First timer? In this formerly once-a-day blog (and now pretty much a once-every-three-or-four days blog), I have my computer select a random latitude and longitude that puts me somewhere in the continental United States (the lower 48). I call this “landing.” I keep track of the watersheds I land in, as well as the town I land near. I do some internet research to hopefully find something of interest about my landing location. To find out more about A Landing A Day (like who “Dan” is, please see “About Landing,” (and “Abbreviations” and “Cryptic Numbers”) above.
Landing number 2218; A Landing A Day blog post number 646.
Dan: Well, here’s my first post, post my momentus mea culpa post (I worked hard to get three “posts” in one sentence). For those readers who missed it, just scroll down and you can check it out. It explains why my usual first paragraph just doesn’t cut it anymore . . .
Anyway, I today’s truly random landing spot is in northeast . . . IA. Here’s my regional landing map:
And my local landing map:
Here’s my watershed map:
As you can see, I landed in the Turkey River watershed (only my 2nd landing here); on to the Mississippi (864th hit).
It’s time for my Google Earth (GE) spaceflight in to northeast IA (click on the link and then hit the back button after viewing):
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Well, I landed just a couple miles from Spillville (plus I love the name), so Spillville it is. From Wiki:
Originally named Spielville after the founder, Joseph Spielmann, it was misread and became Spillville.
[That’s pretty lame, don’t you think? But as an environmental clean-up guy, I love the name Spillville. Sounds like a place that needs my services . . .]
Spillville boasts a strong cultural and musical history. The Czech composer Antonín Dvořák spent the summer of 1893 in Spillville, where he had Dvořák relatives. There he composed two of his most famous chamber works, including the String Quartet in F (“The American”).
Spillville is also the site of the Inwood Ballroom, established in 1920 and the destination of several popular 20th century musicians such as Louis Armstrong, Glenn Miller, Guy Lombardo, and The Byrds.
Many tourists to Spillville also visit the Bily Clocks Museum (see link below), a collection of intricately designed clocks created by two brothers in Spillville.
Wow. Maybe not the greatest hooks, but hooks nontheless! So what the heck, I’ll start with Dvořák. Let’s start with pronunciation: da-VOR-chek (at least that’s my take on it).
So, here’s just a little bit (a very little bit) about the composer from Britannica.com – along with this Wiki portrait of an angry-looking composer:
Antonín Dvořák (born 1841, Bohemia, Austrian Empire [now in Czech Republic]—died 1904, Prague), first Bohemian composer to achieve worldwide recognition, noted for turning folk material into the language of 19th-century Romantic music.
Britannica and Wiki go on and on about his music, its impact, etc. etc. But I’ll admit to never being able to push rock ‘n roll aside and make room in my life for classical music. But it’s cool that he spent the summer in Spillville, eh?
Anyway, here’s the Cleveland Quartet performing the famous piece that Dvořák composed while in Spillville, the String Quartet No. 12 in F major, Op. 96 “American.” I listened to several on-line versions; the one I selected has the best sound quality (and in my extremely humble opinion) sounded intrinsically better than the others. I recommend just letting this play as background music while you read the rest of this post.
Moving on to the Inwood Ballroom. Amazing that this teeny Iowa town played host to such famous musicians. But The Byrds?!?!
Anyway, from the Inwood website, here’s a pic:
Now it’s time for Bily Clocks. Anyway, to learn all about them, check out this short video from VisitIowa.org (I’m not giving you much time to listen to Dvořák, am I?):
So the Bily Clock museum is actually where Antonin Dvořák lived . . .
Of course, I checked out GE Panoramio shots near my landing. Oh oh. Nothing much of interest. I had to wander about 10 miles to the northeast, into a different watershed, where I found this lovely stream shot by Schauf:
That’ll do it . . .
KS
Greg
© 2015 A Landing A Day
A Landing a Day 