Rachel McAdams had her baby - according to sources

Via this article in the Daily Mail, which references a report from the Hollywood Pipeline, divine actress Rachel McAdams recently gave birth to the baby that was apparently fathered by her partner Jamie Linden.

None of this, however, is official.  McAdams never even officially said she was pregnant.

Of course, no has to announce this type of thing officially. But McAdams and Linden are one of the best celebrity couples ever at not saying anything about it.

Congratulations, I guess.  (Though I'm sure that if they really did have a baby together, they really are happy about it.  Sure hope so.)

One reason

Here's one reason I love women - their mystery, their sensuality, and how they can look so remarkably beautiful in just a casual pose.  As shown below.

Sarasota sights near and on Highway 41

We've returned to the Florida mainland on Highway 41, and we'll note a few sites and sights as we head north.  We're going to make some serious progress this week.


The Ringling Museum of Art is literally a few hundred yards off of Highway 41.  First a panorama, featuring an iconic replica of Michelangelo's statue of David overlooking the courtyard.



Here's a view of the museum from the road.  If you head directly away from the museum on the red brick road, you will quickly be back on Highway 41. It's the first road you come to.  Turn left to head north.



New College of Florida - this is a liberal arts, high academic achievement branch of the University of South Florida.  We're just going to drive by.   You can see the logo on the pedestrian overpass.



You knew that there had to be a Bearded Clam restaurant somewhere in the world, didn't you?  Well, there's definitely one, as seen below.  I wonder if they have box lunches available.




North to Bradenton!

Lighthouse of the Week, April 8-14, 2018: Pointe aux Caves (Albion), Mauritius

Now that this is back on schedule, this week's lighthouse is the only working lighthouse on the actual island of Mauritius, the Pointe aux Caves (Albion) lighthouse, which covers the entrance to the capital and main city on the island, Port Louis.  It's a standard lighthouse, but with really great views and well situated.

Specifications from the Lighthouse Directory:

"1910. Active; focal plane 46 m (151 ft); two white flashes every 10 s; there is also a continuous red passing light at a focal plane of 30 m (98 ft). 30 m (98 ft) masonry tower with lantern and gallery. Lighthouse painted white with two red horizontal bands."

And just like last week, three pictures and a video:

Video:

Lighthouse of the Week, April 1-7, 2018: Île aux Fouquets, Mahébourg, Mauritius

If you notice the date on this post, you'll figure out that for the first time in a long time, I missed having a Lighthouse of the Week for the week of April 1-7, during the week of April 1-7.   So this is a special lighthouse on the island of Mauritius - an abandoned lighthouse that once guarded the main approach to the harbor of Mahébourg, which was the original French settlement on Mauritius. It is kind of symbolic of the island's history.

Some quick info from the Lighthouse Directory:

1865. Inactive for many years. 26 m (85 ft) masonry tower with lantern and gallery, attached to a 2-story and 1-story keeper's complex.

That's pretty much it.   Below are three pictures and a short video.

50-second video

My first sonnet in April

I'll be posting a couple of sonnets in April.  Here's the first one.


A time that never happened, in a place never seen

Within an isolated space, though here
surrounded by humanity, where walls
define their occupants and have no fear
of sound or light or how strange fate befalls
the witnesses to subterfuge—a match
of intersecting lovers finds a place
to be alone, afloat upon a patch
of solitary rapture, though no trace
persists in public view, no five-fold sense
can tell with whom it was, or even where
it happened—if it did—a dense
anomaly adrift, extremely rare
yet massively attractive, so it bends
refined reality to its own ends.

Interesting article, but there's a big mistake for LoTR fans

The Daily Mail just ran this article about the Amazon Lord of the Rings TV series, which is going to have a very impressive $1 billion dollar budget.

Lord Of The Rings: Amazon's TV series will become the most expensive show in history with a budget of $1 BILLION... beating Netflix's The Crown

Clearly, the budget for this series is partly based on the success of Game of Thrones, and the perceived appetite in the TV-watching community for sword and sorcery epics.  But there's a couple of differences between GoT and the Amazon LoTR.  GoT either had scenes that readers were looking forward to seeing (such as the infamous "Red Wedding"), or it is going where the books haven't gone yet (and may never), and hence there's a surprise factor.  I say that even though I saw the Riders of Rohan-style rescue of Jon Snow and his plucky band by the Knights of the Vale, even down to the horn blowing in the distance, coming from a long way off.

In contrast, this LoTR series is going to take place before the War of the Ring, which is described in the three LoTR novels.  Speaking of that, I want to tell the Daily Mail that the accepted title of the third book in the trilogy is entitled The Return of the King, not The King Returns (read the article).

Tolkien does describe the events between the end of The Hobbit and the beginning of The Fellowship of the Ring cursorily in the history appendices after the end of The Return of the King.  The thing is, these events weren't nearly as exciting as the events in the trilogy.  Furthermore, we know how it ends -- because it ends with the War of the Ring.  So how interesting and exciting is a story with no surprises and very few "big" events going to be?   Obviously Amazon is betting $1 bil that it will be interesting and exciting for enough people to be worth such a magnificent investment.  But I'm a big admirer of LoTR, and unless I hear that the Amazon LoTR series is magnificent, I'm likely not going to invest my time in it.