Category: Metaposting

The year in review, 2025

Quality, not quantity, eh?

The first sentence (more or less) of the first post for the last twelve months:

  • 7 January: In the winter holiday break, I Amtraked up to Philadelphia to take in the Barnes Foundation (underwhelming: the pictures can’t breathe) and reacquaint myself with the Duchamp room at the Philadelphia Museum of Art.
  • 4 February: So we’re halfway thru the run.
  • 3 March: From this week’s nest box report: “Ice on the ponds, so we made like the icebreaker ships.”
  • 8 April: At least 47 hasn’t promoted Incitatus to consul. Yet.
  • 2 May: My report for April to the team: “Whew! I am caught up with my paperwork for the moment.”
  • 3 June: Sited art and found art in NYC.
  • 8 July: Amplifying signal from Maryland Native Plant Society: With summer officially here, outside activities are on the rise and so too are encounters with ticks.
  • 9 August: A word that pops up in Elmer Rice’s Street Scene, both the stage play (1929) and the screenplay (1931):
  • 4 September: A quick report from the meadow unit of Elklick Woodlands Natural Area Preserve, accompanied by Darko Veljkovic and other Fairfax County Park Authority Staff.
  • 4 October: Another view through a Tony Smith work, this time Smug (1973/2005), snapped during my first visit to Glenstone…
  • 7 November: A quick stroll in woods and meadows of a section of Leopold’s Preserve that I hadn’t seen before, led by Marion Lobstein and Claudia Thompson-Deahl.
  • 3 December: More fun with punctuation marks: I recently learned that the humble colon (:) is used in Swedish names…

The year in review:

The year in review, 2024

I did more than take field trips this year, honest!

The first sentence (more or less) of the first post for the last twelve months:

  • 4 January: And we’re back in the theater!
  • 8 February: I assisted at Elklick Woodlands Natural Area Preserve for a couple of work days.
  • 5 March: We are into the week of dress rehearsals after two 12-hour days of tech work over the weekend.
  • 3 April: Video of my presentation on the Federal Duck Stamp to the Holston Rivers Chapter of Virginia Master Naturalists.
  • 9 May: A very personal piece of metatheater, Amm(i)gone is an extended Moth-style confessional monologue about Adil’s efforts to reconnect with his devout Muslim mother (his ammi) by unconventional means: an (uncompleted) joint project to translate Sophocles’ Antigone into Urdu.
  • 5 June: Ken Rosenthal of Reston’s Walker Nature Center led a birding walk on the Limberlost Trail loop in Shenandoah National Park.
  • 3 July: The Clifton Institute held a second June bioblitz on private property in Rappahannock County, this time on a smaller site (about 50 acres).
  • 3 August: The action was a little slow: we suspect that butterfly numbers are down due to the drought.
  • 6 September: Genevieve Wall led a two-day foray to several sites along the James River in Richmond and environs.
  • 14 October: Another Friday, another butterfly/dragonfly/everything survey with Jim Waggener and his posse, this time to the Julie Metz Wetlands.
  • 6 November: EDGAR. O gods! Who is’t can say, “I am at the worst”?
  • 17 December: Full of stars: It’s only been 100 years since we learned that there are other galaxies out there.

The year in review:

The year in review, 2023

I keep finding stuff to write about.

The first sentence (more or less) of the first post for the last twelve months:

  • 8 January: I am mortified that no one else stepped in to do this job, but gratified that Devon Henry was there to do it.
  • 1 February: In my newly copious unscheduled time, I’ve been working with Margaret Chatham on invasives removal at Fraser Preserve, at the tippy-top north end of the county.
  • 9 March: ēar-finger is definitely due for a comeback.
  • 3 April: Signature Theatre smooths out some of the less accessible elements of Stephen Sondheim’s Pacific Overtures…
  • 3 May: A nice fiction/non-fiction balance.
  • 9 June: Nelson DeBarros led a walk to a small acidic seepage swamp tucked into a Franconia neighborhood.
  • 13 July: Expurgation considered harmful: What’s Lost When Censors Tamper With Classic Films, by Niela Orr.
  • 1 August: Documenting and celebrating Dark Star Park Day in Rosslyn.
  • 8 September: Nelson DeBarros led a walk for the Potowmack Grass Bunch and FCPA staff to a power line easement along South Run.
  • 10 October: By chance, this year’s Master Naturalist conference was held in Southwest Virginia, so the Doctor and I hauled down I-81 once again to Abingdon.
  • 4 November: Sarah Ruhl’s reduction of Orlando, Virginia Woolf’s gender-fluid time-travel novel of 1928, picks out key episodes and characters from the life of the titular 300-year-old would-be writer.
  • 6 December: Public Obscenities makes use of some familiar tropes…

The year in review:

