Tag Archives: Corning Museum of Glass

Super Chickens

Posted on by
2

This is sort of a Franken-post that has been only crudely stitched together.
There is no telling what sort of creature I will have created until it is finished.
Such is the fate of midweek posts, long on perspiration, but short on inspiration.

Blue Animal Bowl, Ulrica Hydman-Vallien, 1978

Blue Animal Bowl, Ulrica Hydman-Vallien, 1978

We were driving to the Shaw Art Fair on Sunday and NPR’s “TED Radio Hour” was on. Margaret Heffernan was giving her talk, Why it’s time to forget the pecking order at work. She begins her talk by recounting the work of Purdue researcher, William Muir, and his productivity study using chickens. He chose chickens, because it is easy to measure their productivity, you just count the eggs. Muir ran two flocks, one a control flock and the other a flock of super chickens, selected for their superior egg laying capabilities. He ran each flock separately and after six generations, the control flock of regular chickens was doing fine. It had even increased its productivity by 10%, while the flock of super chickens was down to just three survivors, the rest had been pecked to death. Heffernan then draws out the analogies between Muir’s super chickens and our modern human life, where high performers are raised up and rewarded above the rest of us. She concludes that such a model is not as productive as a more collaborative one would be.

I dream of a world where chickens can cross the road,
without having their motives questioned.

Broken Glass, Again

Posted on by
2
Baccarat Boat Figurehead

Baccarat Boat Figurehead

Pictured is a portion of a fine piece of Baccarat glass art that I photographed, while visiting the Corning Museum of Glass this summer, in upstate New York. It shows a Pan like figurehead, on the prow of a beautiful glass boat. Not shown is an equally fabulous glass table that the boat sits upon in the museum. This piece was made in 1900 for the Paris world’s fair of that year. It would be a tragedy of the first order if this stunning glass artwork were to shatter.

I tell myself all this to help put into context my personal disappointment tonight when the newly replaced back glass on my iPhone shattered, again. I had just gotten it fixed on Sunday and less than a week later it is already broken again. I had sat on it and heard the tale tell crunch of broken glass. The phone was in my back jeans pocket. I am really good at not leaving it there when I sit down, but it was raining out and I was in a hurry. I have sat on this phone before, in the very same car seat, without any negative repercussions, but that was with the phone’s original gorilla glass. In the past these butt dials were done sans case, but tonight the phone was in a case, just not that awful Otter Box. The long and the short of it is that I don’t think that the phone should have broken again so easily and I am going to complain to Fox Paw about it tomorrow. Even if I can’t get any satisfaction from them, I still will likely avail myself of their services again. I have a coupon for a 10% discount at least and there may then soon be an Otter Box in my future. Please stay tuned for more of this saga, dear friends.