As you might expect, I was pretty happy with how the Oscars went tonight. I was a little sad that Mr. Depp did not win, but it was cool that he was even nominated. We watched Pirates with Johnny's commentary track the other night, and we got the distinct impression that this movie was a little more haphazard then you might think from the end result. Anyways, tonight was Peter Jackson and Friends' night, and they deserved it all. I think I would have rioted if ROTK hadn't won. Or at least pooed on the Academy's porch.
I especially loved Annie Lennox' performance of Into The West. (Though seeing Eugene Levy and Catherine O'Hara back in character for A Kiss at the End of the Rainbow from A Mighty Wind was great, too.)
And last night was the release party for Seven Devil Fix's CD Lotus. It was great fun, though I couldn't be there for all of it, as I was working and only through the heroic efforts of my boss to accomodate me was I able to even be there at all. As always, a pretty great show from the guys. Radio Act, who you might know as Liquesce, opened for them. I've actually mentioned them here before, and they continue to impress. If they had kept their old name their slogan could be "Liquesce continues to Impress."
And lest you have somehow forgotten, or not been paying attention, make sure to head over to the Crypt to see gabrielle's Epic response to my Counterchallenge. It's only Day 1 and already she has written a masterpiece- what the movie advertisements refer to as a "cinematic achievement of staggering proportions."

It's weird to think that one year ago today was way back in 2000. But that's how Leap Years work. I don't really understand it myself, but then I was convinced the Apoocalypse was upon us last year (by last year I mean 2003, not 2000, which on most days was four years ago).
The diamond geezer has some fascinating info on Leap Years for you- 29 facts worth.
I had a friend back in Elementary School who was born at something like 11:58 PM on February 28th, and we were all in awe of him that he came so close to being a Leap Year baby. Instead of being 8 like the rest of us, he would only be 2! It never occurred to us that he wasn't really in much danger of that since we were all born in 1974. Not a Leap Year, 1974.

Day 3

Shine on You Crazy Elephant

I met an elephant whose name was Dwight
He was always scared at night
He said he once had had a dream
That had really made him scream
In this dream some tiny mice
Made Dwight's blood turn to ice
And since an elephant can not forget
Any nightmare that made them sweat
Dwight was now Achlu-Musophobic
So he skipped night-time aerobics
But he still had to go on Dawn Patrol
(Still quite dark unless the moon is full)
His tusks, they shook and his ears, they flapped
They say that even his poo, it crapped
And so he had to hatch a plan
Horton helped him, and Tarzan
What they did is they took Dwight's trunk
And cleared it of all the snot and gunk
And stuck a flashlight way up in there
With extra batteries to spare
Dwight can now walk in the night
Done with the danger of dying of fright
As an added bonus he no longer whines
For now he is known as the Elephant Who Shines!

Ahh. Thus ends this Gruelling and Harrowing Ordeal. Although actually it was a lot of fun. I was going to dedicate this one to Mao, but the truth is this little trilogy is all thanks to gabrielle, and thus dedicated to her.
And now, Miss vampirenomad, your counter challenge:
Write a poem on each of the following topics:
Day 1- Frodorc
Day 2- Bears are Great
Day 3- Time is of the Essence OR Spider Gorgon (I'm giving you some leeway)
Feel free to switch the order up if you want. Have fun!

Day 2

POEm

Homie was such a mighty bear that he was made the king
Of all the animals in the Woods and nearly Everything
All the creatures loved him so for he was good and wise
Sorting predator from prey and discerning truth from lies
Benevolence and nobility were Homie's stock in trade
Anyone will tell you he's the "Best Bear Ever Made"
So Homie was quite unprepared when he finally met his match
In form of little furball who would hiss and bite and scratch
She goes by Poe, don't you know, a haughty grey-haired cat
Meowing for attention yet saying "Don't look at me like that."
She ran away his very first day, getting him in poo
Plotting havoc against the bear and laughing at him, too
All she does is be's real bad, pretending to be dumb
But if you're ever mad at her she moons you with her bum
Homie Bear tried to reason, to obtain her loyalty
But Poe refused to recognize any non-her royalty
Homie finally realized he was no longer ruler of the land
Instead of King, Homie now was third place in command

