Dancing Around the Four Sides

Ugh, very blah today with more overcast skies and cold rain. On the other hand, I am reading Robert Jackson Bennett's City of Stairs and so far it is tremendously good, with some impressive world-building and an interesting lady protagonist.

Here's some cool stuff I saw today ...

1) Looking for the origins of modern horses. The horse pictured in the article resembles nothing so much as a giant Dalmatian. :D

2) Neandertals were making cave art about 65,000 years ago. In other words, before Lascaux, Altamira, and Chauvet.

3) Not your ordinary red cardinal. You guys, this bird is GORGEOUS.

Eh, that's all I've got.

Hot and sunny again after our bare minimum of rain yesterday.

Here, have a photo that is giving me all kinds of delight:


Edison's Light, by Robert and Shana ParkeHarrison. 1999 photogravure. You can see more ParkeHarrison works here, here, and especially here.

Warm and humid after thunderstorms rolled through last night, but we did (and do) need the rain.

Saw this on my Twitter feed this morning (retweeted by Neil Gaiman) -- ancient cave paintings show moving animals. Now, I think we'd actually known that before now, but here's something that was new to me: thaumatropes were discovered in the caves. What's a thaumatrope? It's like a button or a coin -- a disk of thin stone or bone, with a different image carved on each side. A hole was drilled through the middle, and a bit of twine or sinew threaded through, and then when you pull on or twirl the string, the "coin" flips back and forth, and ... the two images "move." It's animation, on a very small scale. Here's the Wikipedia page on thaumatropes, with a 19th-century example, and here's a tiny little video (page down) of a paleontologist making and demonstrating a copy of one of the ancient thaumatropes. The video is in French, because that's who's been doing the research, but it's pretty easy to follow. *g*

Anyway. Thousands of years ago. Thousands of years ago, animation. Animals standing, running, leaping, by the light of flickering torch strobes. The persistence of vision in little bone buttons. So much beautiful wonder. :-D

1) Cold, overcast, and very windy today.

2) Had a small glass of sparkling wine with Thanksgiving dinner. It was from (of all places) New Mexico, but it was very nice. Tasty and cheap reasonably priced. *g*

3) Made this recipe for applesauce-spice cake yesterday. Substituted rum-soaked raisins for the walnuts and did not make the frosting. It was still delicious!

4) This sounds SO AWESOME. (It's the daily Audubon Page-Turning at the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia.)

There. Four things make a post. :-D

... and a happy Fourth of July to folks who are celebrating. We're observing the holiday by hiding from the heat and doing laundry. Oh, and watching the Law & Order marathon on TNT. *g*

Fascinating obit from the Telegraph today -- Otto von Habsburg, last heir to the Austro-Hungarian Empire dies, aged 98. Otto's father (Karl) was the last official Emperor; Otto was Crown Prince but never assumed the throne. When Otto was born, an Austrian newspaper said that he “will be called upon to steer the future of Europe in the last quarter of the 20th century.” Which means that in an alternate version of history, there would still be an Empire in the center of Europe, and a lot of people might be carrying passports issued Im Namen Seiner Majestät Franz Joseph Otto, Kaisers von Oesterreich, Königs von Böhmen, etc etc., and stamped with an imperial black double-headed eagle. AUs, I love 'em.

I should pick up a good history of the Empire. I've read A Nervous Splendor but not much else.

I know because I saw one of these guys while I was out:


Tyrannus forficatus, the Scissor-tailed Flycatcher.

(Not my photo -- it's from the Texas Parks & Wildlife folks.)

Sunny and warm, and four things that have caught my attention (and/or made me smile) the past couple of days ...

A stampede of baby pygmy goats (and an old dog).

Dinosaur visits Australian school, terrorizes (and enthralls) children.

It's ... an ancient golden wang. (May not be work-safe.)

Wonderful eyewitness account of the 1906 San Francisco quake by an observant young woman.

Warm and very humid. It rained a bit this morning -- we were supposed to have a lot of rain but instead it developed into a storm line east of us after it had already come through. 69 damp degrees (20.6 degrees Celsius) with a breeze out of the south southwest.

A few things that have made me happy this morning ... hearing the gurgly, mournful call of a white-winged dove. Watching a squirrel try to break into the squirrel-proof feeder (HA!). An interesting article in SFGate on books about Mexico. The discovery of Genki Sudo and his World Order:



Okay, I cannot recommend these guys enough. Their vids are terrific, and the music, while a bit J-Poppy, is also pretty good. Some of the moves that Sudo pulls, in this vid in particular, remind me very much of David Byrne zoning out in his Big Suit in Stop Making Sense. They're funny, clever, hypnotic ... these vids make me happy. Really happy. Two other great vids are here and here. Give them a try -- they really are amazing. An interesting side note is that Sudo is a former Mixed Martial Arts and kickboxing champion, which pretty much means he could kill someone with his little finger. Sara Hess, one of the writers for House, Tweeted about these guys, and that's how I found them.

So. Onwards.

Still sunny, still (too) warm for the season. 89 degrees, 31.7 Celsius. Mr. (or Ms.) Opossum was in the backyard again last night, snuffling around under the bird feeders. Chango was mightily roused, and huffed and puffed and growled and snarled at the intruder. I wouldn't let her out, and after another moment the possum used a nearby tree as a ladder and trotted away along the fenceline.

Laundry day, etc. Have been spending the morning paging through some of the photo galleries in Art Daily -- a particularly nice shot of a sea bird is ( under the cut ...  )

Hazy sun, warm, 86 degrees (30 degrees Celsius). Mr. N is engaged in a lot of paper-shuffling because he's going to Miami tomorrow evening for a couple of days. My thumb and wrist feel a lot better (although they're still sore). This is another weird thing about all this -- whatever hurts will hurt ferociously for about a day and then ... just go away.

Not much going on yet, so have an absolutely amazing nature photo. It's from the Telegraph and is totally work-safe -- it's a confrontation between a jackal and a vulture, and was taken at Giant's Castle Nature Reserve in Kwazulu-Natal, South Africa.