NYC day 8

A delivery from CookUnity, another one from MaxDelivery. I did finally get a FreshDirect slot but it's not till next Wednesday.

A very good day for me actually but a tiring one. Woke at 4, realized around 5:30 that I really wasn't going back to sleep and that I should just get up. A non-run day, 50 mins brisk exercise walk. Busy morning of reformulating Gibbon, some media follow-up (!) from the Washington Post piece, the two-hour Columbia UP publications committee meeting (on Google Hangouts). I am exhausted and intend to lie down with Kindle soon in bed.

On eating and being eaten

The changing diet of polar bears, with a new emphasis on the eggs of snow geese:

David Iles, a graduate student at Utah State University, who has been working at La Pérouse Bay for several years, set out cameras to observe goose nests and caught the bears in the act. He now has 40 cameras set up over a stretch of tundra. They take photographs every two minutes and shoot a burst of 30 images when an animal walks in front of the camera.

In addition to capturing photographs of bears consuming eggs last season, the cameras caught cranes, wolves, eagles and foxes eating. “Everything seems to love eggs out here,” he said.

One goose or one nest may not seem like much. But polar bears are gluttons. Dr, Rockwell described one case in which a bear ate about 1,200 eggs — of eider ducks, in this case — in four days. He said Dr. Gormezano had calculated that a clutch of four eggs would amount to 825 calories, the equivalent of one and a half Big Macs. Three hundred four-egg clutches would be 247,500 calories, or about 10 percent of a bear’s yearly nutritional needs.

Closing tabs

Slightly overwhelming week, though a lot of good stuff. Went to the launch last night for my old friend Luke Barr's book Provence, 1970, which I'm hugely looking forward to reading. Nico's opening on Monday night was a triumph!

Miscellaneous linkage:

A good piece by Jennifer Roberts on education, immersive reading/looking and the value of slowing things down.

The many betrayals of Paul de Man.

How Mike Tyson became the heavyweight champion of the world. (On which note, I am reminded that I've been meaning to finish reading The Global Pigeon.)

This book actually looks fascinating, in a grotesque sort of way. Also - soylent! (Via B.)

"Extractum carnis"

At the FT, Polly Russell on the history of Lemco "liquid beef" (FT site registration required), with special emphasis on Eva Tuite's Lemco-inspired recipe book:

Interspersed with the recipes and seasonal lists are adverts for Liebig Company products: Oxo “fluid beef” (“Energy without Waiting”) and Fray Bentos canned goods (“Always Ready, Always Acceptable”).

There is no mincing words: