Lichens on boulders at Inks Lake State Park

 

On January 26th we spent several hours at Inks Lake State Park.

  

  

Boulder-hugging lichens are a prominent feature there.
Naturally I couldn’t resist doing some abstract takes on them.

 

 

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 A Multiplicity of National Anthems

 

Since the moral panic of 2020 it’s become ever more common at sporting events in this country to hear not only the traditional national anthem, “The Star-Spangled Banner,” but also what some are calling the black national anthem. So much for the “United” States.

Now, what’s good for the goose is good for the gander—and also for all the gander’s neighbors. Where the black share of the U.S. population is 13.8%, the Hispanic share is 19%, so surely a Hispanic national anthem should join the regular national anthem and the black national anthem at sporting events. In the spirit of inclusion, shouldn’t we also recognize the 6.2% of the U.S. population that’s Asian? Surely an Asian national anthem should join the regular national anthem and the black national anthem and the Hispanic national anthem at sporting events. And we can’t forget the 2.6% of the American population descended from aboriginal peoples, so an aboriginal national anthem should join the regular national anthem and the black national anthem and the Hispanic national anthem and the Asian national anthem at sporting events. And what about the 3.2% of the population that identifies as mixed-race? Surely a mixed-race national anthem should join the regular national anthem and the black national anthem and the Hispanic national anthem and the Asian national anthem and the aboriginal national anthem at sporting events. Oh, and we’ve got to include the largest racial group of all, the 75.8% of the population that is white. Therefore a white national anthem should join the regular national anthem and the black national anthem and the Hispanic national anthem and the Asian national anthem and the aboriginal national anthem and the mixed-race national anthem at sporting events.

But why stop with racial groups? Women make up 50.5% of the population, so a women’s national anthem should join the regular national anthem and the black national anthem and the Hispanic national anthem and the Asian national anthem and the aboriginal national anthem and the mixed-race national anthem and the white national anthem at sporting events. The same goes for the 49.5% of the population comprising men, therefore a men’s national anthem should join the regular national anthem and the black national anthem and the Hispanic national anthem and the Asian national anthem and the aboriginal national anthem and the mixed-race national anthem and the white national anthem and the women’s national anthem at sporting events.

Moving away from biological sex, we find that genderologists have identified dozens and dozens of genders and are hard at work discovering many more. As a result of that groundbreaking research, we’ll need a cisgender national anthem, a transgender national anthem, a cishet national anthem, a non-binary national anthem (or perhaps several), an intersex national anthem, a cloudgender national anthem, a genderqueer national anthem, a gender-fluid national anthem, an agender national anthem, a gender-void national anthem, an omnigender national anthem, a pangender national anthem, an androgyne national anthem, an aporagender national anthem, a demi-boy national anthem, a demi-girl national anthem, a neutrois national anthem, a mekangender national anthem, a maverique national anthem, a lunagender national anthem, a xenogender national anthem, and on and on and on.

To be fair to people with disabilities, we’ll also need an arthritis national anthem, a paraplegia national anthem, a quadriplegia national anthem, a wheelchair national anthem, a hypertension national anthem, an overweight national anthem, an obese national anthem, a pacemaker national anthem, an Alzheimer’s national anthem, a cancer national anthem, a stroke national anthem, an asthma national anthem, a blind national anthem (written down in Braille, of course), a short-sighted national anthem, a far-sighted national anthem, a deaf national anthem, an anemia national anthem, a gastritis national anthem, a cleft-palate national anthem, an emphysema national anthem, a stutterer’s national anthem, a bald national anthem, a schizophrenia national anthem, a bipolar national anthem, an autism national anthem, a dandruff national anthem, a halitosis national anthem, a little people’s national anthem, an anorexia national anthem, an eczema national anthem, and so forth. We also mustn’t forget a national anthem for dead people, as it’s not unusual for at least one person to die at a large sporting event, especially when fans riot.

I see no choice but for our government to create a new cabinet position, the Secretary of National Anthems, whose first job will be to commission the composing of an anthem for each of the thousands of groups into which the country’s population can be subdivided. To avoid categorical appropriation, naturally only a composer who is a member of a given group will be allowed to create the anthem for that group.

I see two ways of dealing with the fact that playing through all the national anthems at a sporting event will take days. One possibility is to cancel the sporting events themselves and turn the playing of all the anthems into very long concerts. If sports fans object to that minor inconvenience, another possibility is to play a modest selection of national anthems—say 20 to 30—at each sporting event. The Secretary of National Anthems would be charged with setting up an elaborately rotating schedule of selections which would ensure each national anthem gets played as many times a year as each other national anthem. The Secretary would also have to commission additional anthems and modify schedules as new categories of identity are discovered, which recent history guarantees they will be.

Why no one else has written about this before me, I have no idea (though it reminds me that we also need an intelligence national anthem). Once a country goes from one national anthem to two, it’s only logical to keep on going down that long and winding road to infinity.

