Musee des Beaux Arts

About suffering they were never wrong,
The Old Masters; how well they understood
Its human position; how it takes place
While someone else is eating or opening a window or just walking dully along;
How, when the aged are reverently, passionately waiting
For the miraculous birth, there always must be
Children who did not specially want it to happen, skating
On a pond at the edge of the wood:
They never forgot
That even the dreadful martyrdom must run its course
Anyhow in a corner, some untidy spot
Where the dogs go on with their doggy life and the torturer’s horse
Scratches its innocent behind on a tree.

In Breughel’s Icarus, for instance: how everything turns away
Quite leisurely from the disaster; the ploughman may
Have heard the splash, the forsaken cry,
But for him it was not an important failure; the sun shone
As it had to on the white legs disappearing into the green
Water; and the expensive delicate ship that must have seen
Something amazing, a boy falling out of the sky,
had somewhere to get to and sailed calmly on.

-- W.H. Auden

Suspended Animation

Ever think about the fragility of our modern life? How all our computers, lighting, refrigeration, and 21st century gadgets rely on the 19th century technology of electricity? Every once in while, just when you’re about to forget that, the power goes off.

I had come inside from outdoor chores to cool off in the a/c a bit. I was laughing heartily over an article about Internet dating on Salon when the studio display blacked out. At first I though maybe a fuse had blown. After all, it is an old house, and I was running the computer (with new DSL hook-up, woo-hoo!), the stereo system, the air conditioner in the bedroom, the fan in the kitchen, and the dryer in the basement all at the same time. All I would need to do would be to plug the toaster oven in, and the house would probably have a melt down.

I flipped a few light switches on different circuits to make sure. The VCR wasn’t blinking and the ‘fridge wasn’t humming. I took the jeans and t-shirt off my magnetic David and put his tighty-whities on. Things heat up quickly in my upstairs apartment.

During the outage, I did all the stupid things I usually do when there’s no power. I tried to play a CD. I flipped the switch in the bathroom and was puzzled for a moment that no light came on. I so take for granted that the juice is flowing that when it’s not, I’m a little baffled. And I don’t consider myself to be too-terribly addicted to my techno-devices. Half the laundry was drying on the line. I passed several hours in the morning reading on the porch in the sunshine, sans electricity, and didn’t miss it.

I considered driving to Meijer or someplace cool, but decided against it. The cat came to see what I was putting in her dish, turned up her nose at the ice cube, and crept under the couch. I busied myself with cleaning some jewelry, a rather tedious task I had been procrastinating on. A man who lives in the gray apartment building across the street came out and looked up and down the empty street, then turned around and went back inside. The elderly lady who lives on the corner was whisked away in a blue mini-van, hopefully to air-conditioned comfort.

By the time I got my copper necklace restored and two of my four defunct watches ticking away again, the refrigerator had rumbled back to life (and none too soon as at the hour-and-a-half mark I began to have concerns for my fresh chicken). Of course I had to check my e-mail right away. The a/c is cranking on “Max Cool” and making quite a racket. I can’t believe it’s nearly seven o’clock already. Absorbed in a mundane task, enfolded in warmth and silence, I found a bit of flow, a caesura in the data stream. I feel like I’ve been meditating. Although I’m right back in the fray, multitasking already, there’s a core of calm that wasn’t there before. Maybe I’ll turn everything off more often.

A Realization

I drive past three car washes every day.

I never wash my car.

Vodka and Tonic Microscopy

I'm sitting here at work, dreading an upcoming afternoon of meetings, and dreaming of a vodka and tonic already. On a whim I typed "vodka tonic" into Google and found a site full of photographs taken through an optical microscope. The images are simply stunning. Some of them are more artistic and evocative than paintings I have seen. Here's what vodka and tonic look like under the microscope:



The microscopy folks have also photographed all kinds of beer, wine, burgers and fries, and Ben and Jerry's ice cream, along with more traditional subjects like nucleotides, amino acids, and hormones. Newcastle Brown Ale looks like a Van Gogh wheat field on fire. Chianti looks like a butterfly's wing scales. See what your favorite drink or snack looks like. (K. - here's your Salty Dog.)

