We went to Brookfield Zoo today and captured a lot of incredible pictures with our cameras. First, we stopped at the Butterfly Exhibit, which I’ve been dying to see since I first heard about it. It ends in the beginning of September, so I was anxious to try out the cameras - all of them - and for Steve to try his hand at taking some pics, since I don’t think he’s taken the time to do it before this.

I was right about that; he hadn’t. He was surprised at what he was able to accomplish with his elph; I was thrilled at what I was able to do with both the elph and the panasonic lumix. Steve really needs a digital camera to take the place of his fancy nikon that needs film.

Here are some of his butterfly pictures:

One of the dark swallowtail butterflies rested on my cap, and I was afraid to move.

It was a very fruitful trip in that the butterfly pictures - and scores of others - turned out to be breathtaking.

Here are a few of my butterfly shots.

I was so taken in by the variety of butterflies (particularly the different types of swallowtails), that I neglected to take some good shots of the monarchs, but luckily, Steve managed to get a few pictures of them.

Well it looks as though I got more monarch pictures than I thought. I think all of the butterflies in this picture and the next, with the screen in the background, have several monarchs in the picture, but I’m no expert. Maybe they’re viceroys.

The butterflies were fluttering everywhere, which made me a little nervous, since I was afraid I would have an immediate response to brush one off if it decided to light on me - they are so delicate, it wouldn’t take much to kill one. Luckily, it only happened on my cap, and I didn’t feel it.

There was lovely music softely playing that matched the magic of what we were witnessing in the exhibit. It was screened in, and there were so many butterflies that we needed to step carefully, lest we stepped on one that stopped to rest on the pathway. They were everywhere.

Little children were there - very excited to see what they were seeing; but the lady that briefed us on how we were to behave said not to touch them, to step carefully, and not to pick the flowers because they serve as the butterflies’ food.

This little girl didn’t seem to be all that interested, and her mom was trying to have her look.

I think this is one of only two monarch pictures I captured.

There are tons of pictures; I took over 400 of them, which is why I have more to show off. Steve is now looking at a Nikon and a Canon Rebel; I’m partial to the Rebel myself, after having read reviews and shopped some; but the Lumix was in my price range, and I bought it used and then beefed it up with a 3x lens to popo the 12x zoom in a little closer for those long shots.

The monkeys’ expressions were a little bit eerie and they seemed to be quite interested in the parade of people walking by looking at them.

This one in particular struck some interesting poses.

Several people commented on just who was on display when he settled into this pose.

When we were in the tropical exhibit where the monkeys are, the gorillas were somewhat amusing. And the people who were talking to their children explaining what they were watching was even more amusing. One young man was talking to his kids, and said…”See that grumpy guy over there in the corner? I’ll bet he’s the dad. And it looks like he just got home from work.”

I have more, and I’ll take a look to see if there’s anything else I want to share.

There are a couple of funny stories to tell, but I’ll reserve those for a different post.

All in all, we got a little sun in, a little relaxation, and tuned the world out for a while.

As always, I appreciated watching young families and their little children - particularly when they had very small babies in tow.

What if a Chinese rebel pulled off the biggest practical joke in history, and nobody got it?

In contrast to architect Paul Murdoch’s dirty trick (trying to plant a terrorist memorial mosque on the Flight 93 crash site), Zhang Yimou’s trick at the Beijing Olympics was moral, beautiful, and hilarious.

In case you missed it, the Beijing closing ceremony was an extended dramatization of the sexual act, ending with the fertilization of an egg.

Here is a still image of the final tableaux. After the circle of a thousand yellow-clad egg-girls has finally been penetrated by the couple hundred bouncing sperm-boys, the sperms rush to the center to form the nucleus of the fertilized egg, while the egg girls spread out to form the albumen:

Here is the video (two minutes):

If this WMV file won’t play on your computer, you can try reading this post over at Error Theory, where Alec’s original Blogger Video upload might still be working. (Access to the video is difficult because the NBC footage cannot be posted at YouTube or Google Video. The full video has been available at uZood. We claim that our shorter clips are FAIR USE, based on news value.)

Zhang Yimou’s drama began with WHAT LEADS to the fertilization of an egg (1 minute):

In between The Act and its result was a parade of floats, dramatizing the journey of the sperm through guess which body part:

Anatomical drawing, for comparison.

Wondering where the ovaries are? Floating 40 feet above the entire production:

No anatomical drawing needed to recognize this. Georgia O’Keefe would be scandalized.

But the performance wasn’t just a sex scene followed by a biology class. The whole production is rendered out of passion and spirit, which connect to the wellspring of spirit in the middle part of the performance, where the circulatory “chi” of the Tai Chi masters is depicted by lit circular bicycles, circulating through bordered pathways around the still pulsating sexual center:

Chi bicycles circulate the pathways of spiritual energy before passing through the red center itself, presumably symbolizing the delivery of the chi to the zygotes.

The philosophy behind this representation may be Taoist or Buddhist, but the result is hardly distinguishable from Catholicism, which also sees the spirit inhabiting the body at conception (an idea that the Chi-Coms, with their policies of forced abortion, might prefer to suppress).

In all a beautiful, profound, life affirming, and wonderfully amusing practical joke. The fertilization of the egg at the end is meant to be the punch line, confirming everyone’s suspicions about the obvious POSSIBLE sexual connotations of the preceding. This is not hidden folks. You are SUPPOSED to get it. (Original expose here.)

