Human Flower Project

Wednesday, January 31, 2007

Do Flowers Say ‘Help Yourself’?

A team of English psychologists finds flowers make poor police.

Want to keep people in line? Don’t expect much help from flowers.

Melissa Bateson, a scholar at the University of Newcastle, led an intriguing experiment by diddling with a custom in the psychology department. As in many offices, there’s a box for on-your-honor donations at the tea, coffee, and milk station, with a notice of suggested prices. At the communal beverage stand, the scientists posted changing images close to the coin catcher, alternating photos of human eyes with pictures of daisies, lilies, and roses.

“People put nearly three times as much money into an ‘honesty box’ when they were being watched by a pair of eyes on a poster, compared with a poster that featured an image of flowers.” With a picture of blossoms nearby, beverage drinkers paid lots less than on days when they were pouring out a glass of milk or cup of coffee with a sense of somebody looking on. The findings were published last year in Biology Letters.

Dr. Bateson concludes: “Our brains are programmed to respond to eyes and faces whether we are consciously aware of it or not.” Even she was surprised at the power of a 2-dimensional gaze to curb petty theft (or discourage freebies, depending on how you see it). It seems that we’re all working fairly consistently, consciously and subconsciously, to protect our reputations—also known as CYA—and that a human gaze, even in an inanimate one, serves as a cue that our public image may on the line.

Money paid/milk consumed:
low on flower weeks, high on eyes weeks
Image:  M. Bateson et al.

We were curious that Dr. Bateson chose flowers as the experiment’s control. Why not just have eyes one week and nothing the next? “I wanted something eyecatching,” she wrote, “and I also liked the idea that flowers have evolved as a signal to another species (insects rather than humans admittedly) to attract their attention.”

But we think it’s possible that the image of flowers, rather than being neutral, might actually have reduced the amount of donations in the kitty. Might not flowers suggest, both consciously and subliminally, “be our guest”? A picture of roses or daisies, we believe, might actually have altered the visual message at the coffee station, making the posted price a “free will donation” rather than a fixed charge. Flowers, in other words, may not put people on their honor but at their ease.

“I hadn’t considered the possibility that flowers may actually make people less likely to pay! “ Dr. Bateson writes. We hope that she or others will repeat this fascinating experiment, incorporating this possibility. The team might rotate photos of eyes, flowers, nothing, and some other arresting image, and thus examine our subconscious associations not only with the human gaze but with the “floral gaze,” too.

Tuesday, January 30, 2007

Chrysanthemum Dog—Rough, Rough

A florist designs silent terriers, but which breed are they?

Barkless terrier with chrysanthemum coat
Photo: Courtesy of Tom Bishop

Will the real chrysanthemum dog please lie down and roll over?

Thanks to our dear father-in-law, Tom Bishop of Hilton Head, SC, we came upon these pictures of a florist’s canines: several chrysanthemum arrangements suitable for chasing small children and alarming the UPS deliveryperson.

Tibetan terrier: sans flowers and sans home
Photo: Got Pets Rescue

Now we discover that “Chrysanthemum Dog” is actually the nickname for the Shih Tzu AND the Tibetan terrier. Both breeds come from flower loving parts of the world (Japan and Tibet), and both have eyes and noses buried in curls that really do resemble the chrysanthemums’ hundreds of curved petals.

The Tibetan terrier was new to us. “Well known throughout India, the breed is regularly exhibited in this country and so too in America where it was first recognised in 1935 by the American Kennel Club. Adult Tibetan Terriers stand around 14 to 15 inches tall,” slightly larger than these floral arrangements, “and weigh between 14 and 30 lbs. Their coat is long and fine, without being silky or curly. Colours can vary from white to cream, grey, golden, parti-colour and black.”

A white mum pup
Photo: Courtesy of Tom Bishop

Couldn’t Bichon Frise and toy poodles qualify as Chrysanthemum dogs? Their curly-faces are just as floral, but since the French associate mums with funerals, they wouldn’t be too likely to portray their beloved pets (welcome in most restaurants) with such a solemn blossom.

Meantime, we’ve been trying to track down the talented maker of these floral pups, thus far to no avail. Will the real chrysanthemum dog designer please yank our chain?

Monday, January 29, 2007

Gregg’s Roses—Look Again

A California designer brings out the symmetrical mysteries in his garden with crystals and a long, long lens.

