smelling salt (s)
Captain's logbook. Breeze. Night of 7 November 2011.
It was a dark and stormy oh nevermind.
We found a way. Serious. We are finding a way and have charted a course for home! The crew's relief is palpable. I swear. Once loose of the rocks that would have wrecked us to smithering jellyfish, we find ourselves blessed with a magic grace, a couple of grand notions and a new direction: we have turned toward the southern stars. We are no longer at time's mercy - and have instead invited the navigator of that strange energy that marks our passage to below-decks for a good conversation.
The world is going to help make the great \ARK/ work.
That's all for now ... now, no more than whispers and innuendo ... for we must still pass through the cliff-hanging straits ... where narrowing gorges, unknown and rough seas may still await us ~ and somehow our secrets preserve us.
Meantime, the cook is cooking with some serious jalapenos we picked on the shores of Great Drama Island. There is something to be said for being marooned.
Ah yes. The Troyevillites are shining on the Durbanites tonight. Ms Olive Branch needed smelling salts she so was overcome by the sight also of the new map we are using to keep our spirits up. She fell asleep muttering to herself over and over, "perhaps it is us who are the Antediluvians after all that."
Should you wish to read further on the great reference pasted into this log you will find it's source and interesting texts here http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Orlando-Ferguson-flat-earth-map.jpg
smelling salt (s)
[[posterous-content:pid___0]]
Captain's logbook. Breeze. Night of 7 November 2011.
It was a dark and stormy oh nevermind.
We found a way. Serious. We are finding a way and have charted a course for home! The crew's relief is palpable. I swear. Once loose of the rocks that would have wrecked us to smithering jellyfish, we find ourselves blessed with a magic grace, a couple of grand notions and a new direction: we have turned toward the southern stars. We have stopped waiting for time to be on our side and have instead invited the navigator of that strange energy that marks our passage to below-decks for a good conversation.
The world is going to help make the great \ARK/ work.
That's all for now ... now, no more than whispers and innuendo ... for we must still pass through the cliff-hanging straits ... where narrowing gorges, unknown and rough seas may still await us.
Meantime, the cook is cooking with some serious jalapenos we picked on the shores of Great Drama Island. There is something to be said for being marooned.
Ah yes. The Troyevillites are shining on the Durbanites tonight. Ms Olive Branch needed smelling salts as she was overcome by the sight also of the new map we are using to keep our spirits up - here:[[posterous-content:pid___1]]
Should you wish to read further on this great reference you will find it's source and interesting texts at this mark http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Orlando-Ferguson-flat-earth-map.jpg
It is further detailed that the image pasted in the top of this log is of a double ended vinaigrette bottle: one end for smelling salts and one end for perfume. The photograph of the device was taken by Simon Speed in 2010 and given to the world via Wiki Commons because he felt like it as far as we know.
smelling salt (s)
Captain's logbook. Breeze. Night of 7 November 2011.
It was a dark and stormy oh nevermind.
We found a way. Serious. We are finding a way and have charted a course for home! The crew's relief is palpable. I swear. Once loose of the rocks that would have wrecked us to smithering jellyfish, we find ourselves blessed with a magic grace, a couple of grand notions and a new direction: we have turned toward the southern stars. We have stopped waiting for time to be on our side and have instead invited the navigator of that strange energy that marks our passage to below-decks for a good conversation.
The world is going to help make the great \ARK/ work.
That's all for now ... now, no more than whispers and innuendo ... for we must still pass through the cliff-hanging straits ... where narrowing gorges, unknown and rough seas may still await us.
Meantime, the cook is cooking with some serious jalapenos we picked on the shores of Great Drama Island. There is something to be said for being marooned.
Ah yes. The Troyevillites are shining on the Durbanites tonight. Ms Olive Branch needed smelling salts as she was overcome by the sight also of the new map we are using to keep our spirits up - here:
Should you wish to read further on this great reference you will find it's source and interesting texts at this mark http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Orlando-Ferguson-flat-earth-map.jpg
It is further detailed that the image pasted in the top of this log is of a double ended vinaigrette bottle: one end for smelling salts and one end for perfume. The photograph of the device was taken by Simon Speed in 2010 and given to the world via Wiki Commons because he felt like it as far as we know.
100 years
Ms Olive Branch writes in the Captain's logbook:
According to original information 100 years is how long it took Noah and his community to build their \ARK/. Just saying. Just saying that people were living to ripe old ages back then hey and they had time. Perhaps matters only feel more urgent now, though one could perhaps measure exponentiality between then and now by working out some complex mathematics between 100 years and 21 days. Any takers?
