My favorite poem

This poem has been my touchstone since I first heard Mr. Griffith read it in Grade 11 English class. I could never share with anyone how much it meant to me. I still find layers of meaning in it, and make new discoveries: the "appalling snow" he writes about, which at first seems nonsensical, casts a "pall" on the landscape, even if it is white rather than black. And so much more! This is a dream poem, the kind of work that can make a poet hang up his pencil because his work is now completed. I was surprised this video got any views at all - I didn't expect any - but since it did fairly well (for a poetry reading), I may do more. I like the format of sitting up in bed, late at night, with a book and a lamp and my cat loafing beside me. I have to keep my voice down, which I believe aids the process. I loathe "actorish" readings of things, as it ruins the atmosphere of most poems, or imposes the reader's ego on it. This poem practically reads itself. "And the deep river ran on."

Little Lolita (a short work of fiction)

It’s not that she wasn’t grateful. When you don’t get to go anywhere on a Saturday night because everyone thinks you’re a loser and full of shit, you should be grateful for any kind of social contact at all.

Or so her siblings thought. Her sister Noreen was thirteen years older than she was, and obviously Mum and Dad were going to trust her with her little sister's wellbeing. Besides, it was good for her to “get out”, much better than hiding in her room crying like she always did.

Her older brother Don had lots of friends too, and their wives came along, but that didn’t stop the “goings-on” that were considered to be all part of the fun. She noticed the minute she stepped into the babble and funk of these parties that she was the mascot, younger than anyone else by ten years or more. Was she game? A target? Who knew, but what she did know was that she was supposed to be grateful.



There was an obnoxious creep called Shivas, but after a while she figured out that it wasn’t his real name, that it came from his habit of making a certain drink called a Shivas Special. Chivas Regal and one ice cube. Another was Tang crystals dissolved in vodka.

They were all quite interested in seeing how the mascot would react to having her glass filled and refilled. After all, she was allowed wine at home. Lots of it. Her parents didn’t frown on her drinking and even seemed to think it was “good for her”. Her brother and sister waved the banner of booze at every opportunity, insisting it was an unalloyed good, even when they woke the next day vomiting and ashen.



The party deteriorated over time, got louder, with people bumping together and the smell of pot wafting under door-cracks. Once she felt a hand, someone’s hand, didn’t know whose. Then her brother’s best friend started smiling at her. She looked the other way. Like the Ugly Duckling, she just didn’t believe it at first.

But then he sort of beckoned with his eyes. Come upstairs with me. Upstairs?? His wife was over in the corner flirting with her brother like they always did. Did she dare to do this, could she sneak up with him and –

This is how it always happened.



It happened because her brother’s friend was a really good kisser. He knew the spots to touch. Her body responded like flame, though she felt overpowering shame at her reaction. She knew she wasn’t supposed to feel this way, to feel anything at all. But she also knew she had caused this, somehow. He managed to convey without words that he had always found her attractive and not mousy or fat.

All she knew about sex she had learned from books, the books stashed in her father’s bureau drawer under his underwear and pajamas. When her parents were away at choir practice, she took them out. They were very clinical and did not deal with passion or pleasure, as if those sensations did not belong in the field of sex.

But she knew about erections, because he was pressing his against her body with force. Her heart beginning to race, she wondered if she would be raped. She wondered if she should fight back, break away. But the truth is, she loved the attention.



“Hey, you two!” a voice came up the stairs. “Get down here, will you? Quit messing around.” It was a woman’s voice, and at first she wondered if it was the man’s wife. When she came downstairs, stumbling a little, she saw it was her brother’s girl friend, her makeup badly askew. The woman grabbed her around the waist and squeezed: “Little Lolita,” she crooned. “Little sexpot.”

The booze continued to flow. Her sister held court in an astonishing display of vanity and narcissism, “looking after” her little sister by ignoring her and handing her over to the good graces of Shivas and his endless noxious drinks. People made less and less sense. She felt more hands on her and didn’t know who they were.



She remembered trying to tell her sister about what was happening to her at these parties, what was being done to her. Done to her by married men with their wives in the next room (or even the same room). Her older sister rolled her eyes a bit and said, “I don’t know why you’re so upset! You don’t seem to have any friends your own age. This way you can have a social outlet with the grownups.”

When she told her a little bit about the seductions, she shook her head.

“Are they having sex with you?” For one second, concern seemed to flicker in her eyes.

“No.”

“I didn’t think so. You’re exaggerating. I really don’t think there’s anything wrong with a little smooch and a snuggle. Look, we’re trying to include you and I really think you should be more grateful.”

Much later, she read about something called Walpurgis Night, a sort of witch’s Sabbath with hideous swarms of demonic figures that swept through communities leaving blackened wreckage in their wake. But this was supposed to be an advantage for her, a social outlet!
How many 14-year-olds wouldn’t give their right arm to be included in a group of adults with full-blown adult privileges?



She would go home after midnight, stagger into the bathroom and throw up all the Chivas Regal. The next morning, pale as a spook, she would throw up again, with her mother hearing her but saying nothing.

Her mother knew. She knew everything. Wanted to be rid of this social liability, to hand her over. Keep her happy. Later that day the family received a bouquet. She knew it was from her brother’s friend, the one who had pinned and groped her. It couldn’t be anyone else.

"Had a great time last night," the sloppily-written tag read. "See you next week."

It was not signed. Incredibly, her parents did not ask who had sent it, but put the pink roses in a vase on the table.

Twenty years later, the family was absolutely horrified to learn that Little Sister had joined AA. It was a total disgrace to the family, who had never had problems like that and never would. It was obviously an act of hostility on her part. They could never understand why she wasn't more grateful for all they had done for her. When she began to see a therapist, it was even worse, for that implied that the family was crazy. Then they decided that SHE was the one who was crazy, and the matter was closed.



Post-script. Some years later my brother's friend, the one who liked to send me roses, lost his job and all his money and (finally) his wife, and shot himself in the head. I suppose these things never end well. For me, they never end at all.

