What's it like being anything?

Here’s another million dollar idea. Take a camera and follow hikers/trackers/wildlife biologists/foresters/people who walk around the woods a lot. Take a picture of their face every time they *walk into a cobweb.  After you have a hundred or so of those, publish them all big and glossy in a coffee table book. You’d make a killing, especially around Christmas, it would be the perfect, “Oh God what do I buy for Aunt Snafu this year?!” gift. 

On another topic: Do you ever spend any amount of time trying to figure out what it would be like to be another person? For example whenever I drive by a policeman staked out on the highway somewhere I spend at least 45 seconds wondering what it’s like to be sitting in a car with a radar gun waiting for someone to drive by speeding. I think it would be unpleasant to say the least, even with doughnuts. 

Sometimes I get so busy trying to get inside someone or something else’s brain that I stop paying attention to any conversation I may be having.  It makes for awkward moments. “I’m sorry, I entirely missed what you said about your traumatizing experience with your bicycle and the June bug, I was busy wondering what it would be like to be a June bug that had flown into someone’s ear on accident.” I thought at first it might be traumatizing but then thought probably that sort of thing happens to June bugs all the time. They don’t seem superbly clever. 

At least I stopped anthropomorphizing everything as I was wont to do in my youth. “I’m cutting out the head of this picture of a horse first so it can breathe, ok mom?” [**Insert mother’s sarcastic remark here]. I could actually convince myself to feel sorry for the last piece of broccoli left in the pot (and I didn’t like broccoli back then) because it was alone and obviously unwanted.  Fortunately I’ve gotten over that (mostly….except for that one poor little mitten… )  and reserve my sympathy now for things that are alive. You know… like people and… rocks…

*Man, I walked into one this morning that had me really feeling for Frodo. I should probably check my neck for puncture wounds from the offended arachnid.

**Actually I believe her response was something like “Honey, I refuse to weigh in on a conversation about respiration for paper horses.”

Troglidition

After so much cloud and rain for so long, it seemed like the clear sun and blue sky were entirely anomalous. Honestly, it was a joy to spend as much time as possible outside, but I think it scorched my retinas. Now I'm back in the cave and it's dark and we're huddled around the fire, smoke blackening the vent hole in the rock above. I know I should be working on my wall paintings, but we all had a full day and I just don't feel like pounding pigments.

School's out now, of course, and tomorrow morning the job thingy will suck me back in and I'll immerse myself in washing kiddie furniture in the classrooms. It's not a bad way to spend time, although it's not a skilled sort of job. But a third grader can layer grime with astonishing thoroughness, and there's satisfaction to be got in removing it. Then teachers wander through and comment how nice and clean it smells. That would be my old buddy, 6.0% sodium hypochlorite. Conditioning is a marvelous thing. But we're all glad that the colds, flu, head lice and conjunctivitis have finally taken a long-overdue summer holiday. We hung on an extra week to make up for all the snow days this winter past. And now here we are, six months removed from the winter solstice.

Summer solstice doesn't charm me the way the other one does. It's a marker, to be sure. But this is a sort of bitter-sweet holiday for me. In my mind, after the summer solstice we start that long downhill plunge into darkness. The long days, the heat, the growing things -- all that I crave and dream about the whole winter long; at the summer solstice I begin to see it slipping away. Never mind those useless seasonal delineations marked on our calendars*, I define my seasons by the reality of the weather. Summer began on June 1st, and it ends on August 31st. Just seems reasonable to me. And we've certainly had plenty of winter before the winter solstice arrives.**

That's when I'll finish my painting; the one with me heaving a spear at a fleeing buck, atlatl artistically extended, the deer's fate a foregone conclusion. Future generations will be so impressed with this. I wonder if they'll call it art?

*Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter
** because winter begins on December 1st... and goes on forever.

Why yes, this is a *friendly juxtaposing post to the last post!

Night is the best time to think. Perhaps since the majority of the population on your side of the world is sleeping their thoughts aren’t cluttering up the atmosphere and yours have more room to breathe. Although dreams must take up space I feel that they’re generally much less directed and therefore are easily pushed aside.  

