1. Can you feel it? We’re halfway through winter (February 1 marks just 6 more weeks til the spring equinox). It stays light later and birds are starting to migrate back. This is an amazing animated map from Cornell Ornithology showing the paths of 118 different species.
2. These re-titled romance novel covers are hilarious:
Yesterday was the 260th birthday of the delightful Wolfgang Mozart, who gave us many sources of delight, including this: twelve variations on what we know as “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.”
Continuing the theme of “‘look what I do all day,” I have to share some work we did with a non profit, Equality Utah. They are campagining to update Utah’s pretty-much-unusable hate crimes law, so we got some very brave people to speak out on camera about their experiences trying to prosecute their attackers. (It was an intense day of filming.)
It was a “steam clean the other couch, finish reading J.K. Rowling’s mystery book, watch the birds at the feeders, and make Doc go to the beauty counter at Nordstrom with me” sort of weekend–there was fresh snow here Sunday and so we were lazy and didn’t hike.
So instead of hiking photos, here are some inspirational pictures from Pinterest for your Monday:
1. I finally put some work from the agency I’ve been at for the last 18 months up on my portfolio section here. What do I do all day? Check it out!
2. Yesterday’s quote was from one of Bach’s secular cantatas, which I’d heard about but never listened to. I read about it a little and tracked it down and it’s delightful–a little 25-minute drama about a girl who loves coffee and her father who thinks she should drink less of it. Here’s a staged version (minus subtitles) from an Amsterdam ensemble:
After it all, the events of the holidays,
the dinner tables passing like great ships,
everybody made soups for a while.
Cooked and cooked until the broth kept
the story of the onion, the weeping meat.
It was over, the year was spent, the new one
had yet to make its demands on us,
each day lay in the dark like a folded letter.
Then out of it all we made one final thing
out of the bounty that had not always filled us,
out of the ruined cathedral carcass of the turkey,
the limp celery chopped back into plenty,
the fish head, the spine. Out of the rejected,
the passed over, never the object of love.
It was as if all the pageantry had been for this:
the quiet after, the simmered light,
the soothing shapes our mouths made as we tasted.
There was a trip to IKEA for a new rug, a sunny day in the mountains, some sewing project planning, and lots of upholstery cleaning. A good three days.
1. Mallory Ortberg at The Toast captures my fascination with the food scenes in the novel Heidi. As she says, “Raclette is essentially the book’s protagonist.” And let’s not forget the goat milk!
2. This is not the best translation, but it’s fascinating: A new book is out in Poland about Simona Kossak, a conservation who lived in the forest and made friends with the animals and is pretty much how I want to live my life: