along the North Fork
The Cold War Legacy Lurking in U.S. Groundwater
[Ed: I’ve made many transits of the lands referred to in this informative if not disturbing read. One crucial issue not mentioned in this article are the rapid developments in the science behind groundwater modeling in relation to biotic vectors and what exactly is happening to uranium compounds that are available and mobile underground. The redox (and subsequent immobilization) of uranium through biotic/microbial vectors has recently been demonstrated to have major effects on reductive sedimentary environments, though gauging the precise impacts on particular situations remain difficult. See, for example, Biotic-Abiotic Pathways: A New Paradigm for Uranium Reduction in Sediments]
This story was originally published by ProPublica and was written by Mark Olalde, Mollie Simon and Alex Mierjeski, video by Gerardo del Valle, Liz Moughon and Mauricio Rodríguez Pons.
In America’s rush to build the nuclear arsenal that won the Cold War, safety was sacrificed for speed. Uranium mills that helped fuel the weapons also dumped radioactive and toxic waste into rivers like the Cheyenne in South Dakota and the Animas in Colorado. Thousands of sheep turned blue and died after foraging on land tainted by processing sites in North Dakota. And cancer wards across the West swelled with sick uranium workers. The U.S. government bankrolled the industry, and mining companies rushed to profit, building more than 50 mills and processing sites to refine uranium ore. more “The Cold War Legacy Lurking in U.S. Groundwater”
Ten Bulls
I. The Search for the Bull
In the pasture of this world, I endlessly push aside the tall grasses in search of the bull.
Following unnamed rivers, lost upon the interpenetrating paths of distant mountains,
My strength failing and my vitality exhausted, I cannot find the bull.
I only hear the locusts chirring through the forest at night.
Comment: The bull never has been lost. What need is there to search? Only because of separation from my true nature, I fail to find him. In the confusion of the senses I lose even his tracks. Far from home, I see many crossroads, but which way is the right one I know not. Greed and fear, good and bad, entangle me.
2. Discovering the Footprints
more “Ten Bulls”
along the Colorado River
portrait, Jennifer
River Front Park
North Fork of the Gunnison
202097
City Market Fuel #404, 122 Gunnison River Drive
7.728 gallons
$3.399/gallon
$26.27
201509
City Market Fuel #404, 122 Gunnison River Drive
5.726 gallons
$3.069/gallon
$17.57
201386
City Market Fuel #404, 122 Gunnison River Drive
8.469 gallons
$2.859/gallon
$24.21
200397
Golden Gate Silt, 520 River Frontage
9.585 gallons
$2.359/gallon
$22.61
199051
Golden Gate Silt, 520 River Frontage
12.699 gallons
$2.199/gallon
$27.93
198825
Golden Gate Silt, 520 River Frontage
9.143 gallons
$2.199/gallon
$20.11
field work
Reinecker Ridge, east of Fairplay, is a prominent north-south trending ridge rising almost 300 m to 3200 m altitude above relatively flat South Park, Colorado. The bulk of the ridge is comprised of South Park Formation, lower volcaniclastic stratigraphic member (lower Paleocene). It is a poorly sorted and poorly lithified, polymictic, coarse-grained conglomerate yielding isotopic ages ~64-67 Ma. The ridge forms the eastern border of the Buffalo Peaks Ranch, the site of the Rocky Mountain Land Library.
field work
excerpt: Anthropocene City
Climate change is hard to think about not only because it’s complex and politically contentious, not only because it’s cognitively almost impossible to keep in mind the intricate relationships that tie together an oil well in Venezuela, Siberian permafrost, Saudi F-15s bombing a Yemeni wedding, subsidence along the Jersey Shore, albedo effect near Kangerlussuaq, the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, the polar vortex, shampoo, California cattle, the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, leukemia, plastic, paper, the Sixth Extinction, Zika, and the basic decisions we make every day, are forced to make every day, in a world we didn’t choose but were thrown into. No, it’s not just because it’s mind-bendingly difficult to connect the dots. Climate change is hard to think about because it’s depressing and scary.
