A couple of very strange natural (well, natural, with a little help from mankind sometimes...) wonders for today, that really would have been best shared on Halloween. But hey, I didn't find them on Halloween, I found them today. Save the link if you like, and wait 'til next year to view it. ;)
Do you know where the largest urban bat population in the world lives? How about the 1.5 million Mexican freetail bats that have formed a breeding colony in Austin, Texas, IN the Congress Avenue Bridge? (Here's a little more on them... the pictures are just fantastic!) The bats have been "adopted" by the city, and families picnic on the lake shore in the early summer evenings to watch the bats' emergence. There's even a statue in Austin to their honor. Neat, neh?
Second bit of natural weirdness... anyone who's seen the movie Sweet Home Alabama has seen a fulgurite (the glass structures formed when lightning strikes sand and fuses it). But have you ever seen a Lichtenberg figure? It turns out lightning (artificial or no) can leave some *very* interesting marks... in lucite, on a lawn, even on skin... Wikipedia has a very interesting article on them. What fascinates me the most about these figures are all those branching iterations in the pattern... they remind me very strongly of fractal patterns. (Well... I suppose it makes sense, since they both appear to be recursive figures of one sort or another.)
But still, it just fascinates me how... okay, forgive me as I get exceedingly corny, here, but... how magnificent and astounding the patterns of nature are. They're hidden everywhere-- identical patterns, turning up in the oddest places and showing how completely different things can, in their essences, be similar. Trees, ferns, lightning, seashells, broccoli, fractals.... Infinite simplicity and infinite complexity, all in one neat little planet. ^_^
A little snippet I just ran across in PW (10/18/04 ish, p. 11, to be precise):
Allende's 'Zorro'
"The Mark of Zorro has been filmed so often that it seems to be a part of Latin folklore. In fact, it began life as a potboiler serial in the early 1900s and gradually won iconic status. There's even a company called Zorro Film, dedicated to making movies about the masked avenger-- and it was their idea to ask the celebrated Chilean author Isabel Allende if she'd like to write a novel around Zorro. Astoundingly, she was keen on the idea of attaching a literary work to the story, and her Zorro will invent a childhood and background for the character who has been played by actors ranging from Tyrone Power to Antonio Banderas. Allende's editor, Terry Karten at HarperCollins, conducted a complex negotiation with the movie people and Allende's agent, Carmen Balcells of Spain, to nail down world English (and North American Spanish) rights. There's now a rush on to translate it for publication as soon as next May. Another Zorro movie the film company plans for next fall will be unrelated to Allende's work, but the publicity won't hurt."
::Gris bounces up and down excitedly:: While I'm not so keen on their dig about Allende "attaching a literary work to the story"-- Johnston McCulley wrote potboilers, sure, but they were inspired potboilers that launched this whole legend in the first place, thank you very much-- I'm *really* excited to see an new Zorro book out from such a big-name author.
Trust Neil Gaiman to give me back my perspective on American politics.
I've been fairly depressed all day, thanks to the election results (majority rule sounds just fine until you're being ruled by someone diametrically opposed to practically everything you believe in, who believes a 2% majority is an absolute mandate from the people-- never mind that it means 49% of his constituents hate his guts). I was catching up on a long hiatus from Neil's online journal, because Neil is wonderful and thoughtful and frequently makes me happy. And then, I saw it. This delicious little gem, posted, appropriately enough, on Halloween:
Neil, you have restored my faith in the ephemeral ridiculousness of American politics. Thank you.
(And if you haven't already, you'd better run.)
Hopefully this year won't be a repeat of 2000 where this information could become the stuff of current-events civics lessons, and I'm sure most of my readers (o ye vast hordes) already have their favorite news-vulture spots online, but just in case... this is a short bookmark list I put together for work (if you're not interested, click through the link at the bottom for a fun bonus):
Directory:
Elections 2004 (UMichigan Documents Center)
Issues and Candidate Profiles:
League of Women Voter's DemocracyNet (Congress.org)
Politics1
Project Vote Smart
Public Agenda
The Electoral Process:
U.S. Electoral College (National Archives)
270 to Win
2004 Election News:
CNN.com: America Votes 2004
Yahoo! News - Presidential Election
Political Resources Online: Sec'ys of State and Election Boards (for state election results)
And as promised, a cure for your Election Day blues-- movies with which to entertain yourself when you're not glued to the poll returns:
Absolute Power
Air Force One
The American President
Bob Roberts
Bulworth
Canadian Bacon
Chasing Liberty
The Contender
Dave
Guarding Tess
Head of State
In The Line of Fire
Independence Day
The Manchurian Candidate (or the remake)
Mr. Smith Goes to Washington
My Fellow Americans
The President's Analyst
Speechless
Welcome to Mooseport
"The West Wing"
Wag The Dog
