What is authenticity?

No matter the number of times I chomp on this question, am still left with yet another question: Does it matter? Conservation biology is the careful science of conserving ecosystems. But aren't they ever-changing? This is always the argument against "global warming" but there is some sense in it when cynicism creeps up my pant legs. When a hopeless day has dragged on and I can't even count the number of faces I've seen, I turn to this unsettling thought and drag myself even deeper into the mud of my mind. We are feeding the change and accelerating it, the scientists say, shaking their hypocritical fingers in faces. Live in a city, and give in to the demons that started it all. Live in the suburbs, and give in to comfort and the convenience of cars. Live in the bush, and you are criticized for hunting the land you are made of because someone has endangered the species. There is no winning side and no end to criticism. Why does authenticity matter when it mean something different to each person, and nothing to nature. Ask a city dweller what the think authentic nature is and they will give you some idealized vision of beauty, peace and quiet-- the things they miss in their lives. Ask the same thing to a kin of the country and she will tell you exciting stories about handling nature with machines, stories about getting dirty, stories that will make you cringe with fear at the power of nature. Again, what is authenticity?

Fall Squeaks

Autumn nips at my heels
and my bike wheels now
squeak in the mornings.

Whirlwinds of yellow leaves
complete the race, beyond
the stop sign. We go
together despite the
green in the tress.

Stepping on squirrels
who scavenge and retreat.
Frantic hibernation is
teasing their yearly
lease.

Still wondering about Savtiz

"IN THE BAND OF PAINTERS AND PHOTOGRAPHERS
hired to determine the fertility of America"

This is perhaps a reference to the depression era of government funded artists who documented the atrocities of the dust bowl it is. If that is true I am still wondering whether these lines represent a hint of patriotism and how it applies to the rest of the poem. These lines stand out from the rest of the poem, as the last stanza does.

Illinois leads the way

"Illinois points the way to food system reform"

I'm hoping this has something to do with the wonderful people at the Green Market in Chicago. They're the real people who know what's going on. However, it seemed that there were more people from Michigan then from Illinois.

http://www.grist.org/article/illinois-points-the-way-to-food-system-reform/

Gray

I feel like something is missing from these gray days. The sun sheds a natural light on the world that cannot be simulated in any form, while the rain feeds the soil in a way that water from a hose simply cannot. Both of these gifts are comforting in their concreteness and tangible intent. The gray skies are an uncomfrotable crack between two certainties. The winds become stagnant, and the sun seems to have forgotten about us. Fow now, I'm willing the indisctinct clouds to open up and poor out their bountiful gifts.

Woodchuck Envy

A woodchuck traverses
the river bank in
search of l'herbe verte.
Her home is a dark
hole in the scene.

McMansions looming in the distance do not disturb her lunch.
Mine was ruined at their sight.
We are too big for her world.

She fights her way
upstream and feasts
on fresh algae growing
in a world only
her bottom half
can be a part of.

We consume things unfathomable to her herbivorous soul.
I envy her life on the bank and its simplicity.
We are too big for her world.

She looks past me and
I am relieve she cannot
see me for I know
I would frighten her
with colors she
has never seen.

A silver bullet whistles through the crack between my life and hers.
While I stare in amazement she remains undisturbed.
I am too big for her world.

A Hole in the Prairie

Shave me down
and let my colors fade
while the day passes
unnoticed.

My kin stand tall
above me and
they sigh in the wind
while I tickle the
ankles of my trampers.

Three-sided blades
manicured my wilderness.
Only the bees still visit.

But they are workers
with a narrow intent
and are quick to
move on to the
pretty-headed stems.

Those who used to
plunge and sing
amidst my jungle
of strands are now
a whisper on the
frontier.

The only pleasantries
I maintain are
the rain falling at
my roots and the
hand-holding children
who fill my center.
But only for a moment.

Wishy Washy Politics

Obama's Agriculture Policy- "like a tractor driven by a drunk"
I can't help but imagine Pollan shaking his head in belief as this though hand continues to be played out. For now I am trying my best to keep my foods' ingredients at five and under.

Mug-me

Something I hate about the humidity is that it makes me feel like I should shower twice a day. I can stand the grease in my hair for a few days but as soon as I feel a little sticky I need to be clean. Water is at waste! In the mean time the overcast days have brought no rain. I keep feelings specks of water on my nose but really it's really just moist air and not rain drops. I am using more water and still waiting for replenishment.

Follow up on yesterday...

