Sunday, April 23, 2017
25 comments:
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There will never be another David Attenborough, the all-time master of the nature documentary (sorry, Cousteau and Perkins, but Attenborough is #1). I have all his series on DVDs, so that if the cable is out, or whatever, I always have one of his great nature series to enjoy. Ya' just can't take your eyes off it! If I was stranded on a desert island with a TV and a DVD player (it can happen!), Attenborough's series would be my first choice for what to watch.
ReplyDeleteJMJ
Bach's B-Minor Mass, Beethoven's Fourth piano concerto, and his last three piano Sonatas (Opus 109 ,110, and 111), and Schimann's Carnaval for piano, and his Dichterliebe and his Frauenliebe und leben –– two song cycles would be mine, Jersey, BUT I agree that David Attenborough has produced some of the very finest things ever shown on television. FYI: I think very highly of the colorful historian David McCullough too, and have always enjoyed whatever he has presented on PBS.
DeleteDid you watch THIS Puffer Fish video. I assure you it is absolutely ASTOUNDING.
Caroline Oglethorpe said
ReplyDeleteNow that really IS astonishing, Mr. FreeThinke. It’s also incredibly mysterious. As the gentleman said, “No other animal on earth builds anything as complex snd perfectly proportioned as this.”
We love to think we’re so terribly smart, as we look at all “we” have accomplished over millenia, but there’s so very much we don’t know –– and may never discover. Not that it isn’t great fun to keep exploring.
I suppose our greatest virtue, if we have any at all, is our CURIOSITY. I doubt if other creatures have the burning desire many of us do to extend our limits constantly, and do our best to reach far beyond ourselves. The little fish, wonderful as he is, probably never thinks beyond the small area of whatever may concern him, personally, at sny given moment, if he could be said to think at all. But we don’t really know even that, do we?
Thanks! Thisgreat video provides one of those much-needed "pauses,” that truly "refreshes.”
Thank you, Caroline. I'm glad it meant so much to you.
DeleteOh yeah, and the music he uses... just perfect. And yes, I adore McCollough!
ReplyDeleteYes, I watched, it was so much fun. I don't recall seeing this before, but I'm still in a haze. It's just amazing. This is why I'm so sensitive to the little critters and the plants. Every one of them is special and amazing, has it's own little mind and "soul." That feeling people get, when they feel God, I think that's kind of how I feel when I think about nature (either that, or I've lost my mind and gone New Age, in which case, please shoot me). ;)
JMJ
It sounds to me, Jersey, as though suffering may have put you on a RIGHT TRACK. I don't believe you are losng your mind at all. It may well be that you are in the process of FINDING your mind –– i.e. discovering who you really are.
DeleteAll the sensitivity to Life you describe could only be a good thing.
Consider yourself blest.
Will do. :)
DeleteJMJ
Justin of Barrington said
ReplyDeleteAmazing that the currents give the fish a whole week to perform his task, but I don't understand how that fish could possibly know he had just that amount of time, do you?
I have an idea or two that might help explain that, Justin, but you might not appreciate my sharing them, but then again you might, who knows? It has more to do with asking questiins than supplying any firm answers..
DeleteCall it an Intimation of Immortality, if you like.
How and why do flocks of migratory birds know when, where and how to go?
Why do people want to do crazy things like climb Mount Everest, write symphonies, or travel to the South Pole?
What led the Athenians to build the Acropolis?
What prmpted Marco Polo to trek all the way to “Cathay," or Columbus to try to reach “India” by deliberately sailing in the “wrong’ direction?
What was it that motivated “The Pilgrims” to board the Mayflower?
Where, why and how did our Founding Fathers find the courage and determination to sever our gties wuth England?
Exactly what came into the minds of Johannes Gutenberg, Robert Fulton, Eli Whitney, Guglielmo Marconi, Elias Howe, Alexander Graham Bell, Thomas Edison, Wilbur and Orville Wright, Alexander Fleming and Jonas Salk and many others who made major cntributiins that prompted and enabled them to do what they did?
