Something peculiar just happened. I was reading, then the phone rang and I stumbled upstairs to get it. It was no one (a machine or marketer) so I did not answer it, but saw the light out the window, the lawns marked by gashes of golden light. Outside, the sun glowed brilliantly between clouds, low but above the horizon, surrounded by dark lips of clouds. I ran inside for my phone to photograph it, but when I returned outside, the clouds and sun had shifted and the brilliance that had been had passed. I had seen it for no more than two or three seconds, not even a moment, and now it has passed. Such sights are among the most beautiful to me, they fill the Earth with fire, with an uncanny, supernatural illumination that I have been unable to see anywhere else. It is a not uncommon event in the Midwest, with its long tables of geography, the odd short trees transplanted on too-wide lawns. All the same, this one I allowed to be swept up and away from me. I ought to have stood there, taking it in; instead, I ran about and misplaced it, allowed it to slip away.
Hopefully such is a lesson to me.
Thursday, April 29, 2010
Thunderhead
A great, blue-gray cloud has just swept in from the south. It came, speaking in a low, calm, loud voice the way an ent speaks; it said "I bring rain." And so it has. The cloud came suddenly, after a long, hot morning and afternoon, which I am pretty sure gave me a mild burn. The light was blinding, even wearing my odd, green-rimmed shades while reading. It was blinding the way heat is blinding, with a gradual press of exhaustion and discomfort--at least when one is immobile--and it eventually got to me. It had that subtle touch of both mild but generous pleasure and vain anger; that is, it shouted, "Look at me!" Vanity, it seems, has been replaced by stolid bulk.
I recently spoke with a co-worker about the weather; or rather, the effects of the weather. In a conversation, the weather is that first or last ground upon which one might stand in order to engage someone. The weather, I suppose, is always there and it is always doing something. That is more than I can say for some people. As for ideas, well, they remain present but can feel pretty inert when they aren't buzzing with personable energy around you via application. I was thinking of the weather because its dreariness at the time was a refreshing and abrupt change from the cool but uncommitted weather that had preceded it. Then, with a chill rain, I felt suddenly recuperated and calmed, forced into feeling unhurried by the new situation.
Talking of weather is more than just talking of what's in the sky. Moods, activity, dispositions, motivations all fluctuate in an odd harmony with the weather for most people. I suppose an exception would be pasty-skinned techies and cellar dwellers, but at least saturated skies and soils mean they cannot be bothered to do yard work. No, even the extremely vitamin d deficient must experience some turn with climatic variance. As someone who bikes everywhere, the impact of weather is intense. In each new incarnation, the weather feels novel, like a new chapter has made it into the world, and no one knows exactly what it will bring.
Weather prediction is one of those mysterious crafts that remains partial to superstition. The systems at play in climate and weather are just about everything. I once read that it rains more on weekends because the exhaust from weekday commutes forces moisture and cloud cover upward, but with the reprieve of the weekend, the skies relax and precipitate. Or, for example, the amount of solar-absorbing cement and asphalt creates urban hotspots. Now, keep in mind that usual ecosystems have multi-tiered climates, separated into microclimates like those above wooded spaces or grasslands, or those above trees and those below, or pasture and farmland and town spaces; each manifests its climate in its own peculiar way, interlocking and interfacing in innumerable ways to make the whole endeavor a guessing game.
I suppose we can say the same for the social sciences and individual human actions. We can use charts and graphs and statistics to say that so many people will run red lights, this or that many medical professionals will inadequately wash their hands, how many cigarettes will be smoked and how many butts will litter the sidewalk, that this many people will graduate from high school or college, or that so many people will die over a given time span. These we can predict with some accuracy--though large events are often poorly predicted and their impacts misunderstood. But when we get on the level of a life, we cannot use the social sciences to say very much about the choices of one person; and when that one person knows she is the subject of scrutiny, then those actions will change again. Even a given action by a given person will be different under different circumstances: A young man might lift twenty bucks from his father, but would deny himself the opportunity to pickpocket as much from an unwary stranger at a transit station.
Do you think the same boy would lay claim to the money in foul weather as in sunny? Perhaps in fine weather, he and his friends go strolling and cruising and maybe find a party to crash--all in all an essentially free evening of fun. In rain, though, his comrades are usually forced inside to malls or restaurants or shops, where the money would be of more use. I doubt very much that the boy would steal from family for savings purposes, after all. What I suppose here is that talking about weather is not as quotidian and dry as is often portrayed. At least, it does not have to be. The weather has a recognizable mystique to it, a mystery that in the process of divining, we may learn the method for understanding one another better, at reading the secret signs of our loved ones and strangers on the street. School courses were often taught so as to teach critical thinking skills, not to learn specific facts; perhaps the method to the climate conversation is of the same vein as the interpersonal conversations we have with those with whom we are slightly more acquainted. They share something worthwhile, and if we pay attention, we can pick up a thing or two.
I recently spoke with a co-worker about the weather; or rather, the effects of the weather. In a conversation, the weather is that first or last ground upon which one might stand in order to engage someone. The weather, I suppose, is always there and it is always doing something. That is more than I can say for some people. As for ideas, well, they remain present but can feel pretty inert when they aren't buzzing with personable energy around you via application. I was thinking of the weather because its dreariness at the time was a refreshing and abrupt change from the cool but uncommitted weather that had preceded it. Then, with a chill rain, I felt suddenly recuperated and calmed, forced into feeling unhurried by the new situation.
Talking of weather is more than just talking of what's in the sky. Moods, activity, dispositions, motivations all fluctuate in an odd harmony with the weather for most people. I suppose an exception would be pasty-skinned techies and cellar dwellers, but at least saturated skies and soils mean they cannot be bothered to do yard work. No, even the extremely vitamin d deficient must experience some turn with climatic variance. As someone who bikes everywhere, the impact of weather is intense. In each new incarnation, the weather feels novel, like a new chapter has made it into the world, and no one knows exactly what it will bring.
Weather prediction is one of those mysterious crafts that remains partial to superstition. The systems at play in climate and weather are just about everything. I once read that it rains more on weekends because the exhaust from weekday commutes forces moisture and cloud cover upward, but with the reprieve of the weekend, the skies relax and precipitate. Or, for example, the amount of solar-absorbing cement and asphalt creates urban hotspots. Now, keep in mind that usual ecosystems have multi-tiered climates, separated into microclimates like those above wooded spaces or grasslands, or those above trees and those below, or pasture and farmland and town spaces; each manifests its climate in its own peculiar way, interlocking and interfacing in innumerable ways to make the whole endeavor a guessing game.
I suppose we can say the same for the social sciences and individual human actions. We can use charts and graphs and statistics to say that so many people will run red lights, this or that many medical professionals will inadequately wash their hands, how many cigarettes will be smoked and how many butts will litter the sidewalk, that this many people will graduate from high school or college, or that so many people will die over a given time span. These we can predict with some accuracy--though large events are often poorly predicted and their impacts misunderstood. But when we get on the level of a life, we cannot use the social sciences to say very much about the choices of one person; and when that one person knows she is the subject of scrutiny, then those actions will change again. Even a given action by a given person will be different under different circumstances: A young man might lift twenty bucks from his father, but would deny himself the opportunity to pickpocket as much from an unwary stranger at a transit station.
Do you think the same boy would lay claim to the money in foul weather as in sunny? Perhaps in fine weather, he and his friends go strolling and cruising and maybe find a party to crash--all in all an essentially free evening of fun. In rain, though, his comrades are usually forced inside to malls or restaurants or shops, where the money would be of more use. I doubt very much that the boy would steal from family for savings purposes, after all. What I suppose here is that talking about weather is not as quotidian and dry as is often portrayed. At least, it does not have to be. The weather has a recognizable mystique to it, a mystery that in the process of divining, we may learn the method for understanding one another better, at reading the secret signs of our loved ones and strangers on the street. School courses were often taught so as to teach critical thinking skills, not to learn specific facts; perhaps the method to the climate conversation is of the same vein as the interpersonal conversations we have with those with whom we are slightly more acquainted. They share something worthwhile, and if we pay attention, we can pick up a thing or two.