BLOGGER'S NOTE. This is not the first, nor probably even the second time I have posted this. Calling it fiction is - fiction, as most of it happened to me, just the way it was set down here. I even tried to send a link to my brother through Facebook - but he's not really on Facebook, and I took the link off anyway. The only brother who loved me and understood me died on the streets of Toronto in 1980. No one left in my family would ever get this, or even believe half of it, but I was there. I think posting the Auden poem and all it stirred up in me caused me to dredge this up again. I have healed, and have a good life now, and my family is more wonderful than I can say. So: I WON, I scored a clear victory, and will never be pulled down by this shit, ever again. So it doesn't matter whether my fucking brother ever sees it. Which he won't, as he'd think it was all lies anyway.

W. H. Auden's homoerotic masterpiece

THE PLATONIC BLOW – W. H. AUDEN

It was a spring day, a day for a lay, when the air
Smelled like a locker-room, a day to blow or get blown;
Returning from lunch I turned my corner and there
On a near-by stoop I saw him standing alone.

I glanced as I advanced. The clean white T-shirt outlined
A forceful torso, the light-blue denims divulged
Much. I observed the snug curves where they hugged the behind,
I watched the crotch where the cloth intriguingly bulged.

Our eyes met. I felt sick. My knees turned weak.
I couldn’t move. I didn’t know what to say.
In a blur I heard words, myself like a stranger speak
“Will you come to my room?” Then a husky voice, “O.K.”

I produced some beer and we talked. Like a little boy
He told me his story. Present address: next door.
Half Polish, half Irish. The youngest. From Illinois.
Profession: mechanic. Name: Bud. Age: twenty-four.

He put down his glass and stretched his bare arms along
The back of my sofa. The afternoon sunlight struck
The blond hairs on the wrist near my head. His chin was strong.
His mouth sucky. I could hardly believe my luck.

And here he was sitting beside me, legs apart.
I could bear it no longer. I touched the inside of his thigh.
His reply was to move closer. I trembled, my heart
Thumped and jumped as my fingers went to his fly.

I opened a gap in the flap. I went in there.
I sought for a slit in the gripper shorts that had charge
Of the basket I asked for. I came to warm flesh, then to hair.
I went on. I found what I hoped. I groped. It was large.

He responded to my fondling in a charming, disarming way:
Without a word he unbuckled his belt while I felt.
And lolled back, stretching his legs. His pants fell away.
Carefully drawing it out, I beheld what I held.

The circumcised head was a work of mastercraft
With perfectly beveled rim of unusual weight
And the friendliest red. Even relaxed, the shaft
Was of noble dimensions with the wrinkles that indicate

Singular powers of extension. For a second or two,
It lay there inert, then suddenly stirred in my hand,
Then paused as if frightened or doubtful of what to do.
And then with a violent jerk began to expand.

By soundless bounds it extended and distended, by quick
Great leaps it rose, it flushed, it rushed to its full size.
Nearly nine inches long and three inches thick,
A royal column, ineffably solemn and wise.

I tested its length and strength with a manual squeeze.
I bunched my fingers and twirled them about the knob.
I stroked it from top to bottom. I got on my knees.
I lowered my head. I opened my mouth for the job.

But he pushed me gently away. He bent down. He unlaced
His shoes. He removed his socks. Stood up. Shed
His pants altogether. Muscles in arms and waist
Rippled as he whipped his T-shirt over his head.

I scanned his tan, enjoyed the contrast of brown
Trunk against white shorts taut around small
Hips. With a dig and a wriggle he peeled them down.
I tore off my clothes. He faced me, smiling. I saw all.

The gorgeous organ stood stiffly and straightly out
With a slight flare upwards. At each beat of his heart it threw
An odd little nod my way. From the slot of the spout
Exuded a drop of transparent viscous goo.

The lair of hair was fair, the grove of a young man,
A tangle of curls and whorls, luxuriant but couth.
Except for a spur of golden hairs that fan
To the neat navel, the rest of the belly was smooth.

Well hung, slung from the fork of the muscular legs,
The firm vase of his sperm, like a bulging pear,
Cradling its handsome glands, two herculean eggs,
Swung as he came towards me, shameless, bare.

We aligned mouths. We entwined. All act was clutch,
All fact contact, the attack and the interlock
Of tongues, the charms of arms. I shook at the touch
Of his fresh flesh, I rocked at the shock of his cock.

Straddling my legs a little I inserted his divine
Person between and closed on it tight as I could.
The upright warmth of his belly lay all along mine.
Nude, glued together for a minute, we stood.

I stroked the lobes of his ears, the back of his head
And the broad shoulders. I took bold hold of the compact
Globes of his bottom. We tottered. He fell on the bed.
Lips parted, eyes closed, he lay there, ripe for the act.

Mad to be had, to be felt and smelled. My lips
Explored the adorable masculine tits. My eyes
Assessed the chest. I caressed the athletic hips
And the slim limbs. I approved the grooves of the thighs.

I hugged, I snuggled into an armpit. I sniffed
The subtle whiff of its tuft. I lapped up the taste
Of its hot hollow. My fingers began to drift
On a trek of inspection, a leisurely tour of the waist.

Downward in narrowing circles they playfully strayed.
Encroached on his privates like poachers, approached the prick,
But teasingly swerved, retreated from meeting. It betrayed
Its pleading need by a pretty imploring kick.

“Shall I rim you?” I whispered. He shifted his limbs in assent.
Turned on his side and opened his legs, let me pass
To the dark parts behind. I kissed as I went
The great thick cord that ran back from his balls to his arse.

Prying the buttocks aside, I nosed my way in
Down the shaggy slopes. I came to the puckered goal.
It was quick to my licking. He pressed his crotch to my chin.
His thighs squirmed as my tongue wormed in his hole.

His sensations yearned for consummation. He untucked
His legs and lay panting, hot as a teen-age boy.
Naked, enlarged, charged, aching to get sucked,
Clawing the sheet, all his pores open to joy.

