Sherry Chandler

Spread the word! Tomorrow is International Rock-Flipping Day, via Via Negativa:

How is it possible — I said to myself on Monday afternoon when I was putting together my post about flipping over rocks — that I don’t have a single good photo of the rocks in our woods? Even more unforgivable, I don’t have any photos of the creatures that live underneath them: no ant colonies, no salamanders, no caddis fly larvae from underneath the rocks in our creek. Nada. So I was very receptive when Fred Garber suggested in a comment that we pick a day for everybody to go outside — go as far as you have to — and flip over a rock (or two, or three). We could bring our cameras and take photos, film, sketch, paint, or write descriptions of whatever we find. It could be fun for the whole family!

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The point is simply to have fun, and hopefully learn something at the same time. We don’t want to over-determine what that something should be: those of a more scientific frame of mind might focus on i.d.s or ecological interactions, while those of an artistic or poetic bent could go in a different direction entirely. Pictures alone would suffice, of course. But whatever you do, please be sure to replace all rocks that you flip as soon as possible, so as not to disrupt the natives’ lives unduly. (Unless, that is, you plan on incorporating some of what you find into your next meal — crawdads? escargots? — which would also make a interesting subject for an International Rock-Flipping Day blog post, I’m thinking.)

We want to try and keep this as decentralized as possible. Everyone who blogs about it can link to everyone else at the bottom of their post, or in a subsequent post if they prefer. I’m willing to act as coordinator and send out a list of links that evening or the next morning, with all the HTML tags in place for people to copy and paste. Send your links to me as soon as you post: bontasaurus (at) yahoo (dot) com, with “Rock Flipping” in the subject line.

No blog? No problem. I’ve also set up a Flickr group, www.flickr.com/groups/rockflippingday, anticipating that bloggers and non-bloggers alike might want to share photos that way.

With an update:

One thing I forgot to do in the initial post is to caution people about flipping rocks in poisonous snake or scorpion habitat. In that case, I’d suggest wearing gloves and/or using a pry bar — or simply finding somewhere else to do your flipping. Please do not disturb any known rattlesnake shelters if you don’t plan on replacing the rocks exactly as you found them. Timber rattlesnakes, like many other adult herps, are very site-loyal, and can die if their homes are destroyed. Also, don’t play with spiders. If you disturb an adjacent hornet nest (hey, it’s possible), run like hell. But be sure to have someone standing by to get it all on film!

I first learned about this event at Burning Silo

After you’ve unearthed your treasure, you’ll sketch or photograph, or write whatever you like about what you see — could be a poem, an essay, or some field notes. Next you either post the photos or writings to your blog — OR, if you don’t have a blog, never fear, there will be other ways to participate. Anticipating that bloggers and non-bloggers alike might want to share photos or artwork, Dave has already set up a gallery on Flickr for posting images. As well, for those who don’t feel like navigating through Flickr, you can email your images to me, along with whatever caption you like, and the name you would like your image attributed under, and I’ll set up a special gallery for this event in my online galleries on Pbase. All bloggers are encouraged to post links to these galleries and to each other.

With a nudge from Gin Petty.

My own participation in this event will be somewhat limited because tomorrow is the day set aside to celebrate my mother’s 90th birthday.

However, I hope to join in the linking and if any of the photographers without blogs among my readers want me to post your photos here, I’ll be glad to do it (maybe late in the day).

The Rock-Flipping badge was designed by Jason Robertshaw.

The calendar has flipped over into September, a cool clear morning here in Kentucky. Time for summer to begin closing down, time for George W. Bush to come back to Washington and roll out his new product line: war with Iran.

But wait! He doesn’t have Karl Rove anymore.

So maybe he’ll have to settle for a new savings and loan bailout.

Sorry, that should be mortgage bailout, and I guess because he has no brothers involved in this one, his efforts seem tepid.

Meanwhile, I think I’ll start my month of poetry memorizing with this one from Auden. I have always admired it. Though its language might not be as intricately woven as something like Shakespeare’s Sonnet 73, it is nevertheless masterfully crafted,and it seems, in tone and content, very appropriate to our times. How awful is the innocence of that horse, as innocence is awful. And somehow that boy falling from the sky this morning makes me think of our W.

May the world survive to sail on. We certainly have someplace to get to.

Musée des Beaux Arts

About suffering they were never wrong,
The Old Masters; how well, they understood
Its human position; how it takes place
While someone else is eating or opening a window or just walking dully along;
How, when the aged are reverently, passionately waiting
For the miraculous birth, there always must be
Children who did not specially want it to happen, skating
On a pond at the edge of the wood:
They never forgot
That even the dreadful martyrdom must run its course
Anyhow in a corner, some untidy spot
Where the dogs go on with their doggy life and the torturer’s horse
Scratches its innocent behind on a tree.

In Breughel’s Icarus, for instance: how everything turns away
Quite leisurely from the disaster; the ploughman may
Have heard the splash, the forsaken cry,
But for him it was not an important failure; the sun shone
As it had to on the white legs disappearing into the green
Water; and the expensive delicate ship that must have seen
Something amazing, a boy falling out of the sky,
had somewhere to get to and sailed calmly on.

— W. H. Auden

Postscript: I need to mention that the idea for memorizing a poem a week in September came from Deborah Ager at the 32 Poems Magazine blog. If you’re looking for some suggestions to jump-start your list, check out the suggestions at A Poem That Keeps Calling to You.