I mean Artist in the way this party presupposes. Sure, I make a piece of music; or a fucking dress for that matter—you’d be astonished how similar they are! But I don’t just think you can be that kind of artist any more. Lots of people do things lots better than lots of others; but, today, so many people do so many things very well, and so many people are seriously interested in so many different things people do for their own different reasons, you can’t call any thing the best for every person, or even every serious person. So you just pay real attention to the real things that affect you; and don’t waste your time knocking the rest. This party—it’s ritual attention, the sort you give a social hero. I guess that can be an artist if there’re few enough of them around—

—Lanya

Dhalgren, by Samuel R. Delany, is a frustrating book. But I enjoyed it.

Roosevelt Island is directly under the flight path for National Airport.

I took Bryan to Roosevelt Island for his first time. The island is one of my favorite things about DC. It’s a different place each time I visit, it gives me a nature fix that is very close to home, sometimes I get to see deer, and it honors one of my favorite heroes. We walked all along the perimeter of the island and then to the monument in the middle.

The deer kept themselves hidden this time, but we still got to see lots of zebra swallowtail butterflies (though none were cooperative about being photographed), dragonflies, birds, lizards, fish, and flowers. The entire photo set can be viewed on Flickr.

We got an invitation to join friends last Saturday at a swimming hole in Maryland. We were given only a street address. Unfamiliar with the Beaver Dam Swimming Club — a very cool spot in a former rock quarry — I entered the street address into Google Maps and was directed to Laurel, MD. We drove to the address and found nothing. A short drive down the road led us to Perkins Cemetery, so I seized the opportunity to take some pictures before we realized we were 40 minutes away from where we were supposed to be. We finally made it to the Swimming Club and had a great time. More pictures are on Flickr.

The IRC's recreation of the US Capitol building, circa 1800.

UMBC’s Imaging Research Center (IRC) is working on an incredible project that will bring to life Washington DC as it looked around 1790-1820. One of their first steps is to recreate the grounds of the Notley Young Plantation, in what is now SW DC around Benjamin Banneker Park. The images you see below are recreations of two of the plantation’s structures. These models are for geometric purposes; textures will be added later.

Notley Young Mansion

Wharf at Notley Young Plantation

The implications of this project are fascinating, especially when you consider that they have plans to integrate the fruits of their labor with location-aware mobile phones. Years from now, when you enter a holodeck and walk around early 19th-century DC, you can thank these guys.

More Information:
Visualizing Early Washington DC
The Beginning of the Road (Washington Post, 08/31/08)

My gentleman friend and I made a trip to Harpers Ferry, WV last Saturday. I’ve been going there at least once each of the past several years, but this was the first time that I got to see the Potomac and Shenandoah so colorfully mixing together. It was a hot day and the hike up the mountain isn’t easy. The view from the cliff makes it all worth it. A sample of my photos from the trip are below, and you can see the whole Flickr set here.

Aaron Koblin is an artist who works with data visualization. You may remember his work Flight Patterns from a few years ago. His latest work is The Johnny Cash Project, and it’s mesmerizing. It is a video for the Cash song “Ain’t No Grave” from the posthumously released “American VI” album, and the frames are all individually drawn by different users. Please check it out.

Those worlds in space are as countless as all the grains of sand on all the beaches of the earth. Each of those worlds is as real as ours and every one of them is a succession of incidents, events, occurrences which influence its future. Countless worlds, numberless moments, an immensity of space and time. And our small planet at this moment, here we face a critical branch point in history, what we do with our world, right now, will propagate down through the centuries and powerfully affect the destiny of our descendants, it is well within our power to destroy our civilization and perhaps our species as well. If we capitulate to superstition or greed or stupidity we could plunge our world into a time of darkness deeper than the time between the collapse of classical civilisation and the Italian Renaissance. But we are also capable of using our compassion and our intelligence, our technology and our wealth to make an abundant and meaningful life for every inhabitant of this planet.

—Carl Sagan, Journeys in Space and Time, Episode 8

Photo: Rocky Wilson

Hello. I’m Joshua Limbaugh. I’m a design professional living in Washington DC. This site will serve to showcase my design portfolio and photography, chronicle my adventures in learning WordPress, and provide commentary on the arts and sciences as they relate to the world. I’m a big nerd with a wide range of interests, and it’ll all be on this site. Thanks for being here!