Wednesday, March 28, 2012

Bugbee's Allure of the Swamp

Just as Thoreau, Bugbee also saw the allure in the swamp.  Bugbee talked about wanted to jump into a swamp that was near his school, a swamp that no one could help but jump into, even though it was dirty and frigid.  The swamp was most alluring after winter but when the sky was still gray and cold.  This swamp (or wetland), near my home, had a certain wild beauty to it that catches my eye every time I walk past it.  The murky water is a beautiful green color from the algae that grows in the it, there are no misquotes near it, so it is very approachable, and the bridge that crosses over it often has people on it, deep in conversation.  The trees offer enough shade in the summer, but are sparse enough in the spring and fall to give light to see.  It has a beauty that one can't pinpoint, even though it is just "a swamp."









Blog 8- The Park

Whenever I go home, I more than likely take a trip to a local park called Grant Nature. It's relatively large with four different paths you can walk on. There's a lot of wildlife there and I think that is what has me always coming back. There is something that I feel when I see other animals over any other type of nature. Seeing wild animals fascinates me to observe their environment and living conditions and I really try to imagine what it would be like living in that area. I could only imagine how peaceful it would be

Monday, March 26, 2012

Blog 8--Parks

You know what I find aesthetically pleasing?? I think parks are something that really captures a beautiful area.  Parks are usually set in a place where there is walking and lots of vegetation and forests.  The kids can play while adults take walks, or just a place to enjoy the outside besides your front lawn.  When it is a nice day it is either going to the pool, going for a run, or going to a park.  I love being outside and being with nature.  I have a little brother too, so going out to parks and pools and what not, is something very valuable when there are young ones around.
It is also a place to collect yourself and realize what nature really is and how beautiful God made our world.  All the different trees, flowers, vegetation and life that is surrounding you.  The awesome thing about parks is that they are all different.  Some parks have play sets, others just walking/biking trails, some have grill out spots and places to sit, some have all.  I just love parks and the atmosphere it produces.  No matter who you are or where you are from, parks are a place to bring people together and have a good time.  Especially in the weather we are having now, it is a great time to visit a park :)

Rowing

I figured since we were talking so much about that crazy rowing coach that I would share some pictures from my experience with Cincinnati Junior Rowing Club here in the area.

This is the girls lightweight 8 for the national championships in 2006. This was a day before the big race and although you cannot see the coach he is to our left in a boat with a megaphone.


This is the actual race for nationals that we raced. We are in there somewhere between everyone.


Then us dead tired rowing back into the docks. At this point we thought we placed 4th but our insane coach came running on to the dock yelling that we have placed second.


So we got medals!


Unfourtunately no pictures of our coaches with megaphones on bicycles could be located. But, I do relate the the conversation of thinking that they are crazy but loving them for their passion of the sport.

Friday, March 23, 2012

In Agreeance With Scruton

Roger Scruton has philosophized that art has become vulgar, ugly, and pointless.  Take for example, the Pompidou Modern Art Museum.  The outside is the inside and the inside is the outside - an inside-out building.  The art makes one scratch their heads, squint their eyes, and crane their necks to see the art from a different perspective.  To me, art needs more, and modern art does not offer my mind enough stimulation.  Scruton said,
"Many of the uglinesses cultivated in our world today refer back to the two experiences that I have singled out. The body in the throes of death; the body in the throes of sex—these things easily fascinate us. They fascinate us by desecrating the human form, by showing the human body as a mere object among objects, the human spirit as eclipsed and ineffectual, and the human being as overcome by external forces, rather than as a free subject bound by the moral law."
The video shows a metal bar that vibrates when it hits a wire.  Is that art, just like "An Oak Tree," by Michael Craig-Martin?  I'm not entirely convinced.  





Wednesday, March 21, 2012

Building Aesthetic

I find it very interesting that we discussed the beauty in architecture. I have traveled to many different parts of europe where their architecture is older and considered more pleasing.

