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Sunday 7 June 2009

The Light of the World at 9000 Feet




File:Stellers jay - natures pics.jpg




A big
bossy-crested
blue jay
with electric black
wings
and a simonized
gorgeousness
about him
flashes into
the aspens
like sheet
lightning




File:Fall-apsens-La-sal.jpg





Steller's Jay: photo by Alan D. Wilson, 2006

Aspens changing color in mid fall
: photo by Zephyr Glass, 2007

1 comment:

TC/BTP said...

I am reminded by one of those treasured creatures, a person not raised in the US, that not everybody will know what is meant by "a simonized gorgeousness". The epithet attempts to capture that sheen glancing off the bluejay's wings as it flashes into the aspens by comparing it with the gleaming protective patina applied to the metal surfaces of automobiles by a product called Simoniz.

This blog has not yet realized any benefits of product placement, even while blatantly advertising its eligibility for same (see Afternoons, with its lovely portrait of a Johnson & Johnson Band-Aid). Thus a word or two about Simoniz would be strictly to the ends of knowledge. It is a product that has over the past hundred years applied a shine to billions of tons of metal. One was surprised to learn it has survived the years. One remembers it as simply the wax you polished your car with. Now it seems Simoniz has mutated into a complex shielding agent containing all sorts of paint sealants and even a strong dash of Teflon, guaranteed to protect a vehicle from "tree sap, bird waste, insects and a wide range of other adverse environmental conditions and contaminants."

And here the trees, birds and insects had perhaps thought of themselves in a somewhat better light.

Curiously, though Simoniz still exists in its new complex chemical form, the long gone simple wax polish is regarded in some sectors with a certain nostalgia. The sides of old brick buildings in ungentrified sections of American towns and cities still retain the traces of old Simoniz ads, weathered and faded by time, thus attaining informal landmark status--after all, America boasts no Giottos or Piero della Francescas among its historical wall painters.

Really about the best we can do is a


Fading Simoniz Ad