My normal reading diet consists almost exclusively of nonfiction (most recently Lance Armstrong's War, because I've been on a cycling kick), but every year I try to read one great classic of literature. In recent years I've read things like David Copperfield, Native Son, Treasure Island, and In Cold Blood. I have Proust and The Grapes of Wrath on the shelf, waiting. Last year I tried to read Moby-Dick for about the third time in my life. Alas, Ishmael and I don't get along; I realized the other day my ambition had been inadvertently harpooned—I set the book aside one day and just never took it up again. The fate of all too many books. Fiction, to echo what Richard Hugo said of flying, is unnatural.
Ironically, I lapped up the two current non-fiction books about the historical incident, Thomas Farel Heffernan's Stove by a Whale: Owen Chase and the Essex and Nathaniel Philbrick's In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex, as well as the first-person account of the Essex that Melville was familiar with, Owen Chase's The Wreck of the Whaleship Essex (The Essex, if you don't know the story, was the only real whaling ship ever attacked and sunk by a mad whale. The meaning of the story has changed somewhat nowadays; in light of the remorseless factory ships and the sad tragedy of overfishing, some of us find ourselves inclined to root for the whale).
But I know the story, of course. The brooding, Old Testament prophet of a whaling captain, Ahab, obsessed with the albino whale who took his leg, intent upon revenge at any cost.
"Vengeance on a dumb brute!" cried Starbuck, "that simply smote thee from blindest instinct! Madness! To be enraged with a dumb thing, Captain Ahab, seems blasphemous."
"Hark ye yet again—the little lower layer. All visible objects, man, are but as pasteboard masks. But in each event—in the living act, the undoubted deed—there, some unknown but still reasoning thing puts forth the mouldings of its features from behind the unreasoning mask. If man will strike, strike through the mask! How can the prisoner reach outside except by thrusting through the wall? To me, the white whale is that wall, shoved near to me. Sometimes I think there’s naught beyond. But ’tis enough. He tasks me; he heaps me; I see in him outrageous strength, with an inscrutable malice sinewing it. That inscrutable thing is chiefly what I hate; and be the white whale agent, or be the white whale principal, I will wreak that hate upon him. Talk not to me of blasphemy, man; I’d strike the sun if it insulted me."
Which brings me to the albino squirrel.
Months ago, in June I think it was, I caught sight of a white squirrel in the alley adjacent to ours. I turned up the alley in the car, gave chase, and just glimpsed his tail as he disappeared behind a fence. I meant to walk up there later with a camera, and see if I could get a shot of him to post on the blog. But of course I forgot about it.
The days of the summer passed by. Had it really been a white squirrel? It might have been an apparition. Or a cat.
Then, months later, pottering about the neighborhood on my new bike, which I love, and have named Gruesome—no, not Pequod—I saw the white squirrel again—unmistakeably, this time, from my perch high atop my two-wheeled crow's nest. He was gamboling happily by the side of the road, in plain view, some two blocks from where I'd originally espied him. Again, poor wretch that I was, I had no camera with me. I swear to God this was the reason I subsequently bought the handlebar bag for the bike which I wrote about in this watery vastness not long ago—so I could take the camera on the bike. The white squirrel was the reason. I'm not saying I've been obsessed, at least not Ahab-level obsessed, but I had in mind that one day I was going to encounter the elusive white squirrel again. I intended to be ready. Well, sort of ready, given that I don't have a zoom or a tele. As I've reported, I went on several rides with the GF1 nestled in the bag's well-padded hold.
It's an internet truism that "the best camera is the one you have with you," but it's a lesson I don't think I'll ever entirely learn. Last weekend we were enjoying what around here is called "Indian Summer," a brief warm respite at the end of the autumn—summer's last gasp before the frigid nor'westers arrive. On one of those balmy days I interrupted my work at the computer to drive Zander to band practice at a friend's house. The friend lives near the dog park, and Lulu, who knows exactly where she is whenever she gets within a mile of the park, made such a fuss that I gave in to her pathetic whimpers and whining and we made an unplanned stop. I've taken too many pictures at the dog park, so it's normally no hardship to be there without a camera, but wouldn't you know it—being that it was probably one of the last warm weekend days of the year, our local dog owners were out in force that day. The one time I didn't have the camera with me, and there were more people and dogs at the park than I'd ever encountered, and not by any small margin. There must have been 150 dogs meandering happily around, if not 200, and half again as many owners.