The questions we could ask are endless, and probably unanswerable, but that doesn’t mean we should ever stop asking them.
This to me is not in the least confounding. What perplexes me is the vast ignorance based on assumption, old wives tales, and prejudice, –– the complacency, and apparent lack of openness and curiosity that puts most people in cages and keeps them there all their lives.
If I sound “angry,” please forgive me. I am not angry, only more than a little mystified.
When people who imagine themselves well-informed, sophisticated and far above the common herd accuse other sorts of being “ignorant, “bigted, and “narrow-minded,” what they REALLY mean is “If you don’t see life from the same perspective I do, you’ve got to be a moron.”
The accomplishment of this remarkable little fish should prompt far more than OOHS and AAHS. At the very least it should inspire many probing questions and penetrating thekries about the very nature of Existence, and what it might signify.
Does the little fish feel a sense of accomplishment, when he's done? We wonder. Does he look around and think "I did this! This is the beautiful thing I did!" Is all life like that, just in various increments, stages and developments? I always imagined it was. This is the connection I think all living things have. Some people call it "free will," but I think it's just fine as described as living.
DeleteJMJ
Truly Wonderous. But I disagree that it is the only creature that can creature such beauty. I could cite many more examples of wild animals creating such beauty. Bird immediately come to mind.
ReplyDeleteEven the littlest, "simplest" critters can do some amazing things.
DeleteJMJ
LIFE, itself, is an amazing, wonderful, deeply mysterious, incredibly complex thing, Jersey. A neverending source ofAwe and Wonder.
DeleteI've seen hummingbirds build nests. Works of art. One outside my office window in Tempe AZ was a brown and bright green checkerboard cross hatch. They also use stolen spider silk to hold the things together. Animals are generally smarter than a lot of people imo. Pretty much good to go right out of the box for many of them.
DeleteAn amazing work of underwater art. Beautiful actually, such precision and an symmetry.
ReplyDeleteI think the puffer does recognize his work and is satisfied Jersey. All life forms have their purpose.
Antonio Diablo said
ReplyDeleteThat video is amazing beyond all comprehension. Don't you think man may have played a part in their design? Or does the fish swim up above and look down and see if he likes what he has done? Is any woman worth all that effort?
The narrator, David Attenborough, was like a god to our family. My oldest daughter tried to o get a summer job with him, which didn't happen, but he did write her a very nice letter.
If you want to see another amazing feat of nature watch the birds of paradise in New Guinea. This makes me feel so ordinary when my artistic talent doesn't even begin to catch up with a fish, no less. I still can't get over that aerial shot at the end.
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ReplyDeleteMy way of resisting is to continue to blog about Lord Dampnut's lies, deceptions, and policy bait-switching. There aren't enough days in the week to keep up with all that this maniac does.
ReplyDeleteThe latest is the disastrous interview he gave the AP. One of my commenters, Kevin Robbins, linked to Charlie Pierce's article in Esquire. It is horrifying. Trump is a functioning illiterate and most likely he has some dementia problems. He'll something in one moment, then he'll say the complete opposite the next. Or he's completely inarticulate, using speech patterns and the vocabulary of a 4th grader.
I volunteer and teach ESOL to immigrants whose rudimentary English is far more sophisticated than Trump's.
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ReplyDeletePoor little snowflake... reality has crashed her party!
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ReplyDeleteDats won fabby witto fishy dare. No won nevva dun nuttin boofoo like dat fer me.
ReplyDeleteIt is clear the vast majority of Americans do not want the border wall that Trump made a center piece of his campaign. Rational folks know that a) we cannot afford a border wall, b) we do not need a border wall, and c) simply increasing and improving border surveillance will be adequate.
ReplyDeleteDemocrats, independents, many republicans, with the exception of die-hard Trump supporters, are opposed to the wall. It is likely to remain a political football but one that will never score.
It does keep the Trump xenophobic base pumped however. Which we suppose is the real purpose to begin with.