Natural learning is about making connections, in history, philosophy, belief and practice. Tie in music, art, science, geography, patterns, religion, animals, minerals or vegetables. This is unschooling practice and strewing practice, except that it's as real as anything.
A while back I brought pictures and a link to some REAL libraries, dreamscapes from the real world.
These appear to be similarly wonderful, only if you take a charge card or a sack of cash, they'll let you take a bunch of books home! Most Interesting Bookstores of the World
That site on which that bookstore collection resides is crookedbrains.net, and when you get there you will see a list of other topics such as chromed bikes, monowheels (those are somewhat related, as range goes), creativity with marbles, homemade submarine, alternate uses for containers... (I keep trying to make a list but I get all involved in another page.)
And there are links to other sites that will make it seem like no time passed at all until you realize you're hungry and need the bathroom and haven't turned the water off in your yard and... (ooops. brb)
There's an example of something I wasted spent several moments on and it's kinda sickmaking (once you click and go to its animated mama), but there's worse there for sure.
At Always Learning some people talked about having had a pattern on numerals on which they did calculations in school because teachers wouldn't let them count on their fingers, and there was a request to bring that here. Can anyone who had a personal system like that describe it?
There was also discussion there of the history of numerals. An earlier post on this blog dealt with ancient counting (aloud, names of numbers: Score! and counting sheep in prehistoric languages) but now the question is about writing numbers down.
A link was brought to this explanation. Some of us were skeptical, and someone's looking into it:
Click the airplane for Sunbeam Bread's 1949 pro-bread propaganda pamphlet aimed at children, and some 21st century commentary by James Lilek. I advise you not to read it while you're eating bread or drinking any liquid.
Below is the creation of an unschooled girl named Hannah who was free to watch TV. She saw a cooking show and created this meal. I'm glad to have the photos and her mom's account! Click the photos to read. Songs about food and about candy
But what really started me on this post was the books post before this. I had a link to a site with cakes made to look like medieval books, and it was on a quiet, still little page here. I'll leave the quote I started the post off with, and when/if I find where those photos went, I'll bring them. My cake-as-sacrifice link is still good, though.
Keith, my husband, sent me this link: Red-Hot and Filthy Library Smut. Yeah, baby. For lovers of books or Europe or the Middle Ages or any two of those, these photos are HOT. Holy cow. I want to be there, I want to DO that. Samples:
Not being able to poke around the libraries, I poked around the blog, and found Crows and Coins, photo-commentary (with captions upon commentary) of crows with coins, and what they must (or might possibly, but probably not) be thinking!
And that's all commentary on this:
The Goal
The goal of this project is to create a device that will autonomously train crows. So far we've trained captive crows to deposit dropped coins they find on the ground in exchange for peanuts. The next step is to see how quickly we can get wild crows to learn the system, and then how quickly they can learn it from each other.
Once we've got system down for teaching coin collection we'll move to seeing how flexibly they can learn *other* tasks, like collecting garbage, sorting through discarded electronics, or maybe even search and rescue. The crows continue to amaze us with their abilities, so who knows?
In the meantime, the idea of mutually beneficial synanthropy is gaining ground. That's the concept that we can have mutually beneficial relationships with animals adapted to human ecologies. We're doing some consulting with companies that have animal-related problems to find animal-related solutions - instead of just bombing, shooting, or poisoning them.
Comments on comments on connections on connections!
Here's a little article on The Pointer Sisters and their connection with Sesame Street. I had always thought that "New Way to Walk" must be a direct parody of a Pointer Sisters' song, but I guess it's just a style parody. I started wondering...
Years later Destiny's Child performed it with muppets:
1993 version between those, made of clips from guest stars from the year or so before. (I remember when they did a similar thing with "Put Down the Duckie.") According to the Sesame Street Wiki *, this clip includes Savion Glover (famous before he was a regular on Sesame Street), Bill Irwin (Mr. Noodle, who played the uncle at Thanksgiving in "Across the Universe"), David shiner, Maya Angelou, Garth Brooks, Ruth Buzzi, Michael Chang, John Goodman, Kevin Kline, Cheech Marin, The Neville Brothers, Rosie O'Donnell and Sally Jesse Raphael.
New Way to Walk
Music by Joe Raposo Lyrics by Mark Saltzman
I was feeling low, I was kinda blue But that's all gone since I got something new
I got a new way to walk (Walk, walk) I got a new way to walk (Walk, walk) I got a new way to walk And my new walk suits me fine
I got a new way to walk (Walk, walk) I got a new way to walk (Walk, walk) I got a new way to walk And it makes my spirit shine
It's a little bit of strut and a lot of smooth And a little bit of bouncing fine My chin is up, my feet don't stall When I walk my walk, I walk real tall
I got a new way to walk (Walk, walk) I got a new way to walk (Walk, walk) I got a new way to walk And it shows how good I feel
This little piggy went to the market This little piggy stayed home This little piggy got a whole new walk And look at these pig feet take me home
I got a new way to walk (Walk, walk) I got a new way to walk (Walk, walk) I got a new way to walk And it shows I've got some sense
I got a new way to walk (Walk, walk) I got a new way to walk (Walk, walk) I got a new way to walk And I walk with confidence
We had nesting Santa dolls for years, and just this year I burned the chipped up unbroken few left. The wood had dried and cracked. They were inexpensive, though, from a cheap catalog that sells bulk imports.
There was a Flight of the Conchords mention of Russian dolls. And so with it already in my head, I came across a page called History of Russian nesting dolls. The translation is rough and interesting, and here are a few quotes:
"In 1918 the unique Museum of Russian and Foreign Toys was opened in Sergiev Posad. The first Russian matryoshka by S. Maliutin is a part of its exhibition."
The life and death of nesting dolls: "Private making of matryoshkas and production of other hand crafted things was forbidden in the USSR – craftsmen had to work at the factories where was no possibility neither to earn enough money for their labor (rates were quite low as at other state enterprises) nor to show their art abilities (goods had to be simple enough for mass production)."
Present time
Now Semionovo matryoshka has not the best time. The complex economic situation in Russia mirrors at these crafts too: it's harder to buy raw materials, fuel and electricity became more expensive. In these condition it hard to create something new, people instead of wage in money get just ready goods: matryoshkas, wooden spoons, wooden tableware. It press people to leave a factory and to work separately at home. Maybe it is hard in the beginning but in such conditions can be born new ideas, types, goods - there are more to room for creative activity.
We sincerely hope that Semionovo matryoshka will blossom soon and will expose us new unusual things. (From Russian-crafts.com.)
I didn't know the Soviet Union forbade home crafts. Way to kill a culture.
Above, 1970's stop-action animation from Sesame Street.
Below, Flight of the Conchords use Russian Dolls in a philosophical analogy.
For sale on e-Bay 4/6:
Added July 2008:
Some images I had above, before, quit working, so I've brought a google link to more Nesting Dolls than you could ever look at. Some are pretty funny these days!
There's an example of something I 
Some artistic recycling of computer parts:
