The Nature of Things

Having long been captivated by the Greek myths that explain creation and how the universe works, how could I resist Madeline Miller's wonderful telling of them in Circe ? Her story reads like historical fiction and it is told in the manner of an autobiography in the voice of Circe herself. Circe is the daughter of Helios, god of the sun and mightiest of all the Titans. From the beginning, she was different from the other children of Titans. She did not possess the powers of her father nor the allure of her mother, and, strangely, she seems drawn to mortals for their companionship. In time, she discovers where her true power lies: She possesses the power of witchcraft by which she can change her rivals into monsters and can threaten the gods themselves.   When Zeus realizes what Circe is, he demands her banishment. He and Helios arrive at an agreement on sending her to a deserted island of Aeaea. There, she tames the wolves and lions of the island and they become her companions...

Watching the Astros game last night, I was reminded of this poem, which I have featured here before but I think it's worth repeating. Baseball is not an easy game. It's a game where even the best players generally fail two times out of three and even superstars suffer slumps. (Here's looking at you, Jose Altuve!)  But when the game is played right, it is an exercise of such grace and finesse that it just leaves the watcher in awe that the human body can do that. It is a well-choreographed ballet on a field of grass. It is baseball.  Baseball by John Updike It looks easy from a distance, easy and lazy, even, until you stand up to the plate and see the fastball sailing inside, an inch from your chin, or circle in the outfield straining to get a bead on a small black dot a city block or more high, a dark star that could fall on your head like a leaden meteor. The grass, the dirt, the deadly hops between your feet and overeager glove: football can be learned, and basketball f...

A roundup of the week's news of birds and the environment : Black-throated Green Warbler , one of the many kinds of warbler that pass through here on migration each spring and fall. *~*~*~* It is crucial to be able to accurately measure greenhouse gases released into the atmosphere in order to control and manage them. You can't manage what you can't measure. So I suppose it should be a surprise to no one that the present administration in Washington, which is utterly inimical to science in its every iteration, has canceled NASA's Carbon Monitoring System which measured carbon dioxide and methane in the atmosphere.   *~*~*~* Hurricane season begins in just a few weeks on June 1 and predictions are again for an active season . New research confirms that powerful Atlantic storms are intensifying more rapidly than they did 30 years ago as the water continues to heat up, and that does not bode well for the United States which could experience another harrowing spate of hurr...

This oakleaf hydrangea growing by my back porch was a Mother's Day gift from my daughters two years ago. It was growing in a gallon pot when I received it. It has flourished where I planted it and this year it has really outdone itself with it blooms. (I know it's a bit difficult to appreciate with the bright, bright sunshine in the background, but bright, bright sunshine is all we have these days.) The oakleaf hydrangea is a plant that is native to the southeastern quadrant of the United States from North Carolina west to the Mississippi River and south to Louisiana and Florida. It is described as a coarse-textured deciduous shrub, although mine actually keeps most of its leaves through winter. It can get quite large; some plants over 20 feet tall have been recorded. It thrives in dry conditions and prefers some shade. The leaves themselves are quite attractive. They are lobed like oak leaves - thus, its name - and they range from yellowish-green to dark green (like mine) on t...

I picked up this book on a whim, knowing absolutely nothing about the writer or about the book. That's something I almost never do. I always depend on reviews and recommendations to help me choose which books to read, but one has to break the mold every once and a while, right?  Imagine my surprise on learning that Estleman is actually quite a popular writer of detective and western fiction and that he has written more than eighty books! Moreover, he has several mystery/thriller series going and, since I read a lot of those, it's a bit strange that I haven't encountered him before. This particular book features protagonists from two of his ongoing series: private detective Amos Walker and professional hitman Peter Macklin. Walker is based in Detroit and that is where the action of the novel takes place, with a side trip to Toronto. Some anonymous person is threatening to kill Peter Macklin's estranged wife, Laurie, if he does not pay $100,000. Although she's soon to...

May tiptoed into our lives last week, bringing with it the usual accompaniment of flowers and birds and butterflies.  There is no shortage of poems about the month. It seems that it is a rare poet who hasn't been inspired by it in some way. Jonathan Galassi certainly was. I especially like his image of the ivy sending out red feelers in a spring reconnaissance campaign. That could describe the spring awakening of many plants. May by Jonathan Galassi The backyard apple tree gets sad so soon, takes on a used-up, feather-duster look within a week. The ivy’s spring reconnaissance campaign sends red feelers out and up and down to find the sun. Ivy from last summer clogs the pool, brewing a loamy, wormy, tea-leaf mulch soft to the touch and rank with interface of rut and rot. The month after the month they say is cruel is and is not.

A roundup of the week's news of birds and the environment : The Ruby-throated Hummingbirds finally showed up in my backyard around the middle of April, about two-and-a-half weeks later than usual, but I still have not seen or heard a Chimney Swift or a Common Nighthawk which normally arrive on the same wave with the hummers. I photographed this Common Nighthawk at Anahuac National Wildlife Refuge a couple of years ago in April. *~*~*~* The Kentucky Derby is today and several sleek and beautiful horses will be making the "run for the roses." The Haringtonhippus francisci probably could not begin to compete in such a race, but it was a survivor. This ancient horse lived in North America during the last Ice Age, nearly 16,000 years ago, and recently one of its skeletons has been found and recovered from a backyard in Utah. A paleontologist says that horse probably looked something like this: Image from The New York Times. *~*~*~* The jobs of the Siberian ice road trucker...