LOVE OF PLACE

Sometimes I like going for a brief swim in the internet. My photographer friend Elroy went to Alaska and sent back this photo. “Pensive grizzly,” I thought and wondered why bears so often do look pensive and then what other people had to say about that. Googling “pensive” and “grizzly” got me rows of images ("pensive grizzlies") as well as a stock photo labeled “American grizzly bear pensive in front of a waterfall” which I could have bought for $15. Flikr and Pininterest both had sites titled "pensive grizzlies." I went to Google Scholar hoping for a biological explanation for pensive grizzlies but only found articles on things like ex-pensive foraging behaviors among grizzlies and had to be satisfied with this comment, “His thoughts may be about blueberries. Or perhaps salmon. He needs a quiet moment.” There is also the pensive music of a band called Grizzly Bear. And the caption on the photo of a lion eating a baby hippo: “You can see the pensive look on his face despite the grizzly nature of what he is doing.”