Gerry has a Blog! (& other Internet News)

Gerry Cox, a founding member of our small group of writing- hunting- eating- gun nut- lit- crit sporting gents, (another is The Old Gunkie), has been hounded by us into starting his own blog. It will be good. He is the only talented amateur gunsmith I know who has published in English Literary Renaissance, and will have a book on hunting big game and ethics coming soon-- not a dry academic tract either.
Here he is shooting with his Ruger 28.

Gerry is also the one who thought up my last book's good subtitle when I was going nuts trying to make people see that was not about a hundred BEST books.

Other blog news: please check in, write to, and amuse Jameson Parker, who is still (I think) bedridden after one of the worst horse wrecks I have known. He is being relentlessly cheerful, but I am once again reminded of the quote (or paraphrase) from McGuane re falling off horses: after 50 the ground gets harder and harder until it opens to swallow you up one final time.

Henry Chappell has cranked up a new version of his Home Range. I think he has a novel coming soon too, and an interesting blogroll.

Exceptionally good piece (but what isn't?) at Chad's Mallard  of Discontent on the urban chicken and other foodie crazes. Read all remarks too.
 
A very different blog: Mark Witton's , on Pterosaurs and such, a good blog about the representation of animals in the past-- more on that soon.

Christina's Blog

Another post I have been kicking down the road: my friend Christina Nealson's blog. I kept trying to think of original ways to describe her vivid writing and books, her nomadic life, her heterodox feminism and her support of the Second Amendment...

Finally I thought: why not just let her describe her visit? Come back soon, Christina! Her blog is now officially on the roll.

Generic

I have difficulty spending too much time at the keyboard these days, while work expands, and I find myself neglecting reading my blog "family". Then I go on binges of catching up. Yesterday, while reading my indispensable fellow New Mexican gun and science fans, the Atomic Nerds, I scrolled down to find that Stingray had written the ultimate generic gun review, the funniest I have ever read about a real gun (you will have to go there for the model name but it is a typical modern carry pistol). I wonder how many gun mags would shut down if all reviewers were as honest.

A few quotes will give you the flavor but this is a classic case of Read The Whole Thing":

"This is the single most generic gun I have ever experienced. The slide should just say “A Gun” and be done with it... There isn’t a thing bad about this gun. There isn’t a thing good about this gun... The sights are adequate. Rounds pretty much go where you point it. The trigger works. The grip is present. It has only had a few dozen rounds through it so far, but of those it went bang each time and a hole appeared in the target..."

More? "Gun(TM) is the perfect thing to throw in your fishing tackle box. It won’t matter if you have to use A Gun(TM), and the police hold on to it and/or “lose” it while vetting the shoot as good or not... you can comfortably carry A Gun(TM) all day in a variety of fashions without noticing it much, or having to join the Hawaiian Shirt Mafia... If you are a Ninja, move along. This is not the gun for you. If you have aspirations to ninjahood…we probably don’t get along anyway so this still isn’t the gun for you."

RTWT!!

More Visitors

Who but Arthur Wilderson would visit and bring obscure, beautifully- made Czech battle rifles, other military goodies, a bottle of cherry dessert wine from a Colorado winery, and friends, Nate and (female) Evan, with interests in everything from fossil cat cladistics and Darren Naish's blog to Asian falconry and cartridges I had never heard of? (They brought me two examples!) At one point, the whole living room was covered with feathered dinosaur books and papers, followed by historic John McLoughlin articles, science fiction novels, and "modern" dino descriptions from the seventies; next, disassembled rifle parts; finally, material on dog evolution and photos of petroglyphs ...

I realized we had achieved terminal geek velocity on the second day, when I started drawing them a flow chart of my major biological fascinations, with the Burgess Shale at the top, such things as Neanderthals and bird origins somewhere in the middle, criss- crossing lines of connection everywhere, names including Jonathan Kingdon, Val Geist, and Darwin stuck in like raisins in the batter, and in the lower right, to the right of "Wallace's Line" and "Predator Ecology", a list: Canids, Columbidae, Falconidae, Afrotheria, Heloderma and Varanidae; VENOM EVO; Aussie species; Vampire bats; DODO.

