4 February 2010, Thursday
The Academy Awards nominations are out and The Cove is already odds-on to win in Best Documentary. A preview and an entry about that little film is online here with some other film notes. Robert Redford's Sundance Film Festival is a wrap and is sort of the opposite of the Oscars, as it gives cinephiles (like me) movies to watch for during the coming year! Grist.org attended to scout out the latest environmental films in show. In addition to brief write-ups, they've gathered up the previews to give us a hint of the content. Now, be advised, from someone who sees his share of the inspiration and the confusion in the arena of documentaries: they are all over the map, both in locale and in quality. Hopefully though, chosen for Sundance means we at least have one filter applied. Films like Frozen River (2008), a fictional slice of life from the Mohawk Nation that straddles the St. Lawrence River in NY and Quebec, while not a documentary, has its earthtones and came out of Sundance a year ago with all the proper Buzz, played around and is now on DVD. If you like that one, try and find Powwow Highway (1989). Twenty+ years old and it still works as a contemporary Earth legend, told by a three hundred pound Sioux. Enjoy.
5 February 2010, Friday
I had coffee yesterday morning with two visiting MD's from China (mainland) who are on staff at Upstate Medical Center in Syracuse for four months. This is their last week in the US. Over the course of an hour our topics included the lack of Chinese food in CNY (compared to SF and Boston, well), state quarters (commemorative 25 cent pieces), North American obesity (a surprise for them), food as medicine, acupuncture, and the liver pulse... because mostly, we had gotten together to talk about the state of Tai Chi and Eastern medicine in the US. An odd connection? I'd taught Tai Chi for a year for members of the Greater Boston Chinese Cultural Association, and another dozen at the Cambridge Center in Harvard Square, and then... six degrees of separation. At medical schools in China, there is coursework in the subject of Eastern medicine, but only a cursory introduction. An orthopedic specialist, one doctor associates with new students from a school for this at his hospital... a cursory introduction to Western medicine for those practitioners! Kind of like here with bedside manner and preventative care. The more we talked, the more he began to realize his own disconnect. Each time he referred to reading about chi or how it was a philosophy one could understand by thinking, I worked in a thread about practicing it... with your body (less mind). At one point the other doctor, a woman, dove in (I'd actually forgotten she was there, and failed to compensate in the conversation for the cultural bias... read, her silence in between two men). You see, her family's sir name is Yang — a famous family in the history of Tai Chi Chuan. She had no Tai Chi experience herself, but had a bit more knowledge bases on her heritage. She recognized my line of discussion, just burst into the conversation with both hands and arms moving, and made a reference to Tai Chi "play"... as the more direct translation of "practice." I introduce this word myself later on in classes with Western students, but avoid it early on because it just doesn't work well. After a little success in a Tai Chi course — meaning mind and body feeling happy on the way home — I find "play" comes across better, later. So here we in Starbucks and its getting physical... let's play. To break out of mind and into body, I only did things I would do in a class to minimize the talk... and maybe the language barrier too. Weather play. The practice of weather is different, from watching the weather, for: pilots, storm chasers, surfers and hawkwatchers (toss in the esoterica that is seawatching, etc.). You would hope: hawkwatchers. But I find I can only talk serious weathertalk with a handful of hawkwatchers, either in the field or online about weather — past, present, future. They seem to know the words but not the language. And language —the nuance of culture — is borne out of everyday practice/play... meaning, finding joy. Otherwise it's work, isn't it? Weather play involves long-range weather watching: and that's macroweather. Everything else? That's what I label doorstep weather and that's all work and no play, plus, leaves you feeling unsatisfied, tired, and listless (ha!). I use my iPhone so much now for weather, both short- and long-range, that I'm having to really to dig around, both the web and in my mind, for some current desktop links for macroweather practice. Stay tuned. [Got seriously distracted for a couple of days during the week in pursuit of a new hawkmobile (previous vehicle at 200K miles and that's enough). I was doing fine, until Friday, when I constructed this post, looked it over for its content, self-approved it, and then failed to actually upload it! A key step in the internet viewing process.]