Ok, I'm ready to respond to this Completely Unprovoked Challenge. (Read the previous poost first, if you haven't)

Day 1

Lembas

Elven waybread
Sustaining fellowship
through long dark days
of struggle and strife
Wafers of golden strength
Perhaps from Galadriel's
own hand?
I've heard it said
that one small bite
can fill the stomach
of a full grown man
I wish I had some right now
I'm hungry
All I have
is cold ravioli
And that doesn't taste
very nice

The Green Man has discovered a green polar bear! I suppose the poolite thing to do would be to repay the favour by showing him a homie man.
And the vampirenomad has thrown down the proverbial gauntlet. I shall respond shortly. First, though, I think I'll open the blinds and let some sun in, and maybe have some garlic bread. She'll be sorry when I am dictator of China.

Yay! My Amazon order arrived yesterday, which means that soon I can start reading Band of Brothers, and the third book of His Dark Materials trilogy. I just have to finish off my book of Readings on the Middle Kingdom . I'm on the section on Communist China now, so I am almost finished. Here is a little bit about true love, Revolution style, from a government-produced movie:

"The young lady . . . twenty-five years old and an engineer by profession, discovers her [boy]friend after midnight in his office. He has fallen asleep over a weighty mathematical computation, the results of which will be required by the factory in the morning. Until dawn, she works out his mathematical formula and leaves before he wakes. This too is a sign of love . . ."

And here is a poem by Mao Zedong himself:

The Snow

All the scenery in the north
Is enclosed in a thousand li of ice,
And ten thousand li of swirling snow.
Behold both sides of the Great Wall-
There is only a vast confusion left.
On the upper and lower reaches of the Yellow River
You can no longer see the flowng water.
The mountains are dancing silver serpents,
The hills on the plains are shining elephants.
I desire to compare our height to the skies.
In clear weather
The earth is so charming
Like a red-faced girl clothed in white.
Such is the charm of these rivers and mountains,
Calling innumerable heroes to vie with each other in pursuing her.
The emperors Shi Huang and Wu Ti were barely cultured,
The emperors Tai Zung and Tai Zu were lacking in feeling,
Genghis Khan knew only how to bend his bow at the eagles,
These all belong to the past- only today are there men of feeling!

He had whole books of this stuff. Little Red Books full of them. When you're the supreme dictator of the most populated country in the world you can publish as much bad poetry as you want. You can even have music written for some of your more profound utterances and make the whole country sing the songs.
One day this is what I will do- you will have to sing Homie Bear pooems in big rallies on Parliament Hill. Instead of Little Red Books, though, I will have Big Brown Books o'Poo. Heck why wait? Preorder yours today.

