water
Watermill
Rain Chains & Musical Drains
A rain chain in winter; Dresden Kunsthof Passage; Drainage planters near Pike Place Market in Seattle.
If there is a larger takeaway here perhaps it is about paths of least resistance, with regards to both the actual flow of water and design decisions. On the one hand, it is easy to blindly follow regional precedents and traditions with long histories (or grab whatever is handy at the hardware store). On the other hand, sometimes it makes sense to take a step back and decide consciously how to reveal (or conceal) a natural process.
The Beauty of the Overlooked
An Article by Maria PopovaMedusa from A Naturalist’s Rambles on the Devonshire Coast by Philip Henry Gosse, 1853.
Philip Henry Gosse’s Stunning 19th-Century Illustrations of Coastal Creatures and Reflections on the Delicate Kinship of Life
“These objects are, it is true, among the humblest of creatures that are endowed with organic life… Here we catch the first kindling of that spark, which glows into so noble a flame in the Aristotles, the Newtons, and the Miltons of our heaven-gazing race.”
Rain chains
An ObjectRain chains are a beautiful and functional alternative to traditional, closed gutter downspouts. Guiding rain water visibly down chains or cups from the roof to the ground, rain chains transform a plain gutter downspout into a pleasing water feature. From the soft tinkling of individual droplets to the soothing rush of white water, they are a treat to listen to.
Rain chains (‘kusari doi’ in Japanese) in concept are not a new idea. For hundreds of years, the Japanese have used the roof of their homes to collect water, transporting it downward with chains and finally depositing the rain water into large barrels for household water usage. Japanese temples often incorporate quite ornate and large rain chains into their design.
Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus
The totality of facts
The world is the totality of facts, not of things.
The world is determined by the facts, and by these being all the facts.
For the totality of facts determines both what is the case, and also all that is not the case.Everything that can be said
Everything that can be thought at all can be thought clearly. Everything that can be said can be said clearly.
I am my world
What we cannot think, that we cannot think: we cannot therefore say what we cannot think.
In fact what solipsism means is quite correct, only it cannot be said, but it shows itself.
That the world is my world, shows itself in the fact that the limits of that language (the language which I understand) mean the limits of my world.
I am my world. (The microcosm.)
The thinking, presenting subject; there is no such thing.Ethics and aesthetics are one
Hence also there can be no ethical propositions.
Propositions cannot express anything higher.
It is clear that ethics cannot be expressed.
Ethics is transcendental.
(Ethics and aesthetics are one.)Whereof one cannot speak
My propositions are elucidatory in this way: he who understands me finally recognizes them as senseless, when he has climbed out through them, on them, over them. (He must, so to speak, throw away the ladder, after he has climbed up on it.)
He must surmount these propositions; then he sees the world rightly.
Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.