Seeking the Sublime in the Everyday

 I was about to write about Baseball because it's that time of year but then I heard on Brian Lehrer's show, this amazing phrase; Charismatic Megafauna . Brian was interviewing climate change novelist Lydia Millet.  I've never heard of her before but I'm definitely looking her up. When she dropped this wonderful term Brian, bless him, said, "Wait, what did you say?  What is charismatic megafauna?" Well, charismatic means, "exercising a compelling charm which inspires devotion in others."   I've been drawing animals all my life but this sounds so much more glamorous. I haven't had time to do real research but here's what Wikipedia says. Charismatic megafauna  are animal species that are large—in the relevant category that they represent [1] —with  symbolic value  or widespread popular appeal, and are often used by environmental activists to gain public support for  environmentalist  goals. [2] Examples include  tigers ,  lions ,...

Have you seen my spiffy big cats?  A nice look for Fall the King of the Jungle in Ralph Lauren  I had just decided to write this week's blog about my Big Cat collages when I heard on NPR a story about Bertie Gregory, nature photographer and filmmaker, talking about what it takes to film wild animals--that would be passion and persistence. He followed a pride of lions for months, working with conservationists to attach tracking devices on them. He got to hold a Lioness's head while she got pinned and said he'd never realized how really big a lion's head is.   He learned that among the greatest threats to the lions is snares; they get entangled in the traps set for smaller animals and then they're in real trouble.  My first thought was, "Call the mice!" Remember Aesop's fable of the Lion and the Mouse? Where the Lion caught a mouse but didn't eat him and later he got ensnared in a trap and the mouse gnawed away the ropes and the Lion was free.  Aesop...