In valencia spain they embrace both modern and old world style.
This particular church had 500 years worth of different architecture.

This is a portion of the ciudad de sciencias.


Each of these has a different style but have their own aesthetic.
There is incorporation of natural aspects as well with gardens.


In valencia they also redid a portion of the city that was a river. The river dried up and they were deciding if they would make it into a park or highway. The following pictures are portions of this area that include different sections between the bridges.








Tuesday, March 20, 2012

Roger Scruton - Why Beauty Matters

I though Roger Scruton's analysis of modern architecture was too harsh in the documentary Why Beauty Matters. It is hard to argue his point on the lack of beauty in the abondoned concrete buildings built only for utility in the 60's. However, I feel modern architecture seeks to marry the utility of a builing with an aestetically pleasing structure. Scruton, on the other hand, claims that the old builing style was "replaced with a new type of junk... which results in a new failure to fit and is there simply to be demolished." I think that the newer style of design is far more interesting and should not be lumped into the same category as the purely utlitarian builings of the 60's.


Then, Roger Scruton considers the cafe. He explains to the audience that the building was once a forge. This raises the question of the original purpose of this building--the structures original purpose was utility. The difference between the building and the buildings of the 60's is that this one is still in use. He says: "People come here from all around becuase it is the last bit of life remaining and that life come from the building."
He argument speads from there to say that when we put usefulness first, we lose the art, but when we put beauty first, and what you do will be useful forever. I think that it would be hard to form an argument where the original forge was built for beauty.

New Thoughts From John Luther Adams

Variations on A Theme by La Monte Young
John Luther Adams

See the original here: New Music Box

In 1960 La Monte Young prompted us: “Draw a straight line and follow it.”
The reverberations of this radically simple directive have been vast and profound.
But aside from those that we humans create, there are few if any straight lines in nature. So, fifty-two years later, I’d like to propose Variations on A Theme by La Monte Young: “Find a crooked line and follow it.”

You may choose to realize this in purely visual terms. Or you may want to follow your crooked line and sound it.You might walk along a shoreline, singing or playing as you go. You might trace a fixed elevation line as it meanders along a hillside, perhaps translating the contour from a map into musical notation. You might follow the course of a stream and record its changing voices.

Maybe you trace in sound the forms of clouds in the sky. Maybe you choose to travel from Point A to Point B as directly as you can, but the crooked line you follow is the rise and fall of the earth beneath your feet.
Step off the rectilinear grid that we impose on the world and wander wherever the infinitely intricate curves of nature may lead you. Alternatively, you might remain in one place and let the lines come to you.
There should be as many possible variations on this theme as there are crooked lines in the world.
And then there’s the possibility of a polyphony of such lines…
Now it’s your turn: write, record, or otherwise draft your response using any method that suits your style and skills, then share it in comments. You can embed a SoundCloud player, a YouTube video, a link to a score file—whatever works. Here at NewMusicBox, we talk about music a lot. This project is our way of shifting focus and actually making some music, too. We can’t wait to hear what everyone creates.—MS




***

John Luther Adams
John Luther Adams, whom critic Alex Ross has called “one of the most original musical thinkers of the new century,” has created a unique musical world rooted in wilderness landscapes and natural phenomena. His music, which includes works for orchestra, chamber ensembles, soloists, and electronic media, is recorded on the Cold Blue, New World, Cantaloupe, Mode, and New Albion labels. Adams’s books Winter Music and, most recently, The Place Where You Go to Listen: In Search of an Ecology of Music are published by Wesleyan University Press, and his writings about music and nature have appeared in numerous periodicals and anthologies.

