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Category: nature and travel

Kings Park Banksia Garden, May 2021

Published June 4, 2021 by Pelidoug

Kings Park Banksia Garden, May 2021

This post, the two recent Boab posts, and two future posts are all fruits of the afternoon of the same day – 20.05.21.

Southwestern Australia’s Spring flowering is indeed one of the world’s most astonishing and beautiful natural phenomena, and Kings Park in Spring is guaranteed to leave any Northern Hemisphere resident’s jaws agape.

It is, however, a BIG mistake to pay attention in Spring, only.

In southwest WA generally, and Kings Park specifically, you can easily see some extraordinary endemic species, in full bloom, at any time; Kings Park’s Banksia Garden never disappoints.

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Tropical, transplanted, fooled, thriving…(sequel to immediately previous post)

Published May 25, 2021 by Pelidoug

Tropical, transplanted, fooled, thriving…(sequel to immediately previous post)

The featured image is surprising enough – young boabs thriving, on the rim of Kings Park’s Mt Eliza, overlooking South Perth – a place with an utterly “wrong” climate.

Just a few metres away – and altogether more amazing – is Kings Park’s more recently-arrived but very much older boab.

If Guinness had a “longest road trip ever undertaken by a large, living tree” category (to qualify, the tree must be alive, still, a decade after its relocation) the tree pictured below would surely hold that record.

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Autumn leaves…but not as you usually know them

Published May 22, 2021 by Pelidoug

Autumn leaves…but not as you usually know them

Not all deciduous trees have home addresses in cool temperate parts of the Northern Hemisphere.

This one’s home is in a very particular part of tropical Australia.

This individual is circa 750 years old, weighs 36 tonnes, and is thriving in a place with quite the “wrong” climate, 3200 kilometres from home.

Even more amazingly, to get “here” it survived uprooting, followed by almost certainly the longest road trip ever undertaken by a large, living tree.

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Revelatory Covers (#17 in series): “When You Come Back Down”

Published May 20, 2021 by Pelidoug

Revelatory Covers (#17 in series): “When You Come Back Down”

(the “metaphorical” featured image shows climbers on what many believe to be the world’s tallest sheer rock-face…it isn’t)

This very poignant song was written a quarter of a century ago.

Its co-authors, separately, have recorded it, but the most celebrated version is a “cover”, issued 20 years ago.

None of those recordings quite “nailed” it, I think.

As of February 21, 2021, there is a “definitive” version, performed “live”…

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Life Goes On/ Happy 85th birthday, Carla Bley

Published May 12, 2021 by Pelidoug

Life Goes On/ Happy 85th birthday, Carla Bley

 

In the USA, it is currently “yesterday”,  Tuesday, 11 May, 2021.

I hope that Carla Bley is enjoying a very happy birthday with her beloved, Steve Swallow.

For rather more than my entire adult life, Carla Bley has composed, arranged and played singular music, variously – sometimes, simultaneously – provocative, surprising, very amusing, satirical, sublimely lyrical, complex, seemingly-simple…

Her three most recent releases – all, new trio recordings of new music, made between 2013 and 2019 – are some of her finest, ever.

read moreLife Goes On/ Happy 85th birthday, Carla Bley
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Revelatory covers (#16 in series): Rhiannon Giddens sings “Calling Me Home”

Published May 5, 2021 by Pelidoug

Revelatory covers (#16 in series): Rhiannon Giddens sings “Calling Me Home”

If the almost-titlepiece of Rhiannon Giddens’ new album were new to your ears, you would probably assume it was a venerable “traditional” song, probably from Appalachia.

Listeners who already knew many traditional Appalachian songs would likely be mightily surprised that they could have hitherto missed such a superb, particularly haunting one.

In fact, Calling Me Home was authored by Alice Gerard; it was titlepiece of her 2002 album, issued in the year of her 68th birthday. (An even better album is Follow the Music, which Alice Gerrard recorded – mostly “live” – in her 80th year)

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Word power: Arundhati Roy excoriates Narendra Modi

Published April 30, 2021 by Pelidoug

Word power: Arundhati Roy excoriates Narendra Modi

 

Direct quote from Indian Prime Minister Modi, crowing, in January 2021:

Friends, it would not be advisable to judge India’s success with that of another country. In a country which is home to 18% of the world population, that country has saved humanity from a big disaster by containing corona effectively.

Arundhati Roy, describing India’s ghastly pandemic reality in April 2021:

The system hasn’t collapsed. The government has failed. Perhaps “failed” is an inaccurate word, because what we are witnessing is not criminal negligence, but an outright crime against humanity.

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Anvil Beach, again (postscript to #6 in “Deep South WA meets Southern Ocean” series)

Published April 27, 2021 by Pelidoug

Anvil Beach, again (postscript to #6 in “Deep South WA meets Southern Ocean” series)

If you are “new” to Anvil Beach, it would be a good idea – before you proceed further – to see/read its earlier post

This one is the fruit of a visit/swim (my beloved did all of the swimming) at the end of an unusually hot day.

The featured image, taken at 6.03 pm on 18 March 2021, shows Anvil Beach’s “anvil”.

read moreAnvil Beach, again (postscript to #6 in “Deep South WA meets Southern Ocean” series)
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