The reason for my interest in the round table climate change debates at the United Nations is that my father works as an interpreter there. I called him to ask if he would be working for any of the debates and he said yes and promised to fill me in on what they were discussing. I just got this email from him.

"hi--i interpreted today at a round table of un conf. on cc. the member states are all preparing like mad for the copenhagen conference in a few months to establish a post-kyoto strategy for after 2012 but there are still doubts among developed and developing countries about getting enough aid to developing countries for mitigation and adaptation plans and about the developed countries' ability to meet targets, and what are realistic and achievable targets for carbon and greenhouse gas emissions reductions, carbon sequestration etc."

There does not seem to have been any progress made in this debate since the first Kyoto initiative.

Climate Week at the UN

http://www.grist.org/article/2009-09-20-climate-week-kicks-off-in-new-york-with-bigwigs-and-big-hopes/

Obama is trying to prove that he CAN change things and set the United States at the forefront of climate change action. Let's see how he does...

Thunder Road

I woke this morning to birds singing and the sun leaning through my window intrusively but invited. Now the rain sloshes from the sky and not an inch of this old road is dry. The shaking foundation with every beat of thunder is in harmony with the spastic rhythm in my chest. I'm breathing heavy. The lamp on the wall flickers and I press save, just the be sure. She's lounging on the ground, perhaps in discomfort, but she looks relaxed despite the angry storm outdoors. I haven't heard a crash in about five minutes and I can hear the drips from the eves start to distinguish themselves from the rain. She rubs her eyes, needing a jolt of lightening to remind her it's not bedtime, but the pitter patter only sings her to sleep. Her brows furrow as her eyes droop slowly, refusing the defeat, while her mouth stretches wide with the despair of sleepless evenings.

Learning Language

"Implicit knowledge makes language structures available for automatic use but not reflections. Children learn to speak without instruction; they absorb linguistic rules as a sponge absorbs water. Every language is intricate, but non is chaotic; the underlying uniformities reveal themselves to the neural sysmtems poised to pluck recurring patterns out of a sea of experience."
from "A General Theory of Love"
Thomas Lews, Fari Amini, and Richard Lannon

Not only do children learn the general gramatical aspects of language through repeatedly being exposed to it, but they also learn the implications of words and their meanings. Therefore the way the think about and speak of things is all learned and, frankly, circumstancial. A "tree" to a child from North American Suburbia might mean something completely different than a "tree" to a child in a small logging twn somewhere in Oregon.

I could go for the timelessness of summer. No deadlines and certainly no watches. But the dichotomy of school and summer is surreal and sometimes unsettling. I guess I will live with the tinker dink of the clocks for now.

Bees

The bees are still here, and living in my walls. Their entrance in invisible to the human eye, but they continue to sneak inside, two or three at a time, during the cold nights. They've gotten bigger and more aggressive and I have concluded that it must be all the sunshine that has brought out their brawn and gumption.

I woke to a knock at the door and immediately heard a few morning bees buzzing and beating against the window above my head, trying to get back outside where they came from. It wouldn't be morning without them. I rose in a heap of tangled hair and blankets to answer the call, but no one was there. Just as I sat to gather my thoughts and continue waking up, there was another knock. I shot up in frustration to answer the door again. Still, no one was there. A flicker caught my eye outside the window by the bee hive. To my surprise a wood pecker flapped his wings frantically while he snapped at the bees, both suspended in midair. When the bees retreated back into their hive, he knocked again, chasing them out and into his range of fire.

beach side

The wind blew my jacket open and the air felt thick on my chest. I came to a screeching halt despite pressing lightly on my brakes. Too bad chemicals keep these parts lubed. I even feel defeated paying for an aerosol can of WD-40-- it's probably worth it. I fear that on a wet morning gravity will pull me over my handle bars at the request of a stop.
I arrived at the beach and sat on a bench with a view to the horizon where the undulating gray surface met the patchy sky. The seagull plunged to the water, only to complete the concave motion with the apex at sic inches above the crashing waves. A spectacular display of athleticism. We raced our bikes home, inspired.

Mongols

The mongols, a nomadic culture, were a tribe centered around warfare. Their lives depended on the next battle and therefore the next environment to which they would adapt. Their war techniques were extremely advanced and while their culture was nomadic, their tactics were precise while being "unconventional." There must be something superior in the animal-like ability to quickly and comfortably adapt to environments, and then successfully wage and win wars. Is there not something innately sophisticated in this primitive culture?

