FRIDAY FUNNIES

My friend, Steve, enjoying one of my jokes.

And finally, the cat.

Have a spectacular weekend, folks!

THROWBACK THURSDAY

A 44-year-old Selfie.  Yikes!

No, not me.  I was only about 30.  But the photo is 44 years old.

"HOUSE" MUSIC

Those of you who may have watched the television series "House" are then familiar with its star, British actor Hugh Laurie.  But Laurie is a Renaissance man, who also includes music in his catalog of versatility.  He has now recorded two C.D.'s of mainly blues music in the New Orleans style.  And he's been touring for a year or more with a group known as the Copper Bottom Band.  Last night they were in Mesa, Arizona, at the Mesa Arts Center and SWMBO and I were lucky enough to be in attendance at their concert.

First the stage is set.

Then the band appears and begins a bit of drum and bass work and then Laurie appears at the back of the stage and, when he is recognized by a roaring crowd, stops dead still and stares out with a blank expression and then comes forward and the show is on.

It continues for better than 2 and a half hours and three encore performances and a "God Bless You, Mesa" from Laurie before the exhausted performers call it a night.  The crowd is still left roaring for more.

Laurie is not only a wonderfully entertaining musician and singer but a marvelous actor as he mugs and stunts through the night.  And he has taught his crew well.

Photography was forbidden, though not obeyed by this amazingly appreciative audience but my (illegal) attempt to get any of the show failed to achieve my exacting standards.  But I wanted to give you a hint of what we saw last night so here, from an earlier show elsewhere, is one of the stellar (though, not necessarily bluesy) performances.  Laurie, with one of his amazingly talented backup singers, Gaby Moreno, doing El Choclo, or The Kiss of Fire.

A fantastic show, though for us older folks, a bit long.  

Still, if he comes to a town near you . . . GO SEE HIM!

WASHING DISHES . . FROM THE INSIDE!

O.K.  Here's something you always wanted to know.  Someone was curious about what really happens inside a dishwasher.  So this curious person put a GoPro camera inside and ran the machine. 

Behold!

And now you know why this is called Oddball Observations!

CACTUS FLOWER

Back in 1969 there was this quirky little movie with a cute, big-eyed blonde at the center of it.

Her name was Goldie Hawn.  This was her first movie and she won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for it.

Earlier the "dumb blonde" had made her fame on the t.v. show Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In, frequently in a bikini and a lot of body paint.

Now you're wondering why I brought Kate Hudson's mother to your attention today.  

For precisely this reason.

I thought of her when I was photographing these "cactus flowers" the other day.

(Pretty sneaky way to get a picture of a blonde in a bikini into my blog, eh?)

THE MIGHTY CENTURY PLANT - PART TWO

Just about a month ago I told you about the Century Plant and showed you photos of it's beginning and growth.  You can find that post here if you'd like to refresh your memory.  I'll be right here when you come back.

So anyway, the plant begins to put out clusters of blooms.

 

As you can see when you look closer, these are what I would call bloom pods.

These are the antepenultimate stage of this mighty but doomed plant.

Now we move on to the penultimate stage, where the red pods open and the true blossoms burst forth in a blaze of . . . surprise . . . yellow color.

Once the plant has fully bloomed it's bye-bye, baby.  The mighty Century Plant, having put on a fabulous show, will die.  As my friend Phil commented, it reminds him of the salmon in the Pacific Northwest that spawn and then die.

SATURDAY SILLINESS

It's been a quiet week here in Lake Wobegone.  NO WAIT, some other guy is using that line.  Sorry Mr. Keillor.

Well, it has been quiet around here though there is occasional activity in the menagerie that holds forth in my back yard.  As evidence, click on the link below.

LIFE IN MY BACK YARD

All right.  In my constant Wild Kingdom-like search for interesting life on our planet, I must now venture forth.  Until we meet again, stay interesting.

FRIDAY FUNNIES

Something new this week to kick off the Friday Funnies.  An actual video of the exciting activity around our birdbath and hummingbird feeder.  Brace yourselves.

O.K.  Take a minute or two to calm down from that and I'll proceed with the rest of this week's humor.

And, no, I didn't forget the cats.

Keep the chuckles going, folks, and have a great weekend!