The chillest beings on earth

In honor of our fresh positive aesthetics outlook we have been discussing in class. I'm going to try to find the beauty in something traditionally ugly and see if we can appreciate it properly. Today's lesson features the some of the chillest living creature in existence.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-tfsL9Kq8R8

If you clicked the link you would have been rewarded with a video featuring a three toed sloth on a perilous journey to cross the road. Sloths may not be all that ugly. And we certainly feel more comfortable around sloths  than around arachnids and other venomous creepy crawlys we have been associating with defending in the name of positive aesthetics. But they don't exactly aspire awe either, they are not what we would picture as sublime in a traditional since. Being called a sloth wouldn't exacltly be a compliment, and it is the patron animal of the slow, the dumb, and the dull.
But these things are fasinating creatures. They have so many odd little tidbits about them, I for one could not help but raise a few eyebrows as I read more about them. In a world where the animal population is constantly evolving to be stronger, quicker, more resilient. The sloth takes a whole new approach you almost cant believe that a organism can take such a creative way to carve their ecological niche.
They are herbavoirs so they eat a lot of plants and berries, which compliments there arboral,or tree-living, lifestyle. When in danger, sloths top speed is 4 meters a minute. Luckily they find ways around this. Their fur is unique amoung mammels in that is grows in the reverse direction (the hair on the arm point toward shoulder) because of how much time they spend upside down. Their fur is a living ecosystem teaming with cyanobacteria.This fur provides adaptive camoflage. The bacteria camoflage along with slow movement make it practicly impossible for predetors to find.

Monday, March 19, 2012

Storms in the sky and Animals. Blog #8

To me there is nothing more appealing than once the weather starts to warm up the way it has been this week. (Granted, it makes it much harder for me to concentrate on school work knowing that summer is right around the corner. ) Especially the fact that we get a lot of storms around this time.
To me there is something about watching storms brew in the sky that get me hyped- I could watch a storm for hours if it's more than just rain. The best part of a storm is right after it passes once the sky starts to lighten up and the birds and other animals start their chittering and chattering again-you know that you are truly in the clear.
Unlike some people, storms rarely scare me. When they do it's because animals begin to take cover. When I was younger I spent hours on end at my Pappaw's dairy farm. I still remember to this day watching storms pass on the back porch and wanting to go to the basement out of fear of ending up in Oz, granted I was still a child and still had the imagination in me that things like that could actually happen. My Pappaw always reassured me we'd be alright. One time I recall asking how he knew we'd be okay. His simple response was, " Cows aren't stupid. Sure, they'll try to kick me sometimes and piss me off- but they're not stupid. If they start gathering  together closer down over the hill in the bottoms then we worry. Until then, just watch." It was a good enough answer for me at the time and I've never really questioned it.
This was one of the lesson's my Pappaw taught me before passing. Just watch, and it's generally what I do. I'll be the first person outside watching the clouds, and the animals, once a tornado watch or severe thunderstorm is issued on the news.  

Scruton's Misunderstanding of the Other Side of Modern and Postmodern Aesthetics

Before I proceed to criticize Roger Scruton, I would like to say that in general I agree with his position that beauty should be an elevated reality towards which art should strive ideally - that is, we should recognize the existence of and the value of beauty as gradation.

There are two points of clarifications in order.  First, not all modern and postmodern art is motivated by a perverse search for originality and rebellion against the beauty transcendent and traditionally recognized.  Sometimes, modern art is more of an expression of pessimistic cynicism than creativity - a frustration that "Victorian" self-absorption with transcendent beauty blinds people to harshness of reality.  After World War I and World War II, the Victorian ideal of the educated European nobility was shattered.  Admittedly, art was in the 19th and 18th centuries often caught up in an elite atmosphere which ignored reality.  Take literature, for example.  Many novels were written for the upper class elite about "noble" things filled with "romantic virtues."  Victor Hugo and Charles Dickens - aghast at this naivete in the face of squalid poverty - wrote shocking books like Les Miserables and Great Expectations in response.  Modern art then serves as a critique of real life, of hypocritical social values.  Yet, they recognized what true beauty was, too - the courage and strength of Jean Valjean, for example.  Taken to the extreme, "Victorian" art becomes insular and petty in comparison to the triumphs and pains of a real life, of a Calvary-like, world. 

