Ciphers and Constellations

I'm almost finished with my art history course, after which I will be a CERTIFIED ART HISTORIAN (not really, but in a perfect world that's the way it would work). Twentieth century art generally hasn't left me excited and enthused, except in the case of Joan Miro.


I find this fascinating. It's called Ciphers and Constellations, in Love with a Woman. Miro was big on abstract organic motifs with symbolic meaning. I'm not sure of the symbolism here, except in the ever present eyes, but I feel the same sort of hypnotism I get from stargazing.

I'm not satisfied with stargazing out of doors alone, which is why my ceiling is now scattered with constellations from the northern hemisphere. Yes, glow in the dark stars are in fact required for any construction, be it McMansion or cardboard box. You can't get your LEED certification without them. Not only entertaining, but environmentally friendly too, since if you're staring at your ceiling you're not trampling the grass and bunny rabbits and albino alligators and things.

While you're staring, you should check out this track for keyboard I recorded the other day.

Ciphers and Constellations, in Love with Miro.

Herpetology!

Herpetology: a fun word to say. I've been reading Archie Carr's A Naturalist in Florida: A Celebration of Eden. Archie Carr was one really cool dude, a combination explorer/writer. He also talks about often being torn between discovering animals and eating them.
Archie was REALLY into turtles.


But then again, he was into practically anything that moved, except cuttlefish. Nobody likes a cuttlefish. Even their superior intelligence to other cephalopods doesn't help much. I think they're just seen as sneaky. Perhaps they should be renamed the cuddlefish; the misnomer could help their PR. Get on that, cuddlefish!

Speaking of sneaky, take a gander at this guy, who's been hanging out locally.


If that doesn't give you the heebie jeebies, you're probably a cuddlefish.
Apparently it's not an albino alligator, the coloration is from minerals in the artesian wells that empty into the pond. Note the lack of pink eyes. This alligator weighs about 300 pounds, so it's unlikely that it could have grown so large if it were albino. Albino alligators don't get any breaks; they're more visible to predators, and*gasp* vulnerable to sunburn.

I'm not quite sure if I believe the minerals explanation (all of the other alligators in the area are black) but I'm not going to scrub a ten foot long eating machine just to find out. Where's Archie Carr when you need him?

Genesis

"OMG, you are not a lighthouse operator, because clearly they do not have teh interwebs in a lighthouse, so you are really in your mom's basement, which means you are a subterranean operator, like molepeople. Lawlz."

I don't even have a basement.
But I do have my own signed copy of the inspiration for this writing's namin', this xkcd, from Randall Munroe's visit to Dartmouth.