Odious and Peculiar |
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Philology and esoterica: scribblings, ravings and mutterings. Contact Odious at odious5-at-lycos-dot-com. Odious' Linkses, My Precious
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Wednesday, May 14, 2008
Terry Teachout visits Santa Fe in preparation for the 2009 premier of his opera (well, his libretto). The Letter will be composed by Paul Moravec and is based on a short story by Somerset Maugham. Says Teachout: If you don't know the plot in any of its various manifestations, take it from me, it's the stuff operas are made of. Lust, betrayal, murder, blackmail...what's not to like? I feel like singing already. Paul and I are shaping it into a very tight structure (ninety minutes, no intermission) that we hope will have the feel of a film noir and the punch of a verismo opera. Think Tosca or Carmen directed by Jacques Tourneur and you'll get the idea.It's rather gratifying that Moravec refers to Santa Fe as an American Bayreuth. Ongoing progress reports are listed on the right sidebar of Mr. Teachout's web site. This one has a lot of potential. Get tickets early! In fact, 2009 would be a great season to indulge in subscription seats. Besides The Letter, they're doing Gluck's Alceste (more Gluck, please!), Donizetti's L'Elisir d'Amore, Don Giovanni and La Traviata with Natalie Dessay: stellar, and all new productions except the Mozart. Labels: New Mexico, opera Pretty clever for an online quiz:
Labels: poetry Friday, May 09, 2008
Things you don't see every day Since I took the trouble to rant the other day about the spectacular absence of water from New Mexico, of course I immediately go out and find counter examples. Here's a waterfall I visited yesterday, not huge but plenty festive, near El Rito. As good as the waterfall, but much harder to photograph, was the enormous quartzite outcrop that formed the gorge.
The river is charging like this for miles. These falls were the beginning of a fantastic gorge, full of continuous Class III-IV whitewater, pushy and very fast.
A big rapid. Those two V-waves are much bigger than they look in the photo. Spring wildflowers on a river bench.
The river canyon had no trail and as I was crossing one of many talus slopes a boulder rolled under my feet. After scrabbling a second trying to regain balance, I keeled over onto my right hand, which emitted a very audible snap, like a popsicle stick breaking. I lifted up my hand to see my ring finger pointing a good sixty degrees right of normal, clearly dislocated at the proximal joint. Thankfully, the pain was much less than I would have expected. But the "Holy Shit" factor was high, seeing a body part so far from its wonted environs, and the fight-or-flight response was very strong. I wanted to move, now, to be somewhere else right away. Also, since I wasn't thinking too clearly, I was not quite sure whether the thing was just dislocated or actually snapped through. An initial attempt to pull some traction and put it back in line was not satisfactory. Can I hike out like this? Bad idea. Fortunately, the cerebrum engaged: "You've got to deal with this now, before the adrenaline wears off." All right, brain. I staggered to stabler ground. It's just dislocated, or it would hurt a lot more, right? Right. I hooked the finger through a loop on my camera bag to achieve a solider purchase, and pulled. Traction in line, then move it smoothly back into position, just like the WFR instructors say. Second time worked like a charm. Next step: extract first aid kit, swallow ten ibuprofen, splint it to the neighboring digit. It's nice to see wilderness medicine theory work in practice, gives you some confidence that they don't just make it all up so your rescuers have something to do while you die, like CPR in the field. My one regret, a serious regret, is that I didn't stop to take a gruesome picture. At the time I was worried that it would be frivolous and irresponsible; now I feel differently, with posterity to consider. But it looked very much like this, except on the ring finger:
Labels: flood, New Mexico, Photography, rivers, wilderness medicine Monday, May 05, 2008
Who is buried in Friedrich Schiller's tomb? Lots of people other than Schiller. Seems like a situation of which he would have approved. Labels: literature, oddities Sunday, May 04, 2008
Sketch of...is well worth your time, if you are the sort of person who said to themselves, 'Ooo! Analytical engine!' when you read that. (ht) "...we could grow all the fuel the United States needs using 1/10th of the land space of New Mexico..." By covering that 10% into fancy algae incubators. It might not be the worst use for a tenth of New Mexico, provided it's the right tenth. I'd definitely nominate Roswell, Artesia and environs, which have no discernible charm to lose by being converted into algae. I'm sure the stuff also smells better than Artesia does currently. Seriously, though, I assume the chappy in the link was using New Mexico largely just as a land-area comparison. While southwestern states possess certain recommendations for such a project, viz. lots of sunlight and available open space, they have one major negative: there's no water. None. It's all spoken for. One commenter to the linked post asks, "I wonder what portion of the total area of the state of New Mexico is currently dedicated to growing corn for ethanol. 