Here's a trustworthy saying: "An hour spent in the dark, listening to Beethoven, is an hour well spent." See? I didn't even make it about bears, or the most beloved of ursine composers, Bearthooven. Just simple, straightforward advice that you could all follow. I suppose I could add a "poo" in there for good measure, but I think I'll leave it. (In truth I can't take credit for this revelation, as it was gabrielle's idea to shut off all the lights and sit quietly listening to Ludwig.) Too few people take advantage of an opportunity to contemplate and reflect. It's a discipline and an art, really.
Here are some of the insights I arrived at today (you should listen to the Pastorale while reading these):
1. Medusa is pretty creepy with her snakey hair but I would be way more scared of a Gorgon with spiders for hands.
2. I think China discovered the Americas and its indigenous peoples before even the Vikings did. This theory is not unique to me, but as far as I know it has never been confirmed. There are tantalizing and intriguing not-quite-clues that you find every now and then in the literature, however. I have this book that is a collection of readings about China and there was a statement that caught my interest, from Liang Qi Qao, written in 1900. He almost seems to be quoting an accepted truism, like "30 days has September . . . " when he says, "Of old, there were five States: China, India, Persia, Egypt and Mexico." The great Mayan and Aztec empires were not contemporary with the zenith of the Persian and Egyptian dynasties, so perhaps they knew the Olmecs or another race? The Chinese historically were never all that interested in the other countries of the world, so they may have known all about them and never bothered to write one single thing about them. Or perhaps we just haven't discovered anything yet. Although Admiral Zheng He's mighty fleet of 300 ships sailed the world between 1405 and 1433, so it is conceivable they met some Aztecs. And look at what I just found as I was researching a little on Zheng He- Nicholas D. Kristof writes "historians have found evidence that when China's Shang Dynasty was overthrown in about 1045 B.C., Chinese refugees may have sailed to the Americas and settled among the Olmec people of Mexico . . ." (from Thunder from the East, by Kristof and WuDunn). Interesting, eh?
3. I don't understand why Isaac Asimov's Nightfall is considered one of the most important sci-fi stories of all time. It's kind of boring. I guess it was innovative and all, dealing with social issues rather than just being pulp fiction, so it is respected for that, but if you want a kickass story about a planet with three suns that only gets darkness once every 22 years, you should really watch Pitch Black.

The English language is rife with sayings, proverbs and cliches of a zoological nature. You know what I mean, "A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush." Often these expressions are left over from bygone times and they no longer make much sense. I don't think a bird in the hand is worth much of anything, these days. Birds in the bush are still quite pretty, though. Anyways, I think it's time we updated and revised these sayings for our more enlightened age. Thus, the previously stated proverb becomes "A bear in the hand will probably be the end of you."
How about "You can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink?" We can now render it thusly: "You can't lead a bear to water or anywhere else; he will go where he pleases." And don't even think about giving any gift bears, let alone looking them in the mouth.
There is another avian adage- "The early bird gets the worm." We could change this saying to . . . actually Homie Bear is content to allow the early birds to get as many worms as they want; he will get more sleep. Actually, on further reflection it seems as though our proverbs are fine how they are. We just need more of them dealing with bears and all they can teach us. It would be nice to see this saying enter our lexicon: "You should always give a bear presents, especially Homie Bear. In this lies the path of great wisdom."

At the coal mine, the radio was often a source of confusing communication. Partly because all the equipment is loud and we all wore earplugs, and partly just from the fact that so many people use it. For example, someone might say "Shovel 8 to 30 truck, are you by, Nathan?"
Only trouble is, I'm in 31 truck. So I have to decide if shovel 8 is looking for me personally or the specific truck. The best thing to do here is pause and see if 30 truck will answer. If not, then you have to say something like, "Uhh, Nathan here, in 31 truck. You looking for me or Al in 30?"
And the opposite can happen. "Shovel 8 to 31 truck, are you by, Al?"
"Yeah, go ahead for 31 truck, but it's not Al."
"Oh, sorry Nathan, I was looking for Al- what truck is he in?"
That kind of thing. Nothing too serious, but every now and then a mechanic or electrician would pull you over and start tinkering with your truck. So you'd ask him what he was doing and he'd say, "Didn't you call in about a sparking gridbox?"
"No, that was Al in 34 truck- see over there with all the smoke?"
"Oh, right, sorry."
I hated the radio, for the most part. I just wanted to do my job and be left alone. Usually being called on the radio was bad news. Lots of guys' radios would mysteriously go on the fritz if they knew they were going to be sent to a worse pit. But as much as I wanted to, I could never really shut it off in case of an emergency, minor or serious.
Like the time I got a call from a fellow truck driver, "05 truck to 07 truck, watch out for the babies on the road." Then I had a few moments to wonder why there would be infants crawling around on a mine's haul road when I turned the corner to find all the young bighorn sheep kids.
I remember one nightshift, the last ten minutes of our entire four day rotation, when Al's voice came over the radio.
"14 truck to dispatch?" Even though I was done, I decided to listen to what Al had to say- he was my good friend, and like me, he eschewed the use of the radio if at all possible. And though he sounded quite calm, there was something in his voice. There was no answer, so he called again.
"14 truck to 215 (junior foreman, his pit supervisor that night)" Still no answer. That's when our senior foreman came on, perhaps sensing something as well.
"210 here, go ahead 14 truck."
"Yeah Terry, I was going down the hill headed for the dump and I think my tire blew out or something because now I'm on my side."
"You're on your side? You flipped?"
"Yeah I flipped. I'm alright, and I shut the engine off, but . . ."
"Just hold on, we'll get Mine Rescue out to you."
Anyways, he was alright, just a little shaken up. And 14 truck was dinged up but was back on the road after a week.