I inspected his erection. I surveyed his parts with a stare
From scrotum level. Sighting along the underside
Of his cock, I looked through the forest of pubic hair
To the range of the chest beyond rising lofty and wide.

I admired the texture, the delicate wrinkles and the neat
Sutures of the capacious bag. I adored the grace
Of the male genitalia. I raised the delicious meat
Up to my mouth, brought the face of its hard-on to my face.

Slipping my lips round the Byzantine dome of the head,
With the tip of my tongue I caressed the sensitive groove.
He thrilled to the trill. “That’s lovely!” he hoarsely said.
“Go on! Go on!” Very slowly I started to move.

Gently, intently, I slid to the massive base
Of his tower of power, paused there a moment down
In the warm moist thicket, then began to retrace
Inch by inch the smooth way to the throbbing crown.

Indwelling excitements swelled at delights to come
As I descended and ascended those thick distended walls.
I grasped his root between left forefinger and thumb
And with my right hand tickled his heavy voluminous balls.

I plunged with a rhythmical lunge steady and slow,
And at every stroke made a corkscrew roll with my tongue.
His soul reeled in the feeling. He whimpered “Oh!”
As I tongued and squeezed and rolled and tickled and swung.

Then I pressed on the spot where the groin is joined to the cock,
Slipped a finger into his arse and massaged him from inside.
The secret sluices of his juices began to unlock.
He melted into what he felt. “O Jesus!” he cried.

Waves of immeasurable pleasure mounted his member in quick
Spasms. I lay still in the notch of his crotch, inhaling his sweat.
His ring convulsed round my finger. Into me, rich and thick,
His hot spunk spouted in gouts, spurted in jet after jet.

SOOOOOO, do I have anything to say about this masterpiece of homoeroticism? For that is what it is. It is simply beautiful in its graceful, yet blatant sexuality. No doubt having to hide for most of his life, it must have been luxurious for Auden to write it. It sounds like a fantasy, of course - he meets a young, stunningly gorgeous, totally anonymous, totally available young man for a one-time "tryst" (for the feeling is, even though he lives next door, this will happen only once and never again).

I have a history with this poem, strangely enough. When I used to visit my sister in Toronto (and yes, there was a time I would be in the same room with her), I was only about 15, and everyone else was about 15 years older. There were magazines lying around - not exactly dirty, no pictures, but literary porn disguised as "erotica". I knew of Auden from English class, and my favorite poem remains As I Walked Out one Evening (which I made a YouTube video of - I'll post it soon). But this - ! This was not only beautifully-written, but frankly dirty, if dirty means so blatantly sexual that it makes your jaw drop (so to speak). It stayed in my head, my impressionable young 15-year-old head, and just as I was exposed to dirty literature, I was also plied with drink, made very drunk, treated like a drunk little mascot, and groped and grabbed at by my sister's many boy friends, most of them married men in their 30s. One of them, I found out later, shot himself in the head. And I was expected to be grateful - as if it was some sort of special privilege to have this golden opportunity of sampling adult delights. To be "included". My parents knew all about these visits, by the way, and the parties, and even - shockingly - attended many of them themselves, boozing, shouting, not seeing or wanting to see.

But the Auden. After all the pawing and groping, I wasn't exactly innocent, even if I seemed to have a target painted on me somewhere. I knew about stuff like this, though it would have been better for me if I didn't. But even so, I wasn't used to such raw sexuality expressed in such masterful terms, which is why bits of it DID stick: "That's lovely", for some reason, and "an odd little nod". 

Years stream by! And more, and more. But it was still a long time ago that I thought of it again and googled it, and found that there WAS a poem called The Platonic Blow which had ONCE been ascribed to Auden, but it was a vicious lie, unkind and unfair, and OF COURSE he didn't write it! Case closed. But the poem was the same poem, I knew it. I sent a copy to a novelist friend of mine, and he answered, "Wow."

More years! Years and years. Then once again I thought of it, and fished it up again, and THIS time, yes, what do you know, Auden DID write it and even published it, underground and under a different name. But he wanted it in print, and no wonder. It's just so Auden-ish: "Shall I rim you?" he asks, in his best drawing-room English, as if asking, "Cream or lemon?" To me he always looked like a dried-out, vastly wrinkly professorial type, but apparently he hung out with Christopher Isherwood and "Benji" Britten (a closet queen whom Auden helped open the door), and was quite a wild thing in his youth. It's not true that homosexuality was universally damned until about 1973. In Paris, in the 1920s, it was quite the thing, and you did not even need to be "gay" to sample it. It was just another sexual adventure, a way to colour outside the lines. A man could relax into his gayness there.

If I had put any whisper of this on YouTube, I'd be banned for life, and I'm still not sure the Blog Monster won't just come and shut me down for publishing "p*rn". Things are so bad on YouTube now that you can't say "d*mn" or "h*ll", and all swears are now bleeped. It's very depressing.

But I'll post this, and if anyone is offended you can stop reading at any time. It's nice to know this "BUT AUDEN DIDN'T WRITE IT" garbage has died out. I've seen discussions where people vehemently, even violently protested any suggestion that their literary heroes were gay, as if it is the worst slander one can sling at someone. Maybe to some, it still is. 

But Auden was gay, quite flamboyantly gay, and he loved young men, and I too feel a stir at this description, because it doesn't matter how old you are, or how married you are. Men smell good, their voices are wonderful, and those hands, those eyes. And other parts.

💗The Troll Doll Channel: DOUBLE UNBOXING of Juju Doll and 9" Bearded Tro...

Unboxings are always exciting, though I keep thinking: where am I going to PUT all these guys? I haven't quite figured it out yet, nor have I tired of the Christmas morning feeling of unboxing a new troll for my collection. Custom trolls are the best of all, and real works of art. This juju doll is gorgeous, but a little intimidating, so I had to display him in the other room. Not that I'm scared!

