Author: cougarox the geophotocacher

Four Corners photographer, light chaser, educator, cook, geocacher, geek

African Songs & Tales

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Richard Bona with the WDR Big Band, Leverkusen Forum, Köln, Germany {1:14:36}

Three (+) continents’ music in one, and I say it is some mighty tasty tuneage. Appeals to my endless fascination with interstitial things, it does. Music, the universal language, enables and encourages them; it (apart from linguistic examinations, as kinesics and proxemics) is the one that transcends all barriers and gaps. Even better, it integrates them, as evidenced here.

Why am I not surprised this concert was in Köln? Not like they have an extra appreciative Jazz audience for the 40+ years I’ve noticed since Keith Jarrett did his thing there …

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Pie Town Puzzle

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This is one of my geocaches, most of which are “premium member only”, as is this one, to mitigate the muggling problem that public caches have. As such, the content at https://coord.info/GC2DHFK is invisible to most people.

I like to avoid trolls. Unless they are a relative of Pratchett’s, or as found in the landscape, on a pareidoliacal (sic.) exploration of Terra. These latter have generally gotten too hot. Those on geocaching.com are annoying to geocache owners, who are obliged to maintain their (and in this case, my) caches. Bad, bad trolling muggles. 😡 Many of my placements (like this one) are in remote locations, and I like not to worry about them.

The listing, then.

A cache by CougarOx, NMFireHorse, and Bronco

Geocache Description:

This puzzle cache is not at the stated coordinates. Solve the puzzle to determine your hunt area.

While Datil has quite a nice little collection of caches, somehow Pie Town got left out. I don’t know if it was balancing Pie Town having two pie places to Datil’s none, or because Datil has closer hills to hide caches on, or what. At one time, there was a single geocache here, but it is long-archived now. So, when NMFireHorse, our geodog Bronco and I were there again recently, we decided it was time to address that little cache-inequity in the “middle of nowhere”.

It really isn’t the middle of nowhere, though. Indeed, Pie Town, with its pie shops (we like the café1 a short distance west on the same side of the road as you’ll find the cache) looks like the most prosperous hamlet between Magdalena and the state line (though Quemado does have the school…). And, like Magdalena, it has its own honest-to-goodness festival, held annually on the Second Saturday of September. -.– — ..- / – …. — ..- –. …. – / – …. .. … / — — .-. … . / -.-. — -.. . / .– — ..- .-.. -.. / …. .- …- . / – …. . / -.-. — — .-. -.. .. -. .- – . … / ..-. — .-. / … ..- .-. . –..– / -.. .. -.. -. .—-. – / -.– — ..- ..–..

It is given that the degrees of the stAted coordinates are correct. You must find some minutes in your Busy day to enjoy some pie, and to fiNd the cache. Or, you might have Puritan leaninGs and decide that you need to work to Find the coordiNates and The cacHe before you treat yourself to pie. It is your choice. Personally, I’ll take a pie Over a cake any day of the week. Unless, of course, it is a scrumptious key lime cheesecake (though I think cheescake is a pie, not a cake). In any case, if you have the time, and like pie, there are many yummy pie varieties to try.

For example, you Might like some Good old apple pIe à la mode (bring your mom!). Maybe you would Rather kick it up a notch with Some apple cranberry crumb pie, or go for the comfort of an apple crIsp. Or if you’re a homeboy(girl) you might prefer A slab of New Mexican apple pie, with green chile and piñon nuts. If you’re really nutty about pies, like I am, you’ve got to try a slice of peach walnut crumb pie, some good old fashioned pecan pie, peanut butter pie, Reese’s pie, or chocolate walnut pie. Which reminds me, if you like chocolate, you simply must try a good Mississippi mud pie, even if you have to go to Vicksburg to get it. Then again, you might be another berry aficionado. In that case, you might prefer some boysen-berry, strawberry-rhubarb, raspberry, blueberry, or triple berry pie, or even some cherry streusel.

Regardless of your pie preference, providing pie is your preference, probabilities are such that you will find pulchritudinous pie pleasure in Pie Town. Enjoy!

Oh, and lest i forget, in case you haven’t yet found the coordinates you need above (they are there) here they are in a different format that may not cause all your blood to rush away from your brain:
1,13,5,3,4,32,29,11,2,37
On the other hand, perhaps pondering pie choices is preferable to the consideration of the significance of a set of numbers. -. ..- — -… . .-. … / -.-. .- -. / -… . –..– / .- -. -.. / — ..-. – . -. / .- .-. . –..– / … .. –. -. .. ..-. .. -.-. .- -. – –..– / – …. — ..- –. …. .-.-.- / .-. .- – …. . .-. / .-.. .. -.- . / .– — .-. -.. … .-.-.-

Links of interest:
“Savoring Pie Town”, a Smithsonian article
History of Pie Town (Pie Town Council)
Pie Town (American Heritage magazine)
A collection of Russell Lee’s 1940s photographs of Pie Town (Library of Congress, click on the “Check for online items from this lot” link)

1FWIW, the NM apple pie here is the Food Network’s “Ace of Cakes” chef’s “best thing I ever ate”

The Far Side

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Apparently it takes Gary Larson publishing His_Very_Own_Webpage (and my discovering it) to get me to post again. Really must restart, and this is a good one to go with.

