A place to share things that inspire wonder and awe… New wonder agents always welcome, site still in development.
This is where we can put training information for our fearless Wonder Agents across the world.
Some will be the how-to stuff for adding things… particularly for those not so familiar with the details of the online world and it’s many cavities of text and image wrangling and publishing.
Other stuf will be the how-to of wonder collecting… this part is very much up for discussion — and will likely evolve as we go.
More to come.. !
Love from the Bureau.
This image is not so revealing…wonders often aren’t….but if you could look closely you would see the words at the bottom of this wonder-shop window read ‘Purveyors of Language, Arts and Other Wonders‘. Now that’s the style of shop I like to buy my groceries at.
Autumn afternoon light in seaside shack
Autumn is a purrrfect season to fall in love. Just now I was sitting at home on the sofa with my heart, all full and blissed, when I saw the autumn afternoon light arrive on the wall of my seaside shack and with it, all the possibilities in the world.
Have to share this wonderful piece of art with you guys. Made by Tristan Perich for Mikrogalleriet
300 small speakers drape the walls in linear and planar clusters, each emitting tones tuned microtonally to span distinct frequency intervals. these dense clusters of sound sources are the subject of a series of musical compositions, continuing perich’s investigations into the foundations of electronic sound. Each speaker, emitting a single, primitive 1-bit tone, becomes a microscopic voice in the total composition, substituting individual pitch for larger sonic masses.
Agent Patapata here introducing myself as a collector of Wanderlust i.e., the poetic pieces found whilst wandering worlds….because there are a few out there….poetic pieces and worlds!
To begin, I present you with a heart, shaped by the spinning of a grand planet, the grinding of tiny sand particles and the lyrical lap of a beautiful blue ocean, a wonder indeed!
A little wonder collected by Agent Patapata during her Wanderlust
Energy from chemical reactions run this Soil Clock by Marieke Staps, as the potato clock similarly demonstrates. Though the idea of the reaction of copper and zinc to create power, with soil as a conducive material, caught my imagination and curiosity. A DIY something to experiment with at home?
Power by reaction.
From the description of her Soil Powered Lamps:
Soil naturally contains energy conducive metals like zinc, copper and iron, and microbial fuel cells (sometimes referred to as an earth batteries) are capable of converting electrolytes in soil into usable energy. Dutch designer Marieke Strap’s Soil Lamp uses conductive plates made from copper and zinc buried within the soil to provide constant and (nearly) eternal light for an LED bulb. Maintaining a Soil Lamp is as simple as watering a plant – just feed it a splash of water every now and then to keep the energy flowing.
The guises of the wonder agents come in many forms...
One particular wonder had been hiding during much of the trip… under the personal layers of one undercover wonder agent also on the Slow Flow trip…
A demonstration of eel energy.
One of my favourite articles I have found in The Wonder Book of Wonders so far is that of this demonstration of a 220-volt electric lightbulb being powered by connection to the head and tail of an electric eel.
A book found at the Ahu Ahu Ohu abandoned commune on the Slow Flow trip.
On a hike into the Ahu Ahu Ohu, an abandoned commune upriver from Atene on the Whanganui River, this book was found upstairs in the common room of the former community. John Milnes, a former member of the community, advised I take it with me lest it become firewood there. It is now joining my library of wondrous things I am collecting for the Miranda House.
The commune's community building where the book was found.
A sound file of the amazing thunder we encountered on one of the last days on the river during Slow Flow. Some geeky research here about the physics of thunder and lightning involving the rapid expansion of rapidly heated air.
[ Audio to be added ]
Hearing the sounds and stories behind many maori instruments made for a magical evening.
Hearing the haunting sounds and stories of the many taonga puoro (musical instruments of maori culture), was a lovely gift from Jerome Kavanagh of Hui-a one still gentle evening at Mangapapapa.
[ Audio to be added ]
Jonah and Julian share a moment of wardrobe madness and glee.
Displays of human inventiveness abounded as we gathered for an evening meal requiring formal attire, Whanganui river style.
The purple grass at Whitianga marae site twinkled spectacularly at night under the LEDs of my headlamp.
We arrived at Whitianga on our first night of Slow Flow, on a misty, eerie evening. Later that night I found myself amazed at the shimmer and twinkle of some incredibly water-laden grass, glowing purple under the LEDs of my headlamp. These are the same grasses by daylight.
There are old stories of a salt tree from the many people who once lived near to Whitianga and Whakahoro of the upper Whanganui river. Local inhabitants would to go to this tree to gather salt for cooking. Deeply inland from the ocean, might it be that due to the river once being a seabed, that there is an aquifer of water below this tree that has retained salt deposits from this time?
Subterranean anatomical caves of audible complexity. A phenomenon to behold when lying within 5 feet or even 25 feet in some cases, from the snorer.
You can listen here to the Soaring Snoring one of our fearless leaders on the Slow Flow trip.
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