A lovely sight, if you love dogs. I would have liked to have a picture or two to remember it by. So on the way home, I was once again castigating myself for not bringing the camera, because the fact is that you just never know when you're going to want it, when—you guessed it: there he was, unexpectedly, in the grassy strip beside the busy road—the white squirrel! Where was my weapon? I could have turned the corner, departed the ship—er, the car—stalked him, maybe gotten lucky. But no camera. I felt the mute admonishments of all you TOP readers at the back of my mind. Lesson learned that day, yet again—once, and then again, an exclamation point added, like the stinging of the lash-end.
Here, then, was this grey-headed, ungodly old man, chasing with curses a Job’s whale round the world, at the head of a crew, too, chiefly made up of mongrel renegades, and castaways, and cannibals—morally enfeebled also, by the incompetence of mere unaided virtue or right-mindedness in Starbuck, the invulnerable jollity of indifference and recklessness in Stubb, and the pervading mediocrity in Flask. Such a crew, so officered, seemed specially picked and packed by some infernal fatality to help him to his monomaniac revenge.
So anyway, the other day I sent the Panasonic GF1 back to its owner. As if on schedule*, a boxlike brown truck hove into view on the swell of our hill, and a box fetched up on the lee side of the porch—a Sony A850 to test, courtesy of B&H Photo.
Alas! The A850, beauteous though it undoubtedly is, will not fit in the handlebar bag.
I took Gruesome on several long rides during our warm spell. Because the Sony is too big for the bag, no camera, again, on these rides. On one occasion, I beat to the top of a long hill, and turned into a cemetery there. At the back edge of the cemetery I was surprised by an unexpected view. The grateful dead have a spectacular vista, from their hilltop, of the industrial side of town. The light was delicate and lovely; I regretted, again, that I didn't have a camera with me. And of course, all this while, I continually had it in the back of my mind—since I don't have a camera with me, I'll probably see the white squirrel—.
But I didn't.
Yesterday, I did something else that I too often do—another lesson that I never learn. I drove back to the cemetery, in the car this time, with the camera. I had it in mind to re-create my first encounter with that fine view, and make a panorama with the Sony. This never works; no matter how similar the conditions seem, the light is never the same. I took a few pictures, here and there, a headstone, a statue, a bush. Nothing much.
And then, as I was walking back to the car, I froze—there he was! Me with a camera in my very hand, and the Great White Squirrel was not twenty yards away, frolicking among the tombstones! I had him!
"Oh, lonely death on lonely life! Oh, now I feel my topmost greatness lies in my topmost grief. Ho, ho! from all your furthest bounds, pour ye now in, ye bold billows of my whole foregone life, and top this one piled comber of my death! Towards thee I roll, thou all-destroying but unconquering whale; to the last I grapple with thee; from hell’s heart I stab at thee; for hate’s sake I spit my last breath at thee. Sink all coffins and all hearses to one common pool! and since neither can be mine, let me then tow to pieces, while still chasing thee, though tied to thee, thou damned whale! Thus, I give up the spear!"
I stalked steadily toward him, and he took refuge in a bush. Which might afford some protection for him from me, but not from the camera. Alas, he seemed to realize this as suddenly as I did, because the infernal little bugger leapt for the ground and made a run for the tallest nearby tree!
I made a quick snapshot**, and then he was up it.
He's canny, the White Squirrel. He never showed me more than the edge of his head, as he watched patiently from behind the body of the tree. He seemed to know I was after him, and he had a much better reason to be patient than I did. And of course I only have a 50mm lens for the Sony. I waited a while, wandered off, returned. No wildlife photographer I, this was the best I could get, because it was the most he showed of himself, the whole time:
But it was him, all right! A detail:
Down to his beady red albino eye.
He really is a cute little bugger. You're just going to have to take my word for it.
But don't think it's done between us yet. I still have a date with the Great White Squirrel. I'll get a halfway decent picture of him one day, or my name's not Ahab—er, Mike.
Mike
**The word "snapshot" was first applied to photographs by Sir John Herschel, the Victorian polymath who discovered the image-fixing properties to hypo. It originally meant a shot by a hunter who, surprised by a sudden encounter with game, quickly snapped shut his broken shotgun and fired without taking careful aim.