 Motivations matter, too.  The anti-war art which Scruton lampooned in the video could be designed as a critical foil for us to judge the world - not merely to shock.  This too has transcendent value; otherwise, Elie Weisel's Night is not literature.  For that matter, what about the infamous 13th century German woodcuts made during the Black Plague showing the Dance of Death, the squalor of diseased victims?  Is this not art as much as Michelangelo's David?  Much of modern and postmodern art is designed as destructive, to shatter complacent illusions from the 19th century.  Of course, the problem lies in that modern art cannot construct a singular view of beauty unlike earlier ages due to its insistence of breaking everything down into historical narratives and ideologies.  Unfortunately, there is no transcendent, universal beauty in modern art - no God, no Platonic One, no Tao, no Yin and Yang.  Modern art becomes a necessary evil - a destructive tool creating a gaping hole which no one has yet filled.

On the other hand, modern art seems to have lost its original purpose as critic and has turned, at its worst, into a narcissistic device to create shock and feed what Scruton called "our animal appetites."  Here Scruton masterfully and luridly called rightful attention to our consumerist culture filled with explicit themes or shallow fads.  At best, modern art insists on beating a dead horse from the 19th century world which has already been throughly slaughtered, fighting phantoms of the past instead of creating.  For examples, I only need to cite the horrific examples of modern "art" which infest American museums - a crucifix in a bottle of urine or a Virgin Mary slandered in excrement and abortifacents.  Regardless of one's moral or religious stance, I cannot imagine anyone who would see any value in this except as an assault on ethics itself in an effort to be original and "pioneer" aesthetics into uncharted waters.  At its worst, modern and postmodern art seems to instinctually desire to assault the truth for that reason alone - not out for attacking "Victorian" hypocrisy but simply to shock the world.

Nevertheless, Scruton is wrong to blatantly criticize all forms of modern art.

(Blog 10)

National Parks

I don't think we should sell off our national parks, in the sole purpose of stimulating the economy. From the article it seems like national parks have a good steady stream of income coming through, and it doesn't seem to be helpful to put more people out of jobs. Preserving those national parks is more important to our history, than just their financial activities. Some things of historical value you can't truly put a price on, I think there are better ways for Congressman to find solutions than to just pension them off.

Saturday, March 17, 2012

Blog #7


The Grand Teton is the highest mountain in Wyoming's Grand Teton National Park.  It is an indescribable sight to see.  Something that can not be replicated.  If I were to experience the Grand Tetons in a "virtual" experience it would not compare.  As we talked in class this week,  if we were able to replicate any environment, smells included, would we gain the same experience.  After visiting such a beautiful place in Wyoming I do not think it would come remotely close.  You would lose that unique experience of getting to stand on top of a high mountain and being able to do a 360 and see for miles upon miles.  You could feel the wind and smell the fresh air and experience the physical component of being in nature.  I would not enjoy a virtual tour of any part of nature especially the Grand Tetons in Wyoming!!

Thursday, March 15, 2012

Aesthetics of Fossilized Rock

I just read Amberlie's post on the beauty in creek beds, and I was struck in a completely different way about the aesthetics of the creek.  I wrote some of this in the comment section, but I will try and expand it into a post.

Probably from the ages of eight to fourteen, I was determined to become a paleontologist.  My obsession naturally began with dinosaurs.  However, my old house (my family has since moved) had a large rock pile out in the backyard filled with fossils of sea creatures - coral, bivalves, snails.  My biggest dream was to find a real trilobite (which I never did).  For my birthday many years ago, my grandparents gave me a book about the geological history of the Cincinnati area filled with charts, classifications, and species descriptions.  I would collect these fossils in a storage bin and try in vain to find out more about each critter fossilized in my collection.  Last summer, I took a geology course at Miami University and really enjoyed getting back into this stuff.