Questions from a Foggy Morning Brain

What I hate most about Capitalism is its ability to make the natural things seem insufficient, when in fact they are the only things that truly make us feel. To be alone in nature is to forget all the social implications of the "things" we have to replace our natural surroundings and embrace what is simply there. Are we eternally displeased and searching for something else or is this simply a trick of the capitalist swine of this dark night?

To The Key!

Do we really digest our texts for the master key? To what avail is this key beyond abstract words? In our studies of the environment we aim to deduce it and therefore humanize it. Through interdisciplinary studies we draw only perpendicular lines. The connections are everywhere and everything is circular. All things are one and the same. The earth begets the earth which inters it. The meanings and facts will never meet and the laws of nature stand to be broken.

Coffee Shop

A small family-owned shop is enticing the Lake Forest crowd because it offers something unique that Starbucks cannot touch.

The pastoral patio rests in a nook
almost beyond the sounds
of the cars the surround it
and the scent of the trees
blends perfectly with roasted beans.

Matching families drink and eat
and escape the breeze, but perhaps
regretfully.

A baby cries when the ice cream
plops on the tiled ground
and desert is ruined.

The forestians dream on
through life, or something like it.

Urban Greens

Sitting on the Loyola University campus looking out a window, and green grass, or an impression of it, is all I can see. Cities are being recreated to reincorporate that which they have banished. Happy people run around amidst high rise buildings, hardly thinking twice about the fact that they are outside, it is a clear night, and the city lights have replaced the stars.

some Politiques for the Mix (and a poem)

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/09/opinion/09friedman.html?_r=1&em

It's hard to be hopeless.
Worries could make my
stomach churn
and my brow sweat.

...Or was that the extra helping
of hormones the mistress
delivered last night?

No sense in dread,
might as well
be .

To Josh,

I enjoy that argument. I like the irony in the suggestion that we could wage a real war with nature involving armies and weapons. It credits the potential force of the environment while giving false hope to the enemy who will be unpleasantly surprised when nature has equal rights in war.

For the past few days I have not been able to get over the trope of the law as a way to relate humans to nature. Laws seem so unnatural, and yet we have "the laws of nature" such as gravity and the speed of light, neither of which are perfect sciences. To me it seems that the laws of humans and the laws of nature are so far apart from one another, being that we can never make any part of nature purely scientific--there will always be mystery--that the very phrase "laws of nature" is indescribable.

on Environment

There are two fundamental meanings of Environment. The first is centered around humans, and the second is removed from humans.

Nature's Army

This passage reminded me of a comment from last class.
"War, however, is not the action of a living force upon a lifeless mass (total nonresistance would be no war at all) but always the collision of two living forces. The ultimate aim of waging war, as formulated here, must be taken as applying to both sides. Once again, there is interaction. Solon as I have not overthrown my opponent I am bound to fear he may overthrow me. Thus I am not in contorl: he dictates to me as much as I dictate to him."
-Carl von Clausewitz from On War

This excerpt is from a section of Chapter One titled "The Aim is to Disarm the Enemy." When the author speaks of "living forces" he is referring to opposing armies, however he is also, perhaps unknowingly, characterizing the environment in which war takes place. Is there not interaction between the environment, a living thing, and the armies that march thruogh it. Does the environment not fight back as it takes the brunt of war? Like Bacon said "the subtlety of nature is greater than the subtlety of argument." War, in the abstract, is but an argument which is why the environment gets overlooked as a player in the game. However, it is possibly the most threatening army.

Seeing Less

I close my eyes to forget the day and the pleasant whir of the wind in the trees is interrupted by the cacophony of an airplane and when the noise finally passes the birds make themselves heard with admirable musical talent. The wind blows again and it tickles my leg but it occurs to me that it must be a leaf because, although I can feel the wind, it somehow remains intangible. The life of this place fills my nostrils in the scents of rich soil and stale bark. I am distracted by the wriggle of something progressing from my fingertips to my elbow and I fight the urge to brush it off, hoping that I will earn respect as a good hostess. I fear the crunchy sounds of my steps and hope that they have not been too intrusive.

