grrlscientist | April 29, 2006
Burning Sun over Iceland.
Image appears here with the kind permission of Hallgrimur Sveinn Sævarsson.
More spectacular photographs of Iceland can be viewed at his other site, Nykur.
(The image is linked to its source).
This poem was written by another Seattle pal of mine. Neile Graham is a Canadian poet who lives and works in Seattle. She is married to Jim Gurley, whose poem, "Field Guide", I featured yesterday. Neile has won all sorts of prizes and awards for her poetry, although I remember well the excitement surrounding her third place prize awarded by the League of Canadian Poets in…
grrlscientist | April 29, 2006Finally, my band has a name!
Your Band Name is:
The Screaming Panties
Band Name Generator
And what sort of rocker am I?
You Are an Emo Rocker!
Expressive and deep, lyrics are really your thing.
That doesn't mean you don't rock out...
You just rock out with meaning.
For you, rock is more about connecting than grandstanding.
What Kind of Rocker Are You?
These quizzes were donated by my blog pal, Orac.
grrlscientist | April 29, 2006Your Theme Song is Comfortably Numb by Pink Floyd
"There is no pain, you are receding.
A distant ship's smoke on the horizon.
You are only coming through in waves."
You haven't been feeling a lot lately, and you think that's a good thing.
The comfortable part is nice... but you should really work on numb.
What's Your Theme Song?
grrlscientist | April 28, 2006
Andes, Ecuador [resized].
Photo: Born2Bird.
Okay, most people thought yesterday's poem was a stinker, so I am making up for that today by posting a wonderful poem written by a Seattle pal of mine. My friend, Jim Gurley, supports his poetry by working as a librarian. He writes about nature, science and medicine and was the 2002 winner of the T.S. Eliot Prize for his first book of poetry, Human Cartography.
Field Guide
by James Gurley
-- For Ted Parker, ornithologist & conservationist, 1953-1993
Above the canopy in Ecuador, Ted Parker's Cessna
flies into a cloud, a mountainside.
The…
grrlscientist | April 27, 2006Okay, my peeps. I just have to brag, just a teensy bit, and this is a gloat that you will enjoy, too. Bob Levy, the author of the book, Club George, stopped by to read my review of his book and he commented, too! Of course, I am trying to work his contact into an interview with him for my blog, and if that works out, you will be able to read that, too! But nothing has been decided yet.
grrlscientist | April 27, 2006
Germ #14
by Warron Prentice.
When I saw the above painting, the first thing I thought of was the poem, The Microbe. This is another poem that I was introduced to by Gene Wilder when he starred in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (1971), except he quoted the last two lines of this poem instead of the first two as he did for yesterday's poem. (Has anyone noticed how that particular film is crammed with brief quotes from lots of fabulous poetry? And the film made learning this poetry so painless, too). Anyway, this particular poem is a rather inaccurate and out-of-date description of a…
grrlscientist | April 27, 2006There is yet another blog carnival to add to the parade of blog carnivals that have been published within the last 24 hours. This time, I and the Bird, issue 22, was published this morning on Home Bird Notes. This blog carnival focuses on the best writing about birds that has been recently published on a blog. This issue is really fabulous because it has some rather famous people in the line-up; people who, unlike me, are famous in real life! As usual, they had plenty of submissions from me to choose from, but I am very pleased to see their linked choice because that particular essay deserves…
grrlscientist | April 26, 2006Wow, today must be blog carnival publication day because I just learned that the Carnival of the Liberals, issue 11 was recently published at And Doctor Biobrain's Response Is.... This is a new blog carnival for me, so I look forward to reading my fellow contributors' material over the next few days (along with everything else in all the other carnivals that were published today! yeow!). Anyway, in the midst of intense sarcasm there, I was, once again, merely comic relief.
grrlscientist | April 26, 2006Tangled Bank, issue 52, is now available at The Innoculated Mind. This time, it has a Star Wars theme (complete with the streaming soundtrack) and I, as a proud fighter against the Evil Emperor, am referred to as "GrrrlJedi".
Because I am a Jedi, I will tell you my light saber color (below the fold)
What Color is your lightsaber?
Orange. This is mainly held by Jedi Sentienls in the Council. They use half combat half force to get things done or at least usually. The Crystal that creates the orange colors is pretty rare compared to the common colors of Red, Blue, and Green. Jedi who…
grrlscientist | April 26, 2006
The Rocks near Pourville at Ebb Tide (1882)
by Claude Monet.
Click image for larger view in its own window.
