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Passing time

PostPosted: Sun Apr 20, 2008 5:58 pm
by Lluís
Unusual hobbies

Vexillology
Lt. Col. Devereaux Dunlap Cannon Jr. has a hobby with a name almost as long as his own: vexillology-the study of flags.
Cannon's interest in colorful emblems began at age 4, when he remembers being intrigued by pictures of flags in encyclopedias.
'I started making paper flags using crayons and notebook paper,' Cannon recalls. 'I don't know why I was attracted to them; just one of those genetic defects that afflicts some people.' He laughs, rifling through his current collection of the 'real thing'-more than 200 flags from around the world.
They come from countries as remote as the Zulu Nation in Africa and Northern Cyprus. He acquired the latter from a collector in Italy, who accepted an old Croatian flag in exchange.
'Northern Cyprus has diplomatic relations only with Turkey, so that flag was easier to find in Italy than in Tennessee,' he explains. The prized banner features a moon, which made it a prime target for his 4-year-old daughter Kate, who favors flags with moons and stars. It's now part of her small, but growing collection.
Each morning, father and daughter choose flags to hoist on their flagpoles in the front yard of their Portland, Tenn., home. Bonnie Blue, a Confederate flag with a white star on a blue background, was Kate's choice on a cool March morning.
'She's picked up on a lot of it,' Cannon says, speaking of his hobby. 'She fusses when they show the wrong British flag (for the time period) on Pocahontas. She's also pretty good at noticing when the Tennessee flag is upside-down.' (The Tennessee flag features three stars. When flown correctly, the flag shows two of the stars above the other one.)
Cannon-a lawyer and an officer in the Tennessee State Guard Reserves -admits those outside his family know him as the 'flagman' as well. His office in downtown Nashville is decorated with samples from his collection, provoking questions from passers-by. He also gets several inquiries per day on the Internet.
And he's always happy to share what he knows.
'For me, collecting flags is like collecting pieces of history,' he says. 'If you have that interest in what's happening to the flags, it gives you a star to hook onto to keep up with what's going on in the rest of the world.'
For example, Cannon says, 'Africa has a very confusing history when you're studying it in school. But this is a kind of visual aid. Once you get a handle on this, it helps tie it all together.
'Last year, Cannon gave a presentation on African flags-a category he finds fascinating-at a local meeting of the Sons of Confederate Veterans, also attended by members of the NAACP.
Then he used his flags in a display for Black History Month in nearby Gallatin, and later loaned the bulk of his collection to a church that created an Olympics-themed display, in anticipation of the games.
'I do stuff like that all the time,' he says, smiling. 'It's a good tactile way to teach history.
'In addition to collecting flags, Cannon also writes about them. He's published three books on the subject: The Flags of the Confederacy: An Illustrated History; Flags of Tennessee; and The Flags of the Union: An Illustrated History (all by Pelican Publishing Co.) The books are sold at national battleground sites across the country and in bookstores around the world. Cannon gets a thrill each time a friend returns from a foreign country and tells of seeing his book in a shop there.
His hobby came full circle in 1995 when Cannon's design won a flag contest for Tennessee's Cheatham County. After that design was adopted, officials of Sumner County-where he lives-asked Cannon to design their first flag. Both honors were dreams come true for a man who used to borrow his mother's sewing machine to stitch together flags as a child. He kept a few special-order copies of his designs to add to his growing collection.
'I'm not a very good archivist,' he says, shaking his head at the disarray of flags around his home. 'I keep trying to remember to enter them into the computer, but each time I get them out I start playing with them and somehow don't get the job finished.'

