preventing people from seeing the true economic potential of this valuable crop. In our interviews we’ve been asking what people’s main sources of income are, and not one person has mentioned coffee.
Why is this the case? Largely, because of subsistence agriculture and sugarcane. Here in Barrio Nuevo, cane is king. Continue reading
Photo credits: Sreekuttan
Monsoon rains are very much linked to the economy and ecology of Kerala; almost 85 percent of the state’s annual rainfall is received during that period. The slopes of the Western Ghats are among the places in India that receives the highest amount of rain. According to Ayurvedic theory, monsoon is the best season for rejuvenation therapies. It is the period when the atmosphere remains dust-free and cool. The Monsoon also plays an important role in the healthy growth of spices and crops like Cardamom, Pepper and Coffee. Continue reading
MS Türanor SolarPlanet will measure emissions in the open ocean. Photograph: Alex Hofford/EPA
The Guardian is reporting on a floating phenomenon worth a look if you want to peer into the future of climate change science:
The solar-powered boat docked in Battery Park City in New York could easily have been packed off to a museum as a relic.
Los Quetzales, Panama
