Schlumbergera seedling no. 020

The most notable thing about seedling 020A is that I almost didn't get to see the bloom; it's rare, but the Schlumbergeras do sometimes die of natural(-ish) causes, and I think 020A got overwatered and cold simultaneously, last year, causing a substantial branch to rot. Another branch came close to rotting but appears to have re-rooted itself over the summer.

It wouldn't have been much of a loss if it had died; the color is a little unusual (lighter than the normal orange), but the plant only produced one flower, and as I mentioned in the post for 077B Bad Reputation, I'm having a tough time trusting that any of the bloom colors are the real bloom color. Maybe it's unusual, and maybe it's not. Anyway. This is the only photo I got --

-- so we'd best get to the name options.

We have: Confidential Help, Feet Of Clay, Outrun The Bear, and Special Hardship, which I think are all pretty self-explanatory except maybe Outrun The Bear, which is a reference to a joke.¹

So I'll drop Confidential Help first, on the grounds that it makes less sense now than it did whenever I thought of it.²

And Outrun The Bear isn't nearly as funny now that I've ruined the joke for myself.

Special Hardship sort of works, referring to the rotted branches, but Feet Of Clay is an even better reference to a seedling that may have weak roots.³ Hell, the bloom is even (approximately) clay-colored. So: Feet Of Clay.

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¹ Two campers are out in the woods doing campery things, and all of a sudden they see a bear in the distance. The bear sees them too, and starts coming toward them, and the first camper sits down, takes off his heavy hiking boots and puts on a pair of tennis shoes. "What are you doing changing shoes," says the second camper, "you're not going to outrun the bear." "I don't have to outrun the bear," answers the first camper. "I just have to outrun you."
And then the second camper pulls out a knife and slices the first camper in the calf, I guess, because that's kind of a dickish answer and clearly they must not get along that well. Also it's only logical, by the first camper's reasoning. Naturally the first camper strikes back, and so on back and forth until by the time the bear arrives they're both hobbled and bleeding, and the bear kills them both and then eats all the food they brought, which is just as well because they were clearly pretty shitty people.
Actually I added everything after "I just have to outrun you." The joke's always bothered me.
Though I think it bothers me even more after my addition: it feels like a metaphor for something.
² I suppose I just meant that the seedling needed help to get back on track again, and the help would have to be confidential so as not to embarrass it in front of the other seedlings. Sometimes the anthropomorphization gets away from me a bit.
³ Not to mention the "in psychotherapy" part of the Wikipedia article about "feet of clay," as psychotherapy ties neatly into the "confidential help" thing. Confidential help that the seedling needs because of its special hardship. This whole post is just a tiny ball of densely-knotted interconnections, innit?

Pretty picture: Coelogyne Jannine Banks 'Snow White'

It's maybe a little bit odd that there have only been 2 Coelogyne in PATSP history, and both of them happened this year.

Not odd as in mysterious beyond all human fathoming or anything. But it's weird enough to acknowledge.

Sort of a stereotypically orchidy flower, the sort of thing that should be on a shampoo bottle or something. It's fine, but it didn't photograph well, and it's not like my jaw dropped when I saw it either. Truthfully, I'm more impressed with the foliage. There are better photos of the flowers here and some much better photos here, if you're interested.

Coelogyne Jannine Banks is a primary hybrid (a hybrid of two species), which is a little bit interesting, maybe:

Coelogyne Jannine Banks = Coelogyne mooreana x Coelogyne flaccida (Ref.)

They're both white (though flaccida is sometimes more of a cream or tan); in my opinion Jannine Banks takes more after (and is aesthetically inferior to) mooreana, but if you say it resembles flaccida more, I'm not going to challenge you to a parking lot knife fight over it or anything.

Schlumbergera seedling no. 077 (again)

As seedlings go, well, the difference between 077A Grendel and 077B¹ is a lot more obvious in person than it is in the photos: Grendel is a clear, medium orange with no hint of red, and 077B is a reddish-orange. Which is an opportunity for me to make a Schlumbergera complaint that I haven't made yet.