New outlook on pink roses via Gregg Payne’s teleidescope
Photo: Commission Impossible

Gregg Payne is the first “collaborative aerosol artist” we’ve known. But it was his “spray roses” that grabbed us, the startling image we spotted on Commission Impossible. (Thank you, Lon!)

A multitalented fellow in Chico, California, Gregg has commercial logos, metal sculptures, and murals to his credit, as well as the largest windchimes in the state of California. (There must at least 100 times as many windchimes in California as guitar pickers in Nashville).  “I’ve made a lot of oversize contraptions,” he writes, “but this one (the teleidescope) is my favorite.” His magic apparatus, made of copper, brass, and stainless steel, has “a six-inch Austrian crystal sphere” as its main lens.

Two-mirror scopes become fountains of radial symmetry. Do snowflakes have consciousness? If so, perhaps this is how the world looks to them.

Jennifer looks through the teleidescope
(near the biggest windchimes in CA, at right)
Photo: Gregg Payne

“First, surface mirrors run the length of the tube and are cut into curves at the ends to wrap around the curve of the lens,” he explains. Will that also work on aphids?  “It has an infinite depth of field from an inch to a mile and never needs focusing.” Unfortunately, what we can’t show you is the teleidescope’s real visual power. It’s big enough to look through with both eyes at once, which, Gregg says, “lets our binocular depth perception see everything in 3-D. Cameras are cool but there’s no comparison to the motion, depth and presence of seeing.”

Devoted to public art, Gregg has been kindly toting his teleidescope around Chico and environs—most recently to Moxie’s Cafe and the Jesus Center—so that others can look for themselves. Gregg thanks Rory Rottschalk, “local philanthropist and promoter of all things cool,” who paid for construction of the teleidescope. What a community effort! and with Gregg’s “contraption” focused on these roses in the garden, what a Human Flower Project, too.

Sunday, January 28, 2007

Curse of the Golden Flower

Zhang Yimou’s movie of “Extraordinary People” surrounds a sea of venom with acres of flowers.

The Empress conspires with Prince Jai
on the eve of the Chrysanthemum festival
Photo: Bai Xiaoyan

When a loyal son chooses to defy his father --a treacherous medieval emperor with hair down to there— what happens?

Here’s what: A zillion warriors dressed in gold mail and helmets meet a kazillion soldiers in silverplate, and they clash before the palace, fighting it out on a sward of yellow chrysanthemums the size of Tennessee.

Zhang Yimou’s Curse of the Golden Flower, the most popular film in Chinese history, took $42 million to make. Cheap, we say, considering the flower budget alone. There is a gorgeous painting of peonies in the apartment of Number One Son, Prince Wan. The hallways are paneled with faux-ivory screens “carved” into floral motifs. Ladies in waiting sprinkle petals into the prince’s bathwater. Floral carpets roll down a flight of two hundred stairs. The Empress, played with a pout of grandeur by Gong Li, wears golden flowers in her upswept hair and painted flowers on her long nervous fingernails. Her chambers are filled with vases of gerberas and big pots of chrysanthemums—purple, white and yellow. And throughout the film, she embroiders golden chrysanthemums stretched over a hoop of silk, in preparation for the Chong Yang Festival, the climax of the story.

Many Western critics, accustomed to such fare as “Sex, Lies & Videotape,” mock the opulence of Zhang Yimou’s film. (Some Chinese directors have called the film garish, too). How misguided and cranky. The big screen was built for scale and ornamentation like this. The color!  Hundreds of attendants dressed in royal blue carry pots of yellow mums down from the terrace. Against a background of red and gold, the palace pillars are wrapped in velvety, psychedelic pink, green, and orange. This is no Podcast but maximalist film making. Can you handle it?

The Empress (Gong Li) ascends to the Chrysanthemum Terrace
in Curse of the Golden Flower
Image: via parakiss

Chrysanthemum is the “golden flower” of the saga. Blooming in autumn as others fade, it symbolizes robustness and nobility. In Chinese popular tradition, its virtues are celebrated on the ninth day of the ninth lunar month, the holiday known as Chong Yang.

“In the tradition of yin and yang, these nines are doubly yang, which connotes positive energy and masculinity. Chong Yang is celebrated by feasting with the family, honoring ancestors and the elderly, and often by hiking to a mountaintop or ascending to a high place—such as the Chrysanthemum Terrace in Curse of the Golden Flower—to appreciate nature and to escape from evil spirits.”