Flown the Coop (?)

The nest in the garage looks empty today. The jays are still patrolling the area, so I haven't climbed up to take a look inside it (I duck every time I hear the whir of wings over my head). I'm pretty sure one youngster was taken by one of the many neighborhood cats - a fledgling was on the floor in the garage again late last week and I didn't put it back in the nest because the parents were very protective. That evening as I sat at the kitchen table, I heard the adults make a huge ruckus, and I can only assume a predator made off with the chick. Still, that left three fledglings. I hope that's them fluttering around in the trees near the driveway.

As for the wrens: I receive a thorough scolding every time I'm in the vegetable garden, but I've seen no sign of chicks.

A juvenile cardinal flew through the backyard today, trailed by both parents, chirping loudly, like mom and dad cheering behind a kid on a new bike.

The Early Bird Gets the Worm

But the late worm lives another day.

My former residence, Columbus, oHIo, sort of prides itself on being a city of "morning people." Breakfast meetings are not uncommon. Rush hour was heaviest around 7:00 am. I remember seeing an article in one of the business magazines boasting about hard-working Buckeyes being up and at 'em so early in the morning, so enterprising, so eager to get to their cubicle farms. The tradeoff - a downtown nearly devoid of life by 6:00 pm - didn't seem to bother the authors.

So what? So some people are up at 4:30 to do their laundry or walk the dog or clip their toenails. Are later hours not just as good for getting these things done? Why do some people insist that being up early has anything to do with productivity? One of those people: a coworker at one of my former places of employment who lived an hour's drive from Columbus. When I would stumble in at 8:30 (the last employee to arrive), she would stride over to my desk, clap her hands in my face, bend down towards my chair, and crow, "Good morning, Miss Kim. You're not looking too chipper today. I've been here since 7:30 and I worked out at the gym before I got here. And I live in Town-An-Hour's-Drive-Away! You need to get up and moving around earlier!"

Why? Was the work I did between 8:30 and 5:30 somehow not good enough because I wasn't up earlier? Because I didn't live far enough away to win the Chipper Commuter Award? I held the snarliness in check and tried to diffuse my irritation with humor. "Well", I would say, "I'm just on Mountain Standard Time. Pretend I'm in Colorado."

One day she merrily exclaimed, "The early bird gets the worm, you know!" This is one of my least-favorite cliches. (Another is "Grow where you're planted," but that's a whole other post.) With a smile that was more like baring my fangs, I turned in my chair. "What if you're not the bird?" I said, my mouth so clenched I barely moved my lips. "What if you're the worm? If you're a worm, you don't want to be an early worm - the early bird will be waiting for you. So if you're a worm, wouldn't it make sense to come later, after the bird's gone home for a nap?"

There was little comprehension that morning is not everybody's high-energy time. Soon it didn't matter, because I quit and I now work at a place where no one thinks I'm lazy for coming in at the civilized hour of 9:00 am.

And that early bird employee? I heard she got fired a month ago.

Warning Over Human Attacks

By Jack Daw, Evening Grosbeak
11 June 2005

Migratory birds today are being warned about violent humans in local forests after an attack left a dove bloodied and needing treatment.

Stuart Columba was fired upon by two humans in what experts have called a severe case of “hunting” – where humans shoot at an animal for no good reason at all.

Now other migrants are being told to stay well away from humans to avoid further attacks.

Mr. Columba told how he was flying his usual route through Pinckney Rec. Area when the humans fired on him. The boys aimed at his head with their weapons and peppered him with b-b’s.

With blood gushing from his head, he had to flee for several minutes before they would stop attack – reminiscent of the Alfred Woodcock film The People.

Mr. Columba, 4, who was attacked at lunchtime on Wednesday, said: “These two massive humans just fired at me. I squawked and flew away, but they wouldn’t stop. They kept on at me and I kept squawking until I noticed blood was pouring down my neck. My feathers were drenched with blood.”

Mr. Columba was so shaken by his ordeal he went to the leader of the flock, who groomed the blood from his feathers and sent him to a hollow tree for some rest. “They said it wasn’t the first occasion of somedove being injured,” he said.