Do you remember September, when I talked about how I was trying to figure out how many seedlings from each cross I needed to pot up in order to be assured that I'd see most of the color variation the cross was capable of producing? And I decided that there were 13 different color combinations represented among the 'Caribbean Dancer' x NOID peach seedlings? That not only went out the window this year, it went out the window, rolled down a steep hill, landed in a river, went over a waterfall, caught fire, and then exploded. Because not only were the offspring of the new crosses not really different from one another at all, a lot of the old seedlings decided this was the year to try out new color combinations, revisit weird colors that they hadn't done since their first bloom, or do the usual color but in a really extreme way. So things like this happened:

079A Yayoi Kusama, 2015-16 (top) and 2016-17 (bottom)
079A Yayoi Kusama had flirted with magenta margins previously, so it wasn't too much of a surprise to see them come back, but previously the magenta was mostly restricted to the lowest petals, usually only on the tips, and tended to fade as the bloom aged. This year's blooms were split about half-and-half between the two color combinations, and the magenta ones faded a little, but not as much as they did last year.

064A Rose Hoses, 2014-15 (top) 2015-16 (center), and 2016-17 (bottom)
064A Rose Hoses has been a pretty consistent orange / light pink in the past; sometimes the orange has been a little redder, sometimes the pink has been a little stronger, but I didn't see anything like this coming. If anything, that lowest photo understates the intensity of the color, especially on the blooms from late November.

074B Crone Island, 2015-16 (top) and 2016-17 (center and bottom)
074A Vroom and 074B Crone Island have been consistently inconsistent, which is to say that the colors don't really match up from one photo to the next (Vroom is generally red with a white tube, plus or minus some orange near the petal base, plus or minus some magenta near the petal tips; Crone Island is generally peach or orange with a pink or white tube), but they've been distinguishable from one another: Crone Island's the pastel one, Vroom is the darker one. The flower in the center photo above throws all that out the window, though. The branch it appeared on was tagged as Crone Island, but looks like Vroom. Could they be the same seedling? If so, how do I explain that they were distinct before this?

217A Blood Frenzy, 2015-16 (top) and 2016-17 (center and bottom)
217A Blood Frenzy has never been very consistently-colored, even last year. It produced a mix of magenta/red/orange/white, red/orange/white, and red/white both years.

The point of bringing this up is that although 077A Grendel has previously always been a nice clear orange / white, and although 077B has so far been red-orange / pink or orange-red / pink, I'm not sure that 077B is a separate seedling. And not only that, but it all sort of makes a mockery of the idea that I had 13 different color combinations. I saw 13 differently-colored flowers, maybe, but if every seedling can bloom three different ways, then maybe I've got a lot more duplicated seedlings here than I thought. Almost makes a person appreciate the Anthuriums.²

Anyway. 077B, if there is a 077B, is redder than it looks in these photos. Or at least it is sometimes.

My name options for a lot of the Schlumbergera seedlings reflect my state of mind when I was coming up with them, which is how we get names like Deimos to consider for 211A Bruce Lee. 077B was the first new seedling to bloom this year, and was first photographed on 15 November, so . . . you can probably guess where this is going.

Our name options today are: Accelerationist, Bad Reputation, Expletive Deleted, and Manocide Vagenda.

Accelerationism is the political strategy of voting to deliberately making things worse, so as to blow up the system and build something way better in the future, after the present crappy system has completely collapsed under the weight of the terrible people you voted for on purpose to make everything worse. And yes, this is actually an argument people were making in 2016. (I feel like I also remember it from 2004.) Don't know how many people actually voted accordingly. And although it is a very good way of making things worse in the short term, it is a very bad way to make things better in the long term, as we are about to learn. So I think I can throw out Accelerationist immediately.

Manocide Vagenda is memorable, and amuses me, though, again, there are people who actually think that misandry is a thing, and the reason to keep women out of power is because they all hate men and will kill them in droves if permitted the chance.³ And a sign was put up in Maine to this effect, in the impossibly distant time known as "August 2016," a sign which was so over the top awful that (for me) it sort of wrapped all the way around and became adorable. But it's obviously a terrible name for a seedling, in almost every way you could evaluate seedling names.

So Expletive Deleted or Bad Reputation, is our choice.

