Armrest

Five last vocabulary builders from Robbe-Grillet’s La Jalousie. Most of these appear over and over again in the book:

la fente
slit, as between the slats of a jalousie
la pente
slope
aplatir
to flatten
étendu (p.p. of étendre)
outstretched, extensive
l’accoudoir (m.)
armrest

Public groping

Nathaniel Rich shares my mistrust of airport body scanners. Like him, I consider the scanners personally intrusive and carrying unknown health risks.

…an investigative report in 2011 by ProPublica and PBS NewsHour concluded that the X-ray scanners, then still in use, could cause cancer in 6 to 100 United States airline passengers every year, and that the European Union banned those machines because of health concerns.

(I was unaware of the “cancer cluster” associated with Logan Airport that he mentions, but I’m not surprised.) More to the point, I think they are an egregious misplacement of resources. Like the security bollards that sprang up around federal buildings in the 1990s, body scanners a splendid example of “fighting the last war” thinking.

The way I look at it, if the TSA is going to waste time and money to invade my space, let’s make it personal. Someone has to lay hands on me. Bring on the patdown. Rich’s gambit of trying to pick the line with the metal detector doesn’t work for me.

Contrary to his experience, in the few times that I have “opted out,” as they say, my inspector has always been respectful and prompt. No one has tried to argue me out of my decision. It remains my quiet protest against the forces that would slide us into a state of constant fear.

Dark Hollow Falls

no road applesA return to a section of Shenandoah National Park that I had visited not too long ago. This time I spent a lot more time trying to puzzle out plants (even though there were many that I passed by), so I covered the 3 miles out the horse trail, down the fire road, and back up from Dark Hollow Falls in a lazy 3:35. I was struck by the way some of the steeper slopes were dominated by ferns in the herbaceous layer.

I found several small patches of Houstonia caerulea. One of the common names for this wildflower is Quaker Ladies, and it’s appropriate, because the blooms come together in one place, but each flower retains its uniqueness.

pinker than thisMy attaboy comes from working out this Wild Pink (Silene carolinensis), of which I found only a few instances. The flower is actually a little pinker than in the image: my optics aren’t quite up to the task of rendering this color.

Several mystery plants that I took snapshots of—maybe I can figure out one or two later.

I heard and saw a few American Redstarts (Setophaga ruticilla). Or “yellowstarts,” if one is to judge from the colors of the female.

Meadowside Park and Nature Center

Another Saturday, another field trip: this time for class, at Meadowside Park and Nature Center in Montgomery County, led by Jane Huff. Meadowside is one of the “green fingers” of the country, following the valley of the North Branch of Rock Creek. From my end of town, the best way to get there is via the distinctly off-the-beaten-track Avery Road, connecting to the lateral Muncaster Mill Road. The park is a nice size, and offers both upland and riverine habitat.

I saw two new butterflies, a Red-banded Hairstreak (Calycopis cecrops) that classmate Tom found, and several Zabulon Skippers (Poanes zabulon), the first of which I found. The group may also have found a Peck’s Skipper, but I didn’t get a good look for myself.

thicketunforgettableWe walked down to the pond, passing an interesting stand of Sassafras (Sassafras albidum) (probably clonal) and a drift of Forget-Me-Nots (Myosotis sp.). (We didn’t linger to key them out between the native and introduced species.)

creeperAt the reconstructed cabin site, there is a garden plot. We found this Black Swallowtail (Papilio polyxenes) caterpillar there, munching on some Common Rue (Ruta graveolens). The black-white-yellow coloration suggests a Danaus butterfly like a Monarch, but the swallowtail lacks “horns” and the colors are spots, not stripes.

We saw lots of crane flies (Tipulidae), including one pair intent on making more crane flies. Dr. Huff turned over a far-gone rotting log to reveal an Eastern Brown Snake (Storeria dekayi). We saw lots of recent windthrow: 100-foot tall Tuliptrees snapped off two-thirds of the way up. Dr. Huff suggested an association between waxwings and junipers that I would like to follow up on.

gallingSome nice galls on the leaves of a Black Gum (Nyssa sylvatica).

green dragonBest bird of the trip was a House Wren (Troglodytes aedon) hanging out around the martin house near the pond. Best plant of the trip was Green Dragon (Arisaema dracontium), a Jack-in-the-Pulpit congener found in one clump next to the creek. Its field marks are the long orange extension of the spadix, and the 5 to 15 leaflets.

No Man’s Land

WSC Avant Bard gives us a treat: a fine production of one of Harold Pinter’s less-produced plays of menace in an enclosed space, No Man’s Land (1975). Pinter’s fascination with abrupt shifts of dominance and usurpation is one of the strongest themes of this production: it’s never clear from one moment to the next whether Briggs (Bruce Alan Rauscher) and Foster (Frank Britton) are housekeeper and secretary to Hirst (ever-powerful Brian Hemmingsen) in his well-appointed Hampstead home, or his jailers. Imagine Veronica’s Room with more homoeroticism and even more peeping.

