Near and far: What better way to illustrate the concepts than a Sesame Street throwback burned into my brain about 45 years ago?
Far and near: What better way to show that it doesn’t really matter where you stand, at least insofar as the red rock is concerned?
Courthouse Butte
Bell Rock (from different sides)
Cathedral Rock (from opposite sides)
You drive through miles and miles of unexceptionable high desert, distinguished only by some parts being even dustier and plainer than others. You take a minor exit, round a slight bend, and there it is: the red rock of Sedona.
Sans warning, it comes upon you all sudden-like and then you’re surrounded by it for as long as you’re in the area. You don’t quite come to take it for granted, but you might stop gasping every time you turn around.
You can’t take it all in. You can’t choose your favourite view. You can’t choose the best place to stand with your camera, or the best way to photograph it. Should you fill the frame or zoom out to capture the immensity and extent of it? Should you shoot at sunrise, high noon, or sunset? Should you look for reflecting water in the foreground or not?
Stop. You’re all right. There is no wrong way to see the red rock of Sedona, and hardly any bad photographs of it.
The only thing that might be wrong or, at least, less than fully good? Rushing it. So, this week, the red rock as seen in reflections.
Snork.
– Dilbert
I’m borrowing Scott Adams’ expression–definitely not stealing it since he still has the full use and enjoyment of it–because I know of no standard way of rendering the noise someone makes when unsuspectingly biting into an unexpectedly spicy-hot brownie offered by an alleged friend at a dinner party. I know of no other expression that adequately captures that moment when the heat hits your tongue–hot HOT HOT!!!–but you can’t spit out the offending morsel. Snork it is.
American bread is awful.
(Declaimed strongly if not quite loudly,
declaimer being in America.)
All generalizations are rubbish.
Much like American bread.
(Muttered weakly.)
Hey! Cut that out.
A bird born to run, the Greater Roadrunner can outrace a human,
kill a rattlesnake, and thrive in the harsh landscapes of the Desert Southwest.
– All About Birds
On other trips to the American Southwest I’ve taken decent close-ups of roadrunners by being both lucky (right place, right time) and persistent (going back to the right place day after day). Like most living things, their next move is often unpredictable. Like most effective predators, their next move is often fast.
This week brings me two revisits of recent topics: dressing-room hooks, and flowers planted by someone else that I can enjoy.
The same store chain; a different set of hooks.
Just across the street
In the Olde Days in the Olde World we lived in one community for most of our lives, unless/until we emigrated a world away, never to see that Olde World or our friends-&-relations ever again. Never ever.
A family member who emigrated to Ireland sends me an NYT article on how knitting can be a revolutionary act. One who emigrated to the USA sends a wee video of a fuzzy and completely improbable bird that looks more like a Muppet than a living thing: the Great Potoo. One who stayed in the Canadian city of his birth sends a new-to-them word: indocile.
PREBIOTIC
SUPERBOOST
BLEND
From its position of honour, top and centre, the all-caps, blocky statement definitely provides an in-your-face-ness that the brand name–all lowercase, flowing script, and funky spelling–just as definitely does not.
That font and colour aren’t quite right, but you get the idea. They’re going for the handwritten-label-on-a-jar-of-homemade-jam aesthetic.
God gave us memory
so that we might have
roses in December.
– James M. Barrie
This was one of Mom’s favourite quotations, increasing in appeal as she moved through the December of her life. But there’s another way we can have roses in December (and in January, for that matter).
Our rented house in Tempe has a lovely yard, bordered at one end by rose bushes as tall as I am. I don’t suppose they bloom in the Arizona summers, but they do bloom in the so-called winter.
They’re a lovely reminder of the value of planting beautiful things–roses and otherwise– for ourselves and for others; for now and for later.
Posted: 2025 May 31
Thanks to John Whitman for this slightly dismayed face from downtown Ottawa.
This space is available for other submissions.
