Presents!!

I would hesitate to write about our Christmas presents but for the fact that virtually everything we got has intimate connections to the Blog's interests-- biology, guns, art, dogs- and I think a selection might amuse most readers...

The background of the first is a present itself,  from Jackson, and one I promise excerpts from soon: a biography of John Moses Browning, arguably the greatest firearm designer who ever lived. It is a comic book, in French (with a few odd colloquialisms that I suspect are Belgian), published there by Fabrique National, who produced his designs after Winchester stiffed the old man one too many times. It is just a bit disconcerting to see a Utah Mormon mouthing dialog out of Tintin, but I am getting used to it!

On it are trilobite earrings and an ammonite necklace from this company,  a silver ring with a bat skull by local Navajo silversmith Happy Piasso, and a recording of new translation of Beowulf, courtesy of Kirk Hogan. And below that, an antique pair of sighthound bookends for my rarest books. As always right or double click to enlarge.