Saturday Song: Butterfly Lovers

Okay, so this is the most magnificent thing I’ve ever seen human beings do. Well, do while dancing, anyway. I mean, she’s standing en pointe on this dude’s head, and – just watch.

Words. I haven’t any. I just. That’s simply. Mwah.

You know what, that’s art. That’s pure bloody art right there, and it’s one of the reasons why I don’t give up on humanity in despair (you, my darlings, and my fellow Freethought Bloggers, plus the other folks out there doing magnificent work making this world better and more beautiful every day, are the other reasons). All right? It’s moments like these that just make me sit back with my jaw flapping gently in the fully unhinged position and my eyes popping out and my poor little tempted-to-be-misanthropic heart welling, and I burst out with a robust, “I bloody love people!” when I’m capable of drawing breath again.

I rather imagine this is what it’s like running about the universe with the Doctor, actually.

So it feels rather a bit silly to plop my own pathetic art down atop that masterpiece, but the whole reason I was seeking butterfly songs to begin with was so that I could chuck these photos and a song at you and call it good. Work had me typing frantically all day. My wrists are distinctly upset. But it doesn’t matter anymore, because beauty.

Beautiful people, and beautiful creatures.

Black and white and beautiful all over.
Black and white and beautiful all over.

This was from our trip to the Olympics a couple of years ago, when we went up the Elwha River for a last look at its dams. The reservoir where these butterflies lived isn’t even there anymore. Dam’s gone, water all drained. Hopefully the butterflies still flutter round on the banks of the river, though. They were wonderful, so many of them, fluttering about like so many large and animated snowflakes. Very hard to get good shots, they were so active. However, one can play with the blurred photos and see if art can be created, and perhaps, to a small degree, succeed.

Butterfly between.
Butterfly between.

I like them, anyway, and hopefully you’ll be so dazzled by the dancers you’ll think my blurry butterflies are wonderful, too, and we’ll all be happy enough, then.

But I know you lot. You’ll stop admiring the dubious artistic merit of the photos and start doing things like trying to figure out the species of flora and fauna. So we have a sort of Mystery Flora-Cryptopod Double Feature going on here. Suppose that means I’d best provide you with a proper photo for identification purposes.

Mystery Flora plus Cryptopod
Mystery Flora plus Cryptopod

There you are, then. Lovely, aren’t they?

Here’s a good close one of the butterfly – not the above butterfly, but one of its compatriots, one which liked hanging upside down for some unknown reason.

All's right with the world when you're not upright, it seems.
All’s right with the world when you’re not upright, it seems.

Now, these photos were taken back in the days before we started doing Mystery Flora and all those, so I don’t have five trillion photos of the flower to choose from. So we shall make do with one very like it (and likely closely related, if not the same species), which I snapped up on the drumlin last September.

Mystery Flora I
Mystery Flora I

And a bit closer:

Mystery Flora II
Mystery Flora II

There you are, my loves. Art, nature, music and mystery all in one. Lovely!

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Saturday Song: Butterfly Lovers
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10 thoughts on “Saturday Song: Butterfly Lovers

  1. rq
    2

    Oh, and yes – your butterfly photos are wonderful, but confusing! I thought they were pale blue butterflies, but then I came upon this page, and remembered you said snowflakes, which means they’re probably white… So I’m guessing it’s a pine white butterfly, but there are two other candidate species which might be actually correct.
    Yeah, and that first music video… Yeah. Wow. That is all.

  2. 4

    And (now that I’ve recovered my powers of speech after watching the video), I agree with RQ on both the flower and the butterfly – if it’s not a pine white butterfly specifically, it’s certainly in the same family. Lovely pictures too. Looks like your first butterfly is missing a chunk of its hindwing.

  3. 5

    Sorry for the upcoming downer, but:

    Those Chinese dancers were almost certainly taken away from their families at a very early age to be raised in a state-run academy, just like the other athletes that have had so much success in the Olympics. I have a hard time seeing it as art, it’s just a representation of the all-powerful Chinese State.

  4. 6

    Forgot to add: Lovely butterflies. We don’t have near enough of them in this part of the world. When we visit the midwest, we always notice how many more songbirds they have there. That’s because they also have so many more bugs!

  5. rq
    7

    Sooo… Every artist and athlete (never mind scientist) produced by the Soviet Union shouldn’t be admired for their accomplishments because they were instruments of a totalitarian regime? The State may force people into certain niches, and the State may have strange ideas about the right way to raise children or maintain a base of members, but the State cannot be an artist (except of the con kind). Those people performing may represent the Chinese State, but they’re also people performing amazing feats of skill and agility and balance (the best I could do, in my not-so-distant youth, was balance a broomstick for about a minute or two – without the pirouette-y bits). That skill should not be discounted; they are not responsible for being born where they were.
    Artists by force? Maybe. But still artists, doing art. I doubt the State has an outlined plan of innovative artistic ideas to develop. People still come up with those.

  6. rq
    9

    Uh, pointe on someone’s head? That’s pretty innovative. Basically it’s just the idea of balancing on something – but on a different level (new combination). People balance on objects, sure. People balance objects on their head, ok. Now there are people balancing on people’s heads. It is not an easy feat by any means (those poses on plain old pointe, on a nice flat floor, are difficult enough – combine that with a small and unbalancing surface, yes, that’s pretty innovative).
    When was the last time you saw the circus (like the Cirque du Soleil)?
    I guess I can’t argue if you just find it bothersome, anyway. None of it is natural, I agree. It’s all very contrived. But so is a dress made of meat. Or splashes of pain on a giant canvas. Someone decided it was innovative, and thus art…
    My point: it’s all somewhat arbitrary. I think it’s an incredible work of athletics and art combined. You don’t. *shurg* I guess I won’t be taking you to any operas? :)

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