4 February 2010, Thursday
On the surface, this classic Monty Python skit from 1969 is about a man trying to return a parrot to a pet show. His interaction with the man behind the counter slowly but surely escalates from a mere description of the situation and a request for a refund to a universal scene we've all been involved in at this scale or another (or maybe wished we had been). Was the parrot dead or was it alive when it left the shop and does that shift the sands? The thing works so well because of the shifting arguments and logic employed, or unemployed. It is apparently easy for a clerk (or ____________) to ignore the facts in favor of what best suites them: their personal, intellectual, organizational, governmental, or corporate agenda (in that exact hierarchical order... of who runs the world). That any one person can change the world is certainly true, but the ease of this act, for any individual, is very great. When this story of our own power comes to us at various stages of our lives, it comes with the proviso that if you're right in your quest, then change should come with some ease. Of course that's not true. I lined up way too many excerpts from email exchanges and discussions in the field that I've had in the past and even this week to illustrate this back and forth toward change, through seems like a process I call Dead Parrot Science, but I think Michael Palin and John Cleese have it covered. Sometimes you have to rewind and replay this skit of yours a few times... okay, over and over and over to make any headway, but what else have you got going on? 3 February 2010, Wednesday
A hundred years before Darwin's time, it was the natural world according to Gilbert White. He was the Man (gentle-), and in the 1700's, observations from his country gardenside, nearby paths and other cultivations were our observations... having cultivated our place in our world as: us and them, with us doing all the thinking and speaking, not always in that order. By the midpoints of these two centuries, things changed: White to Charles Darwin. But things change back and forth, even today, depending on who you're talking to about what in the world we live in. Oh, did I mention this is just about the best little book I've read in many many years? It is, because it puts things in perspective... there's that word again. Klinkenborg is a master writer, and would need to be to pull off the shell game he's set up for himself (and his reader): that of retooling Gilbert White's A Natural History of Selborne into another history, via White's own words (and even receipts), told to us by Timothy, who turns out is actually a she-turtle... due to the state of men and/or their science in seventeen and something or other. All I can say is go over to Amazon.com, start reading, and see if it draws you in as quickly as it did me: standing in the River's End Bookstore in Oswego NY... after a day's hawkwatching.
2 February 2010, Tuesday But how do they taste? I think we'll leave that question for a panel of hawks and owls, meeting in a few months at a five-star forest near you. In a study just released last week and conducted mainly in migration-rich New Jersey, biologists now think that birds experience their flyways by the various scents along the way. They learn this though over the course of the first journey. Birds largely rely on their sense of smell to navigate
on their long migration routes. Indeed, the “third sense” has
been shown to be a more important for them than orientation based on
the sun and the earth’s magnetic field. Exactly how birds navigate
on their migration routes has not yet been fully clarified. How does
a bird develop an “internal map”? How does it find its
way back to last year’s nest? On the ancient side of things, it might be interesting to consider the long history of the migratory story. Both dragonflies and birds seem to follow the same rules. "The dragonflies' routes have showed distinct stopover and migration days, just as the birds' did," said Wikelski, an associate professor of ecology and evolutionary biology. "Additionally, groups of both birds and dragonflies did not migrate on very windy days and only moved after two successive nights of falling temperatures. We saw other similarities as well, which makes us wonder just how far back in Earth's history the rules for migration were established in its animals." Another ancient biological event, the virgin birth, might now be more believable to the non-believers... if they know that sharks can pull it off (or is it out). On the other hand, here's another case for the evolutionary unnecessity of another appendage, the male of the species. Plants have figured it out too. There's a nifty little clip of foodite Michael Pollan talking real food with Oprah online over at Grist. And hoping this fast food quickie posting is fun, if not nourishing, I have a couple of longer weather-related ones in the works. Plus, I finally think I figured out why my all-time favorite Monty Python skit just gets funnier over the years... Dead Parrot Science — coming soon.