At our new house, my family and I have a creek in the front yard beyond which is a woods.  The creek is filled with limestone, sedimentary rocks.  I don't collect them anymore.  However, when I see them, I see the rocks as the remains of something once alive deep in the past.  Rocks become natural records or snapshots into a remote age.  When I see those rocks, I am thinking of the sea creatures once swimming around in the oceans of what would become the American midwest.  I think their evolution and their eventual demise, largely forgotten save encapsulated in stone.

There is almost an element of sublimity in it - the fact the Ordovician Period passed away 500 to 400 million years ago and here we are, our cities beginning only 10,000 years ago.  All that remains are a few lucky creatures which had been covered in sediments and crushed underneath the dynamic earth, their waters disappearing and reappearing, layers upon layers of new sediments accreting.  For me, sedimentary rocks littering creek beds are one of the most beautiful parts of nature.

I have never thought about it from an aesthetic point of view, but I guess this is an example of Carlson's environmental aesthetic - that science adds a new angle to beauty and appreciation.  In contrast, I know almost nothing about tree or wildlife classifications, bird habits, or where that kind of tree grows best.  My grandpa does, and he might have an entirely different aesthetic approach to walking in the woods.  For me, the woods are about solitude, natural colors, and looking for wildlife.  I have walked with my grandpa in the woods, however, and he tells me what kind of flower that one is or what kind of birds visit this time of year.

While I do not understand the woods' secret aesthetics (neither oceans nor many of the other biospheres), I have found a special aesthetic "hidden" in rocks.

(Blog 9)

The Purpose of National Parks?

I found this on the Web today:

Republican Congressman Wants to 'Sell Off Some of Our National Parks'

- Common Dreams staff
A video showing Rep. Cliff Stearns (R, Florida) announcing his desire to "sell off some of our national parks" was recently filmed and released on the Internet by the Florida Political Action Cooperative.
Mount St. Nicholas in Glacier National Park. Rep. Cliff Stearns recently expressed the view that the United States should sell some of its national parks. (Photo: National Park Service) In a speech given at a town hall meeting in Belleview Florida, Stearns explained his position.
I got attacked in a previous town meeting for not supporting another national park in this country, a 200-mile trailway. And I told the man that we don't need more national parks in this country, we need to actually sell off some of our national parks, and try and do what a normal family would do is — they wouldn’t ask Uncle Joe for a loan, they would sell their Cadillac, or they would take their kids out of private schools and put them into public schools to save to money instead of asking for their credit card to increase their debt ceiling.
Think Progress reports on the issue and notes the funds that US national parks bring into the treasury:
Our national parks represent America’s heritage, held in trust from one generation to the next.
Despite Stearns’ idea for a national-park fire sale, the facts show that parks, monuments, and other protected places generate a steady stream of wealth for both the treasury and local businesses.  In 2010, Florida’s Everglades National Park generated 2,364 jobs and over $140 million in visitor spending, and Florida’s 11 national parks in total provided $582 million in economic benefits.  The National Park Service also reports that America’s parks overall created $31 billion and 258,000 jobs in 2010.  In addition to their economic impacts, national parks have important value in that they are available to all of us for recreation, not just the wealthy few.

This is not the first time Republican members of Congress have advocated selling off Americans’ public lands without clarifying how taxpayers would get a fair return for them.  Last fall, Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-UT) proposed selling off 3.3 million acres of the public lands that belong to all of us.  And former Rep. Richard Pombo proposed selling national parks to mining companies in 2005.

Republican presidential candidates have also recently been confused about the tangible and intangible values of our national parks and public lands.  Mitt Romney told the Reno Gazette-Journal that he doesn’t know “what the purpose is” of public lands, Rick Santorum told Idahoans that public lands should go “back to the hands” of the private sector, and Ron Paul advocated for public lands to be turned over to the states.