This painting and this poem (below the fold) also seem to be made for each other.
This poem is one that I discovered several years after Gene Wilder first introduced me to it. When I was a wee one, I loved his delighful movie, Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (1971) so much that I tape recorded it from the TV and played the tape often. (Surprisingly, after all my relocations, I still have that cassette tape). The dialogue in this particular scene made a huge impression;
Willy…
grrlscientist | April 26, 2006The Carnival Of Education, Week 64, is available at The Education Wonks. This carnival focuses on the best writing about education that has been recently published on a blog, and there is a lot of really great stuff there! They also saw fit to include something insubstantial by me, more as comic relief than anything else.
grrlscientist | April 26, 2006The 188th edition of the Carnival of the Vanities is now available. For those of you who don't know, this is the first and longest-running of all the blog carnivals, and it celebrates the best writing on any topic that has been recently published on a blog. In addition to the long list of great writing that they've linked for your reading pleasure, they also included two essays by moi.
grrlscientist | April 26, 2006I have been preoccupied with other things recently, so I did not post an online quiz over the weekend, as I usually do. I hope that you can forgive me, especially since I found this quiz that you might enjoy.
Harry Potter Personality Quiz by Pirate Monkeys Inc.
But if I change the answer to question 15, I end up being ..
Harry Potter Personality Quiz by Pirate Monkeys Inc.
Who did you end up as? And were you one answer away from being someone else amongst the Harry Potter crew?
tags: Harry Potter, online quiz, personality
grrlscientist | April 25, 2006I always enjoy picking up my mail from my post office box, but there are days -- many days, recently -- when walking to my post office to check my snailmail is the only thing that I look forward to each day. And so it was yesterday; once again, I enjoyed a small break by walking to my mailbox shortly before I was to teach a class. But yesterday, unlike most days, I was greeted with gifts! And with excellent news!
Yes indeed, several readers sent gifts to me. First, I received a large box from Amazon that, I later discovered, contained not one, but two books from my wishlist, wrapped in mint-…
grrlscientist | April 25, 2006I first learned about this book, Club George: The Diary of a Central Park Bird Watcher (NYC: Thomas Dunne Books, 2006), when the author, Bob Levy, was interviewed recently by Brian Lehrer on the local National Public Radio affiliate, WNYC [mp3, 17:54]. After that interview concluded, I poked around on the internet, found the publicist's contact information and emailed him, requesting a review copy of the book, which he was happy to provide.
Club George is the story of the relationship that developed between a human and a wild bird, the transformation of a focused career man into a devoted…
grrlscientist | April 25, 2006
Garlic on Onion.
This image appears here with the kind permission of the photographer,Katrin Eismann, PhotoshopDiva.
After I read this poem by WisÅawa Szymborska, I knew I had to read more of her material. I love the way that she plays with words. This is even more amazing when one realizes that all of her poetry is translated from Polish. It takes tremendous skill to retain her poetic playfulness and phrasing while also making the poem accessible in another language!
The Onion
by WisÅawa Szymborska
The onion, now that's something else.
Its innards don't exist.
Nothing but pure onionhood…
grrlscientist | April 24, 2006
Autumn Path through the Woods (1876)
by Camille Pissarro.
Click image for larger view in its own window.
Not only do I love this poem (below the fold) and this painting, but I think they were made for each other.
The Road not Taken
By Robert Frost
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them…
grrlscientist | April 24, 2006
Red knot, Calidris canutus rufus.
This image appears here with the kind permission of the photographer,Arthur Morris, Birds as Art.
Click image for larger view in its own window.
Ornithologists fear the red knot could go extinct in as few as five years due to overfishing of horseshoe crabs in Delaware Bay, which is the birds' final refueling stop on their 17,000 mile journey to their breeding grounds in the Arctic. Red knots, ruddy turnstones, sanderlings and semipalmated sandpipers all feed on horseshoe crab eggs in the Delaware Bay, and their populations are all experiencing sharp…
grrlscientist | April 24, 2006
Male magnolia warbler, Dendroica magnolia.
This image appears here with the kind permission of the photographer, Pamela Wells.
Click image for larger view in its own window.
Birds in Science
Spring is the season for flashy mates, at least for house finches, Carpodacus mexicanus (pictured, right). It is only later in the year that the females choose based on genetic diversity, according to new research from two scientists at the University of Arizona. Their 10-year study of a colony of 12,000 finches in Montana has revealed the seasonal dynamics of finch attraction and thereby resolved an…