The Urban Pantheist

This picture makes my job look pretty boring, I guess. Yet another weird space in the Tropical Forest building; no animals, just disused electrical equipment. This looks like audio mixing stuff to me, and it hasn't moved in 3 years. Probably too valuable to throw out, too useless to use.

Here's a hypothetical question about you giving me money: would you donate some money in exchange for a sticker and maybe a picture blogged here of a zoo animal? I'm trying to come up with money to buy stickers.

From an article in my town's local paper, about hazardous waste disposal:

· Compact fluorescent lights should be put back in original packaging for storage, or taken to Home Depot or Whole Foods supermarket for recycling.

Back in the original packaging? I was supposed to keep that? That was like five years ago, isn't that the point? "For storage?" For how long? Until the apocalypse and I can use them for fuel/weapons?

I know I ask a lot of my entomologist friends but: HEY? what gives? This water strider has mites! I've never seen that before, and now all of a sudden about 3/4 of the water striders on Ward's Pond have mites clinging to them. Most around their eyes, but some on their backs.

I'm planning a Year of the Tiger fundraising event for the American Zoo and Aquarium Association.

I'm looking for donations of Tiger-themed gifts and prizes. I will be making some cold calls looking for stuff from big companies, but I thought I'd ask you guys if you had anything that might be suitable for donation. I can get a tax-deduction receipt for you if you want, and can acknowledge you on the flyers and such that get generated.

Also: if you are in the Boston area, and would like to participate, please do! The details are still being ironed out but this much we know: ROCK BAND TOURNAMENT, probably the last week of June, proceeds to benefit tiger conservation.

I always like to give you guys first crack at things.

I hate to spoil the surprise, but the slideshow I'm putting together for the Muddy River project is turning into a 10 minute video. I cut the duration each picture is shown, down to a half second, and it felt like an assault. Definitely not the effect I was going for. Will people bother to watch a ten minute slideshow of the river? Does it even matter? I guess not.

My daughter has asked if we could celebrate Hanukkah. I would like to give her the opportunity of learning about other cultures, even though I know her main motivation is to play the dreidel game and get candy. Soooo, does anyone know what store I could visit to get a dreidel and a menorah? And are there any web sites to help someone who knows little about Jewish traditions celebrate Hanukkah? Like, "Hanukkah for dummies"?

I bet someone here can answer this.

Behind the cut are a series of questions about mushrooms, mostly about edibility since that's what people like to know about. The natural history and ecology stuff I'll cover in the class but I thought this might make a good handout for people what do you think?

( click for FAQs )

I've answered mushroom questions here and here before, but if you have any more (especially you new people) please ask away!

Margaret, as far as the American Chestnut Tree goes, I don't know much. I see that there is a preservation society trying to breed blight-resistant trees from existing survivors. There's a page of photographs of existing trees, but locations are not very specific. I will throw the question out to my readers:

Do you know of any surviving American chestnut trees? Especially in New England. My friend would like to visit one (or many).

Once we become aware of how privileged we are, what are we to do with this information?

So this steampunk thing has caught on like gangbusters lately, and I think it's weird. Its origins go back a long time, but unlike a lot of collective cultural fantasies, there's no group of high-profile pop-culture works to propel it. The space opera collective fantasy, simmering for the entire 20th century in Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon comic strips and serials and such, suddenly got a huge boost with Star Wars in 1977, and has never looked back really. The vampire collective fantasy got its big launch with Bela Lugosi's dracula, and Universal pictures milked it successfully to the point that there's a vampire breakfast cereal, and vampire romance novels for teen girls.

But as far as high profile steampunk movies go, all I can think of are some serious bombs: Wild Wild West, League of Extraordinary Gentleman (the comic book source probably did more to help out the steampunk meme than the almost universally hated movie), and the tepid Hellboy sequel. I have no doubt that a hugely successful movie that exploits the steampunk trope will come out in a matter of months, and this discussion will be forgotten. But at this moment, it's baffling to me how many people in my life, on livejournal, and so on. seem to be fascinated with brass goggles, clockwork robots, and high tech plumbing. Can it all be from fantasy novels?

Some grad student somewhere is working on a paper explaining the appeal--the combination of nostalgia, hopefulness, fashion sense, ecological awareness, the alternate reality of the industrial/technological revolutions. I bet you have some opinions, too.

EDITED TO ADD: Please post a picture of yourself in your steampunk costume along with your comment.