From Carlos Martinez del Rio, a man with a serious library, a quote from Giacomo Leopardi, “… a wonderful Italian poet of the early 19th century” : “Works of ‘literary’ genius have the intrinsic quality, that even when they capture exactly the nothingness of things, or vividly reveal and make us feel life’s inevitable unhappiness, …
Author: Steve Bodio
Raptor vs Rex
Moro Rogers has a delightful new serial webcomic, featuring the adventures of a (properly feathered) “Raptor”*. * Mark Witton will explain why “Raptor” is a dumb common term for Dromaeosaurs. Not Moro’s fault– she knows Dinos– just pop culture’s.
Two Videos for your weekend pleasure
And to end the week with something more than the exploits of idiots. Both from the same shop at the Beeb, the one that gave you Goshawks flying in slow motion through holes in a wall; the first via Lucas Machias. I have seen the second and it goes well here.
Carriage Horses Redux, and a Win…
Another essential dispatch from Jon Katz at Bedlam Farm. “No one really knows how many millions of dollars NY Class, PETA, and a coalition of animal rights groups have spent trying to mobilize public support for the carriage horse ban and bullying the members of the City Council to pass the mayor’s carriage horse ban… …
One More Link
Best Product Description: “Icelandic Beer Made From Smoked Whale Testicles”. Really. “We started last year with our first whale beer, Hvalur 1. The health department didn’t want us to produce it at first, but we were allowed to. The beer used whale meal as an ingredient, and it was something new for Iceland. It sold …
Links II: Three videos
What would you do if a a wolverine dug you out of a snowbank? A rescue wolverine? The only person I know who survived an avalanche (I know a few who were killed) was my late father- in- law, Libby’s dad Ken Adam. I would have loved to ask him that question… Who says sea …
Links I: Feathers and Carriage Horses
…which I have been neglecting. With a book deadline and one for a big article not too far away, the impending operation, and things like four- hour “Neurological Psychology” tests, these more than one hundred miles away– I won’t burden you further, but I can be distracted. But: FEATHERS. I an a bit disappointed that …
Malcolm dissents
Malcolm Brooks, author of Painted Horses and a capital- F Friend of Q, was so appalled by an Adam Gopnik anti- gun rant in the New Yorker that he wrote the furious and sometimes even funny riposte below. Turns out he was “baited” with an old essay, but the truth remains. Apparently no one at …
James Salter, RIP
James Salter, novelist, is dead at ninety. The BBC report, which Reid sent, said that he “never converted critical acclaim into commercial success.” Really? He was a “writer’s writer”, and a maker of perfect sentences and some small perfect books, as well as a big one– in that sense, and because of the slightly icy …
Painted Gunstocks
If you are like me the mere idea of a painted gun would likely make you wince, or at best grin condescendingly. The idea of decorating stocks sounds kitschy, something crude and maybe embarrassing, at best folk art. You would be wrong– I was. My first clue was when Gil Tracy, a man of taste …