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Carrion Luggage  Native to the Americas, the turkey vulture (Cathartes aura) travels widely in search of sustenance. While usually foraging alone, it relies on other individuals of its species for companionship and mutual protection. Sometimes misunderstood, sometimes feared, sometimes shunned, it nevertheless performs an important role in the ecosystem. This scavenger bird is a marvel of efficiency. Rather than expend energy flapping its wings, it instead locates uplifting columns of air, and spirals within them in order to glide to greater heights. This behavior has been mistaken for opportunism, interpreted as if it is circling doomed terrestrial animals destined to be its next meal. In truth, the vulture takes advantage of these thermals to gain the altitude needed glide longer distances, flying not out of necessity, but for the joy of it. It also avoids the exertion necessary to capture live prey, preferring instead to feast upon that which is already dead. In this behavior, it resembles many humans. It is not what most of us would consider to be a pretty bird. While its habits are often off-putting, or even disgusting, to members of more fastidious species, the turkey vulture helps to keep the environment from being clogged with detritus. Hence its Latin binomial, which translates to English as "golden purifier." I rarely know where the winds will take me next, or what I might find there. The journey is the destination. |
Wait, it's July now? How did that happen? Well, whatever sorcery was involved, here's an entry for "Journalistic Intentions"  [18+]:Rococo Long ago, in my town, there was an upscale Italian restaurant named Rococo's. The exterior was nothing special; in fact, I recall it as just another corner space in just another strip mall. It was only after you went inside that you were like, "Oh, shit, I'm underdressed and I shoulda brought a date." The food, which I ate despite being underdressed and single, was delicious. Sadly, the restaurant didn't last very long (apparently the owner went baroque), but during the time it was open, it was the subject of fierce debate: Is it pronounced "roe-COE-coze" or "ROE-coe-coze?" I'm not sure if the owner ever settled the debate, or if she sat back and enjoyed the free publicity that the .gif format would later enjoy. Turns out that the architectural style, which is way more ornate than that restaurant's decor ever was, suffers from a similar ambiguity of pronunciation, as sometimes happens with English words of French origin. Yes, it was originally a French style, which only adds to the confusion about the name of a defunct Italian restaurant. For example, people in the US can't agree on whether to pronounce "route" like "root" or like "rout." Italian restaurants don't seem to last, here. The only ones that do are the basically fast-food ones that do pizza and calzones and other street food. Someone will open up an upscale one like Rococo's, it'll be booming for a year or so, and then people start flocking to the next shiny new thing. Not that there's anything wrong with pizza, mind you; it's Nature's most perfect food. It's just that, sometimes, you may want to visit a place with ceramic plates and metal utensils. And wine served in stemmed glasses, not plastic cups. I don't recall if Rococo's's wine was any good or not; it's been that long. But the story has a happy ending, or at least it's a story that hasn't ended yet (there's no such thing as a happy ending; there are only authors that stop before the end): the former owner's adult sons got together with her and opened a combination beer and wine store and restaurant, called Beer Run. Then, they opened another, larger space called Kardinal Hall, located in an old factory building that's within easy staggering distance of no fewer than four craft breweries—or, as I like to put it "a great way to spend the day." You know what we don't have here in Charlottesville, a city with significant French influence? Rococo architecture. Get that ornate shit out of here; we don't do that in central Virginia. If it ain't brick, it ain't right. I imagine rich people in their Colonial brick mansions with the white trim and double-hung windows covered with blackout shades so that any casual peeping Tom walking by don't see that they've secretly decorated the interior with gold, intricately-carved crown moulding, and Renaissance frescoes. That would amuse me. But I no longer know any rich people around here, and even when I did, I never got invited to their parties. Eh, the food couldn't have been all that great, anyway. |
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I took matters into my own hands (no, that's not a deliberate pun 