BOOM! goes the nighthawk!

Another video featuring the common nighthawk's famous "boom", which is actually more of a "zoom".

STAR JELLY: What is it, and WHY?

STAR JELLY: What is it, and why?

On 11 November 1846, a luminous object estimated at 4 feet in diameter fell at Lowville, New York, leaving behind a heap of foul-smelling luminous jelly that disappeared quickly, according to Scientific American.

In 1950, four Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, policemen reported the discovery of "a domed disk of quivering jelly, 6 feet in diameter, one foot thick at the center and an inch or two near the edge". When they tried to pick it up, it dissolved into an "odorless, sticky scum".This incident inspired the 1958 movie The Blob.

On 11 August 1979, Sybil Christian of Frisco, Texas reported the discovery of several purple blobs of goo on her front yard following a Perseid meteor shower. A follow up investigation by reporters and an assistant director of the Fort Worth Museum of Science and History discovered a battery reprocessing plant outside of town where caustic soda was used to clean impurities from the lead in the batteries, resulting in a purplish compound as a byproduct. The report was greeted with some skepticism, however, as the compounds at the reprocessing plant were solid, whereas the blobs on Christian's lawn were gelatinous. Others, however, have pointed out that Christian had tried to clear them off her lawn with a garden hose.

In December 1983, grayish-white, oily gelatin fell on North Reading, Massachusetts. Thomas Grinley reported finding it on his lawn, on the streets and sidewalks, and dripping from gas station pumps.

On several dates in 1994, "gelatinous rain" fell on Oakville, Washington.

It was reported via the Fortean Times that on the evening of 3 November 1996, a meteor was reported flashing across the sky of Kempton, Tasmania, just outside Hobart. The next morning, white translucent slime was reportedly discovered on the lawns and sidewalks of the town. In 1997, a similar substance fell in the Everett, Washington, area.

Star jelly was found on various Scottish hills in the autumn of 2009.

Blue balls of jelly rained down on a man's garden in Dorset in January 2012. Upon further analysis these proved to be sodium polyacrylate granules, a kind of superabsorbent polymer with a variety of common (including agricultural) uses. They were most likely already present on the ground in their dehydrated state, and had gone un-noticed until they soaked up water from the hail shower and consequently grew in size.

Several deposits were discovered at the Ham Wall nature reserve in England in February 2013. It has been suggested that these are unfertilised frog spawn, regurgitated frog innards, or a form of cyanobacteria.

In the BBC programme Nature's Weirdest Events, Series 4, episode 3, (14 January 2015) Chris Packham showed a specimen of "star jelly" and had it sent to the Natural History Museum, London, for a DNA analysis by Dr. David Bass who confirmed it was from a frog. He also found some traces of magpie DNA on the jelly which may point to the demise of the frog.

BLOGGER'S NOTES. I STILL do not know what star jelly is. I remember the guy in Ghost Busters being "slimed", and I've heard about viscous goo appearing on the walls at seances. But every incident listed here seems to have a different explanation. Or is science/the human mind just grasping and straining to try to explain the inexplicable? Right away I thought: manna in the wilderness, but if THIS is manna, I don't see how Moses could have gotten his people out the door. I wouldn't have known about any of this, except for the above video by Simon Whistler (who has something like ten or eleven YouTube channels AND a podcast. Ridiculous, really, and sometimes he sounds like a cross between James Mason and Churchill).

VOCAL FRY: WHY must women sound like frogs? An investigation

YES. . . . . . . . . . WHY?????

Common Nighthawk Dive Bomb

A beautiful short video of the "Skeezix bird" swooping, diving and "booming" in pink and golden clouds. The bird even flies right at the camera as he dives - and at the very end, we see a rainbow. 

I'm finding out more about this bird, which I THINK I can hear at night in Port Coquitlam - but it's too far away to hear the "boom". They're sometimes called "bullbats" because of the swift, darting way they fly (and the booming dives). They're not even hawks, but more closely related to a species called a nightjar. Fierce little creatures.

Nightjars are medium-sized nocturnal or crepuscular birds in the family Caprimulgidae /ˌkæprɪˈmʌldʒɪdiː/ and order Caprimulgiformes, characterised by long wings, short legs, and very short bills. They are sometimes called goatsuckers, due to the ancient folk tale that they sucked the milk from goats (the Latin for goatsucker is caprimulgus), or bugeaters, their primary source of food being insects. Some New World species are called nighthawks. The English word "nightjar" originally referred to the European nightjar.

(GOATSUCKERS??)

Voices: Common Nighthawk (The Skeezix Bird)

It was one of those hothotHOT summers in Chatham, in the heel of Southwestern Ontario, when it felt like someone was holding something to your nose and mouth so you could not breathe. Sweat accumulated in layers on your skin, but if it evaporated at all, it provided no relief from the relentless, doggy heat.

We didn't take showers then, because you just didn't - women washed their hair in the sink and wrapped a towel around their head, turban-style (God knows why, or how they ever dried it). If you were so hot you were turning into melted rubber, you lay in a bath tub full of tepid water, drained it, and felt more moist and clammy than ever. As far as I know, people didn't bathe every day, nor were clothes washed as often, but perhaps the predominance of natural fibres kept us from keeling over from each other's stench.

The humidity devil did not let up often. But on certain nights the sky suddenly cracked open, and floods of lukewarm rain caused some of us (mostly kids, or a few heat-crazed adults) to strip down to the bare essentials and go out in it, dancing around, hair streaming, mouth open. The cracks of livid electricity almost made my hair stand on end, and sometimes I felt it zip up my arms as if it wanted me for some awful unknown purpose.

But the buckets of rain did not help. Soon everything was just steaming, the air more choked with water than before.

Cicadas buzzed their long, rattlesnake-like arches of sound on those summer afternoons in which time seemed to hang suspended. We didn't like finding the adults - "June bugs", they were usually called, big fat things with wings - but the cast-off shells of the nymphs were magical. They appeared all over the bark of the elm trees that would all-too-soon be felled due to disease, never to be seen again.

