"Everybody Funny"

February 2, 2012. Beckett Park. West Chester, Butler County, Ohio.

2012-02-07T04:46:00.000-05:00

(click on wee image to see beeger image)

Beckett Park. 2:00 p.m. 51 degrees. Sunny, cloudless blue sky.

Walking with Eddie

Listening to Blue Monk mp3

8 golf balls in muddy

wash Bud bottle at base of steep hill below

driving range of Beckett Ridge Country Club

Thinking of Thelonious Monk

hiding from the hippies behind curtain

backstage at the Carousal Ballroom, San Francisco, May 3,1968.*

* “May 3, 1968:Thelonious Monk and Dr. John The Night Tripper at the Carousal Ballroom.” Entryfrom The Virtual Museum of San Francisco. “Chronology of San Francisco Rock:1965-1969.” www.sfmuseum.org/hist1/rock.html. Accessed February 3, 2012.

Anecdote about Thelonious Monk from article about blues guitarist JoeLouis Walker “Aggressively Spanning the Blues.” Jim Fusilli. Wall StreetJournal. Wednesday, February 1, 2012. D5. The paragraph referenced here reads "He [Walker] failed to connect with the eccentric jazz master Thelonious Monk. 'Monk was nice, but he would hide behind the curtain. He hadn't played for many hippie audiences.'" Robin D. G. Kelley addresses the common notion that Monk was "eccentric" in his 2010 biography Thelonious Monk: The Life and Times of an American Original. I don't have the book in front of me, but Kelley makes a convincing case that Monk was no mere eccentric. A complicated and compelling man, but the "eccentric" label tends to lessen his accomplishments, which were great, and the product of no mere eccentric.

Walker could be referring to the May 3, 1968 performanceat the Carousal Ballroom. I could be wrong. The Carousal was taken over and renamedthe Fillmore West by Bill Graham in July 1968.

January 29, 2012. Mitchell Memorial Forest. Cleves, Hamilton County, Ohio

2012-02-04T14:39:00.002-05:00

(click on the image for the "grande" topo)

Mitchell Memorial Forest. Audubon Society Field Trip. Birded with Mark G., Dennis S., Kathi H., Jim S., Ned K., Kathy Mc., & Tom C. Sunny day. 30s. Best birds: 3 Red-shouldered Hawks, 3 Red-breasted Nuthatches. Not as many pines as a few years ago, but more than will be here a few years from now. Boy Scouts were finishing up a camp out in the pine stand closest to the Wood Duck trail parking lot. There are a few hemlocks on the south side of the lot, along the roadway. The smaller cones on the hemlocks are traditionally considered more desired by Pine Siskins, crossbills, and other winter finches. As we walked by, a boy was taking a piss on one of the trees, his back to us. We didn't bother searching through this set of trees for birds. The Red-breasted Nuthatches were in the Tall Pines picnic area, midway along the road that winds up to the top one of the ridges that the park occupies. We walked a section of the mountain bike trail, and then cut off trail for a bit, following another ridge's descent to the Wood Duck Trail portion of the park. I was the putative leader of this trip, but all the attendees are good birders, so it was a walk with one's peers. In fact, Ned K. basically led the trip by pointing out the trails and shortcuts we needed to take to get to the spots of the park I intended the field trip to visit. The three Red-shouldered Hawks were flying together, moving from the trees beside the small meadow we were standing in, before disappearing behind the trees at the top of a neighboring ridge. The wind began to pick up around 10:30. We were finished by 11. Nobody plants pine groves anymore, and many parks and even our National Forest managers recommend and practice aggressive removal of the trees. Years ago, planting a grove of pines was the sign of a wise conservationist. Today the trees are considered non-natives and their planting discouraged. A good number of the trees at Mitchell are dying out for whatever reason, but some of the freshly felled trees, which had yet to be cut up and taken away, looked healthy. Who knows why these trees were cut? The ways of the Lord and his land managers are inscrutable.

January 1, 2012. Crosby Township, Hamilton County, Ohio.

2012-02-02T22:14:00.001-05:00

Miami-Whitewater Wetlands. Crosby Township, Hamilton County, Ohio. Annual New Year's Day outing with Charlie S., Steve P., and Bob L. Day began partly cloudy and cool, but forecast called for wind and rain. While the air was calm on the ground, there were large gray cloud masses moving swiftly through patches of harsh morning light and sun. For a few minutes, we were in the sun, but the wind in the upper atmosphere was so strong that it was pouring rain from a large cloud that was some distance--a few miles?--from us. Eventually, it clouded over completely and around 9:30 a.m. it was as if a switch had been turned on and the wind began gusting upwards of 30+ mph. Few birds come out in those conditions. Before the gales, an immature Northern Harrier flew by. Coots and many Green-winged Teal and a few Black Ducks on the large pond. Occasional flocks of teal dropping in during our brief loop walk. A Swamp Sparrow in the cattails by the small pond at the Baughman Road parking lot. Much new development springing up on Baughman Road. I hadn't been out here in a few years, and was startled, but not surprised, to see all the new homes. Winds drove us out by 10.

December 26, 2011. Batavia, Clermont County, Ohio

2012-02-01T23:02:00.002-05:00

(click on image for a better view)

Cincinnati Christmas Bird Count. With Dad and Jack S. On abandoned Christmas tree farm. Hilly terrain. Steep ditches. Cross through muddy irrigation pond via a deep, sheer ditch. Over and up other muddy side grabbing roots and branches to pull selves to top. Then walk rows of dying and thinning pines. Few birds. Last year was better. Look at dilapidated house and outbuildings. Walk Ross Road east until it too reaches abandoned and dilapidated state. The road is closed between here and Roudebush Lane. Watch scores of Black Vultures coming off the power lines to the east. Visit Mr. K_'s family home on Roudebush Lane. Admire enormous Sycamore along the creek at the top of the driveway. The house is one story, redwood, and comfortable. I've been inside it, though this year Mr. K_ and his wife are not home. Numerous Chickadees, Titmice, Downies, at feeder stations. A Towhee calling from the hillside. Jack S. leaves us to join his dad for rest of day. Dad and I continue walking on Roudebush toward the Little Miami. The road is falling apart. In a way, it's as much hillside as the hillside it lies upon. The outline of the foundation of the K_ family ancestral home is bordered on the south side by a stand of bamboo. There are a couple utility poles along the road which once served the home. The home was torn down after its water and sewer lines were destroyed by the dynamiting work done during the construction of Route 32, the James A. Rhodes Appalachian Highway, to the south. Paul W. and I met Mr. K_ and heard his family stories and saw the family scrapbook three years ago during this count. We're up on the history of Roudebush Lane, Batavia, Clermont County, Ohio. Follow Roudebush Lane to a train trestle and a metal bridge crossing a narrow creek where it joins the Little Miami. Spring flooding has almost destroyed the bridge. We don't try to cross. On the other side of the bridge is an abandoned summer camp--it probably had some sort of religious affiliation. There are numerous abandoned church camps like this along different rivers and streams. This one looks just like the one near your home. If we cross the bridge, we would find some outbuildings, a couple chimneys without walls, the odd pile of cinder block and rusted whatevers. Local kids believe the area is haunted by the victims of a satanic cult. They call it "Hell's Church." You can see their videos, and watch them stumbling around in the night while searching for the "Alter of Damnation" by going to YouTube and searching on "Hell's Church, Batavia, Ohio." The kids think the ancestral K_ family home site is haunted. It seems to make people happy to think so--to imagine blood thirsty satanists rushing up the U-shaped driveway to capture and sacrifice the innocent K_ family. But we know the K_ family left quite peacefully, though unhappily, after Gov. Rhodes' work crews made their house uninhabitable. Did they bury their hearts in the bamboo stand? We don't find any ghosts or satanists, today, that we recognized. And not many birds either. It is sunny, cold, and getting windy. We go to Skyline for lunch with other birding friends taking part in the count. It's nice to chat with everyone and compare our morning lists. "When you find few birds, eat many oyster crackers." I read that in the Upanishads.

2011-04-24T08:54:00.000-04:00

oonwe

2011-04-23T08:51:00.002-04:00

fwight

2011-04-22T20:50:00.000-04:00

sighnull

2011-04-21T10:50:00.000-04:00

ohmlhie

2011-04-20T04:32:00.000-04:00

entwicing

2011-04-19T02:49:00.000-04:00

2011-04-18T08:56:00.000-04:00

airor

2011-04-17T20:56:00.001-04:00

oculartea

2011-04-16T08:48:00.001-04:00

Catharusis

2011-04-15T00:09:00.000-04:00

foulovum

2011-04-14T01:43:00.000-04:00

"wallo"

2011-04-13T00:31:00.001-04:00

shtrike

2011-04-12T09:19:00.001-04:00

version 2

(click on image for larger version).