A milestone: 8

Seventeen years of A Honey of an Anklet, including 142 posts from Huntley Meadows Park:

  • 2006: We drove out to the Eastern Shore yesterday to say goodbye to Marlie…
  • 2007: Katherine Ellison looks at today’s carbon offset market.
  • 2008: Henry Phillips received a patent for his screwdriver and screws on this day in 1936…
  • 2009: The last play in August Wilson’s cycle of Pittsburgh plays, Radio Golf, is set in 1997…
  • 2010: Just a quick snap to mark my completion of the Fairfax Cross County Trail.
  • 2011: Five years of A Honey of an Anklet…
  • 2012: Hey, Leta, you’re on the TV!
  • 2013: Sand Box John keeps us up to date…
  • 2014: My 2014-2015 Migratory Bird Hunting and Conservation Stamps (Duck Stamps) arrived in the mail today.
  • 2015: Dave Taft offers a splendid 24-hours sampler of the wildlife to be found within New York City, be it animal, vegetable, or fungal; native or alien invasive.
  • 2016: 10 years, 2100+ posts.
  • 2017: O Gray Catbird, who have been tapping at your reflection in my window glass, maybe if I post your picture on the internet you’ll be embarrassed and cut it out.
  • 2018: My final report for the ducks and mergs team this season…
  • 2019: From my final weekly report from Huntley Meadows Park…
  • 2020: 51 murals promoting our 51st state.
  • 2021: After my annual scuffling with the Google chart API, I can post the summary graph of nesting activity for 2021.
  • 2022: As usual, that’s me in the back, the last one to get on whatever we’re looking at.

The year in review, 2022

With the demise of the bird site, I will probably return to more quick linkblogging here.

The first sentence (more or less) of the first post for the last twelve months:

  • 15 January: What Will Art Look Like in the Metaverse?, by Dean Kissick.
  • 20 February: Noreen Malone captures the mood of the moment.
  • 4 March: Finally, after a dark and cold winter, some color in my Winogradsky column project.
  • 1 April: Hi, Mom!
  • 3 May: Sunday’s report: Many adventures today!
  • 4 June: Back in the field with the scrappy little Mason & Bailey Club, and their first visit to Huntley Meadows Park!
  • 4 July: As usual, that’s me in the back, the last one to get on whatever we’re looking at.
  • 6 August: [[User:Adam_Cuerden]] gives a quick backstage tour.
  • 6 September: “(Maybe that’s what you’re seeing whenever you see a little swirling updraft of debris in the city: someone’s panic taking shape, someone’s death setting out to find their body.)”
  • 1 October: Helen Shaw reviews David Greenspan’s realization of Four Saints in Three Acts, by Gertrude Stein.
  • 1 November: I have become mildly obsessed with Mantovani’s anodyne arrangement of “Charmaine,” perhaps the epitome of easy listening/elevator music.
  • 6 December: More publicity for the Habenaria repens that we documented in September.

The year in review:

The year in review, 2021

Some months are a little skimpy this year, for the expected reasons. The first sentence (more or less) of the first post for the last twelve months:

  • 2 January: Staying close to home, I walked over to Reston’s Walker Nature Center, past the high school and the mini-mall with the Domino’s and 7-Eleven.
  • 15 February: Waiting out the ice storm until Monday, I got some time to walk the Glade today, just before the rain came back.
  • 7 March: We have resumed nest box monitoring at Huntley Meadows Park (following precautions and adhering to protocol, of course).
  • 6 April: Sean Wyer unpacks a word that has always puzzled me: naff.
  • 1 May: Box #68 hatched out — Hooded Merganser (Lophodytes cucullatus).
  • 3 June: I’m Washingtonian-famous, for the month at least, recommending Mucca Pazza’s Tiny Desk Concert.
  • 5 July: After my annual scuffling with the Google chart API, I can post the summary graph of nesting activity for 2021.
  • 1 August: この　ちかくに　コンビニが　あります。
  • 6 September: Labor Day means a hike in Shenandoah National Park.
  • 5 October: Best use of inset text, Snark Division.
  • 6 November: Phase 2 has hit the “substantially complete” milestone.
  • 5 December: Oh, dear.

