WhimsyLand

Alas, no poetry today.  I did get a Smithsonian in the mail, along with requests to re-subscribe from  the Smithsonian folks, Time, Cook's Illustrated, Wired, Spin and BusinessWeek.  I ended up with all these magazines by responding to an offer from NorthWest Airlines to convert my mileage to subscriptions.  I didn't have that much anyway — maybe one-quarter of a round-trip fare — and I was amazed to see how far the miles went:  500 miles for this, 750 miles for that.  I think I'll check the United program online tonight to see if they have something similar.  I have a fair number of United miles and as I detest that airline, I might as well get some good out of their frequent flier program.    But, I digress.

The cover article of Smithsonian is "First People of the Grand Canyon:  Who Were They?".  Smithsonian doesn't have article titles quite as camp as Reader's Digest (e.g., I Am Jane's Breast), but they run a close second.  From Wild Things:  there is archeological evidence that Vesuvius erupted even more violently 2,000 years before the Roman Era outburst and geologists reassess the current peril to Naples, which lies within the older blast zone;  Costa Rican Polybia paper wasps routinely bite each other to prod slackers into foraging, an understandable disciplinary measure as foragers have average lifespans of 6 days as opposed to the 30 days of the slackers who hang around the nest.  The largest mammal migration on the planet is that of zebra, gazelle, wildebeest and antelope each June on Tanzania's Serengeti plains.  An interview with Neil Shubin, University of Chicago paleontologist, who recently discovered "the missing link" — what is believed to be the first vertebrate to crawl from the sea to land (yes, everything on land at that point was in the leadership of the Democratic Party).  Very interesting article on Smithsonian paleontologist Douglas Erwin's new book, Extinction, which describes The Great Dying, a finger-snap of geologic time spanning 160,000 years in which 95% of all ocean life and 70% of all land life became extinct.  It was a close call for Earth life, ourselves included.  The University of Nebraska has recently borrowed 330,000 scarab beetles from the Museum of Natural History (presumably for display, not cuisine or jewelry making).  Now here's my kind of vacation:  Smithsonian Journeys offers Murder On The Orient Express, in which you luxuriate on the OE accompanied by mystery writers and fellow enthusiasts from London to Venice.  This Month In History:  25 years ago, the first report of what was later to be known as AIDS;  100 years ago, Josephine Baker, The Black Venus, is born;  105 years ago, art critic Félicien Fagus heralds a brilliant newcomer to the Paris art scene, Pablo Picasso.  A wonderful pictorial essay on Andrew Wyeth, whose Christina's World has launched 1000 poems.  Amazing pics of the new Berlin, including the last graffiti'd section of The Wall.  In 1984, photographer Peter Feldstein photographed every person in Oxford, Iowa, and is out to do it again.  Who Was Mary Magdalene attributes characterization of her as a prostitute as historically inaccurate, "discrediting sexuality in general and disempowering women in particular". And those people of the Grand Canyon?  Archaeological remains date back 8,000 years along the Colorado River, the "most abundant source of water in the Southwest" for all of that time.  Smithsonian artifacts include 500 split-twig figurines, all made the same way over the course of 60 generations.