1 February 2010, Monday
But first, the movie. Inglourious Basterds was the best film I saw in 2009! Ranks right up there on most critics' lists and is a certain Oscar best picture nominee (in the expanded field of ten). Combine that with the best film IMO of the decade just concluded: Q's Kill Bill Vols 1&2, and you get the picture. Basterds is a WWII film about these hunters that get the ultimate prey in their sights and make the kill. Okay, he's rewritten a little history, but Tarantino does what moviemakers do all the time. Adjust things. As Roger Ebert says, the last thing you want see up front when a movies starts is, "Based on a true story." Read: "Well, we found out while making this film, the truth can be kind of dull, let us now show you just how uninteresting." So... in this case he turns the large knob, but he's a great fan of cinema too, and I'm always down for whatever he'd got in mind... I remember seeing his Pulp Fiction in '94: as vivid a memory as if it were yesterday's Merlin. Like Pulp Fiction, there is action, but there are also his abnormally long and intricate monologues and dialogues that are primo in this one (Q's both writer and director for his signature projects). Visually he knows movies, and knows how to honor the tried and true. In this one, he creates a situation where a number of the characters — good and bad — have all descended a narrow stairway into a cellar pub with no other way out, he has one of this lot comment, "Who would pick such a place, tactically, for a meeting... there's no way out," then he slows down the fuse time with some talk knowing this is a no-win... chaos and body count, to follow. I saw this in a theater, and while it should reappear, the DVD will work for you. Just standing around at Cape May, with not much going (20 Peregrines, maybe 10 Merlins, and only fifty Cooper's Hawks, etc.), when up the stairs comes a civilian, a big fish from a small pond/hilltop, asking the basterds in the corner where they would go to watch hawks... anywhere he added, then on he goes some more attempting to answer his own question with Texas, Veracruz, exotic door number 3. Silence, with frosting. Then, like a temple bell, "Duluth" from the alpha (Ligouri), and the basterds went all low-tones and nodding while the tourist looked very very puzzled, wondering off. See, the inglourious basterds want the other thing. Not to be different, necessarily, but out of a need for the thing. Let everyone else go for the warm moist zephyrs and a million hawks, we'll veer North, and find a nook, or better a cranny, and wait for it. Goshawk, adult; Golden on an updraft, close, too close to take the shot; maybe something in a dark morph.
29 January 2010, Friday
Monarchs have an amazing story, just repackaged — Lincoln Brower, yada yada yada, Mexico — on NOVA. You can actually watch the thing online. A little like reporting on the new Apple product before the official roll-out, Jerry Coyne, UChicago evolutionary biologist, author of Why Evolution is True and the blog of the same name, has read a ready-for-publication article on Monarch size, migration and the genetics behind it. On his blog, he also notes a pre-release article on the article over at BBC Earth News that covers the study by retyping the press release, after a fashion. Dr. Coyne comments on the BBC reporting, but also on his questions about the study. The BBC report, written by Matt Walker, echoes this
conclusion in the report, titled “Supersized monarch butterflies
evolved to fly far.” [:] I just love this stuff. Coyne is questioning, yet respectful, but raises very interesting points, for both answering and further study... love that further study stuff. BTW, the paperback edition of Why Evolution is True is on the shelves this week — public, commercial, virtual — and it is the best read and reference for any professional teaching biologist... semi-pro or amateur with an interest.
28 January 2010, Thursday
I have a couple of simple rules for taking pictures. In my wildflower and mushroom days, I didn't step on or pick what I'd imaged. In lying on the ground to face the subject head on, I wouldn't obliterate any others of its kind. And when I picked up tripod, cable release, etc. it should look like I wasn't even there. For hawks, I don't flush birds off perches even if it would make a really good pict. Out the window with the rules, even if by accident today. Above is the final image in a short encounter with a young adult Redtail (that I thought would not be disturbed into flight if I played it right). As would be my routine, once the bird flushed, I delete those images on the spot, with traffic issues — uncommon on this familiar road — I neglected to that. I looked, expecting garbage, and decided to use them here. Done with me, the Redtail scans for the next issue before getting back to her hunger. Click on the image above, for two flight shots. I've been seeing this bird for a week or so at the low end of the Hayes Road field complex, where I'm only think I'm keeping tabs on three regulars right now. It's been a quiet week and the Winter along with it.
