Perhaps he would never have dared to raise his eyes, but that, though the piping was now hushed, the call and the summons seemed still dominant and imperious. He might not refuse, were Death himself waiting to strike him instantly, once he had looked with mortal eye on things rightly kept hidden. Trembling he obeyed, and raised his humble head; and then, in that utter clearness of the imminent dawn, while Nature, flushed with fulness of incredible colour, seemed to hold her breath for the event, he looked in the very eyes of the Friend and Helper; saw the backward sweep of the curved horns, gleaming in the growing daylight; saw the stern, hooked nose between the kindly eyes that were looking down on them humourously, while the bearded mouth broke into a half-smile at the corners; saw the rippling muscles on the arm that lay across the broad chest, the long supple hand still holding the pan-pipes only just fallen away from the parted lips; saw the splendid curves of the shaggy limbs disposed in majestic ease on the sward; saw, last of all, nestling between his very hooves, sleeping soundly in entire peace and contentment, the little, round, podgy, childish form of the baby otter. All this he saw, for one moment breathless and intense, vivid on the morning sky; and still, as he looked, he lived; and still, as he lived, he wondered. —from The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame

Yes, it may finally be Summer. Or maybe it's still Spring. It just depends on which one is on top. For weeks they've been rolling around together…in the meadows, in the garden, up in the trees… Not at all like prudish Winter. No wonder everyone likes Summer so much.

Many thanks to Chip Simons for including the Mercuriosity Shop on a list of his favorite websites (scroll down to Recent Portfolios) for PDN. Some of you may remember Chip when he and his wife Cyndy visited the Shop to help kick off March with the great photo Dig Carrots. Thank you, Chip! And another thanks to my friend X for checking my awstats and discovering the link in the first place! And now that I’ve got all these budding photographers showing up here, I’d better start including some images with my posts soon!

I think I may finally have recovered from yesterday.

Firstly, every Friday I get up early and go to the coffeehouse. There I ordered my usual chai tea (large, spiced, two percent, hot) and sat with a couple tables full of artists, designers, painters, and other undesirables like myself. Around noon, some of us ventured out to an international market. The whole place reeked of fish. And no wonder. They have tanks of live fish, live turtles, live lobsters, and live frogs. They also had bottles of Jamaican Ting, for those of you who are interested in such tings, mon. I myself purchased one of the largest cherimoyas I'd ever seen. I also got a tray of pre-made sushi. Someone else bought chicken adobo, and something akin to mango gelatin-snot. Then there was the “candy” that looked like a pumice stone and tasted like the compressed remnants from the bottom of a box of Lucky Charms. We also discovered a bag of shortcakes pressed into the shape of seashells. (Don't ask me how we discovered this, but they float. For a time.) So we shared our purchases with each other, for good or for ill.

Later that evening, a number of us from the pubs decided to meet for dinner at a tapas restaurant. The idea is to order different dishes, which you then share with the rest of the table. I think we ordered seven or eight dishes, including stuffed mushroom caps, goat cheese in tomato sauce, and the ever-popular dates wrapped in bacon. (I've had dates wrapped in bacon before, just not in the same way.)

After that, it was on to La Spiaza, where they serve imported gelato. Although, I opted for the triple chocolate mousse cake instead. And then from there, a few of us went to an Irish pub to hear another associate of ours play and sing on stage for the first time. And while he's no Orpheus, he didn't lose his head. I'd say he did a good job and I quite enjoyed it. The hipster/shaman Ray also showed up. But I drank far too much Guinness far too late into the evening.

I slept pretty well, but when I finally woke up I smelled terrible. But I drank lots of water, and I made myself a pot of Indian food. And now that I've told you all of this, I feel good. Quite good, in fact.

Well, now that I feel better, it's time to go to bed.

We grow great by dreams, and all great men are dreamers. So dream.

But don't think too hard. Because Nature's already done it for you.

Yesterday, my hipster-friend Ray happened to have an extra ticket to the symphony. And he was kind enough to ask me to join him.

When we got to Orchestra Hall, Ray asked if I had a preference for seating, as our tickets were general admission. We climbed up six flights of red carpeted stairs, through white arched alcoves, up to the top balcony. Not a soul was there, so we perched ourselves on the very edge. From there we could see the great rococo vista, the domed ceiling like a firmament. The wood risers on the stage were scattered with chairs, and the musicians began to filter in.

We heard three works, conducted by Roberto Abbado. Busoni's Berceuse élégiaque, Op.42, Berio's Requies for Chamber Orchestra, and Brahms' Symphony No. 4 in E Minor, Op. 98.

The first work, Berceuse élégiaque, Op.42, is a lovely, dream-like piece. Among other instruments, the score calls for flutes, an oboe, a harp, a gong, violins, violas, cellos, basses, and a celestsa. The celesta, named for its “celestial” sound, is most easily recognized from Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker—specifically the dreamlike Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy. The music evoked in my mind's eye, a series of difting deep blues and violets, and night-time scenes evocative of odd yet quiet reveries in the still moments of pre-dawn. The composition only lasted ten minutes, but it was my favorite piece of the evening.

