Art, Gingko, and Uncle Koji

A friend, Angela Lorenz, (whom I happend to move across the street from when we came to live here last year) is an artist - she creates these amazing, limited edition, scholarly pieces using form and everyday materials that are often sold to museums and libraries. She recently came up with an idea to write a poem about the ginkgo tree written on a paper ginkgo leaf folded into a fan. She came over to tell me about it, and I said, "oh, my cousin Keiko was just visiting and she wears a gold ginkgo leaf on a chain because my Uncle Koji discovered the medicinal value of the ginkgo and blah blah blah..." So in chatting, she decided to put the folded leaf into a test tube (Koji=scientist) and wrote a dedication to him that you can see here:

http://www.angelalorenzartistsbooks.com/opere/ginkgo.htm

Here is Uncle Koji's web site: http://www.columbia.edu/cu/chemistry/groups/nakanishi/

And, as most of you know, he was recently awarded the highest honor in Japan, the celebration in which Aunt Yasuko was well enough to attend with him. We've always known him as that absent minded professor who is only interested in an audience for his magic show, so it is hard to imagine him as such an accomplished scientist. Congratulations, Koji! http://pubs.acs.org/cen/news/85/i47/8547news7.html