This piece from People’s Daily helps illuminate the complex meaning of chrysanthemum in China and the working of symbol itself. Our Western expectation had been that in the royal family conflict, one side would emerge as the true “chrysanthemum “ and carry the day. But the movie is more interesting than that. It’s a battle over power ("positive energy and masculinity") embodied in the autumn flower. And as such, “escape from evil spirits” is hard to come by.

Though the film’s characters are fictional, the story takes place in the last years of the Tang dynasty. Not coincidentally, ”Another famous figure identified with the chrysanthemum is Huang Chao who lived in the 9th century. Huang was the leader of a peasant revolt towards the end of the Tang Dynasty (618-907). He led an army of thousands and occupied Luoyang after several years of fighting.

“He wrote two poems about the chrysanthemum, one of which contains the lines: ‘If I could be the king of the flowers, I would allow the chrysanthemum to bloom with the peach blossom; The fragrance (of the chrysanthemum) would fill Chang’an City, and the city would be clothed in golden armour.’”

The Empress embroiders chrysanthemums by the thousands, but why?
Image: Yahoo Movies/Gong Li

This, we learn, was a chaotic time in Chinese history, as the Tang empire splintered and Chinese warlords vied for control. According to this fine review, “The Emperor can be seen as one of the military men who seizes power...The Emperor’s rigid insistence on following ritual and ceremony can be seen as a mark of his hypocrisy; he aspires to the glory days of the Tang Dynasty, but he is really a latter-day usurper.”

We hope not to have given too much away, The plot’s thick, the violence is knifey, the costumes are nominated for an Academy Award, and the flowers are plush. We recommend a movie break from English schools and Brad Pitt with three days’ beard. As the Empress says to Prince Jai on the eve of the great festival: “The chrysanthemums are ready. They deserve to bloom once.”

Friday, January 26, 2007

Vienna’s Opera Ball Rolls Downhill

The highlight of the Viennese ball season omits flowers, bowing to a new low.

Blumenball, Vienna—lit up with yellow roses
Photo: Viennese Ball

Whoever scheduled Vienna’s elegant Opera Ball for February 15th should have a fatter bankroll or a head examination.

The tiara has slipped unbecomingly from this the most celebrated dance party of the season. According to news reports today, the Opera Ball’s customary ”lavish flower display” will this year be replaced with fake butterflies and “a live horse.”

Organizers complained that “demand for flowers the day after Valentine’s celebrations was so strong they feared there would not be enough to do justice to Austria’s top social event.” Actually, folks, it’s demand BEFORE Valentine’s Day that’s high, and in any case, though the supply of flowers may dwindle in mid-February, how can you have an enchanted evening without them?  “Glittering artificial butterflies” don’t do justice to anything.

Wiser were members of the city’s Society of Municipal Gardeners. Their Blumenball took place January 19th and seems to have had blooms aplenty. Here’s a complete schedule of the ‘06-’07 balls in Vienna for the gown and cravat crowd.

We’ve learned that Vienna’s balls originally were mandated by the Austrian government, to put a stop to masked parties where the hoi polloi might sneak in and twirl around the dance floor incognito. It appears the Opera Ball has taken a step backward, but without the liberated street-fair fun.

Hegel remarks somewhere that all great world-historic facts and personages appear, so to speak, twice. He forgot to add: the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce.
Karl Marx--the 18th Brumaire of Louis Napoleon

The “elegance” of Vienna’s old dance galas, a mask for social stratification, returns as its farcical cousin: “glamour.” Special guest at this year’s Opera Ball will be Paris Hilton, speaking of a live horse.

Thursday, January 25, 2007

Split Hairs, Discover Buttercups

A hiker’s find and a botanist’s research claim a new species of buttercup in New Zealand, with an arsenal of lingo to back them up.

New Zealand’s newest wildflower: Ranunculus acraeus
Photo: Ross Setford, for NZPA

The New Zealand papers are splashed with yellow, as Ranunculus acraeus makes its public debut.

This beautiful buttercup was first collected in the 1940s, but botanists back then took it for “a subspecies of R haastii.” In 1998, a gardener from Christchurch, Joe Cartman, spotted the plant on a walk along Mount St. Mary, in North Otago, and took a specimen back to pro-botanist and friend Peter Heenan for a closer look.