2011-04-12T07:14:00.005-04:00

(click on image for larger version)

2011-04-11T00:12:00.000-04:00

"Djazz'n'g-o-o-o-"

A baseball pwoermd

2011-04-10T17:38:00.001-04:00

I was able to watch a couple Cleveland Indians baseball games on t.v. while we were in Columbus for a soccer tournament this weekend. Cleveland is playing in Seattle, and the games didn't start up until 9:00 or 10:00 p.m. One of Cleveland's better hitters is Travis Hafner, who is nicknamed "Pronk." A former teammate, Bill Selby, gave him the nickname in 2001 because people were alternately referring to Hafner as "The Project" and "Donkey" for his base running. Is "pronk" acceptable as a pwoermd? I vote "yes."

Pronk hit a two-run homer Friday during during the Tribe's ten-run fourth inning shelling of the Mariners. The rest of the damage that inning was done by six or seven consecutive singles, a sac fly, and a double.

2011-04-10T09:57:00.000-04:00

"mayflhyeight"

2011-04-09T08:14:00.002-04:00

2011-04-08T05:02:00.002-04:00

mhatche

for Ernest G. Schwiebert

2011-04-07T15:34:00.002-04:00

"ji;kj"

For other examples from International Pwoermd Writing Month, please see Geof Huth's blog, and follow the links on the sidebar. These by Mara Patricia Hernandez are really interesting.

2011-04-06T09:15:00.002-04:00

"jjelvis"

2011-04-05T14:03:00.002-04:00

2011-04-04T12:33:00.000-04:00

sansd

2011-04-03T10:05:00.001-04:00

2011-04-02T04:18:00.000-04:00

ssshhhthatticccc

2011-04-01T09:43:00.001-04:00

hostich

TATIC

2011-03-29T09:47:00.003-04:00

This fell out of my guitar last night. I don't know what it is. It must have been inside the instrument when it was finished at the factory, given the "f" hole ghost sprayed across the three "TATIC"s.

Failure is always an option

2011-01-20T17:31:00.008-05:00

That's a slogan on a t-shirt that Adam Savage, one of the hosts of Mythbusters wears on occasion. While typing the first sentence in this post I misspelled "wears." Shouting "fail!" when someone makes a mistake or slips up is also a popular expression with the pre-teen "tweener" crowd these days.

I dipped into the dusty well of the QRs for the last time after finally getting the QR format down. The pieces I came up with are lame, but there was a surprise at the end. Here's the first:

"gull/gray." January 19, 2011.

You can also spell "ugly rag" (or "uglly rag," maybe "ugly ragl"?) with the letters in "gull/gray."

Next up:

"ellipses." January 19, 2011.

I was looking for an exit strategy when an infuriated g came along and took matters into its own hands.

"Infuriated g gathers the QR code into its semicolon sack."

January 19, 2011.

g cleaned up all the existing QR code pieces and left only this shell behind, void of any obvious meaning; nothing, not a bit of useful data, remains. It's all in the semicolon bag, and who knows what it means now or how it could be interpreted, parsed, decoded, described, detained, destroyed or decried. g's piece is the best one of the bunch. I wish I'd thought of it myself.

"emptiness." by g.

January 20, 2011.

g seems a little bit pretentious, but who am I to judge?

sympathetic magic, take two; QR codes

2011-01-20T01:10:00.006-05:00

There really aren't many original ideas out there. I was in a doctor's office a couple weeks ago, and noticed a small block of dark figures on a drug display. There was a note on the display that suggested I should take a photo of the figure with my cell phone in order to get some sort of coupon or rebate. I didn't know what these little "scanner blocks" were called, but I thought it would be interesting to make some visually oriented poems using nothing but little blocks and lines and make them look like something that could be scanned with a cell phone. So with this vague idea in mind, I made the pieces that were posted a few days ago.

So it was . . . I was pretty happy with the pieces. They were entertaining to make. Then I noticed on the back of a magazine another of those "scanner blocks," but this time the helpful advertiser had a note that read "take a photo of this QR with your cell phone . . . blah blah blah." So the blocks are called QR Code, or "quick response code." They're everywhere, and you can't miss them, but I've never paid attention to them. I figured, as far behind the times as I usually am, there are a probably a million people making visual poems that look like QR codes. I started searching google, and while I haven't yet found any QR visual poems--though certainly they are out there and probably in great numbers--there are all sorts of people writing poems or other messages, translating them into QR codes via freebee websites, and then posting them in various places where interested people who have the appropriate app on their cell phones can take a photo of the code and read the "translated" poem. It's an interesting way to distribute writing or creative work and other information.

Here's just one of many explanations of how to write QR poems. This one was written by a Brazilian writer named Giselle Beiguelman. South Americans have a penchant for being engaged in avant writing projects, and it's easy to imagine the continent's writers doing all sorts of experimenting and work with "mobile telephonic" poetry. (In fact, I assume they've probably moved beyond this already. "Ho-hum, this is SO 2010"). Beiguelman has a blog, which looks interesting. I wish I could read Portuguese! Doesn't matter, it's still enjoyable to look through.

After taking some time to compare my initial QR-inspired efforts with actual QRs, I realized how lacking in some subtle details mine were. (And not so subtle details--why did I choose to make mine shaped like rectangles instead of squares?). Here is a revised version of "sympathetic magic," with a number of added details and a new and improved square shape. I was thinking of the different books on petroglyphs and "cave art" I've read over the years and decided to create a few of my own glyphs. Among those in this piece are a frog that changes into a human or vice versa in order to avoid or confront a coiled snake; some bull heads, a few human-like figures or signs and a larger, horizontal human figure striking down some sort of animal with a decorated stick (or rolled up newspaper), said animal figure which in turn is offered up to a totem by the helpful letter "G." I was simply creating a little atavistic world within a QR code format. Below that, is an actual, supposedly working QR code I made at the website QR Stuff.com using the phrase "sympathetic magic." Who knows how it will translate via the code. I guess scan it at your own risk. I don't know how safe these things are.

"sympathetic magic." Revised January 18, 2011.

QR Code of "sympathetic magic." January 18, 2011.

Mine is still not quite right and could use more work. It's not as tight, boldly stark, and hermetic and strange looking as the real deal QR. QRs remind me of digital visions of the "hex" symbols sometimes painted on country barns. I'm not sure I'd photograph random QRs with my cell phone, but I like looking at them. There are the comforting nested boxes in the upper left and right and lower left corners; in opposition the square-less open right lower corner; the bold marks wandering around here and there forming shapes similar to the tunnels in an ant farm, occasionally gathering into neat chevrons or larger blocks, sometimes staying by themselves, apart from the rest of the information, seemingly. Will the black marks tumble out of the lower right of the QR or continuing rambling around the square?

I don't know what the potential for distributing writing via QR codes is. How much text can you cram into one and have it intelligibly translated via the cell phone app? (This site claims to have input Poe's "The Raven" in QR code.) Could entire books be shared covertly or overtly this way? Is anything lost in the translation of QR code into text, such that sending QR code output back into QR code, the result of that output back again into QR, etc., would create the kind of fractured syntax and peculiar word choices that you get if you translate, say, an English phrase into Spanish, the Spanish back to English, then back again, and so on, using an online translator such as the one at google? But likely others have figured this all out already and are on to the next great thing for 2011. I'm just hoping that reruns of Hee-Haw will show up on YouTube. That'd be great.

Spruce Top

2011-01-19T02:12:00.001-05:00

Wyatt Wilkie at work. This explains part of why solid topped, hand-carved archtops are so expensive. Wilkie's instruments are awfully nice as well, and given the material on his bio page, he might have had a hand in making some of the ones listed on the DHR website.

Sympathetic magic

2011-01-17T00:37:00.000-05:00

A good question

2011-01-16T00:36:00.000-05:00

Arkansas

2011-01-15T13:34:00.000-05:00

Sick Day

2011-01-14T23:56:00.001-05:00

"it should be snowflakes falling."

January 7, 2011

Grace was home sick. We did some painting and writing and general messing around. This is a collage of two different things we came up with.

Snow Day

2011-01-13T23:50:00.001-05:00

They lost The King but found The Voice

2011-01-06T22:05:00.001-05:00

The Cleveland Cavaliers have a history of sounding better than they
play, as was the case in the '70s when they had this groovy funk theme
that they used for promos and to kick off the radio broadcasts,
which I listened to regularly:

Unfortunately, I can't find the polka song that Ted Stepien replaced
"Come On Cavs!" with. It wasn't as good--it was, in fact, awful--and it debuted, if I remember
correctly, with a giant, powder puff blue teddy bear mascot.

And Joe Tait, who is retiring this year, is a great basketball announcer. For many years, he was the best thing the Cavs had. And he is, yet again. Until he retires after this season.

Now they've found this interesting man.

DANGER DAM

2010-12-31T00:42:00.004-05:00

A low head dam on the Great Miami River in Hamilton, Butler County, Ohio. This dam is across the street from the Miami University-Hamilton campus. Low head dams are dangerous, as the sign notes, and this one has claimed a few lives over the years. There's a second low head dam upstream from here, and together the two dams serve to create a pool of water for the once flourishing Hamilton paper industry and other factories. I doubt they'll ever remove these dams, since the pool is useful for the water skiing contests that Hamilton hosts in the summer. It sounds laughable, but it's a big deal. I've seen recordings of some of the contests on ESPN, and they are even duller than televised poker contests. During the summer, there seems to be very little insect life between the two dams. But immediately below this dam, you can find some good stuff, including state endangered Plains Clubtails, like this one:

May 27, 2010.

