Natural splendour, real musics, wines, wordpower
This post’s subtitle owes an apology to Wendy Carlos.
(Wendy, who was originally named Walter, is most famous for her 1968 LP “Switched-on Bach”).
This post includes a musical bonus; like the featured image, it involves Tibetan Buddhism…but not J.S. Bach.
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Two questions arise when considering all three birds in today’s featured image.
The obvious one: “clearly, their wings are not black, so how do they merit their name?”
The other one: “why is Himantopus himantopus in the Guinness Book of Records?”
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The featured image looks north/ish, to the silhouetted edge of the Namib’s “sand sea”, circa 40 kilometres east of Sossusvlei.
I took the photo at 7.37 pm – Sossusvlei’s sunset time on 21 November 2022.
This little series’ final image was captured 7 minutes later.
Had I had available the necessary time and technology, I would then have loved to listen to a particularly sublime musical creation which I first heard in 1989, and which amazes and inspires me, still.
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Natalie and Walt have just unwittingly delayed the promised leopard post!
(it will be the next one, I promise)
The photo alludes to one of my favourite Walt Whitman poems, from Leaves of Grass.
Most printed interviews with musicians are time-wasting, publicist-driven piffle.
A notable exception is The New Yorker interview, published today – worth reading, whether or not you admire/know Natalie Merchant’s singing/songs.
There aren’t a lot of people writing love songs to Walt Whitman.
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South India’s large terrestrial mammals hog the limelight, but its insects, amphibians, birds and reptiles are equally worthy of appreciative human attention.
The non-mammals offer an enormously higher number of individuals and species, with a mind-bogglingly diverse array of shapes and colours.
Butterflies abound.
The pictured individual is a member of this region’s (probably) most oft-sighted butterfly species.
One CommentThis post’s musical bonus really is astounding, I think.
November 4 2022, at Okonjima, was one of the most rewarding days of our lives.
The immediately-preceding post’s leopard encounter was its most electrifying moment, but we also saw another leopard, giraffes galore, cheetahs, many other animals, and some beautiful country.
Circa 7 pm, we adjourned to a hilltop, to enjoy “sundowners”…and/or the actual sundown.
I took the featured photo at 7.06 pm.
The other images, below, are in chronological order.
One CommentImagine (no, not that song) this:
The Tardis delivers a very surprised J.S Bach into the present day, with no briefing.
He finds himself seated at an interesting “new” keyboard – a grand piano.
Atop it is a device, pre-loaded with a diverse selection of music/s from the second half of the 20th century.
He is given absolutely no “background information”.
The printed instruction to him says, “press button to listen to these pieces, then improvise upon whichever one most pleases you”
JSB is intrigued by I Am The Walrus.
Q: what would he do with/to it?
A: perhaps, something like what you are about to hear….
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All four images feature the same moon.
However, as is true of just about anything observed more than once, “our” moon offers an infinite number of different “faces”.
The featured image shows a “blood moon” over Perth’s Lake Monger at 9.31 pm on 31 January 2018.
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This post’s actual footprints come from bears in Alaska, birds on the Indian subcontinent and continental Australia, a Tasmanian wombat, and humans in an African desert and Australian suburbia.
The musical bonus is courtesy of one of the greatest jazz musicians – equally so as composer, virtuoso instrumentalist and inspired improviser.
There’s also a metaphorical footnote which involves New Zealand’s largest farm…
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Gnu/wildebeest are bona fide antelopes.
However, as the Blue Wildebeest’s scientific name – Connochaetes taurinus – suggests, most human newcomers assume that wildebeest are bovine beasts.
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