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
A Found Lime
After picking up toiletries, cleaning supplies, and tea, I was biking past a construction site. House construction in my neighborhood has been a reality for as far back as I can remember. In Norman, Oklahoma where I lived from an infant through third grade, we would explore the construction sites, pilfer lumber and nails, and once we had an extraordinarily memorable mud clod battle. Though my house was recently constructed, I was under the impression that those houses would never be built, that their wooden skeletons would remain just so, for future generations of children to muck about in and gradually vandalize. In Lincoln, though, the rate of construction as well as my own age have revealed the intensity of sprawling build sites and their houses.
So, I was pondering this immense housing unit that I could not determine exactly what it was. Surely, it was a house of sorts, but it seemed to have four distinct garages. Maybe two were front rooms and two were garages, although I could not escape the sense that cars would live there; people, though, I was less sure of. And then, at the corner with the space of a second lot--barren and dusty with gravel and scrub--in between, I noticed a large, softly glowing lime. I surprised myself a little when I got off and picked it up. I inspected it for blemishes, of which there are two or three, but nothing all the way through to the fruit, and I pocketed it. I was surprised, in part, because I have a bad habit of not using limes and letting the harden in the fridge; and because I briefly inferred it must have belonged to one of the workers.
All the same, it was warm and soft in the spring air, so I assumed it had been there for a spell and brought it home. I wonder from where it came. Its mildly damaged and non-uniform color suggests that it did not come from a super market--which usually discard fruit when it is not of adequate hue, shape, or texture--and the fact that it laid just so, well, it had a contrived air about it. For a moment or two, I half-expected it to be tainted in some way, but then I come back to my usual private response, "Who would go to the trouble if it were?" Usually I come up with no one and come to the conclusion that most people are far too lazy or distracted to commit to serious, malign mischief.
I suppose I ought to have glanced around a bit. I doubt they would even grow, but perhaps it had been plucked from someone's backyard tree. At its stem end, the breach is surprisingly white as if it were freshly plucked. The other explanation would be it rolled from or was flung out of a vehicle passing by; though, as I said earlier, I would be surprised to see it in the produce aisles for its lackluster character. Anywho, the lime has gotten my attention. It hints at this greater situation, but one that smacks of peculiarity. Limes in the Midwest... perhaps the very idea of it is peculiar.
When we witness the unusual--like an abandoned lime at a construction site--we often ignore it altogether. We pass it by, let it fade to nothingness, never actually acknowledging that the oddness was ever there. Other times, the oddness captures us; that is, the lime found me as much as I found the lime. Most of the time, coincidences of strangeness mean very little or nothing at all; but from time to time, coincidences can mean everything. For example, Miss Lauren Fulner and I met at the Gustavus Scholarship Weekend where we performed a short essay test and were interviewed; we subsequently went to two of the afternoon informational sessions (on Curriculum II and study abroad at Gustavus), after which we chatted somewhat. We did not see one another again until move-in day, when we went down to breakfast at about the same time at the same hotel (albeit, there are very few hotels in St. Peter, Minnesota); we learned we were both in Norelius Hall and shared room numbers. Later that day--after my mother and I said our adieux--I went to visit Miss Lauren where she, odd as it may sound, asked me to be her friend. And thus our friendship, an immensely significant one for each of us, was born.
It is possible that wherever I had ended up during the first year at Gustavus, I would have made a lasting, meaningful friendship. In addition, it is likely that Lauren and I would have become fast friends even if we had not met so surreptitiously. And, I might add, that our personality dispositions, similar preferences, and even academic interests did dispose us to make similar choices when it came to the initial informational session meetings as well as later housing selection. With that in mind, one might dismiss coincidence for high probability, but I cannot. I suppose I cannot ignore it because it happened just so, it happened the way a lime in a construction site glows, it happened in a way that could either be ignored entirely or oddly, even bizarrely embraced for what it is.
So, I was pondering this immense housing unit that I could not determine exactly what it was. Surely, it was a house of sorts, but it seemed to have four distinct garages. Maybe two were front rooms and two were garages, although I could not escape the sense that cars would live there; people, though, I was less sure of. And then, at the corner with the space of a second lot--barren and dusty with gravel and scrub--in between, I noticed a large, softly glowing lime. I surprised myself a little when I got off and picked it up. I inspected it for blemishes, of which there are two or three, but nothing all the way through to the fruit, and I pocketed it. I was surprised, in part, because I have a bad habit of not using limes and letting the harden in the fridge; and because I briefly inferred it must have belonged to one of the workers.
All the same, it was warm and soft in the spring air, so I assumed it had been there for a spell and brought it home. I wonder from where it came. Its mildly damaged and non-uniform color suggests that it did not come from a super market--which usually discard fruit when it is not of adequate hue, shape, or texture--and the fact that it laid just so, well, it had a contrived air about it. For a moment or two, I half-expected it to be tainted in some way, but then I come back to my usual private response, "Who would go to the trouble if it were?" Usually I come up with no one and come to the conclusion that most people are far too lazy or distracted to commit to serious, malign mischief.
I suppose I ought to have glanced around a bit. I doubt they would even grow, but perhaps it had been plucked from someone's backyard tree. At its stem end, the breach is surprisingly white as if it were freshly plucked. The other explanation would be it rolled from or was flung out of a vehicle passing by; though, as I said earlier, I would be surprised to see it in the produce aisles for its lackluster character. Anywho, the lime has gotten my attention. It hints at this greater situation, but one that smacks of peculiarity. Limes in the Midwest... perhaps the very idea of it is peculiar.
When we witness the unusual--like an abandoned lime at a construction site--we often ignore it altogether. We pass it by, let it fade to nothingness, never actually acknowledging that the oddness was ever there. Other times, the oddness captures us; that is, the lime found me as much as I found the lime. Most of the time, coincidences of strangeness mean very little or nothing at all; but from time to time, coincidences can mean everything. For example, Miss Lauren Fulner and I met at the Gustavus Scholarship Weekend where we performed a short essay test and were interviewed; we subsequently went to two of the afternoon informational sessions (on Curriculum II and study abroad at Gustavus), after which we chatted somewhat. We did not see one another again until move-in day, when we went down to breakfast at about the same time at the same hotel (albeit, there are very few hotels in St. Peter, Minnesota); we learned we were both in Norelius Hall and shared room numbers. Later that day--after my mother and I said our adieux--I went to visit Miss Lauren where she, odd as it may sound, asked me to be her friend. And thus our friendship, an immensely significant one for each of us, was born.
It is possible that wherever I had ended up during the first year at Gustavus, I would have made a lasting, meaningful friendship. In addition, it is likely that Lauren and I would have become fast friends even if we had not met so surreptitiously. And, I might add, that our personality dispositions, similar preferences, and even academic interests did dispose us to make similar choices when it came to the initial informational session meetings as well as later housing selection. With that in mind, one might dismiss coincidence for high probability, but I cannot. I suppose I cannot ignore it because it happened just so, it happened the way a lime in a construction site glows, it happened in a way that could either be ignored entirely or oddly, even bizarrely embraced for what it is.
Thursday, April 22, 2010
Thinking of Earth Day
For those not in the know, today is Earth Day. Not only that, it is the 40th anniversary of the first Earth Day in 1970. Earth Day was both a celebration of the Earth as an entity and a sort of political initiation of environmental legislation. During the Nixon administration, The Clean Air and Water Acts were signed into law, which in turn lead to the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency to enforce those and subsequent laws. The Environmental Movement of the 1970s was mostly marked by a wilderness ethic--preventing the despoiling of wild spaces--and cleaning up the mess left by industry--industrial effluent and exhaust. It had its vast cultural significance, but most of the images associated with the cultural impacts of the Environmental Movement often become swept up in images of psychedelic music, free love, and the Anti-War Movement, so it sort of loses its content.