And they understood it.

Just a few links

(I have a million but) Neutrino Cannon links to an unusually clear video of what tumbling pigeons do.



He is also the only blogger of my acquaintance to note the passing at 83 of the man who invented hard rock-- in 1958!-- Link Wray, the man whose "Rumble" was the only instrumental ever banned on AM radio.

Here he is on Conan O'Brian. He is in his seventies here, and That Song over fifty:

Jimmy Page remembers the first time he heard Rumble; unlike NC he is of my generation. Q trivia; he roomed with Father Bakewell's (see below) nephew in London in the Sixties (the Yardbird years). Said nephew later lived in NM and jammed with Belen undersheriff Bo Diddley, who was better known outside of NM for other things. Nephew and Tim Gallagher and the next guy (not Page)and I are all now fellows of the Explorers Club, which I devoutly hope has stepped back from a near train wreck, another story...

The next guy? Arctic explorer, mycophile, ethnographer- ethnobotanist- unsung writer Larry Millman has a blog at last! Enjoy...

Tiger Reading

John Vaillant did a reading last night at Riverrun Books in Portsmouth, New Hampshire for his wonderful new book on Amur tigers, poachers, and rangers. I had participated in part by reviewing The Tiger here.

I'll let him configure the whole tale for you, but Dr Hypercube was the pivotal figure, and blogged it here. Suffice to say that an amazing crew of nature and travel writers were brought together via the web- the Doctor, Sy Montgomery (who wrote the OTHER great tiger book, The Spell of the Tiger), and Elizabeth Marshall Thomas ( The Old Way, among other fine books). I wish I had been there, but the next best thing was when Vaillant , livestreaming his excellent talk, waved at the camera to "Steve Bodio in New Mexico".



L to R: Vaillant, Sy, the Doctor, Liz.

Blogs and sites

A few blogs and sites new to me:

Birds of Kazakhstan.

The new Ithaca Gun Company-- with 28 gauges!

Coming soon: a watchdog site contra HSUS.

Mouthful of Feathers: a tough literate bird- hunting blog.

Trevor Herriot's Grass Notes: a Canadian prairie blog.

Back However Briefly!

Very busy with puppies and projects (and the flu) but the world keeps coming up with new stuff to annoy or enlighten. I'd rather take a break but eventually the pressure builds...

Enlightenment and fun before the bad stuff! Darren Naish has been doing so many good posts I can hardly keep up. Here , he goes against our perceptions and notes that 400 new species of mammals have been discovered since 1990! And they aren't all little things like insectivores either.

Here, he postulates that there may be more pinnipeds to be found, and takes a serious look at the cryptozoological reports as well. Could the "sea serpent' be some kind of radical pinniped?

Via Terrie Miller, some good pictures of Kyrgizstan, including birds and dogs, albeit with the usual misinformation (the falcon is of course a goshawk).

Our fearless friend Lauren has anew blog, Aquiling, on eagle-ry and other matters. Go for the delight-- she may be the youngest Berkutchi, and the only female, but she knows more than many better- known eagle fanciers. (And here is a photo of her with puppy Shunkar; more about pups later).



Rachel Dickinson has a new book, Falconer on the Edge, coming out this summmer-- I have read it, it's good, and I will review it properly a bit later. She has also started a blog of the same name.

Pluvi (or as I suppose we now acknowledge, Helen Macdonald!) is blogging again. She just put up a remarkably odd piece of art- a watercolor of a starling painted in peregrine plumage. She has also illustrated Corvus: a life with Birds, by Esther Woolfson. It's on my list.

LabRat at Atomic Nerds has a sane manifesto for a free life, one that as she says has no ideology, only guidelines. The two essays above this, one by her on guns and gender and one by Stingray on cigars, are also well worth reading.

Last, one I don't know is good or not but one that makes me uneasy: Christina Nealson sent a link to this article about how the University on Michigan is going all digital. What do YOU think?

