Researchers want to know: One finding that might be surprising, given how much time we spend in our beds: Men and women don’t seem to give any consideration to sleep patterns when choosing a mate. Random thought: Why do we say "sleep like a baby?" Sleep like a dog is more like it…
Monthly Archives: November 2012
Marlon Brando ambles insolently onstage: Paglia
Camille Paglia describes a familiar scene, and makes it new: Marlon Brando, carrying a “red-stained package” from the butcher and sporting blue-denim work clothes as the lordly, proletarian Stanley Kowalski, ambles insolently onstage at the opening of Tennessee Williams’s A Streetcar Named Desire. “Bellowing” for his adoring yet tart-tongued wife, Stanley is the strutting maleContinue reading “Marlon Brando ambles insolently onstage: Paglia”
NorCal preps for promised ARKstorm: 12 Inches?
CA has had no significant extreme weather since December 2010, when a series of atmospheric rivers took an unexpected tour fhrough Southern California. Both the precipitation totals and the graphics for "ARKstorms" are jaw-dropping. In 2011, the USGS issued a massive report on an ARKstorm that left the entire Central Valley approximately six inches deep in water, forcedContinue reading “NorCal preps for promised ARKstorm: 12 Inches?”
Bear vs. people: How can we avoid killings?
Reporting in the Wall Street Journal implicitly challenges the endangered species narrative of wildlife* by bringing up the important fact that across vast regions in these United States, the forest has recovered from utter devastation at the hands of 19th-century Americans. With the forest has recovered a host of iconic species in vast numbers, includingContinue reading “Bear vs. people: How can we avoid killings?”
Thought experiment: Imagine the end of NYC by drowning
Can't really do it, can you? Don't worry, it's not you, it's us. If we can’t imagine our own deaths, as Freud insisted, how can we be expected to imagine the death of a city? From a great op-ed/essay by James Atlas. In today's New York Times, of course. With an image to match…
Knitters gone wild: “Guerilla grannies” surprise Ojai
Thanksgiving is the heaviest on food of all our national holidays, and perhaps the lightest emotionally — coincidence? Not sure, but for the Ojai Valley News, here's a fun story that I think fits the occasion, about the latest in organic chic — yarn bombs. Other descriptors: Yarn bombers. Guerilla knitting. Yarnstorming properties. Guerilla granies, Here's anContinue reading “Knitters gone wild: “Guerilla grannies” surprise Ojai”
The only ones who know spring is coming: Jack Gilbert
The poet Jack Gilbert died this week, after a long illness (which usually means cancer, but in his case meant Alzheimer's…a story well told in the Los Angeles Times). Gilbert was brilliantly eulogized in Andrew Sullivan's irreplaceable blog, and in passing Sullivan mentioned the name of his poetry editor Alice Quinn, formerly of The NewContinue reading “The only ones who know spring is coming: Jack Gilbert”
The little girl and the Beasts of the Southern Wild
Without doubt the movie this year that most effectively dramatized the precariousness of life on the environmental edge in these United States, including sea level rise, was Beasts of the Southern Wild. Below is a central image from that powerful film, and an explanation of a story told in glimpses. You can't take your eyes ofContinue reading “The little girl and the Beasts of the Southern Wild”
How to start a conversation: David Brooks
David Brooks, the conservative columnist for The New York Times, can be irritating to a Californian: During his first term, President Obama faced a wicked problem: How do you govern in a highly polarized, evenly divided country with House Republicans who seem unwilling to compromise? The GOP did not "seem" to be unwilling to compromise.Continue reading “How to start a conversation: David Brooks”
The great and the small: Mary Ruefle
From a spectacular essay in Poetry by Mary Ruefle: I remember John Moore, another teacher, who did the damnedest thing. We were studying Yeats, and at the beginning of one class Mr. Moore asked us if we would like to see a picture of Yeats. We nodded, and he held up a photograph of YeatsContinue reading “The great and the small: Mary Ruefle”
Kit Stolz 