field notes:

5.9.2003

Numenius at Feathers of Hope picked up the thread from the dual post that Fragments from Floyd and Field Notes blogged forth the other day. He also commented over at Meta Popdex:

Blogging is a great medium for writing about place: you will never run out of material, and over time the fragments from your posts will build up into quite a portrait of the place you have ties to...

I would love to see this category coalesce more as a genre. Working collaboratively like you [Fred at Fragments from Floyd] and Lisa have done in your DuoBlog today is a good step towards this.

I agree Numenius. Over the last weeks, as we wrote about that billboard on a mountaintop, and talked about when to post and where, I've thought more about the blogosphere and my place in it than I'd previously done. Where do I fit in to this universe of bloggers, and where do I want to fit in? Do I care if my blog is a cul-de-sac?

This is certainly old news for other bloggers, but blogging is as much about linking and commenting with other blogs as it is about writing. As a 'blog of place' I haven't given much thought or attention to that. But there's no reason that we (place bloggers) should be immune to that interconnectedness. It's empowering to know that I'm being read, it gives me a sense of greater value when I sit down to write.

I haven't wanted to succumb to an incessant log-checking, link-tracking, popularity driven blog need. I'm worried that if my readership builds I'll feel compelled to write on days when writing doesn't fit in with my life just so I don't lose visitors. I want to continue to write about what's pulling my attention, and when, and I'm not sure what effect more readers will have on me. And, I worry about being pulled time-wise. My business takes a lot of time, and I have a dog to walk, and books to read, and walks of my own to take, a kayak tied up to the pier waiting for me, and on and on.

Yet, over the last few days I've been swayed that some community-building is in order. I sit here in Inverness writing about my place on the earth, while other Bloggers of Place and other lovers of some place sit in respective spots around the world. We can collectively build quite a portrait of every place.

At the same time, we can write about particular ideas and build upon them. Blogging in general strikes me as a glancing, shallow series of strikes. I get anxious when I contemplate the endless stream of entries, the vast catching-up that's required, like a never-ending, ever-growing TO DO LIST from hell or the one-inch feed at the bottom of a news screen. But alongside this stream, or inside of it, we can also feed our need for a deeper, more meaningful dialog where ideas build upon each other. We can develop a mosaic that reveals a larger picture, rather than post-modern patterns which may leave the soul wanting.

posted by Lisa Thompson on 8:33 AM link | comments []

5.8.2003

Recently, transcripts have been released from behind-closed-doors hearings that took place alongside the public hearings instigated by Joseph McCarthy. Amongst them is a transcript of a hearing with Langston Hughes.

It's a stunning display of the difference between the poetical and the stark. Ray Cohn and Senator Dirksen grill Langston Hughes about the meaning of certain poems and columns he has written going back over his entire life. They take individual lines from poems and from essays and ask him to defend them, to explain their meanings, and ask him if he believes them, or if he believed them at the time he wrote them, and if they might unduly influence people's thinking. It would be comical if these people weren't in power how dense they are about the ideas of poetry, or rather the idea of ideas.

Here they take the following lines from the poem, 'Goodbye Christ',

Listen, Christ, you did all right in your day, I reckon
But that day is gone now.
They ghosted you up a swell story, too,
And called it the Bible, but it is dead now.
The popes and the preachers have made too much money from
it. They have sold you to too many.

and ask Hughes if he thinks the book is dead. He tells them that the poem is satirical. They counter asking if some people could take it wrong. He tells them that poetry can be taken different ways by everyone who reads it. He asks if they'd like to know what he was thinking when he wrote it.

Dirksen replies, "Of course, when all is said and done a poem like this must necessarily speak for itself, because notwithstanding what may have been in your mind, what inhibitions, whether you crossed your fingers on some of those words when you wrote them, its impact on the thinking of the people is finally what counts."

It's a sobering read and I recommend that you take the time (30 minutes maybe) to read it.

And just to get you in the mood, here's one of Langston's best:

(or listen to an amazing version of it here delivered by Orland Bishop.)

Let America be America Again
--Langston Hughes

Let America be America again.
Let it be the dream it used to be.
Let it be the pioneer on the plain
Seeking a home where he himself is free.

(America never was America to me.)

Let America be the dream the dreamers dreamed-
Let it be that great strong land of love
Where never kings connive nor tyrants scheme
That any man be crushed by one above.

(It never was America to me.)

O, let my land be a land where Liberty
Is crowned with no false patriotic wreath,
But opportunity is real, and life is free,
Equality is in the air we breathe.

(There's never been equality for me,
Nor freedom in this "homeland of the free.")

Say, who are you that mumbles in the dark?
And who are you that draws your veil across the stars?

I am the poor white, fooled and pushed apart,
I am the Negro bearing slavery's scars.
I am the red man driven from the land,
I am the immigrant clutching the hope I seek-
And finding only the same old stupid plan
Of dog eat dog, of mighty crush the weak.

I am the young man, full of strength and hope,
Tangled in that ancient endless chain
Of profit, power, gain, of grab the land!
Of grab the gold! Of grab the ways of satisfying need!
Of work the men! Of take the pay!
Of owning everything for one's own greed!

