I thought James McMurtry's anthem of dysfunctional but merry Oklahomans was the ultimate redneck tale, but Anne Pearse Hocker sent us this story which outdoes it. Start with the title: "Gator found in burglary suspect’s car". It then gets better and better.
He had been burglarizing his neighbors, stealing a video game control, a hair trimmer, and TV. He asked another neighbor to help him carry the TV to the car, which had a six- foot alligator in it.
The day before, he had been stopped with a water moccasin.
It had bitten him. (He warned the cops, but declined treatment.)
He was drunk. Mr. McMurtry, I believe you have another song.
Walter Hingley sends this link to all the Sports Illustrated stories ever written. What younger readers may not know is that once, up well into the seventies, it published the best writers in America on hunting, fishing, and nature. You can find here everyone from Hemingway on bulls, Bil Gilbert on nature, and the McGuane- Harrison gang on everything from fly fishing to bull riding. I am particularly fond of the Patricia Ryan years, from the late 60's to late 70's (she also published the first review of Rage for Falcons, in People--!-- when she ran that mag in the 80's) but the earlier years are rich too. Unfortunately the site is as about as far from user friendly as I have ever seen. Don't bother to use anything but "Advanced Search", by author or title. Then you get article text, a page at a time (and to print, you must select each page separately.) Link to "issue" and you get nothing but a series of thumbnails that you must scroll through to find your page, each of which loads slowly. And though they have all the nice original art, you can't print them!
Derb attends a conference on consciousness in Tucson and reports here and here. I do sort of believe the dog thing BTW, but so does he I think.
Jessica at Bioephemera has a post on what might be called "Dead Bug Couture". (The site she links to is almost as wonky as SI's, at least on Firefox.) I can't resist quoting her; it is the best line in a blog so far this year:
"I have to be shamelessly indulgent toward anyone who cites Rasputin, Seamus Heaney, and Evelyn Waugh as his inspirations for encasing dead insects in giant balls of resin, draping them on Pre-Raphaelite models, and framing them with blather about the Russian aristocracy."
Sad: Iraqi insurgents using pigeons to target troops. All sides seem to use pigeons there, maybe a sign of their ubiquity in Middle eastern urban culture-- this is the third (NYT?) story I have read on them, at least.
Anonymous sends a quote from one Christopher Roach: "...you can count on a gun to work if you keep it clean. The same can’t be said for the promises of the federal government. "
Luisa has an inclusive post on Livestock Guardian Dogs. It links to Cat, and us, but has a lot more. Check out the "Guardian" link for big crossbreds working against wolves up north. One of these days we'll do a big wolf post here.
Funny signs. No, I can't speak Chinese; yes, the Chinese ones are funnier than the misspelled English ones, partly because some are not necessarily wrong, only unabashedly literal (the ones about bodily functions and "cripples"; "Infested by bears").
I'll leave you with this one from Mike Spies, in Jamaica:
He had been burglarizing his neighbors, stealing a video game control, a hair trimmer, and TV. He asked another neighbor to help him carry the TV to the car, which had a six- foot alligator in it.
The day before, he had been stopped with a water moccasin.
It had bitten him. (He warned the cops, but declined treatment.)
He was drunk. Mr. McMurtry, I believe you have another song.
Walter Hingley sends this link to all the Sports Illustrated stories ever written. What younger readers may not know is that once, up well into the seventies, it published the best writers in America on hunting, fishing, and nature. You can find here everyone from Hemingway on bulls, Bil Gilbert on nature, and the McGuane- Harrison gang on everything from fly fishing to bull riding. I am particularly fond of the Patricia Ryan years, from the late 60's to late 70's (she also published the first review of Rage for Falcons, in People--!-- when she ran that mag in the 80's) but the earlier years are rich too. Unfortunately the site is as about as far from user friendly as I have ever seen. Don't bother to use anything but "Advanced Search", by author or title. Then you get article text, a page at a time (and to print, you must select each page separately.) Link to "issue" and you get nothing but a series of thumbnails that you must scroll through to find your page, each of which loads slowly. And though they have all the nice original art, you can't print them!
Derb attends a conference on consciousness in Tucson and reports here and here. I do sort of believe the dog thing BTW, but so does he I think.
Jessica at Bioephemera has a post on what might be called "Dead Bug Couture". (The site she links to is almost as wonky as SI's, at least on Firefox.) I can't resist quoting her; it is the best line in a blog so far this year:
"I have to be shamelessly indulgent toward anyone who cites Rasputin, Seamus Heaney, and Evelyn Waugh as his inspirations for encasing dead insects in giant balls of resin, draping them on Pre-Raphaelite models, and framing them with blather about the Russian aristocracy."
Sad: Iraqi insurgents using pigeons to target troops. All sides seem to use pigeons there, maybe a sign of their ubiquity in Middle eastern urban culture-- this is the third (NYT?) story I have read on them, at least.
Anonymous sends a quote from one Christopher Roach: "...you can count on a gun to work if you keep it clean. The same can’t be said for the promises of the federal government. "
Luisa has an inclusive post on Livestock Guardian Dogs. It links to Cat, and us, but has a lot more. Check out the "Guardian" link for big crossbreds working against wolves up north. One of these days we'll do a big wolf post here.
Funny signs. No, I can't speak Chinese; yes, the Chinese ones are funnier than the misspelled English ones, partly because some are not necessarily wrong, only unabashedly literal (the ones about bodily functions and "cripples"; "Infested by bears").
I'll leave you with this one from Mike Spies, in Jamaica:
2 comments:
Carl Hiaasen thinks South Florida is weird but he's never hung around East Texas- "Be careful, there's a moccasin back there. He bit me a little while ago, see?"
Reminds me of a sign, hand written on cardboard and mispelled, I once saw in an Jamaca pub: "No whores, no pemps, no guns".
My then wife fled (the whole country) immediately.
Russ London
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