I don’t know about a banana (see Matt’s comments below) but most Americans would see a double rifle from England, with its barrels arranged side by side, as a shotgun. We have not quite NEVER built a double rifle here but I would be surprised if we had built over 100 in the last century. …
Tag: Random Weirdness
“Carrier” Pigeons and Pigeon Paraphernalia
So- called Carrier, ie messenger pigeons (sophisticated bird folks know they are Racing Homers, not the heavily wattled show bird of that name) have been in the news a lot lately. Reid sent this article about a lost WW II messenger from the legendary Code and cryptography center Bletchley Park discovered in an English chimney; …
Excuses for Missing Work
I THINK I got this from the WSJ last week but all I have is a clipping… Dog was having a nervous breakdown My dead grandmother was being exhumed. Toe was stuck in toilet Upset by watching Hunger Games Sick from reading too much Hair turned orange while trying to dye it another color My …
Fabre and Japan
This is not an analysis of the real importance, ignored these days except in Japan, of the pioneering ethologist of insects, the 19th century Provencal autodidact Jean Henri Fabre, who started life as a peasant kid herding sheep in the harsh hills of his home country, and later single- handedly invented the study of insect …
Birds of Paradise
Some marketers seemed to think that a fitting description of my last book’s subject, eagles, was “the most beautiful bird in the world”. To use a more polite word than I usually would, nonsense! There are many contenders; this pheasant has always been a favorite: Even more so when displaying But there are even better …
I don’t get it but…
Excellent writer on western and other matters and blogger Jameson Parker is an official “Friend of Q” and the former star of the good 80’s TV show Simon and Simon, but he is as bemused by this video treatment as any of us–??
Photo Teasers
Still busy with work & scholarship and fun, not that these are necessarily incompatible or exclusive. A few hints– click to embiggen as always (the details are illuminating). I went into my library to find an accidental still life of several emerging subjects: And here are some artifacts pointing to the fascinating intersection of Fabre, …
Two Society Photos…
Really! I think of myself as a sort of an amused amateur taxonomist of class, as I am of biology. You don’t have to be a snob to be interested in class; despite Americans’ common nervousness about the subject, it exists, like evolution, whether you deny it or not. Someone who stands a little outside …
Jesuit “Final Exam”
This was sent by the biographer of the late legendary Jesuit adventurer, mountaineer, hunter, and my sometime mentor Father Anderson Bakewell, S J, who found it in an 80’s Jesuit newsletter among his effects. It has been around in various iterations, but I wonder, given the rifle , if he were also involved in its creation. …
Larissa at Burning Man
Larissa (the tall original human one, not the swift red one) dances at Burning Man. I mean, she is not just a– did I say TALL, drop- dead gorgeous, Russian American goddess, classical actress, a writer of books, and arts critic, she is a PERFORMER. My friend Anne, another St John’s graduate (Johnnie), as are …