Category Archives: Jimwords
These posts are written by Jim Cummings, creator/editor of Bright Blue Ball. They are fragments of his simple witness to the years.
Flying Ant Day 2011
Yesterday morning the front yard bloomed with tiny tinkerbells, shimmering in the sun. First a few, then dozens, probably hundreds at a time, angling up and across the yard, swept along by a light breeze. What could it be? I first grabbed the binoculars by my side, to see if super-vision would help identify them, but they moved too fast. Walking outside and letting them fly toward and over me didn’t improve matters: they were so small, all I could be sure of was that they had four long slender Tinkerbell-ish wings, two on each side. But who were these wings carrying?
These are larger, leafcutter ants, photographed in Arizona by Alex Wild; click to visit a page on his site with lots of great photos of Flying Ant Day in Tucson
I tried reaching out, hoping to sweep one into my hand on its way by, but each one that came close flitted away, and their bodies were just too small to get a glimpse of. Finally one bumped and landed on my shirt, and I was able to gently pick it up by the wings, bring it up close to my increasingly enfeebled eyes, and finally see that the heads were decidedly ant-like. Yes, indeed, no doubt: they were ants!
At the same time, standing out there, I began to realize that they weren’t coming into the yard on the breeze, but were rising up from the among the tufts of gramma grass stalks now heavy with seed. Looking closer at the ground, I confirmed that indeed our local community of tiny “sugar ants” were on the move, at least some of them. The ground was littered with them, milling about, making sense of these new diaphanous appendages and preparing to launch up and out into a sudden freedom from the solid, welcoming ground that was all their kin had known til now.
Wow! Sun-diving comet and coronal mass ejection
More often than you might imagine, tiny comets get sucked into the sun’s massive gravitational vortex, and die sparkling little deaths as “sun-divers.” In recent years, the SOHO satellites, which are constantly watching the sun, have shown us the final hours of these fragments of the distant outer solar system. Well, this week, just after a sun-diver met its fate, a pretty darn impressive coronal mass ejection blew out of the sun:
About the movie above: first, it may take a short while for it to fully load, but once it does, it will continue to repeat itself. It shows a 9-hour period late on October 1st. The white circle is the actual size of the sun; the larger masked area simply blocks out most of the bright solar corona, so the subtler dynamics of the outer corona can be imaged. The coronal mass ejection seen here is not unusual, or especially large; during the more active years in the sun’s 11-year solar activity cycle, such eruptions occur anywhere from daily to weekly.
A click on the image will take you to the SpaceWeather.com page from which I grabbed this, where you can read a bit about whether this reaction we see above is a coincidence, and follow a couple links to a smaller but surprisingly clear event last summer that first opened the question: could a tiny comet actually trigger a solar reaction? Apparently, the idea isn’t considered as outlandish as it once was.
But beyond the new science that may be emerging, this little movie gives us a chance to simply revel in the dynamic beauty that is our local star.
Musical elders: Yusuf’s Cafe Session
Over the past few years, a bunch of our old musical faves have released DVDs that capture their “mature” artistry in the (recent) prime time when they’re infused with the wisdom of the years, yet with their musical chops still fully at their disposal as well. Click on over on the “Rock Elders late-career DVDs” category on the right to see others as they’re added.
The first one I wanted to share has flown totally under the radar, and will be a delightful – and heartful – discovery for anyone who was into Cat Stevens. And in the early 70’s, who wasn’t? Tea for the Tillerman was the first LP I ever bought (while on a band exchange trip), and for a few years there, he was one of the purest voices of the gentle, spiritual search of the generation. After spending 25 years out of the music business and in the heart of England’s Islamic community, he returned to performing in 2006. His new studio albums have been mixed affairs (though Footsteps in the Light, originally only released in the UK, with some old tunes and some devotional tunes, is a real treasure). But in 2007, he performed an intimate concert at London’s gorgeous Porchester Hall. Here’s the opening sequence:
The concert is a treat from start to finish. Twelve musicians create a gentle, rich tapestry on which Yusuf’s songs find new wings, a flying carpet of heart and soul. First among them is Alun Davies, seen above, who must surely be one of the most selfless musicians we love and don’t know: the half-hour BBC documentary that accompanies the concert on this disc reveals that Alun has been there at Cat’s side through all the years, his guitar weaving together with Yusuf’s to create that “Cat Stevens sound.” Who knew??
Among the many highlights of the show is a Zulu-infused Wild World, a couple of riveting Islamic vocal passages, and a surprising bluesy interlude. And just try to keep a dry eye during “Father and Son” if you, like me, have crossed over from one side of that story to the other….
The documentary is great, with a glimpse of his wild London 60’s years, which led to him falling deeply ill, living at his dad’s house, out which emerged the gentle Cat we knew and loved. Seeking refuge from fame in foreign lands, he soon left the music world, and the film offers an illuminating perspective on the role he played as one of the leaders of the London Islamic community (he did far more good work than we knew, having heard little more than the widely publicized and misinterpreted comments on Salmon Rushdie).
So start your Musical Elders DVD collection today by seeking out this gem at your local music store (I wish!), or here at Amazon.
Wildness in the neighborhood
On Monday Phil and I took a leisurely morning loop through the lower canyon here, up to the knolls for an overview of the Lamy and Canoncito valleys, continuing down past the old grandfather oak tree (who may have seen the Civil War troops hustling by one night to join the 2nd day of the battle a few miles away on Glorieta Pass), then heading up the slot canyon that lies directly below the knolls. Partway through there were some large, shallow pools of standing water with wide muddy borders.
Almost right away, big prints: bear!! That’s a first, in over 20 years here. Fingery racoons, too. And look, cat-like prints: bobcat or cougar? (how big are cougar feet?) More coons, plus dogs or coyotes. Then: woah….HUGE cat prints, cougar for sure!
The next day I called Ann, a friend way into tracking and primitive skills, and we spent a couple hours peering at the crazy accumulation of prints alongside three of these pools, confirming my original hunches with the careful questions and comparisons of true tracking. There was a wild tangle of prints stretching along fifty feet of canyon floor, including an enlongated smoosh-print where the bear came down from the steep rocky slopes above. As we prepared to leave, Ann paused and turned our attention to imagining the print-makers wandering along the water…..
I heard a cougar scream five or six years ago in the arroyo just behind the house, and Barb saw one walk by her studio in the first week she was here, four years ago. But never before have I seen such pristine tracks, and to have bear and cougar and bobcat all in one magnificent experience, well, that was a major blessing and treat!
It seems that wildlife is more present in recent months: a bobcat loping through the yard three different times, a fox in the hills not far behind the house, deer along the road, coyotes way close many times in the night, a bear ransacking my birdfeeders several times. We share this home with so many others.
Click through for some more footprints-out-of-time
Bright Blue Ball (spinning spinning free) 