fair warning: this post might not be for the faint of heart, but i had to share it b/c it's completely ridiculous and fascinating. the other evening i was reading the september 09 national geographic in the bathroom (where i get most of my magazine reading done) and i started reading a saucy little article about orchids called 'love and lies'.  that's right, 'love and lies.'  if it sounds like the title of a harlequin romance mass market paperback, well, it read like one. to give you an idea of the angle the author took, the tagline under the title read:

"How do you spread your genes around when you're stuck in one place? By tricking animals, including us, into falling in love."

the article focused on the procreative habits of orchids. which sounds interesting enough i guess, though not necessarily novel. what little i'd heard of orchids in the past (primarily from the spike jonze movie 'adaptation') was all pretty interesting. and the article stayed at about that level of interestingness -- pretty -- until about 2/3 of the way thru it. and then it blew my mind.

[i'm quoting directly from national geographic from here on out, and it does get a bit graphic. but only in a national geographic kind of way. and not in the 'topless tribes of sub-saharan africa' national geographic kind of way. just in a 'replenish the earth' kind of way.]

If it's starting to sound as though I don't trust orchids, that's because I've seen what they can do to some of my fellow animals. There's a video on YouTube -- a riveting snippet of interspecies porn -- in which you can watch a wasp be utterly bamboozled, and then humiliated, by an Australian tongue orchid. The tongue orchid (Cryptostylis) lures its pollinator by deploying a scent closely resembling the pheromone of the female wasp (Lissopimpla excelsa). The male wasp alights on the tonguelike labellum, tail first, and commences to copulate with the flower, probing its interior with the tip of his abdomen until it bumps into the sticky pollinia, which attach themselves to the insect's posterior like a pair of yellow tails.

Having to play pin the tail on the pollinator is only the beginning of the wasp's humiliation. For with the tongue orchid we have passed beyond pseudocopulation into a realm even more perverse: More often than not, the wasp, in the throes of his misguided sexual exertions, actually ejaculates onto the flower.

Surely this represents the height of maladaptive behavior, and natural selection could be expected to deal harshly with a creature foolish enough to squander its genes having sex with a flower. ("Costly sperm wastage," is how the literature describes it.) That would be bad news for both the wasp and the orchid that depends on him. But as with so much else in the bizarre world of orchid sex, the matter is not quite so simple.

It appears that in some insect species, such as Lissopimpla excelsa, females can reproduce with or without sperm from a male. With it, they produce the usual ratio of male and female offspring; without sperm, they produce only male offspring. How convenient—for the tongue orchid, that is. By inducing wasps to waste their sperm on its flowers, tongue orchids are decreasing the amount of sperm available to female wasps, thereby assuring themselves an even larger population of pollinators. Not only that, but the overabundance of male wasps increases competition for females, which makes the desperate wasps less picky in their choice of mates and that much more likely to fall for a flower.

What about the poor wasp? Why hasn't natural selection killed off an insect so dumb as to have sex with flowers? The best explanation I've heard is from John Alcock, who says that although the wasp may occasionally waste his genes on a plant, his "extreme sexual enthusiasm" is still a better reproductive strategy for an insect than being cautious about one's choice of mate. On balance, having sex with anything that moves yields more offspring, even if it also leads to occasional romantic disaster.

come on, seriously?! a stem fatale?! a femme petale?! a flower with a survival mechanism based on attraction, lust, deception, and ultimately the manipulation of the procreative habits of not just another floral species, but that of flying, flapping, brain-laden fauna?  how ridiculous is that! so complex and mischievous. it's like the plot of some scary, sexy movie which, let's be honest, would probably star kate beckinsale. only it would be way better than any movie she's ever done (except serendipity, obviously). it would probably resurrect her career. anyways, this probably just makes me a complete nerd, which i'm okay with. speaking of, if anybody knows anybody who would want to pay me to make sexy nature documentaries, i'm available. and now if you'll excuse me, i'm gonna go re-read that last paragraph. i'm pretty sure there is a good metaphor for human single life in there somewhere. -d

yes, it was a punk. "flyin' high" was a punk. well, less of a punk than a social experiment. well, less of social experiment than the result of a long day at work with not enough to do and way too much high-end recording equipment at our disposal. what happened was this. mwp had been working on a project that required the use of a piece of stock music. a piece of super generic guitar-and-strings stock music that sounded like a really bad collective soul outtake. which, on a long empty friday, was more than enough to get idle minds churning.  intern matt was given a few minutes to write the most generic lyrics he could come up with, and to manufacture a tune that spent at least 50% of the song on the same note. he succeeded in every way. so tallworm recorded him singing the track, then cleaned it up and mixed it. then they listened to their creation.  and unfortunately, it sounded just good enough to pass as contemporary pop music.

the decision to post it on the blog (and make up lots of lies about american idol and intern matt being talented and stuff) was the social experiment part. i knew that nobody who read my blog would really like the song. but i was curious to see how people would respond to it. and you guys surprised me. i expected most of you just to come straight out and say that it sucked. but it turns out you are too nice for that. the fact that i had way more conversations about the song with you guys off the 'comments' record is a strong indicator of that. you didn't want to hurt anybody's feelings, so instead of posting that the song sucked, you just told me in person. the few of you who did type out your feelings were priceless. just so nice. trying to find nice things to say. trying to give me the benefit of the doubt for backing this lame song. trying to be supportive to intern matt's doomed career, knowing full well that the song blew. you've restored my faith in humanity. and i apologize for betraying your trust. (and props to the 1 of you who guessed it was a punk due to the proper punctuation throughout. well played.) -d

So I've got this friend. He's a budding singer/songwriter, and he moved out to LA a little while ago to try and make a name for himself.  He's a super talented guy, but he doesn't have a web site or myspace page yet (we're working on it), so I told him if he sent me a track I'd be more than happy to post it on my blog, and solicit some honest feedback from my readers.

The track he sent is called 'Flyin' High'. It's from a forth-coming EP of the same name. He actually submitted it to the American Idol songwriting competition last season, and it was in the top 10. So. He's gonna go places. Take a listen, and let me know what you think. And be honest, you know? He's trying to improve, so any comments or criticisms will be welcomed.  Enjoy, and have a great weekend! -d

Title: Flyin' High
Artist: MGU
Album: Flyin' High EP
Time: 3:24

we can have the New Deal/national recovery conversation later, but first things first. for our purposes, WPA is a band. it's a band i've heard perform live (in various iterations) more than any other. it's made up of folks from Nickel Creek, Toad the Wet Sprocket, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, Elvis Costello and the Imposters, plus some of the best session musicians in the LA area. their shows are mind-boggling. and their first album, which was released about a fortnight ago, should be, too. and i want it to be. but i'm not sure it is. it has some nice moments. but not nearly as many as it should.

my concern is that i've been spoilt by the live shows, leaving me unable to appreciate anything less. so here's what i'd like to do. i'm posting a little streamer below. you can listen to the entire album on it. once you get a feel for things, let me know what you think. i'm hoping for 1000 comments saying that i am retarded (hopefully in reference to the album being excellent). -d

bad parents: ones who let their kid drive his power wheels out on street with real cars.
great kids: ones who can do a 1-point parallel parking job.

bad parents: ones who film their kids getting frustrated while trying to get dressed instead of helping them.
great kids: ones who get frustrated while trying to get dressed.

bad parents: ones who let their infant children watch beyonce videos.
great kids: ones who can dance like beyonce.

bad parents: ones who are so cheap that instead of buying their kids toys, they try to amuse them by ripping newspaper.
great kids: ones who get their first ROFL from ripping newspaper.

[smile]