I feel like Expletive Deleted should maybe be held for a future seedling, on the grounds that I should pace myself a bit: if I'm already doing censored swearing in 2016-17, surely the names will sound [WARNING: link is not even a little bit safe for work -->] like an episode of Deadwood by the 2020-21 season.⁴

Bad Reputation gets points for being unrelated to the election, and it's never a bad time to think about Joan Jett or Freaks and Geeks, but the seedling doesn't have a bad reputation so I'm not sure it makes sense. Though I suppose the seedling didn't inspire cursing either. And we're sort of out of other options.

So I'll go with Bad Reputation.

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¹ And yes, I considered skipping the whole process and calling 077B Beowulf. I'm not sure that would have been a bad idea, but it seemed a little too neat.
² Almost.
³ *COUGHCOUGHCOUGHprojectionCOUGHCOUGHCOUGH*
⁴ Should the gods be so merciful and/or cruel as to let 2020 happen.
Also Deadwood is a lot better and funnier than that makes it sound. I've been rewatching it lately on Amazon, and it's fucking delightful. Don't let the cursing or the fact that it's a western put you off. Unless you really, really hate cursing, in which case I'm going to look at you with a puzzled / concerned expression on my face until you explain yourself.

Pretty picture: Paphiopedilum hirsutissimum

I was looking through previous orchid posts for some other previously-posted plant when I ran across a 2011 post about Paphiopedilum esquirolei, and I thought, huh, that looks an awful lot like this year's Paphiopedilum hirsutissimum, I wonder if one or the other was misidentified.

So I looked into it, and it seems that Paph. esquirolei is now officially Paph. hirsutissimum var. esquirolei, a variety "having shorter hairs on the ovary and peduncle and less hairy flowers." (Ref.)

Orchid taxonomy being what it is, this is probably no longer true either, but it looked true last March.

As the name implies, the flowers are covered in tiny hairs (much easier to see in the full-size version of the photo).

Paph. hirsutissimum is native to southeast Asia; I could try to describe the natural range for you, but it's easier on all of us if you just look at the map I found.

Music videos: Shearwater "Quiet Americans," Tricky "Makes Me Wanna Die"

I heard "Quiet Americans" on Welcome to Night Vale (the "weather" for episode 99) a few weeks ago and was immediately obsessed with it. This happens to me every once in a while with music, but it's so rare that it always kind of surprises me.¹

So I've been listening to it over and over and over on YouTube² since, and chanced on a second song that I think pairs nicely with it,³ so here they are together. Maybe you'll like them, maybe you won't. Should maybe warn you that neither are exactly uplifting, go-out-there-and-kick-some-ass sorts of songs, though if you know me at all you wouldn't have been expecting that anyway.

I can't help it
If all the world is ending
If all the life is gone
While you're calling out this name

Where are the Americans?

Your dimmed conscience
Your hands and eyes that wander
Stumbling down the road
Or collapsing on parade

Or lying alone in the eastern light
Sleeping in the morning hours
The only sound
From the lantern-covered hills
The only light
From the day yet to begin
The only sign
Of the guns in silhouette
The only sound
The only light
Only, only

Our dull silence
Our disconnected lives
Pull out the lightning dust
At the mention of his name

Whither the Americans?

Shake the memories off
Hide the evidence under
Piss on the world below
Like a dog that knows his name

Where are the Americans?

All calling on their own tonight
Filling the remaining hours
The only sounds
Are the bells up on the hill
The only lights
Are the lanterns in the wind
The only sign
Skims the rust off of the rails
The only sound
The only light
Only, only

The only light
Is the day yet to begin
The only signs
Are the lives in silhouette
The only sound
Is the rushing of the wind
The only life
Is not the only life
Only, only
Only, only



She makes me wanna die
Follow where Mary goes
(And) cherish the things she knows
Says if I change my stride
Then I'll fly
She makes me wanna die

And change my stride
Then I'll fly

Look to the sun
See me in psychic pollution
Walking on the moon
And how could you dare?
Who do you think you are?
You're insignificant, a small piece, a(n) ism⁴
No more notice
You try to learn the universe
(And) can't even converse in universe⁵
You know it's ironic
Smoking hydroponic
She makes me wanna die

And change my stride
Then I'll fly

She makes me wanna die
Follow where Mary goes
(And) cherish the things she knows
Says if I change my stride
Then I'll fly

And change my stride
Then I'll fly

Look to the sun
See me in psychic pollution
(And) walking on the moon
(And) how could you dare?
Who do you think you are?
You're insignificant, a small piece, a(n) ism
No more notice
You try to learn the universe
(And) can't even converse in universe⁵
You know

