Friday Ephemera
Checkout nightmare. // Scientific discovery of note. (h/t, Captain Nemo) // New York at an angle. // How ink is made. // An interactive map of global shipping. // Stylish prosthesis. // “Doctors amputated her leg, removed the knee, then re-attached the rest of the leg backwards.” // Living dolls. // Defend the galaxy in a retro-super-80s style. // GradeInflation.com // Expired goods. // Everything you need to know about porn parodies. // Euphemism of note. // Insect portraits. // Painted toenail stockings. // Legs & Co vs Laurie Anderson, 1981. I believe the term is “conceptual nightmare.” // The vault of VHS packaging. // Stasi aesthetics. (h/t, Coudal) // Trend of note. // Water 2.0 // Washing the dog. // Walking the walk. // All the fries. // And finally, fire in a jug goes whoosh.
Sherlock and Moriarty are SOOOO predictable: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hwJUuN3JUPE
Darleen – I used to spend a bit of time in Southern California and loved the way that true wilderness is so close to urban areas. I remember watching a bobcat from the balcony of a flat overlooking the Back Bay in Newport Beach and being shocked that something so wild could just be wandering around a housing development
Never saw a cougar, more’s the pity, but was bluff charged by a black bear in Sequoia National Park which was interesting – in a ‘fill your pants’ kind of way
Where I live in New York State we have all kind of wildlife running about as well. Turkeys are everywhere; funny thing, twenty years ago you never saw any. There are coyotes in the woods and meadow next to my house. They yowl at night sometimes, which scares my cats. They know that this is wildness, red in tooth and claw, and they fear it. Saw a bobcat once, crossing the Taconic Parkway in the beam of my headlights. A magnificent creature. I haven’t seen a bear up close – yet – but they are around. I have a detached garage that is down a bit from my house, surrounded by woods, and I always think that someday I will saunter down and find myself nose to nose with a bear.
There is a saying in French, l’heure entre chien et loup, that describes that part of the day in the evening when the light fails and the dogs go into the house and the nighttime predators start to come out. I was riding home on my motorcycle years ago, with my wife sitting pillion behind me, right about that time of the day, and no more than 100 feet in front of us we saw a coyote crossing the road from one corn field to the one on the other side. He had that loping gait that somehow distinguishes the wild from the domestic, and truth be told it gave both of us a shiver up the spine.
There is an atavistic recognition of the wild in us, I think, that causes us to admire it and to fear it at the same time. No wonder that old tales are always full of wolves and wild animals – they scare us because deep down they remind us of an unknown past in which we had to fight for survival.
Luckily the bobtail cats & pumas don’t come down into the neighborhoods…
Well, I was going to brag about watching a fox grumbling with a badger in the garden, or waking up to the sound of a woodpecker. But that all seems rather tame now.
But that all seems rather tame now.
When I worked in Africa, many years ago, I had a Lion snuffling round my bungalow on more than one occasion. Just sayin’.
Where I live in New York State we have all kind of wildlife running about as well. Turkeys are everywhere; funny thing, twenty years ago you never saw any.
They’ve been reintroduced and introduced in multiple locations. Zion National Park recently got a flock, and I don’t think wild turkeys ever lived there before.
Not that it’s a problem: wild turkeys are wicked smart and have more attitude than any corvid. Might as well spread ’em out.
As for NY state, the wildlife running around is fine and dandy until the frogs exit the swamps after the spring thaw and the road acquires more flattened frog on its surface than blacktop.
and the road acquires more flattened frog on its surface than blacktop.
Which reminded me of this.
Which reminded me of this.
Australians seem to have a history of doing this sort of thing.
wild turkeys are wicked smart and have more attitude than any corvid
That’s as may be, but they have one drawback, which is that they seem to fly (rather ponderously) at windshield height.
One of them miscalculated once and almost flew into the bed of my pick-up truck.
Too bad he missed, too, because he would have made a good meal.
Which reminded me of this.
Or this.
Or this.
Humidity is rising
Barometer’s getting low
According to our sources
The street’s the place to go
It’s raining frogs
Hallelujah
It’s rainin’ frogs
Amen
Luckily the bobtail cats & pumas don’t come down into the neighborhoods…
. . . But that all seems rather tame now.
There is a story, possibly apocryphal, of one of the hipsters dating from the dot bomb era, where she went off into very northern California, or further north, very far off in the woods, took a fat chunk of cash and spent it on a house, and on goats.
In fact, particularly on goats housed in custom kennels, made of Plexiglas.
Outdoors.
Brightly lit at night, for security and protection purposes.
The rest of the story is that the local and not so local insurance and legal establishment couldn’t stop giggling as they spelled out to her, in detail, that the only person she had any capability of suing was herself, given that she was utterly and blatantly the only person who had openly and deliberately signaled to every mountain lion for fifty miles the news of FREE GOAT BUFFET, FIRST COME FIRST SERVED!!!!!
and the road acquires more flattened frog on its surface than blacktop.
Which reminded me of this.
David beat me to the general reference, albeit where both of us were thinking of the one particular scene.
Great minds think alike, and so do ours . . . .
Is it next Friday yet?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kppx4bzfAaE