The opening scene springs from Hirst’s inviting Spooner (Christopher Henley) in for a drink. Twenty-five minutes later, Hirst is falling-down drunk and the scene unspools into slow-motion slapstick. Henley makes the most of Spooner’s weediness, with a sick little smile and a delight in uttering words like periphrastic and sequesteredness as if they were much smuttier than they are.

Rauscher’s second act monologue plays to his strengths: he’s a bemused thug telling the story of how he once gave directions to Foster about how to get to Bolsover Street (in Rauscher’s dialect choice, this sounds more like the so-appropriate Balls-Over Street).

One can read the coda section of the second act as an explanation of this enigmatic sequence of meetings, or as one more mystery to unpick.

  • No Man’s Land, by Harold Pinter, directed by Tom Prewitt, WSC Avant Bard, Theatre on the Run, Arlington, Va.

At the park: 59

I took a walk through the park “on my own,” as it were, unencumbered by monitoring duties but looking to make some field notes as homework for my current class. I was halfway there before I missed my point-and-shoot, so I had to make do with my tablet for images.

I haven’t been down the Cedar Trail for a couple of years or so, and I don’t spend much time this later in the season, so I found several puzzlers. The stretch of the trail that I used to think of as “Woodpecker Alley,” with lots of dead trees, is filling in with Sweetgum and lots of other green things.

I keyed out Rattlesnake Weed (Hieracium venosum), a yellow-flowered composite without noticeable disk flowers, petals pinked like a member of Caryophyllaceae, and minimal stem leaves like Goodyera.

I snapped some images of a mystery plant, already in fruit with 5 siliques, and with watermarked leaves like a waterleaf. Still working on that one.

The Snapping Turtles (Chelydra serpentina) were all over the place, at least eight in the main pond. And one, about 50 meters from anything wet at all, crossing the Cedar Trail, very interested in the cavity at the base of an uprooted tree.

yipes stripesI looped through the woods up to the tower, exchanged some information and pleasantries with a couple of guys from the Shenandoah Valley, and headed back to the car on the boardwalk. Right at the wetland’s edge, I came across this Thamnophis sp. snake, either an Eastern Ribbon Snake or Eastern Garter Snake. The image that I acquired doesn’t quite show the detail of the stripes needed to separate these two species, at least to my eye.

At the park: 58

Excerpts from my report for 5 May, last Sunday:

We have hatching activity to report in 9 of the boxes, plus (unfortunately) one nest that completely failed. We have produced 82 ducklings so far, even though box #2 only hatched 5 of its 11 eggs. Box #1 is also a puzzle: I saw evidence of eggs hatched, but 11 unhatched and warmish eggs. We will have to check that box again in June.

We also have 3 nests newly started or still going: boxes #61, #13, and #77 (this is the one that Dave relocated to near the boardwalk).

So, of the 16 boxes we monitored this year, we have had nests in 13 of them. The beavers aren’t the only ones who’ve been busy….

Water gauge: 0.05 (how low can you go?)

Heard or seen: King Rail, Blue-gray Gnatcatcher, Common Yellowthroat, Red-eyed Vireo, Wood Duck hen with ducklings…

Most common question from Wetlands Awareness Day: who dammed up all that water?

Other Desert Cities

Seeking drama and humor in the living rooms of the privileged class, Jon Robin Baitz introduces us to Lyman and Polly Wyeth, retirees from 1960s-era Hollywood and old guard conservatives. Unfortunately, the drama (a tell-all memoir by their daughter Brooke) is not compelling, and the humor lodges in tired one liners. Helen Carey, as Polly, does give us a flinty Nancy Reagan; Larry Bryggman’s tentativeness as Lyman is puzzling.

The narrative’s chronology is forced and confusing: most of the play takes place shortly after the invasion of Iraq, yet the still-young Brooke is called upon to remember events from the Vietnam War, a minimum of three decades prior.

  • Other Desert Cities, by Jon Robin Baitz, directed by Kyle Donnelly, Arena Stage Fichandler Theatre, Washington

DC-7: The Roberto Clemente Story

This biography of Pittsburgh Pirates right fielder Roberto Clemente (the mimetic Modesto Lacén) comes alive in the songs and the dancing. The book scenes convey the story of Clemente’s childhood in Puerto Rico, his 3,000-hit baseball career, and its tragic, abrupt end by a plane crash in 1972. They tend to be choppy and episodic, despite the efforts of Ricardo Puente as the flashy Ramiro, who serves as narrator for much of the play.

The first act ends with a scene in which the dark-skinned Clemente is beaten by two racist policemen—an especially odd choice since we’ve just heard a rousing love song to Roberto from his to-be wife Vera (Keren Lugo).

The ensemble of five is anchored by the versatile Alexandra Linn, equally effective as character actor and musical performer.

  • DC-7: The Roberto Clemente Story, book and lyrics by Luis Caballero, music by Luis Caballero and Harold Gutiérrez, directed by Luis Caballero, GALA Hispanic Theatre, Washington

Scrub burrowing wolf spider

Stephanie Mason did some digging, as it were, and turned up this identification for the mystery animal that made the burrows armored with pine needles and beech scales: one of the wolf spiders. Participant Sheryl has posted an image of one of the hidey-holes. Stephanie writes:

After some investigating, I believe the amazing burrows we admired and photographed were constructed by scrub burrowing wolf spiders (Geolycosa sp.). There are 18 species found in the US, with the greatest diversity in the scrub areas of Florida. I don’t know what species is/are found in the mid-Atlantic, but here’s an excerpt from an article on these neat arachnids.

The six species of scrub burrowing wolf spider that occur in scrub habitat are never found all together on a single ridge…. Instead, each of the several high ridge systems in Florida is home to only two species. And although both species of scrub burrowing wolf spiders live in scrub, they occupy different microhabitats. One of the species lives in open, bare patches of sand with no overhanging shrubs, while the other species lives in areas covered with leaf litter, closer to shrubs and trees. You rarely find bare-sand-loving burrowing wolf spiders and leaf-litter-loving burrowing wolf spiders in the same place! Both species are extremely sensitive to an obvious difference in microhabitat: the presence or absence of leaf litter on the sand.

The well-camouflaged, bare-sand-loving burrowing wolf spider mixes sand with silk to reinforce its burrow entrance. If conditions have been windy, the silk and sand will sometimes form a slight raised edge, giving the burrow an ant hill appearance. Bare-sand-loving burrowing wolf spiders are picky about their space! If leaf litter suddenly covers an area where a bare-sand-loving spider lives, the spider will abandon its burrow!

The leaf-litter-loving burrowing wolf spider, which tends to be darker in color than the bare-sand-loving burrowing wolf spider, uses its silk to weave a turret (raised collar) of leaves and pine needles around the mouth of its burrow. The turret helps camouflage the burrow entrance and also helps to reinforce it. Leaf-litter-loving burrowing wolf spiders can be found in open lawns as well as in scrub.

Burrows of both scrub burrowing wolf spiders are usually found near their own kind in an aggregation, or cluster. The bare-sand-loving wolf spiders are very particular and have a tough time finding suitable sites. So when a site is good, lots of spiders will live there. Also, breeding is easier for both species if they don’t have to travel far to find a mate!

Robbe-Grillet decoded

Five words and phrases from Robbe-Grillet’s La Jalousie that I know I never learned in high school:

le margouillat
any of various species of lizard; on the narrator’s banana plantation, probably the gecko Hemidactylus frenatus
l’igname (f.)
yam, of genus Dioscorea
la crémone
window-latch, perhaps named for the city of the same name
zone blanche
“blank area”, in Richard Howard’s translation; blanc having the senses of “unwritten”, “innocent”

A… n’est plus à la fenêtre. Ni celle-ci ni aucune des deux autres ne révèle sa présence dans la pièce. Et il n’y a plus de raison pour la supposer dans l’une quelconque des trois zones blanches, plutôt que dans une autre.

A… is no longer at the window. Neither this window nor either of the two others reveals her presence in the room. And there is no longer any reason to suppose her in any one of the three blank areas rather than in any other.

dans le sens inverse des aiguilles d’une montre
counterclockwise

Fraser Preserve

I broke from my usual Saturday gig to take a walk through the Fraser Preserve in the northern tip of the county, bordering on the river. Fraser is jointly managed by the Nature Conservancy and Calvary Baptist Church; one of its missions is making nature study available to inner city children. The walk was led by Conservancy volunteers, and a couple of staff were also on hand.

The plant life here is rather similar to what I’ve been shown on other class trips along the Potomac, at Carderock and Turkey Run, for instance.

where's my stool?Birds were mostly heard but not seen, as the canopy begins to leaf in. Some of the showiest spring bloomers are gone or nearly so (like Mertensia virginica), but we did find some Golden Ragwort (Packera aurea) coming in. We had stopped to look at a patch of bluebells and I found this single Toadshade (Trillium sessile) just opening up.

Leta beware: 1Leta beware: 2I looked at this lushly growing carrotty thing, not yet in flower, and I had read the flyer for the walk that highlighted some of the property’s specialties. So I asked Ed Clark, who was co-leading, “Is this what I think it is?” and he confirmed that it was Poison Hemlock (Conium maculatum). This non-native is highly toxic if ingested; it has noxious weed status in eight states. The purple spots on the stems that give it its specific epithet don’t read well in my images.

surprisingly tallBut you see that it can grow to head-height.