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¹ On the off chance that you might be looking for something to think about besides what everyone else is thinking about today, I've collected a group of YouTube links for your listening enjoyment. I don't guarantee that they'll necessarily make your day any better, but the Soweto Gospel Choir and "Electric Lady" are at least really damned likely to help. Those feeling fragile of mood may also appreciate "Det Snurrar I Min Skalle," "Freedom 90," Bad Lip Reading, and Rich White Ladies.
As music I really really like tends to show up on the blog one way or another, you may remember seeing some of these here before:

• Lady Gaga "Bad Romance"
• Siouxie and the Banshees "Kiss Them For Me"
• Dolly Parton "Hard Candy Christmas"
• Lorde "Tennis Court" / "Royals"
• Vienna Teng "Hymn of Acxiom"
• Familjen "Det Snurrar I Min Skalle"
• DJ Tripp "Run This Firefly" (mashup)
• Pet Shop Boys "What Have I Done To Deserve This?"
• Goldfrapp "A&E"
• Bad Lip Reading "Russian Unicorn" and "(Rockin') All Night Long"
• George Michael "Freedom 90"
• Rich White Ladies "No Bad Vibez" / "Wimbledon" / "White Powder Perm"

And in the last couple months, prior to discovering Shearwater, I've been listening to these a lot:
• Tori Amos "Sweet the Sting"
• The Smiths "How Soon Is Now?"
• Sinead O'Connor "Fire on Babylon" / "Daddy I'm Fine"
• B-52s "Roam" (the video's a little yeesh, though)
• Dixie Chicks "Not Ready To Make Nice" / "Goodbye Earl"
• Luscious Jackson "Naked Eye"
• Chvrches "Bury It" ft. Hayley Williams
• the whole video for the Soweto Gospel Choir NPR Tiny Desk Concert
• Tori Amos cover of "Rattlesnakes" (originally Lloyd Cole and the Commotions) and "Time" (originally Tom Waits)
• Radiohead "Burn The Witch" / "Let Down"
• Amy Grant "What About the Love"
• Dan Wright cover of "Hide and Seek" (originally Imogen Heap)
• Mike Masse and Jeff Hall cover of "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road" (originally Elton John) and "Africa" (originally Toto)
• Depeche Mode "Home" / "Shake the Disease"
• Miranda Lambert "Mama's Broken Heart"
• Gusgus "Within You"
• Janelle Monae "Electric Lady" / "Q.U.E.E.N." ft. Erykah Badu / "Sincerely, Jane"
• Tricky "Christiansands"
• Clams Casino "I'm God"
• Mike Morasky, Portal 2 soundtrack "I Made It All Up"
² Pending actual purchase of the album on a physical CD, which I do because I am uncool. This has to be a 2-album purchase, done through the Barnes & Noble website, though, and I am having a terrible time coming up with a second album to buy with it. Throw some suggestions back at me if you feel like it.
³ Not necessarily in the sense of having anything to do with it musically or thematically. I just like the way the one sounds after the other.
⁴ (I always heard "that is of," but some lyrics sites have it as "an ism," and I admit that it sure does sound like that's what she's saying even if my version makes more sense in context of the following line.)
⁵ (Some lyrics sites record it as "human verse" the first time and "universe" the second, but I'd always heard it as "universe" both times, and I think I still do.)

Schlumbergera seedling no. 211

Seedling 211A is squarely in the orange-to-red space where most of the other seedlings have been. It's pretty, but not especially new. The most interesting thing about it is that there's a hint of magenta on one of the lowest petals, in one of the pictures I got. A few of the new blooms this year were doing that, but I'm not sure why.

In any case. The four names I'm considering are: Bruce Lee, Deimos, Free Kesha, and Miss Emma. Let the decision-making begin!

Bruce Lee, obviously, is the martial artist / cultural icon / actor.

Deimos is the Greek god of terror. (Wikipedia suggests that "god" is maybe a bit much -- more the personification of terror, specifically the terror of war. A symbol in dudely form, but not a dude.)

