I never tire of watching the great winter flocks of birds like starlings, moving with eerie grace like some superorganism, supposedly by obeying very simple rules. (Photo, sent anonymously a year or two ago, by Manuel Presti; thanks, PD!) This is most obvious when birds are under attack.Bill Kessler sent this amazing YouTube filmed in …
Author: Steve Bodio
Aunt Eudora
Our friend Marilyn Taylor is the poet laureate of Wisconsin as well as mostly a formalist, a so- called “New Traditionalist”. Though hardly stuffy, as this excerpt from an old favorite about a retired midwestern lady totally in command of the situation, demonstrates. From “Aunt Eudora in Paris”: Somewhere in this vast and graceful city …
Mongol Tazis?
I never saw a tazi in Mongolia but there is evidence they exist, as in this folk painting. It is a common genre but this is the only one I ever saw that had tazis, never mind a Kazakh eagler.Andrew brought me back this wonderful little study in another modern style– I have a horse …
Quick Updates with Historical Musings
Libby found a link to Tom Russell’s paintings, mentioned below, at Rainbow Man gallery in Santa Fe. Good bio too. Asian art seems a continuing interest to readers here. Eric Wilcox sent this Edo white gos. (The screens below are also Edo).On the Edo era: David Zincavage links to an Economist piece by one Henry …
Commonplace Book
A not- so- obvious one from the samurai- artist Musashi, one of painter Tom Quinn’s idols: “Do not need too many weapons.” Not.. too many…
Gallo…
… de Cielo!This whimsical portrait of Tom Russell’s celestial fighting rooster came to live at Casa Q for my 61st birthday, as Tom and Libby conspired. Or as he put it, “…that was one we kept in our private collection but it wanted to move to Magdalena near the other wild birds.” (In addition to …
Illustrated Gun (and Asian Hawk Art)
As part of my downsizing/ upgrading I bought my scrimshaw grips a new gun (1911 .45 of course), a Kimber Ultra Carry II with night sights. Mel at Ron Peterson’s threw in an ingenious holster that can be used right or left side, cross or regular draw, with no alterations.The design is based on a …
Cool
From “Max”:I believe I know that guy (;-); (pic is from 1998 but I have plenty more). He IS cool, and can out- drink me:
Xigou
Sir Terence Clark has just returned from China. He writes: “I was in Shaanxi Province of China in October 2010 with the Xigou (pronounced See-gow) hunters, one of whom had previously asked me whether I thought his hound was a Saluki. After examining a whole range of these hounds, I can only say that superficially …
The Fragrance of Grass
Guy de la Valdene’s new memoir The Fragrance of Grass (title from a line in a Jim Harrison poem) is out, and it is wonderful, even better than his earlier good books I think. It is an unusual combination of almost Proustian (but rural) memoir and sporting reminiscence, perhaps with echoes of Turgenev’s “notebooks” as …