Thinking seriously about climate change forces us to face the fact that nobody’s driving the car, nobody’s in charge, nobody knows how to “fix it.” And even if we had a driver, there’s a bigger problem: no car. There’s no mechanism for uniting the entire human species to move together in one direction. There are more than seven billion of us, and we divide into almost two hundred nations, thousands of smaller sub-national states, territories, counties, and municipalities, and an unimaginable multitude of corporations, community organizations, neighborhoods, religious sects, ethnic identities, clans, tribes, gangs, clubs, and families, each of which faces its own internal conflicts, disunion, and strife, all the way down to the individual human soul in conflict with itself, torn between fear and desire, hard sacrifice and easy cruelty, all of us improvising day by day, moment by moment, making decisions based on best guesses, gut hunches, comforting illusions, and too little data.
But that’s the human way: reactive, ad hoc, improvised. Our ability to reconfigure our collective existence in response to changing environmental conditions has been our greatest adaptive trait. Unfortunately for us, we’re still not very good at controlling the future. What we’re good at is telling ourselves the stories we want to hear, the stories that help us cope with existence in an wild, unpredictable world.
Scranton, Roy. We’re Doomed, Now What? Essays on War and Climate Change. New York, NY: Soho, 2018.
Crystal River
field work
up river
river around boxelder snag
river around a cottonwood snag
river flowing by abandoned septic tank
Justin Kaipo Kaoni 1976 – 2018
It was a shock to receive this news. Indeed, all the loving words in his obit are true. Justin worked his deft and skilled magic on the ponderosas in my yard there in Prescott. But far more than that, he was a beautiful, affable, intelligent human presence in the lives that he touched. Generous with his time and energies, he always carried others around him to a Lighter and more profound moment. In a small way, I documented some of his tree-work with audio and some portraits over the years — his presence will be greatly missed, never forgotten. Indeed, his influence on the ecosystem of the area will live on far beyond human years.
On Friday, Dec. 7, 2018, the world lost one of its best people. Justin Kaipo Kaoni, inventor of the karate chop dance move, was called home by his creator.
Justin was born in Lahaina, Hawaii, to Chris and Sam Kaoni on Oct. 20, 1976.
As a young child, you could find him swinging from a banyan tree or roaming Wahikuli beach in search of seashells and sand crabs. At age six, the family relocated to Prescott, Arizona, where he would make the ponderosa pine forest his playground for the remainder of his life.
Everyone who met Justin was touched by his relentless love of life and genuine presence of being. His intellect, foresight and humble leadership was sought out by anyone who had a problem to solve or a project to build. In his career as owner/operator of Mile High Tree Service, he spent many days in the canopy with his crew removing branches and treetops. Nimble as a ring-tailed lemur and strong as an ox, he would perform the work of three men while wearing an ear-to-ear grin. He protected the city of Prescott as a former Granite Mountain Hotshot and defensible space ninja.
He turned superhero at night as adopter of strays (human and canine), distributor of smiles/sage advice, and midnight snack chef. Purveyor of good eats, his home kitchen has a Michelin star and no shortage of loyal patrons.
On a lucky night in Las Vegas, Justin met the love of his life when he crossed paths with Shannon Rhoades of Riverside, California. A few years later, they were married on a perfect spring evening, May 6, 2006. Together they raised three amazing children, Shane, Elena and Chaz, who continue to make their father and family proud every day. Shannon and Justin’s profound love for each other has never faded in 12 years of marriage, as affirmed by their recent renewal of vows at the place where they met.
Justin was proficient in everything he spent time doing, but was best at spreading love and positivity. He will be remembered by everyone who was lucky enough to meet him (even just once).
He is survived by his wife, Shannon; children, Shane, Elena and Chaz; father, Samuel; sister, Sierra; and brothers, Brad and Kaikea. He was predeceased by his mother, Chris Kaoni-Turner.