Free Kesha is a reference to pop singer Kesha's ongoing legal battle with her label over whether she's required to work with a man ("Dr. Luke") who she claims raped and drugged her -- repeatedly -- in order to produce any further songs or albums. She says she shouldn't have to because, hello, sexual assault; Dr. Luke says he did no such thing; the label says no way is she getting out of her contract; the whole thing is more complex because she had previously stated in a sworn deposition in 2011 that he hadn't done the things she's now accusing him of; she says she made false statements then because she was afraid of him. And this has been going on for years now: she's still writing and making new music but it apparently can't be released until / unless she's let out of the contract. My personal take -- not that you asked -- is that obviously she should be let out of the contract, and if Sony really wants to be assholes about it they could include a financial penalty in the settlement but whatever, even if she is lying, there's something awfully fucked up about Sony's contracts if they would force an artist to work with a producer who raped her; i.e., the contract is obviously not humane to begin with and consequently shouldn't be enforced.

And I don't even like Kesha. Though I imagine the whole thing is more complicated than that.¹

Anyway. Miss Emma is one of those names that honor someone personally meaningful to me but that I'd prefer not to get too specific about; all I'll say is that it's color-appropriate.

Feeling like Deimos is maybe a little too on the nose for our present historical moment. Not inappropriate, but I already struggle to keep the present historical moment from invading my every waking thought, and probably don't need more reminders.

And Free Kesha, though sincerely meant, runs the risk of new information completely changing my opinion on the situation. I mean, I'm not sure what information could make me think you know what, never mind, don't free Kesha, it's cool the way it is, but I don't have all the information, just feelings and a rough outline of the situation, and that small chance of everything getting turned upside down in the future is enough to scare me off of the name.

So Bruce Lee or Miss Emma, then, is the decision, and I find that it's mostly a question of how I feel about Bruce Lee. Which I can't quite determine, to be honest. I know who he is (surely everyone reading this knows who he is?²), but I don't know that much about him personally. Not for lack of trying -- I even went so far as to check a Bruce Lee biography out of the library a few days ago.³ The worst I've been able to come up with is a Yahoo Answers page claiming (without sources) that he was abusive to his wife and son, but I've seen houseplant-related answers on Yahoo Answers that were so wrong it all but curled my hair, so if anything, that makes me all the more convinced that he was probably an okay guy. If you've got information to the contrary, by all means let me know, but at least for the moment, I'm going to postpone Miss Emma (it's not like there won't be more red-orange flowers in the future) and go with Bruce Lee for 211A.

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¹ "It's obviously more complicated than that" is becoming my automatic thought whenever I see a fucked-up situation and wonder well why don't they just do ______. Because it usually is more complicated than that. (The complication, when investigated further, is basically always money.)
Also I should maybe soften that to "I don't like the music of Kesha's that I'm familiar with." As far as I can tell, I have no problem with her personally. In fact, what little I've run across makes me think she's probably pretty cool, personally.
² It's time to face the fact that I no longer have any idea what Millennials know and what they don't know. I have a twentysomething brother who wasn't familiar with Boy George (!) until the husband and I sat him down and made him watch "Karma Chameleon." He was home-schooled, from Christian textbooks, but even so, you'd think that there'd be a chapter about, I dunno, the godless gays lurking around every corner. With some reference photos of Boy George, RuPaul, John Waters, the Indigo Girls, etc., for easier recognition.
Perhaps I should start an online cultural exchange program for dangerously sheltered Millennials, where I introduce and discuss stuff like Heathers (which happened to be highly significant in my personal de-sheltering process), Dolly Parton, Sinead O'Connor, Eraserhead and/or Mulholland Drive, The Handmaid's Tale, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Pedro Almodovar, etc., and they in turn introduce me to whatever the hell it is Millennials like. (With my brother, this has so far been Rick and Morty, The Room, and Monster Factory.)
³ It was not useful. It appears to have been written by his wife for an audience of 8th graders, so the odds of learning Bruce Lee's dark secrets, or hearing anything negative about the man at all, are slim. It also happens to be deathly boring, and has surely been responsible for many terrible book reports since its publication.

Pretty picture: Rhyncattleanthe Hsinying Catherine 'Dogashima'

Supposedly fragrant, but as usual, I can't verify that.