27 January 2010, Wednesday
If the Winter of Ought-9 and 2010 were a cat, isn't it (mostly) out of the bag? Or are you waiting still for big news/numbers to come out of the blue? First things first: this Winter is far from over... for those out there living it. February 28th is the full Hunger Moon, with March to follow, and while, at that point, you might think the worst is behind us, out in the wild it doesn't get any more stressful. Think about climbing Mt. Everest. For those who have make it to the summit the danger is just beginning, as most fatalities occur on the descent (when all reserves are at their lowest). Note to self: take a couple thousand milligrams of vitamin C and some serotonin... with a pint of cask-conditioned Middle Ages Boxing Day Bitter. Bird-wise, we now know enough about this Winter to know we're out of surprises, the big ones anyway. No influx of the following will occur: Snowy Owls, Rough-legged Hawks, Red-tailed Hawks, or Northern Shrikes, to name a few. But there a couple of Hawk Owls around, watch out for one more. February could be the beast of all Winters' Past, and no, we won't see a push down of the northern species (the top species). Here's what I presumed and reported coming into this Winter: based on the poor conditions on the breeding grounds, it looked like very few new northern raptors would be produced in eastern North America and therefore be around here, not... for Snowies and Roughlegs, most years, we see the juveniles mostly. Young Redtails from the northern clines pass on by, and we saw some/a few do that. So we hoped for some adults to wile away the observational time. Got some; hoped for some more, but the weather systems in December come more on an El Nino line and things stayed fairly mild and snowless... up where the birds where, which was somewhat South but not south-enough. I just watched Jane Campion's Bright Star (2009) about Fanny Brawne (Abbie Cornish) and John Keats. On the one hand, in these 19th Century period pieces, you don't want to be the character whose stage direction says, "cough now; a small cough," because you will be dead by the next act. But I do like the formality: the way notes, proper notes, arrive via carriage and a messenger knocks with the small elegant folded paper sealed with wax, for privacy. Online, I imagine posts from near and far this way (as often as I can)... For Bald Eagles this Winter, we caught a small wave along the shores of Lake Ontario and at the eagle grounds on Onondaga Lake (as mentioned last week in the local paper). Five, ten birds. A cold snap finally iced over enough water to concentrate what birds were near by. Through the Ontario Birding listserv, and Bruce DiLabio again, checking out Wolfe Island wedged between Kingston ON and Cape Vincent NY we heard of a pleasant surprise that sounds like it should be visible from the US side as well. Yesterday, January 24th spent part of the day birding Wolfe Island. It was quite a contrast to Amherst Island with only a few Red-tailed Hawks but 20+ Bald Eagles mainly along the south side and east end of the island. The the biggest reporting of Bald Eagles for the Northeast — Wolfeville, Nova Scotia — is in, and while the numbers are down there too, the numbers are impressive. Local, retired prof Jim Wolford started and runs this Winterfest. JAN. 23 (Sat.), 2010 -- 19th ANNUAL EAGLE WATCH AT SHEFFIELD
MILLS -- Good "eagles weather" continues (i.e. very wintry with snow
on the ground), very cold (-11 to 15 C. with a stiff cold wind from the west
that made it seem much colder) with clear skies. The only good spot I checked
in the morning, on my way to the community hall, was between Canard Road and
Saxon St. along the west wide of Middle Dyke Road, where there were lots of
cars and human gawkers/photographers for the approx. 40 bald eagles just perched
together in a small grove of trees well away from the road (distant viewing).
For Bald Eagles, with another freeze, we might see a mild push in our direction. On Sunday out ahead of the front (pictured above), Massbird
listserv reported a Golden Eagle, maybe
northbound. Both Roughlegs and Goldens employ this method,
where adults (males, mostly) slide. Slide is a lacrosse
term I use to describe an opportunistic movement North, in the direction
of home turf... the
urge to get there is too strong to resist, and of course it's evolutionarily
advantageous. Sliding, when detected, is often noted as only a few
birds that weren't around yesterday, seen today, and gone tomorrow.