Choreographer Zhang Yimou is China’s most decorated film-maker, with a long history of butting heads with Communist censors, and of making sexy female-centered movies. It is not surprising that he would find a female-centered ode to procreation irresistible.

If some of his Communist overseers were in on the trick that is great news. If they have that much humor, maybe we can feel a bit better about them. The other possibility is that Yimou was able to keep his overseers from seeing enough of the production at once to figure it out. That would be a magnificent story of defiance, which will be lost if people don’t get it!

Life affirming vs. murder-cult affirming

This makes two examples of semi-hidden symbolism in a mega-scale production. We have architect Paul Murdoch’s dirty trick and Zhang Yimou’s wonderful, beautiful and very funny trick. Zhang is the good twin to Murdoch’s evil twin. In contrast to Zhang’s life-affirming symbolism, Murdoch is hiding the most disgusting tribute to evil and murder ever concocted.

If we can break the story of the good twin, and see Zhang’s production properly celebrated for what it truly is, that spotlight will shine on the evil twin as well, and reveal him for what he truly is. Zhang’s trick should also be a much easier story to break, and not just because half the world saw his production. If people are loathe to witness evil, either out of political calculation, or simply because they want to give the benefit of the doubt, everybody loves a good joke.

Zhang and Murdoch (Zhang is the surname) both needed for their symbolism to be semi-hidden. If it was too obvious, the hidden meaning would erupt in controversy and threaten the completion of the project. But the meaning couldn’t be too hidden. Once the production is a fait accompli, people have to get it. The symbolic accomplishment has to be demonstrable, or all is for naught.

The positive morality of Zhang’s display explains how he was able to get away with it. There can’t be a woman in that fertilized egg scene who, after multiple rehearsals, did not know that she was dramatizing the fertilization of an egg. There cannot be a man on spring shoes who did not know he was playing a sperm, but because it was beautiful and fun, everyone was willing to go along with the joke.

Ditto for any Chi-Coms who figured it out (probably as the performance date loomed). And why not? With such a lovely trick, if it comes out that the party knew, it will be to their credit that they let it proceed.

These dynamics of positive morality are not available to Paul Murdoch. For his evil scheme to advance, he needs a very different moral dynamic to be in play, a dynamic of willful blindness, where people look at the world in terms of what they think is most advantageous for them to see, instead of in terms of what is actually there. Unfortunately, this is the dominant cognitive style in much of America today.

It is no surprise that people who could choose a memorial that is laid out in the shape of an Islamic crescent and star flag would be determined not to be concerned that the crescent actually points to Mecca. After all, the crescent and star flag configuration is obvious:

Click for larger image.

Anyone who can be willfully blind to THAT can easily ignore what seems to them to be much more esoteric, like the orientation of the crescent. It doesn’t matter to them that the orientation of the crescent is actually the most important thing to Muslims, turning the crescent into the Mecca-direction indicator around which every mosque is built. What MUSLIMS think? Why that is positively arcane, to anyone who finds it advantageous to think so.

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Muslims in fed terror probe making donations to Obama
Will candidate follow other Dems who gave back jihad-tied funds?

And excerpt from the above-linked article at WND:

Jamal M. Barzinji earlier this year gave Obama $1,000, a gift that records show has not been returned. Other Democratic candidates, including Rep. Jim Moran, have refunded donations from Barzinji since federal agents raided his Virginia home and offices in the wake of the 9/11 attacks.

Obama’s top Muslim adviser resigned earlier this month over controversy surrounding his ties to an alleged Muslim Brotherhood front connected to Barzinji, who heads a network of Islamic charities and businesses.

Barzinji remains at the center of an active federal investigation into terrorist financing that involves recently convicted terrorist supporter Sami al-Arian. A grand jury is still hearing the widening case in Northern Virginia.

Communists for Obama, Socialists for Obama, Marxists for Obama and Jihadis for Obama. They’re all in it together, anyway - the goal to destroy America as we know it is evident and clear. It’s appalling that someone like this is running for president, particularly since there is reason to believe he’s not even eligible to run.

I think I’ve mentioned my “thing” for men with an accent before…and Alan Rickman is no exception; brits are extaordinarily attractive, regardless as to what they’re saying.

I would say just about anyone with an accent is attractive; as long as it’s REAL and not put on - such as Scott Covington’s Inspector Clousseau-like FAKE french accent.

When Rickman whispers shakespeare…I get a thrill up my leg. LOL

And of course, he morphs into all different characters…and adds his particularly blend of charm to each one.

I particularly appreciated his portrayal of the character who was out to get Tom Selleck’s character Quigley in Quigley Down Under. He even stomped his feet as the spoiled brat villain who gets everything he wants…which made me want to repeatedly rewind the tape.

He was also very good in Robin Hood and a few others…he’s a very good character actor.

Long hair, short hair, blonde, brunette or greying…doesn’t matter, this guy has that special SOMETHING…
that makes any project he’s involved in a pleasure to watch.

Men who make us dream….

Now when it’s Shakespeare…it is swoonworthy. Listen to him pour his chocolatey smooth voice out on Shakespeare’s “When Love Speaks”, Sonnet 130.

An interview with Rickman

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