Wilderness organizations like the Sierra Club (founded in 1892), Ducks Unlimited (1932) and Nature Conservancy (1952) were well-established by the first Earth Day. Their agenda generally pursued the fostering of both public and private stewardship of open, healthy landscapes, which was put into legislation in the United States in 1964. The Wilderness Act described its purpose, like those of the aforementioned organizations, to be one of preservation of wilderness, memorably defined as, "A wilderness, in contrast with those areas where man and his own works dominate the landscape, is hereby recognized as an area where the earth and community of life are untrammeled by man, where man himself is a visitor who does not remain." This terminology and the subsequent enforcement of the bill identified the Wilderness Act with lineage of national parks and nature reserves, intended to maintain spaces for the sometimes contradictory purposes of preservation of wild spaces and access to wilderness by tourists.
What the Clean Air and Water Acts notably provide is a intellectual and political breach between "natural" and "artificial" spaces; that is, in order to preserve the well-being of people, it is pertinent to preserve the well-being of natural spaces and resources. This thinking can be linked to Rachel Carson's book, Silent Spring published in 1962, in which Carson goes into painful detail the role of chemical pesticides in literally maiming the landscape, its animal and vegetable occupants, and the human communities that share or live downstream of such "managed" landscapes. Carson's work, both in Silent Spring and beyond, argued for a more thoughtful, systemic analysis of management plans and a general prohibition on potent chemical poisons. Her work was a catalyst for the significant reduction in chemical landscape management and chemical agriculture in subsequent decades.
Though it can be said that significant episodes in environmental history occurred between these dates (further development of the EPA, Superfund sites and management, the Nuclear and Anti-Nuclear Movements, protecting endangered species, etc.), I want to leap ahead to 1987 and the Montreal Protocol. The chemists Frank Sherwood Rowland and Mario Molina studied strong, synthetic chemicals called CFCs (chlorofluorocarbons), whose work led to the understanding the CFCs and similar synthetic chemicals deteriorated in the upper atmosphere, releasing Chlorine atoms, which destabilized ozone molecules. (Note: CFCs are called synthetic chemicals because the literally did not exist before we made them. They were often used as refrigerants and as ingredients in aerosols.) The Montreal Protocol is often considered a landmark, global achievement in establishing a healthy environmental political ethics because the issues demanded the participation of all parties (i.e. nations) that allowed industries to use ozone degrading chemicals. With hard deadlines pressed, claimed and monitored by participant nations, chemists and manufacturers moved toward low- and no-impact replacements, thus averting one of the first pressing global environmental issues.
Even at that time, though, climatologists were identifying the tell-tale calling cards of global warming. The steady rise in atmospheric carbon dioxide, compared to historical records as established in ice and soil cores, strongly suggested that the planet was in store for a responsive increase in global temperatures. (Note: The science behind this is pretty cool, as it takes field work from all over the planet to confirm just a handful of the relationships at play. First, ice and lake-bottom soil core samples hold various levels of oxygen or biological matter respectively, which in turn provide information on the amount of photosynthesis taking place at the time the samples were forming based on oxygen isotopes found therein, and finally can be compared to contemporary levels of oxygen at various latitudes, altitudes, and those regions temperatures. At least, that is the rough of how I think it works.) Various climatologists, both professional and amateur, had begun to express alarm in the early 1980s, which peaked in intensity when James Hansen spoke to the US Congress about the importance of responding to rising carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Unlike the issue of CFCs at the Montreal Summit, carbon dioxide is not a mere tool for certain industrial processes; carbon dioxide and similar greenhouse gases are generally the result of the developed world's way of life. Therefore, any efforts to curb or eliminate carbon dioxide in a serious way require a serious reconsideration of lifestyle in those countries.
Those first political maneuvers went generally unnoticed and forgotten in the economic booms that were to come over the following twenty years. Whether it is climate talks today or the original maintenance of clean waterways, environmental politics are virtually always framed as activists vs. industry. When the economy is doing as well as it did throughout the 1990s, arguing that industry needs to change runs into heavy social opinion in the other direction. In the meantime, in order to increase funding, the EPA incorporated more and more roles under its belt, simultaneously sacrificing its ability to perform tasks well. The result being that even companies failing to meet the demands of established environmental legislation are rarely charged with more than token fines if anything. That sort of imbalance can be shown contemporaneously by the painful example of Massey Energy and the Upper Big Branch Mine: Massey was repeatedly charged with fines for criminal negligence and poor working conditions, none of which adequately discouraged their practices, leading to the worst mining disaster in forty years.
Especially in the current economic recession--no matter what Wall Street says--it is extraordinarily pertinent to set aside the rhetoric of environment vs. industry. Not only is it clear that such a dialogue goes no where, but itself is a mechanism for paralysis. The jobs that are needed now more than ever are a combination of highly-skilled, scientific and engineering positions to move our technology not just forward but outward, to fill the needs we are able to but have failed to satisfy (renewable energy, appliance energy efficiency, more powerful recycling programs, public transit, etc.); and the newly and not-yet trained technicians to install and institute those technologies well. In addition, there is an increasingly, glaringly obvious necessity to motivate a grander rethinking of our lifestyles, the rules that govern our communities, and the responsibilities we demand of our industries and businesses. When I touch on issues of school lunch programs, sustainable agriculture, and urban planning, this latter category is the subject to which I speak. These are jobs; real, necessary jobs that will fill the pockets of the unemployed and the fractures of our society.
Over the past two decades, despite the efforts of environmentalists and political activists the world over, the politics of the environment have been sidelined. The reality of the environment is the reality of peoples livelihoods as farmers, fishers, manufacturers, merchants, politicians, and everyone else. The reality of global warming is the reality of the water and nutritional needs of people alive today and tomorrow, of billions of people abroad and millions of people in the United States. The reality of pollution is felt in the lungs of urban youth the world over, in the premature deaths of mothers and fathers, in the muscle fatigue of laborers in nearly every country in the world, and even in the distracted minds of our school children.
I have been thinking about something for the past few days. I have been thinking about a question. That question is,
"How would you treat the Earth if you had only one?"
I ask that question because we have only one Earth, but we act as if we have many, maybe innumerable Earths. Our One Earth is the freshwater we drink, the clean air we breath, the topsoil from which our food grows and the animals that eat its grass and leaves. Our One Earth is air and water and earth and wood and fire. We eat our food, we eat of the Earth; when we lay down to sleep, we rest on the shoulder of the Earth; and when we die, we become the Earth. Perhaps we can realize that in our deaths, we never strayed, we never divided, we never became something other than our One Earth.
Wilderness organizations like the Sierra Club (founded in 1892), Ducks Unlimited (1932) and Nature Conservancy (1952) were well-established by the first Earth Day. Their agenda generally pursued the fostering of both public and private stewardship of open, healthy landscapes, which was put into legislation in the United States in 1964. The Wilderness Act described its purpose, like those of the aforementioned organizations, to be one of preservation of wilderness, memorably defined as, "A wilderness, in contrast with those areas where man and his own works dominate the landscape, is hereby recognized as an area where the earth and community of life are untrammeled by man, where man himself is a visitor who does not remain." This terminology and the subsequent enforcement of the bill identified the Wilderness Act with lineage of national parks and nature reserves, intended to maintain spaces for the sometimes contradictory purposes of preservation of wild spaces and access to wilderness by tourists.
What the Clean Air and Water Acts notably provide is a intellectual and political breach between "natural" and "artificial" spaces; that is, in order to preserve the well-being of people, it is pertinent to preserve the well-being of natural spaces and resources. This thinking can be linked to Rachel Carson's book, Silent Spring published in 1962, in which Carson goes into painful detail the role of chemical pesticides in literally maiming the landscape, its animal and vegetable occupants, and the human communities that share or live downstream of such "managed" landscapes. Carson's work, both in Silent Spring and beyond, argued for a more thoughtful, systemic analysis of management plans and a general prohibition on potent chemical poisons. Her work was a catalyst for the significant reduction in chemical landscape management and chemical agriculture in subsequent decades.
