Midge Raymond's Blog, page 5

Why is Japan still killing whales in Antarctica?

In My Last Continent, when the fictional tourist ship Cormorant arrives at Whaler’s Bay on Deception Island in Antarctica, Deb observes …   …a shantytown of enormous oil containers and abandoned buildings—relics of the Antarctic whaling industry—so old and suffused with rust that they blend into the lava-blackened cliffs behind them. This reminder of whaling’s  … Read more

Why is Japan still killing whales in Antarctica?

In My Last Continent, when the fictional tourist ship arrives at Whaler’s Bay on Deception Island in Antarctica, Deb observes …   …a shantytown of enormous oil containers and abandoned buildings—relics of the Antarctic whaling industry—so old and suffused with rust that they blend into the lava-blackened cliffs behind them. This reminder of whaling’s gruesome  … Read more

The scandalous sex lives of penguins

My friend Judy sent me this article on the “scandalous” sex lives of penguins, which mentions many of the penguin stories we’ve heard over the years, from the two male chinstrap penguins who raised a baby chick, to a nasty fight between two Magellanic penguins competing for a female. And indeed, the love lives of  … Read more

“Data as Art” from the British Antarctic Survey

I was delighted to discover this project from the British Antarctic Survey. Data as Art shows sea ice, krill (seen below), the ozone hole, and other scientific data as works of art. In keeping with the British Antarctic Survey‘s mission to “engage a wide range of people in science through a variety of methods,” these  … Read more

Should we stay home to save the oceans?

“Should we have stayed at home and thought of here?” Elizabeth Bishop asks in her poem “Questions of Travel”—the same question I asked myself upon learning, when I was in the Galapagos Islands last year, that more than 200,000 tourists visit this small archipelago every year. These islands, virtually undiscovered until the sixteenth century, are  … Read more

The sounds of Antarctica

Among the most amazing things about Antarctica (and there are so many) are the sounds. You can listen to the sounds of icebergs rubbing together here. It sounds a bit like furniture breaking apart, and then a little like a penguin colony from far away, and finally it becomes something completely otherworldly. This wonderful article  … Read more

The Most Important March of the Penguins

Last weekend, the least-populated region of this planet held a women’s march. For the penguins, this was the most important march of all. The women’s marches taking place around the world last Saturday eclipsed the presidential inauguration in numbers and passion. The most far-reaching protest took place in Antarctica—and while this shipboard protest boasted only  … Read more

Bookstore Geek: El Ateneo

This bookstore is nearly always included on lists of the world’s best and most beautiful bookstores — and for very good reason. It is spectacular, inside and out. El Ateneo is undoubtedly the grandest bookstore I’ve ever seen in person. This Buenos Aires treasure was a theater in the early twentieth century, and in the  … Read more

Celebrating the “Father of Pinyin”

I was saddened to read that “the father of Pinyin” died this weekend in Beijing (though he did live to be 111 years old). While until now I never knew very much about the man himself — who daringly criticized the Chinese government, wrote dozens of books, and was exiled during the Cultural Revolution —  … Read more

Bookstore Geek: Warwick’s

Before last summer, it had been years since my last event at Warwick’s, and, as always, it is fabulous to visit this quaint bookstore in the heart of La Jolla…I’ve missed it both as a reader and a writer. Warwick’s is the oldest family-owned and -operated store in the country. Above the door is printed:  … Read more