DITCH DIGGING

After more than twenty years in AZ, Your Humble Narrator finally made it to the Grand Canyon (I had seen it once from an airplane to Vegas, but was assured that this wasn’t the same, and indeed it wasn’t). The trip was for a Wrangler News story about the visit of the Regensburger Domspatzen boys choir from Germany, one of the oldest such choirs in Europe (founded 975 A.D.!). Both the view and the music were quite mind-blowing. Here are a couple of pictures of Yours Humbly taken by Wrangler News photographer Billy Hardiman:

In that last one I’m posing with Tempe Sister Cities co-founder Dick Neuheisel, and Hans Shaidinger, the Mayor of Regensburg. The imbecilic look on my face is mostly a product of terror; we were far too close to edge for my taste. Anyway, I can’t say I ever thought that I’d find myself chatting about BMWs with the Mayor of Regensburg, Germany on the South Rim of the Grand Canyon.

Then last week, thanks to a kind gift of passes by a friend, The Wife, The Kid and I got to go see the Chihuly show at Desert Botanical Gardens…

Good show, but my reaction to his work, as before, is that it’s cool but unsettling—his sculptures have a teeming, seething look, like alien invasive species.

Check out this month’s issue of Phoenix Magazine…

…for my profile of Tyler Severance, a world yo-yo champion based here in the Valley. It’s on Page 35, or you can preview it here.

ANT, HILL

Driving south on Galvin Parkway Wednesday evening around sunset, Your Humble Narrator saw giant ants crawling down a hillside. No kidding:

Even though I had heard about this exhibit at Desert Botanical Gardens, I was still startled for a split second. Because…

…Monster-of-the-Week: …a few weeks ago, The Kid & I watched the peerless 1954 giant ant movie Them! So the nod this week goes, for the second time, to any individual he or she or it belonging to the aggregate them! from that film…

(By the way, herewith is a policy change for Monster-of-the-Week: I have decided that I may sometimes reuse a monster, or even recycle some or all of what I wrote about him/her/it.)

RIP Heavy D, departed at 44. Hooray for the unseating of Russell Pearce. Finally, for the record, Joe Paterno & his PSU colleagues are a disgrace, & sadly it appears this would be true even in the unlikely event that the charges against Sandusky were proven false.