We had a nice couple of showers in the past 24 hours and so I have collected enough rainwater that I'm not too worried about a dry summer. Yesterday as I was crossing the overpass near my building, I saw a beautiful rainbow suspended just over the roof.
Sometimes when I am sitting inside, the western sky is lit by the late afternoon sun and the plants in the courtyard form a wonderfully luminescent backdrop behind my two blooming phalaenopsis and my row of green shoots. There is a pale lavender crepe-myrtle on the left and a bright orange and yellow thing, I don't know the name, on the right. It has popcorn-type blossoms at the end of long chevron-leafed canes. These two plants frame a rusty brown urn that bubbles with water in the center of a pool, and occasionnaly a shiny black grackle sits raven-like on the edge, drinking and flexing its wings.
My little flasklings seem to be at a standstill and there is even a little attrition: the roots don't seem to be growing. I fear I may have separated them too soon. But a few are still going strong so we'll see how it works out. I've picked up some books and am just amazed at the variation in Dendrobia orchids. The antennatum varieties are all especially graceful.
P.S.:
after posting here I went on to work on my links and while doing that, i discovered a whole slew of beautiful orchid videos! Scroll down the sidebar to see my video-box!
Scroll Down For Orchid Painting Videos
Tuesday, July 8, 2008
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Fine Texas Rain
Going With The Flow
Drawing On Air
Book Review: Orchid Thief
The Orchid Thief by Susan Orlean
1998 Random House 282 pages
I saw the movie Adaptations when I first got caught up in orchid-keeping. My brother insisted, once he had introduced me to the idea that I could share my home with orchids, that this step was required. He sent me the DVD and I dutifully watched: it was good. A good story, Meryl Streep of course an excellent star, and Nicolas Cage as the leading male, very good. Excellent: both of them as enticingly lush as any beckoning Ghost Orchid.
But now I have read the book on which the movie is based, Orchid Thief by Susan Orlean, and I have to say this, even Streep is not a good enough actress to capture the essence of the female lead in this true story: the journalist, Susan Orlean. In fact, it is a compliment to Streep's own natural character, her own integrity of spirit, that she chose not to convey the full sense of Susan Orlean's ignorance, shallowness, and ......
what's the polite word? uhm.... bullshit.
Reading Orlean's book is like living near a fetid swamp. Most of the time you don't quite notice the steaming odor, but now and then a breeze hits your nose just right and you exclaim "what a stink!" and you wonder if you are damaging your own ability to think clearly if you continue to breathe this air.
Page 148 in the chapter "Anyone Can Grow Orchids" is like that. Orleans writes: "Just then one of Martin's long-legged mud-colored dogs trotted into the house and bit me really hard. I made enough noise that everyone noticed immediately. Martin grabbed the dog and started discussing how interesting this was because the dog had never bitten anyone before. I thought the conversation was rather academic, so after listening for a second I limped over to the house and went to find some rabies medicine...."
You know, if Ms. Orleans wants to really make an important contribution as a journalist, maybe she should forget about orchids and tell us about this "rabies medicine" that you can keep at home in case your dog bites anyone. She could have rescued herself by following up with a vignette about how this ignorant staff writer for the New Yorker discovers that if you think you have contracted rabies, you have to go into the hospital for a very painful treatment only after they have killed the dog and confirmed that it was indeed rabid.
If the people with the secret orchid lairs in Florida are hiding some kind of secret rabies medicine, we need to know about it! Give the girl the Nobel prize for discovering it!
Sheesh. Get this book from the public library if you must read it, because it is a sin to put any more money into either the publisher or the author's wallets. And if you do, remember this rabies incident when you read some of her trash-talk about the orchid growers, Seminoles, and other folks she met.
Here's a link to a good interview with Streep and Orlean
1998 Random House 282 pages
I saw the movie Adaptations when I first got caught up in orchid-keeping. My brother insisted, once he had introduced me to the idea that I could share my home with orchids, that this step was required. He sent me the DVD and I dutifully watched: it was good. A good story, Meryl Streep of course an excellent star, and Nicolas Cage as the leading male, very good. Excellent: both of them as enticingly lush as any beckoning Ghost Orchid.
But now I have read the book on which the movie is based, Orchid Thief by Susan Orlean, and I have to say this, even Streep is not a good enough actress to capture the essence of the female lead in this true story: the journalist, Susan Orlean. In fact, it is a compliment to Streep's own natural character, her own integrity of spirit, that she chose not to convey the full sense of Susan Orlean's ignorance, shallowness, and ......
what's the polite word? uhm.... bullshit.
Reading Orlean's book is like living near a fetid swamp. Most of the time you don't quite notice the steaming odor, but now and then a breeze hits your nose just right and you exclaim "what a stink!" and you wonder if you are damaging your own ability to think clearly if you continue to breathe this air.
Page 148 in the chapter "Anyone Can Grow Orchids" is like that. Orleans writes: "Just then one of Martin's long-legged mud-colored dogs trotted into the house and bit me really hard. I made enough noise that everyone noticed immediately. Martin grabbed the dog and started discussing how interesting this was because the dog had never bitten anyone before. I thought the conversation was rather academic, so after listening for a second I limped over to the house and went to find some rabies medicine...."
You know, if Ms. Orleans wants to really make an important contribution as a journalist, maybe she should forget about orchids and tell us about this "rabies medicine" that you can keep at home in case your dog bites anyone. She could have rescued herself by following up with a vignette about how this ignorant staff writer for the New Yorker discovers that if you think you have contracted rabies, you have to go into the hospital for a very painful treatment only after they have killed the dog and confirmed that it was indeed rabid.
If the people with the secret orchid lairs in Florida are hiding some kind of secret rabies medicine, we need to know about it! Give the girl the Nobel prize for discovering it!
Sheesh. Get this book from the public library if you must read it, because it is a sin to put any more money into either the publisher or the author's wallets. And if you do, remember this rabies incident when you read some of her trash-talk about the orchid growers, Seminoles, and other folks she met.
Here's a link to a good interview with Streep and Orlean
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