Minneapolis airport train

 Another shot down the lines of the airport train in Minneapolis. Whenever I can, I like to get to the front or back of these automated trains, since I really enjoy the view of the airport's guts and architecture.

Minneapolis airport train

Tracks of the airport train line in Minneapolis.

Dividing lines in DFW

Two dividing lines of airport tram track in the Dallas-Fort Worth airport. The trains don't actually divide which way they go in the main line: this is their switch-off point for maintenance or storage, where they leave the world of passengers and dive under a runway to head to their yard at the North end of the airport.

Southwestern quarry

Another complex quarry, off in the Southwest somewhere.

Quarry near Dallas, TX

 One more look at the quarry, this time focusing on the crossbow-looking outline of the right-hand wall.

Quarry near Dallas, TX

A closer look at the precise deep cut between the two separated halves of this quarry.

Quarry near Dallas, TX

A great big quarry somewhere near Dallas, Texas. It bulk is divided in two, with only a narrow channel in between, with the causeway of untouched land carrying a high-voltage power line.

River of Road- Interstate near Boston

 A river of road, snaking back and forth, is my impression of this highway near Boston.

Barker lift, Sunday River, Maine

Ski lift up Barker Mountain at the Sunday River ski resort in Maine. This was our favorite destination for downhill skiing when I was a kid in Maine, and I was bemused to find myself hiking there in the summer in the break-times of a conference. This particular lift (or its predecessor) used to terrify me as a kid, because it goes very fast and the moment you get on you are blasted out over big dark pond that always seemed to have open water even in the deepest part of winter.

Staggered building side, Boston, MA

 Neat bulging out sides of a downtown Boston office building.

Downtown Boston near the Common

 Looking at the mix of old and new across downtown Boston.

Rocket strut, Huntsville, AL

Strut holding an old suborbital test rocket upright in the rocket garden at Huntsville, Alabama.

Swooping lines, Huntsville, AL

 Swooping lines decorate the outside of a large commercial building in Huntsville, Alabama.

Porous parking structure, Huntsville, AL

 I liked the style of the dividing walls in this Alabama parking structure: the number of holes and their thinness make them seem almost lacy to me, which is something strange to say about structural concrete.

Pipe access, Reykjavik, Iceland

The other side of the pipe is much more serious.
 

Pipe access, Reykjavik, Iceland

In a green space between lobes of the city, somebody decorated this pipe access with a wonderfully goofy smile.

The Bus to Reykjavik

Now we're getting into some truly old miscellany, as I go through the last of my pre-pandemic travel photo backlog. Here is a smeary snowy night on the bus from the Keflavik airport to Reykjavik in Iceland, on my first and accidental trip to that country.

Terminal 5 roof, Heathrow Airport

Elegantly swooping curve of the roof in one of the satellite sections of Heathrow Terminal 5. The big satellite sections are almost always echoingly empty, since they are used only for the biggest international jets, and people are summoned to them just before the flight begins to board. So you've got several football fields of open space and one or two patches crammed tightly with several hundred people each.

Heathrow Airport escalator

I love the big escalator in Heathrow Terminal 5 that takes one from the waiting area to the satellite gates. It goes down several stories, all in one big shot, and is very conspicuously one way in its gleaming channel.

Mercury drop sculpture, Charles DeGaulle Airport

 A sculpture looking like a suspended swarm of drops of mercury, in Charles DeGaulle Airport at the edge of Paris.

Artful gate, Paris

A lovely irregular pattern of fake stone and luminous red glass on an otherwise simple utilitarian garden gate in Paris.

Ceiling measure, IRCAM, Paris

Measures in the corners of the transforming performance space in IRCAM, to confirm how many meters high the ceiling is in a particular configuration.

 

Planar speaker, IRCAM, Paris

Mounted on the walls just above the first floor level in the transforming performance room is a giant planar speaker. It runs around all four walls of the room, and is made up of nothing more than ordinary good quality speakers stacked together side by side, meter after meter after meter. This allows artists to synthesize otherwise impossible auditory effects, like a performance in which you hear different pieces in different parts of the room, through ridiculously complex wave transformation calculations. I was told that IRCAM drives this with a supercomputing system, required to be able to run the performance in real-time. Apparently, IRCAM has been in supercomputing since its beginning, when they acquired one of the first Cray supercomputers ever allowed to be exported outside of the United States.

