Rained a little while tonight, finally. It’s been talking about it for three days now. The last couple days it’s rained off and on, mostly off, and it was the kind of rain where, if you’re working outside, you just keep working. Even if your ripping 12’ lumber on a plugged in table saw. So not much. But you could feel it, everybody said so. Like pressure. What is that? Is that barometrics? I guess I should know that. Hey, have you ever read van Loon?
Hendrik Willem van Loon. If I knew how to work this site I’d give you a wikipedia link or something, sorry. Anyway, he was so cool, a Dutch guy I think, writing in the early half of the 20th, generally for kids, about the weather, about the geology of the planet, the history of music, the history of the world itself. In fact that may be the title of one of his books. (I checked, it’s the Story of Mankind). I have one about the history of art. I collect his books when I find them. They’re so damn good. He illustrates them himself. In the geography book he talks about the physical history of each country. I can’t remember exactly how this goes, but as I recall, he did not supply maps of the world per se, he instead demanded of the reader to go out, travel and draw their own maps. It was there that I learned why Norway is so hard. He explained that the receding ice mass at the end of one of the ice ages simply scraped all the top soil away and into the sea. That made so much sense to me. That’s how it looks in Norway, a lot of it. And in one of his books I remember looking up and realizing that this guy had just explained to me, in maybe 20 words, what makes the wind blow. Van Loon, sure would have liked to talk to that guy….Ok, I’ve got some more stuff to talk about, but this is a blog after all. More soon.
Rain, Van Loon, what else is there
6 Responses to Rain, Van Loon, what else is there
We had that type of rain – for about 10 years. For the past year now, there’s been no way a plugged in table saw out in the open would be a viable working area. In fact, I have my doubts that it’s ever really a viable option when there’s moisture around…. it’s good to know you’re still standing Kevin.
Van Loon sounds like a precursor to Bill Bryson – and what a bilbiography! Found a link so here it is, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hendrik_Willem_van_Loon (just a copy and paste, nothing tricky),
Brian Wise from the Australian magazine Rhythms was just out here yesterday, and he told me that the drought is finally over. That’s some good news….
I like the style of your writing in this entry so very much; just like sitting around the table chatting after dinner, very nice and comfy without a lot of editing….just like life.
Hendrik Willem van Loon – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Hendrik Willem van Loon. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Jump to: navigation, search. Hendrik Willem van Loon (January 14, 1882 – March 11, …
Life – Works – Quotations – Bibliography
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hendrik_Willem_van_Loon
You must know something about working this site Kevin – the reply box thingy is pretty impressive- and yes, it is good news the drought has broken, let’s hope it’s for a while.
Will have to see if you turn up in the blog on the Rythms site as Brian Wise seems to be doing the rounds of Austin at the moment. If you fed him, I hope it was well – it seems he’s as interested in the food as he is in the music
I think my parents gave my sister a copy of Van Loon’s Geography when we were kids, but she was older than I, and by the time I thought about reading it, the book was long gone in a move somewhere. You may be the only other person I know who has read Van Loon.