A BLACK DAY

No, my friends, I don’t mean “black” in funereal sense. Stay with me and I’ll explain.

But first… as you know, I have  claimed the jaded “busy” excuse for  too long. My busy-ness was the making of an edition of artist books and now that I have mailed them to their distant recipients I can get back to more regular posting. Maybe! I’ll be posting  more about the artist book on our group blog (http://bookartobject.blogspot.com) later today.

So I popped into my little Computer Corner, clicked on my blog and thought: time for a change! Actually, there was a more serious reason for tinkering under the bonnet of this page…I had my eyes examined the other day and, as I had suspected, I do need slightly stronger lenses for close work. Dear god! Our house is already littered with reading glasses, must I add even more! 

The problem (with the blog) is not really the fault of WordPress (or even Blogger, where I still have a presence); it seems that whenever I pop into my Computer Corner and use this computer, my lovely laptop, I’m unable to enlarge the font. So I need coke bottle specs in order to see what I’m typing. Alternatively, I could just type and let you lovely lot to decipher it! 🙂

 

And now, about today’s title. Black. I suppose  a lot of people tend to think of it as gloomy, but I’ve always thought black rather stylish. One of those wardrobe basics that can be jazzed-up or toned-down accordingly. Not necessarily the preserve of pall bearers. Of course, I am a bit of corvidophile! Hey! If I say that’s a proper word, then it is a proper word. I just googled it..ooh! what a lot of entries!

But I’m getting side-tracked… the other day, I saw a black bird (not a blackbird because we don’t have those here) perched on a chair on the deck. Sort-of magpie size and with the bi-tone bill of a magpie, but ALL BLACK.

WTF? So I grabbed a camera and snapped a few shots, hoping they wouldn’t all be close-ups of fly screen mesh!  Click to enlarge.

I realise it’s one of the most pointless pictures ever to escape deleting, but I was curious, wondering if , perhaps, it was a magpie mutant. Or something. Of course, as soon as I’d got it on the computer screen and enlarged it I could see it was a butcherbird. But BLACK? Huh? I’ve only ever seen the Pied species here, but a little Googling filled the gaps.   http://birdsinbackyards.net/images/audio/cracticus-torquatus.mp3

If you click the audio link you’ll hear a very brief recording of their fantastic musicality. I’ve hunted around for a link that has a recording of the opening bars of Mozart’s 40th symphony, but no joy. Here’s the music, so if you have a  piano in your pocket…oh! OK, a flute will do…http://www.8notes.com/scores/10028.asp Now, take the tempo up a click or two and that’s what a butcherbird sounds like. Of course, the bird only sings the opening notes…

And don’t think ol’ Butch is our only classicist. Oh, no. The magpie does a very creditable first 4 notes of Beethoven’s 5th. Once again, I can’t seem to find a recording of that.

 

Finally…about the  new-look blog.  The background image is a photo I took a few weeks ago when The Man and I walked down to the beach. The tide being over in California or somewhere, we wandered through the mangroves and across the flats. The header image is a cropped portion of the same picture. Easy enough to change from time to time so expect “matching titles and images” occasionally!

Off to write that other post…