Mike, I love this. First, it's great writing, and second, I see myself in it.
Posted by: Will | Thursday, 12 November 2009 at 01:37 PM
For alomost 40 years an albino gorilla could be seen in Barcelona, Spain.
He was the only one ever seen in the world, and some kind of pet for the Zoo and the whole Barcelona.
No ahabs in Barcelona, as much as I know
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copito_de_Nieve
Posted by: Miguel | Thursday, 12 November 2009 at 01:53 PM
In the meantime... http://www.anthonygibson.com/photo.php?id=28
Posted by: Jack Brauer | Thursday, 12 November 2009 at 01:58 PM
I saw a "punk" squirrel once... He was a regular brown squirrel. He (or she) just somehow happened to have a bleach-blond tuft of fur on it's head. I'm not sure how something like that would occur, maybe some sort of partial albinism, but it certainly was there.
Posted by: Mark S. | Thursday, 12 November 2009 at 02:03 PM
Funny enough you chose a quote from Moby-Dick which I knew from a book I read early this year: "Spiritually Incorrect Enlightenment" by Jed McKenna. He uses quite some pages on Moby-Dick, and he claims the book is actually Melville's tale of his spiritual awakening. He speaks of the "mask" of the physical world, and of the prisoner's need to "strike through the wall" to what may seem like nothing, but actually it's this world which is nothing.
The white whale is not a goal, it's a barrier, the last one.
McKenna's interpretation is clearly not well known yet, at least it's not yet mentioned on Wikipedia.
(Note: if anybody is curious about McKenna's book, I recommend to start with the first one, "Spiritual Enlightenment: The Damnedest Thing".)
Posted by: Eolake Stobblehouse | Thursday, 12 November 2009 at 02:10 PM
Mike,
Your white squirrel looks like an escaped lab rat.
Posted by: Sherlock Holmes | Thursday, 12 November 2009 at 02:10 PM
If I'm reading the analogy correctly, we, your readers, are the crew,
"....a crew, too, chiefly made up of mongrel renegades, and castaways, and cannibals..."
In which case, put me down for a "mongrel renegade".
Posted by: Patrick | Thursday, 12 November 2009 at 02:31 PM
This was the best thing I've rad on TOP in a while. Loved every word.
Posted by: Stephen | Thursday, 12 November 2009 at 02:34 PM
Oh, and btw, glad to see your muse has returned.
Posted by: Patrick | Thursday, 12 November 2009 at 02:38 PM
Well, Ahab, you need the right harpoon.
That's why some of us have and carry with us pretty much everywhere a small sensor camera with decent zoom range.
You can go on and on about the mythical perfect DMD. You might have had it with you, but at 40-50mm eq., you'd still be cropping like crazy.
Is the IQ of my current, 1/1.7" sensor, belt pouch camera as good as a 4/3 or APS sensor? Nope.
Would a pic of Moby Squirrel with 210mm eq. IS lens on it be better than what you got? Yup.
I keep trying to get excited about the µ4/3 cameras. but when I realize how big they are with a decent zoom on them, my interest fades.
Like Gruesome's bag, my pockets and belt can only carry so big a camera. Once it's on a strap around my neck or in a bag, it's a whole 'nother ball game, and it just isn't there often enough for the unexpected opportunity.
It appears the G11 does raise the bar at least a notch for small sensor IQ, and it does marry the beloved twist and tilt LCD of my A650 with the look and build quality of the G series. I do want the added WA. but is 140mm eq. on the long end enough?
Moose
Posted by: Moose | Thursday, 12 November 2009 at 03:08 PM
Masterpiece.
Posted by: Shawn Barnett | Thursday, 12 November 2009 at 03:09 PM
I've read some 1,000 books or so in my life, many of them fiction, and I've only ever been unable to finish two. Moby Dick was one of them. I got halfway, and I really wanted to finish it, but I just couldn't carry on; will to live lost, and all that.
As for the albino squirrel, I'm glad for two things: that you didn't have to lose a leg for it, and that you shot it with a camera instead of a harpoon.
This photo should qualify you for membership to the prestigious WSSA (Worldwide Squirrel Shooters Association).
Best,
–Miserere
WSSA Member #249
Posted by: Miserere | Thursday, 12 November 2009 at 03:13 PM
Isn't writing a blog wonderful? One day you have a serious technical discussion about a new camera system and the next you can write a Lake Wobegonesque article about the white squirrel.