I am the farmer, bondsman to the soil.
I am the worker sold to the machine.
I am the Negro, servant to you all.
I am the people, humble, hungry, mean--
Hungry yet today despite the dream.
Beaten yet today--O, Pioneers!
I am the man who never got ahead,
The poorest worker bartered through the years.

Yet I'm the one who dreamt our basic dream
In the Old World while still a serf of kings,
Who dreamt a dream so strong, so brave, so true,
That even yet its mighty daring sings
In every brick and stone, in every furrow turned
That's made America the land it has become.
O, I'm the man who sailed those early seas
In search of what I meant to be my home-
For I'm the one who left dark Ireland's shore,
And Poland's plain, and England's grassy lea,
And torn from Black Africa's strand I came
To build a "homeland of the free."

The free?

Who said the free? Not me?
Surely not me? The millions on relief today?
The millions shot down when we strike?
The millions who have nothing for our pay?
For all the dreams we've dreamed
And all the songs we've sung
And all the hopes we've held
And all the flags we've hung,
The millions who have nothing for our pay-
Except the dream that's almost dead today.

O, let America be America again-
The land that never has been yet-
And yet must be--the land where every man is free.
The land that's mine--the poor man's, Indian's, Negro's, ME-
Who made America,
Whose sweat and blood, whose faith and pain,
Whose hand at the foundry, whose plow in the rain,
Must bring back our mighty dream again.

Sure, call me any ugly name you choose-
The steel of freedom does not stain.
From those who live like leeches on the people's lives,
We must take back our land again,
America!

O, yes,
I say it plain,
America never was America to me,
And yet I swear this oath-
America will be!

Out of the rack and ruin of our gangster death,
The rape and rot of graft, and stealth, and lies,
We, the people, must redeem
The land, the mines, the plants, the rivers.
The mountains and the endless plain-
All, all the stretch of these great green states-
And make America again!

posted by Lisa Thompson on 8:42 AM link | comments []

5.6.2003

The following is a dual post. We’re writing about this image – an ad published in Blue Ridge Magazine advertising North Carolina. A link at the end of this post will take you to my duet partner.
* * *

Now Showing: Sunset and Clouds

At first glance, the ad beckons to me like a seduction. It says forget the distractions of culture and commerce. You don't need a romance film or a Las Vegas vacation, all you need is what's been here all along: sunset and clouds. If you take the time to look at the sky with the same focused expectation you give to a movie or a Vegas headliner, you'll be amazed at the show. Hey, nature is the best show, the only show you ever really need!

The 50's marquis takes me back to a time when life was simpler, when our needs were fewer--an unspoiled time. Unspoiled time implies unspoiled nature, and nature is spoiled in many places, but, the ad says, not in North Carolina. It promises a return to the simpler values of nature before commercialization turned everything into a product--and a relief from the distractions of modern culture.

But peel back a layer and see that the very presence of the marquis has already spoiled nature, the proclamation 'Sunset and Clouds' has turned it into a product, upending the entire revisionist serenity. It's nature disconnected from spirit, critical thought, and cultural context, nature as visual sound bite—an adman’s hook.

Nature as scenery doesn't need protection--if all we require of her is nice views then anything can sit outside the borders of the "view corridor". Taken along with all the other vacation ads in the culture, where the mythical consumer of vacations is looking for a series of breathtaking yet relaxing moments of feeling safe and pampered, this ad doesn't need to set a lounge chair in the foreground, it's implied, and in this case, may even come with a drink holder. Just as an ad for a Puerto Vallarta resort excludes scenes of poverty from down the street, the North Carolina ad omits scenes of polluted rivers and coastal development.

We’re comforted by the certainty that North Carolina has put this show together for us: nature as attraction. The state has prepared this venue for our vacation enjoyment, and that implies that North Carolina is responsible for the skies, for the scenery, and that they, in turn, must also be responsible for protecting and ensuring natures' continuance. This turns us into the "viewer", with zero responsibility for nature's condition, preservation, or future. Somebody else is in charge. No longer must we worry that we’re not driving a hybrid or giving enough to the Sierra Club --sunset and clouds have been taken under the state's wing. To show our support for this endeavor, all we need to do is vacation in the Blue Ridge Mountains, and enjoy the fruits of nature's bounty: sunset and clouds.

And if the state is responsible, boy, the sunset and clouds better be damned good. We'll be comparing the show to Zigfried and Roy and The Lord of the Rings. Better be one hell of a sunset or we'll be mighty disappointed.

Our cultural heritage culminates here. What we now call nature used to be called wilderness. But it's not so wild anymore. We've “tamed” most of it, and what's left we've set aside in neat packages called parks and wilderness areas. Hardly anything dangerous lives in it any longer--we've made sure that we're at the top of the food chain. Instead of inhabiting a natural world, we presume to allow nature to inhabit our world. As if she were our child, we argue over her future, and our policies towards her protection. As a culture, we've forgotten to respect what came before us, and that of which we are just a part. Finally, we're marketing "sunset and clouds" next to Julia Roberts' smile. In small, consumable bites, nature is ours to package and sell, and ultimately, to control.