The father of two, from the big red oak tree on North Territorial Road, said he flies past the same humans every day.

“They’re big and look really menacing,” he said. “They have aimed at me before, but this was totally different. I had to dodge behind a tree.”

Although it is not unusual for humans to attack birds, fliers are now being warned to be extra vigilant.

Caroline Wren, of the Fragmented Habitat Center, said Mr. Columba was probably close to the humans’ corn field, which may have been planted where forest recently stood.

“It is quite common at this time of year for humans to try to amuse themselves,” she said. “There was probably some bored kid somewhere nearby which he was not aware of.”

“Birds should be extra careful at this time of year. Humans can be aggressive – as these two have shown. If a flier sees a corn field or a boy with a b-b gun, they should stay well away.”

Joanna Picoides, a nest cavity designer, saw the boys – which she thought were adult humans – in the same place an hour after their attack on Mr. Columba.

“I thought they were very nasty, sinister things,” she said. “Two of them focused on me as I flew past. I couldn’t help thinking of that Woodcock film.”

Mr. Columba, a father of two young squabs, added: “What really worries me is that it could happen again – and it could be a lot worse if the humans attacked squabs. They could literally shoot our babies to pieces.”

A spokesbird for the Passenger Pigeon Council, which is responsible for avian-human relations in the forest, said: “We will be talking to human experts to see if it is a more widespread problem. If it turns out there’s any need to alert other forest-dwelling animals, we will do so.”

Original article here.

Blue Jay Down

When I got home from work and got out of the car, I saw one of the blue jay nestlings on the floor in the garage. At first I thought the poor thing was dead, and only when I approached did I see it was breathing. The three siblings and one of the parent birds stayed quietly on the nest. While I'm no expert at nests, this one doesn't look particularly well-shaped or sturdy. The babies aren't fledging - learning to fly - yet and it's kind of early for them to be on the floor in the garage.

I put a plastic sandwich baggie over my hand and picked up the fallen youngster. It didn't peep - it hardly moved. It clutched a small stick in its left claw, as instinctively and as endearingly as a baby holds tight to a finger. Its flight feathers, still encased in keratin sheaths, already showed their blue and black pattern. I got up on a lawn chair and set the chick at the edge of the nest. The little family still stayed quietly on the nest.

After I turned towards the house, I head a plop. Yep - that baby was back on the ground. The parent flew down to it, fixed me with its obsidian eye, squawked, "Jay! Jay!" and returned to the nest. I returned the baggie to my hand and clambered back up on the chair. As I poked at the nestling's chicken-nugget-shaped rear, trying to push it further into the nest, wishing my arm would magically grow another inch or two, something awesome happened. I touched the parent bird and s/he didn't move.

It was just an accidental brush of the tailfeathers, but remarkable nonetheless. As a wildlife rehabilitation volunteer in oHIo, I touched many animals. But they were already captured, and often very sick or badly injured. Handling the wildlife was done with care and protective clothing. For a wild animal, touch = death by predator, and no matter how sick or hurt, they will fight with every defence they have. It's a rare day when a vital, healthy wild creature tolerates the nearness of a meddling, stinky human, especially in the presence of its young.

I hope the nugget stays put for a while, at least until the time has come to fledge, which I anticipate should be in another two weeks or so.

ps. Michigan's first confirmed West Nile virus case this year was a blue jay found in Washtenaw County. I'm looking after my neighbors, but I'm afraid there's not much I can do.

Other Things I Have Seen Today

• A marquee outside a church that read, "Fight Truth Decay - Read The Bible"


• A man in a black polo shirt with a Viagra logo on it


• In the rearview, a man who, despite numerous opportunities to pass, seemed to want to drive his car into my backseat (@#$%^&*!)


• Limes for $0.49 each

I am an Absolut Kurant

The banner ad seduced me. "What does your Absolut flavor say about you?" I didn't even know I had an Absolut flavor. The temptation of achieving self-knowledge through vodka was too strong - I clicked.

