/ pizzazz
On the birthday of Victoria, the cantus firmus of the Ellsworth family, the fun theory. It’s there in Holy Writ, the most recent public example being the appointed lectionary reading of a couple Sundays ago, the howler from the eleventh chapter of the Book of Numbers of all things. It was all I could do not to fall off my prayer desk.
The rabble among them had a strong craving; and the Israelites also wept again, and said, “If only we had meat to eat! We remember the fish we used to eat in Egypt for nothing, the cucumbers, the melons, the leeks, the onions, and the garlic; but now our strength is dried up, and there is nothing at all but this manna to look at.”
Moses heard the people weeping throughout their families, all at the entrances of their tents. Then the LORD became very angry, and Moses was displeased. So Moses said to the LORD, “Why have you treated your servant so badly? Why have I not found favor in your sight, that you lay the burden of all this people on me? Did I conceive all this people? Did I give birth to them, that you should say to me, ‘Carry them in your bosom, as a nurse carries a sucking child,’ to the land that you promised on oath to their ancestors? Where am I to get meat to give to all this people? For they come weeping to me and say, ‘Give us meat to eat!’ I am not able to carry all this people alone, for they are too heavy for me. If this is the way you are going to treat me, put me to death at once—if I have found favor in your sight—and do not let me see my misery.”
So the LORD said to Moses, “Gather for me seventy of the elders of Israel, whom you know to be the elders of the people and officers over them; bring them to the tent of meeting, and have them take their place there with you.”
So Moses went out and told the people the words of the LORD; and he gathered seventy elders of the people, and placed them all around the tent. Then the LORD came down in the cloud and spoke to him, and took some of the spirit that was on him and put it on the seventy elders; and when the spirit rested upon them, they prophesied. But they did not do so again.
"Spend the afternoon. You can't take it with you."
Selborne, April 29th, 1776
Dear Sir, — On August 4th, 1775, we surprised a large viper, which seemed very heavy and bloated, as it lay in the grass basking in the sun. When we came to cut it up, we found that the abdomen was crowded with young, fifteen in number; the short of which measured full seven inches, and were about the size of full-grown earth worms. This little fry issued into the world with the true viper-spirit about them showing great alertness as soon as disengaged from the belly of the dam: they twisted and wriggled about, and set themselves up, and gaped very wide when touched with a stick, showing manifest tokens of menace and defiance, though as yet they had no manner of fangs that we could find, even with the help of our glasses.
To a thinking mind nothing is more wonderful than that early instinct which impresses young animals with a notion of the situation of their natural weapons, and of using them properly in their own defense, even before those weapons subsist or are formed. Thus a young cock will spar at his adversary before his spurs are grown: and a calf or a lamb will push with their heads before their horns are sprouted. In the same manner did these young adders attempt to bite before their fangs were in being.
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The Rev. Gilbert White, The Natural History and Antiquities of Selbourne, Vol. II, Letter XXXI. More about the 18th-Century English countryside curate and inspiration to Wordsworth, Coleridge and Keats is at BBC Four. Hat tip to my son Gabriel, who is to read White et. al. taking Linda Peterson’s Nature Writing in Britain and the Colonies.
Rachel Veitch and Chariot. Hat tip to Victoria.
Fred Astaire (May 10, 1899 – June 22, 1987) and Ginger Rogers, Pick Yourself Up and Never Gonna Dance
Brilliant!
Northern Lights at Ramsfjord, near Tromso in Norway, via jamenpercy
LeBron James
A flock of snow geese fly over Wolf Lodge Bay Wednesday, March 18, 2009 on the east side of Lake Coeur d’Alene near Coeur d’Alene, Idaho. The birds migrate from their winter area of the western Gulf Coast to their summer range of northern Alaska and arctic Canada for breeding. (AP Photo/Coeur d’Alene Press, Jerome A. Pollos) via TBP
The moon passes in front of the sun, during a partial solar eclipse, as it sets over Manila Bay, in the Philippines on January 26, 2009 (REUTERS/Romeo Ranoco). Via the Boston Globe’s The Big Picture
Two men launch a hot-air lantern to send New Year’s wishes up to the sky in front of the Hanoi Opera House during Lunar New Year celebrations in Hanoi, Vietnam, Sunday, Jan. 25, 2009. (AP Photo/Chitose Suzuki), via the Big Picture
My niece, Abbey Ellsworth, with Ben Leaman, Long Beach Island, New Jersey. July, 2008. Photography by another niece, Emma Ellsworth, seen in Ben’s shades, and here.
The Pug Head Tilt, thanks Alan, via Gabe