After seven years of testing and minute comparison, Heenan has published his conclusion that Cartman’s find is indeed a species of its own.

He began like we all do—just eyeballing. Heenan noticed that the mystery buttercup was a whole lot showier than Ranunculus haastii: “The plant has grey foliage and it can form broad patches up to half a metre, so if you imagine a plant that diameter covered in yellow flowers, it’s quite attractive.” But “quite attractive” and “oh boy!” don’t cut it in the world of botany.

Peter Heenan with pressed specimens of the buttercup he’s studied for seven years
Photo: Peter Meecham, The Press

It takes a lot of wonderfully fancy scientific nomenclature. The New Zealand Plant Conservation Network’s announcement of Ranunculus acraeus explains:

The new buttercup “is allied to R. piliferus but differs morphologically by its finely crenate leaf and bract margins, glabrous peduncle, and in having 6-7 sepals that are hairy on the abaxial surface and glabrous on the adaxial surface.”

Well, okay! Nobody’s looking, so feel free to use the links in that description or this good site that translates Botanese into English.

Basically, the new buttercup is different because its leaves have scalloped edges, its hairy stems hold just one flower apiece, and its sepals are hairy on the bottom and hairless on top.

After all that work, Heenan might fairly have named the flower for himself. He chose acraeus ("on high") instead, for the plant’s alpine habitat—a name that could also shoo away collectors tempted to dig up this ranunculus and transplant it to their own gardens.

“Besides the fact you’re tampering with a rare native plant,” Heenan emphasized, “the buttercups don’t grow well at lower altitudes.” Meaning, you’ll have a dead flower in the yard and be wearing handcuffs on your pubescent wrists.

Wednesday, January 24, 2007

Cortege in Istanbul

With a red carnation and the face of Hrant Dink, a
supporter walked through the Turkish capital Tuesday.
Photo: Reuters

Mourners numbering in the tens of thousands walked five miles in silence through Istanbul January 23, following the coffin of slain journalist Hrant Dink to the Surp Asdvadzadzin Patriarchal Church for his funeral.

Dink, who had written and spoken publicly for years on behalf of Armenians living in Turkey, was killed Friday outside the office of his newspaper, Agos.

Tuesday, January 23, 2007

Sympathy, Large with Pepperoni

A New York florist builds a tasty tribute to the town’s beloved restaurant manager.

A warm arrangement by Flowers on the Park
Photo: Courtesy of Alane Sanfilippo

“I am always up for a floral challenge!” writes Alane Sanfilippo of Orchard Park, NY. But when such challenges are headed for the funeral home, they’re bound to be touchy assignments for any florist. How do you make something personal and original without triviality? Can there be room for wit as people mourn?

A florist for 25 years and owner of Flowers in the Park, Alane recounted for us a recent tour de force: a floral combination pizza.

“The order came in the morning of the man’s wake from his sister who lives in Florida,” says Sanfilippo. Alane’s customer had been in New York State caring for her brother in his final days, but had just returned home and could not be back in time for the service.

“Her brother had spent his career managing several pizzerias,” in the area. “It was his passion.” Alane said that the grieving sister instructed her, “I want everyone to want to enjoy a slice of pizza when they leave the service.”

“I told her I wasn’t quite sure how I could make this, but I would try my best.”

Alane found a flat willow tray with a rolled rim on the shelf of her shop, lined it with red foil “sauce,” filled the pie with Oasis and then began adding flowers: white carnations for cheese, cushion pompons for pepperoni, white daisies, green mini myrtle “to look like pizza seasoning,” some ornamental mini-peppers from her uncle’s garden, and then, with glue, sliced black olives and mushrooms.

“When I was done, all of us in the shop thought we could smell pizza,” Alane says. “We called the funeral home to let them know this special tribute was on its way and they said, ‘We can’t put food out, it’s against regulations.’” Sanfilippo and her co-workers assured them, “It only looks good enough to eat!” Alane attached a spray of red and white flowers to the pie, lest anyone ask for a slice.

She knew she’d met this challenge with good taste when the customer phoned, relaying compliments from friends back in New York. “Each caller noticed a different ingredient“ and “when it came time to donate the flowers after the services,” Sanfilippo adds with pride, “they said, ‘You can donate everything, but the pizza. We’re taking that home!”

