On the Today show this morning, they had a brief interview with the curator (conservator? whatever) of the NY Botanical Gardens. The reason he was worthy of such an honor was simple; the Gardens are doing a Holiday Garden and Train Show, with replicas of city buildings made of flowers and trains encircling them. It was both beautiful and amazing to see.
More culture: a new theory posits that Edvard Munch’s painting “The Scream” was prompted by the effects of the Krakatoa explosion. Could be, could be. The theorists suggest that the site where Munch stood when he drew his first sketch is one where the skies would have been affected, and here’s a journal entry Munch wrote in 1893:

“All at once the sky became blood-red . . . clouds like blood and tongues of fire hung above the blue-black fjord and the city . . . and I stood alone, trembling with anxiety . . . I felt a great unending scream piercing through nature.”

Unfortunately, the original Sky and Telescope article where the theory is first published is buried in the magazine’s fee-based archives. Someday I’ll rant about articles of public interest which should be exempted from the fee-only model.