An awesome celebration of life will be held at Mountain Club Clubhouse, Sunday, Dec. 16, at 1 p.m., 900 W. Clubhouse Drive, Prescott, Arizona. All are welcome to be a part of the Kaoni ‘ohana (family) for the day and come share a story about this amazing person.
In lieu of flowers, have a laugh and meal with a close friend in his honor, or donate to the Eric Marsh Foundation for Wildland Firefighters @ https://ericmarshfoundation.org.
Information provided by survivors.
bed, Tres Peidras River
184750
Riverview Everyday, 360 East Pagosa Street
6.304 gallons
$3.309/gallon
$20.86
An excerpt from “The Tourist”
One of the key lines in the movie “Wall Street” is delivered by Father Martin Sheen: “It is good for people to spend their lives creating, not living off the buying and selling of others.” Anthony Zega uses the same concepts when describing the basic conflict between the Tourist and the Indian: “Creation” and “The Market.”
Two years ago, Anthony moved from his home in Princeton, New Jersey to Colorado, his base from which to visit reservations throughout the West. Anthony is searching for his own spiritual grounding and we are pleased that he will be sharing the information he finds with the readers of The New Common Good.
We are pleased to introduce Anthony Zega who will act as a Western correspondent for this publication. We will present his photographs, articles, and interviews as part of our investigation of Native America. more “An excerpt from “The Tourist””
sacrifice: limestone
Vacillation
I
Between extremities
Man runs his course;
A brand, or flaming breath.
Comes to destroy
All those antinomies
Of day and night;
The body calls it death,
The heart remorse.
But if these be right
What is joy?
II
A tree there is that from its topmost bough
Is half all glittering flame and half all green
Abounding foliage moistened with the dew;
And half is half and yet is all the scene;
And half and half consume what they renew,
And he that Attis’ image hangs between
That staring fury and the blind lush leaf
May know not what he knows, but knows not grief more “Vacillation”
177226
Stinker #307, 299 Blue River Parkway
12.444 gallons
$2.589/gallon
$32.22
end of week 2
Saturday. Survived another week, this one five days. Pacing myself, or attempting to. Many conversations: saw Marv Kay, the former football coach at the CSM Foundation offices; lunch with a Bolivian exchange student coming from Montanuniversität Leoben in Austria for a semester in Petroleum Engineering at CSM; a 90-minute briefing on the rules for using a ‘Procurement-card’ for purchases; a 90-minute briefing on the various health plan benefits; meet with Rick for a beer at the Mountain Toad; Friday at the Denver Gem & Mineral Show working the CGS booth with Debbie, talking to a lot of school children about geology and rocks, interesting; a lecture over in Berthoud Hall by Peter Barkman, the Senior Hydrogeologist at the CGS; another meeting of the CERSE (College of Earth Resource Sciences & Engineering) support staff (I’m the only alum and male in the room of 20 people!); interacting with other drivers on the 35-minute commute twice a day; walking to campus (takes 15 minutes each way, passing the heavy construction at the 6th Avenue/19th Street intersection — a pedestrian walkway for students is part of the plan); looking around Golden, absorbing the changes to the demographic and economic status quo.
bed, West Fork San Juan River
the map is not the territory
The following, a (lightly edited) reply (to Brian Holmes) on a nettime thread (that invoked a NYT article on GPS navigation ‘blindness)’.
Hallo Brian —
I had read about that Amurikan tourist in Iceland, and your notes, and thought to re-reflect/meditate on that from a personal/historical Icelandic context:
Naming of location is a traditional, age-old process. It is often the association of place with event (long- or short-term). Event may be natural or social, short-lived or cumulative. The naming process was once local, embodied, idiosyncratic, or personal. Local suggests that the naming is contextualized by a specific human experience of the place. Embodied suggests that the naming was propagated by verbal expression, and stored in human memory. Idiosyncratic in that it was the inverse of global — it was understood by and carried situated meaning for an individual or small grouping of people who lived there.
more “the map is not the territory”diminished potential for resonance
As technological civilization diminishes the biotic diversity of the earth, language itself is diminished. . . For when we no longer hear the voices of warbler and wren, our own speaking can no longer be nourished by their cadences. As the splashing speech of the rivers is silenced by more and more dams, as we drive more and more of the land’s wild voices into the oblivion of extinction, our own languages become increasingly impoverished and weightless, progressively emptied of their earthly resonance.
