the human doodad

Okay, but check out this video from mid-May 2022 of a Kestrel Dad who just kept piling up voles and mice beside his babies when the mom was injured/killed/mia’d by owls…but then watched one of his babies just swallow a lizard and went “OH. I can feed them small food!” and learned to tear it apart!

….the three chicks who were taken out of the nest for intensive care after the mom disappeared were put back in, and he just started feeding them, too.

Well, the 3 that come to mind are... closely related broadbills and nightjars.

Hose’s Broadbill (Calyptomena hosii), family Calyptomenidae, order Passeriformes, Borneo

photograph by Dubi Shapiro

Whitehead’s Broadbill (Calyptomena whiteheadi), male, family Calyptomenidae, order Passeriformes, endemic to the mountain ranges of north-central Borneo

photograph by Hong Yijun (@hyjgoesbirding)

Large-tailed Nightjar (Caprimulgus macrurus), family Caprimulgidae, order Caprimulgiformes, Singapore

But it turns out that Maurice Sendak designed the set that I saw for several years running at a formative age, so it turns out that if you didn’t attend the Pacific Northwest Ballet between 1983 and 2014, this was not a normal part of your experience:

(Photo from The Stranger)

Those teeth split apart, by the way, and came crashing down at intermission. Like a nutcracker. Get it? Also like the nightmares of small children.

Honestly the Sendak/Stowell production is the only stage production of The Nutcracker I’ve ever seen, so I have no idea what parts of the set/choreography are traditional and what are part of a sideways imagination. For example:

(Photo from Michael Hagen)

This is from one one of the scene painters and it’s hard to tell in a still frame, but the Rat King comes out from the side of the stage as the Christmas Tree grows and grows in the background until it eclipses the whole stage. (See the dancers at the bottom for scale.) Oh, and did you notice Herr Drosselmeyer at the top? He’s watching the whole scene, the wings of his greatcoat bracketing the stage. Terrifying.

Sendak also did a book of illustrations because why not bring the nightmares home with you:

(Photo from Dancing Perfectly Free)

For contrast, apparently this is how the Oregon Ballet Theater styled their Ballachine production Rat King in 2009:

(Photo from The Oregonian)

Get on Sendak’s level, Oregon.

In conclusion, apparently The Nutcracker is meant to be sweet and fun, but honestly I’m glad to have seen the Sendak/Stowell production, nightmares and all.

(Photo from Booksridge.blogspot.com)

The sweet spot between that and the “benign to the point of boredom” that you tend to see a lot is a really tricky balance.

The Russian-inspired production at BalletMet Columbus when I worked there in the 90s hit it very well, imho, but there are a lot of ways to do it. The filmed ABT one from the 80s with Baryshnikov and Gelsey Kirkland (which I think PBS still runs sometimes) comes close, but falls just a little short on the benign side.