 

© 2023 Steven Schwartzman

 

 

 

More petroglyphs

 

During our 2014 western trip we visited several sections of Albuquerque’s Petroglyph National Monument.

 

  

Having already done that, on October 15th of this year
we spent only a short while at one section, Boca Negra Canyon.

     

  

The petroglyphed rock above reminds me of a tombstone.
The boulder at the top sported more glyphs than I noticed on any other single stone at Boca Negra Canyon.

 

  

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Even if, like these petroglyphs, you’re of a certain age and you know that among the greatest songwriters for American shows and movies in the 20th century were Irving Berlin, Rodgers and Hart, Rodgers and Hammerstein, Lerner and Lowe, George and Ira Gershwin, Jerome Kern, and Cole Porter, you may never have heard of the composer Harry Warren. Born Salvatore Antonio Guaragna in 1893, he later teamed up with various lyricists to write many popular songs, especially for movies. “He wrote the music for the first blockbuster film musical, 42nd Street, choreographed by Busby Berkeley, with whom he would collaborate on many musical films.” If you’re familiar with that sort of music, you probably know “I Only Have Eyes for You,” “You Must Have Been a Beautiful Baby,” “Jeepers Creepers,” “The Gold Diggers’ Song (We’re in the Money),” “That’s Amore,” “There Will Never Be Another You,” “The More I See You,” “At Last,” “Chattanooga Choo Choo,” “You’ll Never Know,” and “On the Atchison, Topeka and the Santa Fe.”

Nevertheles, as William Zinsser noted: “The familiarity of Harry Warren’s songs is matched by the anonymity of the man… he is the invisible man, his career a prime example of the oblivion that cloaked so many writers who cranked out good songs for bad movies.” You’re welcome to read more about Harry Warren.

 

© 2022 Steven Schwartzman

 

 

 

Mount Diablo State Park

Two years ago today we drove up, up, up to the top of California’s Mount Diablo. On the way we passed these picturesque boulders, which you’re free to imagine a Neolithic people had put in place:

We also passed a hillside covered with plants that reminded me of the sand sagebrush (Artemisia filifolia) I’d seen so much of in New Mexico and Arizona. I wonder if this was Artemisia californica:

In contrast to all that dryness, compare what I thought was a happily fruiting madrone tree, Arbutus menziesii, but which Tony Tomeo says is actually “a toyon, Heteromeles arbutifolia. It used to be known more commonly as California Holly, and is what Hollywoodland, which is now Hollywood, is named for. It is very susceptible to fireblight.”

And here was one of the scenic views looking out from Mount Diablo:

© 2018 Steven Schwartzman

Two henges

I didn’t see it then and there, which was June 2nd in Custer State Park in South Dakota’s Black Hills. Now, back in Austin almost two months later, this ring of trees near boulders strikes me as Pinehenge. And maybe I’m a bit unhinged, but when it comes to the more contrasty view below from Mt. Rushmore three days earlier that also included pine trees and boulders, I’m inclined to call it Shadowscragglehenge.

Now surely, I thought to myself, that’s a unique name. And guess what? Google the Omniscient agrees:

Your search – Shadowscragglehenge – did not match any documents.

Suggestions:

Make sure all words are spelled correctly.

Try different keywords.

Try more general keywords.

Hooray for uniquity!

© 2017 Steven Schwartzman

Another unconventional view of a national monument

On the morning of May 30th, two days before bedeviling Devil’s Tower, we’d rushed to Mt. Rushmore, where along with more-conventional pictures I took this one looking up at a portion of the famous monument from a cleft between boulders.

But this is a nature photography blog, so here, likewise from Mt. Rushmore, is the different yet somehow similar white of a truncated trunk sculpted by nature rather than people.

© 2017 Steven Schwartzman

There’s more than Joshua trees in Joshua Tree National Park

I expected to see Joshua trees in Joshua Tree National Park when we spent much of the day there on November 5. I wasn’t expecting so many conspicuous piles of boulders, which impressed me more than the Joshua trees did.

© 2016 Steven Schwartzman

Fort Davis

The town of Fort Davis in west Texas is named for the fort that the United States military maintained there from 1854 to 1891. People can still visit the remains and partial reconstruction of the fort, as we did for several hours on the morning of November 20th. The site is bounded along one edge by a long row of cliffs, a span of which you can see in the distance. Also shown here, as Eve first spied it, is a stony face wearing a turban, at least if your imagination accords with hers. You’ll be seeing several more zoomorphic and anthropomorphic images over the next couple of weeks, so get your imaginations in good working order.

© 2015 Steven Schwartzman

New Zealand: Boulders at Castle Hill

Heading west on SH 73 out of Christchurch on February 16th bound for the west coast of the South Island, we began after a while to wind and climb into the mountains that make up much of that island. At one point we came to a place where heaps of other drivers had pulled over, Castle Hill, and we joined them. The attraction there is a collection of naturally arrayed boulders, including a few that seem precarious, as you see in today’s photographs.

To learn more about and see other pictures of this scenic place, check out an online article about it.

© 2015 Steven Schwartzman