Dudes, this might be the biggest leaf I’ve ever seen. That is indeed my foot next to it. And I don’t have small feet; I wear a size 11 and 1/2. (Now, now … this is a family blog, people.)
I found these tarp-sized leaves in the exact same place where I encountered that giant spider — the one the size of a housecat. This makes me think there’s some sort of “Food of the Gods” -type sci-fi shenanigans going on in the vicinity.
Will investigate and report back.
Oil on canvas. Date unknown.
The melancholy days are come, the saddest of the year,
Of wailing winds, and naked woods, and meadows brown and sere.
Heaped in the hollows of the grove, the autumn leaves lie dead;
They rustle to the eddying gust, and to the rabbit’s tread;
The robin and the wren are flown, and from the shrubs the jay,
And from the wood-top calls the crow through all the gloomy day.
Where are the flowers, the fair young flowers, that lately sprang and stood
In brighter light and softer airs, a beauteous sisterhood?
Alas! they all are in their graves, the gentle race of flowers
Are lying in their lowly beds, with the fair and good of ours.
The rain is falling where they lie, but the cold November rain
Calls not from out the gloomy earth the lovely ones again.
The wind-flower and the violet, they perished long ago,
And the brier-rose and the orchis died amid the summer glow;
But on the hills the golden-rod, and the aster in the wood,
And the yellow sun-flower by the brook in autumn beauty stood,
Till fell the frost from the clear cold heaven, as falls the plague on men,
And the brightness of their smile was gone, from upland, glade, and glen.
And now, when comes the calm mild day, as still such days will come,
To call the squirrel and the bee from out their winter home;
When the sound of dropping nuts is heard, though all the trees are still,
And twinkle in the smokey light the waters of the rill,
The south wind searches for the flowers whose fragrance late he bore,
And sighs to find them in the wood and by the stream no more.
And then I think of one who in her youthful beauty died,
The fair meek blossom that grew up and faded by my side.
In the cold moist earth we laid her, when the forests cast the leaf,
And we wept that one so lovely should have a life so brief:
Yet not unmeet it was that one, like that young friend of ours,
So gentle and so beautiful, should perish with the flowers.
Well, hot damn. Not all healthy food is stultifyingly gross to eat. I can’t remember the last time I ate watermelon — maybe in college? I’m pretty sure that watermelon-flavored Jolly Ranchers don’t count.
But this is a miracle food. I didn’t have to add any salt or sugar ore even fry it in order for it to taste delicious. Why didn’t people advise me to eat this to start with?
Tomorrow — tofu. Or maybe not. I bought a tray of that #$%*, but it’s been sitting in my fridge for a while now, because I’m too afraid to open it. I swear to you … the loose, cool weight of it in that little plastic dish feels precisely how I would expect a slice of prepackaged cadaver to feel in my hands. I might leave it out for the turkey vultures. (Note to New Yorkers — the South indeed has these truly enormous birds called “turkey vultures” or “turkey buzzards.” You kinda have to see it to believe it.) I’ll update you guys.
20th Century Fox.
“The Birds” (1963) was yet another film that I grew up with; it got plenty of air time in the 1980’s, and it was such a gem that my Uncle John had it in is movie library too.
As far as I am aware … this is the only time Alfred Hitchcock delved into science fiction -horror. (Somebody please correct me on that if I am wrong.) I only learned just now that it was based on a 1952 novel by Daphne du Maurier. (I thought the name sounded familiar upon reading it, and also learned that she wrote the eponymous source material for Hitchcock’s “Rebecca” in 1940.)
The trailer below is kind of interesting — it features Hitchcock himself hamming it up, with almost no footage from the film. I don’t think it would make it past a modern marketing department — it’s more than five minutes long, and it takes a bit too much time getting to its point.
Oil on canvas.
