slow cargo Crow

Hello everyone, Crow here. There's nothing more delightful than flying with a friend over the turquoise waters of the Caribbean in February. The islands are beautiful but on our way south I was disturbed to see several very large container vessels and three or four even larger bulk carriers. Having spent some time in Halifax with susan I've had the leisure to see a lot of cargo ships (they're not at all pretty) as well as study the issue of international haulage. Interestingly enough, serious container shipping only got started in the 1960s

When you see a container ship for the first time the sheer size can be very surprising. The largest of them range up to 400 meters long (437 yards) and 59 meters (64 yards) wide, comparable to 4 football fields in length. Even now, one of the biggest concerns about building large container ships is how they will make it around the world. One fun fact I came across was that Maersk, an important  Danish company,  introduced a ship so large that they were unable to fill it to capacity due to the weight and the water displacement in the sea near the ports. Had they filled it to capacity, the ship would have hit the sea floor.

Until recently reducing CO2 and sulphur dioxide emissions from the world's fleet of almost 90,000 large ships hasn't been much of a priority for governments or ship owners. Part of the problem is that the industry has grown so rapidly, now carrying more than 90% of the world's trade by volume, and has tripled its tonnage since 1970. The shift of so much production from the US and Europe to China and south Asia has meant cargoes have to travel a lot further.

They do this by burning the world's cheapest, most polluting 'bunker' fuel. Marine heavy fuel oil, which is burned by all large ships, is the residue produced by oil refineries and is so thick that when cold it can be walked on. Just 15 of biggest ships may now emit as much pollution as all of the world's cars combined. Unsurprisingly, the stuff is very cheap so demand for it has been soaring as more of these huge ships are built every year. So far most shipping companies have refused to do anything to alleviate the problem because it would cut into their profits and shipping has slipped under the radar of regulators (I know, regulators..)

Then there's the fact the damn things sink a whole lot more often than any news stories ever tell anyone. (How many times does a ship sink? Once. - sorry) According to wiki answers one hundred large ships sink each year, and out of that number ten of them are container vessels or super tankers more than 200 meters in length. Right now, as you read this there are five or six million shipping containers on enormous cargo ships sailing across the world's oceans and about every hour, on average one of them is falling overboard. It's estimated that ten thousand large containers are lost at sea every year. If you've ever wondered why your favorite brand of cereal isn't on your supermarket shelf this might be an answer. It's strange to imagine that corn grown in the midwest could be shipped in bulk to China where it's turned into cornflakes, boxed, and sent back by container ship just in time for your breakfast.

Anyway, I'm sure you get the idea and there's more to learn if you just want to do a simple search. There are some interesting developments aimed at creating wind-powered cargo vessels. A British company called B9 Shipping is planning to build a fleet of ships that use wind and renewable energy. It could become a movement.

All in all, my favorite story involves a small group of people who set off from Plymouth today on a 19th century sailing ketch called Irene on what may turn into an historic and worthwhile venture. Their project, called New Dawn Traders, will sail for five months carrying organic beer from Devon to France, olive oil from Spain to Brazil and then (all being well) will bring cocoa, coffee, Amazonian super-foods, and rum from South America and the Caribbean back to England. Another drawback about container ships is that many ports can't accommodate them so lots of small places have lost all chance of trade.

Lucy Gilliam, a member of Irene's crew said before they set sail, "People aren't really aware of the damage these huge cargo ships are doing to the planet," she said. "There needs to be a great story to get a popular movement going. People are inspired by tall ships. There's something magical in seeing a tall ship in a harbour or at sea."

I think so too. My friend and I will be keeping a lookout for them. Meanwhile, another friend, Horace the homing pigeon, has agreed to carry this letter back to susan. If the trade winds prevent me answering your comments myself I'm sure she will help. After all, I have promised to bring back something very special from my journey to the South Seas - some warm sand.

Salutations to all ♡

a pirate's dream

A friend and fellow blogger has been wondering for a while what my version of a pirate mermaid would look like. That's a tough one since the last thing mermaids needed was ships and pirate women usually dressed as men. Oh yes, there really were more of them than we might have imagined and a tough bunch of ladies they were too. However, I've drawn a picture as I preferred to envision such a fantastical being. Whether or not she finds her way into a painting only time will tell.

Have a good weekend.
♡

an old adventure

In 2008, not many months after I'd begun blogging and was already running out of things to talk about, it occurred to me it might be fun to try writing down a few remembered stories. To make it extra appealing as a project I decided that drawing some quick illustrative pictures would be a good thing. Months later when there were half a dozen of them I opened the 'Adventure's Ink' blog where the stories continued regularly for a while. That blog has been pretty quiet for the last year or so mostly because I ran into some stories not easily told or honestly left out. None of us are always the heroes of our lives and I've been the goat of mine often enough.

