Monday, July 27, 2009

German rebuses, ca. 1896-1899

Found in two antique German books, Das Neue Universum, vols. 16 and 19.












Friday, July 3, 2009

Cher Ami, pigeon of honor




A couple of neighborhood birds have taken a liking to sitting in the windowsill next to my new desk to stare at me while tilting their heads sideways. They bring a bit of the curious urban wilderness into my daily orbit. My notion of "wilderness" has become so debased that it has come to this.


Then I discovered a whole underground subset of the pigeon population, carrier pigeons. Among their ranks are several WORLD RENOWNED pigeons like Cher Ami (believe it or not, he is not the only pigeon with its own Wikipedia biography), a homing pigeon that helped save 200+ lives during WWI and returned from his last mission blinded and with one leg hanging by a thread. After his leg was amputated, he received a wooden prosthesis. He's now in the Natural History Museum, god rest his soul.