**Tonight I’m feeling lucky with my life. Here are some great things:

I had two kind people let me in whilst I was stuck in two different tricky driving situations today. I’d have given them boxes of chocolates (the good kind) if possible but I had to content myself with waving and grinning at them in true fool fashion.

My brother’s dog is hilarious and awesome. It’s as if somebody took a very dramatic and solemn old man and stuck him in a dog’s body. 

I had a great time at a gig yesterday.

I’m ***surrounded by creative people with interests and senses of humor similar to mine

The weather was perfect today and I spent the majority of it tromping through swamps and over a mountain.

My peach-rhubarb pie came out perfectly.

I’ve had it with reverse psychology/general paranoia. If I’m happy or looking forward to something then damn it, I’m going to enjoy it and say so. 

Here’s a thought to ponder. If all the politicians working in the White House had to bring a ****kitten to work with them every day would the country be in worse or better shape? How about if they all had to do one creative thing in the morning before they started work? What if they had to spend two hours a day doing community service?

*Which, if one didn't know what was going on here, could make it seem as if I'm arguing with myself. The previous post definitely makes valid points, many, I'm just trilly-trallying on in a Pollyanish fashion, or if you ^prefer, a last scene in Life of Brian fashion, as a study in contrast.

**By “Tonight” I mean 1:22 a.m.

***I use the term loosely. If they were all here it would be quite the crush and mid-June is simply too hot for that sort of thing.

****I'm not a weird cat/kitten obsessed person, I swear. They do seem to be popping up here an awful lot 

though.

^That'd be my preference, never did read that book.

anthroposcenic

I guess that's the way we see it. If you drive down the road in a nicely kept neighborhood where the lawns are neatly mowed, the houses landscaped and painted and all the pathways to commerce well-maintained and trash-free, you say to yourself, "Oh, this is nice." That's human habitation at it's best. (We say 'habitation', not 'infestation.') Places where the model breaks down are less inspiring. Buildings and pathways we frequent and fail to maintain get run-down. We dig holes and leave them open and raw; abandon bits of our lives and let the weather have them. Everyone knows the story; at our best we push back against entropy and pour energy into the system to hold our corner of the multiverse shiny and upright, at ninety degree angles to itself. At our worst we destroy and dissipate and let the energy wash away, puddling the good, the bad , and the indifferent into that long flow downstream.

In the long run it's all the same, I suppose. Pulling up the floorboards in the barn and throwing a cat at the fleeing rats, kicking over an anthill or spraying a wasp nest, cutting the juniper to make pasture for the sheep -- there we go being anthropocentric. Is there a problem with that? Some days I see the humanizing of the planet as a process with a goal of peace and stability. More often it's the relentless growth of a parasitic infestation of the biosphere, like the rats under the floorboards. No other species to show such adaptability and persistence has been able to escape some ultimate demise. Although the fossil record does show some amazing success stories. Do we really think we're that different?

"Discover" magazine has an interesting article about our perception of risk, and the gist of the article is that our perception (as with so many other things) is not rational. We don't fear what is really going to kill us. Climate change? Obesity? How about getting into a car and driving five miles down the road? Are you paralyzed with fear yet? Apparently you should be. How about a serial killer or a huge toothy shark? Now we're talking! And yet the real risk from the last two is quite minimal. Yet I've never seen anyone run screaming from a cheeseburger.

So really, what do you think our chances are? Should we fight the flow of entropy in earnest? Make our habitations trim and green? Give up the fossil fuels and curb the population growth? Or just carry on as we are; trust to the miracles promised by technology to help us adapt to the new and warmer world? We're human, after all. We're different. We make the world what we want it to be; not like the rats at all. We're rational. We have a plan, right?

On Smiling

The difference between smiling at someone and smiling for someone is pretty profound. I’m sure you’ve all noticed that the smile you use for the cashier at the grocery store, and the one you use for your friend or your dog are two entirely different creatures (unless the cashier at the grocery store is your friend). 