Transforming performance hall, IRCAM, Paris

 One of the major installations of IRCAM, this performance space can radically transform its shape and sonic properties, raising and lowering the ceiling and flipping around those panels on the walls to multiple different textures. Notice also the speakers dottted all around.

Sonic isolation, IRCAM, Paris

Sonic damping structures on the walls and floor of a sonic isolation chamber. When I was there, this chamber was being used to make exact models of the sonic properties of human heads, to better understand and control how music is transformed as it proceeds around and through the body to the sites of perception in the inner ear.

Bunkered research, IRCAM, Paris

Beneath the Place Igor Stravinsky in Paris is a marvelous institution: IRCAM, a high-tech music research center. Founded in the 1970s, this strategic cultural investment helps keep France on the technological cutting edge of the musical arts. I am in love with the concept, which I have a hard time imagining being established anywhere but France, let alone as a presidential priority! While some of the building protrudes above ground, much of it is in these brutalist concrete bunker spaces going down and down.

High alpen station, Swiss-French Border

 Chalet roof, reflections, and perspective in a mountain station on the Swiss-French border.

High alpen station, Swiss-French Border

 Coming into a station in the mountains of the Swiss-French border.

Train graffiti, Swiss-French Border

 Graffiti-covered train backed by the mountains of the Swiss-French border.

Swiss cows

 Swiss cows, grazing by the trackside in a stereotypically bucolic country scene.

A plethora of tracks, Switzerland

Massive number of tracks in this Swiss rail junction. We just don't have places like this in the rail-poor States.

Mist shrouds the shores of Lake Geneva

 Most along the shores of Lake Geneva, which is actually an enormously long body of water carved deep in this valley between mountains.

High speed rail through the Swiss countryside

 On this trip, I got from Geneva to Paris by high-speed rail. Not far from Geneva, the city falls away to a countryside patchwork of fields and villages.

War memorial, Geneva

While Switzerland may be famously neutral, that doesn't mean its soldiers don't end up dying due to wars, as this memorial to the war dead of Geneva testifies.

Swiss flags, Geneva

 Row of columnar Swiss and Geneva flags along the lakeside, flapping in the breeze.

Ducklings in the lead, Geneva

 This raft of ducklings was swimming unusually in advance of their mother, on the right.

Wilson Hotel, Geneva

The newer parts of Geneva are filled with modern international buildings, befitting its position as a hub of United Nations and numerous NGOs. Lots of American cultural presence as well, like this President Wilson hotel, harking back to the founder of the League of Nations.

Cold swan, Geneva

 At the edge of the lake, a cold swan ruffed its feathers against the still-chilly Spring mountain wind.

Old quarter, Geneva

 In the old quarter of Geneva, the buildings are old and streets are narrow.

Fragment of old city walls, Geneva

Once upon a time, Geneva, like European cities, was surrounded by heavy stone defensive walls. Long ago obsolete, they have mostly been broken and removed, but here and there fragments can still be found, like this curving salient draped in ivy.

Chess in the park, Geneva

The chess aficionados in this Geneva park play with giant ground-based sets scattered around the area rather than on the more traditional seated tables one might expect.

Looking out over Lake Geneva

 The lakefront at Geneva is crowded, packed tight with old apartment blocks.

Bridge at the foot of Lake Geneva

I liked this bridge all full of flags on both sides, all bordered with angled flags.

Geneva hotel room

 We're now going back several years, to a trip I had to Geneva and Paris. In Geneva, I was struck by the hypermodern sleekness of the hotel room that I fuond myself in, all pastel colors and glass.

Two tone field, Iowa

 A two-tone field in light snow, partly harvested and partly standing, making me think of the stripes on a wooly-bear caterpillar.

Reflecting wake, Dallas, TX

 Another shining curving wake view.

Reflecting wake, Dallas, TX

A boat's wake carves through the shining surface of the lake, curving from the left to face us in the airplane.

Lake reflections, Dallas, TX

 More beautiful reflecting lights around a complicated head of land.

Lake reflections, Dallas, TX

Shiny waving patterns coming up to a stark line of dam with some sort of protruding control structure.