Fig root foot bridges

Several years ago TPP saw some images of these bridges, and just recently they were brought to my attention again by a fellow who is studying the engineering principles of natural materials.  First of all, note that figs are amazing.  Figs are among the biggest and most impressive trees TPP has ever seen and he's sought out quite a few notable trees. Fig produce what are called adventitious roots, roots from limbs or the tree trunk.  They grow down and when they contact the ground they can become woody and essentially form new trunks.  Such roots can support very horizontal limbs and such trees can cover huge areas essentially a grove of one tree. Here such roots have been trained and connected across a stream to provide footbridges during times of high water. Roots and trunks of figs will readily fuse into a single axis, and they will continue to get bigger and they can live a long time. There are a lot more pictures at this link.  Here's another link to a publication on the use of living plant materials in such engineering.  There are some good images in this paper too. These are marvelous things, and make no mistake about it such nice little tropical streams can become raging torrents very quickly.

Secret garden, illegal garden, magic garden

On the south side of Philadelphia is a Magic Garden, and this "magic garden" was built both illegally and secretly in northern India. You give some people, actually not some people, just a couple of eccentric crazy people enough pieces of pottery and other "junk" and they'll build something magnificent.  It's sort of hard to believe something like this being "secret" in India. Clearly it wasn't a secret, but secret from people who had the power and authority to stop it before it had gone so far it was better to accept the outcome and help the guy finish the job. TPP's impression is that this is pretty cool both as a garden and as folk art. Now Mrs. Phactor can add this place to her bucket list of gardens to see before she dies. 

When you can't afford onions

People can put up with quite a bit, and while annoying, if some non-necessity or luxury item is beyond your means, well, you wait or change your mind and generally endure.  But when you cannot afford the staples of life, you get really, really upset.  Many of my readers may not be as familiar with India and Indian food as TPP, but right now India is having some problems because one of their food staples is undergoing rapid inflationary pricing.  Onions.  Other than maybe some desserts, every Indian recipe begin with cooking onions and spices in oil.  Generally you think of onions as one of those pretty reasonable commodities that's always available.  When the price of onions goes up 5-fold from 20 rupees a kilo to 100 rupees a kilo, people get really upset.  Imagine a truck hijacking for 20 tons of onions?  How are you supposed to eat?  Indeed!  Let them eat pizza? Today the rupee hit an all time low against the dollar (approx. 1.5 cents/rupee), so imported onions would be expensive too.  And you know it's not the farmers who are reaping the benefits of the price increase. 

Chili pepper eating contest - in India!

Chili peppers, which have no relationship to black pepper (Piper nigrum), are of a neotropical origin, but like all domesticated plants as they move around with people they get changed because different genotypes end up in different places and people select for different traits.  Many Indians do not know or believe that chili peppers are a relatively recent addition to their culture and cuisine.  In fact India now has a legitimate claim for having one of the hottest of chili peppers, the ghost chili, and here's a story about it in a chili-eating contest in India.  TPP likes spicy food, but these are chilis are just ridiculous!  As an aside, at the other end of the spectrum, the fried (mild!) chili peppers at Gram and Dun, a gastropub in KC, are just grand!

Exotic Image - Shadow puppets

Isn't this a magical image? Exotic, yes? Would you know what it was? Great images are not necessarily complex ones, but images that are strongly evocative of some exotic place or event. They bring back memories and sensations that no amount of explanation or description can bring alive for you lacking the experience. Shadow puppets are a classic form of Asian puppetry where a silhouette puppet is placed and moved between a light source, lanterns that provide such a setting sun quality, and a screen upon which the shadows are cast. The audience sits or stands beyond. Indonesian shadow puppets figured prominently in The Year of Living Dangerously from back when Sigourney Weaver and Mel Gibson were both young and fresh, but Linda Hunt truly was amazing. This image is magical and borrowed from a young colleague of mine who was just married in southern India where this puppet show was part of the entertainment. The story is not one the Phactor recognizes, but the image is strongly evocative of India (or maybe Thailand too) and more than anything it provides memories of still evenings with the heat of the day still lingering, and the smells of India, which are like no others, and they are burned into the memory. And olfactory memories are powerful ones perhaps because they activate a primitive part of our brain. So enjoy this as best you can. This will be my wallpaper picture for awhile.