Lynda Barry Rocks My World.

She has for years, and here's the latest—a cool new workbook on making art and hot-linking to the Muse: What It Is.

A NYC Window (sea mucous)

(To see the whole thing, nice and clear, double-click the pic.)

Urban Swarming--The Backstory

Last week, I posted an item called Urban Swarming about the swarm of honeybees found on a newspaper dispenser on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. The article included links to the New York Post article and a video in which beekeeper Jim Fischer is interviewed as he prepares to remove the swarm.

I've met Jim through the Brooklyn Beekeepers' Meetup—he brought a great assortment of honey to our honey-tasting late last winter.

On Friday, Jim sent a message regarding last week's swarm-related festivities to the Bklyn Beek group. With his permission, some of his comments are recapped below.

"The cops called the Zoo, the Zoo told them to call me, so I got my annual 15 seconds of fame:

Eyewitness News (ABC)
NBC News
Fox
The Daily News

"One lousy swarm of bees issuing from places unknown, and from the reaction, it might have as well been an unexploded nuclear warhead! :) By the time I got down to the site, there were:

• 14 NYPD Officers
• 1 "Emergency Management" Truck
• 1 Fire Truck
• Half a dozen firemen
• Crime scene tape around the entire area
• Not just one but THREE news film crews
• One newspaper photographer
• Several reporters from print and radio
• A crowd of civilians hungry for diversion
• A dinky little swarm - maybe a pound of bees total (5,000 bees or so)
• Crowd-control metal barriers that arrived to cordon off the entire sidewalk until the stragglers drifted off back to the hive from which the swarm issued.

"While all beekeepers can expect audiences for the obscure brand of magic we perform with a spray bottle of water, a whisk-broom brush, and a cardboard box, this was the first time I've ever had a swarm call that included a press conference! :)

"The photographers wanted me to put on a "bee suit", and I explained that I did not even own one. They begged with me to not make it look so easy/trivial/boring, so I wore a veil for a bit."

Jim also sent along this super-cool photo:

"In keeping with the whole 'Ghostbusters' theme," says Jim, "I have attached a photo of how I decorated the 'Bee Mobile' with magnetic vinyl and such to make it look much more like a, umm... bee. This was for a fun event at the Eastern Apicultural Society meeting last summer, held at U DE. The car is a 1982 Volvo 240 Wagon,and it has 1.2 million miles on it. Yeah, million. Good car, and very good maintenance."

Ramps!

Ramp season is upon us—those tasty little flags of spring that arise from the muddy shade and the shady mud are so good in a shrimp risotto.

Last year, as an experiment, Wren and I bought a sack of ramps at the Park Slope Food Coop and replanted them in a north-facing, woodsy spot in the plum grove. We were happy to see them come up this year, so last weekend we repeated the planting process, getting another 100 or so ramps in the ground. The plan: ritualistically inseminate the soil with a hundred plants per year for the next few years, until there's an established bed from which we can sustainably harvest thereafter.
We took about 100 ramps from our recent purchase into the garden, setting aside a good portion for cooking later on. It was Wren's birthday, and for her birthday each year I make a suitably springy risotto.
We got to planting. Plenty muddy, but fun. That happy clump of ramps in the background of the shot below were planted three years ago in a woodland trespassing spree led by our 85-year-old neighbor, Larry, whose family has lived in these parts for more than 50 years. That grouping is well established now and beginning to spread.
Once all the ramps were planted and watered, we turned to Part 2 of the ramp-related festivities...prepping for the birthday dinner.
Along with ramps (shown above), we included spring onions (lower portion of photo below), and a couple of pretty "spring garlic" plants (upper portion of photo below).
Most of these were cooked right in with the arborio rice.
And the rest were added to the shrimp. Everything was combined at the very end, for a delicious pink-and-green treat...
...with a side order of fiddleheads...
...and a strawberry rhurbarb pie we picked up at a local farm stand.
The cream—also local—was freshly whipped. Sencha went cross-eyed with joy when he tasted whipped cream for the very first time.
I think he spoke for us all in this shot—the meal was YUM! Happy Birthday, Wren!

Zen Gardening

Check out Dharma in the Dirt, a funky piece in the New York Times about Zen Gardening and one of the organic gardening movement's progenitors—as always, don't miss ye olde slideshow. (Do we love the Times online? Yes, we do!)
Speaking of Zen, belated congrats to that magnificent beacon of "the larger sanity," Gary Snyder, on his recent win of the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize for lifetime achievement. Bravo, good sir!

Quoth the prize-givers: “Gary Snyder is in essence a contemporary devotional poet, though he is not devoted to any one god or way of being so much as to Being itself. His poetry is a testament to the sacredness of the natural world and our relation to it, and a prophecy of what we stand to lose if we forget that relation.”

I'm grateful for all Snyder has taught me with his words, and glad to see this recognition bestowed. I remain hopeful that the ultimate lifetime achievement award will be Snyder living to see enough people hearing and acting upon his wisdom to turn this mess around before it's too late.

