SWCAMBORNE

Here are two more examples of mysterious structure.

Flotsam and jetsam (I don’t know the difference and neither do you) have been been put on a piece of driftwood in the middle of a beautiful Caribbean beach.

Stone piles have been built in Eaton Canyon Park in Pasadena.  These piles are near where the trail that leads to the waterfall and Henninger Flats crosses the stream

and are being built by school groups.  I admit to building some of them a few weeks ago when I first had this idea  just to see if they would become self perpetuating.  Within a week of my building four or five piles there were a dozen more.  Last week I observed a school group on a tour from the nature center.  The leader of the group asked the students to help build the “guiding stones.” And they did.

Building monuments like henges, pyramids and totem poles is the penultimate example of the harnessing of this human instinct to create mysterious structures.  The fairy homes, rock piles and driftwood collections I have shown are evidence that this instinct is common in people and can be harnessed by group leaders.  So if you are leading a group and are charged with keeping them busy, make up a story about ancient peoples or fairies and have the group use found materials to build homes or trees or stone piles.  It sounds crazy but it will work.

OOMS is the acronym for On the Origin of Mysterious Structures. It is a story that started on swcamborne.com yesterday.  BTW the name is a takeoff on Darwin’s classic “On the Origin of Species.”  I expect that, in the fullness of time, OOMS will be as significant a work as Darwin’s.

We went on a walking tour in Maine in September and while walking on Monhegan Island between the harbor

and the high cliff

we passed through a wooded glade.

Nestled in the roots of the trees were some mysterious little houses.

Our guide called them “fairy houses” and we stopped for a few minutes to admire them.  She explained that this was an enchanted wood that was the home of a forgotten group of faries.  Before long she suggested that we might like to help build some new houses for the fairies to replace the ones that had been destroyed by the long winter or some such malarkey. We took the bait and for a short while we were busy building little fairy houses.

It was only a few days ago that I realized that this event in Maine offered a solution to the puzzle of the Mysterious rock piles on Maui.  The answer is tour guides.  They distract their groups and help them to bond with each other and the area by allowing them to participate in what becomes a self perpetuating mystery.  Everybody benefits from this tiny subterfuge.  Tourism is slightly enhanced.  The tourists are entertained at no cost.  A little mystery is good in every-one’s life and we all connect a bit more.

Tomorrow two more examples that provide more evidence to support my brilliant solution to the mysterious structures mystery.

On the island of Maui, past the snorkel bay north of Kapalua

and before the famous church,

you pass a barren cliff with a huge collection of rock piles on it.

The rock piles are “Mysterious Structures.”  They were built for no apparent purpose in a far away place.  Who or what built them and why?  We journeyed around the world to find out the answer to this question.  Read tomorrow’s installment to learn what we discovered.

Do you think you know?  Leave your answer as a comment below.

This is one of the great ideas that I wish I’d had. An artist named Ari Kletzky has been putting up signs around LA naming the traffic islands a National Park. There is one of the signs down my hill:

www.islandsofla.com 

Kletzky and his idea were featured in an LA Times story last week.

It reminds me of “The Roundabouts of Derby” which were featured on a calendar my brother Tom gave me a few years ago. I still cherish the calendar. although I couldn’t find it for this blog.

I’m thinking about contacting him about the “Great Pyramid of Gates” One of my great project ideas that I’m having a hard time getting off the ground.

About 45 minutes north of NYC on I 87 is the Storm King Art Center. It is one of the worlds premier large outdoor sculpture gardens.

“Storm King  Wall” by Andrew Goldsworthy

They have Calder’s, a beautiful Henry Moore, the famous running fence by Andrew Goldsworthy and many more large and magnificent pieces.

Henry Moore

I have visited twice. The first time with Nurit and Rebecca and even though it was raining we loved the place. This time I was by myself, it was overcast but not raining and I liked it even more. I’m looking forward to visiting it when the sun is shining. I have put up a short slide show on Flickr.

Isamu Noguchi

So if you are in the NYC area, you like art and it is a sunny day I recommend trying to visit Storm King Art Center.