The image above is the white haired version of the Noh character called Mountain Crone in the play called Yamamba. Here's more about the background to this very interesting character.

"In the Kanze, Komparu and Kongo schools, the Mountain Crone may wear a white wig rather than a black one, in which case the play acquires greater dignity since the shite is then truly an ancient woman." (Japanese No Dramas, p. 314)

Walter of Evolving Space has published a photograph that looks like the carved wooden figure I posted about last week. Thanks for the lead Walter.

I appreciate the connection between age and dignity here.

A humpback whale freed by divers from a tangle of crab trap lines near the Farallon Islands nudged its rescuers and flapped around in what marine experts said was a rare and remarkable encounter.

"It felt to me like it was thanking us, knowing that it was free and that we had helped it," James Moskito, one of the rescue divers, said Tuesday. "It stopped about a foot away from me, pushed me around a little bit and had some fun."
This story appeared on the front page of the San Francisco Chronicle, December 14th 2005.