Abram, David. The Spell of the Sensuous: Perception and Language in a More-than-Human World. New York, NY: Vintage Books, 1996.
Chuang tzu, on asymptotic knowing
Jo of the North Sea said, “You can’t discuss the ocean with a well frog – he’s limited by the space he lives in. You can’t discuss ice with a summer insect — he’s bound to a single season. You can’t discuss the Way with a cramped scholar — he’s shackled by his doctrines. Now you have come out beyond your banks and borders and have seen the great sea – so you realize your own pettiness. From now on it will be possible to talk to you about the Great Principle. more “Chuang tzu, on asymptotic knowing”
framework:afield broadcast
I promised Patrick that I’d prepare a re-edited broadcast version of water fills the hall for his wonderful syndicated phonography (field recording) program framework:afield — by September 2015. Well, time got away from me and then last Thursday morning he let me know that the following Sunday’s slot was open. Nothing like having a deadline. I had procrastinated on it as I knew I needed to include at least some voice-over to introduce the work to the radio audience. I can’t stand the sound of my own voice, so, voice-over, argh! But with a little digital sweetening and tweaking, once I got the script done, it didn’t turn out all that bad.
So, framework:afield show #540:
(00:55:02, stereo audio, 132.1 mb)
this edition of framework:afield has been produced by john hopkins, aka neoscenes, and is entitled water fills the hall. notes from the producer:
water fills the hall is a sustained drift through the hopkins/neoscenes personal archive of field recordings relating to water. There is no detailed playlist as the work is a multi-track layering of sources and includes essences of several hundred field recordings from four continents. Many of the individual field recordings are available on the aporee::maps field recording project under the neoscenes moniker.
To sketch a few: it opens in the Mojave desert, as flies collect around the body of a dead rattlesnake, the dry air desiccating the corpse; there is organ practice by the harbor in Sydney; and wandering through the Pergammon on the Spree; students protesting along the Vilna River; monsoon rains and thunders, falling and filling desert cisterns in the High Sonoran desert; telecom wires hum in moist Arctic chill; melt-waters slowly cleave the Rocky Mountains to dust; film projectors clatter while representing fluid realities (homage to mentor and friend, film-maker Stan Brakhage); Geiger counters count what heavy waters we’ve made; rains falls on the roofs of hydrocarbon-fired chariots; rivers rage, and whining pumps pump the rivers; while F-18s storm in the wet clouds overhead, and baptisms soulfully bless the swimming pools; a plague of cicadas stands ready for the waters to recede, and is it Noah’s ark departing into an unknown future on the gray Baltic?
As a current and former resident of the US southwest with its tremendous water problems, the work is intended partly as a complex exploration of and meditation on water itself. Water in motion energetically yields sound; and thus, the work is about moving waters. Humans seek to direct those movements to their advantage with (lovingly graceful!) machinic systems, and in that lies a fundamental conflict. This is a mapping of that conflict: how the human species alters the flows of energy in the bio-system around itself.
The I Ching suggests that water simply flows, on and on, filling up all the places through which it moves. Nothing can make it lose its own essential nature: it remains true to itself under all conditions. What are we in the face of such an energized flux? Are we advancing or are we retreating with the tide? Will the rain wash our sins away? If we can swim, will we drown? Do we recall our amphibian soul? Are we thirsty for more? Are we simply thirsty?
