Category Archives: zoos

Vitamin Z

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At the Detroit Zoo.

Last Saturday was gray and bitterly cold, the perfect day for the zoo. Although the butterfly garden had not received a shipment in many weeks, the habitat was beautiful, and the three butterfly species present included the splendid Blue Morpho. I could have spent the entire visit there and in the free-flight aviary next door, “If this isn’t nice, then I don’t know what is,” running in an endless inward loop just behind my smiling lips. Had we not ventured out, though, I’d have missed so many other animals, including a wolverine, the primates, two of the happiest (seeming) wolves I’ve ever seen, and, of course, the rhino, among others.

Backyard birding

By Posted in birds, books, commonplace book, nature, theater, zoos 2 Comments

Over the last nine days, I have, among other things:

■ followed the progress of the robin family that calls our forsythia bush, “Home”;
■ mowed the lawn three times (!!);
■ seen a play (Suddenly, Last Summer at the Raven);
■ visited the Lincoln Park Zoo;
■ prepared for and undergone one of those screenings doctors recommend for all of us fifty-plus folk;
■ potted a couple of new plants and repotted some older ones;
■ lost a battle against an unidentified and insistent weed in my back garden area;
■ seen a good movie (I, Tonya) and a good documentary (Jane);
■ caught up on the harrowing second season of The Handmaid’s Tale;
■ fretted about how little I have practiced my music; and
■ finished four books:

— Sometimes I Lie (Alice Feeney; 2017. Fiction.)
— Buried Child (Sam Shepherd; 1978. Drama.)
— The Idealist (Justin Peters; 2016. Non-fiction.)
— Behold the Dreamers (Imbolo Mbue; 2016. Fiction.)

For the commonplace book, from Act Two of Buried Child:

SHELLY: Can’t we just drive to New Mexico? This is terrible, Vince! I don’t want to stay here. In this house. I thought it was going to be turkey dinners and apple pie and all that kinda stuff.
VINCE: Well I hate to disappoint you!
SHELLY: I’m not disappointed! I’m fuckin’ terrified! I wanna’ go!

Adventuring

By Posted in art, museums, theater, zoos 3 Comments

As always, all of the images in this post are my own.

After a Chicago Shakespeare Theater (CST) Scholar Luncheon last week, my daughters and I visited the Art Institute to see “Saints and Heroes: Art of Medieval and Renaissance Europe.” While there, we also took in “Whistler’s Mother: An American Icon Returns to Chicago.” Truth? I prefer the artist’s self-portrait; it reminds me of one of my favorite writers.

Doesn’t Whistler look a bit like Vonnegut in this painting?

Before leaving the museum, we stopped by to see a painting that never fails to startle me.

Charles Sheeler’s The Artist Looks at Nature (1945).

Over the weekend, we visited the Milwaukee County Zoo. When I downloaded the pics of the only animal I photographed, I was struck by the odd, painterly texture the zoom had created.

Tawny frogmouths at the Milwaukee County Zoo.

Later in the weekend, we visited the Judy Istock Butterfly Haven at Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum before seeing Shakespeare in Love at the CST. (Reviews here and here.)
Between and among adventures, we had time to catch up on Colony (and discuss the apparent Lost parallels, including Snyder = Ben and “Not everything is as it may seem”), finish a few books (Shylock Is My Name is well worth the effort), and plan a few more excursions — although not for over the holiday. By design, our three-day respite will not take us further from home than half the distance of our longest bike ride.

What have you planned for the long weekend?