The internet failed to give me much interesting information on this one; the most interesting comment I ran across was "to be pronounced at one's own risk," which maybe I've just been doing this too long but I don't see anything especially difficult in the name, long and unfamiliar though it is. Is it not, "RIN-kat-lee-ANN-thee SIN-ying KATH-ur-inn doh-guh-SHE-muh?" 'Cause that's how I pronounce it in my head.¹

Doesn't do much for me one way or another, but sure, it's fine, whatever.

Rhyncattleanthe Hsinying Catherine = Cattleya Fair Catherine x Rhyncattleanthe Love Sound (Ref.)

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¹ The site has it as a Brassolaeliocattleya, instead of a Rhyncattleanthe, which seems even easier, pronunciation-wise: BRASS-o-LAY-lee-o-KAT-lee-uh.
I looked for an official pronunciation for Rhyncattleanthe on-line and found a page that has a lot of orchid genus pronunciations on it; they say I have it wrong, that it's either (rin-KAT-lee-AN-thee) or (rin-kat-lee-AN-thee). I'm pretty sure I was close enough for casual conversation.
And as I've said previously, it's dumb to let yourself get too hung up on trying to pronounce botanical names correctly, either as a novice scared to make the attempt for fear of getting it wrong or as an expert chastising novices for errors. Make the attempt. If someone else has a pronunciation that seems more reasonable than the one you're using, switch; if not, keep doing what you're doing. And if someone gets all superior with you about pronunciations and tries to make you feel stupid, punch 'em in the dick and move on.
(Punching someone else is assault, and you shouldn't do it. I've just been looking for an excuse to link the video for a long time now. Should have known it'd come up in the context of orchids.)

Schlumbergera seedling no. 283

283A was the first seedling to bloom that didn't have 'Caribbean Dancer' as its seed parent; it's from the NOID white instead. I had been envisioning the offspring of the NOID white as a rainbow of pastels, peaches and pinks and lavenders, both in combination with white and one another. This is not how Schlumbergera genetics works, apparently. White --> more white.¹

That said, hey, white is a new color for the seedlings, and it's a nicely-formed flower,² which are both worth something. Not sure what, but something.

The other notable thing about 283A is that it's the only case where the only possible name jumped out at me immediately, which in this case is Migaloo.

Migaloo is the name given to an albino humpback whale in 1991: a scientist spotted him in Australia, and went to Australian Aboriginal leaders to ask what they would name a male albino humpback, and they came up with "Migaloo," which apparently translates "white fella."³ Migaloo is now pretty famous, as whales go, and has a website, Twitter account, Facebook page, and (maybe) son, though articles disagree on whether or not the son (already named "Migaloo Junior") is in fact actually related, and whether the son is a true albino or not.⁴

The pictures are pretty cool, especially the (rare) photos of Migaloo breaching. Worth checking out.

I have no memory of finding the name, but I assume it happened when I was looking for Moby-Dick-related names a while back: Moby-Dick --> the titular whale --> white whales in general --> real-life white whales --> Migaloo.

(This is the later, somewhat askew bloom.)
Not sure how I feel about the seedling specifically; I don't especially need another white-blooming Schlumbergera. Especially since you're going to see five more white seedlings before the seedling-naming is done: they don't necessarily all look the same-same -- one is a bit pinker, one's a bit disheveled, one declined to open all the way -- but you wouldn't know they were different seedlings if I didn't tell you. Migaloo is one of the better ones, so if there's a purge-of-duplicates at some point, he'll probably be one of the white ones I keep.

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¹ Based on other seedlings from the same batch, my guess is that the pollen parent here is the NOID magenta, so white doesn't always lead to more white. Often, but not always.
² Though a later bloom was a bit wonkier, which you'll see at the end of the post.
³ I sort of feel like they could have worked a little harder at the naming, but whatever. It's a good word, even if the meaning's a little on the nose.
Should also note here that people don't go running to consult Aboriginal tribe leaders the second they see something unusual in the ocean; if I'm reading the articles correctly, he was first spotted in 1991, seen again in 1993, and confirmed as male in 1998. (Only male humpbacks sing, and he was singing.) Which is when they brought in the Aboriginal tribe.
⁴ (There are also articles disagreeing that Migaloo, Sr., is a true albino. The only thing all the articles agree on is that he's male, he's a humpback, and he's whiter than the typical humpback. Everything else seems to be up for debate.)