Honored

Prairie Mary has just written a post that mentions us most favorably. I'm blushing. As we try to see through the fog to what will happen in publishing, we need such thought.

BTW Penelope Reedy once printed my essay- with- recipe "Private Reconciliation Chile", which also appears in On The Edge of the Wild.

Blogs

We are way behind on our Blogroll but here are some more you should check out.

I first noticed Field Notes from this post on Annie Proulx but it is a consistently good read if you want to keep up on intelligent hunting.

A team? Raised by Wolves: strong and informed commentary by a dog trainer. And Did a Cat Shit in Here?: the science of smells, the training of rescue dogs, and related subjects, by a scentist, science journalist, and science fiction writer.

Also on dogs (and humans): LabRat has some fine behavior posts here, and here.

Links

The mammoth genome has been sequenced from hair (I have some!) Real Pleistocene Park stuff. Actually you should scroll down Paleoblog for all manner of good things, from a Mongolian fiesta at Bozeman to new finds at the Deinocheirus site in Mongolia to the evolution--!-- of minerals.

At least some frogs are able to learn about predators when they are still in the egg. HT Annie D.

Also from Annie: Camel dressage. I have seen horses dancing (to rather inappropriate music) in Central Asia, but this is more than I... dreamed.

The Peculiars visit Taos and find crystals on the pillows and offers to trade massages for firewood. Mr P says that Taos is where bad New Mexicans and good Texans (sorry Henry!) go when they die.

Falconry's legendary innovator Frank Beebe has died at 96. He has a memorial website here. I have a lifelike crow lure he made for me, and a raft of correspondence I will have to read again.

The elegant anarchist Crispin Sartwell at Eye of the Storm is being driven mad the same damn earworm as I am. What he said.

Obama may READ Michael Pollan. But will he appoint a secretary of agriculture who is a creature of Big Corn?

Is Peter Matthiessen right to call Shadow Country, the revision of his "Watson" trilogy, a new book? Actually, I think yes-- it is a better book overall, and an author who is lucky enough to get to revise is lucky indeed.

Safe mini- nukes cheap enough to power, say, Socorro County. THe Guardian took a few corrections to get the story right-- innumeracy is apparently even commoner than illiteracy.

From little nukes to tiny strange guns; HT David Zincavage at Never Yet Melted. Make sure you follow the link on the first to "Curios & Antik", where you will see among other oddities a crucifix gun. And also see the "Apache gun" (Parisian version) at Diary of a Mad Natural Historian.

Finally, a melancholy and wonderful essay on bibliophilia by Ted Dalrymple. I too am fond of "association copies" and have quite a few-- must scan and run more through here.

Links

At Atomic Nerds, LabRat has a fascinating post on dogs and the sense of "self" :

"We used to assume no animal but humans had a sense of humor, until we thought to thoroughly test that assumption, and we found otherwise. We used to think no other animal used tools, until we looked and found multiple examples. We used to think no other animals had culture, until we looked and found multiple examples across many intelligent and social, but otherwise unrelated species. (Obviously not culture as in Shinto and opera, but behaviors, innovations, and mannerisms that varied with local groups.) If the argument I’ve made suggests that other animals than dogs, perhaps some that are actually less intelligent, have a sense of self… well, I’m really not all that convinced we’ve looked all that well."

RTWT of course.

If you have a team of falcons you may be able to get a paid trip to Afghanistan.

Anne Price sent this link to serious wolf hunting with eagles. Not for the faint- hearted.

The politically correct set in England want to ban all Latin usage in English, including "et cetera". One proponent is worried that non- native English speakers might mistake "e. g." for "egg."

Lord Whimsy goes mushroom hunting in the temperate rain forests of Washington, here and here.

Response

Peculiar, Chas, and Dr Hypercube respond to my Superior Scribbler nomination.

Links

Does stress produce stronger offspring in birds? (Scroll down.) A researcher thinks so. HT Walter Hingley.

