Author: David Gorsline

Botticelli in the Fire

Woolly closes its distinctly uneven season with the sound Botticelli in the Fire, a fantasia on the life of 15th-century Renaissance painter Sandro Botticelli. In Jordan Tannahill’s reimagining, Botticelli (company rising star Jon Hudson Odom) is rampantly bisexual, carrying on with both his patron’s wife and a young gifted painter from Vinci named Leonardo. Sumptuous period costumes intermingle with overt anachronisms—text messages, peanut butter sandwiches.

Cody Nickell is well placed as the rich and powerful Lorenzo de’ Medici, while Craig Wallace is even more powerful as Girolamo Savonarola, imagined here as a street preacher elevated to savior of Florence, from the twin depredations of plague and licentiousness. Indeed, the power games played by both characters have unsettling resonances with current events.

Forced by Savonarola to choose between art and love, Botticelli makes the expected choice. But there’s something missing here, in the text or elsewhere: Leonardo is young and beautiful and talented, granted, but his gift seems insufficient motivation for Botticelli’s sacrifice.

Christian Frederickson’s excellent sound design is matched by Colin K. Bills’ chiaroscuro lighting.

  • Botticelli in the Fire, by Jordan Tannahill, directed by Marti Lyons, Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company, Washington

Acadia Birding Festival 2018

on itJeepers, a great number of guides for ABF events to thank: Don Lima, David Ladd, Doug Suitor, Fyn Kynd, Fred Yost, Michael Retter, Bill Sheehan, Margaret Viens, Ed Hawkes, George Armistead, and the crew and staff of the Friendship V—as well as all the other guides aboard the boat.

target islandOur target birds for the pelagic trip out of Bar Harbor were pretty much the same as those for the trip out of Cutler the week before, and the alcids duly made their appearances. Guides also spotted a lone Black Tern (Chlidonias niger) at Petit Manan Island (lifer), and Marsall Iliff found a Brown Booby (Sula leucogaster) on the way there (tropical mega-lifer).

bonus bonus lightbonus lightOn the return, we scooted past Mount Desert Rock (its light, at left) and Great Duck Island (its light, at right).

one more lightWith a little time before lunch, to continue the theme, I drove my car down to Bass Harbor Head to photograph its light.

larderNear to Otter Cliffs, we picked up a couple of female Red Crossbills (Loxia curvirostra). I am gratified to report that I first saw (but did not identify) the birds fly into these White Spruces (Picea glauca), which look a little raggedy at the top with cones but no green branches. Apparently that was exactly the sort of tree the hungry birds were looking for.

getting the search imageI saw a lot of Bracken Fern (Pteridium aquilinum) and eventually got the jizz of this rather common plant, with its single bare stem rising two and a half feet before sending out any leaves.

tricky focusMore bogs and bog specialty plants! This sketchy image of Cottongrass (Eriophorum sp.), a sedge, is from Orono Bog.

On the whole, the weather was very cooperative for both trips. I didn’t see rain until a layover in Boston on my return drive. Now that I look back at my trails map of Acadia National Park, I realize that I saw a lot of Mount Desert Island, but there’s still so much more to explore. I added nine birds to my ABA Area life list, running my total up to 423. Missed the Spruce Grouse, and I was disappointed not to find a Black-legged Kittiwake.

one for Callanand another for CallanOoh, and some Friday Fold candidates for Callan Bentley. These boulders were on the shore of Western Bay in the Indian Point Blagden Preserve.

Down East Spring Birding Festival 2018

winkLots of sights and sounds and smells at the festival. A Maine-sized thank you to trip leaders Fred Galenski, Amy Zipperer, Woody Gillies, Maury Mills, Amy Meehan, Bill Kolodnicki, Susan Cline, and Capt. Andy Patterson of the Barbara Frost, who took us on a safe but thrilling ride to Machias Seal Island for the first lifers of my trip.

best shoton the wingMy big target for this trip was Atlantic Puffin (Fratercula arctica), but upon further inspection, I find the thin white lines on a Razorbill (Alca torda) more appealing.

hanging outI’ve seen Common Murres (Uria aalge) before, but only in the Pacific, so the bridled form (peculiar to the Atlantic) was new to me.

looking for flycatchersBack on land, Alder Flycatcher (Empidonax alnorum) was new to my ABA Area list (#419), a pleasant surprise when I compiled my notes from a visit to the Edmunds Unit of Moosehorn NWR. Guides pointed out the bird along this alder-lined stream. In the Barings Unit of the refuge, we heard Whip-Poor-Will (Caprimulgus vociferus) responding to recordings (no tick for me, since I don’t count heard-only birds).

unseenon the beachI was prepared to see craggy shores and tumultuous headlands, as at West Quoddy Head

foreground for scaleand Campobello Island, but

yumdrinkI wasn’t expecting an abundance of bogs and bog-specialty plants: Baked-apple Berry (Rubus chamaemorus) and Pitcher Plant (Sarracenia purpurea). Nor was I expecting to see bluets blooming like weeds in people’s yards.

target speciesthere you areI was looking specifically for Bunchberry (Cornus canadensis) and found it in several places. Guides also pointed out Starflower (Trientalis borealis), as well as

little guysa clump of Alder Leaf Beetles (Agelastica alni). A rather larger animal, a Porcupine (Erethizon dorsatum), crossed the road in front of me on my way to the dock at Cutler. In the category of even-larger mammals, we saw Harbor Seals (Phoca vitulina) and one or two Gray Seals (Halichoerus grypus) on the way back from Machias Seal Island.

strongly interruptedInterrupted Fern (Osmunda claytoniana) is common here (as at home): I’ve never seen such strong color difference between the spore-bearing part of the plant and the rest of it.

Mystery lichen of the trip was a bright orange species, particularly fond of calcium-rich stone, like those used in the Lubec town cemetery.

Bonus francophone music for the road provided by ICI Musique.

Still working on a cumulative bird species tally for the trip.

nice tealyipes stripesAnd I do like my lighthouses: Little River Light at left, West Quoddy Head Light at right.

A mystery: 13

Our American Cousin, by Tom Taylor, Act II, Scene 2:

Enter, from R. 2 E., SIR E., MRS. M., … two servants in livery, carrying tray and glasses, a wine basket containing four bottles to represent champagne, knife to cut strings, some powerful acid in one bottle for ASA—pop sure. (p. 31, Samuel French ed.)

What in Fox’s name is meant by pop sure? And, unless I missed something, that bottle of acid is never used.

DeLillo decoded

If ever there was a book that needed an explanatory wiki, it’s Ratner’s Star (1976):

He was watching her bend the edges of a paper plate someone had left on the table. Again and again she folded the plate so that a different point on the circumference of the circle touched the same ketchup speck every time, a small stain located well off-center. She kept studying the resulting creases. (p. 53)

The creases form an ellipse, as Dr. Math explains.

At the park: 95

From my most recent report:

The not-so-good news is that five of our boxes showed no evidence of incubation, with eggs that had been laid four weeks prior — so we cleaned out those boxes. The much-better news is that we have new nests started in box #6 and our studio apartment, box #5. Box #6 would be a second brood, if it comes to term — it’s only one egg at present. We also have two, possibly three, nests still incubating.

* * *

A recent BirdNote featured Frank Bellrose and one of our favorite ducks: https://www.birdnote.org/show/frank-bellrose-and-wood-ducks

Ka-chunk

Languagehat takes on the naval neologism geedunk. My post to the comment thread:

I had a colleague who was in the Navy in the 1990s; he was stationed, among other places, on Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean. He taught me “gee-dunk” (pronounced as a spondee) as a word for a break room, a place with a coffee machine, a table or two, and a couple of vending machines. Not at all the ice cream parlor of swankier years. His etymology, or perhaps the etymology that was handed down to him, was that “gee-dunk” was the sound of working the vending machine: the sound of pulling and releasing the knob, and the ka-chunk sound of the sweet and salty treat falling to the bottom tray.

Underground Railroad Game

This play is not the first to treat its audience like children, but it is perhaps the first to do so literally, when the house lights come up and the house is addressed as a fifth-grade class beginning a teaching unit on the American Civil War.

Shallow, lacking nuance, weakly manipulative, and not nearly as shocking as it wants to be, the piece is not without its good moments.

  • Underground Railroad Game, by Jennifer Kidwell and Scott R. Sheppard with Lightning Rod Special, directed by Taibi Magar, Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company, Washington