Buckethead

My son took me to a concert the other evening. It was, to say the least, a fascinating experience. For someone whose recent concert going experiences have been pretty much limited to the Phila. Orchestra, my trip to the Theater of the Living Arts this past Wednesday was mind expanding. The last time I was in the TLA, it had seats. They no longer exist. There is a bar in the balcony, certainly an improvement in my eyes. Was patted down before I could enter, something else that doesn't happen at the orchestra.  Chatted with a man who I assumed to be a "deadhead" (somewhere in his 50's, beard, ponytail, wearing a t shirt that said "Rehab is for Quitters"). We discussed the resurrection of Andrew Dice Clay, and if it is even possible in todays world to be Shocking. The star of the evening was a guitarist called Buskethead. As the picture shows, he literally wears a bucket on his head. I was told that often it is a KFC bucket, but at this performance it was just white. Buckethead is actually an excellent guitarist. My son played one of his CD's for me on the way down into town. It is very good, a blend of quiet jazz, new age, with a lot of very fast finger work.  The crowd however was not there for subtle guitar stylings and they war not to be disappointed. I think the term used is shredding the guitar. My only problem with that is that the sheer volume tends to overwhelm the skill. If I had been down in front I would have gone deaf. I played his quiet CD on the drive home.
If you would like a good sample of what he does, go here.
http://www.guitar-tube.com/watch/buckethead-soothsayer

The Mushrooms are in

I've been gathering wild mushrooms for a long time. My father knew about 5 different ones that he had known from Ukraine, Pravdibi Hrib, Kozak, Pidpenki, to name a few. But my hunting really took off after college. Over the years I've tried "seeding" my lawns by spreading the older specimens I collected on them in hopes that some of the spores would take off. I had no luck with the morels and the Apple tree, but this year I have had success With Boletus bicolor and the oak tree on my front lawn. It turns out that this species forms a symbiotic relationship with oaks. The recent rains have brought up a healthy crop. I'm drying them for use this Christmas to make mushroom dumplings and mushroom gravy. I have to get out to the woods later to look for Armillaria, or "stumpies" as the locals call them.

Tiny Creatures

I find it fascinating seeing the complexity of life and especially that of miniscule organisms. The worm here is less than a millimeter in length. It lives at the bottom of the ocean in the hydrothermal vents. It's amazing what we have found on this planet, and what microscopy has revealed. I'm just sorry these tools didn't exist when I was an undergrad.

My Chance at the Electron Microscope

In my junior year at Penn I was taking a course on plant microstructure which involved a great deal of microscope work. Our professor told us that at some point he was going to arrange a session for us with the universities' electron microscope. The day finally arrived, we went down to the basement of the Bio lab building. Electron microscopes were always kept in basements to reduce vibration. We spent a half hour playing with a polarizing microscope they kept down there, and just when we were about to go into the room where they kept the electron microscope, a woman came running out shouting "They just shot the President"

I don't remember anyone actually saying anything after that. I remember wandering off to the Frankford El and riding it home. It wasn't until about 40 years later that I got into that room to see that microscope. I guess some things are never meant to be.

Creature Names

While browsing through some of my favorite sites, I stumbled upon Parasite of the day, and the selection of that day was Trypanosoma irwini. It was discovered in Australia, and named in honor of Steve Irwin "The Crocodile Hunter".
I always liked the rule that the discoverer gets to give it a name. Sometimes it's just the boring color (alba, rubrum), or location (pennsylvanicum) But sometimes the names show a real sense of humor in the taxonomist. There is a genus of beetles Agra, some of whose species are Agra cadabra
and Agra vation. or a fly genus phthiria, called Phthiria relativitae. There is a whole website devoted to this. Quite often, species are named after people, sometimes the discoverer, or someone important to the discoverer, or, as in this case, an important local celebrity.
Once upon a time, in a previous life as an undergrad, I had a professor who was not so subtly trying to convince me to go for a graduate degree studying an organism called Euplotes. He, as a graduade student, had discovered a new species of Euplotes and had named it after his mentor, who before that had done likewise. I was sure that he was looking for someone to do the same for him. Unfortunately, that wasn't going to be me. One, I wasn't particularly crazy about the critter itself. and two, If I did discover something new, I'd more likely name it after some girl I was crazy about at the time. I joined the Peace Corps and went off to South America instead.

New and Improved?

At some point in the last year, blogspot was eaten by Google. Since I had stopped posting a while ago, I was unable to continue with my old account. Somehow, by hook or by crook, I was able to access things last week and continue where I left off. Today, I was not so lucky, I had to start over with a new address.
But when I opened up the page to type, a popup window appeared telling me this was new and Improved.
Sometimes I wish things could just stay old but working.