Wednesday, March 14, 2012

Blog 7--Tornadoes

This is only a fraction of what happened over Spring Break.  It was a Friday night, I had to work and lots of events around the community were planned.  Sirens started going off, the rain pouring, wind blowing up to 70 mph or more.  This weather caused a huge amount of tornadoes around this area and southern Kentucky, as well as other states.  It did a tremendous amount of damage.  This picture was taken in Crittenden, Ky, about 30 min from Edgewood.  Houses, land, trees, everything was torn to pieces.  I also drove to Piner, Ky, which was just as bad.  The sign says "Thank you..community and volunteers!"  Everyone was pitching in and helping out as much as the could.  To see the destruction that can be created by mother nature is incredible.  I never imagined a tornado hitting this close to home, luckily everyone and everything was okay in my area.  This had a huge impact on communities and families and it will forever leave a mark on this land and on these people.  To see a hardship like this close to home really puts things into perspective.  This was a huge event that will be remembered.  This tornado was a quarter mile wide and lasted 20 miles, from the reports.  It is amazing what nature is capable of, and something we shouldn't test.  

The Aesthetic Of Unscenic Nature


Yuriko Saito advocated for the scenically challenged parts of nature.  She philosophized that as a result of of the scenically interesting and beautiful parts of nature, there are so many more environments that are not appreciated because they may not be deemed "scenic" enough.  John Muir encountered two artists that were only satisfied with a few scenic spots in the High Sierras, but not the meadows, the turning leaves, or the bogs.  The artists found those parts to be "sadly disappointing" and not "effective pictures."  There is a great gift in seeing the beauty in modest things.  The beauty of those scenes are in the more subtle and simple parts that one has to look for, not the grandiose splender that can be in one's face so abruptly.  
Take the small creek by me house.  The rocks, the trickling water, and the fallen trees may not seem like"effective pictures" to some, but to me, they are simple and beautiful because they are subtle.  The way the tree fell to make a natural bridge, or the way the rocks are placed so that one could cross the creek quietly screams simple, elegant, beauty to me.













#7 Under Water Beauty



             We been talking about about all the beauty of nature thats on land. But, what about the beauty under water? What would a scenery like this be considered? I found this scenery to be beautiful and gave me a sense of amazement of how it could have been created. Could someone appreciate this as the appreciate nature above the water? I find that the beauty under water to be more beautiful than the things above the water .

Tuesday, March 13, 2012

Yellowstone

Recalling Saito's discussion of the lion's rawr in nature versus the lion in the zoo reminds me of the lack of contact I have with wild life living in the suburban setting. With the exception of a playful squirrel or a friendly bird, my encounters with animals are limited to those with my dogs.
This is why, when we talked about appreciating animals in nature without the barrier of the zoo, i instantly remembered my vacation to Yellowstone. Yellowstone allows its visitors to experience wildlife without the barrier of the zoo. I thought it was fanastic. Bison roaming through the campsite, driving alongside elk, hiking around mountain goats: the experience was amazing.
The power of these creatures cannot truly be seen in the captive setting. The total difference between seeing a bison graze through the gated field at big bone and to see it coming dangerously close to your tent. Seeing it so close gave me a new respect fot its gentle strength.

#6 Picturesque


This beautiful waterfall is located in Califonia, United States. It's called the Punch Bowl Falls, Eagle Creek Wilderness Area, California. There are thousands of green color shades in this picture which contributes to how i find this scenery picturesque.  The bluish white waterfall is the center piece of the picture but also highlights the green area around it. When i first saw this scenery picturesque is what popped in my mind first.

#5 Natural Disaster

How can everything in nature be considered beautiful? How can someone say that a natural disaster is a beautiful thing? To me I don't consider it to be beautiful, especially when it hits home and friends and family are effected by it negatively. The devastation caused by the disaster is terrible and I have no idea how someone could think that its a beautiful thing. It is something that is sublime but not beautiful. Recently in the county I live we were effected by the big storm that swept through country recently. It was a mess afterwards and people are still cleaning up from it, with many people left without a home and a lot of the power is out. Also a great deal of farm animals were killed in these disaster, horsed were chopped in half due to flying dabree.


