the vortex, stonks, and sketching
Explainer: the polar vortex
lets clear up a few things. A polar vortex is not some fantastical name made up by the weather channel. A polar vortex is not a singular weather event.
The polar vortex forms every winter due to extreme temperature difference between the equator and the poles (poles get no sunlight, equator gets hot af). To balance out this difference a fast moving ribbon of air (jet stream) forms in the atmosphere around the north pole. This stream, known as the polar vortex creates like a little cold hat (think beret, yarmulke, one of those beanies that doesn’t cover your ears) on top of the earth. When things are chill and ‘normal’, this jet just circles around the north pole. Lately, arctic ice melt has increased the overall temperature in the upper latitudes, which means the temperature difference between the poles and the equator shrinks. Suddenly these extremes that fuel the winter polar vortex are smaller, and in turn the vortex weakens- aka you bought cheap fast fashion beanie and now its too loose and falls down to your eyebrows- and sometimes splits up entirely. Air that is literally artic cold dips down into southern latitudes- resulting the apocalyptic condition we find ourselves in today. There are obviously other irregularities that contribute to this and this is a crude summary, but global climate change is increasing the frequency and severity of artic such slips and divisions.
below is a collection of graphics that may or may not help you understand - (clearly we need some landscape kiddos on the polar vortex graphics committee)
Reading
its not the frozen wind turbines
I will not do an explainer on this one, but this short video from the Washington Post and article from Earther thoughtfully break down the failure of the Texas energy grid.
bowling through a pandemic
“For young people, and for people who can’t or don’t want to spend a lot of money, these bowling alleys are rare all-age-friendly spaces that foster fun without requiring visitors to spend a lot. They are the “third spaces” that provide a place to go outside the workplace or home for birthday parties, dates, after-work drinks, or simply when there is nothing else on deck that night…The feeling of connection and stability that bowling alleys provide — the camaraderie inherent in bowling itself — will be sorely needed after we emerge from our collective isolation.”
Listening
Popcorn Finance
The whole GameStonks fiasco put the fact that most people don’t know much about how the stock market works into the spotlight for about 3-5 seconds. It also reminded us how gendered finance and anything money related is. I promise I’m not going full #GirlBoss corporate feminism on you, I do think personal finance literacy is totally overlooked in our profession (where most graduating MLA classes are majority womxn) and we don’t have a culture of talking about building credit, loans, taxes, investing etc. The Landscape Architecture Podcast instagram account recently put out feelers about starting a group for talking about money which is cool- so get in touch via social media if you are interested. As a twenty-something still figuring out all of this stuff, the Popcorn Finance podcast is my go to for short explainers on basic concepts such as how many bank accounts you should have, investing, online banks and taxes.
‘Paradise’ by John Prine
In the spirit of sharing songs that echo the issues of the climate crisis, I’ve had this song stuck in my head recently. The song is based on Prine’s own life. He tells the tale of environmental destruction from the coal industry in his parent’s home town in Kentucky.
“And daddy won’t you take me back to Muhlenberg County,
Down by the Green River where Paradise lay.
Well, I’m sorry my son, but you’re too late in asking
Mister Peabody’s coal train has hauled it away.”
Dharna Noor’s article, John Prine’s ‘Paradise’ Taught Us Why We Can't Give in to Climate Hell is a must read on this song re climate.
Circling back to my previous email..
miyazaki recs
You all came through with two more recs for Miyazaki movies with great plants/ecology themes: The Secret World of Arietty and Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind
cool clouds
since we are all cloud appreciators now… here is fun cloud in ireland
trees… always the punchline
Upcoming
Black Landscape Symposium Speaker Series
2/18 12pm EST Activism + The Landscape with Andrew Sargeant and CL Bohannon
2/25 6pm EST Design, Development + Policy with Alexa Bush and Elycia Thomas-Knight
Kate Thomas, “Lesbian Arcadia: Desire and Design in the Fin-de-Siècle Garden”
2/18 7:30 pm EST
Walter Hood lecture @ GSD
2/23 7:30 pm EST
SF Urban Film Fest: Where the Pavement Ends Panel Discussion
Festival 2/14-2/21
Event: 2/21 4:30 pm PT
Monthly Sketching Party
I’m introducing this concept here to gauge interest this month as I was inspired by this project ‘Still Here Still Life’ on instagram. The premise: each month I choose a prompt image (usually a tree) and everyone shares their sketch interpretation of the image. Its meant to be a fun way to stop look at a screen and test out different techniques and representation styles. I will share them on here and on insta.
Below is the photo prompt (taken by me in late fall at Storm King Art Center):
abstract it, make a 20x20ft fresco, quilt it, whatever works, but no computers!
p.s. still looking for more contributors, so hit me up over email or DMs if you want to chime in on here or if you want to clue me into events/content