A telephone conversation I had at work today:

Phone rings, I answer it. "_____ _____ _____ (where I work.) How can I help you?"
"Hi this is buzz buzz buzzz bzz bzz bzz." I can hardly hear her, she sounds all distant and faint.
"Sorry, who is this?"
"Bzz bzz from ___ ____." She is someone, still not sure who, exactly, from another branch of my company.
"Oh hi."
"Hi."
Long pause.
"So what was your question?" she asks me.
"You called me! I don't have a question."
"No, you called me."
"No, I honestly didn't." I decided not to add what I was thinking, which is that I could prove that statement by the simple fact that I had no idea who I was talking to.
"Yes, you did. You called m . . . " and then something happened with one of our phones and we were disconnected, leaving me feeling quite mystified. Oh well.
I had other fish to fry at that point. Well, actually I had no fish to fry at all. The truth is the store where I work is so slow and dead that we are shutting down at the end of March, and Homie Bear will be Unemployed Bear once again. And that is just one or two small steps away from being Homeless Bear. And I definitely don't want that. So if you know of any jobs out there drop me a line. (I do have something I think I can fall back on, though, so don't worry about me- I'll be fine.) And if you have any mysteries for me to solve, I'm your bear!

My Playstation 2 and I are good friends, but primarily because it plays DVDs. I'm not really much of a gamer. It's not that I don't like it, but for whatever reason I hardly ever play them. I have very fond memories of last year, before Two Towers came out, Cory and Lauren and I playing the Two Towers game. So tonight I brought home the Return of the King version, and gabrielle and I tried our hands at guiding Legolas and Sam and Gandalf through Middle-earth. It's so much fun. Turns out gabrielle is much better at killing orcs than I am, though I am better at, umm, eating cookies. Actually there isn't really much else to the game. Well, you have to keep Frodo from being scooped up by the Nazgul. But neither of us were very good at that, until we figured out the trick. You have to harness a black hole to convert space into time and go back and prevent Isildur from taking the Ring in the first place. So simple really- why didn't Gandalf ever think of it?

Yes, it is perfectly alright. Just don't make a mess.

A recent search engine query that found its way to the Woods. The page won't open but you can at least see what the question was.
Then there was this one, from google. I had never really though about it before. Maybe they had little laurel wreaths around them, or togas. Or perhaps little centurion helmets.
And it's nice to know my blog is the first site that comes up for "Giant Man Eating Cats Pooing On New York". I kind of wish I had more to say on the subject.
These poosts are so easy, I try not to do them too much. But after indulging myself with some semi-serious poetry last night, I thought I would poost something fluffy, lest I chase you all away.

I have written my own song in honor of our hard-working spacemen. But since there is no music or melody or instruments, I guess it's not really a song. Oh well- it's not really about spacemen, either.

