Daily Archives: July 25, 2016

So let’s just move backwards up the track now from end to beginning, starting with… the end. In test runs day before yesterday (Sunday), a peak day for the happening, marbles usually just barely made it over the finish line, slowing considerably in the Original 12 (12 pieces of rustier track at the end of the race) from a speedy entry. In future realizations of the track, I may replace the rustier track with newer stuff — unsure. At any rate, as I stated before, I’ve decided not to make the Original 12 permanent within Chesterton, but just took it back home with me like the rest of the 39, currently shinier segments.

You can see the end of the track roughly parallels Wireway 61 coming in from the north.

This is a juxtaposition of the end of the track (lower part) with the beginning of the track (upper part), which lie directly in line with each other, essentially. This further symmetry was planned, and forms part of Chesterton’s overall synchronistic web, shall we say. I’ll have to see how high the beginning of the track is relative to the bottom the next time I set it up.

The center of the Original 12, or what I call The Veer for obvious reasons. It all kind of centers around that Avon church product and related mossy rock.

But in another way, nearby Pooh (right) with butterfly on his nose fluttering above the Snow Queen’s purse represents the center, along with resonant, large metal butterfly positioned on the bank behind them.

The end of the Original 12 and the beginning of the remaining 39 segments, silvery in color. It’s so appropriate that a very silver door knob holds up the first of these sections, accompanied by a toy avatar we’ll call Small Silver Surfer (SSS or 3S). The wife took a better picture of this pairing that I’ll show in the next post…

The Original 12 is made up of 4 straight segments of train track surrounding 4 central, curved tracks (aforementioned Veer). The Additional 39, as we’ll term them, begins with a similar 4 segment straight run…

which connects to 2 curved tracks…

… before straightening out with 4 more track sections…

… before leading into 3 curved sections, all turning clockwise now…

… that turns into the Big Straightaway of *8* track segments. This is the place marbles pick up their greatest speed heading downward…

… after first navigating this curve where marble speed is at a minimum, at least until the very end of the track right at the Finish Line. Some marbles I raced didn’t make it through this turn, halting forward progress.

Two additional 45 degree turns…

… gets us to the 2 brick supported starting section whose end represents the highest part of the track. We’ve reached the beginning.

Looking back down the track toward Big Straightaway.

Before moving to Chesterton again and the possible climax of the 2016 Bigfoot Art Happening, here’s a couple more pictures from the improvised skateboarding park at the Plateau of Raw Art. I took these fairly early in the morning before the coming of skateboard people, who almost invariably arrive on any given day in the afternoon, sometimes en-masse (up to 15 or 20 perhaps).

There’s those Boos again. Such happy creatures in general.

But this one — not so much. Perhaps that’s because he (or she) is the more uncommon vampire boo.

KOOL-ade, hehe. That actually could be a representation of a toy avatar. Remember this guy?

But to the actual toy avatars down in Chesterton… I can’t pretend there’s much rhyme or reason for this particular arrangement of toys except to say I’ve eliminated some from the crowd and replaced them with others. Okay, there might be a story behind Cpt. America and the (female?) chipmunk with an “A” on its sweater almost holding hands, while another chipmunk (jealous male?) watches. And the central tiger PEZ dispenser goes along with the already established tiger theme of Chesterton and Bigfoot as a whole this year. I also wanted to make sure the Simpsons family was on hand this day to watch the completion and fulfillment of the marble race. Homer’s always indiscriminately encouraging the competing marbles onward; he didn’t choose sides. There might be something to the pig seeming to climb, King Kong like, the Empire State Building, while The Joker looks on. Probably not, though. I also like the way the orange rust on the track mirrors the orange tiger head.

This photo depicts the central part of Chesterton North built around the Original 12, the name I’ve given to the 12 rustier tracks that I had planned to be a permanent fixture of Chesterton. Didn’t quite work out like that, but the idea is still in place.

Part of the new track I layed down this day — and the day before. Not nearly as rusty; much more silver in color. The picture takes in what probably amounts to be at least the beginning of a Chesterton Central, between North and South parts and acting as a bridge community. Earlier in the day it contains several more bricks (“houses”?), but these were then removed and used to help prop up the higher part of the marble race track. And, yes, it was a very successful race this day! Get to that in a bit.

This photo couples the spots on the track where the racing marbles are traveling about the least speed (upper part) and the greatest speed (lower part).

Chesterton South. Not much happened in this area today, its residents being more distant onlookers to the race going on over in Chesterton North. “We’ll have our day in the sun,” they perhaps collectively thought, their inward eyes turned to the future.

Rejected toy avatars for the race, many of which couldn’t stand on their own power. Did they loose their souls upon rejection? No longer avatars? It could be something to ponder.

These animals are actually part of the happening, but on a more outlying area north of the race track’s end.

Nearby (broken) hoop, a primary icon for Chesterton. LINK

Wireway 61 separates one from the other.