R.L. Swihart's Blog, page 69

Peregrines @ Point Fermin

San Pedro. Point Fermin. Life Lesson #13. Pics 1 & 2: Mom is on her perch; Pics 3 to 7: Below Mom, on a slippery slope 100+ feet above the surf, the fledgling makes his way toward Mom, pleading for a little help.

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From Coetzee's "Michael K"

K allowed this utterance to sink into his mind. Do I believe in helping people? he wondered. He might help people, he might not help them, he did not know beforehand, anything was possible. He did not seem to have a belief, or did not seem to have a belief regarding help. Perhaps I am the stony ground, he thought.

Juvenile Black-Necked Stilts

 Short Session with some Juvenile Black-Necked Stilts. San Joaquin Marsh & Wildlife.

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From Barnes' Red Coat

And then, post-finally, I discovered that Wilde was aware of this all along. As he once wrote to Conan Doyle: “Between me and life there is a mist of words always. I throw probability out of the window for the sake of a phrase, and the chance of an epigram makes me desert truth.”

From Julian Barnes' "The Man in the Red Coat"

Been reading it a while -- almost finished. 

An interesting "clip":

Those who generalise about the human condition often find their truths overturned by the obstinate individualism of reality. And the high point of the generalisation is the Wildean epigram. It is intended to be piquant, to stun and amuse and make the reader (or theatregoer) feel inferior: in this, the Wildean epigram is a verbal dandy. And like the dandy, most epigrams, except the greatest, come with a “best before” label. Time is equally the enemy of the butterfly, the dandy and the epigram.

Fledgling Peregrine Falcons

Fledgling Peregrines @ Point San Vicente (Palos Verdes CA).

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Western Tanager

Western Tanager @ Huntington Beach Central. My best pic of this little guy (so far). At least in my experience (limited), he's a bit elusive.

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From Coetzee's "Duskland"s"

Slowgoing but I'll stick with it. Some interesting constructions.

*

A myth is true—that is to say, operationally true—insofar as it has predictive force. The more deeply rooted and universal a myth, the more difficult it is to combat. The myths of a tribe are the fictions it coins to maintain its powers. The answer to a myth of force is not necessarily counterforce, for if the myth predicts counterforce, counterforce reinforces the myth. The science of mythography teaches us that a subtler counter is to subvert and revise the myth. The highest propaganda is the propagation of a new mythology.

Bewick's Wren @ Bolsa Chica

Bewick's Wren @ Bolsa Chica. Think I'm correct on the ID, but this little guy, partly because he's "giving the call his all," is hardly the classic pic. 

Update: Apparently it's a House Wren not a Bewick's. What can I say.:)

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From "The Professor's House"

 They entered and went along the hall until they came to number 17; the door was ajar, and at the moment one of the students was speaking. When he finished, they heard the Professor reply to him. “No, Miller, I don’t myself think much of science as a phase of human development. It has given us a lot of ingenious toys; they take our attention away from the real problems, of course, and since the problems are insoluble, I suppose we ought to be grateful for distraction. But the fact is, the human mind, the individual mind, has always been made more interesting by dwelling on the old riddles, even if it makes nothing of them. Science hasn’t given us any new amazements, except of the superficial kind we get from witnessing dexterity and sleight-of-hand. It hasn’t given us any richer pleasures, as the Renaissance did, nor any new sins—not one! Indeed, it takes our old ones away. It’s the laboratory, not the Lamb of God, that taketh away the sins of the world. You’ll agree there is not much thrill about a physiological sin. We were better off when even the prosaic matter of taking nourishment could have the magnificence of a sin. I don’t think you help people by making their conduct of no importance—you impoverish them. As long as every man and woman who crowded into the cathedrals on Easter Sunday was a principal in a gorgeous drama with God, glittering angels on one side and the shadows of evil coming and going on the other, life was a rich thing. The king and the beggar had the same chance at miracles and great temptations and revelations. And that’s what makes men happy, believing in the mystery and importance of their own individual lives. It makes us happy to surround our creature needs and bodily instincts with as much pomp and circumstance as possible. Art and religion (they are the same thing, in the end, of course) have given man the only happiness he has ever had.