from the spamological cosmos
[interview][green][value][south][boyfriend][while][repeat][guidance][earth][debate][copy][secretary][alert][student][career][contribution][supermarket][goal][bird][general][match][room][purpose][presence][individual][pipe][September][funeral][relation][ordinary][background][gather][homework][mouth][bank][final][can][sent][passage][adult][mountain][economics][nu][freedom][message][recommendation][illegal][burn][pizza][hunt][weakness][initiative][enthusiasm][mission][mouse][pass][pen][respect][method][change][decision][signature][dump][quality][message][sex][exchange][junior][sense][mixture][chair][wall][vacation][might][forum][show][bottom][scheme][meeting][fish][status][influence][girl][pollution][high][master][schedule][February][script][response][throat][month][top][member][salt][appeal][bicycle][team][crash][distance][advertising][worker][native][light][conclusion][yahoo][game][bridge][store][floor][accident][event][estate][whereas][order][suspect][fishing][cancel][dinner][purchase][rain][radio][proposal][advantage][trick][bill][suck][black][strategy][common][product][few][long][loss][equipment][fight][design][calendar][dependent][picture][host][grab][save][bonus][gas][view][research][diamond][bug][potato][whole][wine][upper][border][swing][length][courage][debt][poet][battle][concert][past][start][pound][cable][chart][error][put][pull][iron][heart][education][combination][manner][company][layer][population][phone][airline][agent][pour][luck][official][chance][work][satisfaction][platform][desire][lack][opposite][finance][return][bone][joke][recommended][classic][employer][establishment][evening][risk][story][help][catch][juice][reply][rub][finding] more “from the spamological cosmos”
Mumford…
… the city owed its existence, and even more its enlargement, to concentrated attempts at mastering other men and dominating, with collective force, the whole environment. Thus the city became a power-trapping utility, designed by royal agents gathering the dispersed energies of little communities into a mighty reservoir, collectively regulating their accumulation and flow, and directing them into new channels — now favoring the smaller units by beneficently re-molding the landscape, but eventually hurling its energies outward in destructive assaults against other cities. Release and enslavement, freedom and compulsion, have been present from the beginning in urban culture.
Out of this inner tension some of the creative expressions of urban life have come forth: yet only in scattered and occasional instances do we discover political power well distributed in small communities, as in seventeenth-century Holland or Switzerland, or the ideals of life constantly regulating the eccentric manifestations of power. Our present civilization is a gigantic motor car moving_ along a one-way road at an ever- accelerating speed. Unfortunately as now constructed the car lacks both steering wheel and brakes, and the only form of control the driver exercises consists in making the car go faster, though in his fascination with the machine itself and his commitment to achieving the highest speed possible, he has quite forgotten the purpose of the journey. This state of helpless submission to the economic and technological mechanisms modern man has created is curiously disguised as progress, freedom, and the mastery of man over nature. As a result, every permission has become a morbid compulsion. Modern man has mastered every creature above the level of the viruses and bacteria-except himself.
Mumford, L. (2009). The city in history: its origins, its transformations, and its prospects. San Diego, Calif, Harcourt.
Treasure
I grew up in the nineteen forties in a village at the edge of the New Forest in England, on the other side of the road from the bungalow in which I was born there were two massive oak trees, beneath and beside the oak tree on the left was a holly bush, we would cut berried twigs from the bush to decorate our home at Christmas. When I was five or six I crawled into the space under the holly bush and there I found a small round tin that rattled when I shook it.
“Treasure!” I thought. The tin was rusted shut, it had obviously been lying there for quite a while. I did, after some considerable effort with a screwdriver, get the tin open and inside was … a set of false teeth!
Entropy and the shaping of landscape by water
The south side of the house with the drainage coming from the neighbor’s yard is the site of experimentation with the principle of entropy applied to surface water flow. Creating more turbulence is a way of dissipating the energy of gravitationally-induced water flow. Small scale to larger scale, by interrupting the laminar flow of water across a system, the energy is effectively diffused back into the local environment in a way that is not as destructive (though as I write those words, it occurs to me that the absolute energy content of the water — as a falling mass, minus frictions and surface-tension coefficients — is a constant). It’s only a question of at what scale one chooses to work at to diffuse the energy — giant rocks, big waterfalls; smaller rocks, smaller waterfalls, tiny pebbles, tiny waterfalls. These versus smoothly finished surfaces that transmit the maximum amount of inertial energy to the folks downstream.