Plains Clubtail (Gomphus externus).

Great Miami River, Hamilton, Butler County Ohio.

Video recorded on December 18, 2010.

Great Horned Owl Duet

2010-12-29T09:16:00.003-05:00

This pair of Great Horned Owls were perched in a tree and calling to each other in our backyard last November. Their calls were not very loud, and they were less than 100 feet from the house when I made the recording, just as the last light of day was disappearing. A neighbor's dog was, unfortunately, much louder. You can still hear the owls on the video, though, and you can make out some of their head bobbing and movements, all of which must mean something to them. I hear the owls calling in the morning every now and then. I assume they're a mated pair and are probably going to nest somewhere nearby.

Richards' Rudolph

2010-12-25T23:20:00.000-05:00

ice fish

2010-12-22T00:37:00.001-05:00

"ice fish." Great Miami River, Hamilton, Ohio. December 18, 2010. Just below the low level dam on Neilan Boulevard, across from Miami University, Hamilton Campus.

water

2010-12-21T00:32:00.001-05:00

"water." Great Miami River, Hamilton, Ohio. December 18, 2010.

Christmas Bird Count

2010-12-20T00:05:00.001-05:00

Walking along the Great Miami River in Hamilton, Ohio. Late afternoon, during the Hamilton-Fairfield Christmas Bird Count. December 18, 2010. This was a snipe hunt exercise, and I found three. One flew from the river edge about 50 yards beyond where I stopped at the end of this video.

Maple Leaf Compass December 13, 2010

2010-12-16T22:23:00.002-05:00

"Remember, this is just a football game . . . "

2010-12-08T08:32:00.003-05:00

Cosell on Lennon

Cosell with Lennon

petals tepals sepals peals

2010-12-03T23:25:00.000-05:00

"petals tepals sepals peals"

Haiku beginning with "i" . . .

2010-12-01T23:37:00.001-05:00

ssssEEEEttt

2010-11-27T23:53:00.002-05:00

"ssssEEEEttt."

November 18, 2010.

A screech owl in a sugar maple is an echo chamber. This looped continually from daylight until about 4:37 p.m when the owl judged it was dark enough to depart.

The birds' reactions aren't unreasonable. When I clean out the owl boxes in the spring, there are usually Cardinal, Cedar Waxwing, and thrush feathers among the bedding.

"& So?" (Is that all there is?)

2010-11-26T22:50:00.003-05:00

"& So?" (Is that all there is?)

Photo collage. December 2009/November 2010.

Collaboration with earthworms, starlings, crab apples, and hackberries on prepared asphalt driveway.

In fall, 2008, I used a squeegee to paint the background with a mix of water-based emulsions, clay fillers, latex polymers, and bitumen. The piece cured for over a year until it reached Munsell N7. Then, and only then, was it ready.

"& So?" is a very large piece--roughly 100 feet by 15 feet in its entirety--and is laid out on a precarious, sloping surface, which is very difficult to work on when it's wet or covered with substances with inherently low viscosity such as ice or snow. It took over two years to create.

Asphalt is an interesting medium to work upon, but most serious artists have nothing but contempt for it. Training the birds and earthworms took more time than I care to admit.

". . . , dust to dust"

2010-11-25T00:20:00.000-05:00

"Under the rug: EntROpY"

(manipulated photo/collage)

The Letter People were the stars of a strange t.v. program.

Typha

2010-11-24T00:10:00.001-05:00

"Typha."

This is probably the last windy day soccer practice piece. It's an October scene. Not to be confused with Typhoo or Typhoo or Typhoo. Cattail tea probably wouldn't have much taste.

Digger Wasp

2010-11-23T22:55:00.005-05:00

Digger Wasp (species?)

Haiti, November 23, 2009.

These digger wasps were all over the upper part of the beach we visited on Haiti last year. This one had dug a hole inside a boot print.

Digger Wasp (species?)

Haiti, November 23, 2009.

Fraxinus ad finem

2010-11-23T00:02:00.001-05:00

"Here they come!" panel 1 of 4.

I think we're all going to miss our ash trees.

Eyes:Ears:Ayer

2010-11-21T23:54:00.002-05:00

"Eyes:Ears:Ayer"

A funny name

2010-11-20T23:51:00.005-05:00

"What's in a funny name?"

Quiscalus in space

2010-11-19T23:17:00.005-05:00

"Quiscalus traveling through space sees his former self."

(Collaboration with William Hull)

This is a reworking of the Quiscalus quiscula piece from October. I can't remember what Photoshop trips I clicked on to get something that looks like a grackle in a spaceship, but it does look like a grackle in a spaceship. Bill Hull sent me a photo last winter of a Great-tailed Grackle (Quiscalus mexicanus) drinking coffee in Costa Rica; I have no doubt that eventually members of Quiscalus will travel through space and time, probably surpassing human efforts. I have that much faith in grackles. The first Great-tailed Grackle I saw was in Cozumel. It was pecking at a dog lying by the side of a road. I thought the dog was dead, but it wasn't. Some tourists riding by on mopeds woke it up.

At the November Cincinnati Bird Club meeting, there were a number of bird skins that the Cincinnati Museum of Natural History brought for an identification quiz. Bird skins can be tricky to ID, since the shapes and states of the birds are nothing like they are in life. Stuffed eyeless skins on sticks, invariably with flattened backs from spending their lives in a museum tray. But museum collections are treasures and it's a treat to look at the specimens. Last night, they had a Great-tailed Grackle collected or found dead in Texas. That's one species that's hard to confuse with anything else, whether it's stuffed or alive, pecking at a dog's back or drinking coffee.

For photos (and videos and sound recordings) of Great-tailed Grackles and other Quiscalus members, including the former self Quiscalus the space traveler is observing in the piece above, see the World Bird Guide on Bill's Mangoverde site. Click on "Passerine" then click on "Troupials and Allies." You'll get a wonderful list of birds.

aqui/here

2010-10-31T00:01:00.003-04:00

"aqui with extraneous umlaut / aqiii." October 26, 2010

"her(e)"

If you grind coffee finely enough, you get a nice, thick residue at the bottom of the cup. Two doodles neither her(e), (aqui [aqiii]) nor there. The coffee was Highland Grog decaf. The residue makes a nice, pasty substance, perfect for jotting down a few notes.

A few days after making the above, I saw a video showing how Alex Gildzen creates entries for his The Book of Java, and realized that the idea to make something out of coffee must have been percolating in my head since I read Alex's Making Circles manuscript last year, which contains selections from The Book of Java. Now I remember from where this idea was stolen!

wind / gust / cloud

2010-10-29T00:03:00.002-04:00

"Wind." October 27, 2010.

"Gust." October 27, 2010

"Cloud." October 27, 2010

A windy week. Three doodles while waiting for soccer practice to wrap up, and before it got too cold to sit on the grass and write. The fields are guarded by fearsome plastic swans, but that's for another day.

Quiscalus quiscula

2010-10-27T00:30:00.000-04:00

Quiscalus quiscula

The Sycamore Ouija and Zen Advocacy Group

2010-10-19T21:49:00.000-04:00

In May 1792 twenty-four stock brokers met at 68 Wall Street in New York City and signed "The Buttonwood Agreement," which created the New York Stock and Exchange Board, which eventually became the New York Stock Exchange. According to legend the agreement was signed beneath a "Buttonwood Tree," that is, a sycamore. Sycamores are referenced in a number of myths and legends in both the east and the west, involving at least three species of trees from two different families. The story that the New York Stock Exchange was created by men meeting under a sycamore is yet another legend that joins the sycamore with the Druids, Jesus and family, the Egyptian afterlife, and a number of Native American stories, for starters.

While wandering around last summer, I found some sycamore bark that had been sloughed off a large tree growing on the edge of an old ice pond that was built around 1900. Today the ice pond is a 30-acre densely wooded swamp, filled mostly with ash trees, but its outside is lined with a number of sycamores.

The sycamore bark peels off in ragged, jig-saw-puzzle-like chunks. There are plenty of interesting shapes. After finding a piece that was about the same size and shape as a screech owl (I can use this! I thought), somehow or another, I came up with an idea to use a few pieces of the naturally "hol(e)y" sycamore bark as a sort of ouija pointer, with a copy of The Wall Street Journal filling in as a ouija board. The October 4, 2010 edition of The Wall Street Journal was handy, and one evening I set things up to see if the Sycamore Ouija ("SO") would produce any interesting results.

Sycamore Ouija, October 4, 2010. Ready for a little conservative divination, sir!

