I was hoping that digging up my copy of The Lives of the Twelve Caesars would provide me a nice little pivot point for today’s photograph. I recalled something about one of the caesars having a taste for green figs and inferred from all that violence and flux of the first two centuries that this proclivity had led to some sort of downfall. Suetonius loves to recall all the little, personal, slightly embarrassing details about his subjects but he treats Julius with kid gloves.
So, I went digging for a good quote and only discovered that Augustus recalled that Julius liked small fishes, hand-pressed cheese and “green figs of the second crop.” It is unclear why the second would be better than the first crop but I suppose that when you are emperor of the known world you get to indulge your whims, later folks to wear the purple certainly did.
Anyway, there are plenty of green figs (of the first crop, I believe) on my grandparents fig trees this year and plenty of ripe ones as well. As much as I may complain about the heat, it is remarkable to live in a place where you can saunter around eating figs, tomatoes and blue berries off of the vine as the sun sets on another day roasted-over by the tropical sun.
I should have some shots from the trip Swede White and I took into the Atchafalaya Basin processed soon. There is another trip scheduled for Thursday by airboat into the swamps north-west of Lake Maurepas for Country Roads Magazine, so that should produce some interesting photos as well.
Lastly, I have an audio commentary running on WRKF this afternoon during All Things Considered. It is a conglomeration of several posts here about photographing the recent flood and the role the river plays in our lives. If you get a chance to tune-in, let me know what you think. I should take this time to thank Swede White, Tegan Wendland and Blythe Johnson for coaching me through the transition from the written to the spoken word. Public speaking has never bothered me and I have been on the radio my fair share of times, but reading prose aloud is an awkward thing; without their patience and help it would probably be unlistenable. If the piece remains unlistenable, the fault rest squarely with this guy.