Wild Puppies
The lighthouse keeper didn’t eat enough rabbits. Now there are foxes.
There are also puppies, red ones, black ones, collapsing in furry heaps
If dogs are domesticated wolves, can foxes be far behind?
In the spring, wrote Alfred Lord Tennyson, “a young man’s fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love,” and this may oftentimes be true. But here, on a sometimes-blustery island in the Salish Sea, thoughts of love have long since been acted upon by the time spring comes around. On San Juan Island, spring is the season of wild puppies.
The foxes here come in two main styles — red and black — although all are members of the species Vulpes vulpes, which is commonly if confusingly known as the red fox, regardless of what color an individual actually is. When a San Juan Island fox has one red parent and one black parent, the result is a charming mixture of the two morphs, although they always have a white tip on their bushy tails. The foxes were introduced sometime in the mid-twentieth century, probably to control the rabbit population, who were in turn introduced some years before that, probably to …
What Is Punk Now?
The Age of Insta-culture means you can counterfeit insider knowledge by searching Spotify
Hot Topic and H&M let Taylor Swift fans be ‘punk’
While the oldheads whine about CBGBs and apply purity tests, a new, more democratic sensibility is being born for kids who actually care about music
CBGB, as most insufferable oldheads will tell you, was the epitome of all musical culture in New York City, and therefore on the entire planet, especially punks. But since its demise in 2006, three years before I was born, the insufferable oldheads have seemingly switched their attitudes from, “That was the coolest place” to “All other places are fake and there is no real music subculture left anywhere on earth, so help me God.”
As a self-diagnosed punk, I can tell you that a “real” music subculture in NYC definitely still exists. Last Sunday, the Bowery Electric’s Hardcore Matinee, a free, all-ages monthly hardcore show, featured local bands such as Winter Wolf, The Give-Ups, Incendiary Device, and other local favorites. It seemed to contain everything that the oldheads didn’t want to hear: The same thing they’ve been fighting for in their “punk’s not dead” attitude for so many years, us youngins are …
America By the Numbers
2.5 – percentage of American births resulting from IVF
77 – number of feet that the East Fork of the San Jacinto River has risen above sea level due to heavy rains in April and early May.
11 – number of terms that Henry Cuellar (D-TX) is seeking Congress, while standing accused of laundering $600,000 that he accepted to influence US foreign policy in favor of a gas company in Azerbaijan and a bank in Mexico.
12.82 – percentage rise in the price of gold over the past year
5’4” – height of America’s shortest President, James Madison
6 – number of people who attended Thomas Paine’s funeral
53 – number of days that the Chinese lunar probe Chang'e-6 is scheduled to spend on the dark side of …