Perhaps because I don't believe in the existence of a spirit world outside our material world, and lacking the help of my own David Jackson, I couldn't get the Sycamore Ouija to lead me to anything interesting or coherent in the pages of The Wall Street Journal. For some reason, it kept arguing that Barack Obama was to blame for everything. (Did you know that Obama and Woodrow Wilson were behind the Hindenburg disaster? They purposely mishandled the guy wires during the final landing at Lakehurst, and then, well . . . Even Glenn Beck didn't know that.)

The spirits being unwilling, and hoping for something more interesting, I tried a random approach of opening the paper and dropping the SO wherever it might fall. Here are some of the results:

The Wall Street Journal said what?

"now say hurt . . . "

Creepy.

Unable to connect these dots.

eh . . .

This might make sense to someone.

The last one is a little outside the rules, random that they are, but while cropping the photos, the image editing software got into the game and created something called "Caring Americans in Foreclosure," which is "a zen advocacy group." Maybe the Sycamore Ouija and the October 4, 2010 edition of The Wall Street Journal are working together in some fashion. Right before adjusting the initial crop of this image, I noticed what had happened, and decided to allow the software to join in the game. I kept its work. It's not bad.

Perhaps someone more conceptually minded and skilled than I am, someone more attuned to the possibilities of the spirit world, could do better. There are warnings against this kind of thing, though.

But if you're still willing to give this a try, there's probably plenty of sycamore bark near you; if not, let me know, and I'll send you some.

cow and violin

2010-10-14T03:05:00.000-04:00

Half Price Books had a few copies of Kazimir Malevich: Suprematism, the catalog of the Guggenheim Museum exhibition of the same name on sale for six bucks a few weeks back. That would be more like "One Tenth Price Books," and I was happy to stumble on the deal. Malevich was born in the Ukraine in 1878, enjoyed success as an avant-garde artist and intellectual, most notably in the nineteen-teens and twenties, before his spirit and eventually his life were squashed by the Stalinist Soviet Union in 1935.

In 1915 or so he developed a theory and system that used basic geometric designs and shapes to create paintings and other works that were purely abstract. He called this "Suprematism." Sotheby's sold a Malevich piece titled "Suprematist Composition" a few years back for an ungodly sum of money. The Sotheby's site has a detailed catalog note about Malevich and Suprematism, which is worth reading if one is so inclined.

Malevich produced a lot of interesting work in various styles and in various media. Some of it is clearly in a cubist vein, and employs collage and humorous images, written phrases and words ("Composition with Mona Lisa," which features a tongue-in-cheek defacement of the Mona Lisa that might predate Marcel Duchamp's similar gesture, and "Private of the First Division" are a couple examples), etc. Many of the pieces have quirky titles--"Simultaneous Death of a Man in an Airplane and on the Railroad," as one example--others are more simply titled, such as "White Square" or "Black Square."

Last week, I had an hour-and-a-half to kill while waiting for a soccer practice to finish, and I read a reference to a work titled "Cow and Violin" in the Malevich Guggenheim catalog. I was bored, and it was getting too dark to read, but not too dark to make bad drawings, so I made a few doodles of what I thought a cow and violin might look like together. Here's the best of the bunch:

It's a really big violin or a really small cow.

Here's what Malevich's "Cow and Violin" looks like:

http://www.russianartgallery.org/famous/malevich_cow.htm

If you want, you can color your own version of "Cow and Violin" as well as other Malevich works, including "Suprematist Composition," on the Super Coloring website:

http://www.supercoloring.com/pages/cow-and-violin-by-kazimir-malevich/

Maybe you can sell yours for sixty million dollars. Wouldn't that be nifty?

Let's Observe! A Lesson in Observation

2010-10-11T20:06:00.000-04:00

I have been a serious birder for all of my nearly forty-two years of life. I well recall a second-year male American Redstart (Setophaga ruticilla) that I saw in my front yard when I was two-and-half years old. The amazing vitality of this incredible and plucky neotropical migrant imprinted itself on my young and inquisitive brain. This early observation was confirmed nearly twenty-three years later when I found an illustration of--you guessed it--a second-year male American Redstart in the first real bird field guide that I ever saw while standing in the Nature section of Borders Books And Music. All those years, all those miles, all those observations . . . I always knew I had been right. Besides birding for a lifetime, and possessing heightened powers of observation, every good birder must have the ability to recall specific details of their birding observations many years after the fact. It's true! (And remember, it's not bragging if you really can do it! And, well, I can!)

Take the following example, which I offer as a lesson in observation that might be helpful and informative to new or less knowledgeable birders:

Recently, while repairing a damaged screen door on the back deck I became aware of the alarm calls of a mixed flock of perhaps seven or eighteen Carolina Chickadees (Poecile atricapilla) and Tufted Titmice (Baeolophus bicolor). These sprightly little feisty balls of feather and sinew can create quite a ruckus when they encounter something their little brains deem alarming or dangerous. My years of birding experience created an absolutely unconscious response: immediately I dropped my spline and roller to the deck and began searching the canopy for the source of the birds' alarm.

Within minutes I found the reason for the alarm calls!

Eastern Screech-Owl (Otus asio)

An Eastern Screech-Owl! One of my favorite unnecessarily hyphenated common bird names! In my very own backyard! No wonder the birds were so upset. I walked backwards through the empty space where the damaged screen door once stood, and only once inside, and out of direct sight--so I assumed--of the owl, I ran through the kitchen to find my camera. After a few minutes of frantic searching for the camera, I finally found it right where I had left it the day before. Carefully, I went back outside onto the deck. I was in luck! The owl was still there, apparently happily roosting in one of the four owl boxes I thoughtfully had my grandfather build for me so that I could attract these wonderful little avian predators. (I care a lot about providing appropriate habitat for birds. That's another trait of serious birders, so take note, though if you must do so, perhaps you need more remedial help than I can give you). After waiting for ten or so seconds for the automatic focus to get itself set, I snapped the picture shown above.

But immediately the owl flew from the box, with three or maybe ten chickadees and between two and five Titmice in hot pursuit. Crestfallen, I lost sight of the owl . . . for a few minutes. Then. I. realized. it. was. right. in. front. of. my. eyes.

Eastern Screech-Owl (Otus asio) hiding in Panera Bread coffee cup.

Search the literature, and I have, and you'll not find a single reference to an Eastern Screech-Owl sheltering or roosting inside a coffee cup. This was a remarkable observation, and I was happy I had finished the coffee moments before. I was so relieved to have my camera at the ready to document this remarkable observation, and thankful, too, that this amazing event took place before the eyes of an observer with the perspicacity to appreciate its novelty and importance. With that in mind, I snapped a couple modest photos, the best of which you can see for yourself, above.

Of course, I didn't expect the owl to stay in the coffee cup for long. After a few moments of deathly stillness, the owl inquisitively swiveled its head from side to side to assay its surroundings; he shifted about in the cup, his little talons making soft scraping noises on the hardened paper stock; then, finally, the owl snapped its beak two or three times in an attempt to intimidate me (!) before it flew away into the shelter of a nearby Sugar Maple. Here is a photo of a couple feathers left behind in the cup after the owl took flight. I left the feathers inside the cup so that you can see for yourself how tiny the feathers are on an Eastern Screech-Owl.

Eastern Screech-Owl (Otus asio) feathers left behind in Panera Bread coffee cup.

Really good birders are really good at finding birds in places that the average birder or person on the street cannot. It's about that simple! But how does one hone one's skills of observation? Through practice, of course! It takes years of daily practice to become a really good observer. You have to take your nose out of the field guides and put your boots on the ground in order to become a better observer, and therefore, a better birder. A number of books and websites back me up on this point. You probably have them all in your birder's library, already. But don't give in to the temptation to consult them now! Instead, try this little exercise. See if you can find the owl!

First, a brief step back . . . after the Screech-Owl flew out of the coffee cup, I searched the branches of the Sugar Maple where I thought the owl had taken refuge. It took a few minutes: five, ten, thirty? It's hard to say. When engrossed with a challenge while afield, time seems to stand still for the serious birder, so intently focused is he or she on the objective at hand: find the owl! So I can't say with certainty how long it took me to find the owl, but through careful observation, find it indeed I did. I took some photos, which I'll share with you. See if you can find the Eastern Screech-Owl. To make this extra challenging, set an egg timer and see how quickly you can find the owl in the photo below.

Can you find the Eastern Screech-Owl (Otus asio) in the Sugar Maple?

Found it yet?

Okay. That's enough. I know how hard this can be, so I'll give you some help. Here's the Eastern Screech-Owl hiding in the Sugar Maple:

Notice how efficiently the Screech-Owl makes use of his environment, expertly blending in with the bark and leaves; in this manner the Eastern Screech-Owl (Otus asio) becomes one with the tree. "Owl, BE the tree." Folks, that's evolution! Remarkable.

