Author. Thinker. Other things.
The story goes like this: a young cashier gently suggests to an older woman that she bring her own grocery bags next time because plastic is bad for the planet. The woman smiles and says, “We didn’t have the green thing in my day.” Then she begins listing everything her generation did before “sustainability” became... Continue Reading →
The New Dawn rose, Plant Patent 1 Photo: 1971Markus; Wikimedia Commons One of the things I love about working at the Linda Hall Library is the frequency of which I'm exposed, often unexpectedly, to really cool books. One book, or rather a series of books, is the collection of United States plant patents from the... Continue Reading →
The pumpkin, cultivated since ancient times, has become a cultural icon, symbolizing fall, Halloween, culinary tradition and modern commerce.
Cormorants and Pelicans at 2nd Street Pier, Myrtle Beach SC. Image: Eric Dorfman 2021. As I write this, I’m sitting by the side of the Atlantic Ocean, winding up a 2021 Christmas holiday spent at the beach. It’s been a relaxing and tranquil time, looking out over that water, seasonably cold and silty brown, turbid... Continue Reading →
I've written recently about our pressing need to think globally about wet markets and the bushmeat trade. Aside from their devastating impact on wildlife, these practices are superhighways for diseases to enter the human population, with catastrophic effects to health and the global economy. While we're currently experiencing this with Covid-19, it's also been the... Continue Reading →
I've always loved this painting. Vertumnus looks serenely at the viewer, a slight smile making you think he knows something you'd like to. It's a clever work of Mannerism, seamlessly weaving a complex array of perfectly rendered fruits and other plants into the portrait of a human face full of character. The portrait is of... Continue Reading →
If you Google "the world's most numerous bird," you will likely be given articles about the Red-Billed Quelea (Quelea quelea), also known as the Red-Billed Weaver Bird or Red-Billed Dioch that lives across most of sub-Saharan Africa. It's considered the most numerous wild bird on earth, the population sometimes peaking at 1½ billion individuals. Individually,... Continue Reading →
ERIC DORFMAN 