That Japanese blog of bio- art has a spread on sperm whales that is comprehensible even if you have no Japanese.

Another gem from Engrish Funny. And what's with the skull on a spring?

Unlike green Almaty, Ulaan Bataar has only one green space, the Childrens' Park. They are planning to develop the site. If you have fond memories of it (or even if not) you can write them, explained here. HT Andrew Campbell at The Regal Vizsla.

Superior Scribblers

The Atomic Nerds have given us a Superior Scribbler award. We are touched and honored. LabRat said of us, in part:

"A fascinating variety of experience, and if they have a common thread it’s rampant individualism and a curiosity in and respect for nature and those who live with it, as opposed to those who mostly experience it through the Discovery Channel.... I’ve found more worlds whose existence I had never suspected through here than any other blog."

Wow-- I am blushing. Thanks, Nerds!

As a condition of the award, we must nominate five other blogs worthy of the honor. I am taking the liberty of nominating five myself-- other staffers welcome to add.

At the risk of nepotism: Odious and Peculiar. Erudition and wit, mountaineering, opera, occasional cephalopods. Unique.

Chas Clifton's Nature Blog-- green without the PC.

Fretmarks. Perfect gems of essays, not just commentary, from Pluvialis, a poet, falconer, and historian of science at Cambridge University.

Diary of a Mad Natural Historian. From deepest New Hampshire, Dr Hypercube brings us poison arrow frogs, arcane technicana, and bird dogs, among other subjects, plus links to books I must have (is that doing me any favors??!)

Darren Naish's Tetrapod Zoology, the best zoology and evo blog, period. Taxonomy and cladistics, technical posts on anatomy that might make you run for your dictionary, facts you never knew about familiar animals, seasoned with bits of cryptozoology. Darren knows more about more animals than anyone I know, including (well, maybe) Jonathan Kingdon. Indispensable.

I encourage my fellow Q bloggers to provide some more-- I could have done ten!

Sunday Links

Nagrom has an essay on ranch life, cowboy music, and an encounter with one of the greats.

Paleontology, real and not so: Darren discusses the new long- "tailed" birdlike fossil (and tells us that some of its more obscure details are interesting); and shows us how certain Native American art resembles a hypothetical giant earthbound pterosaur.

Finally, Henry Chappell has a more subtle take than some on Things White People Like.

Return

As Pluvi says, "Sorry I've been away so long. No particular reason. Back I am." I needed time away, badly, and now feel a bit refreshed.

I have been in book- writing limbo for months, or years, or at least a year and a half. I hope to write something about that here. Also book reviews (and if you don't get The Living Bird magazine out of Cornell, I am now the regular reviewer for that quarterly.)

I'll put in some photos later in the day-- harvest, hawk, winter prep, dog news. But first, some links.

Links & More-- (Mostly Bio Stuff)

Glad to know Matt weathered this storm-- let's hope they do as well in the coming one(s).

Reid is up to his ass in metaphorical alligators but is well and we hope for his return soon.I am now writing three more (long) chapters for my at- some- time- to- be- revealed project that has been consuming my time since April. I am being neurotically perfectionist about it. I must. The hawk was briefly in the air but the truck has been broken down all week which gets in the way of that. Fall and first frost feel imminent.

Stingray has new tattoos of deep- sea life. (There are also internal links to LabRat's Neotropical wildlife.) On their main page is Stingray's eloquent INFORMED dismantling of the Large Hadron Collector's doomsayers.

Wildlife: Carel Brest van Kempen does a takedown of the WSJ piece I linked to earlier on Komodo dragons. Carel knows more about them than most-- has been there and done the science, and some of the things they said are just flat untrue. I expect better of the WSJ. Nice pic of Carel with a dragon too!

More cheetahs.

And other cats. I thought this was satirical and would end in carnage, but it is actually rather heart- warming, though as they say don't try this at home. The white- bearded guy is George Adamson so it is old. Remember, lions ATE his famous wife.

How to give cats (and dogs) their pills.