But at night, there was this - this sound! A night bird, one that I called "the Skeezix bird" because that's what it sounded like. On damp, hollow, star-filled Chatham nights, the Skeezix would begin to swoop in the sky, the sound swinging near and far so that you couldn't tell exactly where it was coming from. It had to be some kind of hawk or falcon. But nobody ever referred to it or talked about it. It was just there, like the long-drawn-out tambourine-hiss of the cicadas. All part of summer in the city.

But when I heard the Skeezix bird, every so often I also heard the strangest sound, halfway between a burp and a groan. Short, hollow, and - stupid really, because obviously it had nothing to do with the bird, yet there it was, persistent. I even asked other people about it once, and no one had ever heard it. It seemed like nobody really wanted to talk about it. At least they looked at me strangely, though I suppose by then I should have been used to that.

Then one time, my older brother said, "You know that booming noise? It's sound waves from the hawk's cries bouncing off buildings."

It wasn't. In fact, until this very moment I didn't know what the hell it was or how it could be related to the Skeezix bird.

Then came this answer, this beautiful, golden Answer. Simply laid out. Not even a long or detailed video, just a clear audio explanation with pictures. There WAS a Skeezix bird, even if it was called something else. If it was creating that groany boom out in nature, obviously it had nothing to do with sound waves and buildings.

The real explanation is exotic and a little far-fetched, but it must be true. It just took me fifty years to find it. Play the video above, and be enlightened.

NOTE: Since I first wrote this post in 2017, I have become totally addicted to the Cornell Lab of Ornithology website. If you have ANY interest at all in ANY wild bird, at least in North America, you will find information about it here - not only pictures, but habitat, what they eat, when they mate - and, most magical of all, the SOUNDS they make. I have even identified a bird (Swainson's thrush - I may do a separate post on that mystery) just by narrowing down the species and listening to all the different calls. So if you love birds, and want to know more, GO THERE. 

Cornell Lab of Ornithology

A little more info on the Skeezix cry, dive and "boom".

On summer evenings, keep an eye and an ear out for the male Common Nighthawk’s dramatic “booming” display flight. Flying at a height slightly above the treetops, he abruptly dives for the ground. As he peels out of his dive (sometimes just a few meters from the ground) he flexes his wings downward, and the air rushing across his wingtips makes a deep booming or whooshing sound, as if a racecar has just passed by. The dives may be directed at females, territorial intruders, and even people.

💥WHEN BIRDS ATTACK! Swarmed by AGGRESSIVE Canada geese

As I attempted to feed a lovely white dove which has taken up residence at the dock on Burnaby Lake, GEESE muscled in from every side - big, fat, honking, pooping, hissing, running-at-you Canada geese. Not my favorite bird. The dove was undoubtedly a domestic bird which had escaped, and was even banded. We remembered seeing four of them originally - two white and two black. I do not see how anyone could abandon birds that beautiful, and their chances of surviving in the wild are close to nil. Once we even saw, incredibly, a small flock of white domestic ducks bobbing around amidst the mallards. Then we saw three. . .then two. . . then one. . . and now we don't see them at all. Domestic birds do not have sharp  enough survival instincts and are not bonded to the flock sufficiently to survive even in these semi-tame environs, where people constantly come to photograph them and feed them by hand.

The End of the World

I LOVE THIS!! Though she was pretty much a one-hit wonder, I think Skeeter Davis is brilliant in this song. The clarity and utterly true pitch, the charming drawl (probably Texan) are just so perfect. Every time I hear it I just. . . kvell. Who says there are no pop masterpieces? The spoken interlude coinciding with the key modulation is spot-on. I can't listen to it enough. And this from someone who generally hates country music. A bit of background:

In 1963, Davis achieved her biggest success with country pop crossover hit "The End of the World". The song just missed topping the country and pop charts that year; however, it did top the adult contemporary charts. The record was also a surprise top-five hit on the rhythm and blues charts, making Davis one of the few white female singers to have a top-10 hit in that market. The single sold over one million copies and was awarded a gold disc. This song was likely the first popular example of Sound on Sound where the erase magnet was disabled and the artist sang along with the recording or the original recording was mixed with the live artist voice and re-recorded, Therefore, it sounds like a duet in places. "The End of the World" soon became Davis's signature song. - Wikipedia

POST-SCRIPT: This video has so far received more than 17 MILLION views!

if people talked like support chats

This lady usually covers historical costumes, but once in a while comes out with a gem like this. 

🌈UFOs? Heavenly messengers? Or just a big hole in the sky?⛅

A great big hole in the sky!

“A fallstreak hole (also known as a cavum hole punch cloud, punch hole cloud, skypunch, cloud canal or cloud hole) is a large gap, usually circular or elliptical, that can appear in cirrocumulus or altocumulus clouds. Because of their rarity and unusual appearance, fallstreak holes have been mistaken for or attributed to unidentified flying objects.” - Wikipedia

These unusual cloud structures often have rainbow colours and what appears to be angelic figures inside them, which some believe are of supernatural origin. To me, they look kind of like sea monkeys.

🌈The Troll Doll Channel: My Magic ZELF (slightly damaged)!

Zelfs ARE trolls, sort of, though they don't resemble any of the others. This one was so gorgeously customized that I HAD to have it. A little piece of crystal fell off its crown, so I repaired it with a gold leaf off an earring. But I have since glued his pedestal down so my cat won't knock him off the shelf again.

🤎NEW CHICK IN TOWN: Adorable BABY Sandhill Crane!🤎

Bird-watching can be very hit-or-miss. One day birds show up in noisy droves, challenging your ability to even get them into camera range, and the next they just seem to disappear. Species come and go in my own back yard with dizzying frequency. Right now it's house finches, black-headed grosbeaks, nuthatches and chickadees, though the odd rogue towhee shows up to hop back and forth scratching for bugs. 

