12.04.16

at robina town centre in queensland, a christmas tree made of pelicans.

at the australian reptile park in sydney,

George, a common wombat, was found at just four months old after his mother was hit by a car in Scone, in the Hunter Region of New South Wales.

"A passer-by stopped and pouch-checked* his mum and George was in there," [keeper] Renee Gomez [said].

george's home is the only zoo in australia with a spider and snake venom-milking program, by the by.

from animals australia (a group working to end factory farming and cruelty to animals), plush creatures and symbolic adoption certificates. surely a few can make it to the states in time to meet my nephews and niece for the holidays (the chook, the chook!). if plush creatures aren't your thing, they also sell cruelty-free chocolate and macadamia nuts.


*from the wombat protection society of australia's accident & emergency wombat first aid page: "Wombat joeys can live for many days in their mother’s pouches after the female is killed. If you are involved in a motor vehicle accident with a wombat it is unlikely that the adult will survive but it is very likely that the joey will." the page features detailed instructions on everything from what to do if you see a wombat at the edge of the road to how to alert the proper authorities to and/or provide care for injured wombats and orphaned joeys.

01.24.14

i spent the last afternoon of the year in central park with my father and my youngest sister. the polar vortex had yet to drape itself across the city, but the creeping post-solstice cold dragged its nails up my back anyway. we spoke of endings and beginnings, of professional decisions and unprofessional joys; i would publish in 2014, i said, because i figured it was what i was supposed to say, and publishing is such a fine thing.

my thoughts are all of beasts, is the problem. i began the new year on fire to volunteer at the bronx zoo; in collecting photos for ye olde birthday cakes for animals project i've tumbled through umpteen images of animal enrichment, and i thought i'd be just the gal to make ungulate-shaped piñatas for tigers. predictably enough, the zoo is less interested in enthusiastic amateur papier-mâché artists than it is in potential docents, and i was at a dead end until erin told me about her work with wild animals on long island. a group in the city needed help as well, she said. i could train to be a wildlife rehabilitator, maybe.

wildlife, internets! not mewling kittens begging to be smuggled into my apartment, but a fierce little robin that screeches like a boar, somersaulting red bats, and pigeons, dozens of pigeons in a tiny underground treatment space nursing bite wounds and necrotic toes and frost-abraded wings until CAGE REST is scratched from their charts and they can whirl back into the air. each sunday i spend with them erodes some of the staggering powerlessness i felt when i tried to make myself useful at animal control two years ago; they're happiest when you let them go. i think 2014 is their year.

11.04.13

My voice is a zoo right now for this,
and this paces very much inside it,
it would like very much to escape
and eat hot blood again and go home,
and right down to the restless way
I walk I am an argument against zoos.

(patricia lockwood, from "what is the zoo for what," new yorker 10.28.13; her second collection, motherland fatherland homelandsexuals, will be out in june)

09.16.13

101 in 1001 {III}: 027 go to the bronx zoo [completed 09.15.13]



i spend a lot of time thinking about animal parks, which is unsurprising, given the rigors of maintaining ye olde birthday cakes for animals tumblr (it is no picnic: the panda photos really start to bleed together after the third or fourth month, and the internet still seems to lack interest in fêting reptiles*). ethics of anthropomorphism aside, we have a complicated history: when i was growing up in southern california, local heavies included a drive-through safari at which an african elephant broke free, killed one of her trainers, and forced the closure of two freeways; the san diego zoo (linked in the early '90s to hunting farms); and sea world (enough said). irresponsible animal parks are nightmarish, but conscientious ones are invaluable to conservationists. the bronx zoo is the flagship urban animal park of the wildlife conservation society, a nonprofit which receives excellent ratings from groups like charity navigator and kicks ass when it comes to, say, taking care of little snow leopards. we made a point of visiting the zoo this weekend because they've just started letting the public have a look at this five-month-old fellow, asleep with his mum five feet away from us in my photo; he's the firstborn son of leo, a leopard cub who was orphaned in the mountains of pakistan back in 2005 and rescued and hand-fed by a shepherd (seriously). thank you, bronx zoo, for being the sort of animal park that spearheads worldwide leopard-saving efforts and not the sort of animal park that plunks its big-cat exhibits right next to a shrieking merry-go-round (i'm looking at you, national zoo). the zoo's extensive grounds seemed to suit all of the animals we visited, actually, and once i have figured out how to hang out with tigers without weeping openly i will probably start making a point of going there on a regular basis. oh, tigers.