Try that in a magazine!
KeithB
PS, "The Grapes of Wrath" is pretty easy reading, and well worth it. It will change your view of things the next time you cruise down I40 towards California.
Posted by: KeithB | Thursday, 12 November 2009 at 03:19 PM
Nice post, I enjoyed reading it.
Posted by: Stephen | Thursday, 12 November 2009 at 03:31 PM
You must not be very redneck. You didn't aspire to making a post-mortem photo of the rodent prior to cooking it for dinner.
Posted by: Oleg Volk | Thursday, 12 November 2009 at 03:32 PM
Another vote that it's a rat.
Posted by: Tim Gray | Thursday, 12 November 2009 at 03:41 PM
Sherlock:
Or a mexican pet:
http://www.snopes.com/critters/lurkers/mexicanpet.asp
Posted by: KeithB | Thursday, 12 November 2009 at 03:46 PM
I used to think albino squirrels were the most fearsome neighborhood sight until I spied a jet black squirrel while walking to the bus one morning. Black as night and swift as lightning. They are both most certainly agents of The Devil though I'm not sure why He sees fit to terrorize a quiet Minneapolis neighborhood.
Posted by: HT | Thursday, 12 November 2009 at 03:48 PM
Mike,
Ever the Pentaxian, are you? Shooting squirrels with your camera.
And Proust is pretty easy once you get into a little bit. Just be sure to read the 1st volume in Lydia Davis's wonderful new translation (the rest are hit and miss).
jl
Posted by: James Liu | Thursday, 12 November 2009 at 03:51 PM
I too have struggled with some of the classics. My current wrestling partner happens to Melville's finest, but unlike you I have a good corner man: Stewart Wills. I'm listening to him read to me in the LibriVox audiobook, which is freely downloadable from http://librivox.org/moby-dick-by-herman-melville/ Thoroughly recommended.
Posted by: Chris | Thursday, 12 November 2009 at 03:56 PM
What a great story Mike. I really hope you get your squirrel. And, of course, I'm sure you will share the capture with us. My 'white whale' is really black, as in crows. While certainly not rare or hard to spot I have yet to take any shots I liked, not with a machine gun approach with my DSLR or shooting up a roll of tri-x in the Pen F. But, like you I won't give up. Least ways not while I still have bread crumbs and knee pads.
Posted by: John Robison | Thursday, 12 November 2009 at 04:00 PM
Advice from Ruby, my Brittany Spaniel. Try letting Lulu tree the squirrel. The squirrel will then be more likely to come out on a limb and give both of you a good scolding.
bd
Posted by: bobdales | Thursday, 12 November 2009 at 04:05 PM
It's definitely not a rat, guys. That's merely an illusion, created by my lack of squirrel-photographing ability. I've seen it whole and entire and reasonably close up on several different occasions, and, despite being clueless on a great many fronts, I do know a squirrel when I see one.
Mike
Posted by: Mike Johnston | Thursday, 12 November 2009 at 04:06 PM
This is why my M3 has a belt clip. I never leave home without it either in my backpack (if I'm carrying that) or on my belt. Usually there's a spare roll of film or two in a pocket of my jacket. Be prepared.
Posted by: B.J.Scharp | Thursday, 12 November 2009 at 04:15 PM
Moose (and of course others): it's no DMD, but the Lumix TZ5 really does have a nice WA and long end, + the IS....
Woulda brought the squirrel up nice 'n' close.
Posted by: Will | Thursday, 12 November 2009 at 04:22 PM
Black squirrels can sometimes be seen in England. Stealth squirrels I call them. The strange thing is that I am not sure if I have actually seen them or just been told about them.
What I have seen is mice with fur that exactly matches the dark sooty grey around the tracks in the London Underground (subway?) where they live.
Posted by: Roger Bradbury | Thursday, 12 November 2009 at 04:33 PM
I'm not telling you what to do,but...
I ALWAYS have my Fuji F10 in a pocket, or fanny pack. It's near SLR quality. Don't leave home without it.
Posted by: misha | Thursday, 12 November 2009 at 04:33 PM
So, will the end come with the white squirrel charging you on the bike? "I got the shot, Martha!"
