Footnotes to a Conversation, July 5
“Curiosity is insubordination in its purest form.” – Vladimir Nabokov [via The Economist]
A Sense of Belonging
Do you ever wonder about the people you see cycling or walking through the back alleys looking for recyclables to sell for cash? The Tyee has published an interesting article about the importance of cycling for these individuals as well as the lack of consideration they receive as Vancouver develops its active transportation plans. [The Tyee]
I have wondered about the value of rainbow crosswalks during Pride Month, but an article about designing inclusive public spaces that take into account the needs of the LGBTQ+ population opened my eyes to the fact that architecture and urban planning needs to expand their focus beyondthe traditional emphasis on the needs of white, middle-class, straight families. A LGBTQ+ friendly city would provide greater privacy (instead of large open plazas), design housing that looks beyond the traditional heterosexual family, and make spaces more visually welcoming (e.g., rainbow crosswalks and public art). [The Conversation via 8-80 Cities]
Sometimes, planners get it very, very wrong when they assume what different social groups want or need. In 1958, a landscape architect predicted that there would be more and more “timid and panicky” women drivers and this would change the roadways. He foresaw pastel pavement as well as “an extra-slow, truckless lane for ‘women who become nervous at high speeds’” and wider travel lanes to give women “a greater margin of error in their maneuvering.” Things haven’t improved. When Volvo designed a car specifically for women in 2004, it offered 8 colours of interchangeable seat covers and carpets. The hood couldn’t be opened, because no woman would want to look under the hood! [JSTOR Daily]
Looking Back in Time
I have vivid memories of making thousands of Kleenex roses to decorate a Yellow Submarine float for the 1971 Children’s Day parade. Saskatoon Public Library’s historical slideshow of parades includes horse-drawn wagons in 1908, the day the circus came to town in 1912, and soldiers marching to the train station on their way to war in 1914. Plus, not to be missed, the children’s pet parade that was held annually for 50 years. [Saskatoon Public Library]
Stonehenge’s “original circle of 157 standing stones (only 63 complete stones remain today) once acted like a sound chamber. For people in the inner sanctum 4,000 years ago, the placement of stones would have amplified and enhanced human voices and music in a way that must have been spellbinding. If you were outside the circle, though, the sounds were muffled and indistinct. This finding has added credence to the growing consensus that rituals at Stonehenge were for a small elite.” [Smithsonian Magazine]
Footnotes to a Conversation is a weekly Monday feature covering an assortment of topics that I’ve come across in the preceding week – books, art, travel, food, and whatever else strikes my fancy.
If you share my love of nature, I suggest you also read EcoFriendly Sask that I publish in collaboration with my brother, Andrew. Check out EcoFriendly Sask’s Nature Companion, a free nature app for Canada’s four western provinces (downloadable directly from the website).