Pelicans Eating Things They Shouldn't

Mystified as I often am by nature documentaries, I was spending a pleasant evening watching Life, Planet Earth's spin-off series.  While being informed by Oprah's commanding voice, I was shocked and appalled to find out a new and gruesome tidbit that has resulted among animals due to overfishing.  Lately, pelicans in certain areas have begun to prey on the young of smaller birds nesting on neighboring islands to their own water-locked nurseries.  They swoop over and pluck the chick up in their fleshy bill, and therein it flails, almost perfectly outlined and distinguishable in their weird neck sacks.  Then they feed them to their own young.  Terrifying, no?

Here is the video for you to watch it yourself...

Here at BC/HF, we could go on and on about our distress related to global warming, over population, the horrors of the food industry, and so on.  Let it suffice for now to say that incidents of this type - seabird unnaturally pitted against fellow seabird - are popping up everywhere as a result of man-made destruction.  Many scientists have agreed that most fish being bought and sold on the market today - and that includes canned tuna - is not safe to eat because of conditions in fisheries, let alone being taken away from the thousands of species who also depend on the fish as a vital source of life and energy.
This blog entry is primarily comical - most beings without hands use their mouths to explore, and here are many pictures of pelicans doing the same - but its roots are in the sobering notion of just how far humanity has led itself and its fellow creatures.

Most likely being preyed upon by this bird really, really. fucking hurts.  I know you don't have hands and have to use your mouth to explore things, but c'mon maan..

A Very Vintage Easter

We at Holdfast/Bellacozy have always grown up celebrating easter in fairly conventional American ways.  Now that we have grown and experienced life, we have, let's say, less American views.  We are into it less for the spiritual reasons, although identify much more with the Pagan fertility, etc. viewpoint.  Our appreciation for it is purely based on the saturated, unrelated features - namely the rabbits and chicks.

In other nations who celebrate easter, the non-jesus cultural icons are just as absurd as our own.  In France for instance, rather than an easter bunny, a giant chocolate flying bell flies through the countryside delivering fish-shaped candy treats into the shoes of little girls and boys who have leftth

Color me anything

Bellacozy/Holdfast live to behold.  Images of all sorts rule our lives and a strong component we look for is color.
As evidenced in many contemporary art pieces, color decisions can make rubbish art much more pleasing to the eyes.  People like Mark Rothko and Joseph Albers have made a name for themselves just by having good color sense - and little else.
Color is something that doesn't come naturally, and BC/HF, in their own art creation, were pretty bad at it for a while.  After you recognize enough examples of good color pairing, though, it has begun to slowly set in.  Though it may be tough to create good color pairings of our own, to recognize them is an instantaneous human act.

One of HF/BC many areas of interest is Synesthesia, a neurological condition in which stimulation of one sensory or cognitive pathway leads to automatic, involuntary experiences in a second sensory or cognitive pathway.  This creates the amazing sensation of tasting color or seeing smells.  It is difficult for those not afflicted with the condition to even fathom, but one might agree that the prospect is fascinating and highly desireable.

Didi Conn only had bubblegum hair for one number in Grease, but I always thought it suited her better than being blonde or red.

BC/HF love to look at nail polish, specifically because it immediately illustrated the product - pure color. Similarly to paint swatches in a hardware store, we could look at them for hours, and always take them.

In nature, the importance of color is highly evident.  In most species of birds, the males' worth is based upon flashy displays using beautiful plumage.  In other animals, their outward appearance is ruled by the seasons.  Sometimes, color and pattern can mean life or death.  To humans, most camouflage attemts and artificial eyes are successfully deceptive, but have only been made so after millions of years of life dependent on color.

Many bakers have produced or attempted production of rainbow cakes.  I know they have a lot of dye in them, but you better believe I'd still eat it.  This is not synesthesia.

Natural color phenomena is not limited to plants and animals, either.  Since the dawn of time, minerals have created gorgeous displays in stones, caves, sand, and riverbeds.

The flamboyant cuttlefish can change not only its color but also its texture, to warn predators of its venom, or to avoid them by blending in to its surroundings.

One of Banksy's first exhibitions, featuring an elephant in the room, painted to match the beautigul wallpaper.

Much to Holdfast's significant other's discontent, we are very into wrist watches, and prefer to wear two or more at a time.  Striking color makes telling time all the better.

Thanks to modernity, both candy and pills now come in a range of delightfully bright and appealing colors, so much so that they bear a striking resemblance to one another.

Holdfast is having a candy buffet at her wedding and Bellacozy is super-stoked.

Minerals and bacteria at work in places populated by humans change the appearance of things, too.  Rust has long been a thing of beauty to some, and backbreak to others.  A method of acheiving a rusty patina on the fly is to douse the metal with racehorse urine.

Color seems to carry a lot of weight with regard to the appeal of food, as well.  Scientists say that red and orange make us hungry, and I find food with a variety of colors to be far more appetising pre-consumption than a plate of bland.