paintings, writing, and explorations in sound
I stopped because it was pretty in an ugly sort of way. I stayed because it echoed something in myself. An urban ice field, slagged in gravel, oozing salt: Pb, Cu, Cd, Zn, Al, Ca, Na, Mg, and Fe. A permeable ecological interface: traffic, trees, sewer gratings, pedestrians, and sunshine. Taps, sewers, roots, trees, mouths,… Continue reading Ice Flow, an urban video-poem
Seracs are dense, large columns or chunks of ice that form when two crevasses meet on a glacier, or when two glaciers meet. They can also be part of an ice-fall. You can often see seracs at the terminus of a glacier where multiple crevasses meet and chop into each other, forming discrete blocks of… Continue reading phenom: serac
My interest in the science of ice is pretty much instantly displaced by a surge of creative alertness the minute I hear ice music. Ice drum, ice marimba, ice trumpet, ice harp: the sounds are indescribable, ranging from haunting to melodious to intensely beautiful but almost unfriendly. If you hear them out of context… Continue reading ice music: not one, but two! annual festivals
A rare ice phenomenon freaked out some Delta, B.C. residents on Friday May 22, and for good reason: ice chunks the size of volleyballs fell out of a perfectly blue sky, with not a cloud in sight. The story starts like this: Chris Drab was mowing his lawn last Friday evening when he heard what… Continue reading ice in news: megacryometeors fall in Delta, B.C.
The Ice Cubicle has received its first literary contribution about ice! "Numb," a poem by John D. Lund. If you wanted to know about making hand-sewn, carefully crafted chapbooks in Victoria in the late 1990s, John was the guy with the knowledge because he usually had one on the go. We used to cross words… Continue reading ice in lit: painkiller direct
Ice music produces a range of sounds that seem familiar and strange at the same time. There's an airiness in some sounds, while other ice pieces sound almost like glass when struck. In this excerpt from a London concert last December, the Norwegian free-jazz composer and percussionist Terje Isungset plays a set of sculptured ice… Continue reading ice trumpet: Terje Isungset
You’d think it would be simple to write a post defining “moulins” – an ice phenom that appears in glaciers – but instead I’ve spent the last hour completely distracted by the beauty of photographs like this one. No matter how often I see photos of glacial ice formations, the colours and scale blow me… Continue reading phenom: moulin
Ahoy, you scallywags with your rum drinks in hand. Aye, the lot of you! You pirate types have been scheming, feasting & drawing maps for years, talking to the parrot when you overdose on the "arr mateys!" & pine for new tales. Haven't you? But the treasure is still, after all this time, buried and unfound. Maybe… Continue reading ice for pirates
I'm going to have to research these some more - so beautiful! Has anyone reading this ever come across a rotating ice circle, or spinning ice disc? Or know of a scientific name for it? Spinning ice discs are rare geometric beauties that seem to form when a river eddy catches a pan of frazil… Continue reading phenom: spinning ice discs
"Prepare! your toils only begin: wrap yourself in furs and provide food; for we shall soon enter upon a journey where your sufferings will satisfy my everlasting hatred." (Frankenstein) There’s plenty of ice – and need for warm furs – in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. But ever since Boris Kaldoff became the bolt-headed, ragged-necked monster in… Continue reading ice in lit: Frankenstein in the Arctic
meg walker 