We have given an overview of some energetic and thermodynamic principles that have been applied to hydrology. We note there are currently two distinct analogies, though we suspect they should ultimately be related. The first principle states that a fluvial system may be considered as an engine driven by the supply of water at high elevation flowing to low elevation. In this sense elevation, or hydraulic head, is a direct analogue of temperature for a heat engine. Secondly, the configuration of a river network can be described by certain statistical properties, notably an entropy. The notion of minimum energy expenditure in the network should then correspond to the principle of minimum entropy production, where the prescribed boundary conditions do not allow for much flexibility. However, since much of the dissipation of energy in river networks is related to turbulence, Maximum Entropy Production should also be applicable, although the detailed application is not clear and needs further investigations.
If the thermodynamic background to the hydrological shaping of the landscape becomes sufficiently understood, practical applications may be developed. In particular, statistical properties of hydrologic networks may provide quantitative means of classifying networks and thereby understanding the geomorphological processes by which they formed. The relationship of the observed ‘maturity’ of a river system with the Gibbs’ parameter (i.e., network temperature) may be a fruitful avenue of inquiry.
Finally, we note that exploring the thermodynamic concepts of fluvial geomorphology also appear useful for shoreline processes. Their generality may make these ideas quite fruitful for investigating networks on other planetary bodies, where the specific mechanisms and working substances may be different from Earth, but the aggregate effects are similar.
Miyamoto, H., Lorenz, R.D. & Baker, V.R., 2005. Entropy and the Shaping of the Landscape by Water. In Non-equilibrium Thermodynamics and the Production of Entropy: Life, Earth, and Beyond. Berlin: Springer-Verlag.
water fills the hall
New work for Galerie Díra, aka The Hole Gallery, a site-specific sound art gallery space in the courtyard of Školská street no. 28, in Prague. The Gallery was founded in 2012 by Mlok Asociation in collaboration with Školská 28 Gallery.
(00:52:45, stereo audio, loop, 127.2 mb)
As neoscenes is wont to synthesize, water fills the hall is a sustained drift, this time through a profusion of sonic liquids that flow — in drips, burbles, washes, rushing, splashing, crashing, soothing — hard against the (lovingly graceful) machinic systems we deploy to direct those flows. The I Ching suggests that water simply flows, on and on, filling up all the places through which it moves. Nothing can make it lose its own essential nature: it remains true to itself under all conditions. What are we in the face of such an energized flux? Are we advancing or are we retreating with the tide? Will the rain wash our sins away? If we can swim, will we drown? Do we recall our amphibian soul? Are we thirsty for more? Are we simply thirsty?
With sonic samples from four continents, many cities, and, especially, many wilderness places, this multilayer movement begins in the Mojave desert, as flies collect around the body of a dead rattlesnake, the dry air desiccating the corpse; there is organ practice by the harbor in Sydney; and wandering through the Pergammon on the Spree; students protesting along the Vilna River; monsoon rains and thunders, falling and filling desert cisterns in the High Sonoran desert; telecom wires hum in moist Arctic chill; melt-waters slowly cleave the Rocky Mountains to dust; film projectors clatter while representing fluid realities (homage to mentor and friend, film-maker Stan Brakhage); Geiger counters count what heavy waters we’ve made; rains falls on the roofs of hydrocarbon-fired chariots; rivers rage, and whining pumps pump the rivers; while F-18s storm in the wet clouds overhead, and baptisms soulfully bless the swimming pools; a plague of cicadas stands ready for the waters to recede, and Noah’s ark founders on a reef.
imprisoned
Imprisoned by my own lack of imagination…
These words popped out of an interview between two people on the radio. It resonated: driving, I grabbed a red Sharpie from the glove box and the old spiral notebook I keep for just such instances, and scrawled it down, further endangering other drivers, the ones chatting on their phones.
