“Once inside a rainforest, structural complexity is obvious. How immense it seems, and how dark and enclosing as dense canopy foliage shades the forest interior, especially in the attenuated morning light.”

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“The bad news is that for students of Neotropical biology, it will not be possible to identify accurately most plants to the level of species. There are just too many look-alike species, and the ranges of many species are not precisely known….”

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“As we continue our perambulations through the rainforest we cannot help but notice the plethora of vines and epiphytes. Trees are so laden with these hitchhikers that it is often a challenge to discern the actual crown from the myriad ancillary plants. With binoculars and practice, however, we can begin to make some sense of what is growing where and on what.”

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“In many tropical forests, even the epiphytes can have epiphytes. Tropical leaves are often colonized by tiny lichens, mosses and liverworts, which grow only after the leaf has been tenanted by a diverse community of microbes: bacteria, fungi, algae and various yeasts, as well as microbial animals such as slime molds, amoebas, and ciliates. This tiny community that lives among the leaves is termed the epiphyllus community, and its existence adds yet another dimension to the vast species richness of tropical moist forests.”

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All quotes from James Kirchner’s A Neotropical Companion

A sweet French family own a little bistro tucked off a main road in Auburn, California. They cultivate the tiny strip of land between the restaurant parking lot and the road with an abundant vegetable garden. The crop goes straight to the kitchen – tasty use of public space.

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Jayme: Freakonomics blogger investigates the origin of ‘awesome’… I don’t know if I believe his findings, but in the comments section people point out the cartoon Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles may actually have some role to play in the widespread use of ‘awesome’… which, in and of itself, is pretty AWESOME.

Kristin: I personally think that ‘awesome’ developed partly as an antidote to the overuse of ‘cool.’ Cool has a kind of restraint and approval implicit to it that awesome is not limited by. Cool implies a cutting edge, but awesome has more of an anytime, anywhere potential. Of course awesome is overused, and I’ll admit I’m part of the problem, but I still find it irreplaceable and a refreshing alternative to cool.

origin unknown

Jayme: I think ‘awesome’ has within it the ability to delight, which ‘cool’ does not. Being delighted is a pretty great feeling that doesn’t get as much credit as it deserves. (I think there’s actually an article about this feeling, floating around somewhere, written by a New Yorker or NY Review of Books person, or something.) I like that awesome is primarily a west coast thing, and even on the west coast primarily a Californian thing. If the rest of the country or the world doesn’t like the abundant use of the world awesome they can SUCK IT.

Kristin: Indeed, delight is way underrated. One of the problems with cool is that it kind of suppresses the abundant emotional expression of enjoying a thing.

Jayme: It’s lunch time so the only thing I can think about is an In-N-Out analogy. ‘Cool’ is boring. ‘Awesome’ is language, animal-style.

From an email exchange with the inimitable Jayme Yen.

Last week I paid a visit to an elementary school in Oakland. The man I was going to visit said: after you park, just walk straight ahead and “my door is the one without the bar on it.” Literally, all the other doors had steel bars locked in place across them. A 14 foot high chain link fence wrapped around the school perimeter, with barbed wire at the top where the the playing field bordered on a construction zone. It was unclear whether the fence was there to keep kids in or out.

Afterwards we stopped at Chevy’s, where I was surprised to see giant beer ads on the restroom doors.

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Working conditions have been unorthodox lately.

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A friend brought me these stickers as a gift, and they’ve hung in my studio since. We suspect they’re palestinian soap opera stars.

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Card catalogs still exist! This one was specifically for songs.

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A friend of mine puts post-it notes on her blackberry.

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