Effeminate sheep

The Gay Animal Kingdom, the 2006 SEED article about animal homosexuality that Illinois high school biology teacher Dan Delong was almost fired for assigning to his students.

Fishbowl

A four-minute recording of the tank at Japan's Okinawa Churaumi Aquarium, the second largest in the world. PZ Myers of Pharyngula recommends that you "let it load in HD, put it on full screen, and set back and mellow out for a few minutes." (The embedded video is HD quality, so you can pop it into full screen right here.) It's definitely better than any screensaver you've got.

The natives are very friendly

Stephen Fry and zoologist Mark Carwardine encountering a rare flightless parrot in New Zealand in Last Chance to See. It has been suggested that the behavior displayed in this video may explain why it is so endangered.

Via Bioephemera.

More September happenings

Friday, September 18; Thursday, September 24; Tuesday, September 29




"On Clouds" Exhibition at Observatory

with prints and photographs by James Walsh in the gallery, and an evening program of projections, performances, poetry, and other events by various artists throughout the run of the show.

Friday, September 18 through Sunday, November 15, 2009
Opening: Friday, September 18, 7-10

Th 9/26 Joshua Beckman on clouds. Two seatings, 8 and 9pm
Tu 9/29 Klara Hobza on cloud making and Catriona Shaw and Pauline Curnier Jardin on their cloud opera. 8pm
$5 admission to all events

Beginning Sunday, September 27 we will have regular gallery hours -
3-6 Thursday and Friday
12-6 Saturday and Sunday

Clouds have long been the object of scientific study and artistic depiction. Beginning in the early nineteenth century, the emerging science of meteorology allowed the fleeting and apparently formless clouds to be closely observed, categorized, and recorded. At this same time, in England and Germany, painters and poets also began to look more intently at clouds. While insisting on artifice and inspiration over mere recording, they increasingly sought to give their work a sense of greater realism and emotional power by focusing on the careful observation and accurate depiction of the natural world. The worlds of science and art were much closer then, with artists and scientists meeting in society and following each others’ work, and this allowed a shared culture to develop. At its best, detached observation was allied with emotional projection, and imagination was grounded and enriched by careful, systematic recording, all in the service of what they called natural philosophy and we would call natural history.

In this exhibition, James Walsh will present three bodies of work that trace this blending of science and art in the depiction of clouds from the early 1800s to the early 1900s.

Saturday, September 26



Monthly Jazz-Age dance club Wit's End this month features music by the Brian Newman Trio and a Charleston dance lesson by Neal Groothius and Jeri Lynn Astra.

Antik/Marion's at 356 Bowery
The last Saturday of every month at 8:30
$10 at the door

Inner light

I love today's Picture of the Day from National Geographic.

The birds and the trees

The earth moves in this message from Greenpeace exhorting passion for the environment.

Via Next Nature.

July Observatory events

This week:

Antique Science

Date: Friday, July 10
Time: 7:30
Admission: $3.00

An evening of unexpected and obscure nature films. Each short film will be introduced by Jessica Oreck, director of Beetle Queen Conquers Tokyo, a beautiful documentary on insect collecting in Japan.

The evening will feature the trailer for Oreck’s fascinating film, as well as short films by Jean Painleve, the great french nature documentarian of early avant-garde documentaries on everything from crystals to seahorses to vampire bats.

Then we’ll have a look at The Cameraman’s Revenge, a silent stop-motion film from 1912 by the Polish animator, Wladyslaw Starewicz (1882-1965). The leading players of this short animation are real insects.

Antique Science will also introduce you to a behind-the-scenes film documenting the techniques of Disney’s vintage nature films. The films of insect-life and plant time lapses are beautiful, the early filming techniques awe-inspiring, and the 1950s naturalist couples who made them adorable.

We’ll round the evening off with a outtake reel from one of our favorite nature hosts, plus a few other surprises, time warranting.





Next week:

Layered Orders: Crowley's Thoth Deck and the Tarot

Jesse Bransford

Date: Friday, July 17
Time: 7:30
Admission: Free

UPDATE: The lecture will also be repeated at 9:00 to accommodate demand.