E=mc²

Einstein wrote a poem
Describing the shape of the universe
So I'm going to see if he was right
How could I not?
Lightspeed and time travel and
every wonder I can think of
And even more that I can't
A whole galaxy of experience
spiral arms scooping up adventure
For whoever wants to find it
I can't wait
So good-bye Mom
Good-bye Dad
and everyone else
I love you all
I'll be back in a few years
though it might seem longer
(Depending how fast I go -
what with relativity and all)
And when I get back
we'll share new poems
and old laughter
Describing the shape of our lives
We'll toast Einstein
and each other
saying
All is right with the universe

Songs about spacemen are cool. One More Astronaut by I Mother Earth comes to mind. There aren't really that many of them out there, but one of my favorite songs when I was younger was Major Tom, by Peter Schilling. Probably you have never heard of him but I had two of his tapes. He was great. Me and Jonny Smelter used to rock out to the space-synth sound of Herr Schilling all the time. Major Tom is kind of the opposite of Asthenia in that the guy can't get back to Earth. The title character comes, of course, from David Bowie's Space Oddity. Here is a brief article on Major Tom's impact on our pop psyche. Sadly, it was more than Peter Schilling could ever manage. Poor guy. I bet he got Asthenia when no one bought his albums.

I bought the new blink-182 CD last week and I really like it. My favorite song is Asthenia. I didn't realize what it was about until I read the liner notes- it's about an astronaut trying to decide if he even wants to come back to Earth or not. "Should I go back should I go back should I? I feel alone and tired." In Tom DeLonge's words, it's "a song about the loss of hope." The title comes from a medical/psychological term referring to a loss of strength and motivation. I found it interesting so I did a little research on it. Turns out the Americans aren't really too keen to admit that such a thing exists, while the Russians, whose cosmonauts tend to spend a lot more time in space then their American counterparts, freely agree that this takes place. It's not just limited to space missions, either. Any kind of expedition or mission to a remote corner of the Earth, suach as the Antarctic, is prone to bouts of asthenia amongst its members. Often this can lead to strife. This article explains a bit of the anecdotal history of asthenia and talks of ways to counteract its effects (fairly common sense stuff like talking to family and indulging in treats), certainly a valuable resource for anyone who is looking at going away for a long period of time, even if it's not into space.
I have been away on a number of more-than-a-month-long trips, and though I get the occasional bout of homesickness and loneliness, for the most part I am too busy having fun to get asthenia. It can be a daunting realization to think, while standing on the side of a highway with your thumb out, that you don't know a single human being within a thousand miles of you. But it helps that my kind of traveling usually doesn't involve the mind-numbing routine of a space mission or a stint in a submarine. Fun adventure is the key.

The trouble with believing all those impossible things is the disappointment you feel when you go down to your car the next morning to discover that it has somehow failed to transmogrify into a dragon overnight. Oh well. There's always tomorrow. And I'm not so sure the cat will be learning Greek anytime soon, gabrielle. Today as I was browsing on the computer and not paying attention to her she fell off the futon for no reason. She was just sitting looking at the lamp, preparing to bite it, and then she wasn't. Then she was hanging on by her front claws but she was clearly doomed. So I rescued her, and she bit me. Such gratitude. Could have been worse, though, she could have left a dropping.
Anyways, what was I going to say now? I forget. Must be time for a guest poost. Oh wait, now I remember (but feel free to email me a guest poost anytime). This week's VUE has a cover article on bears. I saw the headline out of the corner of my eye as I was getting into my car, and I thought it said "Bearing Witness", so I decided I better check it out to see if it was about bears or about some other thing I wouldn't care about. Yup, it was about bears! But it was also kind of sad.

Six Impossible Things for Breakfast
Selkie quoted Lewis Carroll in the droppings a couple of poosts back. If you don't read the droppings (in which case you are missing out on half one third one fifth of the fun of this blog;), this is the quote:

"Sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast. "
~Lewis Carroll

So, I decided to try and come up with six impossible things to believe for tomorrow morning. It's harder than it sounds, especially since I think almost anything is possible, but here is my list:

1. I believe that tomorrow when I go down to my car to drive to work, Little Green Jellybean will have turned into an actual jellybean. No wait, that's too easy. It will be a giant green jellydragon! And I will fly it to work!