And when I open my eyes once my feelings of rejuvenation are lost and the looming semester clouds my vision. When asked to write down what is "on my mind" I am distracted because I have become so easily enthralled with the visual stimulants of this forest that my mind can do nothing but wander along, senseless yet busy. Now all that comes to me is the fact that my life is so consumed by visual stimulants that when I close my eyes to breathe in the world around me everything seems clear and the assignment is complete. And yet, when I open my eyes again I get lost in what I see and my thoughts become inchoate.

on Semiotics

"Even Francis Bacon, who sought scientific dominion over nature, observed that 'the subtlety of nature is greater than the subtlety or argument.'"
-Daniel Chandler

Welcoming Bees

Woke to a buzzing bee this morning. It seems the infestation continues despite my landlord's efforts to chemically control the "pests." Before the chemicals were added to the equation of humans in nature and nature in what is human they bees were hardly a problem. An invisible hole provided them with an outlet to our world but they are not aggressive bees and the problem was nonexistent. The chemicals chased them inside so when I woke two mornings ago thirty bees were swarming around a one room studio apartment that hardly sleeps two people. Now I am left with homicidal shame and I worry for the legumes that my lost friends maintain.

Green Market

I traveled to Chicago this morning, early enough to watch the fog drift from the streets back into the sky where it belongs. My destination was the green market but the navigation of city streets kept me back a little while, so I walked patiently and breathed in the city landscape and the sour smell of dumpsters. Finally I stumbled upon a park with a large grouping of tents with the best organic foods from all around the greater Chicago area. Everyone around me was refreshed by the morning air and the sight of real food, and I was not once pushed, shoved or gawked out, despite the dense crowd of organic eaters. The meet cute of two opposing worlds struck me in the midst of conversation when I looked up above the hanging herbs to see a city high-rise. It's funny how we try to reincorporate what is missing from city life once we have banished all signs of it.

Thin Description 1

The Shooting Star Savanna is proudly our Lake Forest College wilderness haven, accompanied by a thought-provoking stone bench and mesmerizing musical sounds coming from somewhere within the canopy above. Native species surround us and grow rampant as they should. Environmental studies professors puff their chests out proudly at the thought of the suburban convenience and the excuse to spend class hours in something other than the limiting space of the great indoors. To leave modernity and the comfort of designated learning space is an adventure even when the learning space is just out the back door of the conventional red brick and into a more foreign space. While the flower heads are level with mine and the trees hold stories a hundred years old I can still hear the buzz of a whipper snipper somewhere across the ravine and the echo of a jet engine trailing its way from one horizon to the next. I am reminded of the lines of cars behind me and the rubber soles on my feet. The trees are just as much a boundary as the classroom walls.

Thick Description 1

The Shooting Star Savanna is a naturally recreated prairie, a suburban solution to the loss of wilderness. But, more people are rolling up their lawns for wild grass and flowers, maybe even a man made pond. The reappointed native species surround us and grow rampant as the real wild does. Professors puff their chests proudly at the throught of the exurban convenience of growth within the cracks of the civilized. To think the evolution of education has ended in limiting the physical space in which it takes place gives me shivers in the sunlight, but I march along the path of academia proudly. The conventional red brick walls hold my mind, and the native prairie beyond the glass is but a foreign place. Reminding me of the otherworldliness of this space, where the flower heads are level with mine, is the echo of a jet engine trailing its way from one horizon to he next. I think of the lines of parked cars behind me and the rubber soles of my feet. The trees are just as much a boundary as the classroom walls.

Thin Description 2

‘Tis a concrete garden: nameless and hard enough to break a glass bottle. The only green in this garden grows in the cracks where the bricks should collide but, for whatever reason, don’t. The moss and grass claim the space. I want to count the bricks but realize that would be as pointless as counting flowers, were they there. The plotted trees stand tall, and close enough by the remind me I am outside. The season caters to the crickets and birds I hear often, but see rarely. Two children are playing ring-around-the-rosy on their bikes and their training wheels fill the air with a drowning vibration. Wearing helmets for protection does not save one fall from becoming a tragedy. The fun and spontaneity of the outdoors is abruptly ended by the threat of the concrete garden.

Thick Description 2

If you think a garden must contain flowers and soil, you are wrong, for I found one made of ninety degree angles and red-grey cement. The only green in this garden grows in the cracks where the bricks should collide, but even the manufactured world is imperfect. I want to count the bricks but realize that would be just as pointless as counting the flowers, were they here. Green lawns roll to trees, leading me into the remembrance that this is an outdoor environment. The unlawful whether has teased me since my return from the desert but the sun is out and the season caters to the crickets and birds who migrated with us in our quest alone the beaten interstates. Children are always making the best out of this created landscape and I see two playing ring-around-the-rosy on their bikes, their training wheels filling the air with drowning vibrations as rubber meets brick. Wearing helmets because she said so does not save one fall from becoming a tragedy and a concerned mother warns and protects her child from the looming outdoors. The fun and spontaneity of the adventure is abruptly ended by the threat of the concrete garden.