Despite all the corny children’s songs that make one want to stand in a corner and frown at a wall, smiles really are understandable everywhere and it’s amazing how powerful or unnoticeable they can be depending on how they’re used. 

One of the things I’ve been trying to remind myself to do lately is smile for people, for that one person you're talking to and only her or him, rather than at them. It’s incredibly difficult and I’m not sure why. I don’t consider myself a “shy” person, not anymore, but even looking a bank teller or cashier, or hell even someone I’m fairly close to in the eye and smiling happily and sincerely, (rather than giving them the perfunctory mouth-only smile) is something that I frequently have to make a conscious effort to do. Why is this? I’m not an unhappy person, far from it, and my attitude towards everyone else is pretty positive as well, generally speaking.

 I believe frequently, in my case at least, it’s pure laziness and apathy. Some part of me is afraid that if I really smile at someone they’ll want to strike up a conversation and I’ll get stuck in an awkward half-conversation with a stranger. To be fair to myself, I have had some bizarre and unpleasant encounters with strangers on city busses so that has led me to treat my facial expressions out in public with some caution. But really, if it’s a town I know well with people just doing their job and helping me out why should I be afraid to have a brief conversation with them? I don’t know. I could learn something interesting or discover a great networking opportunity, or even *gasp* make a new friend, and even if it does go badly I’ll learn from it and know to avoid that particular person in future. I think true smiles are one of the things that the modern way of life is having a detrimental effect on, by that I mean the whole look out for number one/don't trust strangers, ever, thing. It goes too far much of the time.

So I’ll keep working on it, as the children's songs tell us, “everyone smiles in the same language” and “you can give them free ‘cause you’ve got so many.” So why not make the ticket collector, or your grandmother or your librarian's day a little bit cheerier?

musical morning after

I remember back in 1980 when I was doing the student abroad thing in England, encountering for the first time a musical pop culture which completely set me back on my heels. It was a double whammy for me, because I had just left behind whatever drivel oozed from American radio -- the imminently forget-able 70s. And found myself dropped jet-lagged and witless in front of late night with John Peel. I had never heard of punk, much less reggae. And who could have imagined fusing them together? I would be lying if I said I immediately liked or understood it. It was an acquired taste, which soon became a delight.

Simultaneously, I was introduced to the English folk and folk-rock scene; new to me, but in the throes then of yet another revival. This was, of course, love at first hearing. "Fusion" seemed to be the word of the day, then. I learned about Celtic folk-jazz, militant Welsh nationalist punks, Japanese and German techno machine heads --  on and on. I returned to the States with a fistful of 45s (?!)

Was this good? I thought so. Was it art? Probably, but at the time I remember thinking that it was more culture. And before that exposure I had never thought of music as a medium of communication. A no-brainer, you're thinking now. But I was young and ignorant*, and I saw for the first time the emotive energy of music on a cultural level; from the earnest traditionalism of 'Four Green Fields' in the pub, to the incoherent thunder of the Red-Hot Lemon Boys in a Brighton dance-hall. Whatever the intention, it communicated. The debate will always rage on; does it have to communicate, much less entertain, to be art?** either way, some kind of a reaction was irresistible.

Now, thirty years later, I think that things are possible with music that are not possible with any other thing that we do. Our tribal nature is so strong; there are an impossible number of ways in which we can persist in hating and distrusting our human kindred. As we collect in enclaves of belief in defense against those "others", we draw national and political boundaries, feed our gods on stiff-necked dogma, and dig in our heels against any contrary voices.

But music is a thread of commonality that few of our species can resist, and I would say that any way we can get the most set-jawed, fingers-in-the-ears stalwart amongst us to at least give a listen to a (metaphorically speaking) piobaireachd exposed to heavy radiation and played on a C harmonica***, it would be a first step toward peace in the Middle East. And I have listened to the American 'Attack! Attack!'+

And Tuvan throat singing is amazing.

Maybe some reggae, too.

*different from old and ignorant... slightly
**and is it art for the audience, or art for the artist?
**Willa really hates harmonica
+ hate the vocals; the band is okay; the Welsh one is better, but I'm old-fashioned