So ends today's lesson in observation. As we've seen, through improved observational skills we become better birders. We are better birders because we are better observers. It's that simple! So go out there and observe, observe!

bur-reed / blur-reed

2010-10-06T23:10:00.000-04:00

YJOOWLTSY

2010-10-04T02:00:00.000-04:00

Bird tracks--Killdeer and Great Blue Heron--probably a Scirpus sedge of some kind, and a little bur-reed, maybe Sparganium americanum . . . or not. It's some kind of bur-reed, though. The Great Miami River edge last May. For a video of bur-reed in action, click here. The video is on the top right.

It's National Captain Samuel Brady Month! This month! That is, October!

2010-10-02T02:30:00.000-04:00

It's October, and that means it's National Captain Samuel Brady Month. Here begins a multi-part graphic biography of Brady, who was born of humble origins on the Pennsylvania frontier in Cumberland County on May 5, 1756. He served in the Revolutionary War and afterwards led a fabled group of Rangers who patrolled the Western Frontier at the time that the Western Frontier started at about Pittsburgh. He was Daniel Day-Lewis frontier chic before anyone knew it. He was tougher than Fess Parker, and probably did "kill a 'bar when was only three," and with his bare hands, too! He led an amazing life filled with mind-boggling adventure and hair-raising escapes. To reference Mr. Day-Lewis twice in the same paragraph, as we follow Capt. Brady's story there will be blood. And lots of it . . . But not yet.

A PSA

2010-09-30T15:36:00.001-04:00

It seems important to mention this as we approach the November elections. But I'm not entirely sure why.

Silly Robot! Tricks are for Kids!

2010-09-26T00:01:00.000-04:00

Slight Return

2010-09-23T23:11:00.000-04:00

2010-08-26T12:51:00.000-04:00

The following should serve to clarify a number of items that have appeared on these pages over the past year.

Corrections and amputations:

Most of the modern city is temporary and will be redone over time

Court backs owl project

You can flight city hall

Six stores above queens

Moth lab discovered in garage

Man struck by blightening

Ugly spider web mars pleasant meadow

Have you ever heard the window sill, calling in the night?

Nocturnal migrations

Crepuscular emissions

Avuncular vocations

Wholly rosaries

My other bimbo is a limo

My limo moped

Sightly gash left on victim’s temple

Two weeks of lovely weather in Bangladesh

In case of rapture this car will be unwomyned

Spring truly pleasant in Baghdad

Neanderthals wanted for new trans-Caucasus mail routes

Suicide bomber leaves gash in temple, scores of victims

A scissor-tailed flycatcher is a beautiful bird of open grasslands dotted with trees

Shrubs and occasional fences, which are all convenient perches

She doth plucketh the harp o’er dewy fields to inviteth me to swing mine net there

Look for it atop the barbed-wire fence or the dead Osage Orange

God Made The World For You!

Tea Party applauds higher teacher salaries

But not you or you or you or him

Residents happy for increase in gun crimes

And definitely not her . . .

Massive coffee spill threatens lunch

Pols stir the pot of resentment

Pols freeze the leftover casserole of contentment

Do not fear the guard is here

Robin builds nest in silly location

My barista can beat up your sommelier

Female mail carrier is ‘pretty pretty,’ observes local man

Trees obscuring view of forest, claims state agency in charge of casino project

Raccoon struck by car ‘stupid’ to have crossed road in first place

Thai anti-government protesters ‘tie one on’: twelve killed

Tree kills drunk driver

I said shoot; I didn't say shoot

The Knights of Columbus like to wear funny hats and carry swords

They protect Mary from Catholics and Irish

You think that is a secret, but it never has been one

Minor birds; major fleas

Moa more than never

Man on mower screams for guns

What is the enharmonic equivalent to a liver at flood stage?

A Great-tailed Grackle drinking coffee

Is it racist to say that all of North Korea’s leaders look like Elvis impersonators?

The King and the King of Kings shaking hands in a black velvet painting

Mayfly Central

2010-03-22T16:27:00.000-04:00

A school whose entomology department creates something as nice as Mayfly Central certainly deserves to have its basketball team in the Sweet Sixteen.

A "flatheaded" or Heptageniidae mayfly, possibly in the genus Maccaffertium. Four Mile Creek, Butler County, Ohio. March 19, 2010.

The Pied-billed Red-wattled Leaf-shrike Cuckoo

2010-03-02T12:40:00.000-05:00

Paula McCartney has published a funny project involving photographs of store-bought decorative birds that she posed in natural settings. It's called Bird Watching and is done with a "straight face," as if the photos in the book document real species. There are field notes and fantastic species names for each bird, all done up in the archly classic style of a committed field naturalist's journal.

I've read through the brief material on the website for Bird Watching that McCartney provides to explain her project, and this statement struck me: "By controlling the brightly colored bird's position in the environment, I am creating a more idyllic scene than that which naturally exists, and creating a new environmental experience for the viewer and myself." Given the ability of photographers to Photoshop their bird and nature pictures, to remove twigs and branches, add or remove items, change the backgrounds, the lighting, the position of the sun, etc., it's curious to compare how an artist purposely manipulates a scene the way McCartney does with the purposeful manipulation of a scene after it's been captured on film, as many nature photographers do. What's the difference, besides the fact that McCartney's birds are fantastical fictions?

I'm not going to spend $800 on McCartney's book, but her idea is funny enough that I'd love to see a copy. Better yet, I'd love to place a copy on a display table at a meeting of ornithologists or serious birders or nature artists to see how they would react.

BB King

2010-02-25T22:14:00.000-05:00

BB King used to have a column in Guitar Player magazine sometime around the early '80s. I enjoyed reading that magazine and King's articles quite a bit. I stumbled upon a really good article about King that appeared in the Telegraph in the UK last spring while I was doing a little research on black velvet Elvis paintings. I've heard about a painting depicting Elvis shaking hands with Jesus--"The King shaking hands with the King of Kings," and I wanted to see one for myself. There's the famous Elvis shaking hands with Nixon photo, of course, but I couldn't find anything depicting Elvis and Jesus. Perhaps even kitsch and bad taste have their limits? The idiosyncratic nature of Google searching delivered up a gem of an article about BB King, and thankfully ended my research on black velvet Elvis art. There are some sad parts in the article, but it seems candid--to the point of bluntness--revealing without being tawdry, and generally optimistic and truthful. There's a little bit of commentary on American history, as well. The article covers just about every topic under the sun, in fact.

Stoneflies and Chironomid Midges

2010-02-22T15:34:00.000-05:00

While birding along the Great Miami River in Hamilton on Saturday morning I found a number of stoneflies and Chironomid midges that must have hatched out Friday when it warmed up. The weekend temperatures were fairly warm, so I assume the hatch continued and continues.

Here are two stoneflies:

The top stonefly is roughly 10mm in length, not counting the antennae. The bottom stonefly is about 5mm in length, not counting antennae or tails.

There were also a lot of Chironomid midges. Here are two, each 2 or 3mm in length, which are possibly (probably?) the same species. A male, with his "feathery" plumed antennae:

And a likely female:
I hope to key out the stoneflies properly in the next few days and send them on to someone who knows more about them. The Ohio Biological Survey used to have a collecting program for winter stoneflies. Perhaps they still do. Here's a link to an article about Ohio River Plecoptera that has some information about winter stoneflies.

Aquatic Lives Part Two

2010-02-21T20:46:00.001-05:00

Aquatic Lives

2010-02-20T16:03:00.001-05:00

This is an attempt to make something that looks like a quilt. Each photo was carefully hand stitched into place, in a manner of speaking; the weaving on top of and behind the photos is also handmade, after a fashion. I don't know how to sew, so the handmade stitches around the photos are what I imagine it would look like if I were to get a hold of a needle and thread.

The photos from the top and roughly clockwise are four mayfly nymphs from the genus Nixe (species unknown, collected on Four Mile Creek, Butler County, May 2009); an adult Flag-tailed Spinylegs that was caught, photographed, and released in Hamilton County, July 2009; an adult female Swift River Cruiser, caught, photographed and released on Four Mile Creek, Butler County, August 2009; a Flag-tailed Spinylegs nymph collected on Four Mile Creek, Butler County, July 2009 (this is a first county record of a species that is likely rather common in the county in appropriate habitat); and a subimago Stenonema femoratum mayfly collected on Gregory Creek, Butler County in May 2009. Mayflies are peculiar among insects in that after they hatch, they undergo a complete molt, including their wings, before becoming fully "adult." The wing molt is the unusual aspect of this change.

After the egg, the three stages of a mayfly's life are the water-living nymphal stage, after which the nymphs hatch into subimagoes, which then molt into sexually mature imagos. The molt from subimago to imago occurs within minutes, hours, or sometimes a day or more of hatching.

Fly fisherman call the hatched subimagos "duns," and the imagos "spinners." Serious fly fishermen and women know their insects, and there are a lot of good books about aquatic insects written by and for fly fisher-persons. Ernest G. Schwiebert is a really good first start. Volume I of Schwiebert's Nymphs, which was published in a revised two-volume edition after he died, is, for some reason, regularly found at Half Price book stores. That's where I bought my copy last spring. I'm not a fly fisher, but I read a lot of fly fishing material in books and online these days, and even occasionally check out fly fishing t.v. programs. Sometimes they talk about insects and fly tying. Usually, they just show dudes catching fish, which just isn't as interesting to me, but I appreciate how much they love fishing and being in the water.