I still think about writing and drawing more of them but while I do I thought some of you might be interested in reading the one that began it all. My pen and ink illustrations did improve over time but this is still one of my favorite Adventures and nobody has seen it for a while - out of the five people who read and commented the first time only two are still blogging. It's called:

True Housekeeping

When you work as a housekeeper the second worst thing you can find when you open the door for the first time is a clean house; the worst thing is to find a clean house that's also creepy. I ran into one of those unsettling homes many years ago in Providence, RI, one of the oldest cities in the US. The agency had called me that morning to say they had a new client who wanted a regular housekeeper for their place on the city's east side. When I stopped by to pick up the key it was noticeably different from the usual ones most of us carry - this was a heavy and very old fashioned skeleton key.

I had a map, since I wasn't all that familiar with the city yet, and found the place where the streets are mostly steep, narrow, and cobblestoned. The houses left there are big but often built deep into the properties with narrow fronts facing the street. Brown University and the Rhode Island School of Design are both in the neighbourhood as is the amazingly enormous Swan Point Cemetary. Providence had also long been famous as the junk jewelry capital of the country but many of the little factories that specialized in associated metal work were closing back then as even cheaper stuff came in from other countries. The house I'd been hired to clean was in a wasteland of boarded up buildings.

After climbing the outside stairs and opening the creaky front door I found myself in a dim foyer just able to make out the living room further along a narrow hall. Inside, everything appeared to be clean but the atmosphere was musty and dark since the inside doors were all closed and what few windows there were faced the buildings on either side. The floors were dark oak, the lower walls covered in over varnished wainscot above which was faded wallpaper of disturbing design. The furniture was old and heavy and a black marble fireplace under a distorted glass mirror dominated the room. If you get the feeling I was already uncomfortable you'd be right.

The main floor also had a long, narrow dining room filled with cumbersome Victorian stuff - table, sideboard, curio cabinets and chairs. It was hard to imagine more than one person fitting the space. Further along the hall was a library that looked similar to the rest. It was a big house.

There was a stairway to the upper floors off the foyer so up I went only to find another dark corridor with closed doors on either side. One door was locked so I passed on that but found four bedrooms and two old fashioned bathrooms - clawfoot tubs and ten gallon toilets. I'd been turning lights on where I could find them but the place wasn't bright and neither did it look inhabited. There was no dust, the fireplace was clean, the bathrooms were unsoaped, unstained, and unsullied. The beds appeared to be made up but there were no sheets or blankets under the spreads. The next flight up led to what had been servants quarters - tiny rooms and almost no light at all. As my habit was to clean from top to bottom I decided to go back down and look for supplies so I could begin.

Back on the main floor I found another set of narrow and enclosed stairs  leading down from the dining room to where it seemed logical I'd find a kitchen. That was clean too but while I looked for the vacuum cleaner and other stuff I also found a wine cellar, another fireplace with a couch and a couple of chairs, a completely walled-in courtyard beyond some new glass doors, and best of all, a radio which I turned on.

Have I mentioned I'd been reading H.P. Lovecraft? He lived on the East Side of Providence all his life and is buried at Swan Point. Every year on Hallowe'en an unknown group has celebrated a black mass at his sepulchre.. or at least signs of that have been found the next day. Lovecraft is easily laughed off if you read one or two of his books at the beach but my experience was reading him while living in Providence and he was very knowledgeable about the old city and its foundations and architectural history. So when he wrote about tunnels and underground chambers inhabited by pale, slimey, slithery, sucking beasts it started to gain a subconscious hold.

So there I was in the kitchen with the lamps lit and the radio playing. The house felt heavy and portentous above me but there was a job to be done so, ready or not, I picked up the vacuum cleaner and carried it up the stairs. The lights had gone out so I turned them back on as I went all the way to the top.

I worked up there doing the usual things even though nothing looked cleaner as I worked but I needed glass cleaner so went back down to the kitchen to find some. All the lights were out on the main floor again and once again I turned the switches back on. As I went down the back stairs to the kitchen the lights went out behind me. When I got to the foot of the staircase the lights down there went dark and the radio clicked off. I stood stock still and looked all around but could see nothing different and nobody was there. I would almost have been happier if someone was there but there wasn't. I'd had enough.

One minute later I was up the stairs, down the hall and out the front door. I decided to cut through the river park on my way back to the agency to return the key. It was only later I realized a duster was still hanging out of my back pocket. I've often wondered whose house that was..

ps: The original story has been edited a little for clarity. (I'm a better writer now too)

the offering

This is the last picture I painted last year. I've been trying to think of something to write about so the painting isn't the only thing I post this evening. It's getting late now and I've only thought of one thing:

Art tells gorgeous lies that come true.