A deck given to his brother by his mother in 1986 sat in Jesse Bransford’s childhood bedroom from the early 90’s until recently, delivering itself into Bransford’s possession at an opportune moment…

The Tarot in general and Aleister Crowley’s Thoth Tarot in particular represent a miasmic confluence of image and thought into a single structure that is both liberating and overwhelming in its scope. In creating the deck, Crowley (in collaboration with painter Lady Frieda Harris) sought to integrate the mythological structures of the major mystical systems of both Western and Eastern occult traditions and to bring them into line with contemporary scientific thinking. The symbolism of the cards blends Kabbalah, Alchemy, Astrology, Egyptian mythology, quantum physics and even the I-Ching in ways that are at the same time clear and utterly confounding.

In an image-soaked personal narration Bransford, whose research-based artwork has delved into many of the territories Crowley sought to unify, will discuss some of the basic concepts of Tarot symbolism, returning to Crowley’s deck as among the most total example of the cards’ syncretism and as the most controversial.

Jesse Bransford is a Brooklyn/Queens-based artist whose work has been exhibited internationally. He received a B.A. from the New School for Social Research, a B.F.A. from Parsons School of Design, both in 1996, and an M.F.A. from Columbia University in 2000. He is currently a Master Teacher with the post of Undergraduate Director at New York University where he has been teaching since 2001, as well as a member of the European Society for the Study of Western Esotericism. His work is represented by Feature Inc. in New York, Kevin Bruk Gallery in Miami, Galerie Schmidt Maczollek in Köln, and Shaheen Modern and Contemporary Art in Cleveland. Images of his work, a complete bio and related articles can be seen at www.sevenseven.com/, a website he has continuously maintained since 1997.

Both events are at the Observatory event space between the Proteus Gowanus Gallery and Reading Room, the Cabinet Magazine headquarters, and the Morbid Anatomy Library at 543 Union St. in Brooklyn.

Wisps of color

Delicate, ethereal macro photography by Sophie Thouvenin.

Catch of the day

It came from under the sea...





A team of American-led divers has discovered a new crustacean in the South Pacific that resembles a lobster and is covered with what looks like silky, blond fur, French researchers said Tuesday.

Scientists said the animal, which they named Kiwa hirsuta, was so distinct from other species that they created a new family and genus for it.

The divers found the animal in waters 7,540 feet (2,300 meters) deep at a site 900 miles (1,440 kilometers) south of Easter Island last year, according to Michel Segonzac of the French Institute for Sea Exploration.

This is an incredible creature. It hardly looks real...doesn't it look like some kind of alien fauna created in a special effects shop?

Amazing that we're still discovering things like this.

Via 3 Quarks Daily.

Animal photography

Galen and Barbara Rowell's Mountain Light Photography has, in addition to some truly gorgeous landscapes, a wildlife gallery that's really worth seeing. The many colorful images of rare animals from around the world captured in their splendid natural settings are a real treat.





Nick Brandt does striking, black-and-white photographs of African wildlife, often combining animals and human elements. His pictures are beautifully composed, and present moving, intimate portraits of his graceful subjects.





Olga Samuels's animal photographs are arresting and amazing. Brilliantly iridescent, her close-ups show off every hair, feather, and scale in sparkling detail. Her often whimsical compositions feature everything from dogs and cats to farm animals to, best of all, exotic lizards, snakes, and birds.





Jim Zuckerman has galleries featuring all kinds of different photography genres, but today I want to point you to his animal galleries: North American Wildlife, Faces Only a Mother Could Love, Wild Cats, and Galapagos Islands. Lots of bright, bold shots of exotic animals in the wild.





This is a repost, but I had fewer animal photographers than I thought, so I'll point you again to Ashes and Snow, the serene, spiritual photography of Gregory Colbert. His elegantly posed scenes are an attempt to portray the perfect (comm)union of human and animal. If you've visited before, it's worth another look -- there's a slideshow version of his portfolio up with a lot of new material for an upcoming exhibition, including some interesting moving images.