The year in review:

The year in review, 2020

The usual preoccupations. The first sentence (more or less) of the first post for the last twelve months:

  • 12 January: I’m going to try Musicology Duck’s Listen Wider Challenge 2020.
  • 3 February: I returned to Florida for the first time in far too many years for my first SCBWF.
  • 2 March: First week of nest box monitoring.
  • 5 April: Virginia state parks are still open for day use!
  • 3 May: A new non-native wasp has been spotted in the Pacific Northwest, Asian giant hornet (Vespa mandarinia).
  • 6 June: At my desk away from my desk, 12 weeks since we started working remotely full-time.
  • 3 July: 51 murals promoting our 51st state.
  • 3 August: “To say that [the revival of evangelical Christianity in the 1820s] marked a turn away from the spirit of the nation’s founding is to wildly understate the case.”
  • 5 September: Look what popped up in a bare patch in my weedy back yard: two sprigs of Spotted Wintergreen (Chimaphila maculata).
  • 12 October: Mikaela Lefrak of WAMU is releasing a six-part podcast on the fight for Washington, D.C. residents to be fully enfranchised and empowered to run their own government.
  • 1 November: “In my junior year I presented a skit at the Press Club Vod based on the idea of how closely allied jazz dancing was to the jungle.”
  • 8 December: “It was recently discovered, for example, that good tobacco crops depend, for some unknown reason, on the preconditioning of the soil by wild ragweed.”

The year in review:

The year in review, 2019

A couple of short months, but some nice travelogue. And I made the 100th post under At the park (even if I lose count sometimes). The first sentence (more or less) of the first post for the last twelve months:

  • 1 January: “Jackson [Pollock] had said, ‘I am nature.'”
  • 8 February: Earlier this week, test trains began running on the section of track from Innovation Center to west of the airport, as reported by Max Smith.
  • 2 March: Aziza Barnes’ play is high energy, often played at farce tempos.
  • 2 April: A turn of phrase that has stayed with me over the years, from James Thurber, “The Topaz Cufflinks Mystery,” (23 July 1932).
  • 2 May: From my most recent report: Two boxes hatched (including 13 ducklings from little box #5) and one new nest is started.
  • 2 June: From my report on last Sunday’s monitoring work: Our birds continue to surprise.
  • 2 July: From my final weekly report from Huntley Meadows Park: A somewhat perplexing end to the season.
  • 6 August: Barring new hitches, MWAA has set 16 July 2020 as the opening date for Phase II, according to reporting by Max Smith.
  • 2 September: It’s Labor Day, so it’s time for a walk in the park.
  • 4 October: feather is to plumage as hair is to pelage as scale is to…?
  • 3 November: The most powerful moments in this production come from the no song, no dance passage told by Paul (Jeff Gorti), a honest confession of a story not captured by cast recording albums.
  • 10 December: “This book is the final chapter of, and the summation of, a work conceived and begun in 1925.”

The year in review:

The year in review, 2018

So what happened to November? The lede for eleven first posts of the past months:

  • 4 January: O, I miss you sweetie.
  • 3 February: A lush, ostinato-less “Every Breath You Take,” in the lobby of Navy Federal Credit Union, Reston branch.
  • 4 March: Danai Gurira’s engaging drama takes a new angle on the ever-intriguing clash of cultures.
  • 7 April: Elizabeth G. Knight, writing in the Bulletin of the Torrey Botanical Club, 11:11/12 (November-December 1884), p. 134.
  • 14 May: The role of sound design in professional live theater, a podcast episode produced by James Introcaso.
  • 4 June: Between festivals, I stopped by Thuya Garden and Asticou Azalea Garden in Northeast Harbor—two lovely spots.
  • 7 July: My final report for the ducks and mergs team this season.
  • 9 August: So this pavement milling machine has been hanging out near the building entrance.
  • 3 September: Is there another playwright who shows such skill at introducing characters as Sarah Ruhl?
  • 6 October: I got a leg up on understanding the mystery yellow flower that I’ve seen blooming in the marsh.
  • 2 December: 75 dancers, 300 solos of work by Merce Cunningham on his 100th birthday, livestreamed.

The year in review:

The year in review, 2017

Scanty posting for much of the year. Nevertheless, my annual slice through the first-of-the-month posts:

  • 5 January: WATCH assignments are ready!
  • 2 February: Augmented by a stack of books from Leta’s library.
  • 2 March: Woolly continues its admirable run of productions in which people of faith—specifically, Christian faith—are front and center, with their questions and fears driving the story.
  • 2 April: Richard Bolles has passed away.
  • 2 May: From my last report to the nest box team:
  • 3 June: A lovely “bloom” of one of our common yellow myxomycetes in the Ridge Heights meadow.
  • 2 July: O Gray Catbird, who have been tapping at your reflection in my window glass, maybe if I post your picture on the internet you’ll be embarrassed and cut it out.
  • 5 August: TIL that IAD was originally planned to be built in what is now Burke.
  • 1 September: In the course of researching the life of Laura Lyon White (Mrs. Lovell White), I came across an interesting turn of events concerning LLW’s estate.
  • 2 October: Kevin Dodge, Shirley Gay, and Steve Kite led a walk though Ice Mountain Preserve.
  • 5 November: Another piece by one of our journalists was cited in one of the textbooks that I’m recording for Learning Ally:
  • 3 December: Hilary Howard reports on the precarious state of independent acting conservatories in New York.

The year in review: