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The rock balancer
By adamg on Tue, 07/21/2015 - 10:14pm
Eileen Murphy reports she ran across Griffen Fargo of Dorchester creating rock sculptures along the Harborwalk on Columbia Point in Dorchester.
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Empirical Physics
Friction, gravity, moments of inertia, stability, metastability, potential energy all balanced ...
This is becoming popular.
A Breton named Roger Dautais has an extensive photo album of transient nature art he makes.
https://goo.gl/UMMR37
Watch
He's wearing what appears to be a nice watch which leads me to believe rock balancing pays well.
Links are your friends
If you click on his name in the original post, you can see what he does for a living (which, yes, if done well, can pay well).
diana's baths/rock balance
this picture reminds me of my vacation in the white mountains next week. my son and I always make a pile of stones at the top of the baths, all potential energy will be balanced.
Hipsters are
everywhere.
Lawns everywhere
they need to get off of.
Hipsters have been around here since the 1600s.
Edward Blaxton was probably the original. He was a hermit who left the area when the Winthrop party showed up.
Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin were colonial hipsters. Later you had people like Artemus Ward. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Farrar_Browne
Mark Twain covered the hipster model for his cohort and Carl Van Vechten was among the 1920s versions. Marianne Moore and William Carlos Wiliams followed. Later versions include Allen Ginsberg.
Each generation has its versions with their obsessions.
The three most recent generations have contrasting versions.
Boomer Thesis: Neil Young. https://youtu.be/UBz2vR0oEa0
Gen X Antithesis: Big Black. https://youtu.be/HuO3wwLuF0w
Millennial Synthesis: The Killers. https://youtu.be/Y5fBdpreJiU
The world has more pressing problems than hipsters who have been around since antiquity.
Stuck a feather in his hat ...
... and called it macaroni!
Never touch anything!
Conservationists Want You to Stop Building Rock Piles
Context is everything
In some places, they can mislead hikers. In others, they really don't matter and get knocked over on the next tide. It is a nifty hobby, sure, but some attention to the environment is important.
Sometimes it is a problem, but some of the screeds I've seen amount to "this is my wilderness and other people are touching it".
It borders on self-absorbed sometimes...
One of the last times I went to Maine, a spot I always visit was filled with cairns. It really is a bummer when you're trying to get away from the city and enjoy nature and suddenly the scene is disrupted by 50 cairns on the seaside. It's like, what narcissistic asshole thought I needed to know he was here? I have seen some benches built with stones, which is kind of cool. Generally though, I'm with the boy scouts. "Leave no trace."
Used to see things like this in Victory Park
When I was living in Dorchester, about six years ago, I used to see cool stacked rocks like this all the time along the water in Victory Park. Also involved driftwood and weird rebar. I never bumped into the person and asked around a number of times, but had no luck tracking them down. Wonder if this might be the same person--or just someone else. Lots of people love rocks.
It's all fun and games until
It's all fun and games until a curious toddler knocks it over and loses a toenail.
And ...
Learns that actions have consequences, gravity works, etc.
Parents also learn that the world isn't childproof.
I knew when I clicked on the
I knew when I clicked on the Comments there'd be people criticising and name calling this guy. God forbid conservative and uptight Bostonians should support and nurture a person who spends a few moments of his day harmlessly creating some balance. I feel really sorry for you people.
Amen
Thanks for chiming in. I've been thinking this between my laughter while reading the comments... Its a sad world when people are so in their own way they can't support something with 0 impact and 0 cost that creates beauty out of the mundane.