*with the notable exception of the late krakatoa, a komodo dragon who has been appreciated by like 27,000 people thus far. you fascinate me, internet, but i will probably never understand you.

06.14.13

   "Mr. Andrews, there is a folk tale that before being born, every human soul knows all the secrets of life and death and the universe. Then, just before birth, an angel leans down, puts his finger to the new baby's lips, and whispers, Shhh." Harris touches his philtrum. "According to the story, this is the mark left by the angel's finger. Every human being has one."
   "Have you ever seen an angel, Mr. Harris?"
   "No, but I once saw a camel. It was in the Bronx Zoo. Choose a door."

(stephen king, from "afterlife," tin house #56)

12.12.12: the dirty dozen

{twelve more snippets of amy stewart's marvelous wicked bugs: the louse that conquered napoleon's army & other diabolical insects*}

01 "The Hybrid Insect Micro-Electo-Mechanical System (HI-MEMS) seeks to implant computer chips inside caterpillars before they undergo metamorphosis into moths or butterflies. They hope to use that circuitry to remotely control the flight paths of insects so that they can someday be used to fly into enemy locations and transmit intelligence without ever being detected." (21)

02 "Mayans had been using [bees and wasps as weapons] since 2600 BC; their legends describe the use of human dummies with a gourd filled with stinging insects for a head.

[...]

One of the most intriguing uses of bees in warfare was recorded by a contemporary of Socrates named Xenophon. He described the use of poisoned hives in Greek warfare around 402 BC: 'All the soldiers ate of the combs, lost their senses, vomited, and were affected with purging, and none of them were able to stand upright; such as had eaten much were like mad-men, and some like persons at the point of death.' The soldiers had, apparently, been given beehives filled with the honey of bees that had feasted on rhododendron and azalea, plants that produce neurotoxins so potent that they remain active in the honey. Those who eat the honey succumb to honey intoxication, also called grayanotoxin poisoning."** (21-22)

03 "Pliny the Elder wrote in about 77 AD that the scorpion was 'a dangerous scourge, and had venom like that of the serpent; with the exception that its effects are far more painful, as the person who is stung will linger for three days before death ensues.' He added that the sting of a scorpion was 'invariably fatal to virgins, and nearly always so to matrons.' (23)

04 "In 1939 the London Zoo killed its black widow spiders, along with its venomous snakes and insects, as a precaution against the possibility of their being liberated during air raids." (44)

05 "Don't be fooled by the fact that [the puss caterpillar] looks just like a tiny Persian cat. The so-called flannel moth or asp moth is one of the most toxic caterpillars in North America. Anyone who rubs up against its long, silky golden-brown hairs will find those hairs embedded under the skin, where they cause severe burning pain, a rash, and blisters." (50)

06 "'One day,' [Charles] Darwin wrote, 'on tearing off some old bark, I saw two rare beetles, and seized one in each hand; then I saw a third and new kind, which I could not bear to lose, so that I popped the one which I held in my right hand into my mouth. Alas! It ejected some intensely acrid fluid, which burnt my tongue so that I was forced to spit the beetle out, which was lost, as was the third one.'" (53)

07 "Although it sounds too horrible to be anything more than an urban legend, in fact, cases of German cockroaches crawling into people's ears and getting stuck there have been well documented in medical literature. Emergency room doctors can pour oil in the ear to drown cockroaches, but often have a hard time extracting them afterward. Some doctors swear by a squirt of lidocaine, which irritates the roach so much that it can send it running out of the ear and across the room." (88)