Though it can be said that significant episodes in environmental history occurred between these dates (further development of the EPA, Superfund sites and management, the Nuclear and Anti-Nuclear Movements, protecting endangered species, etc.), I want to leap ahead to 1987 and the Montreal Protocol. The chemists Frank Sherwood Rowland and Mario Molina studied strong, synthetic chemicals called CFCs (chlorofluorocarbons), whose work led to the understanding the CFCs and similar synthetic chemicals deteriorated in the upper atmosphere, releasing Chlorine atoms, which destabilized ozone molecules. (Note: CFCs are called synthetic chemicals because the literally did not exist before we made them. They were often used as refrigerants and as ingredients in aerosols.) The Montreal Protocol is often considered a landmark, global achievement in establishing a healthy environmental political ethics because the issues demanded the participation of all parties (i.e. nations) that allowed industries to use ozone degrading chemicals. With hard deadlines pressed, claimed and monitored by participant nations, chemists and manufacturers moved toward low- and no-impact replacements, thus averting one of the first pressing global environmental issues.
Even at that time, though, climatologists were identifying the tell-tale calling cards of global warming. The steady rise in atmospheric carbon dioxide, compared to historical records as established in ice and soil cores, strongly suggested that the planet was in store for a responsive increase in global temperatures. (Note: The science behind this is pretty cool, as it takes field work from all over the planet to confirm just a handful of the relationships at play. First, ice and lake-bottom soil core samples hold various levels of oxygen or biological matter respectively, which in turn provide information on the amount of photosynthesis taking place at the time the samples were forming based on oxygen isotopes found therein, and finally can be compared to contemporary levels of oxygen at various latitudes, altitudes, and those regions temperatures. At least, that is the rough of how I think it works.) Various climatologists, both professional and amateur, had begun to express alarm in the early 1980s, which peaked in intensity when James Hansen spoke to the US Congress about the importance of responding to rising carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Unlike the issue of CFCs at the Montreal Summit, carbon dioxide is not a mere tool for certain industrial processes; carbon dioxide and similar greenhouse gases are generally the result of the developed world's way of life. Therefore, any efforts to curb or eliminate carbon dioxide in a serious way require a serious reconsideration of lifestyle in those countries.
Those first political maneuvers went generally unnoticed and forgotten in the economic booms that were to come over the following twenty years. Whether it is climate talks today or the original maintenance of clean waterways, environmental politics are virtually always framed as activists vs. industry. When the economy is doing as well as it did throughout the 1990s, arguing that industry needs to change runs into heavy social opinion in the other direction. In the meantime, in order to increase funding, the EPA incorporated more and more roles under its belt, simultaneously sacrificing its ability to perform tasks well. The result being that even companies failing to meet the demands of established environmental legislation are rarely charged with more than token fines if anything. That sort of imbalance can be shown contemporaneously by the painful example of Massey Energy and the Upper Big Branch Mine: Massey was repeatedly charged with fines for criminal negligence and poor working conditions, none of which adequately discouraged their practices, leading to the worst mining disaster in forty years.
Especially in the current economic recession--no matter what Wall Street says--it is extraordinarily pertinent to set aside the rhetoric of environment vs. industry. Not only is it clear that such a dialogue goes no where, but itself is a mechanism for paralysis. The jobs that are needed now more than ever are a combination of highly-skilled, scientific and engineering positions to move our technology not just forward but outward, to fill the needs we are able to but have failed to satisfy (renewable energy, appliance energy efficiency, more powerful recycling programs, public transit, etc.); and the newly and not-yet trained technicians to install and institute those technologies well. In addition, there is an increasingly, glaringly obvious necessity to motivate a grander rethinking of our lifestyles, the rules that govern our communities, and the responsibilities we demand of our industries and businesses. When I touch on issues of school lunch programs, sustainable agriculture, and urban planning, this latter category is the subject to which I speak. These are jobs; real, necessary jobs that will fill the pockets of the unemployed and the fractures of our society.
Over the past two decades, despite the efforts of environmentalists and political activists the world over, the politics of the environment have been sidelined. The reality of the environment is the reality of peoples livelihoods as farmers, fishers, manufacturers, merchants, politicians, and everyone else. The reality of global warming is the reality of the water and nutritional needs of people alive today and tomorrow, of billions of people abroad and millions of people in the United States. The reality of pollution is felt in the lungs of urban youth the world over, in the premature deaths of mothers and fathers, in the muscle fatigue of laborers in nearly every country in the world, and even in the distracted minds of our school children.
I have been thinking about something for the past few days. I have been thinking about a question. That question is,
"How would you treat the Earth if you had only one?"
I ask that question because we have only one Earth, but we act as if we have many, maybe innumerable Earths. Our One Earth is the freshwater we drink, the clean air we breath, the topsoil from which our food grows and the animals that eat its grass and leaves. Our One Earth is air and water and earth and wood and fire. We eat our food, we eat of the Earth; when we lay down to sleep, we rest on the shoulder of the Earth; and when we die, we become the Earth. Perhaps we can realize that in our deaths, we never strayed, we never divided, we never became something other than our One Earth.
Thursday, April 15, 2010
Larry the Finch
I have hashed out two chapters and an introduction to a peculiar little horror story involving a detective and some macabre tropes. Many of its first hints, those bread crumbs in the wood, are on the table, as well as a handful of references and allusions to various pieces of horror fiction. So far, it has been great fun. More than anything, the piece feels like fun. If I weren't making so much time to navigate the employment shallows, I would be much further along, but a boy has to make up his priorities.
I have sent a few friends some of the text and am interested in hearing from other people if they're interested. Posting it here does not provide a particularly effective venue due to formatting issues. I read the introduction aloud to Miss Miriam Cummings last night--a most unexpected audience, I might add--and felt rather confident and rather satisfied with the reading. Sure, a few sentences are particularly clunky, marred by poor diction and fragmentation. Overall, the feeling and tone was satisfactory. Not only that, but I read it well, which has its own excitement.
Lorenzo Vincenzi has a variety of names, Larry the Finch being one of them. His friends and comrades in the dark trenches are becoming more palpable to me, more coherent, clearer in focus. It is loosely based in Boston--where Lovecraft mostly lived and often set his stories--but not marked by anything overly distinctive since I am unfamiliar with the city. I have something like eighteen pages, but can expect more and more, those corners gradually lighting in an unfamiliar way compared to longer pieces I have worked on in the past.
I am happy with it, and look forward to making more time for it in the not too distant future.
I have sent a few friends some of the text and am interested in hearing from other people if they're interested. Posting it here does not provide a particularly effective venue due to formatting issues. I read the introduction aloud to Miss Miriam Cummings last night--a most unexpected audience, I might add--and felt rather confident and rather satisfied with the reading. Sure, a few sentences are particularly clunky, marred by poor diction and fragmentation. Overall, the feeling and tone was satisfactory. Not only that, but I read it well, which has its own excitement.
Lorenzo Vincenzi has a variety of names, Larry the Finch being one of them. His friends and comrades in the dark trenches are becoming more palpable to me, more coherent, clearer in focus. It is loosely based in Boston--where Lovecraft mostly lived and often set his stories--but not marked by anything overly distinctive since I am unfamiliar with the city. I have something like eighteen pages, but can expect more and more, those corners gradually lighting in an unfamiliar way compared to longer pieces I have worked on in the past.
I am happy with it, and look forward to making more time for it in the not too distant future.
Ducks in a Row
I am trying to find work. To do so, there seem to be more and more tools to help, but I am unsure about how I feel about the tools. Having been steered to LinkedIn, a business-friendly social networking service, I have been looking up and bugging old employers, colleagues, and acquaintances. All it all, it feels very much like my least favorite characteristics of the Facebook. That is, it feels like a lot of sneaking up on people, tapping them on the shoulder, engaging in small talk, then wandering off.
Why is that? Well, we encounter more people in our lives now than in any previous generation. We travel for leisure, for work, for school, for friends. We engage in various school communities (elementary, middle/junior, senior high, college, graduate school, etc.--not to mention moving from place to place or changing schools). We also hold various jobs where we make similar acquaintances and, from time to time, joyous friendships. I recall my summer counseling at Duke fondly, I can even recall the summer I spent there as a student in high school; each episode marked by the various friend circles, youthful politicking, and wisdom-gleaning moments. In some ways, I prefer to leave memories as memories. Often, I might show up in the neighborhood of a friend I have not seen in years and try to arrange a rendez-vous of some sort; or, as in the case with my classmates in Brazil, look forward to long weekends couch surfing when, every few years, scheduling allows. When it comes to networking for the sake of networking, well, it feels rather shallow.
