Sunday, January 26, 2020

BBC Seven Worlds One Planet 7/7: Africa

 

In this episode we have: a chimpanzee learning how to make tools, a group of five cheetahs devising a new strategy of hunting (using decoys, how smart!), an aardvark who can dig to six meters down, cichlid fish that use their mouths as a nursery (buccal incubation) - and cuckoo catfish that add their eggs so cichlids would care for them. The babies are ruthless - they eat all cichlid babies. 
Also, less than 8000 cheetahs left and two white rhinos females.

BBC Seven Worlds One Planet 6/7: North America


In this episode: a hare faster than Canadian lynx, a road runner running after lizards, polar bears cooperating in lean summer months, alligators that can slow down their heartbeats to ONE per minute and shoals of fish called mullets.


Saturday, January 25, 2020

Saturday Poetry Corner 23: Hope is That Thing With Feathers

 
 
Today a very short poem by Emily Dickinson.
 

[Review Part 3] The History



The story takes place in 1614. But the events are going back to the past and into the future – we are transported for a short while into the Imjin War that lasted for 6 years (1592-1598) and the last episode jumped 9 years to the year 1623, the year of Injo Revolt. Japanese invasion ruined Joseon on many levels, economically, politically, artistically. The people’s trust towards royal family, never especially high, deteriorated to never recover. 

Thursday, January 23, 2020

Throwback Thursday Part 49


"In 1897 Elva Zona Heaster is found dead in Greenbrier County, West Virginia. Resulting murder trial of her husband perhaps only case in US history where the alleged testimony of a ghost helped secure a conviction."
This is why today's Throwback Thursday is to ghosts :)

Sunday, January 19, 2020

BBC Seven Worlds One Planet 5/7: Europe


In this episode we witnessed: a monkey baby kidnapping (a higher ranking female wanted a baby so she snatched herself a baby), a pack of wolves hunting and being chased by sheep-herding dogs (that in turn nommed on the red deer the wolves got), Iberian lynx being pretty and hamsters' fight for the best flowers at a cemetery.

Saturday, January 18, 2020

Saturday Poetry Corner 22: A Dream Within A Dream

 

Once again Edgar Allan Poe makes an appearance on this blog and it will not be his last.


Sunday, January 12, 2020

BBC Seven Worlds One Planet 4/7: Australia


 The land where everything is out to get you. Regardless if you're a lizard or a bat.

Saturday, January 11, 2020

Saturday Poetry Corner 21: La Belle Dame sans Merci

Painting by Frank Dicksee

I present you the revised version from 1820. A poem by John Keats.
He was one of the main figures of the second generation of Romantic poets, along with Lord Byron and Percy Bysshe Shelley, despite his works having been in publication for only four years before his death from tuberculosis at the age of 25.

Friday, January 10, 2020

[Review Part 2] Jeon Nokdu – The Hero of a Thousand Faces




Story can mend, and story can heal (J. Campbell)


Until the last episode I just suspected and had hoped for it, but the second half of it closed the story beautifully and in line with almost every great myth of a hero – he came back to the point of his beginning. After that, all elements fell into their right places and the story achieved its goal and its closure, although a little bittersweet.