water works

It's been a week since there was a new post up here but I'll have you know I haven't been away sunning myself and drinking margaritas on some faraway beach - which would have been fun if I had the money. Instead, I've been painting more silk bits and turning them into little pouches and bags. These are two new ones I'm not especially delighted with but at least it's a new piece of artwork to show you while I work on something a bit more in depth (pun intended).


(duck not to scale - or surprised fish either)

I've also been indulging in reading and thinking again even though I understand that's not necessarily the modern American way. I realized that not all big ideas are are bad ones if they're logical and relatively inexpensive solutions to local problems. As we move toward a general awareness of how our actions now affect the future well-being of the planet we'll see more innovative solutions like this one the Japanese have come up with for fighting pollution in some of their canals and small waterways. Floating solar powered water processing plants deployed in Osaka's Dotonbori canal remove pollutants from 2,400 gallons of water a day, sucking in the bad water through the bottom and shooting the clean water out the top like a fountain. Not only is the fountain pretty in it's own bizarre UFOish way but the water spray cools down the solar panels, increasing efficiency.



The Japanese have already provided us with robots that cook dinner, rice cakes, fuel efficient cars, Samurai warriors and Godzilla so perhaps their solution to the problem of inefficient toilets isn't so farfetched as you might first think. Low flush toilets are still part of the technological dark ages and we all want to stay up to date, don't we? Besides, it could get awfully messy in the woods if we return to the natural way. Might even put us off our evening stroll.