March 25 is also my personal holiday = "Life Day".
This bears mentioning:
The official state dinosaur of Maryland is the Astrodon, which looked like this:
Its name means Star-Tooth.
Mr. Star-Tooth, you now have the distinction of possessing a pair of appellations. I hereby select the Astrodon as the official state dinosaur of Life Day 2010. Kudos and felicitations.
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At the top of the highest mountain in Massachusetts sits this tower, The Tower of Mount Greylock. it is a Veterans War Memorial. If you ascend to the top, you get a view of five states.
I have never visited the Tower of Mount Greylock, but I honor it today. It is the official locale of Life Day 2010.
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The official animal of this year's Life Day is the rhinoceros. It is an "odd-toed ungulate" and shares this illustrious title with two other great creatures: the horse and the tapir.
Above: Dalí liked the rhino (photo by Philippe Halsman).
Remember: there are 5 types of rhino.
No one had seen one in Europe for almost a thousand years. Then in 1515, Dürer made a woodcut based on a drawing of one. He assumed the animal would be wearing a suit of armor. So he gave it a gorget. And even drew in rivets along the seams. People thought the rhino was robotic for another 300 years.
In 1959, Ionesco wrote a play about the mass metamorphosis of a community into rhinoceroses. I do not know if Ionesco is to blame, but there is remarkably little in the popular culture about were-rhinos.
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I also do not know who these mysterious spectral figures riding on mechanical robot suits are, but they are clearly doing something right. I'm tipping my hat to these fellows today!
And to you!
Happy Life Day, Everyone!
Seize the Day Off!
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See here for last year's Life Day post.
