Notes | Brutkey

Play time. Reading time. Hanging out time. The library. The city. The harbour. The weekend.

#WindowFriday
#FensterFreitag
#Aarhus

Short version: reflected in a window, a playground with harbour in background. Fuller description: looking in a huge picture window of Dokk1 Aarhus main library, Denmark, on an upper terrace. You can’t see the window edges, so it might not be obvious at first glance that this is a window. Inside, ghostly, indistinct in interior darkness, almost as if floating: rows of books on barely visible shelves. Overlaying them in the window, the full reflection of the scene behind us – the city and harbour. We can see a 75-metre tall industrial crane, angular like a blue iron giraffe; Denmark’s tallest building, the narrow rectangular 142-metre tall Lighthouse apartment block; an A-shaped apartment block; a 70-metre high apartment block with a giant clock; calm light blue sea; overcast sky swirling with black and white clouds. On the terrace: playground platforms with indistinct figures of children walking and hopping and playing on them – one child is in mid-air, mid-hop.

Ciara
@CiaraNi@mastodon.green

About 20 years ago, I saw an excellent rock. It was unusual, so I took a photo. But I couldn’t find the photo shortly afterwards and thought I’d deleted it by mistake. I was sad. I kept describing the rock to people, but they were strangely uninterested. I am clearing out my photo archive and I just found it. I am happy. I missed this rock. I thought of it often. I can show my rock to people now, whether they want to see it or not. You included.

Short version: a rock that is half black and half white. Fuller description: Looking down at a rock not the size of a large boulder. A rock about the size of, say, a rugby ball. It is dark wet with rain, lying on a winter beach in Skagen, Denmark. Small stones in lighter greens and beiges are nestled around it at one edge. Larger uninteresting rocks in dull blacks and greys are on either side. The excellent rock looks like two rocks fused together. The left half is jet black and has a rippling texture that reminds me of the crisp packets we shrank in the oven to amuse ourselves as kids. The right half is bright white with patches of grey and very smooth. The join between the two halves is invisibly smooth. The rock looks alien to me. Obviously, I didn’t touch it. I assume there were faeries or trolls nearby.

Ciara
@CiaraNi@mastodon.green

They are 3D-printing a new street in our neighbourhood

#Aarhus

Vestergade, mid-city Aarhus, Denmark. A lovely narrow old street that is, after a few years' trial, being turned permanently into a Quiet Street - cars may drive here, but only slowly, and bikes and pedestrians have priority. The council is planting trees, widening the pavement café and seating spaces, and laying a nice new chessboard-like brick surface. The surface is designed to slow down bikes too. It is the first place in Denmark that is being paved with a Dan Jord RoadPrinter - a Dutch brick paver that rolls out complete stretches of road from a machine, as if you are winding a continuous sheet of paper out from a huge roll of paper. Photo taken with permission - I have turned into one of those Auld Lads who stand there, hands behind my back, watching them at work, fascinated by the process, interrupting them with questions including 'may I take some photos?' This photo: Sun shining. A close-up of the machine seen from the side over Work In Progress metal barricades. A yellow half-timbered café and house opposite us. We can clearly see the bricks being wound like one ready-made carpet out of the machine, slowly falling into place on the flat surface where several men in high-vis yellow gear are at work - laying, sweeping, fixing.

Seen from the back, behind building paraphernalia and a huge bag of concrete or some such - a vew of the brick road being wound out of the machine. A cyclist is just passing on the pavement alongside. Same general description from first photo now follows, so skip if already heard: Vestergade, mid-city Aarhus, Denmark. A lovely narrow old street that is, after a few years' trial, being turned permanently into a Quiet Street - cars may drive here, but only slowly, and bikes and pedestrians have priority. The council is planting trees, widening the pavement café and seating spaces, and laying a nice new chessboard-like brick surface. The surface is designed to slow down bikes too. It is the first place in Denmark that is being paved with a Dan Jord RoadPrinter - a Dutch brick paver that rolls out complete stretches of road from a machine, as if you are winding a continuous sheet of paper out from a huge roll of paper. Photo taken with permission - I have turned into one of those Auld Lads who stand there, hands behind my back, watching them at work, fascinated by the process, interrupting them with questions including 'may I take some photos?

Another angle of the same road work as in the first photo. This time we can see further along the street to a section not yet laid - just dirt on the surface. Same general description from first photo now follows, so skip if already heard: Vestergade, mid-city Aarhus, Denmark. A lovely narrow old street that is, after a few years' trial, being turned permanently into a Quiet Street - cars may drive here, but only slowly, and bikes and pedestrians have priority. The council is planting trees, widening the pavement café and seating spaces, and laying a nice new chessboard-like brick surface. The surface is designed to slow down bikes too. It is the first place in Denmark that is being paved with a Dan Jord RoadPrinter - a Dutch brick paver that rolls out complete stretches of road from a machine, as if you are winding a continuous sheet of paper out from a huge roll of paper. Photo taken with permission - I have turned into one of those Auld Lads who stand there, hands behind my back, watching them at work, fascinated by the process, interrupting them with questions including 'may I take some photos?