After a 90-second test, in which, among other things, I was asked to pack for the weekend, dress a "paper" doll, and decide what items to rescue from a fire (I took the Jack Russell terrier), Absolut determined that I am a Kurant:

"You tend to see beauty where others don't. You love open, neat spaces and straight lines. In your mind, being different is being. And rather than liking designers or brands in clothing, you have a thing for materials. Industrial design and music are (latent) hobbies of yours."

Not too bad, in a vague, syndicated newspaper astrologer sorta way. The Kurant profile fits better than most of the other flavor "personalities," although Peppar sounds about right too ("Yes, you are a great lover.").

You know you're too deep into birding

when you wake up in the morning and the first man on your mind is David Allen Sibley.

Wilt Thou?

Nearly every genuine Michigander I know, regardless of income or status, has a cabin on a lake somewhere Up North, where they spend many a summer weekend. Here’s why: at 10:30 this morning, my Radio Shack wireless thermo-hygrometer showed a temperature of 80° outside. The little face indicating comfort level was decidedly unhappy, its mouth a wavy line. Wet, it said. Humidity 71%. Since I’ve had my windows open for the last week, it’s the same inside my apartment.

Shoveling snow, crystalline early nights, and snuggly flannel sheets now seem like tall tales from a by-gone era. The pendulum has swung the other way. After a too-brief spring, summer is starting to broil me. It’s not even the solstice yet. Wait ‘til July - I’ll be as hot and crispy as a chicken at Chi-Bro Park.

Nevertheless, I sandaled up, downed a big glass of water and a Benadryl (defense against the cottonwoods), and headed out the door, determined to walk to the Chelsea Painters’ Fair. The annual fair is held on the campus of the Chelsea Community Hospital, and my little legs can get me there in about 15 minutes. The walk down wasn’t bad. The sun slanted across the trees and I stuck to the shady side of the street. After a look around the fair I headed for home.

By then it was after noon and practically tropical. My pace slowed, and it wasn’t just to look at my favorite tree in all of Chelsea (the grand copper beech on south Main Street). I thought of the lush, weird plants K. and I saw yesterday in the hothouse at the conservatory, with their waxy flowers and breathable leaves. I wished for their resiliency in steamy conditions as I dragged across the blistering black asphalt of the gas station. Little freshets of sweat welled up and trickled down my torso and the backs of my knees. “Strong enough for a man, made for a woman” wasn’t man enough and gave up.

Once I made it home I checked on the garden. The radishes have thus far refused to expand into red-and-white globes. The lettuce looked like it was practicing for its part in a wilted salad. The young cucumber vines drooped. “What’s with you?” I asked the cucumbers. “I thought you liked full sun.” “Waaa-trr,” the hunchbacked vines implored.

I plucked some mint for my own water, went inside, took off all my underwear, and noted that the thermometer had increased to 91°. The Weather Channel online says rain is coming, but I think they're teasing the cucumbers, and the 10-day forecast displays an unrelenting sameness. I closed my Web browser and promptly fell asleep, spread-eagled on the bed with the fan pointed directly at my right armpit.

Now that I’m lucid and cooled off with an Edy’s Whole Fruit popsicle, I am adding two things to my to-do list. 1: Get D. over here to put my Two-Ton Tony of an air-conditioner in my bedroom window, and 2: Get in the good graces of some of those Michiganders with cabins under the breezy pines of the northern forests. For this cool-weather, shade-tolerant plant, September and 65° can’t come soon enough.

Behold, the Mortgage Cock

Since I blogged about those freaky "Lower My Bills" ads, I've been absolutely bombarded with them. Every couple of days a new one pops up that tips the scales of the WTF-ometer.

The latest: a rooster with flashing feathers. Beware, beware...



Come on now, click your state. Don't be a chicken. Bad credit okay.

And another: the chorus line of can-canning sheep. Comes in two different colors: piss yellow with white sheep or white with sheep that look like marching pink cotton candy.



Er, sorry. You're not Serta. The sheep don't really make sense here, unless it's a warning that we're being herded off a cliff of debt.

This is, like, hilarious.

A Favorite Ditty Bops' Lyric

Don't mean to make you sick
It just works out that way
You say it's walnut bread
We know it's what I say