Volcano boarding
A cool night, best in a long time, and there we were soaking in the soothing hot springs, thinking 'it just doesn't get much better than this', when the moon appeared above the canyon wall. The cosmic rays penetrated our cranial cases and implanted crazy thoughts into our heads - volcano-boarding by moonlight! Before we knew it, we were racing through the desert in a pair of SUVs, kicking up clouds of dust as we power-turned through the twisting maze of trails. Soon, the ghostly image of an enormous slope appeared before us. At first it could have been mistaken as a wide open ski slope, but the temperature was a dead giveaway - there hadn't been any snow in these parts for many a moon. We approach the slope with some trepidation, as this could be a dangerous place in the middle of the night.
"Pumice has a strange texture so it is kinda tough... snowboarding is easier to handle but the skis give off great sparks when metal hits rock..."
We begin the climb, an indirect, treacherous route through razor sharp outcroppings of jagged rock in our quest to reach the summit. Why do we always do this at night? Ascending through the results of volcanic furor, we pass a rise allowing us to view the lunar landscape of the interior of the crater. The only sound is the steady crunch of the gravel under our boots. About an hour later, we are on the summit, the highest mound on a ridge-line a quarter mile long. It is noticeably warmer up high, and perfectly calm. The fire our cohorts built at the base is flickering to conclusion - they did not expect us to take so long.
The hill looks smaller from the bottom but is in fact most of a thousand feet high. The moon has swung around to the side, and the contrast is even greater than in broad daylight. This is our second run, the first taken months before in a light rain. The consistency is markedly different, the rain that had kept the amalgamation of sand, pebbles, and larger rocks firm on that run is long gone, and a dry, choking dust rises from the gravel slides that are initiated by our every move.
Dan the Super Psycho Skier Guy goes first, traversing the slope at great speed while hundreds of sparks fly off of his metal edges. I start down a more direct route, carving my board into the very gravel of the hill, producing few if any sparks. The quiet is broken by hoots and hollers as we work out our methods of carving turns on this rather alien medium. At the bottom, all is quiet once again, the fire is dead, our friends asleep.
After spending a half hour forcing my rear binding to release, I flop down in the sand myself - asleep in minutes. 12 hours later, the sun now shining brightly, we march right back up and ride the volcano again. This time, photos and a video record the necessary proof. Nowadays, whenever I drive by a construction zone, I find myself looking longingly at the piles of gravel. The very essence of my being permanently altered by the experience of volcano-boarding.

http://hobby.-censured-/eng/articles/html/149.html

Four unusual hobbies
A while ago, over a period of a few months, I happened to come across a whole set of activities which are quite different from the normal day to day of society. It’s difficult to describe what they have in common, so I’ll tell you about them first, and try to explain it after.
1. Urban Exploring
Spelunking is historically done in natural caves, but those all seem a bit prissy and green to these modern city people. Instead they break into ruined hospitals, brave university steam tunnels, explore abandoned sea forts and numerous other places.
Most have a law abiding ethic - trespass is the only crime they commit. Instead they look after the places that they go. Learn about them and document their history. Take only photos, leave only footprints. People all over the world self-organise and do this. Slightly illegal, slightly dangerous, but fun, new, real.
2. Space Hijackers
These “anarchitects” came to fame in 1999 with their Circle Line Party. It looked like an ordinary tube train, but between each station 150 normal looking commuters suddenly burst into life - sound systems, disco lights, refreshments and dancing - only to go quiet again at the next stop.
They’re organised, with a secret mailing list and forum, and I like to imagine there’s an artist’s studio where they hang out somewhere in East London to hatch plots and build radio-jamming two piece suits. There’s a new Singapore branch, trying not to let the wait until 2010 for the Singapore Circle Line to be built hold them back from other projects.
Not sure exactly what they do yet? See if you can learn to Spot the Hijackers.
3. Confluencing
These guys have arbitarily picked some random points on the earth (those with exact integral longitude and latitude) and are collaboratively visiting all of them, taking photos facing north, south, east and west. Scroll round the huge worldwide map for the results.
This may seem a bit fluffy after urban spelunking and space hijacking, but rest assured if you pick the right points you can fall out with border guards and have to work out a way to enter a military base (they were only allowed to photograph facing north-east).
Confluencing reminds us that here are lots of spaces in the world in between the tourist attractions, and our normal daily routine.
4. Guerilla Gardening
So, what you do is you enter somebody else’s property without their permission, and plant seeds. Maybe put daffodils in an unloved corner owned by the electricity company, or turn a dis-used lot into an allotment for the year. For bonus points come back again and again to water and prune your plants, or to defend them against slugs and to eat your harvest.
This is great, because although it is illegal, it is indisputably good. It subverts property rights (by questioning your right to own land you do not tend) and makes the world prettier at the same time. So much so, that this year it’s gained enough mass media coverage to be in danger of stopping being hip. But heck, if it takes Richard and Judy to get advertising account planners to illegally water lavender in their hundreds, then I’m all for it.
So what’s the interesting link between all of those? Here are some things they have in common.
• They’re all (at least partly or potentially) illegal, and yet they’re reasonable things to do. They’re in those edge spaces where the law has grabbed too much territory, where things which are fun and good and life affirming aren’t allowed.
• They can be done by anyone, without a big central organisation. Sure, you have to be able to afford to buy the compost or the GPS device, but that’s about it.
• There’s no commercial gain involved, no consuming of goods or services.
• They reclaim space as public space. More and more of our land and world is controlled and limited. Property rights work and make sense, giving us private space. But excessive control of shared spaces impoverishes us all.

http://flourish.org/blog/?p=143

Interesting link: http://www.childrensnursery.org.uk/thre ... times.html