Ryan's Journal

Thanks to author Joel Sartore, National Geographic, and Neatorama, none of whom I have any relationship to, I received a free copy of Sartore's latest photography production, a book of high quality photos from his visits to various zoos and habitats around the country, capturing moments with members of species that perch precariously on the razor's edge. They'll either prove to be heartwarming photos as the genetic line pulls back from extinction or heartbreaking, as in the case of the Columbia Basin Pygmy Rabbit, of which the second to last one is photographed for the book and introduces readers to the book's concept by way of the cautionary tale of what happens when we're too late to undo our damage. Both of those captive rabbits, females with no hope to reproduce, have since died.

The animals, from the enormous polar bear to the tiny Dehli Sands Flower-Loving Fly, are set against a monochrome backdrop, further highlighting them from an aesthetic sense but also separating them from their environments, which is often what we've done in upsetting the sometimes hidden, delicate balance of their respective ecosystems. Some of these species are not at a particular worldwide risk, but the fact that their stateside populations dwindle increases the peril of their global populations. And if we did it here, others will probably do it elsewhere.

As they say, pictures are worth a thousand words. Most of the species are presented with minimal commentary, some with amusing anecdotes on the ease or difficulty of shooting the animal in question, allowing Sartore's work to stand on its own. Unpublished photos are made available to the assisting zoo, and proceeds from the book to Sartore to continue his projects and to National Geographic to continue theirs.

It would be nice to see some of the photos licensed under Creative Commons and a concrete sense of what more the reader can do to participate in assisting habitat and species recovery, but that would all be well beyond what service Sartore is generously and skillfully rendering to us.

Memorial Day weekend involved a backpacking trip into the Los Padres National Forest along Sespe Creek. The path is well established and appears to have been a road in a past incarnation, to a now defunct and mostly removed hotel that was situated near the hot springs a few miles down from where we set up camp.

Starting from the Piedra Blanca trailhead involves crossing the creek a few times, none of them requiring a footwear change, and generally trends downwards when hiking in. There are only a couple hills to challenge your legs; the weather was perfectly cooperative, blowing a cool wind down the valley for most of the four hour trip. Given good weather, this seems like a great introduction to backpacking, and there are other sites closer to the trailhead in case seven miles is too daunting. It is completely exposed for most of its length, and poison oak clusters in one segment of the trail. Still, everybody made it in and out with no major problems - just a few missteps in the river - even our first-timers.

Romeo and Juliet, Julius Caesar, Macbeth, A Midsummer Night's Dream, The Tempest, Othello, The Taming of the Shrew, The Merchant of Venice. The collected works of Shakespeare, much larger than the high school syllabus listed above, makes for a formidable print volume. Happily, it can be condensed into the solid state guts of a device that fits in your hand. A project that began half a decade ago with the purchase of said print collection and sat untouched for most of the middle four years finally concluded this past weekend with the electronic Measure for Measure. More than two-thirds of the plays were taken up in the past half year. You could read all of them in that time; I slowed down near the end.

Reading all of Shakespeare in a row highlights some interesting recurring themes. Female protagonists engaging in salvific, clandestine transvestism, virginity and innocence and life maintained by a witty tongue, embodiments of verbal comic brilliance in fools, inexplicably motivated jackassery to all and sundry in villains, mistaken infidelity leading to destructive jealousy, and just deserts arrived at by labyrinthine plots, contravening normal expectations of death or loss by neat, incontestable proof. Some of these plays are utterly incomprehensible without contextual assistance (Merry Wives of Windsor could actually be monkeys on a typewriter for all the late sixteenth century urban patois employed - a Ye Olde Urban Dictionary would be useful), some undeservedly sit in the shadows of their more popular peers.

I've feared the history plays, especially having read some of them earlier out of sequence. Richard III stands much better in place, at the end of a tetralogy, instead of on its own, no matter its brilliance. Both the Henry / Richard tetralogies, with a brief history of British royalty in hand, are engrossing page turners, and the other individual histories are similar. They're not intimidating once started, quite the contrary.

A Winter's Tale and Pericles ended up amongst my favorites. We have a tendency to defer to specialists and authorities. It would be a shame for Shakespeare to seem like it couldn't sit on the shelf with modern forms of comedy, drama, and tragedy. His work need not sit and molder under guard as genius only understood by other literary, academic geniuses. I don't fully understand his genius. I still find his writing engaging, even with everything going against him: a stage form I never particularly cared for (Shakespeare is usually better read than watched), going on half a millennia old, on topics and people I normally have no interest in, frequently dropping into French, Latin, or Italian, coming from a culture I don't genetically share. Maybe there's some of his genius: his lewd, lurid, pedestrian appeal remains for the groundling in all of us.

Today there was a happy opportunity to hike into the park and get a ride back out, which meant going in much further than normal. We met up at Crystal Springs and observed the highest concentration of bounce houses in one place outside of a fair.

The five mile hike took less than an hour and a quarter, including the nearly two miles to the entrance of Griffith. The first 3.5 miles sloped up, the next mile went the same elevation down. It would be a challenging hike back up that trail.

I may start taking the Observatory Shuttle up to avoid getting bored by the park approach and to start from further in.

Through some random walk on the net, I learned the old camp Batman TV series, which I would occasionally watch and be confused by as a child - why are there weird eyebrows drawn on his mask, why is the camera always tilted, what's with the ridiculous villains and plots, etc. - filmed the Batcave exterior scenes in Griffith Park. Truth be told, I have a mildly active dislike of the series, but it's a Griffith attraction, so there you go. This route doesn't actually go to the Bronson Cave, I was making some explorations to see if there were off-road paths coming from Vermont Canyon over to Bronson Canyon. There may be, but not this way. The point where I jump from one trail to another is down a fairly sheer hill, and there isn't an obvious route continuing forward to cross over the rather imposing topography. It's slightly unfortunate that, given Vermont Canyon is your closest park entrance, the fastest route requires walking along in the city instead of in the park. It's plausible to hike within the park, but I estimate it would take an additional four miles one way following trails. Tourist attraction, tourist hiking path.

Later in the week, I went in pursuit of the easy route to Bronson Cave, but it is badly mislabeled on Google Maps, and it went without examination on that trip. It is physically located right near the Canyon Avenue entrance, not a half-mile north where Google has it pinpointed. The trail to it is gated off for cars (film crew access road) and is basically a U-turn to the right, back towards the entrance. It's pretty clear what it is on a trail map. On a terrain map, there's an extremely unnatural looking chunk of a hill missing just to the east of the beginning of park boundaries; the "cave" is there (it was a gravel quarry, the cave, actually a tunnel, is man-made).