Sometimes Joey has to growl when the others get too close while he’s sleeping, but sometimes, he shares. Phoebe knows what a privilege this is and so she remains very very still.
[saveagrey]
by James Brush
Year: 2008
No, that’s not my backyard.
The Audubon Society and The Cornell Lab of Ornithology are sponsoring The Great Backyard Bird Count running from today through Feb 18. Anyone can participate. All you have to do is count birds over a span of at least 15 minutes and record the number of individuals you see. This helps the Audubon Society “create a real-time snapshot of where the birds are across the continent.” You don’t even have to do it in your backyard.
I walked down to the pond by the house and watched birds from 4:05-4:35 pm. Overcast, breezy, mid-60’s. Here’s what I saw:
- 3 American crows
- 3 Northern shovelers
- 1 White-winged dove
- 2 Mourning doves
- 1 Lesser scaup
- 1 Great blue heron
- 4 Black vultures
- 1 Eastern phoebe
The phoebe and the scaup are ones I had not seen before, so I get to add a few to my life list.
Last night I watched the remaining 3 candidates give their victory/denial speeches.
First up was Clinton. She gave the denial speech. That is, denying the drubbing she took in the Potomac Primaries. A ‘congrats Senator Obama’ would have been classy. Still, I have to admire the way she’s soldiering on despite the fact that things aren’t looking quite as rosy as they once did for her. I’m rooting for Obama, but I’ll take no pleasure in seeing her lose. And, truth be told, a part of me would really like to see her give the Republicans the beating they so richly deserve.
Of course, it’s the way that kind of thinking bothers me that makes me lean toward Obama whose speech in Wisconsin was, as usual, inspiring. I could feel the energy coming through the TV, and I wasn’t even watching an HD channel. He was optimistic, classy, funny, and most importantly, acted like a nominee. He began leveling attacks at McCain, but they were of a respectful velvet-fist variety, which is what I think we can expect from Obama.
McCain followed Obama. The starkest contrast was in the visuals. Where Obama spoke before a jubilant crowd of thousands in a basketball arena, McCain spoke before a group of old white folks in what appeared to be the kind of hotel conference room that is usually reserved for high school proms. There doesn’t seem to be much enthusiasm for the Republican party these days, but then I guess that’s what they should expect after driving their brand into the ground. Still, listening to McCain speak, I couldn’t help but feel a bit sad that he had so thoroughly hitched his wagon to Bush’s star (surely a white dwarf). I don’t think I’ll take much pleasure in seeing him lose either, but lose he must.
Speaking of McCain, someone made a clever video along the lines of the Obama video I linked to last week. It’s a nice repudiation of his let’s-stay-in-Iraq-for-1000s-of-years position. Call it the audacity of hopelessness…
I finally got around to reading the final book in Elie Wiesel’s Night trilogy: Day, which was once known as The Accident.
As far as trilogies go, it’s fairly loose, the books being related thematically rather than forming a continuous story. They aren’t even related in terms of genre as the first, Night, is memoir, while the other two Dawn and Day are novels. Night is about Wiesel’s experience in Auschwitz. Dawn fictionalizes Night‘s narrator, the young Holocaust survivor, and places him in post-war Palestine where he has joined a terrorist group to help drive the British out. It’s a fascinating exploration of violence and how the victim can easily become the perpetrator.
Following a parallel path out of Auschwitz, Day finds the young survivor (not quite the same character as the protagonist of Dawn) in New York City in the early ’60s. He and his girlfriend are crossing the street near Times Square to see a movie. He is struck by a cab and wakes in a hospital. The narrator drifts in and out of consciousness, skirting the thin line between life and death, unwilling to commit to either one.
During the weeks of his recovery he is visited by his surgeon, his girlfriend and an artist friend of his. He is also tortured by memories of a past that has deprived him of a desire to live. Believing his experience in Auschwitz has already left him spriritually and emotionally dead, he begins to wonder if he didn’t step in front of the cab on purpose.
Like the other two books in the trilogy, Day is a short and tightly focused examination of one aspect of the Holocaust survivor’s experience. In this case, Wiesel explores the near impossibility of building a life while carrying the weight of memories that never fade, the dark edges of madness, and the ever-present temptation of suicide.
Since Super Tuesday wasn’t the decisive event it was planned to be, the Texas primaries will actually mean something. I’m all atingle at the thought of my vote actually counting. What to do…
I usually vote in the Republican primary since in my county that’s where the actual decisions are made, and besides, since 1994 it’s given me extra opportunities to vote against Bush. I’ve proudly voted against him 8 times, not that it’s done me any good. Still, there’s something ennobling about glorious defeat as I’m sure the defenders of the Alamo would likely have said if they hadn’t all been slaughtered by a bunch of illegal aliens. Too bad we didn’t have that border wall back in 1836.
This year it’s different, though. I might have a say in the Democratic race. A say in choosing the candidate I will actually vote for in November. I wonder what that’s like. Texas might even become the new New Hampshire (Nu H-shire?).