THROWBACK THURSDAY

1971.  My new MGB . . . and a flat tire!  (Dig those pants!)

Later, up and running and smiling once again.

(Along with mutton chops and a hippie headband!  Ah, the 70's!)

WORDLESS WEDNESDAY

NEW TENANTS

We have a couple of new tenants with more on the way.

We watched a male and female finch build this nest atop a pillar under our front porch a week or so ago.  Once it was built, they disappeared. I thought they'd abandoned it.  But SWMBO consulted her bird books and the Almighty Google and then said that they were "on their honeymoon."  Apparently they leave for a couple of days to feed and mate.

And she was right.  After about 48 hours the the female returned to the nest several times for a period of time, apparently laying her eggs. Now she's been perched on the nest continuously for most of a week.

SWMBO says it may be another week before the eggs hatch.

I keep watching.

MEMORIAL DAY 2014

As the numbers continue to grow . . .

. . . we continue to mourn.

An Editorial

Willfull Ignorance in Wyoming

by the New York Times Editorial Board

The year has already produced three alarming reports involving climate change.

The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reaffirmed the overwhelming consensus among scientists that the planet is warming, that humans and the burning of fossil fuels are largely responsible, and that the world must take aggressive, concerted action.

The federal National Climate Assessment described frightening changes, including unusually severe and persistent droughts, already occurring in the United States.  And two weeks ago, two groups of scientists reported that the West Antarctic ice sheet had begun to disintegrate irreversibly, a process that, over centuries, could cause a large and destructive rise in the oceans.

Despite all this, many leading politicians continue to dispute the science and resist any effort to regulate and reduce the emissions of carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas.  Among the prominent deniers are two Floridians -- Senator Marco Rubio and Gov. Rick Scott -- whose state is greatly at risk from even modest and relatively short-term increases in sea levels.

Some of this is to be expected in a political season, when politicians will do almost anything to prey on the public's fear of job losses.  What is truly depressing is the news that Wyoming's State Legislature has become the first in the nation to reject the new national science standards for schools, standards that include instruction on the human contribution to climate change.

The legislators' action arose from various motives, including hostility to government regulation generally and, more specifically, any teaching that seems to threaten the coal, oil and natural gas industries that are important to Wyoming's economy.  But it seemed also to be a willful effort to leave a whole generation of children in the dark about climate science.  This is more than standard-issue political posturing.  It is madness.

A DAY FOR ART

I have written about Bronzesmith before but yesterday SWMBO and the BRD and I all visited it together as they were holding an open house.  It is a full service art foundry and the work it turns out is exceptional.

I am partial to ravens but this next piece was one of my favorites.

The mystery behind that (supposedly) unsupported hand stopped me in my tracks.

I shot this picture with people in it so you could see the scale of some of the works on display.

Inside we were given an informational tour and watched some of the work going on.  This is a patina artist, who explained that the hotter the metal becomes the darker the colors.

I'm not sure if these are a pair of his shoes or someone else's.

Lost wax molds.

A very muscular fellow working around temperatures that rise into the thousands of degrees.

The extremely remarkable Deb Gessner who takes a one-dimensional sketch and turns it into a three-dimensional sculpture. You may remember her working with artist Bob "Boze" Bell to create the sculpture from his portrait of the "Not-So-Gentle Tamer" that now stands as a 10-foot bronze near the Prescott Valley Town Hall.  At present she's working on another of his works, this time of Billy the Kid.

A few well-formed bronze hands, waiting for future work.

And some smaller finished works in the gallery.

This state is full of Western and Native American artists so many of the works reflect that heritage.

But not all.

This was done from a sketch by the noted cartoonist Bil Keane, based on characters from his long-running Family Circus.  But after his death his children worked with Ms. Gessman to create the sketch in bronze but altered to show the face of the dad as Keane himself. The 9-foot-long finished bronze is on display in Scottsdale, where Keane made his home.

As we completed our tour, I spotted one of the other attendees leaving with a purchase she had made.  

Apparently she likes ravens too.

Should you find yourself in Prescott Valley, Arizona, Bronzesmith is open for tours every Thursday at 10 a.m. for $10.  You must call ahead to make reservations.