Eddie’s Big Wind from GammaBlog on Vimeo.
On Sunday May 11th, 2008, the one year memorial for Eddie Boros the creator of the Tower of Toys was held in the 6th and B Community Garden. The NYC Parks department had just declared the tower unsafe and that it must come down. Eddie Boros was an amazing character, he had to be in order to build and preserve from destruction his 60 foot ramshackle tower of salvaged timber and rotting toys from 1985 until 2008, a full year after he died. I interviewed the gardeners and his relatives, asking them to give me stories about Eddie. I combined the interviews with the many photos I’ve taken of the tower, plus photos on the garden bulletin board, as well as some that people put on the garden fence after Eddie died in 2007. This is part one of a planned three parts. Part Two here
Nova M stream on KPHX, Arizona ads and all. Hear Randi Rhodes live 3 – 6 Eastern time. Mike Malloy, Stephanie Miller, Rachel Madow and Thom Hartmann also on the stream. KPHX website
Outside the Battery Maritime Building in Lower Manhattan. Linda, a turtle fan tells me:
The consensus on Turtle Rescue of Long Island message board thought it might be a red-eared slider of some sort — albeit a dirty one — because of what little bit of color you can see on the bottom of the shell under it’s neck and around the edges. The other theory was a diamondback terrapin who swam up from the south jersey coast. But most likely it is a slider. Red-eared sliders (usually abbreviated RES) are extremely common and often dumped because they get too big and people don’t know what else to do. Here’s the website of a rescue organization that gives advice for trying to rescue RES. It might not be so easy. As for whether he needs rescuing, I have no idea what to say, RES are freshwater turtles, and I have no idea what effect brackish water would have on them. And it’s definitely a male. Females don’t have those long nails. Chinatown markets sell live RES as food and sometimes they get away.
Update, 6/5: Added Video, bottom of the post. Playing the Building, a 9,000-square-foot, interactive, site-specific installation by David Byrne in the Battery Maritime Building in Lower Manhattan. The project consists of a retrofitted antique organ, placed in the center of the building’s cavernous second-floor gallery, that controls a series of devices attached to its structural features—metal beams, plumbing, electrical conduits, and heating and water pipes.
I loved having access to the Battery Maritime Building, but the organ as an actual musical instrument left much to be desired. The keys, especially the ones that banged on things were often unresponsive (the solenoids tap on things that swing like a pendulum) often leaving you tapping away and not getting a sound. But I imagine if left to play with it for a longer than I felt comfortable doing with a long line waiting behind me and learning its quirks, I could get something going eventually. Don’t get me wrong this event brought to you by the great folks at Creative Time is awesome. Go check it out, weekends until August.
Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays from 12 to 6pm May 31–August 10, 2008 – The Battery Maritime Building, 10 South Street, NYC