Category Archives: life in general

Blizzard

By JAZ | Published: February 9, 2013

Bookmark

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Hnefatafl: A Viking Era Game

By JAZ | Published: January 26, 2013

Hnefatafl, also called The King’s Table, is a two-player game originating about 400 A.D. in Iceland, Scandanavia, Ireland, and Lappland. One unusual aspect, rare for a board game, is that the two sides are uneven, one having the king and twelve defenders, while the other is comprised of twenty-four attackers. The gameboards were often of […]

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Pearl #1

By JAZ | Published: January 18, 2013

Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time. -Thomas Merton Bookmark

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Leif Eriksson Day

By JAZ | Published: October 9, 2012

Today, October 8 is Leif Eriksson Day in the U.S. About 1,000 A.D., Leif and his men sailed from Greenland to what is now L’Anse Aux Meadows in northern Newfoundland, Canada. He beat Columbus by nearly 500 years to be verifiably the first European to set foot in North America, where he built an outpost. […]

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Discovering Vinland

By JAZ | Published: July 30, 2012

As part of my research for a historical novel about Gudrid Thorbjarnardottir, we went in search of one of the places she traveled to in the early 1,000s. It was more than intriguing. Leif Eiriksson discovered something big around 1,000 A.D. You can still see the footprints of his longhouses at L’Anse aux Meadows on […]

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Motionless

By JAZ | Published: March 3, 2012

As I watched the goldfinches at our feeder today something in the next yard startled them. They spurted up and away in various directions. One unfortunate flew toward me and hit the glass of the atrium door, bang! She landed a foot away, wings and tail splayed on the new snow, each feather arrayed in […]

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Steve Lambert: Capitalism

By JAZ | Published: February 25, 2012

At the DeCordova Sculpture Park and Museum yesterday in pouring rain I voted my opinion into Steve Lambert’s Capitalism: It Works For Me! True/False, which includes a counter of the opinions cast. How would you vote? This future/retro neon thingy was part of the museum’s biennial, installed in front of the entrance. Inside, hidden back […]

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Guðríðarkirja – meaningful design

By JAZ | Published: January 22, 2012

For the past year I have been working on a YA novel about a Norse teen from 1,000 A.D. I read about Gudrid Thorbjarnardottir in two of the Icelandic sagas where she is shown to have had a truly amazing life. I’ve tried to show her in 3D in What Else is There? The story […]

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Advice from a kid: Miranda, age nine

By JAZ | Published: July 15, 2011

Miranda and I went for a walk. She told me what she thinks about books.  Here’s what she said. Topics that some kids like (kids that I know): Fluffy kitty cat books (I hate them completely) Books with some scary moments and action (I personally like these best :) Craft books like how to decorate […]

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Sculpture for Culture

By JAZ | Published: December 2, 2010

The other day I was showing some images of sculptures by various people to Stephanie Sullivan and she expressed her surprise that there isn’t more public sculpture in the U.S. as there is in Europe and other parts of the world. She is a nineteen-year old who has the right idea. I asked her to […]

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Eerie parallels

By JAZ | Published: October 1, 2010

In June we embarked on a major road trip around the Great Lakes from our home in MA. I brought some books on CD for in the car and a couple of paperbacks including Eleven, a powerful and poignant story by Patricia Reilly Giff. In the book, Sam who is just turning eleven, suspects that […]

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