50%? 75%? 100%? More?" Actually, the state's entire harvested cropland represents only about 1.1% of New Mexico's acreage; irrigated cropland about 0.8% (figures from 2002; these numbers are trending significantly downward, I expect because agricultural water rights are being diverted to residential development). These aren't typos, easterners; we are not Iowa. People from other parts of the country really can't imagine how little water we have around here. The video doesn't address whether the water in these algae tanks can be conserved and reused, but if not, that's a deal-breaker in most of the West. Lots of brilliant ideas for using our open spaces and unexplored resources seem not to consider this inconvenient reality. Labels: New Mexico, technology, the West Some nights ago I was indulging in a nip of red wine and a bite or two of chocolate, when I heard a small voice. "Ahem. I contain ze sulfites." Turned my head, looked around. Assessed the level of the bottle. "I beg your pardon?" I asked. "I contain ze sulfites," said the wine. "You should be aware of zis." "And why is that, o bottle?" "Well, I am sure I do not know. But if you did need to know, I 'ave done my duty." "Ah." I poured another glass. The wine muttered a long phrase sotto voce. "What was that?" I said sharply. "I said," it replied with exaggerated care, "zat I should not be consumed by ze women who are or may be pregnant." "What?" "Ze Surgeons General thought it was important. Zey are smart fellows, you should listen to zem." Giving up for the moment on the wine, I turned to the chocolate. "Do you have anything to say for yourself?" I asked. "I'm chock full of antioxidants!" it chirruped. "Ask me about my health benefits!" "You two," I said, "are getting worse than my breakfast cereal." "Unfair!" said the wine. "True," I said, considering. "Nobody is worse than the breakfast cereal. Just sitting there on the table, mumbling to itself like Rain Man. 'Vitamin A 25%. Vitamin C 2%, Riboflavin, definitely 35%.' You know, it's talk like this that makes my work a living hell. People are so flipped out about eating well that they're avoiding things for no reason. I had one person--neither coeliac nor intolerant--ask me if it was okay to eat gluten. She didn't even know what it was, and she was worried about it." "I'm gluten-free!" said the chocolate, before the wine and I shushed it. "And what is ze gluten?" "It is an," I enunciated, "ergastic amorphous protein." "Ah." "Quite. Real food doesn't even have ingredients! It's just, 'bacon'. Or 'milk'. Or 'bread'. Maybe 'bread with things in it'. But look at you. They've got you spouting off about sulfites and birth defects. O tempora, o vino." I looked to the bottle, but as it was empty, it had nothing left to say. Labels: food, horrible creeping statism Saturday, May 03, 2008
Camel demand soars in India... ...in response to high gas prices, apparently. Once again, your genial host Peculiar proves to be on the cutting edge of history: I've been demanding a camel for quite a while. No dromedaries, please. I need a big, shaggy two-humper that can deal with deep snow. A pair would be ideal. Labels: mammals, strange requests Thursday, April 24, 2008
Nobody thinks clearly, no matter what they pretend. Thinking's a dizzy business, a matter of catching as many of those foggy glimpses as you can and fitting them together the best you can. That's why people hang on so tight to their beliefs and opinions; because, compared to the haphazard way in which they're arrived at, even the goofiest opinion seems wonderfully clear, sane, and self-evident. And if you let it get away from you, then you've got to dive back into that foggy muddle to wangle yourself another to take its place.--the Dain Curse, Dashiell Hammett Labels: philosophy, quotes Friday, April 18, 2008
Detail:
...scarcely more than a hundred Gallina remains have ever been found, said Tony Largaespada, an archaeologist with the U.S. Forest Service who made the discovery in 2005.More, with photos, here. Like the six other bodies found at the site—all members of a now vanished culture called the Gallina—Stargazer met a brutal end. Her neck had been broken, with her head snapped back so far that her skull rested between her shoulder blades.Also interesting: '"Probably the most famous thing about the Gallina is the towers they made," said Tony Largaespada, a U.S. Forest Service archaeologist. "[People] call them Gallina towers, and they almost looked like medieval European castles."' Though there were no such towers at the location we visited, the site's defensive aspects were pretty unmistakable, with two separate structures set away from the main alcove, commanding views of the canyon. Here's a rather lousy photo of the upper one:
It also seems noteworthy that no modern Puebloans claim any ancestral connections with the Gallina. The Jemez, for instance, seem remarkably vehement on the subject. To add one final, even more Lovecraftian touch, the site contained several deep holes that reached horizontally back into the sandstone. The largest was remarkably deep, perhaps 25 feet. It seemed as though it extended even further, but was blocked with a large stone that looked for all the world like it was deliberately placed. Another such crevice was similarly blocked. For all the progress in Southwestern archaeology, there's still a lot of room for play of imagination.
