aug 13
In memory of Su Tieman, the best role model a young girl could ever have.
This is Polynices, whom I believe was one of Su’s monkeys. Ink on paper, the full drawing is 15.5 x 22.” As usual, it is a work in progress, but also as usual, it might be finished. The drawings take so long, I never know until later on, or until I ruin one.
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August 13th, 2008 at 4:16 pm
Here is a painting of another Polynices:
http://www.nga.gov/fcgi-bin/timage_f?object=61391&image=15689&c=gg61
SEE:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polynices
For the Classic Comics version of what he is about. Interesting name for a monkey for damned sure! I just name my snake “snake” and have done with it. Being part of the Oedipus family is experiencing the true meaning of “dysfunctional”. It’s not just your father is an alkie or your mom watches game shows.
Hey, any more on the story of the Copperhead and Slate-throated Redstart? I would love to hear it.
AND: Is it possible to talk more about Su?
Mark
August 13th, 2008 at 5:12 pm
Re: copperhead & slate-throated redstart: 2 different stories.
Betty? Betttttttttyyyyy? If you don’t wanna, I’ll do it…
August 13th, 2008 at 5:29 pm
Polynices reflects a group of monkeys with names more erudite than some others, e.g.: Hash, Snort, Bud - you get the picture. Just who was responsible for what I don’t know because I was too young. Am curious.
I believe the monkeys were not officially named (they were numbered), but that the names arose because that was easier to remember?
August 13th, 2008 at 7:13 pm
Thank you Betty (see comments for last entry)!!
Slate-throated Redstart: was the craziest and most expensive twitch I have done (abandoned my road trip with my father, then: extra plane tickets, multiple flight changes, extra hotel rooms, & extra drinking after a couple of unsuccessful days). I finally got on the bird; it flew in very close to me and did its nice tail-fanning thing. Gorgeous bird, but when I went to photo it realized it was way too close for the lens I had on the camera - couldn’t focus on it. So you just wait for it to move a little farther away, right? Except when it is only briefly at the edge of the densest AZ hillside, and after flashing its fanny at me moves deep into twig country - obscured, impossible to focus on. So instead of worrying over lame blurry shots, I put the camera down and just watched it until it finally moved on. I left all the documentation and “capturing” needs behind in favor of just being in the moment, and it ended up being a quiet and phenomenal experience.
But when I got back to Betty, my co-conspirator, and had to break it to her that I had found it, all I could do was whisper “It was so close I couldn’t get a picture of it.” Good thing Betty found the bird the next day. Which, sadly, was its last - it was later found dead and determined to have been killed by an accipiter.
August 13th, 2008 at 8:26 pm
At least eventually Betty got the bird. Whew! Otherwise it would read like 90% of the more typical (and frustrating) birding experiences. Lots of stress, lots of time wasted, lots of coveting your fellow birders sighting, BUT no “happy ending”. Argh! There is no such thing as Tantric birding.
August 13th, 2008 at 8:41 pm
Can’t resist…
CATHY: “It was later found dead and determined to have been killed by an accipiter.”
ANONYMOUS: “By a winged serpent of European heraldry? I doubt it.”
CATHY, biting her tongue: “Not an amphiptere, an accipiter.”
ANONYMOUS: “Oh, so he emerged from the nineteenth Egyptian dynasty and killed the poor bird?”
CATHY, through clenched teeth: “No, no, no. Accipter. Not Merneptah.”
ANONYMOUS: “I think the story might be slightly less ridiculous if at least it had been erect at the time.”
CATHY: “Alright, fine! Exactly! It was killed by a flaccid peter!”
…
…
…
Well, all your talk of bush-trimming and pole-greasing drove me to it!
This isn’t exactly the one I want, but it’s close:
http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2002/6/19/claw-shrimp/
August 14th, 2008 at 8:19 am
Irony of ironies for someone who has a Cathy Hamilton original of a field mouse in his hallway and whose grandmother invented endless stories of talking mice, I have to kill a mouse tonight that was probably attracted by my bag of birdseed.
I tried to seal it out in the hope that it would go elsewhere, but no luck: it got back in and went from the birdseed to the container of Whole Foods almonds that’s probably worth the equivalent of a day’s pay.
I’ve read that house mice don’t do well in the wild, so I don’t see any other options. Sit waiting for the crepuscule, then set my traps. An upsetting day. I’m not a prayerful person, but I am a mystic of sorts, so I’d appreciate any thoughts that anyone would like to send to the mice of the world, and the hope that I won’t have to trample the water-bead Zion again soon.
