Wednesday, May 31, 2006

passengers in amber

Martha, the last passenger pigeon, replicated in amber to the power of 9 or something.

What do you think the guy that felled the last tree on Easter Island was thinking at the time? “better get this one before someone else does”, “timber!” -probably something like that. I guess he might have said a prayer.
ok, and what was the 14 year-old in Ohio thinking 100 Marches ago when he shot down the last wild passenger pigeon? “hot damn!” most likely.

there used to was billions of ‘em! flying around in 300 square mile flocks that took days to pass over at 60 mph. ideal for target practice, food, feed and fertilizer. dead ones shipped around the country by the boxcarload.

Martha turned out to be the last of the last, namesake of the first first lady. when they found her dead on the floor in Cincinnati, they entombed her in a giant ice block bound for the Smithsonian. that was on my birthday in 1914. in a final act of benevolent coextinction, Martha had taken 2 species of lice with her into genetic oblivion. the bird lice somehow did come back though, a lousy little miracle.





like I said, here she is, casted and kebabbed in amber by Rachel Berwick.






You remember when Richard Attenborough is brandishing his amber-headed cane and Jeff Goldblum is all like, “life finds a way” and stuff. pterodactyls everywhere! admit it, you were scared too. no way they’d ever let 550 real pigeons near that hardwood, illuminated and angelic as they look.

5 comments:

Matsby said...

I am waiting for this blog to be finished so that I can put a really clever comment. Right now, I can only think to say that the birds look like orange-flavored-suckers, but when you finish it, I am sure I will have something much better to say...

Anonymous said...

thats kinda freaky

english said...

ok, done, thanks for your patience.

in the future I'll only post finished products. pure retail, pure hoodia. also in the future we'll all live on Venus and have paddle-boats. we'll inhale saltpetre and exhale potash. let's start getting ready, alright?

this last month I've tried to keep up the breakneck pace of a post a day. but it's been kind of an experiment starting out and I think things will slow down just a bit. it's summer, give me a break, ok. (how's everyone's necks doing?)

butterscotch pigeons?

Matsby said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Matsby said...

These birds look like Orange flavored suckers (do I have to capitalize the word "orange"? It's a proper noun isn't it? I'm certainly not referring to a banana)

Anyway, how do we know if this really looks like Martha? I wonder if Ms. Berwick actually did her research for this one or if she just made some bird suckers and then decided to call tham all Martha in order to get funding...

All birds look the same to me (is that insensitive?)