Nature's Morphology

Sometimes, strolling through Kentucky's wilderness, I'm struck by the imagery in ordinary nature scenes that can restimulate reactions in the mind. Psychologists call it pareidolia but I think there's something more to it than that. Jung was trying to understand it. Rupert Sheldrake came closer. Maybe The Wizard of Oz got it. Lost definitely did.

Forward is This Way

There's still a few formatting tweaks forthcoming (the paragraphing is unintentionally oddly spaced out) but my first piece for KyForward is live on the web now! Woo-hoo!

I'm excited to be on board as a part of the KyForward team, because their positive, constructive outlook meshes well with my own stubborn views on newsmedia sensationalism and real winning (as opposed to Charlie Sheen's hijacking of the word.)

KyForward is a brand new site - so new, in fact, it's still under construction and beta as all get out, but come along for the ride with me and watch it continue to grow and flourish in the days and weeks ahead.


I'll be doing a weekly column for KyForward doing my usual unusual thing, as well as spotlight features on notable Kentuckians who are out there achieving, accomplishing, and acting rather than doing nothing. If that sounds like somebody you know - heck, maybe it sounds like you! - call me, email me, send me smoke signals.

Consider the Cobblestones

One from my Visual Slushpile photo blog:


In downtown Louisville, under every street, the original cobblestone streets are hidden beneath a layer of pavement. And beneath those cobblestones is soil that has not been seen by the eyes of man since the mid-1800s.

Anything that someone chose to hide under a cobblestone in the 19th century, or buried in the ground even before the cobblestone streets were laid, has been hidden very well indeed for a long, long time.

Just you think on that.

Stolen Italian Icon Found at Speed Museum

Very interesting piece today from the New York Times about a painted gatefold icon that was stolen in Italy in 1971. 40 years after it vanished, it turned up in a dusty back storeroom of Louisville's Speed Museum.

The Speed's not to blame, though - they acquired the piece from a reputable gallery in New York for $38,000 in 1973, just two years after it had been purloined. How it got to that gallery is a matter that is still being investigated by the Department of Homeland Security. (Seriously? Since when do they handle 1970s cold-case files of burglaries in Italy?)

According to the article:

Under a settlement negotiated by the United States Attorney for the Eastern District of New York and announced on Monday, the Speed will soon turn over the painting to Homeland Security, which will transfer it to Italian cultural authorities. (The collector who owned the painting in 1971 has since died, and the authorities will be responsible for determining who is entitled to it now.)

Before that, however, the museum will show the painting, which it has not exhibited for at least a decade, from June 9 to July 3 as part of a small exhibit that will, according to the museum’s director, Charles L. Venable, “contextualize it in a larger world of provenance research and repatriation of works of art.”

Storm, 5/23/2011

Two summers ago, I found myself caught in a spooky pre-tornadic storm as I made my way East on Shelbyville Road and then moved sideward to Westport. It happened all over again today.



Photographs rarely convey just how creepy some storms can be; though these examples aren't as dramatic looking as some of my other storm images, the knowledge that this was part of the same weather system that destroyed Joplin, MO gave me extra incentive to hustle home ASAP.

Genny's Diner

One from our Whitewashed Windows and Vacant Stores blog:


Although I rarely ate there, Genny's Diner was a Louisville tradition and I will miss it. Their deep-fried "frickled" pickles were a unique local item which you don't see every day.

Owner Frank Faris, after years of battling with the city over his property next door, has been put out of business. Part of it is his own fault: he steadfastly refused to make ordered upkeep improvements to the home, despite court orders to do so. But I think Faris got a raw deal in the end: when he announced his intention to bulldoze the house to make more parking spaces for his diner, a group of concerned citizens got together and colluded to hurriedly designate the dump a "historic home", specifically so he couldn't do what he wanted to with his own property.

And when he still refused to cooperate, a judge ordered him to sell the house. And when he couldn't find a buyer, the judge actually ordered him to give it away for free. Can a judge really do that? Well, this one did, and I didn't hear many people squawking about it.

The way the whole thing turned out for Faris leaves a very unsavory taste in my mouth. It's true that his own behavior is why it all ended in drama and Faris' arrest, but I nevertheless sympathize with Faris for trying to conduct himself as if he was still living in an era when people were allowed to do what they wanted to with their own personal property. Those days are gone, and with their passing we've all lost something bigger than fried pickles.

