Here's a theme song for your session - Misalliance by Flanders and Swann:
The fragrant honeysuckle spirals clockwise to the sun, And many other creepers do the same. But some climb anti-clockwise, the bindweed does, for one, Or Convolvulus, to give her proper name. Rooted on either side a door, one of each species grew, And raced towards the window-ledge above. Each corkscrewed to the lintel in the only way it knew, Where they stopped, touched tendrils, smiled, and fell in love. Said the right-handed honeysuckle to the left-handed bindweed, "Oh, let us get married, if our parents don't mind, we'd Be loving and inseparable, inextricably entwined, we'd Live happily ever after" said the honeysuckle to the bindweed. To the honeysuckle's parents it came as a shock. "The bindweeds," they cried, "are inferior stock! They're uncultivated, of breeding bereft, We twine to the right and they twine to the left." Said the anti-clockwise bindweed to the clockwise honeysuckle, "We'd better start saving, many a mickle macks a muckle, Then run away for a honeymoon and hope that our luck'll Take a turn for the better" said the bindweed to the honeysuckle. A bee who was passing remarked to them then, "I've said it before and I'll say it again, Consider your offshoots, if offshoots there be, They'll never receive any blessing from me". "Poor little sucker, how will it learn, When it is climbing, which way to turn? Right, left, what a disgrace, Or it may go straight up and fall flat on its face!" Said the right-hand-thread honeysuckle to the left-hand-thread bindweed, "It seems they're against us, all fate has combined. Oh my darling, oh my darling, oh my darling Colombine, Thou art lost and gone forever, we shall never intertwine". Together, they found them, the very next day, They had pulled up their roots and just shrivelled away. Deprived of that freedom for which we must fight, To veer to the left or to veer to the right! You can hear them sing it on You Tube at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AYr0eNtpDHs [https://www.bing.com/th?id=OVP.XijYudAT4D_8FbP9CrcXLgHgFo&pid=Api]<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AYr0eNtpDHs> Misalliance<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AYr0eNtpDHs> www.youtube.com A piece ostensibly about the habits of climbing plants, but such an intelligent parody of narrow-minded prejudice and class-consciousness! Flanders and Swann were alone in their wonderful mixture of music and humorous lyrics. ________________________________ From: Ecological Society of America: grants, jobs, news <[email protected]> on behalf of Becky Barak <[email protected]> Sent: Wednesday, October 31, 2018 3:59:33 PM To: [email protected] Subject: [ECOLOG-L] Plant Love Stories Inspire Session The Plant Love Stories team is currently putting together a proposal for an Inspire session at the 2019 ESA meeting in Louisville, KY. (See https://na01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=www.plantlovestories.com&data=02%7C01%7Cjweis%40newark.rutgers.edu%7Cbda182bc552a4da92cc108d63f6ae3a0%7Cb92d2b234d35447093ff69aca6632ffe%7C1%7C0%7C636766125659333711&sdata=IvOx8A2J7XmFOnzvBeV2Wh67eTi9XYxPj99D9l6Ykhk%3D&reserved=0 to learn more about us!) Our proposed session will celebrate plants — and their connections to our lives and careers — in stories from a broad range of ecologists, conservation practitioners, and students. We are looking for Plant Love Stories - You can share a funny, poignant, scary, or sentimental story about a plant (or a whole community of plants) that have impacted your life, your family, your career, or your day. We are also looking for a small number of research talks that might fit in with the theme of Plant Love Stories, with amazing things about plants (like plant communication!), plant conservation, or the importance of storytelling to science and conservation. Inspire session talks are the 5-minute talks with 20 slides that auto-advance every 15 seconds. Note that giving an Inspire talk at ESA does not preclude you from giving another scientific presentation at ESA. You are, however, limited to one Inspire talk. If you are interested in presenting in this session, please fill out this google form with your tentative talk title. (https://na01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fgoo.gl%2Fforms%2FAnprlA9emtOPJE3l2&data=02%7C01%7Cjweis%40newark.rutgers.edu%7Cbda182bc552a4da92cc108d63f6ae3a0%7Cb92d2b234d35447093ff69aca6632ffe%7C1%7C0%7C636766125659333711&sdata=VfQ3RI7droMOpYHQjYp2iGAosQiMg1aGJQQQk0bUdiw%3D&reserved=0). Though we have limited space in the session, we'll be sharing as many stories as possible as ESA! The Plant Love Story Team will be in touch with you by November 12. Thanks!
