When I find myself in times of trouble
And Mother Mary is ignoring me,
I go seeking words of wisdom
In an anthology.
Birds; An Anthology
book
The Still-Burning Bush
Not so very long ago, while listening to a fascinating podcast discussion about Neanderthals between Melvyn Bragg, Simon Conway Morris, Chris Stringer, and Danielle Schreve from the BBC’s In Our Time program’s archive, I was struck by the use of the phrase “the domestication of fire” by one of the panelists (my apologies for not recalling which one). I hadn’t previously thought about fire as something to be domesticated, but immediately upon hearing the phrase, I thought “well there it is.”
Mark Considers the Perspective
“…a thoughtful and well-informed look at nature conservation in the UK and every few pages I was thinking ‘That’s a very good point’ or ‘That’s an interesting way of putting it – and true too!’ or ‘I’d never thought of it that way’.” So begins Mark in his assessment of Laurence Rose’s new book “Framing Nature; Conservation and Culture,” the subject of his most recent Sunday Book Review.
Behind the Crimson Curtain
I’m relatively confident that the fact that whenever I see an image of Charles Wilson Peale pulling back a luxurious crimson curtain in his famous self portrait “The Artist in His Museum” and immediately recall the character Riff Raff, expertly portrayed by Richard O’Brien, opening an upright coffin in the The Rocky Horror Picture Show says absolutely nothing good about me whatsoever.