Of course, I say that now, with a heavy feeling. Hopefully, this can lead me to some form of work, some job or career path, or maybe toward a particular focus when I return to academia. (I have made mention of grad school to friends and family, but that was and will remain a backup until it is something I know I ought to return to. It is one of those things I will come to do, will have done later on, and will serve me. For now, though, I have a compulsion for serious, sincere, meaningful work and that means postponing grad school until it feels more appropriate.) This weight is some sort of preemptive appreciation, some acknowledgement of things that I trust will come to pass but have not yet done so. The time and guidance and kind words given to me are one thing, but they are neither fruits nor seeds; they are more like fertilizer and gardening tools: They must be put to work and succeed at those projects before I can understand them fully.
Presently, all I seem to be able to do is put my tools to work, and aspire that despite my inexperience, I will see sprouts and hearty trunks and green leaves and, eventually, fruit. I am not used to working with so much hope, or at least not acknowledging it. Last night, I spoke with Miss Miriam Cummings about skills and our proficiency with them. I was never a good visual artist, though as a child I often tried; if I had had the determination, I would today be an average to okay visual artist. Miriam, similarly, can play the piano and has learned to sight-read, but is not a proficient player. (I have not heard her once, this is of her own account, and I imagine that Miriam is prone to humility.) Most people have one or two things that she or he is very good at, a handful of things that are more difficult, and the rest is somewhere in between. I suppose, I am learning to explore those average skills and foster greater dexterity with them, and trusting I will not stumble upon the cache of unknown frustrations like visual artistry. So much hope, so much trust; but for now, I am practicing determination, even against my own skeptical hindrances.
Why is that? Well, we encounter more people in our lives now than in any previous generation. We travel for leisure, for work, for school, for friends. We engage in various school communities (elementary, middle/junior, senior high, college, graduate school, etc.--not to mention moving from place to place or changing schools). We also hold various jobs where we make similar acquaintances and, from time to time, joyous friendships. I recall my summer counseling at Duke fondly, I can even recall the summer I spent there as a student in high school; each episode marked by the various friend circles, youthful politicking, and wisdom-gleaning moments. In some ways, I prefer to leave memories as memories. Often, I might show up in the neighborhood of a friend I have not seen in years and try to arrange a rendez-vous of some sort; or, as in the case with my classmates in Brazil, look forward to long weekends couch surfing when, every few years, scheduling allows. When it comes to networking for the sake of networking, well, it feels rather shallow.
Of course, I say that now, with a heavy feeling. Hopefully, this can lead me to some form of work, some job or career path, or maybe toward a particular focus when I return to academia. (I have made mention of grad school to friends and family, but that was and will remain a backup until it is something I know I ought to return to. It is one of those things I will come to do, will have done later on, and will serve me. For now, though, I have a compulsion for serious, sincere, meaningful work and that means postponing grad school until it feels more appropriate.) This weight is some sort of preemptive appreciation, some acknowledgement of things that I trust will come to pass but have not yet done so. The time and guidance and kind words given to me are one thing, but they are neither fruits nor seeds; they are more like fertilizer and gardening tools: They must be put to work and succeed at those projects before I can understand them fully.
Presently, all I seem to be able to do is put my tools to work, and aspire that despite my inexperience, I will see sprouts and hearty trunks and green leaves and, eventually, fruit. I am not used to working with so much hope, or at least not acknowledging it. Last night, I spoke with Miss Miriam Cummings about skills and our proficiency with them. I was never a good visual artist, though as a child I often tried; if I had had the determination, I would today be an average to okay visual artist. Miriam, similarly, can play the piano and has learned to sight-read, but is not a proficient player. (I have not heard her once, this is of her own account, and I imagine that Miriam is prone to humility.) Most people have one or two things that she or he is very good at, a handful of things that are more difficult, and the rest is somewhere in between. I suppose, I am learning to explore those average skills and foster greater dexterity with them, and trusting I will not stumble upon the cache of unknown frustrations like visual artistry. So much hope, so much trust; but for now, I am practicing determination, even against my own skeptical hindrances.
Monday, April 12, 2010
“The City That Does Not Sleep” - Frederico Garcia Lorca
In the sky there is nobody asleep. Nobody, nobody.
Nobody is asleep.
The creatures of the moon sniff and prowl about their cabins.
The living iguanas will come and bite the men who do not dream,
and the man who rushes out with his spirit broken will meet on the
street corner
the unbelievable alligator quiet beneath the tender protest of the
stars.
Nobody is asleep on earth. Nobody, nobody.
Nobody is asleep.
In a graveyard far off there is a corpse
who has moaned for three years
because of a dry countryside on his knee;
and that boy they buried this morning cried so much
it was necessary to call out the dogs to keep him quiet.
Life is not a dream. Careful! Careful! Careful!
We fall down the stairs in order to eat the moist earth
or we climb to the knife edge of the snow with the voices of the dead
dahlias.
But forgetfulness does not exist, dreams do not exist;
flesh exists. Kisses tie our mouths
in a thicket of new veins,
and whoever his pain pains will feel that pain forever
and whoever is afraid of death will carry it on his shoulders.
One day
the horses will live in the saloons
and the enraged ants
will throw themselves on the yellow skies that take refuge in the
eyes of cows.
Another day
we will watch the preserved butterflies rise from the dead
and still walking through a country of gray sponges and silent boats
we will watch our ring flash and roses spring from our tongue.
Careful! Be careful! Be careful!
The men who still have marks of the claw and the thunderstorm,
and that boy who cries because he has never heard of the invention
of the bridge,
or that dead man who possesses now only his head and a shoe,
we must carry them to the wall where the iguanas and the snakes
are waiting,
where the bear's teeth are waiting,
where the mummified hand of the boy is waiting,
and the hair of the camel stands on end with a violent blue shudder.
Nobody is sleeping in the sky. Nobody, nobody.
Nobody is sleeping.
If someone does close his eyes,
a whip, boys, a whip!
Let there be a landscape of open eyes
and bitter wounds on fire.
No one is sleeping in this world. No one, no one.
I have said it before.
No one is sleeping.
But if someone grows too much moss on his temples during the
night,
open the stage trapdoors so he can see in the moonlight
the lying goblets, and the poison, and the skull of the theaters.
~~~
via The New Inquiry
~~~
Maybe it has to do with so much of everything happening right now, but Lorca brings me to tears tonight. I am torn by his frightful loveliness. And. And I am torn by something ineffable and within myself.
Nobody is asleep.
The creatures of the moon sniff and prowl about their cabins.
The living iguanas will come and bite the men who do not dream,
and the man who rushes out with his spirit broken will meet on the
street corner
the unbelievable alligator quiet beneath the tender protest of the
stars.
Nobody is asleep on earth. Nobody, nobody.
Nobody is asleep.
In a graveyard far off there is a corpse
who has moaned for three years
because of a dry countryside on his knee;
and that boy they buried this morning cried so much
it was necessary to call out the dogs to keep him quiet.
Life is not a dream. Careful! Careful! Careful!
We fall down the stairs in order to eat the moist earth
or we climb to the knife edge of the snow with the voices of the dead
dahlias.
But forgetfulness does not exist, dreams do not exist;
flesh exists. Kisses tie our mouths
in a thicket of new veins,
and whoever his pain pains will feel that pain forever
and whoever is afraid of death will carry it on his shoulders.
One day
the horses will live in the saloons
and the enraged ants
will throw themselves on the yellow skies that take refuge in the
eyes of cows.
Another day
we will watch the preserved butterflies rise from the dead
and still walking through a country of gray sponges and silent boats
we will watch our ring flash and roses spring from our tongue.
Careful! Be careful! Be careful!