Posted by: Riley | Thursday, 12 November 2009 at 04:36 PM
Riley,
See, I haven't gotten that far in the book. Ahab's okay in the end, isn't he? He gets the whale, and some psychotherapy, and lives happily ever after in one of those captain's houses on the coast with the lookouts on the roof?
Mike
Posted by: Mike Johnston | Thursday, 12 November 2009 at 04:41 PM
Good one Mike!
My personal White Whale, despite repeated attempts, is to finish Moby Dick. 3/4 best I can do. I can read history, bios, poetry, even John Sandford novels, other Melville, Conrad, just can't finish the White Whale.
Posted by: Bron Janulis | Thursday, 12 November 2009 at 04:43 PM
Mike,
I want to add that I'm honored to be in your company, unable to finish The Whale.
Posted by: Bron Janulis | Thursday, 12 November 2009 at 04:53 PM
I am a regular reader of books on Daily Lit (http://www.dailylit.com) which emails you a page of your book every day. It makes reading the classics pretty digestible. I am just finishing The Voyage Out by Virginia Woolf, and find that I am no longer afraid of her.
Posted by: Dave Kee | Thursday, 12 November 2009 at 04:54 PM
Oh man... white squirrels seem to make people crazy. Your squirrel looks like an albino, here in Brooklyn we have some non-albino white squirrels.
http://www.brooklynpaper.com/stories/29/47/29_47bklynangle.html
It seems that there are many places that take great pride in being THE home of white squirrels
http://www.roadsideamerica.com/set/squirrels.html
And speaking of Melville
http://vol1brooklyn.com/2009/10/15/i-went-and-visited-dead-herman-melville-and-all-i-got-were-these-iphone-pictures/
Do you think people leave Leica M3s on Henri Cartier-Bresson's grave in Cimetière de Montjustin?
Posted by: hugh crawford | Thursday, 12 November 2009 at 05:11 PM
When you offer a doubloon for the TOP reader who gets the first telephoto shot of the Great White Squirrel--that's when we worry.
Posted by: Jim Natale | Thursday, 12 November 2009 at 05:16 PM
Funny, I thought Moby Dick was a socially transmitted disease.....
Posted by: David Brookes | Thursday, 12 November 2009 at 05:30 PM
Hugh,
I am shaking my head in wonderment.
Mike
Posted by: Mike Johnston | Thursday, 12 November 2009 at 05:41 PM
You should wear a hat. A quick throw of your hat to the other side of the tree will bring the squirrel around to your side. Gently squeeze the trigger -- er, press the shutter -- and you've bagged your wee beastie.
Posted by: Ken Bennett | Thursday, 12 November 2009 at 06:16 PM
Stop using that long distance flash attachment if you want to avoid red-eye.
Posted by: Jeff | Thursday, 12 November 2009 at 06:20 PM
Bravo! A wonderful piece of writing/cut and paste. You excel yourself here. Thank you.
PS Got one for The Ancient Mariner?
Posted by: Kelvin Jones | Thursday, 12 November 2009 at 06:33 PM
I started a photo-a-day website recently, so I've taken to have my camera with me all the time now. Just this week, on the way to work, I saw a fox trotting along the front yards of houses in a neighborhood near my office.
My first (photographic) reaction was to think that I'd never get a shot off. My second reaction (the one I'm training myself to have via the exercise of posting a daily picture) was to drive ahead of the fox, pull over, grab the camera and wait for him to come to me.
I took a couple of quick pictures. They weren't great, but I wouldn't have any pictures if I hadn't had my camera with me. (http://imagidiem.wordpress.com/2009/11/10/fox-found-349/)
Posted by: Dan Arango | Thursday, 12 November 2009 at 06:45 PM
Mike, you could perhaps take some shooting tips from the bbc.com readers...this was posted there less than a week back...http://news.bbc.co.uk/local/surrey/hi/people_and_places/nature/newsid_8344000/8344582.stm
Posted by: Robert Waddingham | Thursday, 12 November 2009 at 07:12 PM
Two worldly items of note. Lance is a cheat, talk to Floyd and white squirrels reside in abundance within the bounds of Exeter, Ontario. No big news on either accord but they are both still fun to watch, again and again and again.
-Neil
Posted by: Neil "The Wheel' Clarkson | Thursday, 12 November 2009 at 07:55 PM
About an hour from our home in Greenville, SC, on the way to our favorite campground in Pisgah Forest, we pass White Squirrel Lane. My wife and I always thought it was a funny name for a road... until the day a white squirrel dashed across the road in front of the car.
