such is the folly of man
November 13, 2015 10:11 AM   Subscribe

 
such is the folly of man

Sic transit gloria litus.
posted by Greg_Ace at 10:38 AM on November 13, 2015


Ummm...those are just what we call "drippy glops of sand" on top of boards or logs.
posted by Mr. Big Business at 10:56 AM on November 13, 2015 [3 favorites]


What a great way to combine 2 hobbies - photography and sand sculpturing.
posted by cynical pinnacle at 11:01 AM on November 13, 2015


I don't mind the drippy glops of sand... It's very Gaudi.

But if it has a non-sand-based support structure it ain't a sandcastle.

I have seen too many of my childhood dreams collapse, erode and disappear beneath the waves of a vast indifferent ocean to have time to waste on cheaters.

#FiguerasSpainAugust1976NevarForget
posted by Hairy Lobster at 11:05 AM on November 13, 2015 [2 favorites]


You got it cynical -- I think a big part of the allure of these constructions is how well they have been photographed. That and how they encourage totally new ideas about something as familiar as a sand castle.
posted by cubby at 11:05 AM on November 13, 2015


He's been doing this for ten years or so?

Because 30+ years ago, my brothers and I were doing this on the shores of Lake Superior. Not with string and sticks, per se, mostly just building weird drippy sand castles with the fine-grained "sugar sand" of Northern Michigan (the BEST sand for this type of building - tiny grains of pure quartzy whiteness).

We called it "de Plop" castles. Because when you make them, that's the sound it makes as drippy wet sand drips out of your hand.

We'd dig a huge basin of sand to get down to the water level, then use the wet sand in our new "bathtub" to build the weird, fairy-tower dribbled sand wall around the entire thing. Some days we'd build it so tall we couldn't escape without breaking down part of the wall.
posted by caution live frogs at 11:10 AM on November 13, 2015


I grew up making drip castles in Ohio! But we never thought about using things like sticks and boards as supports. Mostly they ended up being castles on the shores of these lagoons we'd made digging up the sand we used for them. If we were lucky, we might then catch a minnow to put in the lagoon. And then we'd go try to catch minnows to put in the lagoon, but as far as I can recall, that never actually worked. Minnows are fast.

The ocean is nice and all, but lakes, you can work right up by the water and know that your creation will be fine until it rains or until your obnoxious sibling gets involved.
posted by Sequence at 11:18 AM on November 13, 2015


Well, had you taken pictures and invented Flickr, then you could have been famous. But you didn't, so it's this guy instead. There is no "mefi's own" in this thread and it's all YOUR FAULT! j/k
posted by VTX at 12:21 PM on November 13, 2015


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