On the other hand, unless you have some GPS tracking data, this is
just a theory. Now that we can see this movement on a few birds, this
looks like what they do. Chuck Johnson reports an Adult GOLDEN Eagle at 10
this am over Field Farm in Williamstown. He watched it for 5 minutes,
then followed it North where he rediscovered the bird as it was lazily
circling over the treeline along Oblong Rd. [We have no idea if that is what this particular GE is doing on this day in view of this observer.] With Roughlegs, we'll note increases in pockets from late January through February, but these will not be birds driven South. These will be adults sliding North. For better or worse, as the days lengthen and the hormones flow in these professionals, they will either hold their ground or inch their way up. The adult male American Kestrels too, try to hold their ground after the Solstice has passed. This urge gets stronger and stronger during the month of the Hunger Moon. For Northern Harriers it is all a moveable feast. No, I am not going to go all Ernest Hemingway on you. Being snow-intolerant, Harriers jockey back and forth throughout the Winter going where the snow isn't and then trying to hold their snowless ground. A Christmas Bird Count held on the first weekend of the count period might have ten Harriers, then those birds leave after a foot of lake effect snow falls... to a count circle without snow, where they are counted again the next weekend. A moveable feast.
26 January 2010, Tuesday
Have you heard of Elizabeth Gilbert? No? Ask someone with a pair of x-chromosomes and she'll tell about the woman writing about women these days... she's on top of that half of the world and the New York Times Bestseller List (right now)! Nowadays, Ms. Gilbert is the rare example of a millionaire non-fiction writer. Before Elizabeth Gilbert enter Oprah popularity territory with Eat, Pray, Love (2006) and Committed (2010), she was writing for GQ magazine and about the male of the species exclusively... fame, but no fortune there. Writing very well mind you, as The Last American Man (2002) was a National Book Award finalist and her earlier volume of short stories, a PEN Award finalist. Non-fiction novelists are often called journalists, maybe to distinguish (or extinguish) them from the real novelists. And if not journalist originally, the non-fictionalist has some jDNA in there somewhere. Here are three offerings for the Winter reader. I discovered and picked them up as they came out as paperbacks, on display on the storied window tables at the Harvard Book Store... impulse buying at its best: The
Last American Man (2002)
is as much anthropology as it is a biographic
endeavor about a young man with serious mountain-man skills.
Eustace Conway excels at living off the land and is driven,
often maddeningly so, to pass this lifestyle on to others.
Of course this arrested development presents all kinds of problems
for anyone who might try to closely associate with such a man-child...
in business, in a community, and any woman initially attracted
to him. Elizabeth Gilbert has her hands full too, but tells
his story truthfully; painfully. The Beast in the Garden (2004) is the Mountain Lion, as it lives in and around Boulder Colorado in the late '80s and today. And journalistic technique works well here for David Baron's study of the cougar... and us. This is an old story, the same story, but Baron retells it with facts, details, reporting, some history, and a lot of connections. All this: is a tall order, filled. Nature Noir (2006) is the first book by a guy who spent over a decade as a park ranger... and then wrote about it, a little like Edward Abbey. But his is a tale of the underbelly of the parks, not the soul of the natural places patrolled, as was Abbey's bottomline, always. Jordan Fisher Smith's memoir of drunks with guns, drugs, floods, thieves, and everyday law enforcement — a hundred miles from the nearest backup — makes for a gritty and often funny read, even if the book jacket comparisons to Abbey, Gary Snyder, John Muir(!) and Elmore Leonard are not lived up to in the end. Here's a nearly contiguous excerpt from early on in The Beast in the Garden: The author and champion of wilderness Edward Abbey,
who enjoyed a rock star-like following in Boulder, praised cougars
and urged their protection in an article for Life magazine.