♡

To be honest, I have more fun these days painting pictures of Crow.

avast Crow

A group of Crow's unusual friends stopped by earlier today to carry him off on a winter cruise. Before he left he mentioned a few things about pirates it's not currently fashionable to know even though there's always been something romantic about the idea of piracy.

We've long been told by those who control information that pirates were thieves, yet the truth is far more complex. Sailors aboard Royal Naval ships and merchant marine vessels were some of the sorriest men alive, 'caught in a machine from which there was no escape, bar desertion, incapacitation, or death' as one writer of the day put it. Many of them were press ganged into service, many were debt slaves or had been criminalized after losing their farms when the English Commons were abolished.

As the great fleets discovered and annexed previously unknown lands many dispossessed people the world over became desperate. The merchant ships of the 17th and 18th Centuries were the engines of the emerging global capitalism but the seamen were totally excluded from the wealth they worked to generate. The decision to 'turn pirate' was a choice made to wrestle back some autonomy, and when they did, life on a ship changed dramatically. Officers were democratically elected. Food was shared equally among men of all ranks. When booty was collected the Captain only took two shares where the lowest took one - income differentials that would make a modern CEO faint. Loss of a limb aboard would be met with a payment of around $30k in today's money - an amazing form of early health insurance.

It could be said that far from being simple thieves, pirates were perhaps the original anti-capitalist protesters. The reason they were hunted down and suffered savage public executions was because the powers of the day were petrified of the consequences of the pirates' ethos. One hundred years before the French Revolution it was pirates who coined the phrase 'Liberty, Equality, Fraternity'.

Of course, piracy in those days was hardly all fun and games but they were hard times for most people everywhere. We're not often brutalized, beaten, or left unpaid, but our lives are no less reduced, narrowed, and restrained by powerful forces far beyond our control. Wouldn't it be nice to see the Jolly Roger raised again to restore to life some democracy, some fairness, and perhaps a little merriment too?

Avast Crow. I hope you enjoy the warm sea breeze off the shores of far Tortuga.
♡

make room for dada

Either Dadaism is still alive and well in Halifax or this is what happened to the Haligonian Occupy movement. I'm not sure when the installation was placed (and no one has taken credit) but we discovered it late last year and I kept forgetting to carry my camera until this morning. Oddly enough nobody has bothered to remove these strange characters from the fenced off old factory pit close to the center of the city. I'm glad because I think it looks better every time I see it. Dadaism had only one rule: Follow no rules. It self-destructed when it was in danger of becoming acceptable. Maybe the Occupiers are hiding out at Cabaret Voltaire til spring.

No wonder SOPA and PIPA disappeared without too much trouble. ACTA was signed by President Obama last October. 



There is a theory which states that if ever anybody discovers what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable. There is another theory which states that this has already happened.
~ Douglas Adams

making things for no reason

How time flies. Every so often I need to get away from the paper, pencils, pens, and paints but that rarely means I don't do anything. It would appear I have a compulsive personality. I know you probably already guessed that. Continuing with my recent interest in making small containers I spent the better part of a week working on this little thing - and it is little at 3½ inches in diameter and a bit more than 2 inches tall when looked at from the side.

Several weeks before we left Portland I realized I had to deal with the silk dyes I'd mixed for painting since they were all stored in glass jars and bottles that couldn't be packed for the move. I also had a lot of extra white silk pieces. So jar by jar and bottle by bottle I used up all the mixed colors. I wish now I'd taken a picture of my living room floor covered in newspaper, plastic sheets, and everything I could find to use as clotheslines to dry all the bits. It's pretty funny in retrospect. Once they'd all been dried, steamed, washed, dried again and ironed I ended up with a large number of brightly hued scraps for future projects. So here is one of them - cut, stitched, padded, beaded, and every inch was a puzzle to ponder. The inside top is the opposite side of the flower on the front. The inside bottom is padded thick red silk.

I did happen to learn about someone far more motivated than me. Have you ever heard of Baldassare Forestierre? In 1906 he bought land near Fresno CA where he hoped to start a farm. Unfortunately, the land was too dry but rather than give up the idea he began digging. Over the course of the next 40 years he carefully carved out 10,000 square feet of underground living space that included living rooms, studies, bedrooms, a chapel, a fish pond, and a network of gardens, trees and trellises all by hand and without architectural training. He'd been a subway digger in New York. The caverns are supported by Roman arches, columns and domes - many of which are capped by skylights to let in the light. He used only a pick and a shovel and worked at it in his spare time. Now that's what I call true dedication.

I've moved too many times to manage that particular devotion but I appreciate the hearts of those whose happiness lies in making the world just a little more beautiful for no particular reason at all.


Why not?
♡