2. Only, I won't have to go to work because when you have a jellydragon, you certainly don't need to work for a living. Instead we will fly to Jupiter, which isn't uninhabitable at all- it is populated by even-more-giant-than-usual whales who swim in the gaseous murks of the atmosphere, and each whale is also a city, full of, umm, happy aliens who want to share their cookies with me! Yay! (If you want, gabrielle, I can swing by and rescue you from your pod- I doubt your boss will dare defy a jellydragon!)

3. Speaking of whales, I believe that the whales are more intelligent than we are and that tomorrow they will finally break their silence and teach us truly the way of life. The only impossible thing about this is that they would ever want to have anything to do with us. So make that, the whales will teach the bears, who then may or may not decide to share with us.

4. I believe that I will be appointed World Envoy of the Primacy of World Peace and will be given freedom to travel anywhere in the world to promote the primacy of world peace and bears. Or whatever position is like that that will allow me to go wherever I please for free.

5. I believe that next Wednesday we will all awake to discover that the world has turned into a cartoon. Life will go an as before, but everything will be brightly animated in a style that is a mix between Hiyao Miyazaki and Disney, circa Sleeping Beauty. And we will all be cartoon animals, a la Robin Hood. I of course will be a bear, and you . . . hmm . . . you will probably turn into a bug. Sorry. But maybe it's fun to be a bug, I don't really know. It doesn't look like fun, but . . .

6. And finally, I believe that good will triumph over evil, and love over hate.

How about you? Doesn't have to be six, if you don't want. It can be mimsytwo, if you prefer, or a handful of mome raths.

This month's National Geographic almost seems like it was aimed at me- not only does it feature a cover story of Polar Bear photography, including some really beautiful ghostly shots- there's one in particular that I really like- a bear in a small copse of trees, something you don't usually associate Nanooks with. Oh yeah, I was saying not only does it have bears, but it also features an interesting article on the Han Dynasty of China. You might recall I also have a fascination for the Middle Kingdom. I don't usually buy National Geographic, but I could hardly resist this one- China and bears.
Know how to say polar bear in Chinese? Beiji xiong, if my memory serves. North Pole Bear.
And in other news, the original Star Wars Trilogy is finally coming to DVD in September. I can't remember how to say Star Wars in Chinese, though it seems like something I would have asked. But I have a Phantom Menace bootleg VCD from China that proudly declares itself to be Star Wars EpisodeL

UPDATE: Sign the original trilogy petition! Han shot first! Jabba is not a baby slug!

I hadn't seen Alice in Wonderland for many years and had forgotten all but its broadest strokes, but last night we watched it and I loved it. Pure imagination, on both Carroll's and Disney's parts. I liked how the Cheshire Cat recited Jabberwocky, the nonsense poem Lewis Carroll embedded into the text of Through the Looking Glass. Do you remember it?

"`Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe."

The entire text can be found here.
My Dad lent me a book of classic sci-fi short stories once, and one of the stories was called mimsy Were the Borogoves. It was a really coo llittle story written in the 40s about some mysterious toys accidentally sent back in time from way in the future. But hey- why should I describe it to you when the entire text can be found online? (You might have to click on each page since the 'next' button doesn't seem to work). It must be old enough to be in the public domain now. I love imaginative stuff like that. Makes me happy.