Quilts

2010-02-10T11:13:00.000-05:00

The Fitton Center for Creative Arts annual winter quilt show, "Harmony," wrapped up on January 6, but I walked through the exhibit at least a half dozen times after it opened in mid-November. Initially I was more interested in seeing John Leon's music-related sculptures, which were part of "Harmony." (Many of Leon's works you can see on the page linked to in the last sentence were in the Fitton Center show). I wasn't disappointed. Leon's work is excellent. It was nice to be able to walk around the sculptures and see them from all sides and different angles. The "Rondo" pieces, made from limestone, marble, and bronze, struck me as something that might translate into a visual poetry piece--"S" shapes and figure 8's and ampersands suggesting a G clef, the way that a static sculpture can seem to be moving--and this is what I came up with.

Rondomisterioso (Take 4)

The basic shapes are a reversed ampersand, an "S," a backslash, and some dots. The effects are computer manipulated, and this was the fourth version. Thus the clever parenthetical title "Take 4." A few days after I did this, I was talking with a friend who also happens to be a sculptor, and he mentioned that he likes working with metal because it's hands-on and doesn't involve sitting down and running something through Photoshop. Hmmm . . . sounds a lot like what I do, albeit I don't use Photoshop. I use something much cheaper. I started thinking about using my limited art and handwriting "skills" (quote marks indicating sarcasm in this case) and to try to avoid relying so much on computer manipulation, although that's still fun to do. I wanted to do things that were more hands-on, if not hand made. Like something quilters or fiber artists might make, for instance.

I've never looked too closely at quilts before, though, and they were a surprise to me. Most of the quilts in the "Harmony" show were created by members of the ART Quilt Group, all of whom are Cincinnati-area based artists. Three artists from outside the Cincinnati area were also part of the show. One of the non-Cincinnati area artists is Donna June Katz, from Chicago. One of Katz's pieces titled "Bottom of the Sky," had trilobites, insects, and earth-like planets scattered throughout a sort of Milky Way meets the dawn of creation background. Another piece, "Water Over Sky," you can see for yourself on this page on the Fiberarts Magazine website in a web gallery devoted to work by Katz and Cincinnati artist Renee Harris. Though not in the show, Katz's piece titled "Riparian Zone" at the bottom of the Fiberarts Magazine gallery page looks really interesting.

Other pieces that jumped out from the "Harmony" show included "A Goldening of Ginkos" and "Cloudless Sulphurs and Columbines" by Lynn M. Ticotsky. (Here is a link to Ticotsky's "A Goldening of Ginkos" from a 2006 show in Indiana. The Fitton Center's presentations of the quilts and sculptures in "Harmony" were well-done and very professional. They put on museum-quality shows. One excellent juxtaposition that I would love to be able to show you involved Patricia Gould's "Siberian Moonlight Sonata," a large and luminous landscape quilt depicting a snow-covered, birch-dotted Siberian nighttime scene that was hung on the back wall of the upstairs gallery, with two of Leon's wood-carved pieces "Downright Upright" and "The Seeker" situated in front of the quilt. Those three pieces were meant to be together. Cathy Mayhugh, the director of the Fitton Center's exhibitions does a good job designing the center's shows.) Carol Schlegel's "Bird Songs" was interesting. She used raised fabric rectangles and their shadows to create visual interpretations of bird songs. I wondered if she had seen the bird song sonograms that many birders use to study bird songs and their variations. Cris Fee's human figure dominated quilts were unique among the pieces in this show. An article about the "Harmony" show featuring a photo of Cris Fee and one of her pieces appeared in November in the Oxford Press.

All of the artists in "Harmony" were represented by work that was worth seeing, and I look forward to seeing more fiber art or quilt work art in the future.

I can't sew much less run a sewing machine. I'm barely able to patch holes in my insect nets. So after seeing "Harmony," I wanted to figure out a way to make something at least resembling a quilt. After some thought, I gave virtual quilting a shot. Here is a piece that is mostly hand drawn--the vertical and horizontal "weaves." The waves are computer manipulated. I couldn't get a decent hand drawn wave effect.

Next time I'll trot out a couple visual poetry virtual quilts that use the above thingy with items from my collection of bad photos of odd insects.

Eye Phone

2010-02-08T16:52:00.000-05:00

Here is a link to a brief slide show and audio commentary about David Hockney and his iPhone art by Lawrence Weschler, from The New York Review of Books. There are additional articles plus examples of Hockney's artwork at his website.

Bruegel

2010-02-06T10:06:00.000-05:00

I saw this link to Pieter Bruegel's "Winter Landscape With Bird Trap" on Tyler Green's Modern Art Notes yesterday. I can't help but to think of a few of my friends who love to set up nets at their feeder stations on snowy days to band birds. But I think the person on the other end of the rope trap in Bruegel's painting is planning on eating his birds.

Michael, Elvis, and Mozart

2010-02-01T12:58:00.000-05:00

Over the weekend I saw a bit of This Is It, the documentary about the preparations for Michael Jackson's comeback tour that never was. The shows would have gone over very well and likely done quite a bit to restore Jackson's place in pop culture.

A few days ago, I took a tour of the Mozart museum that the first graders created in the hallway at GLS's school to celebrate Mozart's birthday. One really bright girl standing at the Mozart death station explained that Mozart died from "too many pills and heart attacks." I replied, "just like Michael Jackson." She said "exactly like Michael Jackson." Then she told me about a family vacation over the summer that ended up in Graceland, where she saw Elvis's grave and home.

I didn't care much for Jackson's music, though I still enjoy hearing anything from Off The Wall, and I can certainly understand why Thriller was so popular. Those are great albums, regardless of my opinions or taste. Despite many things he did in his life, to himself and others, I never enjoy seeing people suffer and I never relish the failures of celebrities. It was sad to see him go. I'm glad that GLS's schoolmate pointed out to me the parallels between Michael Jackson, Elvis, and Mozart. It was interesting to think about celebrity, success, genius, etc., and how very little about the world really changes from century to century.

Edie Harper

2010-01-28T08:31:00.000-05:00

passed away over the weekend.

A flock of crows

2010-01-18T20:13:00.000-05:00

This is a companion piece to last Tuesday's.

Emperor Khan's Traveling Dining Room Scroll

2010-01-13T22:20:00.001-05:00

(Detail from panel 17, Emperor Khan's Traveling Dining Room Scroll, "Shrike with vole atop pole on snowy steppe." Attributed to Quan T'rang Sh'i circa 1226 CE. Handscroll; ink and color on silk. 11 x 18 in [27.9 x 45.7 cm]. Reproduced by permission of the Alfred Hawthorne Estate).

Although scholars believe the date for Emperor Khan's Traveling Dining Room Scroll is correct, the identity of the artist or artists who created the handscroll is less certain. Quan T'rang Sh'i was in the service of Emperor Khan around the time the scroll was created, but certain matters of the scroll's style seem to contrast with other works that have been linked directly to T'rang Sh'i's hand, such as the famous Emperor Khan's Saddle Cover Scroll and the stylistically and thematically matching Emperor Khan's Saddle Cover Scroll Cover Scroll, both of which were painted in 1223 CE and hint, yet again, at the Emperor's fastidiousness and concern with dressing not only his wives but even his horse tack in multiple layers to protect against chafing under the harsh conditions of the Central Asian steppe.

The accompanying colophones shed little light on the issue of the scroll artist responsible for creating Emperor Khan's Traveling Dining Room Scroll, though the poem in black ink on the right side of this panel clearly reads as follows:

Emperor Khan went to the shrike and asked

"Shrike! Why do you eat?"

Shrike was silent.

Emperor Khan asked once again,

"Shrike! Why do you eat?"

In reply the shrike spoke to him in the third person and said thus:

"Shrike: kirshe! --

ershki! ekirhs!"

Satisfied with the answer, the Emperor executed 1,000 scholars.

There is no record of Emperor Khan having ordered the execution of 1,000 scholars, though he did have 500 killed on separate occasions; the poem could be apocryphal or it could be an example of what passed for humor on the great Central Asian steppe, circa the first quarter of the thirteenth century.

Additional, though admittedly scant, evidence for Quan T'rang Sh'i having been the painter who executed this particular scroll lies in the delightful and droll puns set up between the image of the shrike perched upon a "pole" barely taller than the length of the bird--a reference to a joke popular among nomadic peoples of the era and locale, which is impossible to translate today--as well as the inference, again, based on interpretations of one of the accompanying colophones, that the shrike has already eaten the vole rather than delivering it to the Emperor, as was the custom Emperor Khan demanded of all the creatures he encountered on the steppe, no matter how mean or humble they might be.

A stack of pallets

2010-01-12T14:34:00.001-05:00

The "scribble" shape maker in PowerPoint is fun to play with. It has all the subtlety of an electronic signature device that you find at the grocery store checkout, but with a little bit more charm.