Bees Vs. Police

I get it that "Africanized" honeybees don't mess around when it comes to defending themselves (why should they?) and I have genuine empathy for the police officers in Tapachula, Chiapas who suffered what can only have been a terrifying and excruciating experience, but the lack of balance in the headline Bees Attack Police rankles me: Police Shoot Hive Minding Its Own Business; Bees Retaliate might be a bit more "fair and accurate," no?

"Polar Opposites"

Urban Swarming

My birthplace, Manhattan's Upper East Side, was the site of a bee swarm yesterday....A modest swarm that chose a newspaper distribution box as its temporary stopover en route—had all gone according to plan—to a new home of its choosing. Read all about it (and see the amusing video) here. Happily (and surprisingly), the New York Post's reportage was fairly sympathetic and it sounds like the urbanites actually enjoyed this exciting natural wonder. The bees were safety relocated by beekeeper Jim Fischer, shown above.

(Thanks to Karen for the tip.)

Beekeeping Backwards & Looking Forward

Lots to look forward to around here: namely, two packages of bees to be hived this weekend and—next week—the launch of a new series on this blog called "BeekSpeak," featuring interviews with beekeepers around the block and around the globe. My first interviewee is Romanian beekeeper and bee-blogger Gheorge Tamas.

During the interview, Gheorge mentioned a resource I'd never heard about called Principles of Beekeeping Backwards.

It's a challenging and excellent essay by Charles Simon, a writer and self-described "bee-removal expert" in California who died in 2007. I highly recommend the article, which is archived on the resource-rich Beesource website. See also: More Beekeeping Backwards: I Owe a Huge Debt to Varroa.

"Bees and the Parts of Bees"

My friend Stephanie is doing an arts residency at P.S. 150 in NYC and found these gems on display in the corridor. The first graders are studying bees and the "parts of bees."

Urban Farming

Lovely piece in the Times about urban farms right here in NYC. Check out the gorgeous slideshow, then read the full article, Urban Farmers' Crops Go From Vacant Lot to Market.

Our Smog Thwarts Bees

An important and not-at-all surprising new study by Jose D. Fuentes of the University of Virginia shows that air pollution hampers bees' ability to follow the scent of flowers to their source—a clear impediment to the delicate and essential process of pollination upon which our lives (or at least life as we know it) depend.

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to see that the "mystery" of CCD may well be connected to this and the many other environmental insults the honeybees and other pollinators are enduring at our hand. Yes, folks, everything going wrong with the honeybees IS our fault! Canary-in-the-Coalmine Alert, Code Red.

The Washington Post article titled Air Pollution Impedes Bees' Ability to Find Flowers includes the following:

"In the prevailing conditions before the 1800s, the researchers calculated that a flower's scent could travel between 3,280 feet and 4,000 feet, Fuentes said in an interview, but today, that scent might travel 650 feet to 1,000 feet in highly polluted areas such as the District of Columbia, Los Angeles or Houston.

"'That's where we basically have all the problems,' Fuentes said, adding that ozone levels are particularly high during summer. 'The impacts of pollution on pollinator activity are pronounced during the summer months.'

"This phenomenon triggers a cycle, the authors noted, in which the pollinators have trouble finding sufficient food, and as a result their populations decline. That, in turn, translates into decreased pollination and keeps flowering plants, including many fruits and vegetables, from proliferating."

Enough said. (And thanks, S.J., for the tip.)

Green Porno

June 18, 1952 was a most auspicious day in the dubious annals of human history, as the delightful Isabella Rossellini came into the world on that date.

Now, in her directorial debut, Ms. Rossellini has birthed a strange and glorious film project for the Sundance Channel called Green Porno.

The series describes the esoteric love lives of insects, including the honeybee, earthworm, praying mantis, and dragonflies, among other critters.The short films are campy, hilarious, poignant, deliciously low-tech, refreshingly explicit, and oddly shocking in a most enjoyable way. Rossellini hasn't held back on the bodily fluids, either—they are most colorfully portrayed. If biology classes were taught with half as much intelligence and creativity, America would be a nation of scientists.“I was always fascinated by the infinite, strange and 'scandalous’ ways that insects copulate,” says Rossellini. What joyous expression her fascination has found!Unless you are squeamish or a hopeless prude, check out these amazing short films pronto. (Many thanks to bee-boy Thew for the hot tip.)

Plum Blossom Bee

The plums have blossomed and the honeybees are working them avidly. I don't blame them—the plums' perfume is intoxicating and their white blossoms evoke the clouds of Heaven.

Bee-friended

Our friends David and Stephen brought fabulous gifts our way last evening. I don't know where or how David managed to score this bee-box treasure and the charmingly minuscule chenille bee shown below. ("I have my sources," he replied to my queries with an air of mystery. He sure does!)
I introduced the bee to Gumdrop. She was intrigued.
Sencha, as usual, was more tentative. He took one sniff and decided it was a fearsome thing and literally bolted from the room.
But not before first shooting me a look of alarm.

I'll take Sencha's nonplussed response as proof of this bee's mojo. Thanks Stephen and David! This one goes into the annals of Truly Great Gifts!