Macro Mayflies and Musical Mayhem for Your Monday

People come to these pages for many reasons. Some actually subscribe and come on purpose but others simply stumble in as the result of tragic search engine accidents. Either way, many go away confused, some even leaving before they get to the good stuff.

Short-form posts are not our forte here at Fish in a Barrel Pond. A thousand words is never out of the question, meaning someone could spend four or five whole minutes reading these ramblings. We do our best to reward intrepid readers and most posts end with a treat, whether it finally be the punchline or an interesting photo or video.

No guarantees as to word count, since we’re just getting going, but the plan for this post includes multiple treats. We’ll let you decide for yourselves which are the treats and we’ll also drop the pretense of referring to myself in the third person.

An Unblinking Stare

The so-called “major” hatches of mayflies have begun for the season. Some are sporadic but others come off like clockwork, albeit a different clock than we puny humans watch. Intricate, delicate and very nearly absurd, they exchange the drab coloration and digestive tracts of their nymphal stages for the reproductive organs and gaudy apparel of adults. I find them in boats, on porch screens, clapboard walls, and in spider webs. When someone asks “What’s hatchin’?” I know, and not because I’m fishing all the time.

Size 14

The anglers of Fish in a Barrel Pond don’t fish all the time, either. Evidently, some of them sit around singing show tunes when things get slow or the sun goes down. That’s all well and good and their secret is safe with me, but those tunes have a way of sticking. I tried passing along an earworm of my own the other day but it was taken as encouragement so, before someone breaks out the Sondheim, I’m going to change the subject.

A recognizable melody is one thing, and some songs become familiar simply through repetition. Visuals, however, are another thing altogether, so perhaps some absurdity will help end the madness.

Led Zeppelin, like it or not, is a part of the soundscape for millions of people, including many with a fondness for Lerner and Loewe. Or Reggae music. Or Elvis Presley.

Imagine what it would be like if Elvis (the not skinny one) put together a Reggae band to cover Led Zeppelin songs. It might go a little something like this:

Just in case that wasn’t enough to quell your urge to talk to the trees, here’s another one, in which the song remains the same but the band is different. Taking pompadours to an outrageous extreme and backed by the Alexandrov Ensemble Red Army Choir, the Leningrad Cowboys prove, if nothing else, that Helsinki is a heck of a place to put on a show.

Look. Another mayfly!

Mayfly on a Hot Tin Boat

As an aside, on December 25, 2016, a Russian Tupelov Tu-154 jet crashed into the Black Sea, killing 64 members of the Alexandrov Ensemble, on their way to entertain Russian troops in Syria.

Ephemerella

Just to finish driving this thing into the ditch, a little more Dread Zeppelin, doing one of the most over-done songs ever:

But wait, there’s more. The Leningrad Cowboys and the Alexandrov Ensemble did it, too, but with fire-twirlers and go-go dancers because fire-twirlers and go-go dancers make everything better. Unfortunately, embedding has been disabled by request on this one so you have to follow this link. It’s worth it.

There. Six hundred words and it only took what, thirty minutes?

On Glass