Who's combed the ocean for empty bottles, cheap sunglasses?

[sovay]

For my brother's birthday, he got the present of a negative COVID-19 test result, so I will finally see him in person this weekend for the first time in five months. I plan to hand him an IOU for some rubbish advice demons.

This evening I left the house with spatch for the first time in three days. Almost no one we met on the street was wearing a mask, which with the rising numbers in Massachusetts does not hearten me. What is the point of spending all this time not self-destructing if other people are going to take care of it for me? In any case, I took a few pictures.



The starfish dice from yesterday, courtesy of yhlee. I really love them.



I had hoped to catch the late sun illuminating the overlap of the petals, but I think the flower just decided to synedoche itself in there instead.



I always thought these trees were a kind of sumac, but I am no longer confident. [edit: It's a mimosa!] The brilliant pink feathers of their blossoms make me think of flowers I saw in Hawaii, the spring of the April Fool's Day Blizzard.



I just liked these hydrangeas very much, brown-curling edges and all.



Look at the patina on that fire hydrant! It's a real antique.



We'd walked by this gap between buildings many times and never seen the gate unlocked. It made a portal through the alley.



A snake-stone with its guardian.



A nice angle of light up the bricks of Langmaid Terrace. I had hoped to photograph the name itself stamped into the face of the building, but someone with no mask and no personal space came up fast behind us and instead we moved on.

It is the seventy-fifth anniversary, too, of the bombing of Hiroshima, along with the bombing of Nagasaki the only use of nuclear weapons in war to date and I want this planet—this country—to keep it that way. The closest thing I have ever written to a ghost poem for this history is "The Trinitite Golem," which can be found in Clockwork Phoenix 5 (2016) and Forget the Sleepless Shores (2018). The hibakusha are still speaking for themselves and I don't know who's listening. Living memory is much less of a safeguard than I used to think it was.

Comments

[asakiyume]

The tree is known in the United States as a mimosa; apparently other places it's called things like Persian silk tree. The scientific name is Albizia julibrissin. It's pretty, isn't it!

I love that that gate opened for you this time. You could go through and climb the ladder...

[sovay]

The tree is known in the United States as a mimosa

Ah! I only knew the mimosa as a drink. I assume one was named after the other?

It's pretty, isn't it!

It is, and I feel less stupid associating it with ōhiʻa when the fringed-silk look in both cases comes from the plumes of the stamens (which I want to spell stamina). Thank you for letting me know.

I love that that gate opened for you this time. You could go through and climb the ladder...

I thought about it! I had a fire escape outside my room senior year of college and I used to love climbing out and sitting on it. The cats of my childhood would be proud to know that I always want the literal high ground anywhere I am.

[asakiyume]

Common names being the slippery things they are, it seems (according to Wikipedia, my erudite source) that "mimosa" also gets applied to "the yellow-flowered mimosa plant, Acacia dealbata," and that *that* is what the cocktail is named after.

Albizia Julibrissin


Acacia dealbata

By EugeneZelenko CC BY-SA 4.0, Link

[asakiyume]

(I just hotlinked the mimosa pic, but the other-mimosa pic I did all formal-like, with Wikipedia's embed function)

[sovay]

(I just hotlinked the mimosa pic, but the other-mimosa pic I did all formal-like, with Wikipedia's embed function)

I didn't even know Wikipedia had an embed function! Fancy.

[asakiyume]

Neither did I before last night!

[sovay]

Common names being the slippery things they are, it seems (according to Wikipedia, my erudite source) that "mimosa" also gets applied to "the yellow-flowered mimosa plant, Acacia dealbata," and that *that* is what the cocktail is named after.

That's ridiculous and I appreciate knowing the distinction.

[moon_custafer]

My first thought is always the trembling mimosa/sensitive plant, which I'm not sure is even related to these.

[sovay]

My first thought is always the trembling mimosa/sensitive plant, which I'm not sure is even related to these.

(a) Well, it's in the genus Mimosa, which puts it taxonomically ahead of the trees.

(b) Its closest relatives appear to be ayahuasca and peas.

tl;dr nomenclature is wild.

[ethelmay]

Just came up on my FB page as well. Makes sense -- the trees, whatever they're called, are in bloom on this coast, too.

[julian]

I had been wandering around in blissful bemasked contentment when, a couple days ago, I started noticing a LOT of people wearing them WRONG. No nose covering, down on their chin, whatever the hell, it was *annoying*. And undoubtedly there were people doing it wrong before, but now all I can do is notice the wrong ones. Grar.