The men who still have marks of the claw and the thunderstorm,
and that boy who cries because he has never heard of the invention
of the bridge,
or that dead man who possesses now only his head and a shoe,
we must carry them to the wall where the iguanas and the snakes
are waiting,
where the bear's teeth are waiting,
where the mummified hand of the boy is waiting,
and the hair of the camel stands on end with a violent blue shudder.
Nobody is sleeping in the sky. Nobody, nobody.
Nobody is sleeping.
If someone does close his eyes,
a whip, boys, a whip!
Let there be a landscape of open eyes
and bitter wounds on fire.
No one is sleeping in this world. No one, no one.
I have said it before.
No one is sleeping.
But if someone grows too much moss on his temples during the
night,
open the stage trapdoors so he can see in the moonlight
the lying goblets, and the poison, and the skull of the theaters.
~~~
via The New Inquiry
~~~
Maybe it has to do with so much of everything happening right now, but Lorca brings me to tears tonight. I am torn by his frightful loveliness. And. And I am torn by something ineffable and within myself.
Sunday, April 11, 2010
SFA Confab & Reflections
Yesterday morning, Miss Lauren Fulner (aka Teaspoon) and I made our way to our alma mater, Gustavus Adolphus College, for the Sustainable Farming Association Confab. Discussions were lively after that initial hesitancy, and I was happy to make a few acquaintances discussing food, agriculture, and politics. I thought it wise to provide a few key points that were important to me from the Confab.
First, when you talk about changing agriculture--particularly with the moniker of sustainability around--you are talking about everything. One of the lecturers brought up--albeit, inaccurately--the John Muir quote, "When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the Universe," I could only agree. Ostensibly, we were there to talk about farming, but what does that mean? Farming involves people working with the land with certain methods, employing and nurturing specific plants well combating others, using particular tools or machinery to do cultivate and harvest and process, in order to provide food for citizens far and wide. Where to begin? Well, repopulating and redemocratizing the rural landscape with young, innovative, clever, dedicated people is a start; so we talk about encouraging and providing resources for new farmers. What about manufacturing tools or energy with which to farm? Well, we can talk about refurbishing old machinery like the electric tractor (I am uncertain, but I think they were talking about this from the Flying Beet), or building value-added processing infrastructure on the small and local scale, or establishing renewable energy systems for farming and distribution. Or we can talk politics about the subsidies that encourage commodity corn and soybeans (industrial resources) to fresh fruits and vegetables and grains (nutritious foods), or the legislative rigmarole that surrounds raw milk and independent cheese making, or connecting individuals to CSAs (Community-Supported Agriculture) and farmers markets. (One immense triumph on the last count is the still pretty recent ability to use food stamps at farmers' markets.) Or we could...
Well you get the idea and I want to move on anyway.
Second, and this did not get as much attention as I would have liked, is the reality of school lunches and the excitement in changing the programs. Some mention was made to farm-to-school programs as well as farm-to-hospitals and the like, which is incredibly exciting. Having begun to follow Mrs. Q's Fed Up With School Lunch blog and having read an older article about meat standards in school lunches (check the tumblr), the expeditious necessity of fixing it is all the more apparent. If there is grassroots motivation for widespread political change in the school lunch program (which favors, cheap, flavorless commodity foods), it will motivate a reconsideration of farming more generally (toward fresher, healthier, whole foods), thus providing markets and motivation for more farmers toward wholesome fruits and vegetables, potentially carrying a potent wave of agricultural and food system change. Presently, the school lunch program is a dumping ground for low quality, nutrient poor, highly processed, unmarketable food-like products. In the back of my mind, I can recall my own experiences with this, but reading up on Mrs. Q's exploits and Oliver's Food Revolution (reservations aside) makes these reality all the more worrisome.
And third (of course, there is more for me to cover, but Lauren has returned and I ought to attend to the analog reality again), architectural innovation and design insights will increasingly pervade urban and landscape development more generally. This was not an obvious topic of the conference, but recalling a group thought experiment from last spring at Gustavus, chatting with some students and the architecture representative, and the way nearly everyone spoke about agricultural methods and system transformations, this is increasingly obvious. Design, in this regard, will be a sort of rich retro-chic retrofitting and reconsideration of old methods. That may mean electric tractors on farms; narrow, small shop-lined sidewalks (to support pedestrianism and discourage driving, potentially providing cheap and fresh food to lunchtime businesspeople); the breakdown of suburbia for a novel, richer, youthful, and more progressive rural communities; or hybrid digital downtown farmers' markets (use your mobile phone to confirm origin, nutrient content, freshness, longevity, chemical content), I don't know. What I do know is that I am excited about it.
I will likely bring in a few more recollections over the next week, but for now, signing off.
First, when you talk about changing agriculture--particularly with the moniker of sustainability around--you are talking about everything. One of the lecturers brought up--albeit, inaccurately--the John Muir quote, "When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the Universe," I could only agree. Ostensibly, we were there to talk about farming, but what does that mean? Farming involves people working with the land with certain methods, employing and nurturing specific plants well combating others, using particular tools or machinery to do cultivate and harvest and process, in order to provide food for citizens far and wide. Where to begin? Well, repopulating and redemocratizing the rural landscape with young, innovative, clever, dedicated people is a start; so we talk about encouraging and providing resources for new farmers. What about manufacturing tools or energy with which to farm? Well, we can talk about refurbishing old machinery like the electric tractor (I am uncertain, but I think they were talking about this from the Flying Beet), or building value-added processing infrastructure on the small and local scale, or establishing renewable energy systems for farming and distribution. Or we can talk politics about the subsidies that encourage commodity corn and soybeans (industrial resources) to fresh fruits and vegetables and grains (nutritious foods), or the legislative rigmarole that surrounds raw milk and independent cheese making, or connecting individuals to CSAs (Community-Supported Agriculture) and farmers markets. (One immense triumph on the last count is the still pretty recent ability to use food stamps at farmers' markets.) Or we could...
Well you get the idea and I want to move on anyway.
Second, and this did not get as much attention as I would have liked, is the reality of school lunches and the excitement in changing the programs. Some mention was made to farm-to-school programs as well as farm-to-hospitals and the like, which is incredibly exciting. Having begun to follow Mrs. Q's Fed Up With School Lunch blog and having read an older article about meat standards in school lunches (check the tumblr), the expeditious necessity of fixing it is all the more apparent. If there is grassroots motivation for widespread political change in the school lunch program (which favors, cheap, flavorless commodity foods), it will motivate a reconsideration of farming more generally (toward fresher, healthier, whole foods), thus providing markets and motivation for more farmers toward wholesome fruits and vegetables, potentially carrying a potent wave of agricultural and food system change. Presently, the school lunch program is a dumping ground for low quality, nutrient poor, highly processed, unmarketable food-like products. In the back of my mind, I can recall my own experiences with this, but reading up on Mrs. Q's exploits and Oliver's Food Revolution (reservations aside) makes these reality all the more worrisome.
And third (of course, there is more for me to cover, but Lauren has returned and I ought to attend to the analog reality again), architectural innovation and design insights will increasingly pervade urban and landscape development more generally. This was not an obvious topic of the conference, but recalling a group thought experiment from last spring at Gustavus, chatting with some students and the architecture representative, and the way nearly everyone spoke about agricultural methods and system transformations, this is increasingly obvious. Design, in this regard, will be a sort of rich retro-chic retrofitting and reconsideration of old methods. That may mean electric tractors on farms; narrow, small shop-lined sidewalks (to support pedestrianism and discourage driving, potentially providing cheap and fresh food to lunchtime businesspeople); the breakdown of suburbia for a novel, richer, youthful, and more progressive rural communities; or hybrid digital downtown farmers' markets (use your mobile phone to confirm origin, nutrient content, freshness, longevity, chemical content), I don't know. What I do know is that I am excited about it.
I will likely bring in a few more recollections over the next week, but for now, signing off.
