Aurora, Nebraska

Archiving photos, taken in a charming afternoon in Aurora, Nebraska, with Theo’s 84% cocoa Single-Origin Ghana Dark Chocolate Bars and Zhang Yimou’s film Raise the Red Lantern elegiacally playing in the background felt more like a protracted arty ritual than a snowy-Sunday-indulgence. Images of Aurora soundlessly composed uninterrupted stories of stillness, while bits of Theo’s heavenly bitterness waltzed my senses, step after step.

Aurora, Nebraska | 2009 | Photo by Jen-Kuang Chang

No Comments / Feb 18.10 / Travel / by Jen-Kuang Chang

The Sunken Gardens & The Hamann Rose Garden

After few weeks of snow-snow-snow-and-more-snow, I almost forgot how to correctly wake up with sunshine exuberantly licking my frosty cheek. A quick peek outside of the window was enough to ascertain that today was the very first thoroughbred-sunny-day of February. Excited. I geared up. Jumpy like a puppy about to take his first outdoor walk. With Sam Taylor-Wood’s Prelude in Air repeatedly flashing back in my head, I slowly moved my happy feet toward the Sunken Gardens and the Hamann Rose Garden, gleefully baking myself in tons and tons of sunlight.

 

No Comments / Feb 17.10 / Photo, Travel / by Jen-Kuang Chang

National Roller Skating Museum

The mystery of the National Roller Skating Museum’s peculiar visiting hours, Monday-Friday 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., was solved the second I walked into the building. The primary function of the space, as it appeared, served as the headquarters for the U.S.A. Roller Skating Confederation and the attached museum was essentially a roomful of wonderful roller-skating-things on the back of the building. The museum featured five main exhibitions, including Inline Skating, Artistic Skating, Roller Hockey, Speed Skating, and Roller Derby. My fun-lesson-of-the-day was to learn about the clamp-on horse skate and the story about “Jimmy” the skating horse.

National Roller Skating Museum

No Comments / Feb 17.10 / Travel / by Jen-Kuang Chang

The World’s Largest Time Capsule and Pyramid

The World’s Largest Time Capsule and Pyramid, located in Seward, Nebraska, was the creation of Harold Keith Davisson. In July 4, 1975, Davisson sealed the original capsule filled with thousands of letters, memorabilia, a new Kawasaki motorcycle, and a new 1975 Chevrolet Vega with the goal “to preserve the present for future generations.” In 1977, officials at Guinness Book of World Records certified Davisson’s capsule as the largest one in the world and this certification was met with waves of objections from Oglethorpe University of Atlanta, Georgia. Officials at Oglethorpe University claimed its time capsule, known as “Crypt of Civilization,” sealed in 1940, should claim the title. The dispute continued until Guinness Records dropped the Time Capsule category. In 1983, Davisson built the second time capsule in the shape of pyramid filled with memorabilia and a “badly beaten-up 1975 Toyota.” The capsule will be opened July 4, 2025.

No Comments / Feb 09.10 / Travel / by Jen-Kuang Chang

University of Louisville & Auguste Rodin’s Le Penseur

Auguste Rodin’s Le Penseur, also known for its English title The Thinker, was commissioned by the Musée des Arts Décoratifs. The version installed in front of the University of Louisville’s Grawemeyer Hall, a building modeled after the Jeffersonian Rotunda in the University of Virginia, was the first bronze cast made from the original sculpture.

2 Comments / Feb 07.10 / Art, Travel / by Jen-Kuang Chang