I Just Read About That…

SOUNDTRACK: THE MOMMYHEADS-“Day Job” (2010).

This is the final bonus track on Dromedary‘s recently reissued Mommyheads album Flying Suit.

This is probably the most conventional Mommyheads song that I know of.  It reminds me a lot of the music from Late Night with David Letterman.  It swings, it’s jaunty, it’s kind of funny and it has some almost zany guitar work on it.

It is probably the ideal “bonus track” for a band that usually writes quirky, off -kilter songs as it doesn’t sound like it should be on the album, but it is still in the spirit of the rest of the songs.  The jazziness if reminiscent of their other work, but there’s something oddly rocking about this track.  It’s a real treat.

Check the songs out (and buy them) here.

[READ: September 10, 2010] “The Thing with Feathers”

Wells Tower week continues with this article about the thought to be extinct Ivory-Billed Woodpecker.  He mentions humorously in the article that NPR went crazy about the woodpecker when one was seen in Arkansas, and I remember that very well.  There were several pieces about the woodpecker and I was really excited about it.

I’m not a serious birdwatcher, but ever since I saw my first hairy woodpecker at my apartment in Boston, I’ve been a huge fan of having birds around. The hairy woodpecker is tiny (and very cute).  Since we moved to a wooded area of New Jersey, I’ve been lucky enough to see a red-bellied woodpecker and, I believe, the even more elusive pileated woodpecker.  We’ve even had flickers in our yard.

So this article sees Wells Tower heading down to Arkansas to talk to the man who claims to have seen the first Ivory-Billed Woodpecker, Gene Sparling.  The man who caused all the fuss to begin with back in 2005.

And this is a great piece of non-fiction.  Tower brings his excellent storytelling skills and describes a trip into the Arkansas woods looking for this possibly extinct bird.

He even goes out with Gene Sparling, the “dumb son-of-a-bitch hick from rural Arkansas” who first spotted the bird.  Sparling is still looking, but more than that, he is more or less the head of a team of naturalists who are looking for the habitat.

The article describes the renovation going on in this rather ignored area of the country, and how the Nature Conservancy has spent a lot of money fixing up the area.

It also explains a little bit about how the efforts, which may be too little to save the Ivory-billed, are certainly beneficial to the environment in general.  And they are doing wonders for a habitat that was basically left to rot.

This article was written in 2006, and there were still serious questions about whether or not the Ivory-billed Woodpecker is really no longer extinct.  And still, in 2010 (even with a $50,000 reward)  no definitive proof has arisen to show that the bird is really out there.

The article also looks at the towns in Arkansas which have tried to capitalize on the bird (I wonder if Ivory-Billed Woodpecker haircuts are still available?).

But, as with many of Towers’ Outside articles, it’s mostly about him traipsing through the outdoors, looking for something meaningful.   I’ll give a minor spoiler to the article: he doesn’t see the woodpecker.  But the conclusion of the article is amusing and strangely satisfying.

And overall, the article shows the difficulty in tracking a bird that may in fact, no longer exist.  It’s available here.

I was also delighted by the title of the article, which while clearly about birds, also references Emily Dickinson’s poem 254:

“Hope” is the thing with feathers—
That perches in the soul—
And sings the tune without the words—
And never stops—at all—

And sweetest — in the Gale — is heard —
And sore must be the storm —
That could abash the little Bird
That kept so many warm —

I’ve heard it in the chillest land —
And on the strangest Sea —
Yet, never, in Extremity,
It asked a crumb — of Me.