August 14th, 2008 at 9:17 am
“Polynices” is a bit more affected than the names used in the early days. I can’t imagine the 30yo CRH using that. Matthew, Mark, Luke and Otto were more his style then. Hash, Snort and Bud sound like a Mike Sullivan contribution, and Mike certainly would have ribbed CRH endlessly for the use of “Polynices”.
I remember the pre-computer days when monkey data were stored as printouts on paper rolls. One night in ‘68 or ‘69, Su left one monkey’s roll spread across the desk and went off for a break. One thing led to another and she didn’t return until the next morning, only to discover that the janitor had thrown out 2 yrs worth of data, much of which was being analyzed. The dumpster was already emptied. Not a happy time!
August 14th, 2008 at 1:51 pm
Jesse:
SEE:
http://sminthophile.blogspot.com/2007/07/apollo-smintheusthe-mouse-god.html
And you were SO close recently.
Mark
August 14th, 2008 at 2:07 pm
re: maus:
It is astonishing at how loud a mouse chewing can be in the middle of the night - I remember one from an old apartment in Providence. I tracked it down to my cupboard, in which the mouse had snubbed various tasty grains and pastas for the cabinet wood. I grabbed a chair to stand on and watched it, behind the glass doors, then slowly opened it. The cheeky thing didn’t even budge, so I went and got an empty yogurt tub to try and trap it.
As I lowered the tub over the mouse, it finally went into action. It ran towards me, took a two-foot bounding jump right at my face, landed on my chest, RAN DOWN MY BODY, hopped off the chair and disappeared under the stove.
Now I ain’t afeared of no mice, but at three in the morning that got the adrenalin going.
August 14th, 2008 at 2:12 pm
This is almost not-funny. Phobias are not funny. But this is still kinda funny:
August 14th, 2008 at 2:20 pm
SMINTHOPHILE!
The most recent post is hilarious too:
http://sminthophile.blogspot.com/2008/08/guns-dont-kill-people.html
August 14th, 2008 at 3:18 pm
Fave roots reggae singer from the 80s (not as great NOW as he was THEN when I interviewed him):
http://www.eeksperience.com/
Fave CURRENT DJ absolutely seriously:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JbXLp2z6xL4
And my very first record SERIOUSLY (remember, I am a child of the ’50s):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pp94Es0qoy4&feature=related
This latter bit of children’s fascism was drilled into all our heads who were alive at the time. That’s why it appeared in Full Metal Jacket.
And yes, Unca Walt was buried with his “ears on”. I have the inside scoop from one who was there (animator).
Mark
August 14th, 2008 at 3:57 pm
Phobias are powerful. A much taller and much stronger friend once came at me with a syringe, teasing — I slammed him back against a wall, sprained his wrist. (I laughed at the video, though.)
Embarrassed to say that I still haven’t listened to the very well reviewed Gray Album. I’ve got to. I’ve got a mashup of “Encore” (heard in Mark’s video) and “Numb” on mp3 that I really love, though.
Don’t know what my first album was, but it was something Sesame Street. Grover Sings The Blues, maybe. I was five; my sister was crawling. Mom and Dad would give me a break from her by putting me in the playpen (and Carrie outside) with my Fisher-Price record player and a stack of LPs — I’d listen to one after another.
I’ll spare you, but albums and cassette tapes are part of my long-winded theory about how between the toys and the advances in technology, it’s hard to beat being born in the late 70’s and growing up in the 80’s. And will a decade ever be more appropriate than the 90’s for being a sullen teenager? Cue “The Alternative Polka” from Weird Al.
August 14th, 2008 at 5:50 pm
My favorite mouse “quote” was said by animator/director Paul Terry, who was the genius behind the original Mighty Mouse. I have to paraphrase it because I have yet to dig the very exact quote out, but I have used it in many a class. In a nutshell: “if one mouse running around in a cartoon is funny, then 100 mice running around is 100 times as funny.” And if you watch a lot of early Mighty Mouse-es (Mighty Mice?), there is inevitably a scene in which the bad cat is chasing around a whole lotta mice who are just scurrying hither and yon like furred mercury blobs.
When hiking in winter, if I come across any bluebird boxes, I rap on them or even open them to see if there are flying squirrels in them. Most of the time there is nothing, and the few times I have had something, it’s usually been a white-footed mouse, which once just launched onto my chest and ran down the length of my body. This of course was when I was with a large class. It was a definitely an “eek! a mouse!” moment for me and I made an utterance like some schoolgirl. Much to the amusement of my class.
