Would You Look At That!

No, it's not really a post from me, more a link to a double-whammy series of pictures over at the always-excellent Natural History of Bodega Head. It's a tiger beetle. With eighth notes.

Remember, Man. . .

This was supposed to go up for Ash Wedesday, but I am at the mercy of the library computer for a couple of days. Not a cheery song, but oddly haunting.

'Tis the First Moth of Winter

It's the time of year when bold and early moths might be sighted, and while it always comes as a pleasant surprise to run across one, this is certainly the first time that I have had the delight of having the year's first moth literally handed to me. . .Also, it is the first one in my experience that has been made of paper. I have marvellous students.

Merry Indeed!

I had been long suffering under the impression that a book review was a utilitarian form of writing. Not that I don't appreciate the help a good one gives, whether to point me at something I should read, steer me away from something I shouldn't, or highlight all the points I missed in something that I already did. I cannot say, however that I ever enjoyed a book review with anything beyond a mild appreciation, a timid awe, or perhaps, in the case of something I had already read, with a certain sense of polite camaraderie with the reviewer. Until this morning, that is. I can now say that I have read a book review that, of itself, just plain made me glad to be alive. A good, and a boisterous review, a cheery, brawling, quarter-staff-wielding--oh really, never mind all of this introduction. Just go and read what Sean Fitzpatrick wrote about Howard Pyle's The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood. It's jolly!

'Nuff Said

". . .I notice that one day is bright blue, another brown and foggy, another cold, clear and silvery, and my mood varies accordingly. On the bright blue day my spirits go slightly down; there seems something pitiless about perfect weather. On the clear cool day, my spirits are normal. In the fog, my spirits go up; it feels like the end of the world, or better still, a detective story." 

-G.K. Chesterton

"Old Forms and Ceremonies," The Illustrated London News, September 26, 1908

Busy Season

My copy of Bayard Taylor's Eldorado is, at long last, getting some perusal, if not yet a thorough reading. The book is certainly a credit to the journalistic skill of its author, a reporter sent from the New York Tribune to chronicle the events of the California Gold Rush. The news may be old now, but it makes good reading still.

Based even on so cursory a reading as mine, it would be difficult to pretend that the passage which begins below is the most momentous, the most historically important, or even the most interesting, that the book has to offer. It is, however, amusing, poignant, rather astonishing, and anyone who has ever dabbled in customer service might, in a dark and exaggeratory mood,  persuade himself that it has certain familiar aspects. If you click the text below, it should land you at the beginning of the story, which runs to the top of page 213.
 

Public Service Announcement

Tomorrow (very early, in California, 9:00AM in Glasgow) the BBC will be streaming the World Pipe Band Championships. Catch some of it!