08 "[P]erhaps their most horrifying quality is the way in which aphids reproduce: some species are actually capable of "telescoping generations" in which one female aphid contains within her the beginnings of another youngster, which is herself already pregnant with yet another generation." (95)

09 "Justin Schmidt, an entomologist who studies venomous stings, created the Schmidt Sting Pain Index to quantify the pain inflicted by ants and other stinging creatures. His surprisingly poetic descriptions*** give some order to the hierarchy of ant stings as compared to those of bees and wasps:

  1.0 Sweat bee: Light, ephemeral, almost fruity. A tiny spark has singed a single hair on your arm.
  1.2 Fire ant: Sharp, sudden, mildly alarming. Like walking across a shag carpet & reaching for the light switch.
  1.8 Bullhorn acacia ant: A rare, piercing, elevated sort of pain. Someone has fired a staple into your cheek.
  2.0 Bald-faced hornet: Rich, hearty, slightly crunchy. Similar to getting your hand mashed in a revolving door.
  2.0 Yellowjacket: Hot and smoky, almost irreverent. Imagine W.C. Fields extinguishing a cigar on your tongue.

  [...]

  4.0 Tarantula hawk: Blinding, fierce, shockingly electric. A running hair drier has been dropped into your bubble bath.
  4.0+ Bullet ant: Pure, intense, brilliant pain. Like firewalking over flaming charcoal with a 3-inch rusty nail in your heel." (137-138)

10 "A team of researchers in Venezuela found one of these giant centipedes hanging upside down from a cave wall, happily munching away on a small bat. After observing the same behavior several times, they realized that the centipedes were hanging from the cave by their last few legs and catching bats in midair as they flew by, demonstrating a rather frightening level of forethought and ingenuity." (146)

11 "A French research team recently discovered that mosquitoes are more attracted to beer drinkers." (165)

12 "And then there was the tarantula pie. [Would-be murderess] Carole [Hargis] kept a pet tarantula and at first she considered [killing her husband] by putting the hairy spider in bed with him, hoping he would get bitten. But then she had a better idea: she removed the tarantula's venom sac and hid it in a blackberry pie. Mr. Hargis's luck held out a while longer: he took a few bites of pie but never touched the venom. It was beginning to seem like he was invincible.

[...]

[T]he bite of a tarantula is really no worse than that of a wasp or bee. It will certainly sting—in fact, scientists recently discovered that the bite of the West Indian tarantla Psalmopoeus cambridgei goes to work on nerve cells with the same mechanism employed by habanero peppers." (234-235)

13 {bonus, non-insect-book-related} joe went out to put some trash in the chute last night and saw a young guy he didn't know leaning against the table outside our apartment door. when the guy saw him, he jumped up guiltily and disappeared into the stairwell. joe called down to our doorman to say there was a random guy on our floor. "oh," said the doorman, "him? he's drunk and hiding from his grandma."



*highly recommended; everyone should ride the f train with a book cover that shouts BEWARE! THE SORDID LIVES OF BUGS BEHAVING BADLY.

**this came up at a holiday party on saturday night, when my friend dan told me several useful things and i exclaimed that i would have to tell him several things about bees in exchange for what i had just learned. ah, said he, but my parents have kept bees for years, so you can't tell me much about bees i don't know. i said, well.

***combining the insouciant tones of an upscale wine list and the conclusions of choose your own adventure plot lines.

:: 101 in 1001 {III}: three is the new two ::

the premise, per triplux (a fine source for tips, scripts, and links to other lists):

The Mission:
Complete 101 preset tasks in a period of 1001 days.

The Criteria:
Tasks must be specific (ie. no ambiguity in the wording) with a result that is either measurable or clearly defined. Tasks must also be realistic and stretching (ie. represent some amount of work on my part).