So, the question becomes who do I support? I think Clinton would make a fine president, but I don’t want a president McCain, so I’m going for Obama, who will also make a fine president. It crystallized for me while getting my gray locks shorn yesterday afternoon.
The stylist and I were talking and the subject turned to Super Tuesday. I said I would be watching the returns, and she said she would be doing the same. “It’ll be interesting,” she said and then looked around before whispering, “We’re not allowed to talk about that stuff with the clients.”
Now, think about that for a minute. Talking and debating politics with each other is the essence of a functioning democracy. The notion that we can have differing opinions and actually discuss them with one another without coming to blows is so rare that employees can be forbidden from discussing politics. That is indicative of a severly poisoned political atmosphere.
Our political life has become such a twisted brew of ideological purity, acrimony and intolerance that more than anything we need a politician who can rise above it. Barack Obama is that candidate. We need someone who won’t start out with 50% of the country and all of the opposing party steadfastly against him or her. That’s Obama. Even those who disagree with him on policy respect the man.
Perhaps we can learn to once again have a political culture in which we can talk and respectfully disagree without having to demonize those with differing opinions.
There are plenty of other reasons why I intend to vote for Obama in the Texas Democratic primary, and perhaps I’ll explore them here, but in the meantime, I have to plan the press conference and event where Obama and I will take the stage so I can announce the official Coyote Mercury endorsement that will seal the deal for him in Texas.
His people and mine are working to find the most advantageous day for the event.
And, in the meantime, this is a really beautiful video. And isn’t that Herbie Hancock in there too?
Hey, Simon, watch where you’re pointing that thing.
(Yes, we will go for the low joke here at Coyote Mercury.)
[saveagrey]
I took this shot of the Texas Capitol about a year ago while walking around downtown with my camera on a clear and lovely February day.
Things come to mind…
When I worked downtown, I used to eat lunch on the lawn surrounded by statues and trees, statutes and lawmakers.
One week back in the early ’90s, word had gotten out that Willie was going to play a free show on the south steps. It was a Sunday afternoon, I think, and I decided to check him out. I rode my bike down to the capitol and waited with the small crowd. Finally, Willie came out and stood in front of the single microphone. He had no band; it was just him and Trigger, all beat up and full of holes.
He played a solo acoustic set that included many of his most famous tunes. I remember the weather was beautiful, the crowd was happy, and Willie seemed so pleased to just be making music for a small group of fans in his home city. Afterwards, he stayed up on stage while people passed him boots, belts, LPs, guitars, and posters to sign. He joked with the audience and didn’t leave until he’d signed everything that anybody wanted signed.
In college a budy of mine and I used to rollerblade in there at night, gliding through the silent halls.
Spinning under the dome is kind of cool too.
And I think of Star Wars: “You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy.” (I’m not talking about that Willie show either…)
From Aldous Huxley’s Island:
“In those days, Pala was still completely off the map. The idea of turning it into an oasis of freedom and happiness made sense. So long as it remains out of touch with the rest of the world, an ideal society can be a viable society.
[…]
Meanwhile, the outside world has been closing in on this little island of freedom and happiness. Closing in steadily and inexorably, coming nearer and nearer. What was once a viable ideal is now no longer viable.”
Finally, I’ve reached the end of the Lost Book Club, at least until more books crop up in Season 4, which starts tomorrow. The last one was Huxley’s Island, a book that was never seen, but was referenced in the Season 2 episodes “?” and “Live Together, Die Alone.” The reference is in the name of the pier where Jack, Kate, and Sawyer are taken prisoner by the Others. It’s called the Pala Ferry, and Pala is the setting of Island, a book Huxley wrote as a counterpoint to Brave New World.
Island is the story of a journalist named Will Farnaby who is shipwrecked on the island of Pala where an ideal society flourishes. Palan culture is a perfect blend of Eastern spirituality and Western science created through an alliance between a nineteenth century Scottish surgeon who came to the island to save its Raja’s life. The two developed an ideal for living laid out by the old Raja in Notes on What’s What, a book within the book. In short, it is a healthy combination of Buddhism, modern psychiatry, psychedelic drugs, limited industrialization, Enlightenment style reasoning, and free love.
Will arrives on the island as an agent of a major oil concern that wants to take over Pala, industrialize it and exploit its abundant natural resources. The inhabitants of Pala fear this as it will lead to the kind of overpopulation, militarization, and systemic poverty (both material and spiritual) so rampant in the outside world. Over the course of the novel, Will comes to love the island and its inhabitants even as the dictator of a nearby island plans his invasion so he can auction the island’s resources off for cash to fight his wars.
It’s a good and heady read that falls in nicely with certain other “ideal society” books that have shown up on Lost particularly Stranger in a Strange Land.
What most gets me is how it provided a possible framework for thinking about the Others. The Pala Ferry references came at the end of Season 2, a time before we met the others. It would have been fun to have read this one before Season 3 as it contains some clues as to what to expect about the Others.
