{"id":9913,"date":"2021-07-08T09:00:31","date_gmt":"2021-07-08T09:00:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lafayettepark.org\/staging_5\/?p=9913"},"modified":"2021-09-07T02:18:37","modified_gmt":"2021-09-07T02:18:37","slug":"blue-period","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lafayettepark.org\/staging_5\/blue-period\/","title":{"rendered":"BLUE PERIOD"},"content":{"rendered":"

BY\u00a0KIERAN LINDSEY, PhD<\/a><\/span><\/strong><\/h4>\n

Picasso was feeling low.<\/h4>\n

Following the suicide of his friend and occasional roommate, the painter Carles Casagemas, Pablo plunged into a rock-bottom depression that lasted more than 3 years. During this time (1901 to 1904), the vividly extroverted artist faded from the Paris art scene to focus on a series of austere, melancholy, and eventually career-defining canvases using a somber palette of iolite, lapis lazuli, slate, and granite.<\/h4>\n

Blue may be the most bipolar color in English idiom. When we\u2019re feeling down we have the blues (or if we\u2019re a painter we load our palette with cerulean and cobalt) but when life is looking up we speak of blue skies ahead.<\/h4>\n

Well, it don\u2019t mean a thing if the mood doesn\u2019t swing, right?<\/h4>\n

Little wonder, then, that this hue is expansive enough to describe Blue Periods in lives as dissimilar as Pablo Ruiz Picasso, one of the most familiar and influential artists of the 20th century, and Plestiodon fasciatus<\/em> (aka the Five-Lined Skink), one of the most prevalent lizards in the eastern U.S.<\/h4>\n

\"\"<\/h4>\n

Throughout life, both male and female Five-Lined Skinks sport understated but decidedly dapper sun-and-shadow sandwich-stripe morning coats guaranteed to allow these small-to-medium (4\u00be to 8\u00bd in or 12.5 to 21.5 cm, end-to-end) habitu\u00e9<\/em> of damp soils and sunny sidewalks to blend inconspicuously into their surroundings.<\/h4>\n

Don\u2019t be fooled, though, because it\u2019s all a ruse! A trompe l\u2019oeil<\/em> used by these covert members of the avant-garde to pass as conformists but electric blue tails don\u2019t deceive.<\/h4>\n

\"\"While Picasso\u2019s Blue Period was singular in the art world of its time, a blue period is de rigueur<\/em> for juvenile Five-Lined Skinks. These garish youngsters would fit right in with les Fauves <\/em>(French for \u201cthe wild beasts\u201d), an informal coterie of early 20th century artists lead by Henri Matisse and Andr\u00e9 Derain that included Georges Braque, Paul C\u00e9zanne, Pablo, and other painters with a penchant for instinctive use of bold colors, nonchalant brushwork, and simplified abstraction over realism.<\/h4>\n

Time leaves its imprimatur on everything and everyone it touches, and the relentless ticking of mortality\u2019s clock does not leave Five-Lined Skinks unscathed. Two or three years after bursting out of their shells and into the world, the brazen adolescents who have survived will reach sexual maturity. The crisp detailing of their birthday suits softens with wear, and those ultramarine tails fade a little more with every trip around the sun.<\/h4>\n

But Five-Lined Skink elders, who may live an average of 5-6 years, do not go gently into that good night or cede the spotlight to flashy up-and-comers.\u00a0 Adult males will tolerate the presence of juveniles and females but aggressively defend their territory against intrusion by adversaries. Just as Picasso emerged from the blues into a more optimistic, assertive Rose Period (1904-1906), so do seasoned male skinks come to embrace their new-found earthy palette, punctuated during the breeding season by a confident crimson head.<\/h4>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

I think Pablo, who fathered his youngest child at 68 years of age and married for the second time at 79, would approve.<\/h4>\n