A gourmet ice cream place called the Comfy Cow is slated to take over the Genny's Diner location. Ironically, they're going to bulldoze it and start over with a new building of their own.

Denunzio's Double Statues

Off the top of my noggin, I'm hard-pressed to think of another instance where I've seen a grave with two larger-than-life statues, one above the other on a second tier.


This is Joseph Denunzio in Louisville's St. Louis Cemetery; from the dignified pomp of his marker's presentation, you'd be easily led to assume this is the grave of the former mayor of Louisville who shares a similar name - but actually, this Joseph Denunzio was apparently an importer of fruits and vegetables, and they were related. He founded the Denunzio Fruit Company at 108 W. Jefferson Street, which continued to exist at least into the 1940s.


But according to John Kleber's Encyclopedia of Louisville, "his grave monument at Calvary Cemetery shows him in the pose of an auctioneer with produce at his feet." Waitaminute. This is St. Louis Cemetery, not Calvary, and I don't see any produce at his feet, Boss. What gives? Has Kleber made a typo (hey, it happens)? Or could this be our third Joseph Denunzio? This must be the guy, because he does look rather auctioneer-like, and he's clearly leaning against a stack of fruit crates.


The second statue in the stack is the traditional woman-with-anchor Statue of Hope, from the Catholic Virtues (Faith, Hope, Charity) which are in turn derived from 1 Corinthians 13:13:

And now abideth faith, hope, and love, even these three: but the chiefest of these is love.

I'm not sure how "love" and "charity" (caritas) got morphed into it along the way, because the actual original text says ἀγάπη, which is a concept unto itself and loses something in the translation. (ἀγάπη, or Agape, has been defined as "an intentional response to promote well-being when responding to that which has generated ill-being" - in other words, outdoing negativity by throwing more positivity at it.)

Since the traditional Catholic representation of Charity sometimes depicts a woman with children gathering fruit, I would have thought that would have been a more appropriate choice for Louisville's premier fruit purveyor.

Hopscotch House

The Kentucky Foundation for Women operates a fantastic retreat for women called Hopscotch House, located in a remote rural area East of Louisville. And when I say remote, I mean remote. Getting there like is something of a challenge, like following the route to Snuffy Smith's cabin - going through a winding maze of roads that lead to a narrow path filled with potholes, rocks, and cow-catchers. And in the wintertime when the steep roads are covered in ice, it's nearly impossible. (I know all this because I have given rides out there to a friend who makes use of their facilities, and helped her haul all her stuff inside.)

The Hopscotch House is strictly for women, and even more specifically, if their own self description is to believed, it's really mostly about feminist women:

"Hopscotch House was purchased by the Kentucky Foundation for Women in 1987 and was first used by a group of women writers known as the Wolf Pen Writer’s Colony. In the early 1990’s Hopscotch House became available to other women artists and women’s groups. Over the years, Hopscotch House has served thousands of women including artists, activists, feminists, eco-feminists, art critique groups, drumming circles, quilting groups, social justice groups, girls’ empowerment groups, arts organizations, and social service organizations.

Hopscotch House retreats and residencies provide time and space for Kentucky women artists to create in an environment that inspires, nurtures, and rejuvenates. Stays there encourage self-exploration and personal growth through the land and house resources and the company of other women... Hopscotch House is also a place to engage with a community of feminist social change artists and activists who convene in a nurturing environment. Many people find the sharing of common interests and goals in their work to be a great source of support and inspiration."

But fear not, those of you out there in reader-land who are either cursed with, as Robert Louis Stevenson said, "the misfortune to be a man", or are among my female compatriots whose idea of feminism has more in common with Dita Von Teese and Poison Ivy Rorschach than, say, Susan Brownmiller or Trish Wilson. I'm here to take one for the team, and go behind the scenes with a pictorial tour to show you what few male eyes have ever seen.

Karst Conservancy's Cavernous Concert

A couple summers ago, I lamented here that Bluegrass concerts inside Rockcastle County's Great Saltpetre Cave, once a great Kentucky tradition, are no longer being performed.


