smells like books and candy

For personal context, before I went to the '98 Burning Man festival, one of the things I'd read from a couple different journalists was that "everybody" runs around naked. Which, fine by me, I'd already spent a lot of time in clothing-optional spaces, I'm not fanatic about it but it's nice.

So I got there early and set up a public shade structure on one of Black Rock City's main roads and spent most of each afternoon just watching the crowds go by. I don't remember seeing more than one actually naked person the whole week. I think a topless woman passed by my intersection maybe every half an hour, sometimes once an hour. So why in the hell were people, normally pretty smart and observant writers, coming away with the impression that everybody was naked?

Then I remembered an unrelated passage from Joel Garreau's great book about the history of the outer-ring suburbs, Edge City. Mall developers told him flat-out that they tried to keep the crowds in their malls less than 5% black. Not because they themselves were racist, but because they had determined, experimentally, that if more than 5% of the people in the mall are black, the median white shopper will wrongly describe the mall as at least half black, as mostly black. And not a few of them would describe it, at 6% black, as a mall where "only black people go." Why?

Because, emotionally, they were still upset over the last one when the next one came into view.

I need borbs to ponder.

BY YOUR COMMAND!!!

Green-headed Tanager (Tangara seledon), BORBING, family Thraupidae, order Passeriformes, Parque Nacional do Itatiaia, Brazil

photograph by Aisse Gaertner 

Tufted Titmouse (Baeolophus bicolor), BORBING, family Paridae, order Passeriformes, GA, USA

photograph by Richard Clark

Fox Sparrow (Passerella iliaca) BORBING!, family Passerellidae, order Passeriformes, Locust Valley, NY, USA

photograph by Ash van der Lay

Bearded Reedling aka Bearded Tit (Panurus biarmicus) eat a tasty bug!, family Panuridae, order Passeriformes, found in wetlands across much of Europe and Central Asia

This species is the only member of this family.

photographs by David Drangsland

White-browed Tit-warbler (Leptopoecile sophiae), male, family Aegithalidae, order Passeriformes, Qinghai, China

Funky????

Red-capped Manakin (Ceratopipra mentalis), males, family Pipridae, order Passeriformes, Costa Rica

Also, these guys are pretty funky?

Purple-crested Turaco (Gallirex porphyreolophus), family Musophagidae, order Musophagiformes, South Africa

Photograph by Richard Flack

 South Africa

C'Mon, You Know You Wanna...

YOU ARE WASTING TIME YOU ARE WASTING TIME YOU ARE WASTING TIME YOU ARE WASTING TIME YOU ARE WASTING TIME YOU ARE WASTING TIME YOU ARE WASTING TIME YOU ARE WASTING TIME YOU ARE WASTING TIME YOU ARE WASTING TIME

stuck panic but no actual

moving is the worst.