Uthl-muc-ko (Yellow-Cedar-Man), by Art Thompson (Tsa-qwa-supp), Nuu-chah-nulth (Ditidaht), 1977

Native lore has this non-human spirit, a wild man of the woods, Yellow-Cedar-Man, living off of ghost food and trying to persuade humans to eat it also, so that they would stay with him in his unreal forest world. This silkscreen by Art Thompson hangs in the Seattle Art Museum (SAM), which I visited last month, with Jay and Carl. The following is the SAM description of his artwork:

Human-like supernatural beings inhabit the world of the Ditidaht and can be ancestors or spirit beings. Yellow-Cedar-Man is one of the ghostly spirits who inhabit the Northwest forest, often depicted with a skull-like head and hooked nose. In this example, the being is seen in the act of transforming from a yellow cedar tree into its human-like form. 

I had the antithesis of ghost food for lunch today. The cafeteria offered up a $5 ballpark special, two large franks, homemade chips and bottled water. This special was in celebration of the Cardinals making the playoffs again this year. We’re getting as bad as those damn Yankees. Even Yellow-Cedar-Man seems to be wearing Cardinal red. How is that for a pivot folks? Even I didn’t see that curve ball coming and I’m writing this blog.

So far, the Cards have only qualified for the wildcard berth, the berth that they qualified for last year. Last year’s one game wildcard playoff against the Nationals led to a Redbird win in part on the back of a poorly called infield fly rule. The call was correct, but the timing was a wee bit off, thank you very much. The Redbirds took the division last year too, only to fall to the Giants, after racking up a 3-1 game lead, in the pennant winning series. And then there was the year before, 2011, but I dare not go there less I lose myself once again in some unreal forest world or the Redbird’s happy hunting ground.

As of writing the Cards find themselves at the top of the National League’s Central Division, with a two game lead. With five games to go, both the Pirates and the Reds are tied for second. Yesterday, both the Pirates and the Reds also qualified for the wildcard. Once considered the cellar division of MLB, in these waning days of regular play the NL Central is looking like the epicenter of baseball this year. I calculate at moments to go before game time that our spirit number is five. We’ll play the Nationals again and since they were eliminated last night, maybe win one more. The final series of the season look interesting. We’ll play the hopefully hapless baby bears from Shy-town, while Pittsburgh and Cincinnati duke it out. I’m hoping for a split decision there. 😉