At the NYT, my favorite bio- journalist, Carl Zimmer, tells us how invaders may actually increase biodiversity. John Haskell--- if you are out there, check in on this!

From IndigoGlyph at Chalk on Water comes this BBC radio program on New Guinea singing dogs. As I told him, this is more than relevant to my current project.

Walter Hingley gave this link to a YouTube of a robot "dog". It is fascinating but it creeps me out too-- the giant housefly sound effects and its headlessness make it more resemble an enormous alien insect. I sort of wanted a huge flyswatter.

More soon...

Fun Stuff plus

From Annie H: the new duck stamp, because of a mistake (?) by the contractor tells you to call a phone sex line.

Camera trap codger finds himself attacked as a threat to wildlife. No, really!

Mrs Peculiar links to the trailer for new Chthulhu movie (though the gay romantic subplot probably has the omni- phobic Lovecraft spinning in his grave!)

Not really funny if it spreads-- but in their continuing efforts to be the most Animal Rights- ist place on earth, the Swiss have banned catch and release fishing, flushing goldfish down toilets (they have to be hit on the head first) and live bait. You also have to take a class to own a dog. Some of these even may be sensible, but to make them LAWS? HT Annie H again.

Biology: LabRat at Atomic Nerds unpacks the whole Komodo dragon post first published here. Excellent comments too. Carel says the original article had many faults. As he is the only naturalist I know with Southeast Asia field experience I hope he finds time to blog on it soon.

At Slate, Heather Smith argues that the disappearance of the honeybee may be a good thing, leading to more use of natives. I still see honeybees down here-- wild, that is-- but I suspect they are Africanized and therefore somewhat immune to the diseases killing the commercial bees.

Are Doom and Gloom, Decline and Fall, "fun" things? To certain minds they are. Here the ever cheerful and always gloomy (yes, you can be) John Derbyshire, who I sometimes think is the last true conservative in the US, tells us why, although he likes Sarah Palin, he doesn't think much will happen either way.
Derb is so funny I can't resist quoting at some length:

"Blimey, you go take a few days off (and "off," to a true reactionary, includes off the TV and computer, and squinting carefully at the display on the phone to see if the caller is someone I want to be bothered with, answers breaking no/yes about 99/1) and the GOP goes and puts a human being on the ticket. Whatever next? Heck, the gal hasn't even been to law school!

"Calm down, everybody, please. It's only politics, for goodness sake."[emphasis mine-- SB]

(Snip)

"As for Rick's noise about being at war: Which nations are we at war with? When shall we exclude nationals of those nations from our territory? Or, if we are at war with some ideology, why are we not excluding adherents of that ideology from our shores, as we excluded communists (correctly, in my opinion)? War, fiddlesticks. Who feels himself to be at war? Where can I buy my gas mask and my War Bonds?

"All right, all right, the Palin pick. At random:

Good choice? Terrific choice. Adds youth, beauty, executive experience (slight by universal standards, but enormous by the standards of these campaign tickets …), and un-DC-ness.

Annie Oakley or Calamity Jane? Who knows? We'll find out. I'm betting on Annie.

Creationist? Couldn't care less. [Derb is a well- known agnostic evolutionist BTW--SB]

Knowingly bore a Down Syndrome child? Same answer. Nobody's business but their own. (And same answer if she'd aborted the fetus, as I and my wife would have — sorry, Rich — though acknowledging of course that she would not then be on the GOP ticket!)

Foreign policy experience? Would someone please define the phrase "foreign policy experience" for me? Thank you.

Daughter named Bristol? Prolly best not to send her for a study year in England."

(If you don't know Cockney rhyming slang the last won't make sense.)

Links

I want to do more original content (and maybe therefore post less?) but have a lot of linkage stored. Onward!

I like Rod Dreher's version of a Doomsday cult.

Guns for vasectomies? Interesting priorities! HT Tam.

High- end eagle hunting video here at Patrick's. Best flights I have seen on film yet, though I once saw one toss up like that flying at a fox in Mongolia.

Sippican says there are some good things about the modern world. I believe SOME of those (are good that is.)