The Sycamores along the creek . . .

2010-01-08T23:21:00.000-05:00

("The Sycamores along the creek are noisy, rusty gates . . . ")

The temperatures last weekend never got out of the 20s (nor will they this weekend), and Gregory Creek was mostly iced over. Below a cluster of trees near a part of the stream that was shallow and fast-flowing, some rootlets hanging over the water had been hit with spray from the creek, which created rooted pendants of diamond-like ice crystals. Flocks of Starlings and Robins were passing through, stopping at a few open spots along the bank to drink or to feed.

The handwritten part of this version is a little sloppy. It should read "The sycamores along the creek are noisy, rusty gates," but it looks like "The sycamoes alony the aeek . . . " Penmanship is tricky . . . but there is a tiny, scrunched up, lowercase cursive "r" between the "o" and the "e."

"The sycamoes alony the aeek." I'll have to use that again. It sounds vaguely Scottish.

Teacup and Plecopteran

2010-01-06T09:29:00.000-05:00

I bought a package of grid paper a few weeks ago, with the intention of trying my hand at sketching and drawing. I haven't tried much of that since high school, and the results this time around were similarly . . . odd. I tried drawing the tea cup that I used to use whenever I visited my grandma, which I did quite a bit growing up, particularly in high school. My aunt gave the tea cup to me as a Christmas present. It's a mass-produced item that I think my grandma bought in the 50s or earlier. She had a set of them, and usually used them for making gravy and related cooking tasks. Most of the cups met their end in kitchen accidents or were beaten and chipped up over the years. But this one survived. It's a solid thing, not a wedding-gift china sort of tea cup that feels like it could be broken between one's index and thumb, but more like an old diner or cafeteria coffee cup. It's stamped "U S A" on the bottom, which means, sadly, it's pretty old. Anyway, here's a copy of the resulting sketch (readers might wish to avert their eyes. Click on the photo for a larger version, but you've been warned):

A poorly drawn stonefly sneaked into the effort, and for a model I fished out a photograph of an adult stonefly that landed on me while I was wading in a creek last May, looking for dragonflies and mayflies. A friend and I have been wondering about winter stonefly hatches. There have been a few "half-hardy" birds, such as Eastern Phoebes, this winter along an effluent outflow from a water treatment plant into the Great Miami River. Last week, my friend found an adult male Wilson's Warbler (a possible latest-ever record for Ohio) foraging with a mixed flock of Chickadees and other locals along this same channel. Phoebes and Wilson's Warblers can eat seeds and fruit if they have to, but they're typically and mostly insectivores. It's been bitterly cold this week, but possibly the warm water channel is producing insect hatches that might otherwise need slightly warmer, sunnier days to come out on other local streams. We plan to do a little sweep netting and see what we find. My bet is we'll find winter stoneflies.

The stonefly that crept into the sketch above is not, to my knowledge, a winter stonefly. But I haven't tried to ID it, yet. Some winter stoneflies hatch out in early spring, others as early as January. Identification of this group seems really complicated. The dichotomous key in Merritt, Cummins, and Berg's An Introduction to Aquatic Insects of North America covers twenty-two pages and 112 possible steps for getting nymphs to family or genus. The adult key looks similarly imposing to a novice. Locally, winter stonefly variety is probably somewhat limited, and it shouldn't be too hard to get IDs or to find someone who can help with IDs, once we collect a few bugs. But that's for another day . . .

The sketching efforts having produced mixed results, I tried some photos of the tea cup, then sliced those up along with the photo of the stonefly perched on my left index finger taken last May on Gregory Creek in Liberty Township, used a couple pages scanned from the Merritt, Cummins, and Berg book as background, and ended up with an interesting still life/visual poem piece. I hadn't realized that a couple of the heating elements on our stove have the words "expandable element" on them, so that was a happy accident. The Merritt, et. al., book, grandma's teacup, and a copy of Hockney's Pictures--his photo collages from the late 80s are an obvious influence--helped make the stew out of which this piece came. However it turned out, it was fun to do, and the original crappy sketch was probably the reason the piece eventually came together. (To see it full size, please click on the image).

("Teacup and Plecopteran")

NiXiT

2010-01-04T10:15:00.000-05:00

We made three trips to Erie County, Ohio and back between Thanksgiving and Christmas. It seemed to me that as we went further north, we saw more billboards that had fallen into neglect. Layers of advertisements were peeling away revealing portions of older advertisements and graffiti beneath them. A striking one I remember was on I-75 somewhere near Cygnet, if I recall correctly. It was a mostly white billboard with different layers of old advertisements torn away leaving the bold, black proclamation "NiXiT."

Along Route 6 in Erie County, near my parents' home, peeking out through an advertisement for some sort of health care concern was the phrase "My sweatshop," which I think was part of a pro-Union/anti-Wal Mart billboard from a few years ago.

I wish I had had a camera to capture some of these odd, neglected billboards, but our workhorse pocket camera perished in a Caribbean snorkeling accident in November, and we've yet to replace it. The above is a sketch from memory of a few billboards we drove past again and again over the past month.

I wonder if there's a correlation between neglected billboards and the economy? Ohio's worst unemployment rates are in the southeastern counties (the northwestern counties of Ottawa and Williams are also in poor shape), but Huron County, the county immediately south of Erie, at 13.7 percent for November 2009, isn't far behind the pack. (Erie County's unemployment rate was 11 percent, a little above the state average of 10.2, according to the source linked to, above). There certainly are large bubbles of unhappiness and hardship throughout Ohio. It seems to show even in the billboards.

2010

2009-12-31T12:16:00.001-05:00

Christmas

2009-12-24T22:17:00.001-05:00

Ways of Counting Birds

2009-12-22T11:34:00.000-05:00

In the early 1990s, a friend recruited me to help him with an annual wetland breeding bird survey run by the Ohio Division of Wildlife. At the time, they had an interesting method that they requested surveyors use for recording the numbers of birds they found at the census sites. It consisted of using a series of dots, lines, and boxes to represent numbers, like this:

The theory was, I guess, that these symbols would reduce transcription errors by either the surveyors themselves or the people at ODOW who would have to take the field data and input it into the state's database. As I recall, after a few years, they sent a note saying that we could abandon the symbol system. I enjoyed the symbol system, though: the little groups of boxes and dots next to Wood Duck or Mallard; the occasional single dot next to Virginia Rail or American Bittern; the excitement of four "10" boxes and one "7" box next to Cattle Egret the year that we had those hanging around for a season. It could be a pain to draw the dots and boxes, though, and I imagine that's why the let that standard fade away.

This is National Audubon Christmas Bird Count season, of course, so a lot of us who compile and participate in the counts are thinking about numbers and the various ways that people give them to us--by computer, on water-stained pieces of paper; on the backs of envelopes; read over the phone; on clearly printed taxonomically correct data sheets. There are lots of numbers and more ways than one to interpret or misinterpret them.

A few years ago, Vic Fazio began the Ohio Winter Bird Atlas project, which is now run by Black Swamp Bird Observatory. The atlas data collection period is concluded and Black Swamp and volunteers are working on writing up the results. This survey had a different protocol than dots, lines and boxes or "pure" numbers. The Ohio Winter Bird Atlas asked that observers provide estimates of most species using "Xs." A single X meant 1 to 9 birds of a given species were seen; XX meant 10 to 99; XXX meant 100 to 999; XXXX meant "thousands" and so on. This project was looking for estimates of abundance. For rarities, a simple numerical count was acceptable: 1 Rufous Hummingbird, rather than "X" Rufous Hummingbird, for example.

I got to thinking about other ways to represent bird numbers as well as ways to provide information about what the birds were doing while they were being counted. I came up with an imaginary and admittedly silly system that combines bird silhouettes a la the end papers from Roger Tory Peterson's field guides with a partially asemic alphabet, if you will.

Here are a few of the "S's."

I imagine they could be combined in different ways to tell stories about the birds observed on a particular day:

This might produce an effect of

Or perhaps just a senseless tangle of

With apologies . . .

2009-12-17T23:31:00.000-05:00

to Philip Whalen.

Lesser Black-backed Gull

2009-12-15T17:20:00.000-05:00

In Ohio, Lesser Black-backed Gulls are considered "very uncommon migrant[s] and winter resident[s] on Lake Erie; very rare migrant[s] inland," though the species "seems to be gradually increasing," according to the 2008 edition of the Ohio Bird Records Committee Annotated Checklist of the Birds of Ohio. The first Ohio record is from 1977 in Cleveland, and it hasn't not been that many years since the species began its invasion of North America. It will likely become a North American breeder, if it hasn't already done so. This fall I've seen single adult Lesser Black-backed Gulls at Huron over Thanksgiving weekend and on the Sandusky Bay on December 13. There have been a number of other Ohio reports this fall as well. For some reason, I didn't even bother reporting the birds I found over the past month. Lesser Black-backeds also wander well south of the lake, and there are a number of recent records from Southwestern Ohio. The first Lesser Black-backed Gull I saw was one that Hank Armstrong found one summer at East Fork Lake State Park.

A good and/or lucky birder can sometimes find other unusual, rare, and interesting gulls in the large winter flocks along Lake Erie and occasionally at inland locations. Perhaps there's a Thayer's, Iceland, or Sabine's Gull in this flock, in addition to the Lesser Black-backed? Maybe at least a nice frosty-winged first-cycle Glaucous. ("Click" on the image to get a better view of this flock for closer scrutiny). There don't seem to be any Great Black-backed Gulls here, but one assumes there are a few close by.

(Triptych: Lesser Black-backed Gull)

A Christmas Story, Matthew Style

2009-12-10T07:27:00.000-05:00

(The Slaughter of the Innocents)

The Gospel of Matthew includes a bloody twist on the Nativity narrative. In Matthew 2, the three wise men, or Magi, find their way to King Herod, who has gotten word that a messiah has been born in Bethlehem. He tries unsuccessfully to trick the wise men into finding the Christ Child for him so that he can kill the baby. Instead, the wise men, feeling at unease and being warned by God in a dream, decide not to see Herod on their way home. Herod realizes he's been tricked, and out of anger and fear he orders his soldiers to go to Bethlehem and kill every male child two years of age and younger.

The historians of the era recorded a number of crazy and murderous things Herod did in an effort to protect himself and to keep control of his kingdom, which he ruled in the service of the Roman empire. But there are no specific records of Herod ordering the "slaughter of the innocents" in Bethlehem. If you do a little reading, you find that writers often note that such an act, though unsupported by fact, would not have been out of character for Herod.

Whether the slaughter of the innocents took or place or not, it's a disturbing part of Matthew's account of the birth and early years of Christ. I was curious how modern Christian religious thinkers explain the slaughter and its place in the story of the birth of Christ. I don't recall any explanations of this part of the story from my years in Catholic school, etc.

The slaughter of the innocents seems like an eerie blood sacrifice that the people of Bethlehem had to offer up to deliver Jesus to safety and to allow him to become the Messiah. Perhaps not surprisingly, I can't find any accounts among the Christian sources I looked at online that supports that notion, though in a narrative sense, the murder of the male babies of Bethlehem seems to foreshadow the eventual crucifixion of Christ, "the lamb of God." I also realize that simply searching for online sources for theological issues is probably an exercise akin to skating on thin ice, and is inherently foolish. I should find a few serious and respected sources and read those. However, I think I vetted the sources I looked at online closely enough to get a sense of the general directions that Christian thinkers take when they approach Matthew 2: 16-18--if they approach it at all! A few writers I found online candidly admit that they don't really know how to deal with this part of the story. Who can blame them?

In a brief search, there were two general approaches for explaining Matthew 2: 16-18 that kept coming up. The first is, essentially, "the workings of the Lord are inscrutable," but one has to trust that there's a purpose for everything, even the worst possible things that can happen to people. Here's an example of that approach.

The second approach is an interesting one that says "look how much anger and hatred there is when people are faced with the truth of Christ." In essence, Herod couldn't deal with the truth, so he tried to kill it. When the world rejects the Truth or reacts in anger or violence, it only proves just how real the Truth is. The story is a reminder that evil is real and active in the world, and that we need Christ to counteract that evil.

Another analysis that both of the above approaches seem to accept is that the Matthew 2 narrative works to show that Old Testament prophecies, particularly from the books of Hosea, Jeremiah, and Isiah, came to fruition with Jesus. There's also a clear parallel between the Moses/Exodus OT narrative and the birth of Jesus, the fleeing of the Holy Family to Egypt, and their eventual return following Herod's death.

Regardless of the explanations, it's still difficult to conceive of the workings of a mind that would purposely and maliciously destroy innocent human life . . . and from there it's no large step to wonder why anyone would purposely destroy any human life. Incredible effort is spent to understand human suffering, particularly of innocents, but it still remains difficult to explain the purpose of that suffering. Even assuming one has faith in Christ or a so-called higher power or a human leader, it remains a tremendous proverbial leap of faith to accept that suffering, regardless of how it arises, is part of some larger purposeful plan, particularly when it always seems so random and cruel, and especially when it strikes people who have no idea it's coming, no comprehension of what could be behind it, and no ability to defend themselves.

Matthew 2:16-18:

16 Then Herod, when he saw that he had been tricked by the wise men, became furious, and he sent and killed all the male children in Bethlehem and in all that region who were two years old or under, according to the time that he had ascertained from the wise men. 17 Then was fulfilled what was spoken by the prophet Jeremiah: 18 “A voice was heard in Ramah, weeping and loud lamentation, Rachel weeping for her children; she refused to be comforted, because they are no more.”

(Photo from the Cincinnati Enquirer, May 5, 2005)

Happy Birthday, John Milton

2009-12-09T09:11:00.001-05:00

b. December 9, 1608.

Everyone in the world should read Paradise Lost. We wouldn't have any spare time left to get into trouble.

ABA Logo Proposal

2009-12-08T10:24:00.001-05:00

The American Birding Association is considering changing their logo. This might work.

Church Window

2009-12-07T20:21:00.001-05:00

The falling sun through the high windows in church Saturday afternoon produced sets of creepy shadows.

In Rainbows

2009-12-03T19:02:00.000-05:00

I'm a good ten years-plus behind the times when it comes to music, and hopelessly un-hip. Lately I've been obsessively playing Radiohead's album In Rainbows, which until I looked it up on Wikipedia a short few minutes ago, I thought dates to 2001 or thereabouts. Shows what I know. It was released in 2007. The lyrics to the songs are included with the CD art, and they're arranged in a fashion superficially similar to Jessica Smith's plastic poems (check out 2005's Butterflies), but the disorientation or reorientation in the lyric pages of In Rainbows is produced by fiddling with the spacing between and among words--so if you're patient, it's easy enough to read Radiohead's lyrics "straight." Smith's poems, by contrast, allow a reader to wander through them, creating paths of his or her own choosing. There's not necessarily a straight way to read her poems. Maybe the difference is academic . . .

Regardless, I'm too lazy to take the time to read the lyrics for In Rainbows, and generally, the lyrics are not clear in the songs themselves, which is great: a listener can make up his or her own lyrics and occasionally out of the mix a few stray words or entire lines and phrases leap out. The lyrics, even if you don't bother to try to figure them out, are no less effective for being largely inscrutable: the emotion or sense of each song comes across clearly regardless of whether the lyric is intelligible. It reminds me of the lyrics to the songs on REM's Fables of The Reconstruction, which didn't make any sense to me when I first bought the album after it was released. Even after listening to it a few times I couldn't make out what Michael Stipe was singing. Then one evening, in that half-awake-half-asleep state we all find ourselves in from time to time, seemingly the entire lyric to "Driver 8" played out in a waking dream. Aha! Now I get it, I thought. Until then, I was pissed that I'd spent a whole $7.99 (1980's vinyl price and a lot of money for a 15-year-old at the time) on an album filled with incomprehensible lyrics. That's pretty much how I've listened, or not listened, to popular music ever since, aside from, say, Sinatra or Dylan. It's much more interesting to not know what the singer is singing.

I was talking with a friend a couple weeks back about manipulating photographs in Photoshop and similar software. He mentioned that one reason he likes to work with metal sculpture is that he can make something with his own hands--there's no computer manipulation involved. That struck a chord with me. Almost everything I've done has been computer manipulated! A bit self conscious perhaps, but I started paying more attention to what I might write or draw with my own hands, without aid of a computer. (This piece, which began as a hand-written glyph of the word "eyes," was manipulated and transformed entirely by computer; so even when I've started something by hand, the end product, for what it's worth, is computer-torqued).

Here are a couple In Rainbows-inspired doodles (Geof Huth might call such writing "fidgetglyphs," which is a much better word than "doodle") that I found myself writing during a meeting I attended a few days ago.

In the song "15 Step" Radiohead's Thom Yorke spits out the phrase "etcetera, etcetera" like a barbed retort roughly mid-way through the song. It's the only part of the lyric to the song I can ever remember. I find I often use "etc.," in my emails and letters and notes; perhaps I need to rethink that innocuous abbreviation. It's more powerful than I've given it credit for. Thank you, Radiohead, for making me realize that.

Before I bothered to read the song titles on In Rainbows I thought that the fourth track on the album was called "We're Fishing." Turns out it's called "Weird Fishes/Arpeggi." Here's a weird fish of my own, which like "etcetera" came out of the meeting Monday night. I couldn't help but to color this bit of writing in "Goldfish Cracker Cheese Orange," to match the roughly two million Goldfish crackers I've served up to the kids and their friends, and eaten myself, over the past ten years.

My handwriting is not good; my illustration skills are as poor as my lettering skills, but there's something interesting and satisfying about accepting whatever limitations one might have and working with them. And for some reason, looking at both glyphs, I can somehow remember just about everything we covered in that meeting . . .

Produce War

2009-12-01T23:22:00.001-05:00

Beets

Squash

Peaches