Jesse: PUL-eeze!: the acme of sullen decades was the 80s: You had Reagan AND the Smiths, Joy Division, The Cure, Bela Lugousi’s Dead, and the beginning of Post Modernism. We had sullen-offs with (ironic) prizes on a daily basis.
Mark
August 14th, 2008 at 7:49 pm
Me: sitting at computer
Mom: sitting across the room on another computer
Mom: (suddenly, loudly) M-O-U-S-E! (as in Em-Oh-You-Ess-EEE)
watching your 71 year old rocket scientist mother sing along to the Mickey Mouse Club theme: Priceless.
thank you Mark.
August 14th, 2008 at 8:16 pm
Me: Mom what are you doing?
Mom: Oh, we used to watch that in college.
College???
August 14th, 2008 at 8:25 pm
Catherine:
I wish I was there to join her in a chorus. It’s always sung best in a group. 71 years old…college…sounds right on the nose to me. Extremely cool. I told you it was ingrained in all our brains.
Mark
August 14th, 2008 at 9:37 pm
Only a few moments before out the door….
MARK: Interesting! Guess I see sullen differently. I’ve heard Joy Division/Smiths/Cure described as cold, but for me Nico (as one example) is the real sub-zero: actually pulling warmth from the room. The 80’s (as much as I like JD and many others) I see more as vacant, blank, bloodless. Who is the 80’s artist (this is killing me) whose work inspired Gaiman’s Desire character, all the porcelain post-Deco androgynes in purple and green? Sullen, maybe, but for me there’s a black bile to real sullenness. The silence only giving you the anger behind it. A brackishness. Malignant.
Forgot to mention how terrific Apollo Smintheus is. Thanks.
August 15th, 2008 at 8:26 am
BTW: as your Mom will likely remember, at the end of the Mickey Mouse Club, they had an outgoing theme, but much slower than the rousing intro theme. That theme ended with:
M (em) I (eye) C (see: “see you next week”) K (kay) E (eee) Y (”why? because we LIKE you!” BTW:boys hearts melted when post-pubescent Annette said that), then really slow and sort of melancholy: “m…o…u…s..e.”
This was literally the first example of “must see” TV, though Jack Paar, Steve Allen and some others were up there too. When we were in college, still nobody had TVs in thier rooms yet, but in the student center folks watched Sid and Marty Kroft stuff, General Hospital, Laugh-In and the lottery to see who was going to be sent to Nam. It was always packed on those nights. Worst game show ever.
Mark
August 16th, 2008 at 4:22 pm
Hey - comment followers (e.g. people who pay the most attention) - I am trying a new way to show photos as part of this blog. So that every time I have some photos to augment a post, I will show them in this format. Let me know what you think!
photos: http://birdspot.tumblr.com/
August 16th, 2008 at 7:37 pm
Catherine:
Looks great. Also, when I clicked on the photo, I was then back in the blog.
JESSE: RE: Sullen. Here is what I think is the funniest pop song in the last few months and in some unclear way, a comment on our discussion. Love the name of the band. And their CD starts with a great a capella ditty: “Boys, Girls and Marsupials”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gyCi4CMD29w
August 17th, 2008 at 1:52 pm
CATHY: Agreed — things look great. Now that you’ve got art, a journal, and photos, all you need to do is add iTunes playlists, occasional recipes (candied walnuts especially), movie and boardgame reviews. The traffic will support advertising, and you can eventually make a living from just being Cathy Hamilton. The kind of thing we all dream of for ourselves.
MARK: For a medievalist whose specialty was Old English riddles and enigmata, unclear is usually best. How do you find this great stuff?!
I’ve been a wombat nut for years. I bought a tiny figurine of one when I was in Melbourne and put it on the hotel breakfast table one morning so I wouldn’t lose it. The waiter, serving me something or other, said: “Bittah mike shaw yeh wombat doesn’t git to it fuust!” Knew it wasn’t mockery by the conspiratorial wink.
August 20th, 2008 at 11:56 am
Why an all too literal interpretation of lyrics combined with a complete and willful ignorance of the rhythm of the song do NOT a good music vid make. This may be the worst music vid OF ALL TIME.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0TAZNEELEvkIME.Mark, bring on the weekend
August 20th, 2008 at 12:47 pm
Mark - could you repost that link? seems to be malformed.
August 20th, 2008 at 1:04 pm
August 20th, 2008 at 2:51 pm
Wow. It’s like, literal. But not.