For the curious reader of science fiction (scifi) and fantasy
Time for an animal pic. I caught our two, Moonlight and Captain Jack, here with dog-in-law Septima Lady MacDuff, known to me as MacDuff the Crime Dog (bottom).
And here’s the crime dog, acting as if she’s never seen a Roomba before. Comin’ through! Make a hole!
MRI scans of dogs brains show them responding not just to a speaker’s tone of voice (right brain function), but to the meanings of spoken words (left brain function). Now, this is cool—if perhaps unsurprising to dog owners. Nice to see it confirmed by a brain scanner, though! And those are some adorable-looking dogs. Read more about it in Science News. (Update: This Washington Post article has more information, including some video of how they did the research.)
This is definitely a job Captain Jack would like.
My brother Chuck and his wife Youngmee were recently in Romania, and sent back some photos of the road they were on. Here’s a dog watching his flock. Totally what Captain Jack was born to do. But what does the dog do if the sheep start to slide?
And as for the rest of the picture, didn’t I see James Bond being pursued by international terrorists on that road? Chuck said they rented a red car, so that the wreckage would be easier to spot. Pictures by Youngmee.
Have you ever tried to teach a dog to dance? In rhythm? I’ve tried with all of our dogs. Never mind their grace in running, jumping, and snatching food from the air. Dogs are hopeless when it comes to rhythm. But watch this cockatoo, who could put many an inebriated undergraduate to shame. Now and then he even breaks into double-time. And catch his aplomb in response to the applause at the end.
;Here used to be a picture of me after licking a thorny plot problem in the chapter tentatively titled “Chapter 29” in The Reefs of Time. This would be the chapter that, in the first draft, caused me to type, “I HAVE NO FRICKIN’ IDEA WHERE THIS IS GOING! FIX IT IN REWRITE!” and then move on. When the rewrite came around, the situation was not much improved. But this time, I didn’t think I could do the same thing, so I just kept pounding my head on it until it relented and gave up its secrets. So, this time I’ve solved it and moved on. Having solved it. I think. You never know about these things until you circle back on the next pass and see it all in the context of the whole story arc.
Have I mentioned that this is a long and complex book, with many threads, and it’s taking me a long time to (re)write it? Think Game of Thrones… but without the thrones, the kingdoms, the backstabbing murders, the dragons, the dark magic, etc. Actually, it’s nothing like The Game of Thrones, except for the length, complexity, and the time it’s taking me to finish it. But that’s not nothing.
I’ve been listening to a book on creativity and writing by Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat, Pray, Love. The book is called Big Magic.
One line so delighted me that I had to stop the playback and transcribe it. Here it is:
“Possessing a creative mind… is something like having a border collie for a pet. It needs to work, or else it will cause you an outrageous amount of trouble. Give your mind a job to do or else it will find a job to do—and you might not like the job it invents: eating the couch, digging a hole through the living room floor, biting the mailman, etc….
I firmly believe that we all need to find something to do in our lives that stops us from eating the couch.”
The book is a good listen, in the author’s own voice.
Here, you can listen to Ms. Gilbert talk about some of the same aspects of creativity in her TED Talk:
This collection in the Boston Globe is great. Number 37, a border collie, looks just like Captain Jack. On the doggie bus to doggie day camp, no less!
The pandas are awfully cute, too.
And then there’s this… baby ray? Or alien brane weezel?
Take a few minutes and scroll through the collection.
Zzzzzzzz…
Here’s a fellow I found pecking away at a mulberry tree stump at the corner of our garage. He let me get pretty close. I’m wondering if he’s carving out a home for the winter. I hope so! It’d be fun to see him stick around.
Based on pictures on the Mass Audubon site, I’m guessing he’s a Downy Woodpecker.
I can’t figure out how to embed this (short) video, so I’ll just have to give you the link, at TheAtlantic.com:
The commenter noted that the girl seemed to be ignoring the magnificent creature beside her. I actually found it rather sweet that she was sharing a video in such an unstudied way—just one friend to another.