The larger birds, the Steller's jays, ravens and flickers, are nowhere to be seen, though we do see a downy woodpecker now and then, hammering away at suet. Likewise, the places we go to birdwatch vary wildly in what they present to us. This sandhill crane chick was such a gift, and the blackbirds swooped down on me relentlessly, jabbing their needle beaks into the palm of my hand as they greedily devoured black oil sunflower seeds. 

But aside from those two, all we seemed to have were obnoxious Canada geese in their dozens, if not hundreds. I've seen so many species at Burnaby Lake, including the rare mandarin duck, as well as ringnecks, scaups, wood ducks, teals, and God knows what else that I can't remember just now. But the geese appear to have taken over. You can tell by the massive poops on the dock, as large and foul as dog shit.

Will the rest of them be back? That's up to the birds, who are so "flocky" that no one can really predict their ways. Today I walked around Como Lake and was heartened to see several duck families with ducklings of different ages, some drakes having a bachelor party, and MANY Canada geese, which were behaving very strangely indeed. 

They were all in the water, at least two dozen of them, and suddenly they all started running along on the surface of the water - all in one direction. HOW can a bird as heavy and "breasty" as a Canada goose RUN on the water? But I saw their feet! They kept doing this, not preparing for takeoff but just skidding along in unison, looking utterly ridiculous, while I tried to take a video of it (it was too far away to film properly). Then they started splashing violently, dunking themselves, and dabbling so deep that their huge webbed feet flailed wildly in the air. 

But the thing of it is - last time we went to Como, maybe a couple of weeks ago, I don't think we saw any ducks or geese there at all. The place seemed deserted.  I'm still not seeing my beloved diving birds, coots, hooded mergansers, Northern shovellers, and the cormorants that used to show up in the "duck park" (Lafarge Lake). The lagoon, which has in the past displayed red-tailed hawks, sandhill cranes, mergansers of every stripe, and even SWANS (and just once, an otter), seems completely dead right now. WHERE IS EVERYONE??

I don't know how many times I've been convinced my bird-watching days are over, when everyone just takes off somewhere and the lakes are virtually vacant. Will this teach me patience? Probably not, because a blank lake makes me bleak. 

But being so flocky, these creatures think with a single mind, so whatever the flock leader wants to do (and who knows how THIS gets sorted out), the rest of the birds either follow, or quickly die due to the lack of protection from predators. This is, unfortunately, what happened to my beloved Bosley and his companion, Belinda. I tell myself it's all part of nature, but so am I, so I can't help feeling the loss. 

The Troll Doll Channel: DOUBLE UNBOXING of Juju Doll and 9" Bearded Troll!

O happy day - to have TWO trolls to unbox, with Bentley helping me every step of the way.

The Unremarkable Meghan Markle

PLEASE NOTE: I did NOT write this article, and reproduce it here for educational purposes only. Here is the link to the original article, which I take no credit for:

https://spectatorworld.com/topic/remarkable-meghan-markle/

The unremarkable Meghan Markle

She is terminal bread and circuses, SoCal lights and vapid glamor

June 13, 2022 | 10:54 pm

Written by: Gilbert T. Sewall

Two days after a May 24 elementary school shooting left nineteen children and two teachers dead and another seventeen injured, the wife of Britain’s Prince Harry made an unannounced visit with her camera crew to the Texas town of Uvalde.

Vanity Fair said, “She was spotted placing a bouquet of white flowers near a makeshift memorial,” not bothering to rewrite the press copy. Was spotted? In real time during the outing, aggressive publicists at Archewell were shopping and circulating copy and photos to media, getting instant pickup by Yahoo News, People, Elle, and other outlets worldwide.

“The forty-year-old Duchess of Sussex — wearing jeans, a t-shirt and a blue baseball cap — reached down with her head bowed,” articles said, one after another. “She also walked around the memorial, looking at the white crosses bearing the names of the victims of Tuesday’s carnage.”

Uninvited, Meghan Markle had hopped on a private plane in Santa Barbara “as a mother.” Flying with staff, bodyguard and camera crew to a private airfield near Uvalde, she was whisked into a black van, amply photographed and home before dark, job done, it’s a wrap. Was this some strange, sick, unspeakable parody of a royal visit? What the hell was it?

While any right-minded human being would steer away from such a ghastly charade, Meghan did not. Is she insane? Not exactly, although many of her least attractive qualities are tucked into the DSM-5.

With Meghan, there are too many fibs and fatuities to recount. “I grew up with that farm-to-table dining before it was sweeping the nation,” she says. “I do think there’s some value to really throwing yourself into food and embracing where it comes from.”

Remember the rescue chickens? “I just love rescuing,” Markle said, talking to Oprah Winfrey about basics and authenticity. They stood outside the chickens’ new home, cloyingly staged as Archie’s Chick Inn. At this emetic Oprah moment, any insightful person would say this phony is trolling us, click off the television set and walk out of the room. Meghan’s fans go in for this kind of dreck.

Remember biracial Althea Bernstein, the eighteen-year-old Madison, Wisconsin girl who improbably claimed “four classic Wisconsin frat boys” threw lighter fluid on her while stopped at a traffic light, and tried to set her afire? Major media tried to bury the obvious hoax, but Meghan had heard about Bernstein’s story. According to reports, she arranged a forty-minute call and the two “talked about the importance of self care and allowing herself to heal.” Her publicists triggered a brief media flurry on women’s and fashion sites to highlight Meghan’s racial consciousness — just before Bernstein’s full exposure.

But this faux pas was mere fanfare. As everyone knows, Meghan and Harry played the race card in March 2021 for Oprah. During the interview they professed that relentless racial hostility prompted their decision to leave the royal family.

Merchandizing Sussex in the US involves promises yet to be fulfilled: to provide exclusive Netflix content, Spotify podcasts and a four-book deal with Penguin Random House. The dollars are staggering. But Netflix has already canceled one venture, Spotify is waiting for product and the Harry memoir is delayed. The Archewell Foundation administered by a Beverly Hills sports and celebrity lawyer bespeaks 501c3 non-profit abuse for private ends.