However, your mimosa cured a lot of ills. *is content*

[sovay]

And undoubtedly there were people doing it wrong before, but now all I can do is notice the wrong ones. Grar.

I am never going to get over the dude I saw in the spring who was wearing his mask over his forehead. I thought rude things about his third eye.

However, your mimosa cured a lot of ills.

I am glad to hear it!

[gwynnega]

Those dice are beautiful! I like the hydrangeas a lot.

[sovay]

Those dice are beautiful! I like the hydrangeas a lot.

Thank you! I loved the opacity as well as the color of their petals. They looked like a kind of bone china.

[umadoshi]

The mimosa pic is especially gorgeous! It reminds me of Hawai'i too.

[sovay]

The mimosa pic is especially gorgeous! It reminds me of Hawai'i too.

Thank you! That's nice to know.

[aurumcalendula]

Those are lovely photos!

[sovay]

Those are lovely photos!

Thank you!

[starlady]

Nagasaki is August 9. The one for which less than no justification exists. I was thinking of it in particular the last few days, with the discussion about damage from the blast waves in Beirut. Have you ever seen Black Rain (1989, dir. Shohei Imamura)?

[sovay]

Nagasaki is August 9. The one for which less than no justification exists.

You're right, and that's even information I know, and my brain just fused them, like Tisha b'Av. Thanks for the correction.

I was thinking of it in particular the last few days, with the discussion about damage from the blast waves in Beirut.

I can see how that would happen. I've seen people estimating it against the Halifax Explosion.

Have you ever seen Black Rain (1989, dir. Shohei Imamura)?

I have not, although I believe I recognize the allusion. I just looked to see if it was on Criterion and the answer was no, which means I'll have to search further.

[starlady]

I saw the Japanese Black Rain long before I ever knew the American one existed, and I was very confused in a few conversations before I figured that out. I haven't seen the film since undergrad, but there are quite a few bits of it that are still vivid in my memory.

I met some hibakusha once, nearly fifteen years ago, and they were warm, funny, dedicated people with indelible, harrowing stories. They spoke some old prewar Hiroshima dialect for me and my Japanese professor, who's from Hokkaido, and we couldn't understand a damn thing they were saying. The rest of us have to carry their message on.

[sovay]

They spoke some old prewar Hiroshima dialect for me and my Japanese professor, who's from Hokkaido, and we couldn't understand a damn thing they were saying.

I understand this is not the main point of this story, but I think it's wonderful. I care a lot about languages and dialects, especially endangered ones.

The rest of us have to carry their message on.

You sound like you are doing so.

[ethelmay]

An old friend of my mother's is Chinese-American, married to a Japanese-American guy, and said when she visited relatives of her husband in Japan, she felt as if she was somehow simultaneously a grown woman and a 1940s Japanese schoolboy, because that is the kind of Japanese she had learned from her husband. So she described herself as going around saying the equivalent of "Gee whiz!" or "Wizard!" a lot, plus using old-fashioned terms (e.g., the word she used for, I think, "machine," or maybe "motor," is now used only for "sewing machine" -- I may have the details wrong, but there was a sewing machine in there someplace).

[sovay]

she felt as if she was somehow simultaneously a grown woman and a 1940s Japanese schoolboy, because that is the kind of Japanese she had learned from her husband. So she described herself as going around saying the equivalent of "Gee whiz!" or "Wizard!" a lot, plus using old-fashioned terms

I can see how that happened and that's also amazing.

[moon_custafer]

The Halifax Explosion is what I thought of as soon as I read of the building burning for some time before the flames hit the explosive material. That and the waterfront location.

[sovay]

That and the waterfront location.

I very much doubt Beirut is going to be sending us Christmas trees for our assistance.

[moon_custafer]

It would be churlish to expect it (though I suppose they do have cedars).

[dhampyresa]

Love the pictures, especially treesnake plus stone egg.

Also love the fubbish demons and that you get to see yoyr brother soon.

Unlike Dr Strangelove, do not love the bomb.

[sovay]

Love the pictures, especially treesnake plus stone egg.

Thank you!

Unlike Dr Strangelove, do not love the bomb.

I think that's a much healthier attitude than anyone in that movie.

[brigdh]

Fantastic photos! And now I too have learned that those pretty flowers are called mimosa.

[sovay]

Fantastic photos! And now I too have learned that those pretty flowers are called mimosa.

Thank you! I am glad to be able to pass the knowledge on.