Giant Tulips March on Capitol

They grow 'em pretty darn huge here on the grounds of the state Capitol in Madison. Note how some of them are big enough to dwarf the statue of Hans Christian Heg.....

Breakfast!

I passed this patisserie 25 years ago, somewhere in France or maybe Belgium or Austria or Switzerland. Even if I invited all my friends and neighbors, the contents of this window would make for a dejeuner that is anything but petit.


Bonjour avec happiness!

Dashboard Pear

Sometimes, "because you can" is sufficient rationale to act on a juvenile flight of fancy.

Barking up the Wrong Mushroom

I'm neither mycologist nor arborist. Indeed, when it comes to identifying fungi, my utter inability exceeds my ignorance of tree species. But that doesn't mean I can't appreciate the impressive esthetics of each. Take these mushrooms, growing on a birch up north....


As for trees, there are those who can name a tree based on a brief glance at its bark. Not me. Well, I think I've got the birch down. At least, as a genus. But don't ask me to taxonomize the species....


Beyond the most rudimentary taxonomic identifications, however, I might as well be watching the old Monty Python routine involving the larch (And now, number two, the larch -- the...larch). This might be a larch, for all I know....


...but I just like the look of its bark.

Twilight Frog Opera

There is a small lake up north, near a town with a name that means towering hill and another town with a name that means stop. At twilight, the frogs establish a chorus that is operatic.



The next morning, the operatic twilight frog chorus is replaced by arias of birdsong, and daylight reveals the small lake in greater detail as gusts of wind riffle the water's surface.



The duck is quackless. A decoy.

PT Cruiser Blue

I often walk or bike past this PT Cruiser on the commute to and from work. Reckon it's one of the most beautiful paint colors I've ever seen on a car.

Word Spy Etymologizes Flotsametrics

Paul McFedries' Word Spy site, which tracks and documents the etymologies of neologisms, has a good one this week that relates to the first word in this blog's title. It's flotsametrics, a noun defined as "the use of floating debris to study ocean currents." The listing goes on to list sample citations, including the earliest known usage, by the scientist who coined it, during a 2003 appearance on NPR. If you've read The World Without Us, by Alan Weisman, or have heard of the North Pacific Gyre, this is a word to savor.

Zombie Lit 101

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies is a big hit for Quirk Books, one of the more intriguing publishers on the contemporary landscape. I'm looking forward to reading Seth Grahame-Smith's collaboration with the late Jane Austen....

I was never all that enthusiastic about Austen's original work, but the addition of zombies to a stuffy novel of manners holds some promise of being better able to hold my interest. Which leads me to wonder whether there's hope for the publishing industry after all. Imagine the possibilities!...

The Zombie in the Rye
The Zombies Karamazov
20,000 Zombies Under the Sea
Around the World in 80 Brains
Far from the Madding Zombies
Gone with the Zombies
The French Lieutenant's Zombie
Tender is the Zombie
A Portrait of the Zombie as a Young Man
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Zombie
Of Zombie Bondage
The Zombie Also Rises
The Sound and the Zombie
The Zombies of Wrath
The Great Zomsbie
I, Zombie
The Heart is a Lonely Zombie
The Naked and the Zombie
The Maltese Zombie
The Old Zombie and the Sea
The Old Man and the Zombie
A Clockwork Zombie
All the King's Zombies
A Connecticut Zombie in King Arthur's Court
A Farewell to Zombies
The Zombie Always Rings Twice
One Flew Over the Zombie's Nest
Alice's Adventures in Zombieland
The Zombie of Oz
Tarzan, the Zombie Man
Tess of the Zombievilles
Zombie of the Baskervilles
Gulliver's Zombies
The Canterbury Zombies
Wuthering Zombies
Of Mice and Zombies
Lady Chatterly's Zombie
The Zombie of Monte Cristo
Brave New Zombie
Aesop's Zombies
A Tale of Two Zombies
Grimm's Zombie Tales
The Adventures of Hucklezombie Finn

Not to mention the potential of Shakespeare's canon...

Romeo and Juliet and Zombies
A Midsummer Night's Zombie
The Merry Zombies of Windsor
A Comedy of Zombies
Twelfth Zombie
The Taming of the Zombie
Two Zombies of Verona
The Zombie of Venice
Much Ado About Zombies

Plus, there are all those titles out there that wouldn't have to be changed at all, such as....

The Way of All Flesh
From Here to Eternity
Naked Lunch

Admit it: You can visualize the narrative for each and every one all of these titles, or at least the ones you've read. At a time when the publishing industry is struggling, and the economy is in a shambles, this could be a means to employ every would-be author in a recovery program to rival FDR's Works Progress Administration.

Brains!

D'oh!

The USPS released the new 44-cent Simpsons stamps today. Don't have a cow, man!

Lake Monona Legs

They ran the annual Lake Monona 20K this morning, 12.4 miles, clockwise, around Lake Monona. This is one of the oldest foot races in Madison, dating to the mid-1970s, maybe the early 1970s -- it used to be on the old Vilas Running Club schedule, somewhere between February's 10-kilometer Freezeroo around Lake Wingra and May's Syttende Mai 20-mile run from Madison to Stoughton. The race has changed organizers at least a couple times over the 30 or so years it's been run, but it's still going. There were 653 finishers today -- 373 men, 280 women. About three-fourths of the way through the race, somewhere between nine miles and the 15-kilometer mark, Joe Kurian had already opened up a lead of several minutes en route to a dominating victory margin of four minutes, 31 seconds. A few minutes after he raced past the site where Harry Whitehorse's Effigy Tree will soon be re-installed as a bronze casting, I turned on the camera to catch the next 20 pairs of legs. In between the tap of footfalls on Lakeland Avenue, I listened to the birds in the trees.

The Ultimate Human?

Just back from seeing Dobet Gnahore's performance tonight at the Wisconsin Union Theater (thank you, David and Cathy!), thinking she may be the most highly evolved human being ever. What. A. Voice. And such amazing physical presence. I went back into the archives to find this clip of her grand entrance at last summer's Fete du Marquette. Sorry about the distance and the instability and the way the clip cuts off (the second clip, following, includes a complete song, if not greater stability and proximity)....




In this second clip, well, I'm at a loss to preface it. I've never seen anyone move like this and still be able to sing.....



I'm agnostic, but I believe some people are touched by God.