Evans’ Rag
Vol 1 Issue 39
Photo by Jason Rosewell on Unsplash
I needed to see this photo one more time for Christmas. Just look at the kid! Great photo.
Ducks Unlimited
Now for today’s educational piece:
“The hooded merganser is the smallest of the three merganser species occurring in North America. Male hooded mergansers have a large white crest surrounded by black. The top of the head, neck and back are all black, and the chest, breast and belly are white. Wavy black lines can be seen on the tawny sides and flanks. The hindback, [a birder’s term you won’t find in your Funk and Wagnalls.] rump and tail are dark brown. The long, narrow, serrated bill is black. The iris is bright yellow and the legs and feet are dull yellow. Female hooded mergansers have a gray-brown head and neck with a reddish-brown crest. Gray pervades their neck, chest, sides and flanks, and brownish-black dominates their back, rump and tail. The upper bill is black-edged with orange and the lower bill is yellow. The legs and feet are greenish in color and the iris is brown.”
Ducks in Flotilla
The one in the rear just had her hair quaffed and is quite proud of her do.
Overcast days don’t make the best photography, but I’ll take what’s given. I’m sure the hooded mergansers feel the same. This particular gang came into the cove, nosed around a bit (beaked around?) and paddled off again.
Reason I took the photos was because I haven’t seen the species here before. Mallards live here year ‘round, night herons, a handful of blue herons, cormorants and at least one pair of bald eagles, but not so the hooded mergansers. Canadian geese love the lake–and like dropping theirs on lawns, so to speak. Our husky, Maddie, used to love her some ‘goose pate.’ I know–TMI.
At the west end of the lake, a manmade island built decades ago from dredging the narrower end where Tripps Run enters the lake has grown trees and brush and become goose heaven as the cacophony attests come the spring breeding season. We have a more than adequate bird contingent.
I was focused on the three paddling mergansers leading the parade, but the whole group comprised a good dozen or so males (the black & white ones) and females (the less flamboyant ones with the poofy hair). Were they geese they’d be a gaggle, a gang if inner city dudes and dudettes. A gobsmack of ducks for sure.
All About Birds map shows hooded mergansers have a broad coverage across the eastern half of the country.
Welcome guys! If you paddle back around on a sunny day, I’ll get a better shot.
He’s a way cool dude, and look at the water he’s pushing in front of him. Safe travels.
Freedom
I read somewhere that Jonathan Franzen, the author, has become a birder (aka an aficionado of the wingéd dinosaurs) since moving to Santa Cruz. Is that a thing New Yonkers do when relocating to California? I just assumed–since Franzen’s been an A-list novelist for so long–that it’s what happens to those who don’t need to keep their day jobs. Birders being folk with time on their hands. Not like hard-working bloggers.
I confess I’m struggling to finish Franzen’s Freedom. I read his first collection of essays, coming in through the back door as usual, and found that I liked his voice in those pieces. The essay in which he discussed getting thrown off Oprah’s show (manner of speaking) bluntly explained he found fame troubling, which is altogether reasonable. Who’d want all that makeup and folks prodding you hither and yon?
D did give fair warning that Freedom wasn’t to her liking, but I gave it a go anyway. Sadly, she was right. Freedom is like an astringent mouthwash one might use ‘because it’s good for you.’ To explain: there’s such a depressing tone to the novel. The characters are uniformly plodding through life so unhappily you wonder why bother? I’ll grant that Franzen gets deep inside his characters’ heads.
He admitted in one of his essays his own struggle with depression, particularly as he was writing the book which I could emphasize with–I do know from depression–but to be honest, if I were to set about writing a novel about these particular characters I’d be hating life getting out of bed knowing they were all I had to look forward to. Talk about writer’s block. I’d rather suck coffee and hang out at Starbucks.
Admittedly, I’ve been accused as a glass half empty person–very unfairly–well somewhat unfairly–OK, OK…what’s the big deal? I’m just waiting for the proverbial shoe to do its thing, because I’m certain it will.
And I’m all right with tragically ending novels. But Franzen can’t seem to find love to admire between a mother and her son, between her and her husband, or even joyful lust in an affair with good sex. Nothing greatly stirs Franzen in the novel, so nothing in the story really stirred me either.
To qualify this rant, Freedom is not comparable to Cold Mountain and that’s a good thing. Cold Mountain drags its weary drama from one tragedy to the next like a defeated rebel–or a monster truck churning through flowerbeds for 360 pages. Read the Wikipedia plot; it get to the point a whole lot faster. If I haven’t made it clear, Cold Mountain is the dreariest of soap operas.
Dear Current U.S. Occupants–the Civil Was wasn’t very civil and people died.
For god’s sake give me something happy, you miserable cur of an author!
Freedom by Franzen—the book cover has the headshot of a blue bird and a lake edged by evergreens one might seek in northern Michigan. The bird’s a cerulean warbler to be specific. For which species the husband/father character, Walter, runs a non-profit hoping to save the species’ habitat, funded by a billionaire who doesn’t give a proverb.
Realizing Franzen found a way to work a personal avocation into his story made me smile.
Sidebar: if you’ve ever painted, you may agree that cerulean blue is one tube color you need to keep on hand. It’s one color that’s always attracted me. Which I now understand to be thalo blue mixed with some white to take it toward gray–the things you can learn on the Internet.
I expect I’ll eventually pick up Freedom to finish it. I’m halfway into it and may as well complete the read.
On a higher note, I’ve begun Pat Conroy’s Prince of Tides. A few decades later than he wrote it, but what the heck. We’re all just prisoners on this bus.
This will be the first of Conroy’s books that I’ve read. Since he’s an author who hails from close to my own low country in South Carolina and who likes to write atmospheric stories about the tidewater, it raises the possibility of parallels to a novel about the Outer Banks. Way different motivation–Conroy’s writing drew from the abuse suffered at the hands of his father. My own father died before I ever knew him; he haunted but never abused his children. Beautiful tidewater scenes may make a connection or two.
Conroy did an interview years ago. He told the story about attending Gonzaga High School, a Jesuit school here in Washington, DC. Conroy explains that a teacher encouraging his writing for the first time led him into making a career of it. Then he tells of his childhood at the hands of the “Great Santini” his father. That interview was my introduction to Conroy–made me want to read him. So I am, if a few decades later than the rest of the world.
The Death of Santini If you haven’t read any of Conroy’s novels, don’t read this link first or it will give away the plot.
It’s Christmas day and I need to get started making the eggnog. We Irish, silly creatures all.
