East/ West: Architecture

Or “vernacular” architecture in Christopher Alexander’s words… This is NOT Magdalena (though I have had people insist it is and even locate it); it is Bayan Nuur in Olgii aimag.Nor are these.This is:I even put plastic on the windows.

Our Crew Goes Viral

Patrick Burns links a video, which comes to our Asia Group via Karen Myers– and turns out to be our gang here in NM. Terence Wright, lurcher Loki, and Gyr- Prairie tiercel Cog are family. They have appeared here before and I hope will again soon- we have hunting plans. The team(photos by Daniela).Cog on …

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Tamgaly Rock Art

Whether because of (quite plausible) shared ancestry or (more I would think) the “Darwinian” demands of environment, climate, and materials, both rock art and vernacular architecture resemble each other in central Asia and the dry west. Compare Reid’s images below to these from Tamgaly, in the dry steppes a couple of hours north of Almaty …

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Frederic

Peculiar sends a link to the latest– there always seems to be news– on Emperor Frederic the Second (1194- 1250), of Sicily and the Holy Roman Empire (which wits will still tell you was none of the three)…I have been trying unsuccessfully for years to sell a book on Frederic and his surviving relics like …

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Guns vs Spells

From Peculiar who writes: “I’ve often thought that aspects of the Harry Potter epic would have been improved by this approach….” Also check his blog link to an artist who has drawn The Call of Chthulhu in the style of Dr Suess, including rhyming text– brilliant! As he says, “We have an infant who will …

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Granddogs & others

More running dogs… Dan Gauss writes to tell us his Galgo girl has just given birth to a pup with Lashyn AND Plummer lurcher on the paternal side. UPDATE: “Department of corrections: re: grandogs. It’s just the opposite. Galgo *boy* sired litter of uno. Plummer and Lashyn are on the *maternal* side. A singleton, born …

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Fat Horses

Large- mammal and Pleistocene maven Valerius Geist thinks more is going on with the spotted horse cave paintings below than just realism– be cites their exaggerated fatness as well: “Horses in top condition thus have a large gut-fill, expanded further by storage fat about intestines and omentum. Consequently, the belly bulges downward. Simultaneously, the fat …

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Hawk Trapping

Leonardo Trujillo, a new falconer and friend of my apprentice Gary Moody, just trapped his first redtail “Rojo”. He may find that such “getting ready games” (term from Bil Gilbert) are almost as addictive as falconry itself. Meanwhile, congratulations!