ThePlagueYears

Every picture tells a story  Taking pictures of owls in captivity is fun. They're fabulous-looking beasts, of course, but they're also very co-operative portrait subjects, staying perfectly still for long stretches, unlike most wild birds.

I shot this guy in York, England on one of our visits to Caitlin when she was there working on her PhD. This was in 2014. One day when she was working, Karen and I went into the city and ended up at the Museum Gardens, a lovely park with Roman ruins situated on the River Ouse, one of two rivers running through the city.

A birds-of-prey attraction had brought some of its charges into the city to show them off. Parents could pay £5 to let their kiddies wear a falconer's glove and pose holding one of the birds. While they were waiting for the punters, the birds sat tethered on their perches, looking bored and skeptical. The keepers had no objection to my taking pictures and I could get quite close. This one is a great horned, I think.

Fast-forward to spring 2019. Louis, a one-year-old at the time, developed an obsession with owls, which he initially called "ah-yels." I believe it was the first recognizable word he said, certainly one of the first. 

When we were there in the fall of 2019, he was still mad-keen on owls, and figured out that I had some of these pictures from York on my tablet. He would demand to be shown Papa's owls. "Owl! Owl, Papa!" - pointing at the tablet. In the end, I went into town and got a quick-print place to print and plasticize a few of the pictures, including this one. I think he still has them around somewhere, although his ardour for owls has cooled some. 

Streaming video recommendation  American network television in the 1970s, at least in retrospect, and when put up against the stellar TV available today, was a bit of a wasteland. Sure, there was All in the Family, which was supposed to be ground-breaking and progressive. But I always thought it was overrated and too broad.

I'm sure there were others that we genuinely enjoyed back then, but there's really only one show from that period that I remember with fondness, and that's Barney Miller, a gem of a half-hour situation comedy. 

From l to r: Ron Glass as Harris, Max Gail as 'Wojo', Abe Vigoda as Fish, Hal Linden as Barney, Jack Soo as Nick and James Gregory as Deputy Inspector Frank Luger

It's set in the detectives squad room in an East Village precinct in New York. Each episode has something the feel of a chiseled little stage play. It observes all the classic theatrical unities of action, time and place - there was really only one set, the squad room, with its jammed-in desks and the single jail cell where miscreants are sometimes temporarily "caged." 

The characters are eccentric and very human, starting with Barney himself, the kindly captain of the precinct, played by the ridiculously handsome Hal Linden, a 1950s big band singer-turned-actor. The comedy was always gentle, sly, self-deprecatory. It sprang mainly from the personalities of the characters. Barney Miller ran from 1975 to 1982 on ABC. 

I've gone looking for it online a couple of times in recent years, most recently earlier this evening. At one point, several seasons were available on a free streaming video service called Crackle, but they're not available on Crackle in Canada anymore (although they apparently are still on the U.S. service.) There are some complete episodes available on YouTube, though not full seasons. 

The square picture - this was long before HD - and low-res video take some getting used to again, as do the moustaches, and wide lapels and ties. But Barney Miller stands up. It stands up very well.