3 March 07
Ekphrasis
I’ll be co-editing qarrtsiluni with Lori Witzel of Chatoyance for the next couple of months.
The full description of the theme and how to submit is here, but here’s a short version:
This qarrtsiluni theme pairs submissions in poetry, or poetic prose, with a form of visual art. Ideally they need not be by the same person: this is a collaborative experiment. Non-bloggers are particularly encouraged to participate. Find a partner whose work you admire and have at it!
The visual art contributions will be posted in our gallery awaiting writers – check back often over the next two weeks, as we will have more to share.
All work, visual and otherwise, will be reviewed and juried by the editors before publishing. Poems should be no longer than 30 lines; prose pieces should be no longer than 500 words. Image files should be a maximum of 500 pixels in width.
Please take a look, and consider partnering with someone (they can be dead: if you’d like to write a poem about or inspired by Las Meninas, please feel free), or if you’d like to send in a photo or a piece of art you think might lend itself to poetry, send them in!
13 February 07
Imped
Yesterday for work I was present at a surgical procedure on a bird. A black-crowned night-heron had gotten snagged in some fishing line and was found in December, dangling from a tree, with its left wing flight feathers severely damaged.
Feathers grow back, but you have to wait for a new moult, which can take months, always to be avoided with wildlife. So the vets decided to undertake an “imping” on the bird, a transplant where donor feathers are grafted onto the trimmed existing shafts using bamboo skewers and five-minute epoxy glue. No blood involved: this is all dead tissue.
This night-heron had nine feathers imped yesterday.
Wondering where the term came from (the vet who did the surgery didn’t know, but he knew it was a very old falconry technique), I asked Language Hat. Right person:
“You’ve come to the right place! The Oxford English Dictionary says it’s from a (rare) Old English verb impian, which is related to various other Germanic verbs (like German impfen) but its earlier history is obscure, though it’s presumably ultimately derived from Greek emphuteuein ‘to implant, engraft.’ Its earliest meaning was ‘to (en)graft,’ which goes back to around the year 1000; what you want is definition 4:
4. Falconry. To engraft feathers in the wing of a bird, so as to make good losses or deficiencies, and thus restore or improve the powers of flight; hence, allusively, with reference to ‘taking higher flights’, enlarging one’s powers, and the like. In various constructions: a. To imp feathers into or in a wing, etc. Obs. 1477 Paston Lett. III. No. 794. 185 Like as the fawcon Which is alofte, tellith scorne to loke a down On hym that wont was her feders to pyke and ympe. 1580 LYLY Euphues (Arb.) 249 Ymping a fether to make me flye, when thou oughtest rather to cut my wing for feare f soaring. 1589 NASHE Pasquil & Marf. 11 Such an Eccho, as ultiplies euery word..and ympes so many feathers vnto euery tale, that it flyes with all speede into euery corner of the Realme. 1641 ROME Joviall Crew II. Wks. 1873 III. 374 To see a swallow..with a hite feather imp’d in her tail. 1706 PHILLIPS, To Imp a Feather in a awk’s Wing (among Falconers), to add a new piece from an old roken stump.”
etc.
The bird was expected to stay in an aviary for a week or two while it strengthened its flight muscles. By nightfall yesterday, though, it was was flying around and generally freaking out. It was released this morning after a band had been put on its leg; flew up into a tree where it stayed for 20 minutes, and then headed off into the Suisun Marsh.
27 January 07
Rumi in the Chaparral
Today was the final session in my Cold Canyon docent training . The final three presentations concerned plant adaptation, Patwin uses of the native plants, and a selection of Farsi poetry. Iraj read us some of the poetry in Farsi.
There is a strong tradition of Persian nature poetry, with Rumi and Omar Khayyam perhaps the best known in the West. I visited Shiraz in the 1970s, home of the poet Hafez. These poets were all revered in their time, though marginal socially and politically.
The great find of the day for me was Sohram Sepehri, a twentieth-century Iranian poet who started out as a painter and who chanced upon an eccentric patron who offered to buy all his paintings if he would travel for some time to Japan and India. His art inspired his poetry and vice-versa.
The poem I read was called Water. The first two stanzas:
Let’s not muddy the water:
somewhere down the stream a pigeon may be drinking,
or in a distant wood, a goldfinch may be washing her feathers.
Or in a village a jar may be filling.
Let us not muddy the water:
Perhaps the current passes by a poplar,
washing sorrow from a lonely heart.
Perhaps a dervish has dipped his dry bread in it.
—
I have some books to look for in the library… oh. And let’s not muddy the water.
18 January 07
Fungus the Bogeyman
A friend brought a copy of this amazing graphic novel, now out of print, when they were up here doing the Christmas Bird Count, hoping , perhaps, I’d agree with her that it was the best children’s book ever.
Ron, you’re right.
I’m seeing from the Wikipedia entry that this was turned into a TV miniseries in 2004. I’m sure my niece and nephew, who are heavily into all things gross just now, would appreciate it. I love the art, I love the philosophical turn of thoughts of poor old Fungus (“but what’s it all for?”), and I love the side comments. (And I especially love the triple nipples.)
Thank you, thank you. A treasure.
22 December 06
On Holiday
Nine days off! I’m thrilled we’re staying put, not trying to catch planes and deal with weather.
A book arrived today from my sister and brother-in-law, Sam Harris’ Letter to a Christian Nation. I didn’t wait till Christmas to open it, nor to read it.
I haven’t read The End of Faith, but I will now. It’s good to read an atheist with a good command of Christian scripture. What to do about the lamentable state of affairs in the United States is something that was explored in this year’s San Francisco Mime Troupe play, but, as Harris points out, “the fact that nearly half of the American population apparently believes [that the world is about to end and that its ending would be glorious, purely on the basis of religious dogma, should be considered a moral and intellectual emergency.”
12 December 06
Making Sense of Gobbledegook
Finally, some long-needed new proofreaders’ marks from Eve Corbel. Via Language Hat.
In other news, speaking of gobbledegook, we may be hitting some snow this weekend as we do our Christmas Bird Count along the ridge at Mount Vaca:
MODELS SEEM MORE IN LINE WITH THE DETAILS OF A TRANSITION BACK TO A MORE AMPLIFIED PATTERN OVER THE WEEKEND. THIS MAY DRIVE A STRONG STORM INTO THE REGION THIS WEEKEND. 18Z GFS NOW BRINGS A SEPARATE WAVE ACROSS THE FAR NORTH THURSDAY NIGHT BEFORE THE JET AND ASSOCIATED PRECIPITABLE MOISTURE PLUME TAKES AIM AT OUR AREA BY FRIDAY NIGHT. THIS SYSTEM MAY HAVE A DEEP MOISTURE TAP... STRONG DYNAMICS AND CYCLOGENESIS. 18Z AND 06Z GFS DEVELOP A SURFACE LOW SOMEWHERE ACROSS THE AREA... EITHER OVER SOUTH CENTRAL CALIFORNIA OR IN THE GREAT BASIN. THIS COULD BE A MAJOR SNOW PRODUCER
30 November 06
Books
Modal Minority has started an interesting exercise: an inquiry into the best books we read in 2006, regardless of when they were published. I’m still thinking about this.
Today I received word of an interview by my former boss and mentor at Harvard. (Thanks Sue.) This interview reminds me why it’s important to remember that not all the best books were published last Tuesday. On Lindsay’s list of books he’s most proud of having published, I worked on well over half. It doesn’t mean Harvard has published nothing of note since I left ten years ago, but I’m glad some of those great books didn’t get relegated to the dustbin of publishing history…
19 November 06
Home Ground
I haven’t seen this new book yet but it’s on my to read list: Home Ground: Language for an American Landscape, edited by Barry Lopez and Debra Gwartney.
From the publisher’s blurb for it on the book’s website:
Home Ground: Language for an American Landscape brings together forty-five poets and writers to create more than 850 original definitions for words that describe our lands and waters—terms like flatiron, bayou, monadnock, kiss tank, meander bar, and everglade. The writers, including Barbara Kingsolver, Luis Alberto Urrea, Jon Krakauer, Charles Frazier, Antonya Nelson, and Samantha Chang, draw from careful research as well as on their own distinctive stylistic, personal, and regional diversity to portray in bright, precise prose the striking complexity of the landscapes we inhabit, from Missouri’s woody draws to Virginia’s runs, from the desire paths of cities to the rondes of Midwestern farmlands, from California’s bajadas to Alaska’s pingos and Hawai`i’s shield volcanoes. An advisory board has ensured the scientific accuracy of the prose. Included are one hundred black-and-white drawings by Molly O’Halloran and an introductory essay by Barry Lopez.
Not that I ever listen to All Things Considered but they did a piece on the book a couple of days ago — on that page there are also some excerpted definitions from the book.
1 November 06
Up and At 'Em
I woke up at 3:30, so I got up. I have, gentle reader, a novel to write. (And log into the NaNoWriMo site, which is clogged and sluggish.)
I wrote 2676 words this morning. I wrote them in pen, then typed them this evening. I’m tired, and I’m going to bed.
Historical fiction is hardest, I think, in the dialog. I’m not attempting any real victorian language. Keep it plain and simple should work…
30 June 06
Read And Release
I just picked up my first BookCrossing book. I was stepping outside for a break at work when I saw on a bench just inside the door a book entitled Joy in a Woolly Coat. Maybe it’s about sheep, I thought, and had a look. Actually it was about dogs, companion animals, and grief, and it was illustrated with nice pencil sketches. Then I noticed the BookCrossing bookplate and figured why not, I’ll pick it up. Bookcrossing is a neat concept. If you have a book you want to pass on to the world, you register it online, and then leave the book in a public place. With luck somebody will find it, read it, and jot down where it’s been in its online journal!