Sunsets and clouds are nature at her most showy, superficial self. Sunset and clouds can be seen from an outdoor cocktail bar. No understanding of ecosystems, trans-continental migration, or even the changing of seasons are required: only that we look up, and certainly not that we look within.

Nature is capable of putting on a great show, but her real treasures remain hidden from the casual viewer. The ad beckons to us with promises of revelation, but nature’s promise is more discreet. She reveals herself over time spent on hard-scrabble walks, after hours spent lying in grasses and listening to birdsong. She reveals herself only to the careful heart, the watchful soul. And as a wise woman once said, “Better to wander alone in the wilderness than follow a map made by tourists.”

* * *

Now for a perspective on this ad that’s more immediate and geographically personal: Fred First lived in North Carolina for seven years, and has landed in nearby Virginia. He keeps a lively, beautifully written blog over on Goose Creek that I’m sure you’ve heard of: Fragments from Floyd. Read his piece about the buying and selling of nature. We’d both love to hear your comments.

posted by Lisa Thompson on 5:18 AM link | comments []

5.5.2003

There's a sick red-throated loon on the north end of Chicken Ranch Beach. It's just sitting in the sand and didn't budge when my dog and I walked within 6' of it. The breeding plumage is stunning. I ran into neighbors who said they planned to call somebody--I'm not even sure who that would be.

On my beach I spotted a bright orange red-sponge nudibranch Rostanga pulchra. They take on the color of the sponge they feed upon and this one was a perfect match with the sponges here. I've never seen one before. They're quite an ugly and astonishing animal. I've surprised myself by becoming quite fond of slugs and their brethren--the slug-like. I remember the first banana slug I ever saw. One morning not long after I'd moved to west Marin I found one on my car window and thought I was having a bad dream. In southern California snails are small and politely wear shells. I've since learned that here in northern California it's a rite of passage for little kids to lick banana slugs to experience for themselves the numbing qualities they impart to anyone who might think about tasting them. It's a virtual shell and far more effective a protection from predators. When I pick them up to remove them from my oregano and basil plants they also leave a gelatinous resin that's difficult to wash off my hands. They're an important part of the old-growth forest, recycling decaying plant matter.

Slugs and nudibranches are true bottom-feeders. When you peel back the layers of the rhetoric about point reyes national park, the "jewel of the national park system", and peer beyond the "great views" found here these are some of the storied creatures you'll find. There are others: the invasive european green crab which eats voraciously and competes with (and feeds on) dungeness crabs, and the olympia oyster which used to cover the shores and bottoms of Tomales bay and the San Francisco bay but was overharvested and mostly depleted by 1911. The olympia oyster was California's only native oyster. There's a project underfoot to reseed them here.

More "peeling back the layers behind the view" in tomorrow's post.
posted by Lisa Thompson on 1:46 PM link | comments []

5.4.2003

If you drive out Pierce Point Road and turn at the sign 'Marshall Beach' you'll find a modest gravel road from which you can see forever. We brought my dog and found that we couldn't take her on the trail down to the beach itself, so we just walked back along the road that parallels the northern finger of the peninsula. To the right we could see all of Abbott's Lagoon and the upper snaking reaches of Drake's Bay with a Pacific backdrop; ahead was Mt Vision still misted at the top with wet cloud cover; and to the left Tomales Bay and Marshall on the far side, with lupine colored hills, Walker Creek, the Audobon land and green hills stretching away south to Elephant Mountain in the distance.

In a couple of days, I'll be dual-blogging with Fragments from Floyd about the problems we run into when we treat nature as just another pretty view and other fine points on the tango of nature vs culture. But yesterday was a day for enjoying the view. I would argue that our intimate and curious relationship with the places we could see, and the act of walking through it added a dimension to our view-hunting that set it apart from a national park "drive-by viewing".

The current issue of Utne Reader has an article titled The Greening of Tony Soprano (unfortunately not available without a subscription - hey Utne, what's up with that?) which talks about the blossoming field of ecopsychology, where our psychological pain is directly linked to repressed suffering about what we're doing to the planet as we go about our business. The author makes a great case for what ails Tony Soprano, from the show's opening drive from industrial to suburban New Jersey, Tony's angst when the ducks leave his backyard, and even a great explanation about why Tony and Carmella named their daughter 'Meadow'.

I'm rambling all over the place today, like an old pickup truck wandering around a hayfield.

Along the way we saw some red-tailed hawks, american goldfinches, savannah sparrows, osprey, some turkey vultures, and a marsh hawk. As we left we explored a road that the map says ends up at Duck's Landing. We ran into an 'Authorized Vehicles Only' sign and turned about. Tucked away against a hillside was a small herd of beautiful axis deer. These are the reddish-brown deer with white spots that look an awful lot like the Bambi deer. They are more rarely seen around here, unlike the ubiquitous black-tailed and fallow deer. They're native to India, and were introduced here in about 1947, according to Jules Evens. A quick look in the book tells me that this is one of the reliable places to see axis deer. Whadya know?

posted by Lisa Thompson on 9:58 AM link | comments []