Beach Report: Yesterday and Today

According to the Washington Post and other sources, the Innuit language has at least 50 words for snow. There ought to be that many words to describe the grays, blues, greens, and silvers that color the ocean. Probably we need a dozen words for pink and lavender too. Maybe a few words for gold while we're at it. It never looks the same to me.

And there's the human component. People can't help making things.

Pygmy mammoths contemplating a return to the Channel Islands

Pygmy mammoths are a real thing--in case you don't already know. 

"In 1994, paleontologists made the remarkable discovery of a pygmy mammoth on Santa Rosa Island, the most complete collection of its kind in the world. Found only on the California Channel Islandsand nowhere else in the world, the pygmy mammothwas probably a small form of the Columbian mammothfound on the mainland."

And sometimes nature imitates nature.

Driftwood sealions frolic on the sand

Saturday Morning Beach Report: Many Musings

It was all shimmer and shine this morning, the clouds in the distance as thick as marshmallows. Next to the water the sand was scooped low and a companion mountain of sand hid the houses. I'm on a deserted island, I told myself. No one lives here.

Farther along the sand was etch-a-sketched with giant drawings, silty black debris tracing out mountain ranges.

The debris line was full of shell and stones and charred-looking pieces of wood. This couldn't be from the fires, I thought to myself. There's been no rain to wash it into the ocean.

But the water itself was, in places, inky black with it--whatever it is. I have seen the beach like this at times in the past, but maybe even then it was airborne fire debris from somewhere.

2017 changed the landscape of this beach I walk on. The giant wall of rock that forms harbor mouth is no longer a wall from the beach side. The lower 90% of the wall is now covered by sand, and the sign (if it's not buried too) that proclaims Danger! No Climbing! would seem ridiculous since you can now just walk onto the top of the wall. There's a metaphor in there somewhere, (sandstorm of fake news, erosion of decency, buried alive by stupidity and cruelty) but I'm too busy thinking that I'd like to have a job some day naming things. If there's a new pink lipstick for 2018, I'd like to call it Godwit Pink.

It's a pity I'm not a real photographer, but if you look closely, maybe you can see the pink of this bird's beak. It's just so darn pretty.

Wednesday Morning Beach Report: Squishy Pink Aliens, Found Art, and People just build things...

There were dozens of these on the sand this morning. They seemed to be alive--pulsating a bit, shiny and fresh looking. I'd read some neighborhood chatter on the internet saying these things were jellyfish eggs, but the internet look-up that I did says they are salps. They can link together, according to National Geographic, and swim around looking amazing. According to the LA Times, they showed up at the south beaches a few months ago. I was careful not to step on any.

Now for some found art:

Degas Bronze Ballerina lets her hair down and buys some stilts

Room with a View

Tuesday Beach Report: Two Things

Cliffs made out of sand

Yesterday the beach was flat, thick with seaweed and flocks of wading birds, poking their beaks into the surf. Yesterday by the time I finished my walk, my feet were so black with beach tar, I looked like I was wearing shoes. Today the sand was scoured clean and big waves scooped the sand into towering cliffs. Not a speck of tar in sight. The natural world changes without any input from us.

The remains of a mermaid tail sculpted by some beachgoer.

It brings to mind this poem.

Ozymandias

Percy Bysshe Shelley, 1792 - 1822

I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: “Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert . . . Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed:
And on the pedestal these words appear:
‘My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!'
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.”

Tuesday Morning Beach Report: Found Art

There was lots of found art on the beach today. Enjoy!

How I Spent My Summer Vacation by Charlie the Tuna

Get Yourself a Limbo Girl 

The Colossus of Oxnard

And here's what  the ruins of the original Greek Colossus of Rhodes might have looked like after the earthquake of 226 B.C.

And while we're on the subject, here's Emma Lazarus's poem referencing the original colossus. This text is inscribed on a plaque on the inner wall of the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty.

The New Colossus 

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,

With conquering limbs astride from land to land;

Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand

A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame

Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name

Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand

Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command

The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.

"Keep ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she

With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,

Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.

Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,

I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

Wednesday Morning Beach Report: Found Art, Summer in Paradise, and News from the Wizard of Many, Many Jobs

the minotaur

The Getty's is below.

It is summer here in paradise. There  are 33 people in the cluster of beach-goers pictured below. But I think it might be that some people are getting an early start on 4th of July weekend and the "crowds" will be gone next week. 

Report from the Wizard of Many Many Jobs: (currently wearing Ministry of Death hat):

I received this message from my brother's wife in Iowa yesterday--

.....in the mail today we got mom's death certificate . Came from XXXXX (the credit union) of Baltimore. No check. No note enclosed.

I sent the credit union the death certificate. It was required in order to close her account. I sent two other copies of the death certificate to Baltimore as well. I forget why, but I could remember if you insisted. I'm just not in the mood right now. It seems that it should be easier to wrap all of this up that it has been. The dead get mail, they haunt our dreams, the possessions of the dead fall out of closets and onto our toes. Sometimes we almost forget that the dead are dead. I can walk the beach for hours now if other obligations permit, but instead of feeling the pull of the waves out to sea, I sometimes feel the tether of my mother here in my house, sitting in her room or at the dining room table, reeling me back inland.

What the Yoga Teacher Said

Stay close to anything that makes you glad to be alive.--Sufi saying

All these hearts were found on various beach walks, the skies of Southern California and New Mexico.

Monday Beach Report

Found art: Waiting for a Ship