A snippet of Lefsetz

Ain't that America, where you tell other people how to live their lives as opposed to being compassionate. Start with compassion, it opens many more doors.

I love great art, no matter the medium.

Crickets who shut up

Teleogryllus oceanicus flatwing and wild-type wing morphsWIKIMEDIA, NATHAN BAILEYAs the sun sets over the grassy lawns that traverse the Hawaiian island of Kauai, the chirping crickets do not perform their usual dusk chorus. Instead, they are ominously quiet:  in Kauai and neighboring Oahu, field crickets (Teleogryllus oceanicus) have acquired a wing mutation that silences them. It also saves them from being eaten inside out while still alive.

The field crickets in Kauai offer a live demonstration evolution in action. In 1991, cricket numbers crashed as parasitoid flies (Ormia ochracea) located male calling crickets by sound and made them into live incubators for their eggs. The parasitic larvae would hatch and eat their cricket hosts from the inside out. Twelve years and 20 generations later, the cricket population bounced back, dominated by males with a wing mutation that rendered them silent. Male crickets on Oahu followed suit within two years; eventually, silent males outnumbered their chirping peers.



I love great art, no matter the medium.

The original Youngbloods and profound pettiness!

Jesse Colin Young and Jerry Corbitt remained close friends until Jerry's death a couple of months ago. So now I feel free to disclose something that has bothered me a great deal about The Youngbloods. I managed The Youngbloods from the day they formed until several months after Jerry Corbitt left the band. When Jerry left, he took the heart of the band with him. Artistically, they never recovered.

The trio then did something inexcusable and petty and cruel - they removed Jerry's name and credits from the great albums he had done including their great recording of Get Together!! They tried to erase him from the albums as if he never played or sang with The Youngbloods!! A pathetic lashing out and one I will never forgive, although Jerry refused to sue them because of his friendship with Jesse. Yet Jesse treated Jerry as an employee when they played together in the future, always paying Jerry as a sideman instead of as an equal. The Youngbloods only had two hits - Grizzly Bear, with Jerry singing lead, and Get Together, with Jesse singing lead, both from their first album. After Jerry left, they never had another hit.