Ever since I saw Moulin Rouge I haven't been able to stop thinking about it. And at the same time I have been thinking about the Klondike Gold Rush too. And it turns out they were not all that different- they even had their heydeys at roughly the same time- the late 1890s.
Dawson City spawned an entire industry devoted to separating the hard-working gold-miners from their gold. And the easiest way of accomplishing this was through dancehalls, and the courtesans who worked there. You have probably heard of Diamond-tooth Gertie. How about the sisters Vaseline and Glycerine? There was even a girl named The Grizzly Bear, who was, in Pierre Berton's words, " a gargantuan woman who weighed one hundred and seventy pounds, [and] had an eye missing: it had been torn from her head, so it was whispered, in a fight with another dance-hall girl."
And despite (or perhaps because of) the inherent shadiness, the miners were only too happy to play along, and they even upheld a certain morality about the whole business. When the rigours and hardships of such a life caught up to a dancehall girl named Myrtle Brocee, and she tragically shot herself, her admirers all came to the defence of her honor: "The coroner's inquest into her death was marked by an odd gallantry: half a dozen men took the stand to testify that they had been sleeping with Miss Brocee, but each blandly swore under oath that, though he had shared her bed, she remained virtuous to the end. She had been living with Harry Woolrich, one of the most famous of the Klondike gamblers, and it was, indeed, in his room that she took her life, but Woolrich testified with a straight face that his bed companion was a virgin. The remarkable instance of mass chivalry . . . inspired the entire community, and when Myrtle Brocee , her honour preserved, went to her rest, it was in a coffin with silver-plated handles and a silken interior of blue and white, and with half of Dawson weeping quietly at the graveside."
(Once again, the source for these quotes is Pierre Berton's Klondike: the Last Great Gold Rush.)

Tonight when Alex and I were climbing the tobogganing hill for the hundredth time, I asked him if he thought the hill was steeper or taller than the Chilkoot Pass. We surveyed the slope, across from the Edmonton skyline and beneath the biggest full moon I've seen in ages, and decided that, no, I was a dummyhead for even thinking so.
I've been thinking about the Chilkoot Trail and Skagway lately. I guess partly because I pulled out my old tattered copy of Klondike in order to copy an excerpt for gabrielles' blog (she is doing a very interesting series on vampires, right now, so go check it out if you havent' yet) last night. I took it to work today and thumbed through it during lulls (which was most of the day, actually).
If you ever get a chance to hike the Chilkoot Trail, jump at it. It's amazing. And it may be the only backcountry trail in the world where you get to take a train back after you've finished. A nice, relaxing way to wind down after a few days on the trail.
And if you ever get a chance to read Pierre Berton's Klondike: the Last Great Gold Rush, or his photo-essay book, The Klondike Quest, which is a gorgeous coffeetable book full of old photos of the gold rush, it would be well worth your while. And you could use the coffeetable book to go toboganning afterwards. Because you should definitely jump at any chance you get to go do that.

I am admiring my new Warg and Orc right now. The orc is perched atop the Warg, menacingly glaring down at Frodo in the Mordor corner of the Woodsy Crypt. Treebeard is standing nearby, ready to squish the not-so-little orc if things get out of hand.
Did anyone read Elfquest back in the day? It was one of my favorite comics. I have the whole set of the original (actually they were the Epic/Marvel color reprints of the original) series. That was about a tribe of Elves, the Wolfriders, who were burned out of their home and went across the desert to meet other elves, and then went on a quest to find all the other elves out there in the wide world. Wolfriders. Warg riders. Quite different, actually. One of the Wolfrider chiefs was named Bearclaw, so obviously he was pretty cool, though he only appeared in flashback, being dead and all. (I have refrained from mentioning this to you, gabrielle, despite your elven obsession, because I don't think you would really care as much about these- they are not very Haldiry, really. But if you want to see, just let me know).
One of my other favorite comics back then was a mini-series called Longshot, about a guy who was lucky. As long as he kept his motives pure. That lesson really resonated with me- I always try to keep my motives pure. Not that I necessarily believe in luck. But I was thinking about motive today. Specifically, what motivates you to create? I think some people have the wrong motive- they want money or acclaim. But I don't know if you can produce something beautiful, however you define beauty, with such motives. Beauty, much more than luck, has to stem from pure motives.
I watched a movie that was sort of about that tonight, and also a perfect example of what I'm talking about- Moulin Rouge. (My excuse for not having seen it ere now- I was in Tibet when it came out.) The movie itself is absolutely beautiful, astonishing and thrilling. Seriously. And of course, it is about Truth and Beauty and Freedom and Love.
All the things that a Warg-rider is opposed to, in fact. Kind of funny, that.

