26 Jul Discovery of Batture Dingo Stuns the WORLD!
This July finds Your Humble Narrator back in his steamy ancestral stomping grounds of New Orleans, attending to activities relative to the opening of a long-awaited exhibition of work by his late, great father, the highly regarded painter and sculptor, John Clemmer. Over five years in the planning and accompanied by a lovely exhibition catalogue, you can find all the relevant info by following the link over to the News page at johnclemmer.com.
But, monumental and earth shaking though this news is, that is not why I have gathered us all here together on this auspicious occasion. No, Gentle Reader(s), today we are convened for a different matter entirely: The announcement of a singular discovery of High Import in the worlds of Biology, Evolutionary Theory and Batture Studies. I am here today to announce to the world a newly identified species of critter: The Louisiana Batture Dingo. ‘What?’ you say? ‘How is this possible? How can this be??’ Well, I can assure you, Gentle Reader(s), that it be. I shite thee not.
It came down like this. On the 12th day of this very month I was out riding my bicycular conveyance, as is often my wont to do, on the levee trail that parallels the Mississippi River. About a quarter mile upriver from the River Shack in Jefferson Parish something down in the high grass along the batture caught my eye. It was a pair of dog-like creatures, moving through the abundant undergrowth. Too big and not sufficiently reddish to be foxes, of larger ears and wirier build than domesticated canines, and possessed of a tawny coloration and slender tail atypical of coyotes, I quickly realized that these creatures were something different altogether. Grabbing my trusty iPhone, I was able to snap some pictures before these mysterious and elusive canine quadrupeds disappeared into the deep foliage astride the mighty river.
Full of anticipation I rode my bike home to Ink South to download the images onto my computer for a more detailed examination. The photos confirmed to my eye that these animals were not foxes, not coyotes, not domestic dogs… so what were they???
At this point I resolved to engage the expertise of a man who has spent a lifetime engaged with the critters of south Louisiana, an esteemed luminary in the field of things that swim, fly, trot, slither and crawl about the swampy realms of the Deep South: The Commodore hisself, Glen Jackson. A long-serving and highly regarded field officer for the Louisiana Dept. of Wildlife and Fisheries, the Commodore knows his critters—from the Honey Island Swamp Monster to the Web-Footed Blue Bayou Raccoon, he’s seen them all. Up until now, that is.
Roused from his well-earned leisurely retirement, this eagle-eyed expert of the flora and fauna of south Louisiana readily agreed to lend his virtuoso eyeballs to study the evidence. Certifying his bona fides for the record, the Commodore stated unequivocally ‘I am [not] a biologist!’ Upon viewing the telltale photographs at length this Sage of the Swamps furrowed his brow and stroked his chin in concentration (or at least I imagine he did, as we were talking on the phone at the time). Leaning back in his well-worn leather armchair in his cork-lined library, surrounded by his collection of rare antiquarian volumes on the natural sciences, a cloud of fragrant smoke from the specially cured shag in his trusty old meerschaum pipe curled above the Commodore’s head as he pondered the profound implications of what he had seen. I’m also pretty sure that he was wearing one of those tweed jackets—the type with the suede patches on the elbows. I mean, it sounded like he was, anyway…
After a prolonged silence of careful deliberation, I could wait no longer. ‘Commodore,’ says I, ‘pray tell, is this not a new species? Is this not a confirmed sighting of the heretofore undocumented Louisiana Batture Dingo??’ Stirred from his rumination, the Commodore cleared his throat, took a sip of fine cognac from the cut crystal glass sitting on the Louis Quatorze end table beside him, and stated conclusively and without hesitation ‘Hmmm… well, uhhh… if you say so… I guess…’
So, there you have it. Unimpeachable confirmation of this boggling o’ the mind discovery from the Commodore hisself. What more could one ask for? You are stunned, you say? Shocked? Taken aback? Well you might be, for at first I myself found it hard to believe, but such a forceful endorsement convinced me of the scientific veracity of this momentous revelation.
The scientific world will undoubtedly soon be beating a path to the City That Forgot to Care to confirm this stunning news for themselves, but in the meantime I am setting up LABattureDingo.com, LABattureDingo.net, LABattureDingo.org, LABattureDingo.biz and launching the LABattureDingo Channels on YouTube and TikTok and #LABattureDingo on Twitter and Instagram. Be sure to avoid any cheap knockoffs and purchase your licensed LABattureDingo t-shirts, baseball caps, plushy toys, beer coozies, calendars, tote bags and porch flags only from authorized retailers!
Morgus the Magnificent would be proud.