Sunday, April 4, 2010
Springtime, Annie Dillard, Communal Greens
It is Easter day and I hope that regardless of your faith or lack of, the day brings you springtime blessings and festive delights. The English term Easter is Germanic--as opposed to Pascal, which is Latinized Hebrew and the dominant term in Romance languages--and has to do with the celebration of nature's rebirth following winter. The pagan tradition--thoroughly modified in the Christian calendar--involved month long fetes for this wondrous time of year. After a long, Northern European winter, the lengthening days, warmer temperatures, softened soil, and bursts of green would easily be sufficiently inspirational for having a good time. It is a ripe time to celebrate the limitations/defeat of the dark forces of death and decay (and damnation according to Christian tradition) .
Such a mood is not only appropriate, but nearly necessary on a day like today. A late frost lined windshields and windows this morning, a brisk wind fluttered in after it, but with the dispersion of clouds this afternoon, blue sky and sharp sunlight seemed to invigorate suggestions of new growth. My mother commented on seeing the same trees on our route to church every week, noting their sly adjustments to the seasons; but I felt that between my route North early this afternoon and my route South about three hours later, I could see the unfurling of green and yellow buds and bundles. I was surprised by the return of the various beady bugs that crash into me on my bicycle and was delighted by the leisurely poses of students on the University Green.
After running a few small errands--returning a film, bike-light batteries, dropping off a letter at the post office--I made my way to the aforementioned campus green behind the UNL Student Union. I have fond memories of the place--a frisbee game with Artskoolers, a free concert, repose taken by the adjacent fountain--and was happy to see a few others enjoying the lush grass and sunshine. It has occurred to me, mostly when I am biking in the middle of the day, that this is my first spring since early childhood that I have not been in school. Never before have I been able to attend to the light of late morning, the drowsiness of a long afternoon, the clarity of an early springtime morning with its bursting greens and yellows. Coincidentally, I have been enjoying Pilgrim at Tinker Creek by Annie Dillard during this seasonal blessing; a most appropriate read if ever I have discovered.
Many of my friends have already read Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, which is a poetic, journalistic exploration of Tinker Creek by the author in an unabashed, personal voice. She goes into playful detail and earnest childhood recollection, as well as deftly referring to classical texts and adding quotations from modern thinkers for emphasis. I have thought about posting quotes on Tumblr, but they are simply too plentiful and too lengthy for me to settle. I would inevitably post a good fraction of the book once I got started. As I lounged on the UNL commons, I thought about these things: Dillard talking of the present and of the awakening earth, of not being in school at the moment but returning to one's campus all the same, and the utilization of the commons by so few but--I would suppose--rather contented individuals. And I was pleased.
Communal spaces are difficult but hugely important to foster. Whether they are the semi-public spaces of a large campus, the semi-private spaces of coffeeshops or other small businesses, the private spaces like our apartment last year (that few would argue often became welcoming, common ground for friends, acquaintances, and a few strangers), or the designated public spaces of parks and plazas, common spaces enlist people (I wonder if I should say residents, denizens, citizens, neighbors, community-members, or something else) into a spatial, physical dialogue. Sometimes, as with those of us lounging on the UNL green or the analogues at Gustavus and elsewhere, those connections are tenuous, temporary, and flexible. In other spaces, at other times, such as a discussion or music performance at a coffeeshop or bookstore, those bonds are stronger, tighter, more specific. In each case, though, the space and the participants mutually shape the roles of the other.
In keeping with Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, I might add that weather or season, greenery or design have their own roles to play in constructing a (semi-)common space. I felt so at ease, so peaceful, so collected in an open, simplified space; but I distinctly felt that I was sharing it. In more heterogeneous spaces--as an arboretum--there is a greater suggestion of individuality, privacy, seclusion. In an internal space, where does one engage in a private--but not personal--conversation? Or, how do you frame a space and a collection of people so as to be welcoming, political, social?
Some curmudgeon may argue with me, but something about springtime is almost necessarily social. In the new light we move outside to explore the world and one another anew. Spring and summer love affairs are the result of a medley of mood shifts from environmental stimuli and that daredevil discoverer of a half-forgotten world. Dillard recalls her quest for caddisfly cases, small shells formed by caddisfly larvae composed of surrounding material. Only with the company of a child, one with fresh eyes, is she able to find them; that is until the child's openness to seeing them teaches Dillard to see them. Is it any different when we come out of the winter, eyes at first blinded by the sun, and see the greening, growing, burgeoning, saturated world anew? Are we not forced to assume the spectacles of children and--if only for a fleeting moment--see the world unburdened by our own assumptions?
I am happy, joyous for this season of rebirth. For once, I can meditate on it more clearly having come through a Nebraska winter--Germanic in its own handful of ways--and with my senses tuned for these cunning hints and strident chords of the new, the living. Often, I find satisfaction in the social, seasonal, and pagan connections the Catholic calendar has but does not elucidate. Rarely have I been so clear-headed when I notice the buds bursting, the sun shimmering, the clouds clearing from the suddenly lighter, brighter sky. This rebirth is no less astounding than the Resurrection. Is it more or less beautiful that it is a blessing of vision and regrowth bestowed every year?
Such a mood is not only appropriate, but nearly necessary on a day like today. A late frost lined windshields and windows this morning, a brisk wind fluttered in after it, but with the dispersion of clouds this afternoon, blue sky and sharp sunlight seemed to invigorate suggestions of new growth. My mother commented on seeing the same trees on our route to church every week, noting their sly adjustments to the seasons; but I felt that between my route North early this afternoon and my route South about three hours later, I could see the unfurling of green and yellow buds and bundles. I was surprised by the return of the various beady bugs that crash into me on my bicycle and was delighted by the leisurely poses of students on the University Green.
After running a few small errands--returning a film, bike-light batteries, dropping off a letter at the post office--I made my way to the aforementioned campus green behind the UNL Student Union. I have fond memories of the place--a frisbee game with Artskoolers, a free concert, repose taken by the adjacent fountain--and was happy to see a few others enjoying the lush grass and sunshine. It has occurred to me, mostly when I am biking in the middle of the day, that this is my first spring since early childhood that I have not been in school. Never before have I been able to attend to the light of late morning, the drowsiness of a long afternoon, the clarity of an early springtime morning with its bursting greens and yellows. Coincidentally, I have been enjoying Pilgrim at Tinker Creek by Annie Dillard during this seasonal blessing; a most appropriate read if ever I have discovered.
Many of my friends have already read Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, which is a poetic, journalistic exploration of Tinker Creek by the author in an unabashed, personal voice. She goes into playful detail and earnest childhood recollection, as well as deftly referring to classical texts and adding quotations from modern thinkers for emphasis. I have thought about posting quotes on Tumblr, but they are simply too plentiful and too lengthy for me to settle. I would inevitably post a good fraction of the book once I got started. As I lounged on the UNL commons, I thought about these things: Dillard talking of the present and of the awakening earth, of not being in school at the moment but returning to one's campus all the same, and the utilization of the commons by so few but--I would suppose--rather contented individuals. And I was pleased.
Communal spaces are difficult but hugely important to foster. Whether they are the semi-public spaces of a large campus, the semi-private spaces of coffeeshops or other small businesses, the private spaces like our apartment last year (that few would argue often became welcoming, common ground for friends, acquaintances, and a few strangers), or the designated public spaces of parks and plazas, common spaces enlist people (I wonder if I should say residents, denizens, citizens, neighbors, community-members, or something else) into a spatial, physical dialogue. Sometimes, as with those of us lounging on the UNL green or the analogues at Gustavus and elsewhere, those connections are tenuous, temporary, and flexible. In other spaces, at other times, such as a discussion or music performance at a coffeeshop or bookstore, those bonds are stronger, tighter, more specific. In each case, though, the space and the participants mutually shape the roles of the other.
In keeping with Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, I might add that weather or season, greenery or design have their own roles to play in constructing a (semi-)common space. I felt so at ease, so peaceful, so collected in an open, simplified space; but I distinctly felt that I was sharing it. In more heterogeneous spaces--as an arboretum--there is a greater suggestion of individuality, privacy, seclusion. In an internal space, where does one engage in a private--but not personal--conversation? Or, how do you frame a space and a collection of people so as to be welcoming, political, social?
