More Juxtapositioning: Ai Weiwei, Bird’s Nest, China; Cowbirds and Song Sparrows; Butler and UCONN; Bald Eagles and Bike Trails (With a Little Bit of Ben Franklin); Tiny Rashes and Ivory Coast’s DWs; Running for President; Southwest’s Boeings and the Troposphere.

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Ai Weiwei, Bald Eagle protections, Barach's running for President, Beijing, Beijing Capital International Airport, Beijing National Stadium, Butler College, cowbirds and nest parasitism, David and Goliath, Ivory Coast machete wounds, Southwest Airlines Boeing's Fuselage, UCONN and Butler, Windsor Locks Canal Trail

My high school Latin teacher had a certain seating arrangement for the Bad Kids–right next to him. Juxta Juxta, he intoned, pointing, talking, and writing on the blackboard at the same time in that peculiar way teachers have.  And back then, when your Latin teacher said Juxta Juxta you picked up your desk-chair combo and carefully–Without. Any. Contact. Whatsoever. With. My. Polished. Hardwood. Floor–placed yourself right next to his desk. While the rest of the class watched, maybe marveled, at the control of this teacher, what did I do? Me? I marveled at the Juxta Juxta.

Perhaps that’s why the word juxtaposition resonates. (It IS in the top 20% of all Webster on line dictionary look-ups.) I’m always on the lookout for ideas and happenings that juxtapose each other. What I notice: Metaphor and Juxtapositions are Kissing Cousins. Once you begin to stand seemingly disparate ideas up next to each other, both within a pairing and in the listing of pairings, the serious meets the less-than-serious. The one generates more thoughts on the other. That’s happened here.

1. Chinese artist Ai Weiwei helped design Beijing’s Bird’s Nest Olympic stadium. A Chinese-sponsored tourist site says it embodies human caring fully. The world was in awe of this structure, and the creativity of the team that made it happen. Mr. Ai Weiwei represented to many of us the admirable potential of this huge and powerful country. He and the Bird’s Nest was a real positive. Yesterday Mr. Ai was detained at the Beijing airport. Chinese authorities are clamping down on critics in hopes of eliminating what’s been dubbed Jasmine Spring rally on Sundays. Ai Weiwei had said that he was moving his studio abroad to avoid harassment.

2. My backyard is in a pre-flurry state of expectation. The sounds of male birds calling out to their sweethearts and warning their competitors fill the morning air. Soon to come: building nests, incubating eggs, feeding nestlings, fending of the predators. Then there’s the cowbird. I can see one or two sitting around. Watching. Lurking in bushes. They are or have become an opportunistic species. Once another bird species has done all the nest-building, the female darts in and lays one of her eggs and leaves. Some call the cowbird a thug, but I do have sympathy for them. I mean, they can’t help it if they’ve been pushed from their original habitat where they depended on insects flushed out by bison. The bird couple who make the nest will incubate and feed the baby cowbird along with their own. However, since the cowbird baby is frequently the biggest kid in the clutch, the smaller guys will sometimes starve or even be tossed out by the cowbird baby.

Image by almiyi via Flickr

This is a Wilson’s Warbler feeding a Cowbird Baby.

 

3. Butler College. David. Underdog. Small. Cerebral Coach. No sir, you take your exams and THEN you get on that bus for the tournament game. UCONN. Goliath. Topdog. Problematic Coach. Tests. Exams? In college?

 

4. Tiny rash from the new dish-washing gloves. Special perscription to cure it instantly. DW: D(efense) W(ound) on wrists and arms, meaning terrible lacerations with subsequent amputations in Ivory Coast. Defense as in: the victim got these wounds when holding his or her arms up to ward of machete blows.

 

5. Being the President. Running for President.

 

6. Riding my bike on the Windsor Locks Canal Trail to see the natural beauty of our state. Closing the trail to cosset those finicky bald eagles. (I’ve always agreed with Ben Franklin on the merits of the Bald Eagle:

Franklin’s Letter to His Daughter (excerpt)

“For my own part I wish the Bald Eagle had not been chosen the Representative of our Country. He is a Bird of bad moral Character. He does not get his Living honestly. You may have seen him perched on some dead Tree near the River, where, too lazy to fish for himself, he watches the Labour of the Fishing Hawk; and when that diligent Bird has at length taken a Fish, and is bearing it to his Nest for the Support of his Mate and young Ones, the Bald Eagle pursues him and takes it from him.

“With all this Injustice, he is never in good Case but like those among Men who live by Sharping & Robbing he is generally poor and often very lousy. Besides he is a rank Coward: The little King Birdnot bigger than a Sparrow attacks him boldly and drives him out of the District. He is therefore by no means a proper Emblem for the brave and honest Cincinnati of America who have driven all the King birds from our Country . . .

“I am on this account not displeased that the Figure is not known as a Bald Eagle, but looks more like a Turkey. For the Truth the Turkey is in Comparison a much more respectable Bird, and withal a true original Native of America . . . He is besides, though a little vain & silly, a Bird of Courage, and would not hesitate to attack a Grenadier of the British Guards who should presume to invade his Farm Yard with a red Coat on.”

 

7.

The troposphere is what we see when we look up and glow with happiness at the beauty of our earth. It’s also what passengers got an unexpected view of when Southwest’s Boeing 737 fuselage tore open. All survived the controlled descent from 34,400 feet, but harrowing is the most polite word for it.

Patty-Patty

4/4/11