19 April 05
La Rata
Congratulations to all of you who made the correct picks in the Papal Conclave Brackets; for the rest of us, do hurry on over to Pharyngula for discussion of the selection of Joseph Ratzinger as Grand Inquisitor Pope. Somehow it seems fitting that I got an emailed pdf today of last week’s editorial in Science entitled “Twilight for the Enlightenment?” Oh well — maybe Pope Benedict XVI will have the decency to bring back the Latin Mass. Or at least ban guitars.
18 April 05
Quill Knives
Ten years ago today, I posted a message to the calligraphy usenet list asking what the best knife was to cut goose quills, since I was a birder in Boston and all the geese on the Charles River were dropping their primary feathers. I got the name of a knifemaker in Minnesota and bought one of his beautiful quill knives.
I also got a note from a graduate student in geography at UC Santa Barbara saying he knew nothing about quill knives but just wanted to say hi from another birder-calligrapher.
The rest, as they say, is history…
16 April 05
Picnic Day Duty
Today we spent most of the day at the Wildlife Health Center booth at Picnic Day, folding and distributing Cootie Catchers (we were left with about five at the end of the day, so about 250 of these things are wending their way to preadolescent bedrooms as we speak) and posters and magnets and teaching children how to clean oiled birds (they were practicing on rubber duckies that had a good coating of nontoxic black paint on them).
Numenius’ sister and her boyfriend made the trip up from Berkeley with Hooper the dog, so we had a great visit. They were unable to join us for dinner at Davis’ newest restaurant, the New Delhi Chaat Caf, which was a shame, because it was a pretty good answer to Berkeley’s Vik’s Chaat House, famous all over the Bay Area.
12 April 05
On Seeing More Butterflies
Spaghetti-strapped, I see them flutter by
Their nasal twangs submerged in pony tails
They yearn for depth, these quiet butterflies.
They clutch their tomes, where passion’s in supply
An exercise routine beyond the pale
Spaghetti-strapped, I see them flutter by.
From Donne to Plath, they read, they sink, they sigh
The bell jar beckons with its lonely veil.
They long for depth, these quiet butterflies.
They see the book. They smile. They pay. They buy.
The vortex draws them louder than a gale:
Spaghetti-strapped, I see them long to die.
Profundity ensnares them: mirror, spy.
The oven-abyss calls – it’s so female.
They whisper “death,” these quiet butterflies.
I rail, unheard, against the sylvan lie
Whose petulance bores into wings so frail
This yen for depth will kill my butterflies:
Protruding ribs, preparing soon to die.
11 April 05
Bike Basket Inventory
A list of items in my bike basket — it’s good to do one of these every now and then!
- Today’s Davis Enterprise, front page headline reading “Picnic Day nears”
- A copy of Programming PHP, by Rasmus Lerdorf and Kevin Tatroe, that I was going to return to my office today but forgot
- A plastic grocery bag in which I was carrying around the PHP book
- A Kryptonite bike lock
- My charcoal grey light fleece sweater
- An apple
- An old washcloth used primarily to dry the bike seat on rainy days
- A Cateye bike light
- A 700×20/28C bike tube, Presta valve
- 2 blue Uniball Signo pens
- One green Uniball micro pen
- One Bic ballpoint pen
- 2 medium binder clips
- A Park micro toolkit for the bike
- A Park 36mm headset wrench
- A copy of the Discworld reading order guide
- An Amtrak ticket jacket
- 3 AA and 3 AAA alkaline batteries, state of charge unknown
- 1 pencil
- Scratch paper with conjugations for the verbs conseguir, tomar, and cubrir
- A black Pilot G2 pen cartridge
- A rubber band
- And a twist tie.
6 April 05
Adem
The surname of a Mexican Cohomologist at the University of Wisconsin Mathematics Department.
The Department of Environmental Management in the State of Alabama: administers all major federal environmental laws, including the Clear Air, Clean Water and Safe Drinking Water acts and federal solid and hazardous…
A singer-songwriter with the Domino Recording Company and with a very cool website.
The Department of Emergency Management in the State of Arkansas.
Acute Disseminated Encephalomyelitis.
Administration of Employment in the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg.
A microfilm company located in Britain.
The four letters that give uncial letters the characteristics that make them unmistakeable for anything else. I’m not sure any other hand can boast this, though I’d love to be proved wrong. Example below is written out with a Pilot Parallel Pen that arrived in the mail this morning…
4 April 05
Of Deer and Popes
I saw you early at Wembley:
“Like as the Hart
Desireth the Waterbrook”—They rehearsed us to death,
Drunk with youth and hope
Till the chopper brought you into
Howls. Holy Hooligans, Batman!
Among us you were
Joy
Before your Inquisitors
Silenced Boff
A hint
Of times
To come
You’re gone, now
Facing Death standing up
No heroics
(Unlike the ones
They insisted on
For Terri)
I felt the tears
But is it you,
White Hart,
Or saccharine nostalgia,
Or just
This Is The End
The white light
Down the tunnel—Hollywood and faith
Caught in the headlights?
Leonardo Boff was a Brazilian Franciscan and a Liberation Theologian who advocated a Preferential Option for the Poor which ran him afoul of the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and had him defrocked.
30 March 05
Resurrection of the World’s Ugliest Car
A mechanic in Dorset has spent the last twelve years restoring what is surely the world’s ugliest car. This vehicle was built by a New York priest 50 years ago who intended it to be the safest car ever made. It had more than its share of teething troubles, breaking down 15 times on the day of its official launch, and after a few years it ended up being abandoned in a field behind a body shop in Connecticut. The car deteriorated there for 30 years, but when mechanic Andy Saunders learned of its existence, he thought he had never seen anything so ugly and knew he had to have it.
23 March 05
Things People Say
If you haven’t had a chance yet, definitely take a peek at Overheard in New York.
I can’t compete with ANY of these. People do say interesting or inane things in Davis but I don’t ride the bus, and if I’m in a place with a lot of people they tend to be students, so you don’t get the same range of ages, ethnicities, social classes, and outright weirdness that only happens in New York (hobo to Hispanic construction workers, f’rinstance: “Remember the Alamo”).
But I did once spend a day at the Getty Museum in Los Angeles, the big white towering thing over the 405, and in the cable car ride up people were already saying things worth writing down, so I started. Here are a few of them:
“Oh! It’s Jerusalem.”
“You know, everyone who comes up here says this place looks like Jerusalem.”
“Isn’t this one of the more beautiful spots, Adele? Man-made, I mean?”
“It’s just nice to sit out here in the sun.”
“Belle! Where’d you get that clock bag?”
“Really, aesthetically, I think it works. Even though from a distance it’s horrible.”
“Let’s go. There’s way too much scary furniture in here!”
I’ll be getting on a plane tomorrow to go to the desert to see my friend DocRoc and the most amazing wildflower show in 50 years, so I’ll have a chance to do some listening in to conversations that are quite different from those in New York OR at the Getty. Stand by.
17 March 05
Morphing
This entry marks the 700th since Numenius and I started Feathers of Hope back in March 2003.
We started out thinking we were going to do lots of political entries. There have been very few of those, and not much film or music either. Plenty of nature and place, which IS one of the things we wanted to write about.
Our blogday is coming up soon, just a few days after Beth’s… I might submit a new masthead in honor.