Some curmudgeon may argue with me, but something about springtime is almost necessarily social. In the new light we move outside to explore the world and one another anew. Spring and summer love affairs are the result of a medley of mood shifts from environmental stimuli and that daredevil discoverer of a half-forgotten world. Dillard recalls her quest for caddisfly cases, small shells formed by caddisfly larvae composed of surrounding material. Only with the company of a child, one with fresh eyes, is she able to find them; that is until the child's openness to seeing them teaches Dillard to see them. Is it any different when we come out of the winter, eyes at first blinded by the sun, and see the greening, growing, burgeoning, saturated world anew? Are we not forced to assume the spectacles of children and--if only for a fleeting moment--see the world unburdened by our own assumptions?
I am happy, joyous for this season of rebirth. For once, I can meditate on it more clearly having come through a Nebraska winter--Germanic in its own handful of ways--and with my senses tuned for these cunning hints and strident chords of the new, the living. Often, I find satisfaction in the social, seasonal, and pagan connections the Catholic calendar has but does not elucidate. Rarely have I been so clear-headed when I notice the buds bursting, the sun shimmering, the clouds clearing from the suddenly lighter, brighter sky. This rebirth is no less astounding than the Resurrection. Is it more or less beautiful that it is a blessing of vision and regrowth bestowed every year?
Thursday, April 1, 2010
A Monster in the Wings
I have done something awful. I fear that I may have created a monster. Like most monsters, it was the result of the combination of seemingly benign entities. Together their, their simultaneous benignity neutralizing one another, a creature was born distinct from either source.
The two entities: my mother and the iPad.
Now, you may scoff and even scold, but hear me out. I have had some excitement about the iPad and I care deeply for my mother and the introduction of the former to the latter, it was all intended in good fun. She was looking at netbooks, perhaps a notebook replacement, and I decided to show her the stylish, simple, enjoyable video on the iPad (available here). Though I liked the idea of having one around the house and to use to read my .rss feeds in particular, and I thought that she would be impressed but not really consider it as a purchase--in part because it does not provide an easy method to review and annotate student papers.
Yesterday, though, after seeing a TV spot on the iPad and having spoken with a local tech company building apps for the iPad, she has settled into seriously wanting one. We have joked about how long we can use our broken clothes washer and dryer, perhaps drying our clothes in the backyard (which I really enjoy) to have the money. Now she is wondering about finding partial funds at the University to help pay for it. She wants one, and she will figure out a way to get one.
All in all, that isn't a bad thing and though potentially conniving, it is not at all monstrous. What I fear is happening, is the combination of my mother with my own half-baked expectations for Apple in the years to come. Here is a joke that I know existed before me, but I picked up and don't really doubt to come to pass: The iPatch.
With Apples knack for making technology that fits nicely into the palm of your hand, it is also a sort of panache for making technology human. Whether it is the wild success of the iPod, the touch-based controls of the iTouch and iPhone, or the newspaper/dead-tree book feel of the iPad, Apple has made technology that simply inundates our lives with profound speed and--increasingly--with subtlety. I had not expected to find Apple to be just as good as they are at making new technology intuitive and accessible. The iPad may be the first light-weight, touch-sensitive, highly readable, intuitively controlled tablet, but it won't be the last. When the other companies have caught up, Apple will have to put in its next bid for a powerfully personal technology.
So, I think that will legitimately be something like the iPatch. Why do I think that? Well, with the onset of Bluetooth earpieces/headsets, the people of the world began to look increasingly like the soldiers in the original Deus Ex game (pictured below, I wanted a better one, but couldn't easily find it). These soldiers in the "United Nations Anti-Terrorist Coalition" take on mechanical augmentation to better serve their country and the security of the world with superior physical abilities. I doubt much surgical implantation will occur in the next five years, but seeing semi-permanent, highly functional technological devices on the savvy traveler and at geeky conferences, that will happen.
Why the iPatch? With a semi-transparent, paper-thin display screen over one eye, one can receive extraordinarily clear, customized, and infinitely personal imagery. Mix in a bluetooth headset and either a hip-holstered touchpad or motion sensitive glove, you can have a disconnected by highly utilizable communication device. Most consumers will stick with something closer to the iPad to connect to the internet most of the time, but sooner or later that will just feel like too much of a hassle when you could avoid holding anything at all. Think of the catchphrase, "Free Hands. Free Mind. iPatch."
I have made a tech-hungry monster out of my mother. She is willing to finagle funds from her job, postpone significant home improvement updates, and suggested obsolescence in her current computing tools in the quest for what has not even been released yet. With a new, biting passion for the latest tech-toy, she might ride the momentum for each new utility. I have created a monster and her name will soon by cyber-mom.
~~~
This was, obviously, intended to be snarky and funny, but I don't really know how to end that sort of joke. I hope it was enjoyable, but I acknowledge its lackluster conclusion.
The two entities: my mother and the iPad.
Now, you may scoff and even scold, but hear me out. I have had some excitement about the iPad and I care deeply for my mother and the introduction of the former to the latter, it was all intended in good fun. She was looking at netbooks, perhaps a notebook replacement, and I decided to show her the stylish, simple, enjoyable video on the iPad (available here). Though I liked the idea of having one around the house and to use to read my .rss feeds in particular, and I thought that she would be impressed but not really consider it as a purchase--in part because it does not provide an easy method to review and annotate student papers.
Yesterday, though, after seeing a TV spot on the iPad and having spoken with a local tech company building apps for the iPad, she has settled into seriously wanting one. We have joked about how long we can use our broken clothes washer and dryer, perhaps drying our clothes in the backyard (which I really enjoy) to have the money. Now she is wondering about finding partial funds at the University to help pay for it. She wants one, and she will figure out a way to get one.
All in all, that isn't a bad thing and though potentially conniving, it is not at all monstrous. What I fear is happening, is the combination of my mother with my own half-baked expectations for Apple in the years to come. Here is a joke that I know existed before me, but I picked up and don't really doubt to come to pass: The iPatch.
With Apples knack for making technology that fits nicely into the palm of your hand, it is also a sort of panache for making technology human. Whether it is the wild success of the iPod, the touch-based controls of the iTouch and iPhone, or the newspaper/dead-tree book feel of the iPad, Apple has made technology that simply inundates our lives with profound speed and--increasingly--with subtlety. I had not expected to find Apple to be just as good as they are at making new technology intuitive and accessible. The iPad may be the first light-weight, touch-sensitive, highly readable, intuitively controlled tablet, but it won't be the last. When the other companies have caught up, Apple will have to put in its next bid for a powerfully personal technology.
So, I think that will legitimately be something like the iPatch. Why do I think that? Well, with the onset of Bluetooth earpieces/headsets, the people of the world began to look increasingly like the soldiers in the original Deus Ex game (pictured below, I wanted a better one, but couldn't easily find it). These soldiers in the "United Nations Anti-Terrorist Coalition" take on mechanical augmentation to better serve their country and the security of the world with superior physical abilities. I doubt much surgical implantation will occur in the next five years, but seeing semi-permanent, highly functional technological devices on the savvy traveler and at geeky conferences, that will happen.
Why the iPatch? With a semi-transparent, paper-thin display screen over one eye, one can receive extraordinarily clear, customized, and infinitely personal imagery. Mix in a bluetooth headset and either a hip-holstered touchpad or motion sensitive glove, you can have a disconnected by highly utilizable communication device. Most consumers will stick with something closer to the iPad to connect to the internet most of the time, but sooner or later that will just feel like too much of a hassle when you could avoid holding anything at all. Think of the catchphrase, "Free Hands. Free Mind. iPatch."
I have made a tech-hungry monster out of my mother. She is willing to finagle funds from her job, postpone significant home improvement updates, and suggested obsolescence in her current computing tools in the quest for what has not even been released yet. With a new, biting passion for the latest tech-toy, she might ride the momentum for each new utility. I have created a monster and her name will soon by cyber-mom.
~~~
This was, obviously, intended to be snarky and funny, but I don't really know how to end that sort of joke. I hope it was enjoyable, but I acknowledge its lackluster conclusion.
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