"We need mountain lions for the same reason that we need more
bald eagles, golden eagles, Gila monsters, alligators, redtailed hawks,
coyotes, bobcats,badgers, wild pigs, grizzly bears, wild horses, red
racers, diamondbacks, sacred datura, wild grapes and untamed rivers,"
he wrote. "How to say once more what has been said so often? Who
is listening?" Abbey ended the article on a reassuring note. He
pointed out that despite America's brutal treatment of the mountain
lion—despite the butchery, the savagery, the humiliation people
had heaped upon the cougar—the cats did not respond in kind. "There
is no authentic record of a lion actually attacking a human being."
It was a nice sentiment, but Abbey was wrong. [...]
25 January 2010, Monday
For the experienced movie-goer, this is one of the best films of the year, although you'll see certain events coming a mile away and know that everything is prearranged to work out for all involved — this is a studio ride after all, so the twists and turns will be comfortable ones. But George Clooney and Vera Farmiga are paired like food with wine for delicious banter by director Jason Reitman — Juno (2007) and Thank You for Smoking (2005) — and that makes most top ten lists in any year. The movie is based on a book that's about ten years old, but you'd never know it... as the waves of corporate lay offs come in cycles. At its most rotten, the tale is about business euphemisms concocted to dehumanize an already cold-hearted enterprise. Only Donald Trump comes right out and says, "You're fired!" (because, that's a TV show). In the world of corporate cutters, Ryan Bingham and young Cornell MBA grad Natalie Keener (Clooney, and newcomer Anna Kendrick), turn termination into a faux positive experience in order to blunt anyone making a scene. It's efficiency. "Business is our business" is certainly the model for environmental organizations as there are more lawyers and MBAs than biologists working in "conservation" these days. Leading public programs for adults, I developed several bridges between science and the non-scientist, knowing that participants were well-educated, but just not in the sciences. In reverse, this term-turning works well with scientists who might want to communicate with those outside their "species." The first of these I worked up was the use of the term professional hawk (or owl, etc.) to put other species on equal footing with humans without getting into all the animal rights philosophy and boring folks into a intellectual stupor. It came from the old warning issued to kids back in the day of Superman, when the newscaster would say, "Now kids, don't try this at home." Usually prefaced by this is a professional actor, stuntman, driver, etc. (even today, car ads on TV have small print stating, "professional driver, on a closed course" so they are not libel for consumers thinking they should test the demonstrated suspension and braking systems on their neighborhood roadways). Also I used it to make hawks whole... and not just a sum of their parts. This over-sciencing of other species, mechanizes the organic, and prevents our reconnecting. From the tagline "don't try this at home," I naturally migrated over to "these are professional hawks... this is what they do for a living." Cutting to the chase in any discussion with an everyday business term is a way in, that I've found people relate to quickly. It's a starting point, that uses humor to relieve the tension of making a scientific point. Before Seinfeld Science and Woolly Bear Science, I used Tobacco Science, Real Estate Science and Creationist Science to put a harsh light on non-scientific thinking. With the rise of the MBA and introduction of business practices into all manner of the environmental field, I've added a few new terms. Here are three anyway.
22 January 2010, Friday
Not exactly lake effect clouds, this was a low cloud deck, kind of like fog but mostly made of hoar frost — you could tell when it snowed... particles of hoar frost! Good news: this stuff does burn off, like fog. So I took my time in Kingston, a two-college town: Queens University, the Harvard of Canada; and RMC, the Royal Military College of Canada. I like to pick up an actual paper edition of The Globe and Mail and hit Pan Chancho, one of the best little bakeries on planet Earth. Then, not knowing the boat was on hold for the entire morning, I sat at the dock, well, you can see the island from here. Many birders waiting through two more cancelled trips — the queue of long lenses can be impressive when the owls are in town. Bruce Di Labio & Co, from the Ottawa region, caught an early ferry before service was suspended and had seven species... an owling hat trick. And it's also nice to have the Owl Woods to yourself for awhile on what was clearly going to be a busy photog day. In the "Owl Woods" we found 1 Boreal, 3 Northern Saw-whet, 1 Barred, and 1 Long-eared Owl. At the East End (KFN property) there were 2 Snowy Owls and near Stella 1 Short-eared Owl was observed sitting on a fence post. Finally on the island, the caravan of owl hunters turned left, so I went right for a hawk run. While the birds seemed to keep their distance from the roadsides today , it was a fine day for some wintering raptors soaring under blue skies, followed up with a pint of Tetley's back in Kingston. Hawks (21 January): Owls: Also, I did have three juvenile Roughlegs from Rt. 81, between Watertown and the border, on the drive up.    