After on-and-off drama before the Jubilee visit, the pair reportedly tried to secure photographs or film with the Queen and Prince William to use as part of the Netflix series they are filming. Palace officers worried they would share any photos with television networks. They never got the money shot. Royal choreography at the St. Paul’s Thanksgiving Service and elsewhere signaled cool distance and Harry’s secondary rank. Prince Harry and Meghan’s failure to land pictures, it is claimed, has dismayed Netflix executives. It might have led to their abrupt, early and rude departure from the Jubilee, again on a private jet.

From the age of twelve, Queen Elizabeth II as princess received tutoring in English history and British constitution from Eton’s venerable provost. She grew up respectful of the monarchy’s limits and demands. By all accounts reflective and kind, she spent down time in the countryside, horseback riding and walking her Pembroke Welsh corgis. (She has had thirty in her lifetime.)

By contrast Meghan is terminal LA bread and circuses. When she discovered how dull royal rounds and duties were, and that her silly causes were to be tabled, she yearned for the bright lights and the vapid glamor of SoCal, a place where she could flash dance and shine among sycophants.

Meghan has no clue about English constitutional history and the royal role therein. For her, it’s the celebrity A-list, the starring role, no more. Sovereign and state? Who knows, who cares. Her woke-lite, vegan today, climate change tomorrow nostrums — her dreamy Cinderella story with an equity angle — might enchant fans. She must have seemed dippy and crass to worldly London aristocrats.

British royals and peerage can be remarkably down to earth, even voluptuary in private (they hope) but manners, etiquette and codes of conduct in public are ironclad. Privacy and discretion are of paramount concern. Experienced, sympathetic advisers tried to school Meghan in how it’s done. They failed.

The English public resents Harry’s self-exile, an act thought to reveal a troubled soul overshadowed by his brother and sister-in-law. At Eton his academic performance was weak, and his behavior finally disruptive. The nation loved him nonetheless, as it did his late mother, Diana. Harry is an accomplished horseman and soldier. He is now widely seen as prey for a manipulative American adventuress, redolent of Wallis Simpson and Edward VIII.

There are thirty dukes of England and more peers. Many sponsor civic projects and good works like Harry’s Invictus Games. Harry would be better off, some say, living the life of an English country gent in familiar social circumstances. Instead he is an alien in the land of trust funds and everything-has-a-price merchandisers, playing charity polo while his brazen wife parades for the cameras. He is overseeing a book with a ghostwriter on a $20 million advance, a project behind schedule. “Harry Under Pressure,” the tabloids say. “Mystery Behind Missing Memoir.”

Despite her pretensions, Meghan is a very limited threat to the constitutional order. She will make trouble. But the majority of the British public has turned against the pair. The good will overflowing at the 2018 wedding, forbearing in style, has vanished.

Meghan’s flacks talk of a future run for the Senate from California, or even the presidency. This is DSM-5-level fantasy. Good judgment and introspection are not the pair’s strong suit, it seems, but don’t they know? The caravan moves on, always. As their hollow selves grow tiresome, the brand will likely fade. The Netflix cancelation and their unsteadiness suggest more psychodrama to come. The Sussexes are not emotionally prepared for derision or pity — nor are they ready to go away unnoticed.

Amish dreams: visions of the disaffected

 

God, I have crazy dreams. . .

 I don’t usually even remember dreams, but once in a while I have a doozie – not really a nightmare (I don’t remember those either), but one that is so bizarre it defies any explanation. It means what it means, I guess. As Bob Dylan put it in Gates of Eden:

"At dawn my lover comes to me
And tells me of her dreams
With no attempt to shovel the glimpse
Into the ditch of what each one means."

But this one - . Anyway, Bill and I were in New York (I think – at least, some teeming urban centre that I wasn’t familiar with, at all. Here we were in Gotham. The Big Apple. This Is The City.) We were standing at a sort of crossroads, a busy corner, although I had no idea where we actually were and even less idea of the names of the streets, what hotel we were staying in, etc. THEN – suddenly – I was sitting in a wagon. It was a wagon FULL of Amish people. Just chock-a-block. Not one of those smart carriages – this was a fairly primitive wagon, kind of like a covered wagon only un-covered. I didn’t quite know how I had gotten there, although I vaguely remembered climbing aboard. No kidnapping or coercion was involved.

But I was sitting next to this woman (she was on my right, maybe 30ish, very Amish in costume and demeanour, the kind of woman who already has a dozen kids) who kept talking and talking. It was Amish talk, but as usual I can’t remember much content. Pro-Amish, of course, though since I was not handcuffed, I didn’t think I was required to join the cult.

BUT. And this was the hard part. Though I had climbed aboard somewhere in the teeming downtown, I had no point of reference. I had no phone. Where was my husband? I wanted out (or “off”), but didn’t see a way. I could have, I guess, said (and I think I tried), “Stop and let me off”, but the Amish woman told me “no, we’re going up to the Lake country”. I envisioned being away to hell and gone in some isolated rural community living completely off the grid. It was a helpless feeling. I was cut off. I was part of this. . . group. Religion? I finally said, “Can you take me back to where I got on and just drop me off?” They looked at me in bafflement.

Like most of my dreams, it didn’t “end” but just sort of petered out. Of course, my mind wants to put puzzle pieces together, so I wondered if this whole thing was an allegory for the church I attended for fifteen years. THAT ended badly too, though I had been disaffected and unhappy for the last three or four. I stayed too long, and began to feel a creeping sense of “we-think” – in other words, if you start thinking OUTSIDE that box, you are no  longer welcome. This coincided with a horrible meltdown in leadership that I won’t even go into. But still I didn’t leave!