<\/h4>\n
\n

\u00a9 2020 Next-Door Nature\u2014 no reprints without written permission from the author. Thanks to the following photographers for making their work available for use through Creative Commons License:\u00a0 Melody McClure<\/span><\/a>, Mark Beckemeyer<\/span><\/a>, Will Brown<\/span><\/a>, Henri Matisse<\/span><\/a>, and Ken Thomas<\/span><\/a>.<\/em><\/h4>\n

\u00a0<\/em><\/h4>\n

\u00a0<\/em><\/h4>\n

\u00a0<\/em><\/h4>\n

\u00a0<\/em><\/h4>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

BY\u00a0KIERAN LINDSEY, PhD Picasso was feeling low. Following the suicide of his friend and occasional roommate, the painter Carles Casagemas, Pablo plunged into a rock-bottom depression that lasted more than […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":9916,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"off","_et_pb_old_content":"

BY KIERAN LINDSEY, PhD<\/a><\/span><\/strong><\/h4>\n

Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, we\u2019re twenty years into the Information Age so I\u2019m pretty sure everyone in this courtroom knows that, to quote a famous New Yorker <\/em>cartoon, \u201cOn the Internet, nobody knows you\u2019re a dog.\u201d The anonymity baked into the the interwebs means we\u2019re all free to be whatever, or whomever, we want to virtually be\u2026 even if we want to be someone else.<\/h4>\n

Identity theft may seem like a new and viral meme, but I assure you, creating a counterfeit profile is a prehistoric trope. It\u2019s older than Dick Whitman snagging Don Draper\u2019s dog tag in Mad Men (2007).  Older than Mrs. Doubtfire\u2019s dad-turned-nanny (1993). Older than the King of Ruritania\u2019s body-double in The Prisoner of Zenda (1894). Older, even, than the sibling-switch of Esau and Jacob in the Book of Genesis (6th century BC).<\/h4>\n

No, we need to travel even further back in time\u2014way, way back\u2014to the Pennsylvanian epoch over 300 million years ago, and what must surely be the first, the most diabolically devious, the most indelible stolen guise in the entire history of Planet Earth.<\/h4>\n

I intend to demonstrate, beyond any doubt (reasonable or otherwise), that the defendant\u2014Armadillidium vulgare<\/em>, aka \u201cpillbug\u201d\u2014is an imposter!<\/h4>\n
\"\"You already know he\u2019s a shape-shifter. Thanks to a body composed of overlapping plates he\u2019s a skilled conglobator\u2014transforming at a moment\u2019s notice from a scurrying, nearly two-dimensional, thumbnail-sized oval into an almost perfectly symmetrical 3D sphere. This is no parlor game, folks.  Crumpling to the size of a baby aspirin is a prescription for prevention of detection by those who would expose his true nature. (It also limits dehydration, but I digress).<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Don\u2019t be fooled by this roly-poly fellow\u2019s non-threatening demeanor and diminutive stature. His rap sheet is a phone directory\u2019s worth of aliases: pillbug, wood bug, pea bug, potato bug, and doodlebug, to name only a few\u2026 but he is NOT a bug.<\/div>\n

That\u2019s right, this armored charlatan may claim to be kin to bedbugs, ladybugs, mealybugs, spittle bugs, stinkbugs, and other insects whose identities he has appropriated, but take a closer look and even without a DNA analysis the evidence is indisputable.<\/h4>\n

Exhibit #1:<\/strong>  Insects have a single pair of antennae. If the defendant would untuck enough to show his face to members of the jury, you would see that he has not one, but TWO pair of antennae.<\/h4>\n

Exhibit #2:<\/strong>  Insects have 3 pairs of jointed legs, clustered on the thorax. The defendant has 7 pairs of jointed legs\u2014one pair for each of the 7 segments that constitute his torso. But don\u2019t take my word for it\u2014count them yourselves.<\/h4>\n

\"\"Exhibit #3:<\/strong> As adults, insects breathe using a system of apertures and tubes called spiracles and tracheae, respectively. The defendant\u2014who, while not aquatic is clearly in some legal hot water here\u2014breathes using gill-like structures.<\/h4>\n