21 January 2010, Thursday
Like with George Lucas, it can be said that all of Cameron's stories have been told before, he has just seriously-updated the tale. Hey, I thought Titanic was easily the best film of its year (and, in the day, I saw over a hundred first-run movies/year). It is all about the storytelling which —on the screen, both big and small —includes the storyteller's visual ideas. Roger Ebert called out critics of Titanic for mocking the simple story and well-known ending with something like, "look, we know the story in many movies going in, and in this one: the ship sails; the ship sinks... but that's not the whole story." The storyline for Avatar is not chock full of twists and turns, if you go to the movies with some frequency and/or have a Joseph Campbell-sense of our best myths, but it is nicely told... and then there are the special effects. It is at this point that I recommend you plan to do something INDOORS (I will only say that once a year, and maybe not that often). Go see Avatar, in Real-D, ASAP. Tuesday's Science (NY)Times lead with an Avatar review/essay by Carol Yoon. Her NYT contributions are always interesting and, recently, she's the author of Naming Nature, about the past, present, and future of taxonomy (see Science, stra ight up archive: right column). When watching a Hollywood movie that has robed itself
in the themes and paraphernalia of science, a scientist expects to
feel anything from annoyance to infuriation at facts misconstrued or
processes misrepresented. What a scientist does not expect is to enter
into a state of ecstatic wonderment, to have the urge to leap up and
shout: “Yes! That’s exactly what it’s like!” The whole thing is a nice read, but I'm going to take strong exception with Yoon that her viewing this film in 2-D was a perfectly fine way to view Pandora and what James Cameron had in mind. (Cue the Na'vi language translator module here), "No, no, no, and OMG no." Real-D makes this a movie-going experience not to be had any other way. Anything less than that is: not it. Avatar is also available at an IMAX theater, maybe nearby or maybe not, but I have no latent urge to see it there based on the experience I had at the well-calibrated local cineplex. Before the film there's Real-D's intro to their technology — like the old theater surround sound promo made to use every bell and whistle the sound system could muster— here the Real-D logo ball appears spinning in high definition out in the middle of the theater. Previews of the next Toy Story, in 3-D, plus a couple of other Summer (insert "blockbuster" here) movies will prime you for "Our Feature Presentation," because during Avatar, there will come a moment when you will have the urge to brush small bits of falling debris off your shoulder (I kid you not). This is not on the menu if you save two bucks and see the red-headed 2-D version. Once you've seen it, you'll instantly know when someone else talking about Avatar, hasn't. 20 January 2010, Wednesday
Onondaga Lake is a curiosity, as its an inland salt water body with a rich oral history. Later, white settlers conducted their commerce here, and into the early 20th century, we used to actually recreate in it... you can find the old-timey brownish photos of those activities, and when I was a kid in the fifties, you could still see a hint of this and imagine the rest. The lake is kind of famous for collegiate regattas too. While you still don't want to fall in there if you can help it, people canoe, kayak, sail a little, and fish in it nowadays. In fact, Onondaga Lake is on the international professional fishing circuit — two seasons of the year! In summer, it's the professionals with boats and sponsors... looks like a NASCAR event but with boats and fish and sponsors. I'm sure there's a cable channel for that. In Winter, a different professional fishing tour comes to town: Bald Eagles. And just about a year ago, I got an email from Syracuse Post-Standard columnist, Sean Kirst, because when he Goggled "Bald Eagles and Onondaga Lake," my web site came up. He included his phone number, and we talked for nearly an hour about this new local phenomenon, on background (as we say in the media sourcing biz). Since his column can be about anything local, 99.5% human though, a natural addition to the community was nice. Sean also brought in the view from the Onondaga Nation, who of course, have lived along Onondaga Lake nearly forever. And all this was very well received both in print and online. Online, Syracuse.com can be updated from both ends, and it was — with comments from readers and additional images from a staff photographer. Spilling over to the sports section, where hunting and fishing has its own beat writer, readers submitted their own picts of the Bald Eagles on Onondaga Lake. Yesterday, under the category, "great minds think alike," as I was rooting around collecting links for this blast from the past piece, I noticed that Sean had just done an update for this Winter at Syracuse.com! Speaking of wintering Bald Eagles in eastern North America, where would you go to see a gathering of eagles? The most birds, I mean. Would it be the Delaware Water Gap or along the Hudson? How about the Connecticut River just above New Haven, the Quabbin or Newburyport by the new/old chain bridge? Local is always a good idea and right now is the best time. But I'm asking about the most wintering Balds. Add up all these numbers from these fine sites and you'd fall short of the greatest gathering: Wolfville... that's in the Annapolis Valley (no, not that Annapolis). Still don't know?