Good news for modern man: the Bluegrass is back! Coming this August, the Music in the Mountain fundraising show will finally put the cave's Echo Auditorium, a huge underground chamber that makes a perfect concert hall, to good use again. The show will feature music by the Renfro Valley Performers doing their "Front Porch Pickin' Show", and the proceeds go to helping maintain and preserve the region's amazing caves and karst.

The show is August 20 at pm, and tickets must be purchased in advance. Call 800.765.7464. Map and directions are here.

(photo at top by Nathan Williams.)

Kentucky Case Ends In Greater Police Powers

The Supreme Court, in an 8 to 1 decision, has given police greater powers to force their way into your homes, thanks to a Kentucky marijuana case.

Police officers who loudly knock on a door and "hear sounds that suggest evidence is being destroyed" may now legally break down the door and enter your home without a search warrant. That's right, without a search warrant. And what defines "sounds that suggest evidence is being destroyed"? Well, the police get to determine that for themselves. In other words, they've been given carte blanche to do whatever they want. (Like they don't already in some places.)

Residents who "attempt to destroy evidence have only themselves to blame" when police burst in, said Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. I think it's amazing that Mr. Alito is already assuming, hypothetically, that the police are automatically in the right and that evidence was really being destroyed. If someone flushes a toilet, does that count as "sounds that suggest evidence is being destroyed"? Or running their sink's garbage disposal?

Historically, police have not been allowed to just bust their way into a home without a search warrant. That's now officially over. Just like a lot of other things.

The Los Angeles Times tells how we got here:

It began when police in Lexington, Ky., were following a suspect who allegedly had sold crack cocaine to an informer and then walked into an apartment building. They did not see which apartment he entered, but when they smelled marijuana smoke come from one of the apartments, they wrongly assumed he had gone into that one. They pounded on the door and called "Police. Police. Police," and heard the sounds of people moving.

At this, the officers announced they were coming in, and they broke down the door. They found Hollis King smoking marijuana, and put him under arrest. They also found powder cocaine. King was convicted of drug trafficking and sentenced to 11 years in prison.

Did you catch that? They "heard the sounds of people moving." That's all. These idiot cops broke down the door - and the WRONG door at that - because they "heard the sounds of people moving." And they got away with it. And now the Supreme Court has handed all other cops in the nation a license to do the exact same thing with impunity.

Law-abiding citizens like you and me now have to fear that some moron is going to bust down our door if they make a huge mistake like these officers did, and smash it down if they "hear us moving."

Ruth-Bader Ginsburg, apparently the only member of the Supreme Court who still has a soul left, dissented from the rest of the herd and said the decision her fellow lawgivers made "arms the police with a way routinely to dishonor the 4th Amendment's warrant requirement".

Pickin' Party!

It won't be long before it's time once again for the Pickin' Party Old-Time Music Festival, which will be held on Memorial Day weekend (May 28-29) at Land Between The Lakes National Recreation Area, along the KY-TN border.

This year the party will be emceed by 23-year Kentucky Opry veteran, Scottie Henson. The lineup for the two-day event includes Mark Dvorak, the Dixie Volunteers, the Cumberland River Plowboys, Dan Knowles, Bawn in the Mash (pictured above), Steephill Travelers, Common Thread, Red River Breeze, and Nathan Blake Lynn.

There will also be daily open mic sessions that anyone is free to get in on, so bring an instrument!

Golden Pond Planetarium and Observatory

One of the state's best-kept astronomy secrets is the Golden Pond Planetarium and Observatory, located at the Land Between the Lakes National Recreation Area.

The observatory is home to the West Kentucky Amateur Astronomers, who hold meetings on each Saturday closest to the New Moon. The public is invited to attend these meetings. For a complete schedule of WKAA meetings, consult their calendar of events.

General observing at the Golden Pond observatory is done through a 17.5" Dobsonian and two 8" Schmidt-Cassegrain telescopes, but also houses a 12.5" custom-built Newtonian telescope that is set up for astro-photography, and there is also a 4.5" refractor set up for Hydrogen-Alpha viewing of the sun.

The planetarium offers exciting regular programs such as Two Small Pieces of Glass (a live documentary on the history of the telescope) and Journey to the Edge of Space and Time, which takes the audience on a journey through celestial objects such as black holes as galaxy clusters.

It's all overseen by the Friends of LBL who could certainly use your donations, membership, and volunteerism.


Photo above: NGC 3628, taken by WKAA member Jay McNeil.