Exhibit #4: <\/strong> True bugs have piercing and sucking mouth-parts that place them in an insect league of their own. The defendant has no such anatomical features.  Just look\u2014he\u2019s not even able to use a straw!<\/h4>\n

Exhibit  #5:<\/strong>  Speaking of drinking\u2026 insect have a waxy, water-resistant epicuticle that deters desiccation. The defendant does not, which leads me to wonder if his repeated requests for a glass of water are due to the dry air in this courtroom, or a case of nerves born of a guilty conscience?<\/h4>\n

Exhibit #6:<\/strong> No courtroom drama would be complete without a reference to sex so let\u2019s talk about reproduction. Insects employ a diverse set of parenting strategies, including: oviparity<\/em> (eggs are deposited and develop outside the female\u2019s body); ovoviparity<\/em> (eggs develop inside the female\u2019s body and hatch immediately after being laid); and even viviparity<\/em> (young gestate inside the female and are born, not hatched). But the one strategy insects do NOT use is the marsupium<\/em>. That\u2019s right, a pouch tucked under the thorax in which newly hatched young develop until they are old enough to venture out into the world on their own\u2026 a pouch just like the one you would find on the defendant\u2019s own mother!<\/h4>\n

Members of the jury, the facts speak for themselves. The phony before you is not a bug. He has far more in common with a shrimp, a crab, or a lobster than any insect. Literally. Because this common pillbug is, in reality\u2026<\/h4>\n

\u2026a terrestrial CRUSTACEAN!!<\/em><\/h4>\n

[Audible gasps from the courtroom audience]<\/em><\/h4>\n

Your Honor, the prosecution rests.<\/h4>\n
\"\"<\/div>\n\n
\n\n

\u00a9 2010 <\/em>Next-Door Nature. Thanks to the photographers who granted permission to use their photos, and to those who made their work available through the Creative Commons license: Alan Howell<\/a><\/span>, Andy Purviance<\/a><\/span>, Brian Gratwicke<\/a><\/span>, and Dany Sternfeld<\/a><\/span>.<\/em><\/h4>","_et_gb_content_width":"","_EventAllDay":false,"_EventTimezone":"","_EventStartDate":"","_EventEndDate":"","_EventStartDateUTC":"","_EventEndDateUTC":"","_EventShowMap":false,"_EventShowMapLink":false,"_EventURL":"","_EventCost":"","_EventCostDescription":"","_EventCurrencySymbol":"","_EventCurrencyCode":"","_EventCurrencyPosition":"","_EventDateTimeSeparator":"","_EventTimeRangeSeparator":"","_EventOrganizerID":[],"_EventVenueID":0,"_OrganizerEmail":"","_OrganizerPhone":"","_OrganizerWebsite":"","_VenueAddress":"","_VenueCity":"","_VenueCountry":"","_VenueProvince":"","_VenueZip":"","_VenuePhone":"","_VenueURL":"","_VenueStateProvince":"","_VenueLat":"","_VenueLng":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[426,16],"tags":[59,18,25,488,64,91,23,41,43,9,489,490,31,12,491,492,432,115,224,32,14,54,15,17,57],"class_list":["post-9913","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-reptiles","category-wildlife","tag-animal-behavior","tag-backyard-wildlife","tag-biology","tag-blue-tailed-skink","tag-ecology","tag-environment","tag-flora-and-fauna","tag-hidden-nature","tag-hidden-wildlife","tag-lafayette-park","tag-les-fauves","tag-lizards","tag-natural-history","tag-nature","tag-pablo-picasso","tag-pleistiodon-fasciatus","tag-reptiles","tag-reptiles-and-amphibians","tag-st-louis","tag-suburban-wildlife","tag-urban-wildlife","tag-vertebrates","tag-watchable-wildlife","tag-wildlife","tag-wildlife-watching"],"yoast_head":"\nBLUE PERIOD - Lafayette Park Conservancy<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.lafayettepark.org\/staging_5\/blue-period\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"BLUE PERIOD - Lafayette Park Conservancy\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"BY\u00a0KIERAN LINDSEY, PhD Picasso was feeling low. 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