My mom is from Central Africa went to college in Cape Town, South Africa. Being in Africa, she went on many safaris. She mentioned to me that once she was traveling through some nature park during marula fruit season. Marula fruit is a tree fruit that animals really like. It falls off the tree and a variety of animals eat it and then it ferments in their bodies and they become drunk. Really. Anyway, Mom saw an elephant that apparently had a nasty hangover and while normally elephants are pretty docile keep-to-themselves kind of creatures, this guy was really angry and attempted to flip over a van with his tusks. It was a terrifying moment and difficult to watch. I believed her, but I didn’t expect to see anything like it in my lifetime. Well, thank God for YouTube, bringing drunken sub-Saharan animal footage to all of us. Please to enjoy.
Archive for the ‘Nature’ Category
Storytime.
Wednesday, August 27th, 2008The Happening, Back to School, and Nudibranches, oh my!
Friday, July 18th, 20081. I saw The Happening, the new M. Night Shamalamadingdong film. (Side note: who here cannot stop thinking of “The Bloodening”, the fictional Simpsons horror film, every time they hear that title? Just me? Okay.) For anyone living without the benefit of the internet, newspapers, television or semaphore, The Happening is what happens when plants have had enough of humans and their crappy destructive ways. They release a pollen/spore/icky airborne that causes people to kill themselves (in super-creative ways, a guy runs over his own head with a combine). I know I’m supposed to be rooting for the humans, but I was, well, not. If I was a plant, I would be testy about humans as well. While this was not M. Night’s best film, he sure does know how to increase tension with creaking branches and rustling leaves. I came home and said to my houseplants, “If you don’t start nuthin’, there won’t be nuthin’, k?” Gotta keep an eye on those houseplants.
2. I was at Target the other day and they were all kinds of hawking back-to-school supplies. I realized at that moment how blissful it was to not care about going back to school. I went to school for seventeen years of my life (kindergarten, 1 through 6, middle school, high school, college) and I do not miss it one bit. If I want to read the collected works of Bloom County and Foxtrot all summer, I can. I don’t gotta write no paper at the end either. Oh, and when I was a kid my mom would make me go to summer camp, so I would have to get up early every day anyway. Now, I get paid to do that. Oh yeah. Being an adult rocks.
Now don’t get me wrong, I still take classes periodically in various programs so I can be a better designer. But it immediately causes me to make more money, which I can then spend on books which contain pictures of Opus the penguin wearing a sun hat. Kids? Stay in school. So that you can earn a decent living so you can buy a computer and only read blogs if you want to.
3. Every time I think I’m a crazy wacky artist coming up with crazy wacky ideas, something comes and knocks me off my crazy wacky pedestal. National Geographic ran an article on nudibranchs. What’s a nudibranch, you ask? Here’s a description:
A nudibranch is a member of one suborder of soft-bodied, shell-less marine opisthobranch gastropod mollusks, which are noted for their often extraordinary colors and striking forms. The suborder Nudibranchia is the largest suborder of heterobranchs, with more than 3,000 described species. The word “nudibranch” comes from the Latin nudus, naked, and the Greek brankhia, gills. Nudibranchs are often casually called “sea slugs”, a non-scientific term which has led some people to assume that every sea slug is a nudibranch. However, while it is true that nudibranchs are very numerous in terms of species, and are often very attractive, there are numerous other kinds of sea slugs belonging to several taxonomic groups that are not very closely related to nudibranchs. A fair number of these other sea slugs are colorful and thus are even more easily confused with nudibranchs.
Nudibranchs that are toxic often have rather festive coloring and horns and feathery things and a variety of other components to convince you that they taste like reheated poop and may also kill you. Here are a few of my favorites from the NatGeo article:
I don’t care how creative you think you are, you cannot top this. I will never make anything that interesting or fascinating to look at. And I’m alright with that. And you should be too. Let’s all hug.
Israel, Part 3.
