Bahamian Bird Tuesday

In honor of this being my 692nd post and it being Tuesday (and because I can) I hereby declare today to be Bahamian Bird Tuesday.

This is a male Western Spindalis, known in birding circles as Spindalis zena. It's a large (16.5cm), forest-dwelling bird and there's some heated debate among birders and taxonomists over whether it should be classified as a tanager or a finch. I side with the tanager partisans on this one, though that is not a popular view.

Despite the hoopla surrounding its classification, there are few thrills to compare with seeing one of these guys alight on the branch of a Gumbo Limbo tree while you're enjoying a quiet cup of coffee as the sun comes up.

Witch moth or money bat?

This is Ascalapha odorata, known in The Bahamas as a bat moth or a money bat. A. odorata is the largest moth in the western hemisphere and it can be found across Mesoamerica, the Caribbean and The Bahamas. Sometimes, they show up in the extreme southern US, though I have never seen one here.

A. odorata has a wingspan between six and seven inches, so they are hard to miss. Just about everywhere they're found, they're commonly called such names as witch moth, black witch, death moth and death butterfly. They are considered to be a harbinger of doom and in rural Mexico, getting one in the house portends the death of a member of that household. Pretty macabre stuff to attribute to a harmless moth.

Well, in The Bahamas they are everywhere. Inside the house, outside the house, day and night, they are as much a part of life on the Out Islands as land crabs and mosquitoes. In what I take to be a profound commentary on the very essence of Bahamian culture, these moths are treated as a welcome guest.

Bahamians call them money bats and having one fly into the house is a very good thing. In fact, having one come in means that you will come into an unexpected windfall. Having one hit you on the face as it comes in is even more lucky. In the last week, I got hit in the face by enough money bats that I ought to be rolling in the dough in a matter of days.

For a group of people who have been and continue to be so completely shafted by the world events that swirl around them, I think it speaks volumes about their national character. I went to a self improvement seminar ages ago and the speaker kept urging us to "choose what's so." It didn't make a whole lot of sense to me at the time, but in the years since I've come to see it as a really great thing to practice. If I can't change something about my life or the role I play in it, why not treat that something as if I chose it rather than moaning and wailing about having it forced upon me? If I'm surrounded by black moths with six inch wingspans and I can't do a thing about it, why not welcome them in? Why not indeed?

I may be completely out to lunch with this, just another stupid American who's hopelessly out of his element there. And so what if I am? It's a great honor to be granted a peek into the culture and lives of a group of people who are located closer to me than Atlanta is, yet who exist in a world I can barely imagine.

Home.

I'm back and I wish I could be enthusiastic about that. It'll come, though I might need a few days.

However, I have to say that the highlight of my return was seeing all of the terrific posts that appeared here in my absence. Such a diverse group of voices! Each post is a gem and I love seeing how all of that came together. Endless thank yous go out to David, Melody, Kevin, Saxon, Leslie, Adrienne, Elizabeth and Karin. If I can ever return the favor, don't hesitate to ask. If any of you would ever like to post again just let me know and my forum is yours.

In the week ahead I promise to go easy on my vacation photos though there are a couple of peak experiences I cannot wait to get off my chest. Too, there's more to come from the world of mosaics, more custom fabric samples to show, more appliances to review and design ideas to mull over. Being without this particular mouthpiece for a week has shown me just how big a part of my life it is. Believe me, I wouldn't have it any other way.

The Glass is Always Greener

That pun is in honor of my good friend Lou - a prodigious creator of horrifying puns. Lou's graduate thesis in landscape architecture centered on an island in Boston Harbor that had been a landfill for the better part of a century. Back in those days, people wantonly discarded everything and recycling was not a commonly used word yet. Today, people take more responsibility for the impact they have on the environment. I did a little digging (puns again) to find out what people are doing today to reduce the amount of trash headed for the landfill. Specifically, I wanted to know what materials are available for residential design that use recycled glass.

The first company whose product lines caught my eye is Hakatai. They specialize only in glass tile, have a few recycled glass options, a serious clearance selection, and some great pictures. Honestly though, not the greenest company I found but I can't resist this bamboo mosaic destined for someone's swimming pool.


Bedrock Industries in Seattle makes Blazestone Tiles out of 100% recycled glass with no pigment added. They produce some miraculous colors but I am really fond of this back splash that looks like it was made simply with the bottoms of beer and wine bottles.
Two Portland OR companies I found produce different kinds of recycled glass products. The first company, Second Glass, recycles automotive windshield into glass for doors, windows, and shower enclosures. I love the spiderweb pattern of broken safety glass, and I think their products would look amazing as cabinet doors or for a privacy glass option in a bathroom window. Someone please help them with their photography though - the pictures on their website have bad lighting and weird angles.
The best selection of glass tile that I came across was from Stardust Glass. Their website has a wide variety of sizes and shapes for tile and a gorgeous palette of colors to choose from. I like some of the color schemes found in their gallery of photos. I especially like the combination of colors in the circular tile below. Take time to explore their site for yourself to get more close up photos of their work.

Now if we can just get rid of the teapot collection....

Now for the strangest recycled glass product I came across in this search:

The company that makes this heat sensitive tile is Moving Color. Unique tile, although I am not sure it is something I would want in my house. Seeing its unusual properties forced me to include it here. If you would like to know more, there are lots of beautiful time-lapse pictures at their website or also you can read all about it here at www.inventables.com. I actually learned their product contains recycled glass from the details at inventables.com rather than their homepage, which makes me wonder how good it is for the environment to melt down a bunch of moodrings to make tile anyway.

Well, it's wonderful that Paul's back, and I am excited to hear more about the trip. I will be posting again about this journey through recycled glass products - but I am going to approach it from a local angle. Until then....take care and beware the witch moth!

Mad Men is coming!

"An hour of Mad Men is better than anything in the theaters on any given week" quipped Anthony Rue, former film historian, archivist and film festival coordinator, who is now the omnipresent owner of Volta in downtown Gainesville, Florida. Anthony keeps me fueled with excellent microlot coffees from around the world, and Volta has a massive chocolate selection that serves as my one stop gift shop for all my friends. Anthony has a discerning developed taste and he is a acerbic astute critic - for him to give Mad Men such glowing praise reassured me the show is more than just a guilty voyeuristic pleasure of mine.



I just watched the first and last episodes of the second season again today and I still drool at the dead on styling and acting. If you want to get a mouthwatering look at mid century modern design in motion, check out the sets of Mad Men. The part I love the best is that you get to invade period homes that actually look lived in as well as offices, hotels, and restaurants.


The series is a time machine trip back to the land before PC - not just personal computers, but political correctness. It takes place before everything had a warning label. Children played with dry cleaning bags on their heads. No one wears seat belts and there are no car seats for the kiddies. Pregnant women smoke and drink, really everyone smokes and drinks, except the priest, who needs to start. People are racist, red-hating, xenophobic, sexist, homophobic and stereotypical - just as I imagine they were in the middle of the twentieth century. It is amazing that anyone survived such a barbaric time - yet the main character Donald Draper marvels at the luxury and progress of it all and wonders:

"How can anyone not be happy with all this"?

Check out Mad Men tonight at 8PM on AMC.....I know AMC? Yes AMC. It might take awhile to catch up with the happenings since the writers do not backfill the storylines with a bunch of boring recaps. The DVDs of the first two seasons can be had for chump change on the internet, or if you are savvy, you can find the show episodes offered online for your pirate pleasure. For me, this new season is going to pass the time nicely until Jack, Kate, Locke, Sawyer, Hurley and the rest of the gang come and take me back to the island where I belong.