Berio's Requies for Chamber Orchestra was written for his deceased wife, Cathy Berberian. She was a soprano, and they met while studying together at the Milan Conservatory. The music itself has no melody. It is quiet, disorienting, and darkly strange. The celesta figures in this score as well, and also includes piccolo, flute, oboe, english horn, clarinets, a marimba, and the reedy, loping sound of two bassoons. Richard Rodda wrote of the work: “Requies is a song for a spirit, felt but not seen, calling silently from some untouchable realm in memory's imagination. [The composition] shimmers with a hushed, otherworldly translucence, vague in pulse, indistinct in theme, and etherial in sonority, but rises to a more intense expression before slipping away to a quiet close, perhaps an inconclusive ending, or perhaps just a pause in a song that goes on long beyond our hearing.”

After the intermission, Ray and I were able to move down to a lower balcony, and sit closer to the stage. It was then the orchestra launched into Johannes Brahms' Fourth Symphony. The difference between the sorrowful tone of the previous works and the raging life of Brahms' work, was most notable in the energy of the players themselves. The string section undulated like waves in a crashing sea. They swayed. They grimaced. They wilted. They ascended. The woodwinds blew through the waves wrought by the strings while the horns rollicked and the timpani thundered. The contrabassoon sat untouched in its stand, until it was unleashed almost halfway through. There are four movements in the symphony, and the piece lasted approximately 40 minutes. Due to the energy and passion that came from the performers, they were rewarded with a long ovation.

Fried in oil, that is! I was attempting to join a secret cabal (go figure), but in order to be allowed to go further in my apprenticeship, I had to catch, prepare, and eat two snakes! So I did. The presentation of the dish was quite artful. Besides the snakemeat, there were tri-color noodles, peppers, stuffed olives, and lots of parsley flakes.

I heard an interview with cellist Yo-yo Ma yesterday on National Public Radio. He was discussing how the clash of cultures can bring forth a global renaissance. But such a thing is possible, he said “Only if we work at it.”

Ma, an internationally reknowned musician, seems to offer a challenge not just to musicians, but to all artists during the current conflict between East and West. At the endings of centuries, great changes are observed. At the endings of milleniums, this phenomenon is even more pronounced. Here at the beginning of this millenium, a paradigm shift has already begun.

Ma's dedication to his belief in reaching out across boundaries is exemplified through the Silk Road Project. The Silk Road Project, an initiative aimed at exploring cross-cultural influences among and between the lands comprising the legendary Silk Road and the West, was launched in July 2001 with an ambitious program of concerts, festivals and educational outreach activities in North America, Europe and Asia. In coordination with a distinguished team of scholars, musicians and artists from around the world, the Silk Road Project is designed to illuminate the historical contributions of the Silk Road, support innovative collaborations among artists from the East and West, and resituate classical music within a broader global context.

If one goes to the CSO website, one may hear some music recorded by the Silk Road Ensemble. While you are listening to the music from around the world, think. What will you do to help to bring about the New Renaissance?

Pictured is the morin khuur from Mongolia. Its distinctive pegbox is always carved with a horse's head. Photo reproduced with kind permission. ©2001Cylla von Tiedemann

As I sit here at the Mercuriosity Shop I am surrounded by many projects both possible and actual. There are rooms in the Shop open to the public not quite completed yet. I have rooms blocked off which are a mess. There are rooms conceived which haven't been started. Newly opened exhibits at museums which must be visited. Then there are the books—books I must read, books I must write. I also have planned a large painting of the Green Man, which I have yet to get past the sketching stage. And have my butterfly nets out. When the weather gets a little warmer, I hope I can snag a pixie or two for photographic purposes. I recently had the pleasure of photographing a gracious angel, and the result was so beautiful, it made me want to create a set of illustrations for the tale of Snow White. And then there's the purchase of a new couch that I'm toying with. And the Faeriographs. And the Oculus Project. At least I'll have an extra hour of daylight for a while.

Immediately one of these arms slid like a serpent down the opening and twenty others were above. With one blow of the axe, Captain Nemo cut this formidable tentacle, that slid wriggling down the ladder. —Jules Verne, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea

Who says that monsters only lurk in the darkness of or imaginations? If you care to see the newly discovered specimen of a colossal squid, the safest way to do it would be to go here to this article.

Now mind you, it is a colossal squid, not the smaller version which is referred to as merely a giant squid, measuring in at a paltry 60 feet. As this particular specimen of colossal squid is immature, the ultimate size of a full-grown adult remains a mystery.

And speaking of mystery, a different squid discovered only last year, referred to as the mystery squid, has elbows! For more about enormous cephalopods in general, take a trip under the ocean courtesy of the Discovery Channel. You may never look at calamari the same way again. Although it may start looking at you.

I was going to save this story for next Christmas, but I had an insistent request from an ingenue I can't resist to this day. So I tell the story here.

Around November, I asked my niece what she wanted for Christmas.
She responded, “A Barbie wit' no feet, Uncle Ned!”

“What? Did you say 'a Barbie with no feet?',” I asked.

“A Barbie wit' no feet!”

“Why would you want a Barbie with no feet?”

“When I go to my Daddy's house he has a Barbie wit' no feet I play with!”

Needless to say, I was a bit disturbed to find that this moron (someone please remind me to delete this entry when my niece learns how to read) who introduced her to hollywood velociraptors when she was two, has mutilated dolls for her to play with when she visits Dogpatch.

“Why,” I asked, “does the Barbie have no feet?”

“I don't know, Uncle Ned.”

At Christmas, she got the gift she wanted most of all, exactly like the one at her father's house, although I was not the one to give it to her. Here is my niece with her Barbie wit' no feet.