Wednesday, July 2nd, 2008I’m going to cover the Southern part of Israel now, where it was hot. Like 112 Fahrenheit hot. In June. When I went outside, all the fluid on my eyeballs evaporated and my corneas sizzled. It was pretty awful, especially for a rare delicate flower such as m’self, who likes to be in temperature-controlled environments with cable television. I did, however, get this nifty tan from wearing the same style of sandals for the whole trip:
Anyone who’s ever seen me in person knows what a big deal a tan is. I am often mistaken for the Michelin Man, or a portly corpse, or that Pillsbury Dough Boy ghost in Ghostbusters. Squishy and white, that’s my M.O. So a tan is news.
There is a lovely kibbutz/arboretum in the middle of the desert called Ein Gedi. It was founded in the 1950s, so a great deal of the cactuses (that’s what they specialize in) are over fifty years old. They also have baobab trees (literary reference: The Little Prince).
I learned that baobab trees have weird fuzzy fist-sized pods hanging from their branches and that cream of tartar (a thickening agent used in meringues) comes from these pods.
They also had art there. I am a big supporter of art, but this big question mark made of stone…
… looked like a big curly turd. Anyone else see that? Anyone? Big poo? Anyone?
Right near Ein Gedi is the Dead Sea, also known as the lowest point on earth. I’d been a number of times, but Cricket needed to experience this, so we went. And it ended up being one of the worst experiences of my life. Allow me to explain.
The Dead Sea is a giant crack in the middle of mountains. When it rains at the top of the mountains, the water runs into the crack with all the minerals it has collected on the way. Once the water and minerals are in the crack, the water evaporates and you’re left with a great deal of crunchy minerals, mainly salt. The water that’s left in the Dead Sea is so salinated, if you drink a small glassful, you die. The other cool thing about the Dead Sea is that you float almost right on the surface. Cricket will now demonstrate.
Here is a picture of the shore with the salt crystals.
Not only does the Dead Sea have salt, it also has hot springs and mud that is supposed to be healthy. Cricket and I went over to the mud section, which is just a place in the middle of the desert with mud in large troughs. One thing I found strange was that they had pipes spewing out water, but also showers with a little chain that you pulled. I didn’t understand why they had both. I learned later. Picture of pipes spewing:
Cricket and I wandered over to the troughs and slathered ourselves with mud:
Mmm, mmm, don’t we look so pretty? Anyway, we then baked in the sun until we were dry and I walked over to the big pipes to wash myself off. I just stepped right under them. And then I learned the difference. The water coming out of the showers was fresh water. The water coming out of the pipes was HOT SULFURIC SALTY SPRING WATER. It tasted like someone had left some hard-boiled eggs in the sun for a week, then brewed a nice steaming cup of tea with it, put some salt in it, and then threw it in my face. I started shrieking for Cricket to bring me a towel. Then I wiped my eyes and zipped over to the fresh water shower and yanked that chain like sixty times trying to get the rotten-egg taste and smell off of me. Which I couldn’t. Apparently the sulfur stays in your hair follicles, so every so often I would catch a whiff of my hair and it would take me right back. I took a photo of the list of ingredients of the spring water so that you can appreciate how much it sucked (a lot).
After five days in the desert, we went to the Southernmost part of Israel, Eilat. It’s on the Red Sea. The Red Sea has lots and lots of beautiful tropical fish, including one my favorites. I think it’s called the Pearl Boxfish, I’m not sure, but it looks like this:
Isn’t he lovely? Here he is from another angle.
I went snorkeling for the first time and it was wonderful. I love fishies and there were many of them and they were nifty.
One of the days that we were in Eilat we went to Petra. Petra is in Jordan, so we had to do the whole Visa thing with the sitting around waiting to get stamped thing. No one knows how old Petra is, but we’re thinking real old, like Old Testament old. It’s a necropolis, or City of the Dead, or Big Fancy Cemetery. You walk for a third of a mile through this little corridor through the sandstone.
And the sandstone is all different shapes and colors. I think if Walt Disney saw he would say, “No, looks a little too fake”.
So you’re walking through this crevasse, walking walking walking, and then you start to see something:
And then a little more:
And then- Blam! You are faced with a giant ornate Greek-looking building that is totally out of place. It’s called The Treasury. The more important you were, the fancier your tomb was, so this guy who was buried here must have been very important.
See those little divots carved on either side of the facade? Because sandstone is so crumbly, they carved from the top down so as not to touch what they just carved, but sometimes you need a little additional carving so the little divots are steps for carvers to climb up and do changes to the top without touching the front. Very interesting.
There were a few other tombs, some for important people, some clearly for Bob the Stinky Homeless Bedouin (just a niche in the rock, no ornate nuthin’) but the Treasury is really the piece de resistance.
That’s my trip to Israel in a nutshell. If you have any questions or want to see any more pictures, I have 475 pictures that I would be happy to share with you.
Remember how I said I wouldn’t be talking about owls for a while? Yeah, I lied.
Monday, May 5th, 2008I went to visit B. this weekend and his wife D. graciously took Cricket and me to see where she works (Tenafly Nature Center in NJ). We hiked around and that was nice, but even better… There was an owl! And two hawks! And two snakes and a toad (which I got to hold, wheeee!) Here’s a picture of me holding the corn snake. It was shy and disoriented because it’s about to shed. You can see that because its eye is blue and opalescent and its colors are muted.
I also held a hognose snake named Henrietta who was just the sweetest. She likes holes and caverns, so she slithered into my sleeve and hung out there for a while. I think that was my favorite part. Cuddling with snakey-snake!
They also had an owl, a barred owl named Mitzi. Mitzi was found with a broken wing and it healed, but it’s weak and so he/she is unreleasable. I say he/she because nobody knows what sex Mitzi is. Female owls are larger in size, males are smaller and Mitzi is… in between. They’d have to knock Mitzi out to be able to rummage around in he/she’s tender regions, and birds don’t do well under anesthesia, so everyone is content to leave Mitzi alone. In the other aviary are two red-tailed hawks. The male had his right wing amputated at the elbow and the female’s left eye is damaged. The first pictures I took of my new raptor friends I took through a chain-link fence and my stupid camera insisted on focusing on the fence. The pics look kind of cool, actually.
But then D. let me get closer and I could place my camera on the chain-link fence and get far better photos. Here’s a picture of the female hawk. You can appreciate her wonky eye. She looks like a pirate. Arrrr.
And here’s Mitzi. I was tempted to sneak into the enclosure and give Mitzi a big hug ‘n’ snuggle, but I think that would be frowned upon and most likely it would end badly and I would be bleeding, so I stayed outside the fence.
I was thrilled at the opportunity to see the beasties, and the Tenafly Nature Center is lovely and I recommend you go visit it.
This is the end of the owl posts for a while.
Friday, April 18th, 2008Across the street from where I work is the park with the owl monument, the one where the owl’s eyes blink green at night (SO AWESOME). Well, I took the time to walk over there and the whole park is covered in owls. Apparently the park is dedicated to Athena, Goddess of Wisdom, so owls aplenty. There are two who greet you as you walk in.
This is one. “Welcome to my park. I’m very serious and I glare at visitors. Don’t litter!” (smacks you with ruler across your hand)
And on top of this bell there is a wee owl, bringing the total to five owls in the park.
Anyway, the reason I walked over there was that it smelled really flowery and springy for blocks all around. When I got there, I saw that they were planting a gazilion and one plants. And it was very photogenic, so here are some pics to wish you happy spring.
Little angry owl.
Monday, April 14th, 2008My friend B. sent me a picture of an owl that he saw at a raptor exhibition. It’s a wee screech owl, it weighs no more than a candy bar. BUT YOU CANNOT CONTAIN ITS RAGE.
That glaring eye haunts me when I sleep. It’s like the Eye of Sauron, I tell you.
Today, a movie review and a totally rad video.
Tuesday, April 8th, 2008I saw the film The Hours, the one where Nicole Kidman is wearing a fake nose and she won an Oscar for her role, blah blah blah. If you have a choice between watching this film and poking yourself in the eye with a straw, go with the straw. It’s a literary chick flick, meaning they use big words and philosophical ideas, but they’re still whiny and moody. And there’s way too many women kissing in this film. Two of the characters are lesbian lovers, so that’s fine, but in one scene a woman kisses her neighbor right out of the blue (…alright, then) and in one scene a woman kisses her sister (NOT alright then). And while these are full-lip-action kisses, they’re not terribly sensual at all, so guys, don’t get excited. I’m a big fan of non-traditional arty movies, but this one is boring and tedious. I’m starting to think I just hate the kinds of movies Julianne Moore is in. I didn’t like Magnolia (everybody in that movie needs to shut the hell up), and I’m looking through her IMDB file… nope, not a big fan of the films of hers that I’ve seen. I will use her as a warning sign from now on. “Oh, Julianne Moore is in that movie? I probably won’t like it then.” Save myself some time.
I saw this today on CuteOverload, and I think everyone needs to see it. It’s only 40 seconds long, but I would watch an hour and a half of it, and then I would like it more than The Hours.
My Saturday in Manhattan.
Monday, March 31st, 2008I went into the city on Saturday to meet my friend B. and go to the bead show at the Metropolitan Pavilion (where I went for the chocolate show last year). I got to walk down my favorite block while I was there, 18th Street between 5th and 6th. I went into the used bookstore and as soon as that familiar smell of slightly moldy books hit my nose, I was right at home. The bookstore, should you want to drop in and check them out, is Skyline Books:
They have a shop cat. If you were on the fence about visiting them, this should push you over the edge.
Right next door is Utowa, a flower shop for the trendy and tasteful. I went in and looked at the vases and their ridiculously gorgeous flower arrangements. And they had one of the orchids I was talking about, my favorite orchid, I mentioned it in the Macy’s Flower Show post. I tried to take a picture of the orchid, it came out a little blurry, but you can still appreciate the evil goodness.
Across the street is a used CD store, where I just wandered in to kill time and then proceeded to buy a whole stack of CDs. They were between $3.99 and $6.99, and some of them were new, still in the wrapping. So super-terrific, really. The CD shop, called Academy Records, has a phenomenal collection of classical CDs, as well as rock, pop, jazz, spoken word, etc. They also have a big pile of videos and DVDs too. And I assume they have records too, because it’s in their name.
I eventually made it over to the bead show and met up with B. and I promised myself I wouldn’t buy beads unless there was something really really mind-blowing. And I was doing really well too, pottering around behind B. watching him buy bits of this and that and telling myself how good I was being until. There’s always an until. There was this guy selling ammonites. Here’s a bit of info on ammonites:
http://www.stonesbones.com/amm.htm
And I was fine until I saw them, all sitting there. See, I’m a die-hard fossil nut. I loves me some ULTRA-DEAD things. And I’m redoing my kitchen backsplash and countertop (there’s a point here). I’m redoing it with big tiles (because I cannot afford granite, butcher-block, stainless steel, zinc, copper, cement, etc.) and I’m going to incorporate some geode slices and (point tie-in here) ammonites into the backsplash and countertop. And there they were, taunting me with their sparkly not-alive-ness. And they were small and only $6.50 each. So I bought a few. Like, twenty. Hey, you’re not my mother, shoosh you! All my pride in my restraint went right out the window. But who cares, I got ammonites! Whoo hoo!
After B. and I had decided we had lightened our pockets enough, we decided to go out to dinner (it was 4:30). I had been to Soba-Ya once and I remembered it being fantastic, so I recommended we go there. It was right on the other side of town, but the weather was peachy, so we headed over. They lived right up to my memories. We had three appetizers, our bowls of noodles, and three desserts. The appetizer that I’m still dreaming of was the pork belly with a poached egg in sweet soy sauce. I don’t normally eat meat, but I would eat this everyday for the rest of my life. Ohhh, it was melt-in-your-mouth good. The dessert that I thought was the best was the honey wasabi ice cream. The honey and the creamy ice cream nicely balanced the ping! the wasabi put in your mouth. Oh, and we showed up as they opened the door for dinner. Halfway through the appetizers the place was full and by the time we left there was a long line. So if you ever go there, get there early. Like, when they open.
