world's tallest (pause) moss

Sydney

When I was about 12 years old, I got my first inkling that things that seemed really terrible could also be very funny.  I had been walking home from the bus when a little yappy chihuahua got too much leash from its distracted owner, and ran up to bite me on the calf.  It was the first time I'd been bitten by a dog, so it was Great Rite of Passage, freighted with luscious, ennobling worries about infection and disease.

When I told my mother, I used tones that made the importance clear, and even inserted a dramatic pause:  "Mom, I was bitten (pause) by a chihuahua."  And she laughed.  Hard.  Gasping for breath, really.  And then she explained to her mortified son that his pause was to blame:  "You said 'I was bitten ...' and paused, so I visualized this huge angry dog.  Then when you said 'by a chihuahua' the big dog just imploded in a way that was very funny."

Something similar happens with the phrase "world's tallest moss." 

Phil and I encountered this Dawsonia in a rainforest gully on Mount Wilson in the Blue Mountains.  It is, strictly speaking, the world's tallest genus of mosses.  There are several species, and I have no idea which one this is.  Some online sources suggest it can reach 1m in height, amazing for a plant with no vascular system to conduct nutrients efficiently.  UBC Botanical Garden notes that "some cells differentiate into analogues of the water and nutrient-conducting cells of vascular plants, while others become the thick-walled cells necessary to support the free-standing height."  So it may be a little like an early draft in the evolution of vascular systems that later freed plants to reach for the sky. 

So yes, the world's tallest moss.  Or if you the sensation of semantic implosion, the world's tallest ... (pause) ... moss.

Comments

[dale]

:-)

[Peter]

Wonderful!

[Miss Bliss]

So your relationship with the PAUSE goes way back before your exposure to Pinter...interesting.

xoxo