Saturday, December 15, 2012

Saturday Sharing (My Finds Are Yours)

Today's new edition of Saturday Sharing shows you a somewhat nutty museum, 3D versions of Marie-Antoinette's roomy Palace of Versailles, a city-by-city poem atlas, the location for knitting and purling poems, and a place for listening to 1950s audio recordings by poets. The featured video is a touching documentary about a photographer's project to document the lives of elderly animals.

✦ I last visited the Palace of Versailles in the 1980s. Now I can see it anytime via Versailles 3D from the Google Cultural Institute. The site provides a history of the palace's construction using four scale models built in 3D and offers educational videos and other interactive features to make virtual visiting memorable. A list of other wonderful online projects at the Cultural Institute is here.

✦ Can you imagine knitting a poem? Go here, type in some words, and your poem willl be knitted and purled for you. 

✦ Some people go bananas; others have a thing for nuts. . . of all kinds. One was Elizabeth Tashjian a.k.a. "The Nut Lady", who founded the Nut Museum in Old Lyme, Connecticut. The museum's Website offeres vintage sound recordings of Tashjian singing her own songs, including "Nuts Are Beautiful" (and a distinctive voice it is!); it also features a tour of the Nut Galleria comprising artwork and quotes from the lady herself. My favorite quote? "Take nuts home." 

"Elizabeth Tashjian, 94, an Expert on Nuts, Dies", The New York Times, February 4, 2007

"The Nut Lady", Smithsonian Collections Blog, October 19, 2012

✦ Search  this atlas by city to find poems that have appeared in the Poetry Society of America's Poetry in Motion® project.

✦ A project of The Poetry Center at San Francisco State University, the Poetry Center Digital Archive provides access to early audio recordings (mid-1950s on) from the American Poetry Archives collection, select archival texts, and images. The PCDA, comprising one of the most significant public collections in the United States of original recorded performances by poems and other writers, is augmented frequently.

✦ In this wonderful documentary from Walley Films, photographer Isa Leshko talks about her moving series Elderly Animals (have a Kleenex handy):

Elderly Animals: Photographs by Isa Leshko from Mark & Angela Walley on Vimeo.

4 comments:

Louise Gallagher said...

I watched, Elderly Animals.

Thank you.

the sad red earth said...

On each of my visits to Paris, I have neglected to visit Versailles. I'll be putting aside some time tomorrow. And the poetry digital archives - how fortunate they had the foresight. Lots of listening ahead. Thanks as always for the enrichment of these links.

Maureen said...

Jay,

I have been to Versailles. It is extraordinary. You must go the next time you visit France.

Hiyacynthia said...

I have been to Versailles also in the 80's - have many pics tucked away and wished I had journaled about the whole trip. Thanks for the flashback ;0)