Why 1001 Days?
Many people have created lists in the past - frequently simple goals such as new year's resolutions. The key to beating procrastination is to set a deadline that is realistic. 1001 Days (about 2.75 years) is a better period of time than a year, because it allows you several seasons to complete the tasks, which is better for organising and timing some tasks such as overseas trips or outdoor activities.

start date: 10 june 2012
end date: 08 march 2015

items completed: 023
items remaining: 78

as with previous lists, items completed have bracketed numbers; i'll alter stats and add hyperlinks to posts with completion details as i have 'em. here we go again...

the list

[001]: run 1001 miles [completed 12.09.13]
002: visit bruges
003: submit a short story for publication
004: visit pittsburgh
[005]: refinance the apartment [see 04.29.13]
[006]: bake pumpernickel bread from scratch [see 06.18.12]
007: read gravity's rainbow (thomas pynchon)
[008]: take a knife-skills class [see 11.14.13]
[009]: go whalewatching [see 12.21.12]
[010]: see the northern lights [see 09.15.12]
011: go skydiving
012: foster kittens
013: shave my head
014: visit mari in atlanta
015: visit jacob and megan in iowa
016: read ulysses (james joyce)
017: draw up a will, power of attorney, and advanced health directive
[018]: visit the ashmolean [see 10.26.12]
019: invent a formidable cocktail
[020]: watch kurosawa's dersu uzala [see 04.15.13]
[021]: go to coney island [completed 09.20.14]
[022]: see at least 6 more of shakespeare's plays for the first time [see 06.18.12, 07.12.12, 06.18.13, 08.09.13, 03.11.14]
[023]: see every picture which earns a best picture, best director, best actress, and best actor nomination in a single oscar season prior to the awards show [completed 02.22.13]
[024]: dip my toe in the atlantic and pacific oceans on the same day [completed 09.20.14]
025: attend mass at st. patrick's cathedral
026: go to the opera
[027]: go to the bronx zoo [see 09.16.13]
028: furnish the bedroom with proper nightstands
029: take trapeze lessons
030: run 8 miles in less than an hour [distance/hr to date: 6.88 mi]
031: get my name printed in the new york times
[032]: frame my college diploma
033: take a foreign language class
034: drink nothing but water for a fortnight
035: see david bowie in concert
[036]: enter a cooking or baking contest [see 05.27.13]
[037]: read 3 library books [see 10.01.13, 10.14.13, 10.23.13]
038: go without restaurant meals and takeout for a month
039: spend the night on a boat
040: bring lunch to work for a month
041: properly shelve my OED
042: go vegan for 6 months
043: spend a night in the hudson valley
[044]: complete a (paid) freelance assignment
045: visit the frick
046: swim with the coney island polar bear club
047: go birdwatching
048: use 12 new-to-me public transportation lines [see 09.26.12]
049: publish a recipe in the penzeys catalog
[050]: visit the isle of man [see 09.26.12]
051: take an archery class on staten island
052: host a blackout party
053: teach steve to leap through a hoop
054: go camping
055: make salsa with at least 3 home-grown ingredients
[056]: raise $1,001 for charity
057: participate in a political campaign
058: visit the new york botanical garden
059: volunteer at a soup kitchen
060: turn my wisdom tooth into a piece of jewelry
061: visit the boston peeps
062: go geode-hunting
063: record a book for the blind and dyslexic
064: get certified as a scuba diver
065: get scrubbed at a jjimjilbang
[066]: acquire a comme des garçons piece [see 10.15.12]
067: visit the birthplace of a president
068: go gluten-free for a month
069: develop a homemade veggie patty recipe
070: make beer [see 06.16.14]
071: finish watching dark shadows (the original series, not the film)
072: take a photography class
073: average at least one THUNDERTOME review per month
074: go 24 hours without speaking
075: perform karaoke in public
076: attend a roller derby bout
077: visit niagara falls
078: run a (public) 10K
079: throw a round nine
080: watch three kubrick films i haven't seen [see 06.18.12]
081: write (publish) three letters to the editor
082: attempt a gozer costume for halloween
083: ride the 6 train turnaround with joe
084: write (publish) another mcsweeney's list
085: visit spa castle
[086]: attend a football match in another country
087: visit the new york city tenement museum
088: attend a hockey game
[089]: attend lunch beat [see 10.09.12]
090: beat my new york times sunday crossword time (18 min)
091: print, mat, and frame one of my photographs
092: read all of proust's remembrance of things past
[093]: learn to make bagels at home [see 02.28.13]
094: roller skate in central park
095: go to fire island
096: go to the hamptons
097: make a pillow
098: figure out a wall treatment for the kitchen
099: visit three new-to-me states
100: donate blood (whole or platelets) 12 times [05 as of 05.22.14]
101: buy nothing for one week