Labels: archaeology, New Mexico, Photography Wednesday, April 16, 2008
A short film of some very old school rockclimbing. Today's climbers will find it pretty primitive, but even I learned to climb with a bowline around the waist and belaying around the body. However, this is one of those occasions in which progress really does represent improvement. I must say, these folks' technique looks dubious even by 1938 standards. Also, clearly television's catering to the idiots in the audience is no recent phenomenon. Tuesday, April 15, 2008
A new one for the sidebar: Nature Lyrics, the blog of a very fine wildlife and macro photographer in India. For a quick taste, check out his vultures and snakes. Browse the galleries too; among much else there are some excellent sloth bears to be had. Labels: biology, Photography Sunday, April 13, 2008
A victory for the anti-mining faction in Crested Butte. Some background here. As I said in the earlier post, I have mixed feelings about this; however, I can't say I'm unhappy about the news. Labels: Colorado, environment, the West Saturday, April 12, 2008
Masai warriors will run the London Marathon. I cannot tell you how much joy this gives me. (ht) Labels: running It's Christopher Smart's birthday! Or it was, yesterday, when I meant to post this. Most people know For I Will Consider My Cat Jeoffry, which is excellent. I will confess that always closest to my heart is the following couplet: Of all Spring's blossoms I like best My sunlit wife, herself sun-dressed. Labels: poetry Thursday, April 10, 2008
England's thatching crisis. It sounds truly aggravating: a combination of perverse agricultural policies combining with drastically over-zealous preservation efforts to kill an ancient tradition. Via Cronaca. Labels: agriculture, horrible creeping statism Tuesday, March 25, 2008
Almost missed this one: John Derbyshire reviews a collection of nature writing, and gives a very nice tip of the hat to Steve, who is not included: The [political] Left survives and flourishes because, as well as there being plenty of people whose satisfaction in life is to boss others around, there are even more who are willing to be bossed. Those who are not so willing — persons of a prickly-libertarian temperament — often head out to the wild places, to end up as lovers of the raw creation. There is, too, that aspect of the conservative temperament that abhors sentimentality and wishful thinking, and greets with happy recognition the cycles of death and mayhem that comprise most of the natural world's activity. I am thinking here, in both cases, of the Western writer Stephen J. Bodio, whose 1998 memoir On the Edge of the Wild offers an eloquent hunter's perspective on nature.The review finishes, unexpectedly, as a positive one. I note with amusement and approval that he prefers unknown writers, "writers I had never heard of, but whom I am glad to have encountered," among whom he numbers Ed Abbey. And though I agree with his assessment of two samples which he rightly mocks as purple prose, I disagree about his Eliot Porter quote: In the winding canyon dark and light reflections replace one another in slow succession. The gentle wake of the boat breaks these images into undulating spots and patches, each wave for a moment holding a fragment of sky mixed with golden globules of sunlit rock.I suppose Mr. Porter may be justly accused here of having failed to convey the moment to a distant audience, but the moments here described are a very large part of why I squandered years of time and set myself far behind my peers financially working as a ne'er-do-well river guide. Sunny canyon reflections on shaded water, broken by concentric ripples from my quietly dripping oars: it was worth everything for that alone. Also worth noting is Mr. Derbyshire's mention of the decline in outdoor recreation: While reading America's Earth I came upon a report just issued by the Nature Conservancy, telling us that people are spending less time in the Great Outdoors than ever before. Activity in this zone has been declining for twenty years, the researchers tell us. The annual per capita rates of decline have been from one percent to one and a quarter, depending on the type of activity measured — camping, backpacking, fishing, hiking, hunting, or trips to national and state parks and forests.I here this a lot, and it's probably true, but it's often hard to believe. It seems to be an instance of Yogi Berra's "No one goes there anymore. It's too crowded." So many places are positively infested with recreationists (as Mr. Derbyshire may recall from his hike to Inspiration Point in Grand Teton, where he missed the Peculiars by only a couple days). Even Nevada is becoming a destination, while REI, EMS and their ilk seemingly continue to flourish. I know people (assholes, I might add) who use delicate Arch as a Frisbee golf hole. I suppose it's true though. Outdoor activities are now dominated by gearheads and destination vacationists, while locals who use their public land backyards on a regular basis do seem to be on the wane. The economic demographics of outdoor recreation are also unencouraging. My river company, which is actually a non-profit organization ostensibly dedicated to exposing the voting public to wilderness, recently raised prices on trips because people seemed to assume that our low cost reflected low quality. Bookings went up and honest working clientele continue to decline. Still, though many places are overrun, a great many aren't. They can have Grand Teton and the Maroon Bells. There are areas right next door where I can still be confident of not seeing a soul. Labels: environment, literature, the West Saturday, March 22, 2008
More Tibet ...without (much) commentary from me. It all gets increasingly convulted; judge for yourself. Here's an interesting perspective from a mountaineer who's been in Lhasa (scroll down to post by Corax towards bottom). The poster is a serious Swedish climber, and his observations are not to be lightly dismissed. To be fair, though, I had not had the impression from the international media that the Tibet protests were peaceful or harmless. Meanwhile, here's another assessment of the state of Chinese and international media. Here's an account of alleged Chinese cyber attacks on Tibet activists, Uighurs and Falun Gong. And here's a report that China may ban live broadcasts from Tiananmen square during the Olympics. Labels: China |
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