Eventually, as I regained my mental health and saw the light, my relationship with the church also petered out and I no longer wanted to attend. I was tired of the whole thing. I now see mainstream church attendance as something out of the last century. Big drafty 100-year-old buildings being used for two hours a week, doctrine and cant that is always vigorously denied, hidden agendas that create constant guilt and a sense of inadequacy, an INSISTENCE that everyone is welcome and people can interpret God any way they want . . . but if you go too far, the minister will summon you to his office for a friendly chat.

The pandemic has virtually wiped out "liberal" church congregations except in a very limited capacity. Some have gone to “hybrid worship”, which sounds to me like something out of Soylent Green or some other cinematic dystopia. I am not sorry, for so-called liberal churches are an anachronism. We didn’t really help anyone. If someone in need came to us, they were given a bus ticket and a token for the food bank, all the way across town. And that’s it. People grumbled about having to pay for those tokens and wondered why people didn’t just get a job.

Oh, but one time we tried. Having dutifully brought our canned food donations to the church, someone made the mistake of getting up at the front and saying, "We also need can openers." To a person, the congregation roared with laughter. Someone needs CAN OPENERS?

The Amish thing, well, I’ve never had too many feelings about the Amish either way, except to say that we often hear about alarming genetic diseases that have not even been heard of before. The Mennonites, Hutterites, Anabaptists and Amish have been profoundly inbred for centuries, but as young people leave in droves to live more normal lives, the gene pool is getting smaller and smaller. Marry your first cousin? Maybe you have no other choice. So you end up with a sort of horrifying Habsburg situation, with children stillborn, hopelessly deformed, or dying of untreatable medical conditions.

The only churches which are flourishing now are Pentecostals, led by evangelicals who prey on the weakest and most needy. Shameless grifters, the sort that preach at us from our TVs, buy private jets with the congregation’s monetary “seeds”, and eventually get into sex scandals. I’m so tired of it all. We have two gigantic churches in our area, very recently built, which I  have heard are full every Sunday. Pentecostals. The United Church is foundering on the verge of collapse, and is even thinking of converting some of those huge drafty buildings into low-income housing (an idea that horrifies almost everyone!).  I don’t care what is happening to my former church now because it outlived its usefulness thirty years ago.

 Now I’m thinking: if that cart was pulled by horses, why didn’t I see them or at least smell them? Was it an oxcart, perhaps? DID I ever get off? The dream tapered off before I could answer any of those questions. But I would not willingly climb aboard any sort of wagon now, Amish wagon, bandwagon, wagon train with no end. Stop the horses – I want to get off.

🌈JELL-O GIRL (handmade animation)

What happened to Bosley. . . . . .

I received this email just now, regarding a post I did in 2016. I feel a little too stunned to write about it now. We were pretty certain Bosley had died/been killed (he looked more like a domestic duck than a wild one, and whenever we see domestic ducks in the wild, we know they will not last long).

It's a sense of loss that I've already had for a couple of years. I tell myself: it's nature, it's the life cycle, etc. But Bosley wasn't the sharpest knife in the drawer, duckwise, and more than once I saw him waddling around on land. Once he was actually being chased by a mallard drake. But I think it may have been a predator that got him, as coyotes, bears and even cougars roam around within our city limits. The other thing is, I never did see him fly, and if he was bred for meat, as many ducks are, perhaps his wing capacity was too limited to get him out of trouble.

Anyway, here is her message, and I will try to assemble a proper memorial when I can.

"I found the duck you write about dead in the water over by the playground area. I called him Shep. He was my friend for 9 years. The brown one that hung around with him went missing 3 weeks ago. I looked for her everyday since. Today when I was at the lake I saw a huge amount of feathers float down the lake from the same area I found Shep. I know it hah to be Belinda as you called home. I believe the Mallards may have drowned him during mating time. I witnessed a few big mallards weeks prior chasing/harassing him so I am guessing rough play during mating season was the cause of his death. When Shep died a few years ago Bentley was extremely sad. He searched for Shep calling him for a long time. The green mallard that hung around with Shep and Bentley went missing a few months after. Him and Shep were very close. The three of them were bonded. I believe the green mallard was so depressed he stopped eating and got weak for predictors. Bentley lived 2 years and 2 weeks without them. After some time after his friends deaths, he paired up with a mallard and a female brown duck. They were friends for a long time until his demise 3 weeks ago. They are all in heaven now swimming together. I hope this information answered your questions and put your mind at rest. Don’t feel sad, they had a great life and now they are finally all together at last.

Shep died April 14, 2020,he was 9 years old, his mallard friend died August of same year, and Belinda (was really a he), he died 3 weeks ago. Sorry, I got the Belinda and Bentley names mixed up in my last post. Hope this sorts it out for you."

Here is my reply:

We were pretty sure something had happened to him - we used to see him every time we went there, then it just stopped. I am not sure if nine years is a long time for a duck, but I think it is for one living in the wild. And now his companion as well - I do remember the three of them swimming around together. This takes away something of the
magic of the lake. It seems almost deserted now, which baffles me. I know birds are very cyclic, but I'm not seeing a lot of birds anywhere now, not even at Burnaby Lake which is usually teeming with them. I appreciate your letting me know what happened. I know this is all part of nature, but I still feel the loss. I will miss him and "Belinda" and the drake. Nature does very interesting things, as in creating a little flock of three.

So they are all gone - the odd little flock of three (which we suspected were all male, though Belinda was so gorgeous with her curly tail, and MASSIVE - more the size of a goose). I have seen domestic birds (most recently, a glorious white dove which ate out of my hand) 

and even white waddly barnyard creatures, three of them, then two, then one - easy pickings for birds which are not "street-smart" in the wild. 

Sadly, this year Como Lake is practically deserted. Our lagoon is also very sparse, except in one of the lookouts which was 2 inches deep in goose shit! It was as if someone had just dumped a barrel of it on the boards. A goose convention? We've seen them before, a sort of stopover, usually VERY loud. We have also seen sandhill cranes, a red-tailed hawk and five wild swans in our lagoon. Why is all the magic being taken away? When will they return?