The Connections:
1. In Island, the secular surgeon, Dr Andrew, is brought to Pala to operate on Pala’s leader, who is suffering from a horrific tumor. This is precisely why Jack was taken in Season 2: to save Ben, the Others’ leader, from a tumor.
2. Pala, like Lost Island, is a place that is essentially hidden and off-limits to the outside world, but as with Pala, there are people who want to come to the island, and the Others, like the Palans, fear this above anything else. They believe it will be the end of their way of life. We won’t know for sure until Season 4 gets underway tomorrow, whether the outsiders on Not Penny’s Boat have good or ill intentions, but the title of the Season 4 opener, “The Beginning of the End,” suggests Ben’s fears may be well founded.
3. Both islands have a temple. We haven’t seen Lost’s temple, but Ben did mention it. This hints at a society with roots that go far back, perhaps as far back as four-toed beings? Who knows. Also, both the Others and the Palanese wear white muslin outfits for their ceremonies.
4. At the end of Season 2, we didn’t know that the Dharma Initaitive and the Others were not one and the same. We did know, however, that Dharma like Palanese society, was a fusion of sorts between Buddhism and western science.
5. As on Lost, Pala has scientific research stations scattered around the island geared toward discovering saner ways to live.
But unlike with Pala, something has gone wrong. The Others carry guns and kidnap people. They con and torture. Theirs is a corrupted island, a twisted version of Pala, that must be healed and made whole again. Perhaps, that is what John Locke must do, and what Jack seems to have realized in the Season 3 finale only too late.
The world of the Others is nothing like the perfect society of Pala, but to the Others it is. It is perfect, and it is in danger, especially now that it has been found. Their ideal society is threatened, and the survivors of Oceanic 815 are going to have to decide between protecting the island and going home to a world that might not be the one they left.
Season 4 starts tomorrow with “The Beginning of the End.” In the meantime, go here for a list of all the Lost books I’ve reviewed.
Agatha Christie’s Evil Under the Sun is a Hercule Poirot mystery in which the intrepid detective finds himself working a murder on a resort island off the English coast. There is a large cast of potential suspects and one body, that of a promiscuous actress who had been blatantly carrying on with a married man. In short: murder, most foul.
It wasn’t as good as the only other Christie novel I’ve read (Murder on the Orient Express) but I did enjoy it, although I started to have a sense of how the murder had occured before Poirot figured it out.
Sawyer is seen reading Evil Under the Sun in Season 3 of Lost in the Nikki and Paolo episode “Expose,” an episode that is essentially a muder mystery.
Like Lost, Evil Under the Sun has a large cast and takes place on an island. There aren’t any big clues about Lost’s mythology hidden in the pages either, which seemes appropriate as “Expose” represents a break from reveals about the island, serving mostly as just good, albeit twisted, entertainment. Kind of like Christie’s novels: nothing earth shattering, but loads of fun.
There is, however, a clue in the book that hints at the way the episode plays out. In Evil Under the Sun, (watch out, here come spoilers) the actress’s corpse is found on the beach. Her lover goes to try to save her, while the woman who discovers the body with him runs off for help. Eventually, we learn that the “body” was a ruse; it was the murderer’s female accomplice. Now he can murder his lover, the actress, while the woman who went off for help can vouch that he was with her the whole time.
In “Expose”, Nikki, an actress who may or may not be promiscuous but is a murderer,� shows up seemingly dead on the beach. The episode revolves around finding out who killed her and her lover, Paolo. Only at the very end, do we learn that she wasn’t dead. Unfortunately for her, only the audience sees her eyes open as Hurley and Sawyer are busy shoveling sand on top her in the island graveyard.
In this case, the inclusion of a book served to signal the type of episode we’re seeing (murder mystery) and offer a possible clue. Perhaps if Sawyer had read it more carefully, he might have realized that while Nikki seemed dead, she might not really be dead, but as we learned with the whole Of Mice and Men incident, Sawyer doesn’t always read that carefully.
Season 4 of Lost starts on Thursday with “The Beginning of the End.” Sometime before then, I will post my thoughts on Aldous Huxley’s Island, the last of the Lost books on my list. In the meantime, Brian at Lost…and Gone Forever has a great preview with no spoilers and lots of good theorizin’.
An index of all my Lost Book Club posts is here.
The pups are tired today and don’t feel like starring in the blog. Instead, they direct you to a recent article on CNN.com about people who save the lives of greys and how those greys help save the lives of other dogs:
A group of 55 greyhounds rescued after a life of racing are helping to save more canine lives with the donation of their blood.
The dogs, most owned by professors, technicians and students at the Ohio State University veterinary school, visit the school several times a year to give blood.
Greyhounds represent the bulk of the donors, and with good reason because they typically have a universal blood type that any dog can receive.
Greyhounds also have big neck veins that make drawing blood easy, said veterinarian Guillermo Couto, who works with the animal blood donor program at OSU.
They have big hearts too.
[saveagrey]