Posted by: David Littlejohn | Thursday, 12 November 2009 at 08:14 PM
You might also enjoy this cycling memoir 'The Escape Artist' by Matt Seaton.
http://www.amazon.com/Escape-Artist-Life-Saddle/dp/1841151041/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1258076347&sr=1-2
Posted by: Michael W | Thursday, 12 November 2009 at 08:55 PM
Squirrels are cute, frisky and intelligent. What isn't so well know is that they are cannibalistic, too.
With best regards to all.
Stephen
Posted by: Stephen S. Mack | Thursday, 12 November 2009 at 09:20 PM
Did you mean "mad" as in "angry" when referring to the whale? Or, as in madness? It seems as if it would be madness for a big whale not to attack a whaling ship that was trying to kill it. Just a thought.
Posted by: Dave Karp | Friday, 13 November 2009 at 12:36 AM
Mike, Many years ago I lived in Texas City, TX and the town was "infested" with albino squirrels. Cute, and mostly harmless. We saw them often and occasionally someone would send a picture to the local paper which, having printed dozens of such shots in the past, simply stopped printing them.
Posted by: Malcolm Leader | Friday, 13 November 2009 at 12:52 AM
For a pocket squirrel cam the 210mm long end of a G9 is the thing to have
http://www.blipfoto.com/view.php?id=98411&month=1&year=2008
Tony
Posted by: Tony Collins | Friday, 13 November 2009 at 03:32 AM
Apparently off-topic but actually merely tangential comment: I used to be an avid reader of fiction, but in the last decade or so have been finding myself mostly reading only non-fiction, and among that, one of the most quirkily engrossing (and least expectedly so) tomes I've read was about that condiment we never give much of a thought to, salt. I'm just saying in case there are people here who don't feel like reading Moby Dick either. (The book doesn't feature any albino rodent, I'm afraid, however.)
Posted by: Ludovic | Friday, 13 November 2009 at 05:09 AM
No leaves on the trees with this Sony...
Posted by: Dave Stewart | Friday, 13 November 2009 at 07:40 AM
Ludovic,
"Salt" is by Mark Kurlansky, the same author who wrote the book on cod that I linked to in the second paragraph. I believe I have all his books....
Mike
Posted by: Mike Johnston | Friday, 13 November 2009 at 07:49 AM
It is interesting, this "stopping reading fiction" thing. I am a man of a certain age and stopped about 5 or 6 years ago with only the occasional novel slipping through now and again. I blamed (attributed this to?) Atomised by Michelle Houellebecq at the time - it seemed the novel to end the need for novels, at least then. Now, I'm not so sure - I wonder if it has to do with having seen / heard / lived through enough of life that fiction is no longer needed, or, more prosaically, whether the ubiquity and speed of the internet has once-and-for-all nixed my attention span.
Posted by: Patrick Dodds | Friday, 13 November 2009 at 08:08 AM
Another thumbs up for Jed McKenna's take on Moby Dick. One of the most amazing books I've ever read (but the Wikipedia cops won't allow a mention on the Moby Dick article).
Posted by: Gerry | Friday, 13 November 2009 at 08:12 AM
what a wonderful story Mike! though as you were going through Moby Dick, I found myself thinking of The Rime of the Ancient Mariner...!
Posted by: ben ng | Friday, 13 November 2009 at 08:14 AM
Patrick,
Abraham Lincoln read voraciously when he was young but more or less stopped reading as an older man.
I wonder sometimes if we are particularly receptive when we are driven to learn something, but then there comes a time when we have learned enough. Of course there are many examples of people reading into old age--even presidents! Jefferson, famously, had "a canine appetite for books." Montaigne, after an active and dutiful youth, retired to his chateau, surrounded himself with books, and wrote his Essays until his end.
Mike
Posted by: Mike Johnston | Friday, 13 November 2009 at 08:59 AM
OK so I only clicked on the first two dozen links in you story. Sorry! :)
(I read 'Salt' in two sittings. Like a good detective novel, only with with funnier deaths.)
Posted by: Ludovic | Friday, 13 November 2009 at 09:02 AM
Patrick,
If you ask me, Houellebecq is enough to finish not only novels but the printing industry. But that's just me.