Every dull rock rising like a bear ghost

In 1907, polar explorer Dr. Frederick Cook and his group spent 5 months huddled in a cave near Cape Sparbo on Devon Island, living off the land and waiting out the winter. As if spending a winter in an arctic cave wasn't bad enough, they were basically trapped there by polar bears, who prowled about outside stealing blubber, waiting for an unwary explorer to emerge. Obviously Homie Bear's sympathies naturally align more with the bears than the explorers, but it still makes for a harrowing tale. Sadly, it's the explorers who came out ahead, as they eventually made their way back to civilization and a position in the Annals of Polar Exploration (though some of Dr. Cook's claims are disputed). They even (supposedly) lassoed a bear, shot it and ate it at one point. They were all starving to death, so I suppose that's how it goes- natural order of things. However I can't help but wonder how a starving man managed to lasso a polar bear and not be killed instantly.
The quote above is taken from Dr. Cook's account of the trek, describing how he would poke his head out of the cave to see if the coast was clear, and the waiting polar bears would raise their heads. I like the poetry of it.
(Source: Pierre Berton's The Arctic Grail)

Did you ever notice how both Yogi Bear and Smokey the Bear are always wearing hats? It's true. I think this proves that they are brothers. But Yogi steals pic-a-nic baskets while Smokey continually admonishes you that only you can prevent forest fires. I guess that makes Yogi the black sheep of the family. Smokey doesn't like to talk about Yogi, actually. It's too bad, really- Smokey could learn a thing or two from the happy-go-lucky Yogi. As it is, Smokey is kind of a one-note bear. Anyways, I found Smokey's homepage, I think commemorating his 60th birthday. He has somehow circumvented the worldwideweb and is able to appear on just the worldwide. Or the wideweb. There is some interesting stuff over there- like how Disney lent the Forest Service the use of Bambi imagery for a year but then they had to come up with their own guy afterwards, and hence Smokey was born.

What with all the pooha over wardrobe malfunctions you may not have heard about the alleged preserved dragon that was found in England. Basically, a preserved dragon was found in England. An intriguing mystery, to be sure. Though the article is frustratingly written ("Some scientists believe that dragons, though the product of imagination, were inspired by the extraordinary creatures that once roamed the Earth." What extraordinary creatures? Imaginary dragons? Levitating sasquatches?), but the picture alongside the article is pretty cool. I guess dragons are actually mammals, or at least viviparous reptiles, since they have umbilical chords.

Today is the day everyone makes a big deal out of groundhogs. Homie Bear does not begrudge the lowly groundhogs their day, since they don't have much else going for them, but at the same time he feels compelled to point out that originally this day was known as Bear's Day. You may not believe me, but it's true!
From Bears: Their Life and Behavior , by Art Wolfe:
"During medieval times, the bear became a symbol for Christ's resurrection . . . Bears were depicted holding the sarcophagus of Christ, and bear's head and bear's claw images were worked into the illumination of religious manuscripts. Candlemas, the Christian feast of lights that celebrates the purification of the infant Jesus, appears to have been based on a Roman holiday which itself derived from one of the early bear-cult rituals: bears figured prominently in the early celebrations of this day,and it is still called "Bear's Day" in parts of eastern Europe. A remnant of this persists in our own current secular Candlemas celebration, known as Groundhog Day. Originally, the creature said to come out of the den and observe its shadow on Candlemas Day was the bear, not the groundhog."