Alane, who holds an associates degree in Floriculture Merchandising from Alfred State College, opened Flowers in the Park on her 30th birthday in 1994. “I decided I wanted to be a florist in 5th grade and have stuck with it,” she says – long enough to turn carnations into baked mozzarella, comfort “food” for the bereaved.

Monday, January 22, 2007

A Smoker’s Garden of Delights

A set of beauties protruding from flower heads helped hawk packs of cigarettes.

from “Beauties,”
a cigarette card from
American Tobacco Co.
All images: George Arents Collection
New York Public Library

Dimly we remember little coupons inside packets of Raleigh and Old Gold cigarettes, but by the time we took up this fiendish habit in the late 1960s, nobody much smoked Old Golds. (What did those coupons get you, anyway?) “Premiums” were for kids, inside boxes of Cracker Jacks. And we were big grown ups, inhaling images of the Marlboro Man.

It wouldn’t be too long before we didn’t need cowboys at sundown either. We were hooked, no sales pitches, Green Stamps, or lassos required.

So how surprising (and creepy) to have come upon a whole collection of delicate floral ”cigarette cards” and reference to the collecting-bug for them: cartophily. “The cigarette card sprang into existence in the mid to late nineteenth century, and was originally nothing more than a blank card inserted as a stiffener for a paper pack of cigarettes. By the 1880s, American and British companies started putting pictures of products on one side of a card,” not just products but birds, movie stars, and flowers. The tobacco companies printed cards in series of 25-50, to entice smokers (as if they needed to) to keep on buying and “complete the set.”

We came upon this flower series, issued by the American Tobacco Company of Durham, NC, in the collection of the New York Public Library. NYPL holds “more than 125,000 individual items, including more than 3000 complete sets” of cigarette cards. Quite a puffin’ archive! We find especially incongruous the pairing of female “beauties” and flower blossoms with cigarette-smoking, though watercolors of cancerous lips and black lungs might not have gone over quite as well.

Regrettably we don’t know the names of the artist(s) who made these works of commercial art-ephemera. Nor do we have dates. One source notes that cigarette cards “lasted until about 1965,” about the time we started collecting these, packaged not with cigs but bubble gum.

Sunday, January 21, 2007

Snowflake on a Stem

Breathe easy. Gypsophila blooms, botany’s snowflakes, last a whole lot longer.

Celestial Baby’s Breath
Snowflake photo:
via Dan and Lynn Wolaver

We’d thought of it as filler, the floral equivalent of face powder, until about ten years ago when we added baby’s breath (gypsophila) to the garden.  It thrived in the limey soil of Central Kentucky, growing nearly three feet high into an airy mound. From a distance it adds a smoky halo. Up close, its own flowers are crisp and strong as snowflakes.

The soil is limey here in Austin, too, so we may give it try, though we’re not sure how gypsophila will handle Texas heat. This how-to site warns of its “petering out when temperatures regularly hit 80 degrees.” That happens pretty regularly, and pretty early in the year. Is there time for babies to breathe here before Old Man Summer asphyxiates us all?

Terrestrial snowflakes: Gypsophila
Photo: Univ. of New Hampshire,
Cooperative Extension

Baby’s breath doesn’t first come to mind as a garden plant, but as a florist’s accessory. From browsing through a couple of discussion groups, we gather that many florists despise gypsophila (something about its smell in large quantities and, perhaps, association with over-stuffed, dowdy arrangements of yore), but they’re quick to add, “My customers always ask for it” so baby’s breath it will be.

Note: Those who like the lace-doily effect that it brings to red roses for Valentine’s Day should expect to pay extra. What you and I consider ”filler flower” costs florists money (one source says a bucket of gypsophila retails for $30; that’s no sack of ice!).

Also like face powder, baby’s breath is adept at drying. Paniculata is the favorite single blossom cultivar for dried bunches; Perfecta and Bristol Fairy are popular double varieties.

Gypsophila harvest in Badsey, England
Photo: Courtesy of Chris Smith, via Badsey.net

For our readers in icy climes, warm up with this photograph of summer “snowflakes,” a harvest of gypsophila near the Village of Badsey in Worcestershire, England. “The gypsophila was being picked at ‘The Sands.’ Left to right are Mr George Moisey, Mrs G Bowley, Mrs George Moisey, Mrs Keyte, Mrs Emma Smith, and (probably) Miss Moisey.”

To our readers in the steamy Southern Hemisphere, may these snowflakes bring six-sided refreshment.