dianaschnuth

Amy, Aaron and I enjoyed an afternoon at the Ann Arbor Art Fairs this past Saturday. I’m still recovering from the fun, but wanted to briefly share what I bought at the fairs.

Several years back, I saw some hanging plant rooters at the Crosby Art Festival here in town. For whatever reason, I didn’t buy one, assuming that (like most other booths) I’d see them at another fair in the near future. Turns out that the artisans aren’t exactly local; they’re from Vermont. So, this weekend, thanks to Aaron’s sharp eye in seeing their booth, I finally picked myself up one of the more popular copper rooters from Vermont Nature Creations. I’m planning to head outside sometime this week and cut some catnip to try rooting in my new piece of art. If I like it, perhaps I’ll buy myself another for a spider or two.

One of my favorite parts of going to an art show is watching the people who will actually show you their craft and how they create their wares. Linda Tong was one of those people this year. She creates Asian laquerware, and showed us the delicate handpainting she does for each creation. Knowing this, the Maneki Neko I got for $15 was quite a steal.

During our turn around the Liberty Street Courtyard, I found a booth of jewelry and earrings created from bottle caps and coins and other bits of found items. I bought a pair of earrings made from small Asian coins — only $10 for the pair. She also had earrings made from typewriter keys, but I couldn’t find appropriate initials (except maybe I.T., for my occupation). Which is really too bad, because I absolutely adored those earrings. The Fun Company has some of their wares posted online, but nothing quite like the Asian coin earrings I bought, unfortunately, and no typewriter key earrings.

One booth I quite admired, but didn’t have the coin (or the real estate) to purchase and properly display, was John Chumack’s Galactic Images. His astronomical photos have been featured in National Geographic and Time Magazine, among others, and he has an impressive backyard observatory in Dayton, Ohio. Seeing his photos almost made me want to go out and buy myself a telescope (preferably one I could connect to a camera body). Some of my favorite photos of his, though, were ones where both the stars and the landscape were amazingly sharp; those intrigued me from both a technical and an artistic perspective.

I’m glad that, this year, I actually bought some useful and easily-displayed items that won’t still be leaning up against a wall a year later, unmatted and unframed.

In addition to the booths, the food, and the company, I also enjoyed taking photos with my Lomo LC-A. But that’s another post for another day…

Aaron and I spent yesterday afternoon in Ann Arbor. Ate some delicious food of various ethnic origins, stopped into some interesting stores, and generally had a good time hanging out in a different town.

One of our standard stops in Ann Arbor is the Dawn Treader Book Shop. We’ve picked up some interesting books there in the past, and it’s always fun to just look around. This time, I came across this 1872 publication, Religious Denominations of the World, compiled by a Vincent L. Milner. The title page states that it is “a general view of the origin, history, and condition of the various sects of Christians, the Jews, and Mahometans, as well as the Pagan forms of religion existing in the different countries of the earth: with Sketches of the Founders of Various Religious Sects.”

This looks like a fascinating read. The Table of Contents includes dozens of religions I’ve never heard of before, and some I’ve only heard of in passing. It should be interesting to read about these religions from the point of view of a Christian from the year 1871 who is attempting to be as impartial as possible (per the Preface).

The only disappointing thing about this book, from a research standpoint, is that it claims to have been “carefully compiled from the best authorities on the subject,” but it never references who those authorities are. What I’ve read so far seems to be factually correct, though, if a bit more biased than Mr. Milner might have thought.

Expect to hear more on my blog about Mr. Milner (if I can find anything) and his take on Mormons, Atheists, and obscure religions of the 1800s.

It’s been a tradition since the early years of our courtship for Aaron and I to celebrate our respective birthdays on the weekend nearest to the date. Aaron’s worked nights/evenings for the last 15 years or so, which makes birthday dinner problematic. Since my birthday is on a Wednesday this year (hint, hint), we opted to celebrate this past Saturday.

Our plans initially revolved around going to see the Star Trek exhibit at the Detroit Science Center, but later expanded to include dinner in Ann Arbor. The short version of the day: The weather was positively BEAUTIFUL; the Star Trek exhibit was fairly detailed and involved, and it definitely catered to the Trekkie/Trekker; dinner was at the Chinese/Vietnamese restaurant on S. University, and was delicious; we continued to be Starbucks whores, even in another town; and we topped off the evening by sharing some mochi ice cream.

The long version of the day (with photos) is after the jump…
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Thus saith the Lord: When thou makest thy signs in the manner of Microsoft Word, surely shalt thou heed the line of red, which marketh thy misspellings.

Seen at the Fulton County Fair, 31 August 2008.