The Constellation of the Elephant by Alexander Beeching

Greetings from Austin, collectors! Today's the last day of South by Southwest and I must admit that I'm sad that things are winding down here. The conference programming has been terrific and it's been great catching up with friends from all over the country. Plus: BBQ! I have an impossibly ambitious list of things I want to squeeze in before I go, so I'm hoping to extend my stay and enjoy Austin as a tourist rather than a conference attendee. Alas, that's still very much up in the air, so today's edition announcement will be ever-so-brief.

The Constellation of the Elephant is our second edition from British illustrator Alexander Beeching. His Dandy Gorilla has been in our midst since last August and I'm very pleased to add his celestial pachyderms to the 20x200 menagerie. As I mentioned when introducing Don Hamerman's Elephant and Jacob Escobedo's Sophie, elephants are my favorite animals; I must say that Alexander's depiction of them is downright stellar.

You might not be surprised to hear that my efforts to find a poem that included mentions of the stars above and elephants proved fruitless. I did, however, discover a Robert Frost poem — On Looking up by Chance at the Constellations — which is quite great, even if it doesn't mention elephants:

You'll wait a long, long time for anything much
To happen in heaven beyond the floats of cloud
And the Northern Lights that run like tingling nerves.
The sun and moon get crossed, but they never touch,
Nor strike out fire from each other nor crash out loud.
The planets seem to interfere in their curves
But nothing ever happens, no harm is done.
We may as well go patiently on with our life,
And look elsewhere than to stars and moon and sun
For the shocks and changes we need to keep us sane.
It is true the longest drouth will end in rain,
The longest peace in China will end in strife.
Still it wouldn't reward the watcher to stay awake
In hopes of seeing the calm of heaven break
On his particular time and personal sight.
That calm seems certainly safe to last to-night.

With the constellations ably described by Frost's words and Beeching's vision, I'll take my leave for the day. I'll be back tomorrow with a pair of images from a photographer who takes his inspiration from what falls to earth.