Category Archives: Uncategorized

Gaddafi’s Creepy Love Den

Americana, Current Affairs, Uncategorized, , ,

 

When I saw the headline, Gaddafi’s Creepy Love Den in The Dailyt Beast, my first thought was  a remembrance of a Peter Arno cartoon in which a stuffy matron, reading the newspaper that says Mayor caught in love nest and looking up at her equally dignified husband, says “What is a ‘Love Nest’, dear?” Of course,  I remember it because I didn’t know, at about ten, what a Love Nest was either; I’m sure that my mother’s explanation was in good taste.  “Love Nest” is just not a term you hear these days, but – then – neither is “Love Den”. I hope they are both coming back.

When I was at an impressionable age, my family had three joke books that helped shape my sensibilities. There were other books and – I’m sure -other joke books, but the three that stick in my mind are the aforementioned Peter Arno book, a James Thurber book with a name I can’t remember, and Up Front by Bill Maudin. They all three had a sort of whimsical sarcasm that I like to think is in my DNA.

Friday night on Russian Ridge with Rumi

Uncategorized

The stars will be watching us, and we will show them what it is to be a thin crescent moon. Rumi c. 1242 CE.

Michele and I went up to Russian Ridge behind our house to go for a short walk before dinner. (That sounds like Russian Ridge is right behind our house, but it is a three and a half mile drive up Old La Honda Road and then about ten miles south on Skyline to the turnout.) I had hoped the fog would be filling the valleys below Russian Ridge and I would get a couple of good shots of the fog filling the valleys below; the fog was coming in, but not very much and the fog filled valleys were all way down by the ocean.

But, with no fog to push it, the air on the ridge was still and warm and soft. The evening was lovely. We walked a couple of miles – enough to break a sweat – looping around the ridge just in time to see the sun drop below the edge of the fog bank and then cutting through a section of the Oak forest that – in the glooming light – was as dark as Mirkwood.

Back out of Mirkwood, we stopped on the trail in the warm, soft, air to watch the sky strut its stuff under the moon hanging in a cloudless sky.

 

 

Sharks & Zombies

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When I first saw this series of pictures in the Los Angles Times, my first thought was What big fins the photographer has, then, when I looked again, I realized he is free diving, then I realized that the shark could eat him. Anyway, it is proof that, no matter what nutty thing you can think of, somebody is already doing it AND taking beautiful pictures of the experience. Like wedding pictures with zombies, for example.

Friday night

Around home, Photography, Uncategorized

At the end of the day, last night – Friday – I had just poured myself a bourbon to mark the end of the week and was getting ready to go outside and celebrate the warm evening air – finally – when Michele said There is the baby deer. Our resident deer had two babies this spring and then one disappeared and the remaining one had a goiter on her – I’m going to go with “her” until I find out otherwise – neck. But, now, in the gloaming light, she seems to have lost the goiter. Good.

I snuck back in, got my camera, and threw the tele on. I got a couple of shots – the metadata says it was 7:53 – and the the baby and mother took off in different direction. The first time I saw a mommy and baby deer take off in different directions, I was worried that the baby would be abandoned but now I am convinced it is a survival strategy. Sitting there is the warm air, I watched four Steller’s Jays – my favorite corvids – take off from the birdbath and fly to the buckeye by the house.

Then the baby deer came back – 8:09 according to the camera – the light faded past the redwoods, and Precious Mae came out to join me. In the dark, a few birds chirped, and down the hill at the Family Farm someone was playing jazz. Life is good and , for a few minutes, all is right with the world.