19 January 2010, Tuesday
For a charitable raffle in New York City a meal was the prize. The winner would be the guest of this prize's benefactor: a dinner for two, of their choice... anywhere in the world. Now the cost of this adventure was wholly paid by the host, as the two would enjoy the meal together. In Paris (!), as it turned out, with one of the courses in this twenty thousand dollar outing being whole birds. We're talking, items like a blackbird, defeathered and cooked whole — you pick it up by the legs and pop the rest into your mouth and chew. Somehow I remembered that. In the Beirut establishment, of course the food is expected exotic by way of how spices have evolved to both flavor and preserve food in the local environment. ON a balmy Middle Eastern night, our feast was rolling
along fabulously on the outdoor roof terrace of Abd el Wahab, a vaulted
and marbled Beirut gastropalace, when a flock of birds made a sudden
appearance. As it turns out, and not for nothing, my two favorite definitions of "wilderness" involve food references. First: a bit of an unknown concept to his 18th Century London club membership, wilderness was defined by the traveler — just returning from seeing the New World firsthand — as, "A large dark damp place where wild birds fly about, uncooked." And: wilderness exists as a very real place where there are animals, in that wild place, large enough to catch you, kill you, and eat you.
18 January 2010, Monday
Along with McDonalds, Kellogg's, Healthy Choice, his is literally another brand in the food biz of late, but certainly in another direction. All four of his books about our eating habits are disarmingly simple reads, but Pollan leaves you shocked and/or enlightened every page or two. While the others get more geopolitical, Desire is about the botany; the science... and natural history. But because these are all short books, Pollan handles the science like he does the politics — with crystal-clear 'oh' and 'hmm' moments preceded by interesting, yet factual tales that lead you right up to the point. You don't have to have any scientific interest in botany, just be ever so slightly self-reflective, to be smiling and nodding (to yourself) within a few pages of this one. Non-fiction and nice story-telling are not mutually exclusive, as Michael Pollan's success on the bookshelf, Kindle, TV, interview and lecture circuit attests. All manner of formats are available for your Pollan-a-tion. And while I'm always likely to cite an interview on The Daily Show, when available/possible, Bill Moyers on PBS had a pre-election '08 interview showing the influence, beyond the usual non-fiction realm, that he is having in these times (but, okay, there is a very recent appearance on TDS too — January 4th). Google Books is a monster project that would put everything online that's in-print. The Botany of Desire is there, and can be sampled... actually you can read just about the whole book with selected (legally randomized) pages omitted. Creepy, IMO. My point in reading, still, is the use of a warm book, or something on my iPhone screen that I've put there with the intention of reading "cover to cover." To have and to hold. So, I recommend The Botany of Desire, along with the rest of the Michael Pollan Winter '10 Get Acquainted Tour. And you'll especially enjoy reading about the (true) Reagan Revolution (and it was all about the smoke).
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