As for "reading less fiction", I can't tell you why I do. I can, however, tell you that I find myself strangely as I age rediscovering a very child-like awe at learning just how reality can be.
Posted by: Ludovic | Friday, 13 November 2009 at 09:24 AM
Great story, well told. and a tiny part of me was hoping that your link to overfishing might even have been my own book the Hunting of the Whale ... but no matter.
Posted by: Jeremy Cherfas | Friday, 13 November 2009 at 09:57 AM
Sorry to take this discussion off topic, but that picture is also a classic case of the camera being able to "see" better than the photographer. It's amazing that you were able to crop that much of the picture and still recognize the squirrel with that level of fidelity, down to the albino eyes.
Posted by: Peter | Friday, 13 November 2009 at 10:16 AM
Peter,
I was wondering when someone would mention that. Are we already taking 24 megapixels for granted? The big Sonys really are awesome in that respect. Never ceases to amaze.
Mike
Posted by: Mike Johnston | Friday, 13 November 2009 at 10:18 AM
"Is it about a bicycle?"
('The Third Policeman' by Flann O'Brien)
Posted by: Andreas Weber | Friday, 13 November 2009 at 12:21 PM
For everyone who didn't finish Moby Dick, or who needs to catch up on their classics:
http://www.rinkworks.com/bookaminute/b/melville.moby.shtml
I also highly recommend their version of Lord of the Rings.
Posted by: Paul | Friday, 13 November 2009 at 01:17 PM
Mike, this story was a total hoot. I was having a cruddy day (engineer, can't figure out why the circuit card ain't workin'.) and stopped for a late lunch and looked up TOP.
This was much fun and really lifted my mood.
I also took the time to glance through, though I didn't read every word, all the other's comments before giving a piece of advice I learned from my Dad, an avid squirrel hunter (and eater).
When the squirrel you're trying to shoot, whether with camera or gun, is on the other side of the tree from you, quietly pick up a rock or stick and throw it past the tree. The squirrel then will often run around to your side of the tree. Then fire your weapon.
My Dad grew up poorer than poor, and always squirrel hunted with a bolt-action .22 that my Mom still has. The "throwing the stick" trick netted him many a meal in his life.
Again, fun story and thanks for sharing it so eloquently.
Posted by: John Master | Friday, 13 November 2009 at 01:20 PM
Full Tilt: Ireland to India with a Bicycle.
By Dervla Murphy
Now that is a bicycle journey...
Lance Shmance
Posted by: charlie | Friday, 13 November 2009 at 01:38 PM
Great story and literary homage.
HT writes: "I used to think albino squirrels were the most fearsome neighborhood sight until I spied a jet black squirrel while walking to the bus one morning. Black as night and swift as lightning."
I can report that if you or HT were to visit Toronto, almost all the squirrels you would see (and there are a lot here) would be black, though there are some grey individuals, and I've heard rumours of unusual white squirrel sightings also. These black squirrels are a melanistic variety of the 'Eastern Gray Squirrel' species.
My favourite sighting was one morning upon leaving my house, I saw a flash of black followed by a flash of red. Once my brain had a moment to process the information, it turned out to be an angry cardinal chasing after a squirrel at extremely close range due no doubt to some sort of inter-species misunderstanding.
Posted by: Damon Schreiber | Friday, 13 November 2009 at 03:54 PM
The 45-200mm zoom for your GF1 is a lovely, compact lens with a 400mm-e reach and stabilisation.
I know you don't use tele much, but maybe you could get into it somewhat. I like it, I like the flat perspective and how it picks out pictures nobody ever saw before because they don't see that narrowly.
Posted by: Eolake Stobblehouse | Friday, 13 November 2009 at 05:24 PM
Oh, a couple of examples here.
Posted by: Eolake Stobblehouse | Friday, 13 November 2009 at 05:25 PM
I was driving home the other day with my one of my girls. A squirrel darted out in front of the car and I hit the brakes. The squirrel realized his mistake and became panic struck. He reversed direction, stopped, reversed direction again, ran a few feet, stopped, reversed direction again and made it to the safety of a tree. My daughter and I turned to each other and simutaneously said, "Squirrel-brain".
One of those father/daughter bonding moments...
Posted by: Tom Duffy | Monday, 16 November 2009 at 11:35 AM