Monday, September 17, 2007

A Champion for Bill--Jousting Piper

Monday, September 17, 2007
8 comments
Oh, Liz of the Cosmos, we love you. Krazy girl. Only you would give us a giant metal peep. For Letters from Eden readers, this is the same Liz who appears at the opening of the chapter, "Calling Kali." She is a font of the good and the bizarre alike. And often the bizarrely good.--JZ

Silver legs, yellow bill, crested crown these were the first field marks I noted. But it was big--BIG--too big for a shorebird.
It must be a Bill of the Bird's bird!
So there I was snapping pictures of this giant silly bird with a golden egg wondering if it was the city mascot, thinking, this is perfect for Bill. He could blog about this and have the best time. That silly man. He makes me laugh and it is fun to make him laugh.
I thought, wait I could blog about the great metal peep--yes, my precious. He shall not have it! It is mine. Yessss.
Then I awoke from my dreams to find Bilbo had been sent on a quest. A quest that would take him beyond the bounds of Indigo Hill, flying on the back of the Dragon to the mountains of the Inca. Bill of the Birds must leave the shire on a mission and needs a guest host to post.
So the story begins. I grabbed my cosmic communicator and buzzed the Snow Hill Chamber of Commerce to find out about the origin of the Jousting Sandpiper that lives across the street from the greatest bookstore in Snow Hill Maryland, ALICE on the banks of the Pocomoke River.
The Chamber maid informed me that this was one in a series of sandpipers commissioned for a fundraiser out of Ocean City, MD "Ocean City Birds". South Padre Island TX had Porpoises. Wilmington, DE had Dinosaurs. New Orleans wanted crazy Buddhas...but that idea was shot down.
Sandpipers in various forms painted by various artists live all over
Worcester county. "The Den of Iniquity" a Maryland blog has photos of the complete flock
I like Driftwood!

--photo by Den of Iniquity

After all this time of holding that silly photo I have the rest of the story.
Thanks for trippin' Bilbo!

Here's wishing you and all your friends a bearded helmetcrest hummingbird.
May we all get to Peru someday.
Happy trails,
Liz of the Cosmos
www.elizabird.com

All right, you've outed him. He's in Peru. He called me on our anniversary, September 11. He was on a riverboat in the upper Amazon. Pink dolphins were surfacing all around the boat. He couldn't stop calling out their locations to everyone else. The conversation went something like this:

"So, yes, I do miss you and I want to..RIGHT THERE!! RIGHT AGAINST THAT DARK LOG!!! get home and start NO! FARTHER TO THE RIGHT!!...figuring out..WOW THEY'RE SOOO PINK!!!

I understood, and let him go. --JZ


8 comments:

On September 17, 2007 at 9:15 PM mon@rch said...

just love those birds and do I see some golden eggs? a

On September 17, 2007 at 10:41 PM Rondeau Ric said...

and all this time I thought it was a goose that laid the golden eggs...

On September 17, 2007 at 11:52 PM Poppy Z. Brite said...

Hi, Bill. Longtime reader/admirer, first-time commenter, and lifelong New Orleanian. I've not heard anything about us ever wanting "crazy Buddhas" -- we do have a fairly large and very cool Vietnamese population, but many of them are Catholic, and other than that there's no real cultural connection. However, we do have large, beautifully decorated fleurs-de-lis in many of our public spaces. Just thought you might be interested to know.

On September 18, 2007 at 9:17 AM dguzman said...

Wow, is that a Prince Valiant haircut on that bird?

I've seen the dolphins at South Padre; they've got nothing on this crazy-ass knight-bird.

On September 18, 2007 at 11:09 AM Mary said...

Great post, Liz! I think BOTB would have had a field day with this special but crazy looking bird :o)

JZ - your ending commentary made me smile.

On September 18, 2007 at 4:39 PM elizabird said...

Poppy Z.,
Once upon a time a client of mine was a consulted about making giant sculptures and the idea was floated to do Buddhas. It was a very preliminary idea and was shot down on every front as were many others. We got a big laugh from the idea. I am glad to know the fleurs-de-lis was the final pick. The idea to decorate Buddhas in such a crazy way has never ceased to bring a smile to my face. I imagine the Buddha would also laugh.
Happy trails,
Liz

On September 18, 2007 at 9:08 PM Poppy Z. Brite said...

Wow, elizabird! I'd love to know who came up with the idea of the Buddhas. They certainly would have been surreal presences in our beautiful but violent city.

The fleurs-de-lis postdate the failure of the federal levee system. Before that, for many years, we had decorated giant redfish. I didn't like them nearly as well, though.

On May 6, 2009 at 2:05 AM Flu-Bird said...

Wow a brave little sandpiper knight if there ever was one


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