A finished section of the 'printed' brick surface - a long stretch of perfectly laid bricks. On both sides: small businesses and cafes and cyclists and pedestrians on the pavement alongside. Same general description from first photo now follows, so skip if already heard: Vestergade, mid-city Aarhus, Denmark. A lovely narrow old street that is, after a few years' trial, being turned permanently into a Quiet Street - cars may drive here, but only slowly, and bikes and pedestrians have priority. The council is planting trees, widening the pavement café and seating spaces, and laying a nice new chessboard-like brick surface. The surface is designed to slow down bikes too. It is the first place in Denmark that is being paved with a Dan Jord RoadPrinter - a Dutch brick paver that rolls out complete stretches of road from a machine, as if you are winding a continuous sheet of paper out from a huge roll of paper. Photo taken with permission - I have turned into one of those Auld Lads who stand there, hands behind my back, watching them at work, fascinated by the process, interrupting them with questions including 'may I take some photos?

Ciara
@CiaraNi@mastodon.green

My favourite thing in the whole Fediverse is when I get a notification that someone has edited a toot I favourited or boosted months ago. Like, something in that toot has been bugging them for half a year. A comma that could've been a semi-colon. A spelling mistake they belatedly spotted. Some good information they wish they'd put in the Alt Text. And thanks to the magic of Mastodon, they can just fix it now, all these months later. I feel happy for them, knowing they can sleep soundly again.

Ciara
@CiaraNi@mastodon.green

There’s so much to be anxious about right now, so I thought you might like to know that they painted the night sky inside the bus shelter outside the Ole Rømer Observatory.

#Aarhus

Aarhus. On the road outside the Ole Rømer Observatory, named after another famous Dane, Carl Nielsen. A broad clear road in Kongelunden, the Royal Woods, with trees on either side. Looking straight at the bus shelter, one of the city’s iconic mushroom-shaped bus shelters designed in the 1960s by furniture designer Poul Cadovius. A low concrete mushroom-shaped shell with standing room and a little bench inside. The council commissioned artists to paint them with local motifs. Artist Ekaterina Poliakova painted the night sky in this one. As you wait for the bus, you are surrounded on three sides and above by a black night sky with a map of the stars and constellations and galaxies, their names written beside them. Outside, the shelter’s shell is painted like a day sky – light blue with fluffy white clouds.

Seen from a side angle, so you can see the outside of the bus shelter with blue sky and white clouds painted on it, and night sky inside. Now follows same full description as on all photos in the toot, so skip if you’ve already heard it. Aarhus. On the road outside the Ole Rømer Observatory, named after another famous Dane, Carl Nielsen. A broad clear road in Kongelunden, the Royal Woods, with trees on either side. Looking straight at the bus shelter, one of the city’s iconic mushroom-shaped bus shelters designed in the 1960s by furniture designer Poul Cadovius. A low concrete mushroom-shaped shell with standing room and a little bench inside. The council commissioned artists to paint them with local motifs. Artist Ekaterina Poliakova painted the night sky in this one. As you wait for the bus, you are surrounded on three sides and above by a black night sky with a map of the stars and constellations and galaxies, their names written beside them. Outside, the shelter’s shell is painted like a day sky – light blue with fluffy white clouds.

Inside the bus shelter looking out, a sliver of ‘night sky’ above our heads with stars and galaxies. Outside, a car passing by and other cars waiting to turn the corner. Now follows same full description as on all photos in the toot, so skip if you’ve already heard it. Aarhus. On the road outside the Ole Rømer Observatory, named after another famous Dane, Carl Nielsen. A broad clear road in Kongelunden, the Royal Woods, with trees on either side. Looking straight at the bus shelter, one of the city’s iconic mushroom-shaped bus shelters designed in the 1960s by furniture designer Poul Cadovius. A low concrete mushroom-shaped shell with standing room and a little bench inside. The council commissioned artists to paint them with local motifs. Artist Ekaterina Poliakova painted the night sky in this one. As you wait for the bus, you are surrounded on three sides and above by a black night sky with a map of the stars and constellations and galaxies, their names written beside them. Outside, the shelter’s shell is painted like a day sky – light blue with fluffy white clouds.

Ciara
@CiaraNi@mastodon.green

We need a word for real-life enshittification caused by online culture. Like being unable to find an organisation’s info because they’ve Instagram but no website. Or panicked people being sent a videolink to download to their phone when they ring for an ambulance. Or being excluded from residents' association news if you're not on Facebook. Or having cash payment refused. Or staff in the business you’re physically standing in telling you to find the answer to your question on their website.