Sunday, March 11, 2012

View from the Driver's Seat #7

Open road is a wonderful, but sometimes boring sight to behold especially the stretch of highway I have to drive through in order to make to and from college between breaks. Every once in awhile the view does tend to reveal some great aesthetic moments. I thought for this blog that I would talk about a few of them.

My first moment that I remember vividly happened in winter last year. We were crossing over a river that had been iced over until recently. Now the temperature was freezing outside, but the river was flowing pretty hard and was thus warmer than the outside air so steam was rising from the river in great pillars of fog. My roommate politely informed me that this was a common thing to happen during the winter months but since I have lived the majority of my life in a desert area, this was news to me and boy was it awesome.

To counter balance the natural phenomena of the river is a nuclear power plant that is nestled between one hil and another. There are always great, white clouds flying upward from the complex and it always makes me wonder if there are any albino animals running around there like we saw in Werner Herzog's movie earlier in the semester. It makes part of the balance of trying to find aesthetic value in a nuclear power plant which seems out of place surrounded by all that nature.

On my latest trip back I noticed the bloom of spring starting to dust the woods I pass through and of the violence caused by the storms that ransacked the midwest two weeks ago. It was not as bad in the area I was driving through, but there was visible damage that could be scene throughout various parts which was both frightening yet exhilarating to thin about how powerful the weather is and how vitally out of human control it is. I

Friday, March 2, 2012

My Thought on Positive Aesthetics

I agree with what Carlson says about the idea of positive aesthetics with that there is no real way to judge objects in nature. How can one thing which is sublime such as a great mountain landscape have the same beauty as the pile of dung that sits on the sidewalk? To me somethings are just more beautiful than others and that is what separates humans from the other animals, it is the basic fact that we can judge on what is beautiful and what is not. This also sparks another argument in difference of opinion which creates a positive effect on both sides of argument on proving why certain things in nature have more beauty than other things. 

Thursday, March 1, 2012

Positive Aesthetics


Allen Carlson had the philosophy that everything has beauty in its own way.  A bench in front of a "picturesque" lake, the way the tress outline a body of water, of the glow of a trail during a crisp, dry season.  I consider the scenery, as Carlson puts it, graceful, delicate, intense, unified, and orderly.  Any person with a mildly aesthetic eye would never consider this lake and the trails and tress that surround it  bland, dull, insipid, incoherent, or remotely chaotic.  The scenery is full of positive aesthetics and negativity has no place in it.  I feel "vigin nature" has is aesthetically good because it has not been touched by the destructive ways of man.  The particular land in the photos were only "brushed up" by man, but the beauty and the nature are not synthetic; the land has just been maintained.  The trails and the benches are only little spots of land on a small map that is the nature of this area.  Trails and benches are placed in areas to allow one to enjoy the beauty around them, positively.  















Aurora Borealis

Carlson's Natural Environmental Model implies that having an appropriate aesthetic appreciation for nature is backed in scientific understanding of said aspect of nature. I will demonstrate this concept using Aurora Borealis as an example.
Aurora Borealis, or the Northern Lights, are mystic and awe-aspiring natural wonder and are hands down one of the most aesthetically pleasing aspects of the otherwise hostile tundra. Besides producing a glourius picturesque array of the visible spectrum, it serves a noble purpose. The Earth produces a magetic field that oscillates from its core. The electromagnetic current can be thought of a flow of moving charges. The electromagnetic field that is produced by and surrounds the earth forms a barrier against the tremendous amount of radiation the sun spews at us on a daily basis. Now that you know that the preatty lights are actually proof that the earth protects us from getting 7 different types of cancer, do you appreciate it more?