01.09.12

    "Here is the story I want to tell you. You know, there was a very unusual situation, two years ago, in 2003. The city of Ust-Kut, west of here, on the Lena River, have you heard of it? So, if you go down the Lena River to the north of Ust-Kut there is a small village called Verkhnemarkovo. On November tenth of that year it was very cold there, minus twenty-five degrees centigrade, ice already stays on the river. Some boys went fishing along the river. And suddenly from the sky this bird fell on them—a flamingo! A flamingo falls on them from above! It's snowing, ice all around, and this bird is falling. The boys picked up this bird and brought it home, started to treat its frostbitten toes, even some of its small feathers have fallen off.
    "So they took care of it, and cured it, and in January of 2004 they brought it here to us in the winter garden, and the flamingo lived here in our garden. Crowds of people, everybody came here to look at this miracle. Here the flamingo became so beautiful and haughty. Our flamingo was shown on TV, they spoke about it on the radio, it was in newspapers and magazines. It is a real celebrity, a superstar, our flamingo. We fed him minced fish made in a meat grinder, carrots, all vegetables, whatever you have. But he was not pink, but gray. Flamingos are pink because of the pink in the hermit crabs and shrimps they eat, but Baikal has no shrimps, so he didn't have those, and that's why he was so grayish. But so beautiful, haughty, independent he was.
    "The flamingo stayed with us for seven months and then we forwarded it to the Krasnoyarsk zoo. And now the flamingo is in the zoo, it lives there, and everything is okay. But you know, nobody can explain the reason for this bird's appearance in Siberia, in the north—a bird that lives in the south and does not fly so far, they are not migratory birds. Geese and ducks arrive in our area, we admit, but this bird lives only in the south.
    "But this is not all yet.
    "Last year, also in November, on the Yenisei River in the north near the city of Yeniseisk, in the same way boys also find a second bird—another flamingo! This second flamingo was also frostbitten. It also was rescued and sent to us, and this other flamingo we also warmed up and caressed, and it too was then taken away to Krasnoyarsk. Now there are two of them there. Our first is called Phila, and the second Phima. Only I do not know what they are, girls or boys, because they still are baby birds, little ones. Such a wonderful story. You are a writer—isn't it a most unusual story? How would one explain this occurrence? How come that the flamingos appeared here? I'll show you a few photos, just look."
    She took a few snapshots from an album on a garden bench. The pictures of the flamingo—the first or second one, I'm not sure which—had the radiant, revelatory quality of icon paintings. They showed the flamingo standing in the winter garden's tiled pond and regarding the photographer with an expression that was, indeed, haughty. He (or she) looked as if he had just planted the flamingo flag and claimed this place for Flamingo. Though kind of gray, he was definitely a flamingo. He seemed to have become comfortable with his singularity, and to accept as a matter of course the attention focused on him. Naturally he would find a tropical forest in the middle of Siberia, and naturally it would need a flamingo.

(ian frazier, from travels in siberia)