He and Bill Watterson, with Calvin and Hobbes, are neck and neck for top living cartoonist (I may be missing many).

My wife gave me a great present some while back, a 2-tome complete set of Larson (it must weigh 25 pounds!) and I’ve done a similar thing with Watterson for her. Anyway, digitising (scanning, photographing them?) them has been on my back burners a looong time. Larson has saved me the effort, not to mention the moral quandaries of sharing, &c. by making his own publishing outlet. Maybe they (Bill and Gary) know each other, and Gary can bamboozle him into doing the same… .

Enjoy the Larson.

Living dangerously now, here is today’s “Daily Dose”:

18.Dec.19, https://www.thefarside.com/

Telegraph Road

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The song that has launched innumerable #phototunes. Or so it seems to me; I’ve lost count of the times I’ve shared versions this song with a (hopefully) apropos photograph. Some #phototunes are better than others, and some songs require multiple tries… .

In this case, I present you with a gift #phototune presented by Greg Kerr and based on my submission for “road” in the last photo Scavenger Hunt. Thanks for the connection and youtube link to this version, Greg.

https://flic.kr/p/2hwQTaR

Ligeti: Devil’s Staircase

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Random percussionist post. 1

I do love the piano for being the most versatile and tonally rich, rivaling if not surpassing any rocker’s drum kit. Echoes Saliere, haha


Anyway, just watch this guy acrobatically get after a rather demanding Ligeti piece, “<i>Devil’s Staircase</i>”. Go for the ffffff, lol

1 Or it was.
random, that is. I found it in queue 250919.
and again 20191017
just press publish.

I probably had some #phototune (s) in mind, perhaps a shot from the Waldo, NM area, and the so-called ‘Devil’s Throne’ between there and Cerrillos.

Tecumseh says…

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“So live your life that the fear of death can never enter your heart. Trouble no one about their religion; respect others in their view, and demand that they respect yours. Love your life, perfect your life, beautify all things in your life. Seek to make your life long and its purpose in the service of your people. Prepare a noble death song for the day when you go over the great divide. Always give a word or a sign of salute when meeting or passing a friend, even a stranger, when in a lonely place. Show respect to all people and grovel to none. When you arise in the morning give thanks for the food and for the joy of living. If you see no reason for giving thanks, the fault lies only in yourself. Abuse no one and no thing, for abuse turns the wise ones to fools and robs the spirit of its vision. When it comes your time to die, be not like those whose hearts are filled with the fear of death, so that when their time comes they weep and pray for a little more time to live their lives over again in a different way. Sing your death song and die like a hero going home.”

— Chief Tecumseh, Shawnee Nation

Lewis Thomas on Language

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“Language is simply alive, like an organism. We all tell each other this, in fact, when we speak of living languages, and I think we mean something more than an abstract metaphor. We mean alive. Words are the cells of language, moving the great body, on legs. Language grows and evolves, leaving fossils behind. The individual words are like different species of animals. Mutations occur. Words fuse, and then mate. Hybrid words and wild varieties or compound words are the progeny. Some mixed words are dominated by one parent while the other is recessive. The way a word is used this year is its phenotype, but it has deeply immutable meanings, often hidden, which is its genotype…. The separate languages of the Indo-European family were at one time, perhaps five thousand years ago, maybe much longer, a single language. The separation of the speakers by migrations had effects on language comparable to the speciation observed by Darwin on various islands of the Galapagos. Languages became different species, retaining enough resemblance to an original ancestor so that the family resemblance can still be seen. ”

— Lewis Thomas in “Living Language,” The Lives of a Cell: Notes of a Biology Watcher, Viking (1974)

Fiery sky

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Fire season is back in the Southwest. Between the wildfires and prescribed burns going on this Solstice — Happy Solstice! — there is a lot of smoke in the air. We’re presently getting it from the fires East of Phoenix.

sunset

On my way home from dog training with Bonnie yesterday, we had to stop and look for geocaches and in places where photos were possible 😉

Sunset on Rinconada Trail
Rinconada Trailhead
Petroglyph National Monument
https://flic.kr/p/2ghYtFF
NW Unser Blvd.