Actually most of this sentencing was overhead between cabins that are far too close for comfort but practical under the circumstances (i.e. they ere not recorded in the logbook) and are printed here only as hearsay.
Ms Branch says she is quite taken with the photograph of the mural pasted into this entry. Artist unknown, it too was found in a deep cave on the Wikicommons. Circa 11 century it may be seen by you one day - on the walls of the Abbey Church of Saint-Savin-sur-Gartempe in Poitou, France. Ms Branch hopes so, for all our sakes.
those bodies are not us
Since Thursday morning the entire crew have slept little. Building the \ARK/ in Durban is an exercise in how to make tea for mutineers and a lot of practice walking planks. Not to mention the forms we are completing. There is a form even for walking the plank though we still have to request that those be completed. Ms Olive Branch says she will include one in a Captain's log soon.
We have brilliant new engineers working with our structural engineer Jacek, trying to extract his intelligence (!) from one computer programme into another ... into one that can actually play out the drawings that are needed by the fabricator. In case you missed it, the scale of the \ARK/ is something like 30 metres long, 12 metres wide (not counting side door ramps) and 16 metres high. The scale is also as intense in its minute detail:
It is way more complicated than the drawing above. Every connection has to be produced in three-dimensional detail down to the last mm. This kind of detail is what is referred to above as intelligence.
The files have been sent across the world and Ms Olive Branch has written by dove to say that there is something beautiful about engaging an international community to build the \ARK/ in Africa. She says it is better than just waiting for a tsunami.
Here is the dove. Those bodies are not us.
This image was sourced on the Wikimedia Commons. Engraved by Gustave Doré (1832–1883), and entitled "Le Lâcher de la colombe"
let the animals take charge
We never even had time for a swim.
After the Ark Park we went to Selby's Boardroom at the Elangeni Hotel which Od dreamed was tsunami'd to the third floor a few nights ago. The whole Ark Building team was there and we talked until we were blue in the face:
30m long x 12m wide not counting the 5m ramps to get inside (on each side like little wings) and 16m high more or less at the top of the roof. Steel, machine drawings, spreadsheets, budgets, cranes, cherry pickers, lawn, bollards, tennis court area, diagonal, maintenance, irrigation, gazanias, swathes of colour, good coffee, legacy, revisions, compliances, safety, fire, portaloos, forms, forms, lots of forms.
Then we went to the airport and flew home on mangos over our dream. Jacek was snoring he was so tired and Auds was hysterical because she just loves flying. Ms Branch sat between them.
Here's a little aerial layout ... shot from the mango ... of where you may find the \ARK/ one of these fine days.
was noah scared?
Yesterday it was the steel, today it's the machine drawings. And there is no more time. We wait, our eyes on the cloudy horizon, waiting for Jacek and 1000 hours of work miraculously transformed into days showing every single connection, bolts, welds, detail. Without it we are back to wattle says Ms O Branch.
She also says that if another person mentions 25 days to #COP-17 the voices in her head will come out of her mouth.
The image above, sourced in the murky waters of the Commons, is titled 'The Dove Returns to Noah'. It is gouache on board by James Jacques Joseph Tissot.
CAT O'NINE TAILS
However, we are ready for anything. Ms Olive Branch explains that this is exactly what happens when you (a team of pirates true) make spectacularly big and complicated installations, in a miraculously short span of time that bears little comparison to the depths and fathoms toward which our natures lean. First you get what you pay for. And then you pay for what you get.
As of 4pm yesterday the 1st of November in the year 2011, we had been advised that of the 26tonnes of steel needed to build the \ARK/, only 12odd tonnes of the precious matter was available across the known face of our beloved earth.
During the night, Ms Branch dreamed of building a giant ship made of dried wattle.
At the crack of dawn, the cook arrived with red hair, freckles, a kiss and this hopeful sketch which was duly entered into the log.
It worked. By noon the red flag had waved at the bull and the steel was on its way to Durbs.
And now, to tell the truth, the journey feels ... err ... heavy. As we wait for our Jacek to produce machine drawings in the time it takes to say landlubber.
ms olive branch
As the hot air continues to rise here on the southernmost tip of darkest Africa and the search for some 13tonnes of the finest steel continues unabated, this image is emblazoned in the crews' hearts and minds after it was pulled from the deep waters of the Wikimedia Commons public domain, as if somehow it was our anchor.
We are all Ark Angels.
Signed
mysterious passenger
porky's head
