The Fabulous Baron Munchausen [aka Baron Prášil ] (1961)

The Fabulous Baron Munchausen [aka Baron Prášil ] (1961) Czechoslovakian animator Karel Zeman combines live action with puppets and animation to create a highly stylized picture about the outrageous lies of Baron Munchausen. Influenced by the engravings of Gustave Doré, in the tradition of Ray Harryhausen, Zeman’s fantasy world revels in a childlike delight and good humor that never succumbs to Disney realism. The result is an experience quite uncanny, since you are always aware that this is both real [actual actors] and unreal [irrational images]. Restored in a beautiful Blu-Ray by SECOND RUN, this is a “must” for all fans of animation.

 

Where have all the extinct species gone?

The ivory-billed woodpecker hides

In the Big Woods of eastern Arkansas.

Where is the West African Black Rhinoceros?

Where is the Pyrenean Ibex of Iberia?

Even passenger pigeons no longer carry messages.

http://smithsonianlibraries.tumblr.com/post/96390076276/this-is-martha-the-last-passenger-pigeon-she

The Caribbean Monk Seal has no prayers

And Tasmanian Tigers have been wiped out.

Human development destroyed Tecopa pupfish.

 What about species that are now threatened?

The ghost orchid may soon become a ghost

Among Great Basin bristlecone pine.

In 1964, Donal Rusk Currey killed the oldest tree ever. To this day, there has still never been an older tree discovered. The tree was a Great Basin bristlecone pine, and Currey didn’t meant to kill it. It was an accident, and one he didn’t really understand the ramifications of until he started counting rings. Listen to the story via the link below.

http://www.radiolab.org/widgets/ondemand_player/#file=%2Faudio%2Fxspf%2F91722%2F;containerClass=radiolab

Spoon-billed sandpipers skirt the shore,

While inland Liben lark dart about

Rocky shores where Chinese-crested terns perch.

 

Freshwater fish, like red-finned blue eyes,

Or damsel fish in the Galapagos,

Might go the way of Angel sharks.

Pallid sturgeon have lost their spawning habitat.

Arkansas Wildlife Services struggle to preserve

Benton County Cave and Hell Creek crayfish.

But Arkansas catfish farms can barely survive.

With hurricanes. earthquakes, and tornadoes,

What will be the fate of the Anthropocene?

[Disposable Poem September 21, 2017]

Dr. Mike