I would like to thank B. for putting up with my constant prodding during the bead show and when we were walking around the city. He has a nice quiet child, so I can’t imagine he is accustomed to someone going, “Oooh! Oooh! Lookit!” every three seconds. Bless his patient soul. I bet he went home and bought stock in Ritalin. Or joined a monastery that has a vow of silence so people weren’t JABBERING AT HIM ALL DAY. But anyway, thanks B. Next time I’ll bring my muzzle.
Bad Blogger Jessica, Batman Begins, and Pigeons.
Friday, January 18th, 2008I know it’s been eons since I wrote anything, but there are a few reasons for that. One, nothing that interesting has happened recently, if you don’t count the fact that my bathroom redo-ers had to submit draftings to the City of White Plains and they may not approve my bathroom redo for a month or two, which SUCKS. Two, I’ve been working a freelance job in Manhattan at a big ad agency and I don’t get home until 8:30. Then I snork down some food, watch something on TV for fifteen minutes and fall asleep on the couch. Good times, good times. So, between the nothing-of-interest-to-share and the tired-when-I-get-home, I’ve been neglecting the ole bloggybloo. I promised pictures of my new apartment and I shall deliver. I also have some purses that I painted that I will take pictures of as well and then, THEN my friends, there will be cool things to look at.
At work when there is nothing to do I watch illegally uploaded films hosted in China. They’re not very good quality and they have Chinese subtitles at the bottom, but whatever, they’re free and I’m trying to keep myself occupied during the lulls. I’m very excited to see the new Batman movie with Heath Ledger as The Joker (he looks cah-RAZEE in the preview), so I watched the Batman movie from 2005, Batman Begins. Umm, did anyone else think that it was kinda not so good? Like stilted acting and bad plot and whatnot? If you have the opportunity to see it, go ahead and pass. It’s… well, “bad” is a strong term. It’s just not very good. Let’s all pray Crazy Joker Heath will be better. Here’s the preview for the new Batman movie:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uk1Tz5bumhw
See? Cah-RAZEE.
I’m also reading a book called Pigeons: The Fascinating Saga of the World’s Most Revered and Reviled Bird. I like books about things. I’ve read:
Salt: A World History
The Dead Beat: Lost Souls, Lucky Stiffs, and the Perverse Pleasures of Obituaries
Cod: A Biography of the Fish That Changed the World
Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadaver
A Mind of Its Own: A Cultural History of the Penis
Jewels: A Secret History
The Girls Who Went Away: The Hidden History of Women Who Surrendered Children for Adoption in the Decades Before Roe v. Wade
So right now, I’m reading about pigeons. I’ve learned a great deal about pigeons. I now consider myself very knowledgable on the rock dove. One thing that amuses and horrifies me is how, predictably, people decided to take genetics into their own hands and through selective breeding, made some of the weirdest-looking pigeons ever. For example, the fantail. The fantail is a nice bird, except that its chest is so big it can barely see over it. Eating has got to be a problem. Check it out:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FLMaCZ6IlgA&feature=related
Yeah. That’s the Pekinese of the pigeon world. Not good, people. Also, there’s a pigeon out there called a parlor roller. It rolls. Backwards. On the ground. No one knows why. Some people think it’s pigeon OCD. People get together and race their parlor rollers.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v1gXvYTu0f0
I don’t get it either. Pigeons is a very raw book, because people are very mean to pigeons and it addresses all of that. But if you’re interested in learning about them, I recommend it.
Owls.
Tuesday, September 25th, 2007I finished the mezuzah. I scrapped the whole liquid polymer thing (too shiny, no way to fix that) and just drew directly on a baked piece of polymer and applied the copper leaf to that. It came out great and no, I don’t have any pictures right now, but I will soon. One of my friends, B., was emailing me about how he found this picture of owls. B. sent me a photo of baby scops owls looking curious and intrigued. And perhaps slightly surprised. It’s a great image. It’s my desktop image on my computer now.
I thought it would be wonderful to make a drawing based on this, a very simple one I could use as a rubber stamp perhaps, so I’ve started with this pen sketch:
It’s not where I want it to be, but it’s heading in the right direction. I want this owl to have a pointier bottom end (not so flattened) and I want his crouching compatriot to be next to him, but I like the face, so I may keep that element the same.