Courtship of Satyr Tragopan:
Author: Steve Bodio
Building art by Mary
Mary often accepted architectural art projects for money, and word got around, so it wasn’t all houses for vain rich people. Easton, Mass, where we grew up, has more architecture by the Gilded age architect Richardson than Boston, because he was a friend of the Ames family, the town squires. Many years later, Mary bcame …
Good Bones
Several people have sent me links to Nora Krug’s Washington Post essay on Maggie Smith’s poem “Good Bones”- you know, the one that begins “Life is short/ Though we keep it from our children” (sorry, no link- still hypertext challenged). Although I agree with everything she says, and recommend the essay, which also features Smith …
One of the Many Reasons I like Khanat
Email 2 days after 9-11: (His name has changed its spelling through the years, but that is not surprising in a culture with at least 3 official languages and at least that many alphabets).
Mary T . M. Bodio 1925 – 2018
My mother, Mary Theresa McCabe Bodio, died last night after a long twilight fade. As my sister Karen said “She was a tough old broad.” A genteel woman, she probably wouldn’t have liked that. She was beautiful, talented, more intelligent than she often pretended. She also could be a difficult woman.The last time I saw …
More “Remains”
WWII- era Ithaca- made 1911.The old rubbed finish reminds me of pewter… Lawrence of Arabia’s copy of Norman Douglas’s Together You can always recognize a Douglas book BACKWARDS because of its weird indices. And know your book trivia. I got this almost free in Berkeley because I was the first person (in 5 years) to …
Urban Coopers
My theory about the New Cooper’s hawks we deal with is that the population is an early incipient species, branching off by isolation in diet and other things in the manner described by Menno Schiltshuizen as a mechanism for SYMPATRIC speciation, something more conventional scientists deny exists (Shiltshuizen convinced Ernst Mayr) Evidence? Their population has …
What Remains 4– Association copies.
I have LOTS of them, and will feature more. The thrush decoy or “Appu” is from Provence- I bought it from a young hunter named Fabre, while staying in his town researching Fabre, the first great student of insect BEHAVIOR, a self- taught peasant who impressed Darwin to the point of writing a fan letter …
Unusual Honor
I dont know what to say. A friend has just named a hotel after one of my books! Khanat Chiryazdan, my old guide and the proprietor of Blue Wolf Travel, IMAO the most interesting travel service in Mongolia (especially if you like eagles), has built a hotel in Olgii city and called it…. “Eagle Dreams …
The Goddess
(Our name for her- her real name is “Mail Orher Brides come with baggage”) was painted by Penelope Caldwell just before we stayed with the Caldwells on our first Laramie visit. Lid & Penelope She stood at the foot of our bed, glowing and glowering, and by the time we left I was in love. …