Arriving home on another day, I remember to grab this scrap of paper torn from the notebook and bring it inside. Putting it on the top of the pile of papers on the desk initiates a reverie:
Is imagination, imagining, a liberation? Is it something possessed? And is its loss akin to being locked up in a cell in Soledad? And what does it mean to once have it and lose it? Mon dieu! Such things to muse about, on the outside world’s Monday morning. While I bide the moments:
Waiting for. enLightenment to arrive with a slamming door and a pine-cone falling on the roof.
Imagining the effect of imagination’s potential for, what, seeing the path that brings us here and now to imagine upon?
sugar
Sugarcane seems to have originated in New Guinea and, between the fourth and eighth centuries, was grown in India and the delta of the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers. The peoples of the Middle East and Eastern Mediterranean introduced sugar to Europeans before the latter began cultivating the plant. In the fourteenth century the Spanish and Portuguese began production of sugar in earnest in the Madeira Islands, the Canary Islands and the Cape Verde Islands. Columbus brought sugarcane from the Cape Verde Islands to the Americas on his second voyage in 1493; it was first grown in Santo Domingo, and the first American exports of sugar to Europe began around 1516.
Sugar is a shape shifter: it can be visualized as a plant, a white crystalline powder, and a liquid; mixed with other materials, it can take fantastic ornamental shapes. In the early modern period, as now, sugar was commonly an unseen presence, lending its invisible sweetening power to tea, coffee, candy, and other confections. But sugar was more than a sweetener: it was the engine driving a large part of the slave trade and colonial commerce of the Americas, especially in the Caribbean and South America. It has profoundly changed human bodies, societies, and eco-systems. — from Sugar And The Visual Imagination In The Atlantic World, Circa 1600-1860
Sugar, more importantly, is an energy source for the body, and it was the desire for this extremely compact and potent energy source that drove the whole process. Again, evidence how a social organism’s need for energy sources to drive Life into a certain future will consequently drive the ‘optimized’ arrangement of society towards that ultimate goal. Individuals in a social collective by definition have variable ‘values’ to the system, and because of that, their lives are treated differently at the effect of the overall operation of the collective.
Powell’s toil
The relief from danger and the joy of success are great. When he who has been chained by wounds to a hospital cot until his canvas tent seems like a dungeon cell, until the groans of those who lie about tortured with probe and knife are piled up, a weight of horror on his ears that he cannot throw off, cannot forget, and until the stench of festering wounds and anaesthetic drugs has filled the air with its loathsome burden, — when he at last goes out into the open field, what a world he sees! How beautiful the sky, how bright the sunshine, what floods of delirious music pour from the throats of birds, how sweet the fragrance of earth and tree and blossom! The first hour of convalescent freedom seems rich recompense for all pain and gloom and terror.
Something like these are the feelings we experience to-night. Ever before us has been an unknown danger, heavier than immediate peril. Every waking hour passed in the Grand Canyon has been one of toil. We have watched with deep solicitude the steady disappearance of our scant supply of rations, and from time to time have seen the river snatch a portion of the little left, while we were a-hungered. And danger and toil were endured in those gloomy depths, where ofttimes clouds hid the sky by day and but a narrow zone of stars could be seen at night. Only during the few hours of deep sleep, consequent on hard labor, has the roar of the waters been hushed. Now the danger is over, now the toil has ceased, now the gloom has disappeared, now the firmament is bounded only by the horizon, and what a vast expanse of constellations can be seen!
Powell, J.W., 1961. The exploration of the Colorado river and its canyons, New York, NY: Dover Publications.
At Home in the West: The Lure of Public Land
William (Willy) S. Sutton‘s fine book of western landscapes—lands in the ‘public trust’—came out recently. I had the opportunity to spend an evening with him last spring at the marvelous home he built for his family in the mountains west of Boulder. We looked through many of the original (beautiful!) prints he was preparing for the book. The comparisons to Ansel Adams will doubtless be made, but there are significant differences—and indeed, these images share perhaps only three factors—one is the landscape itself, another is the technical format of the images, and the third is particularity of vision. Beyond these basics, as an individual image-maker with a singular individual vision, Sutton demonstrates with his images a profoundly subtle relationship with the situation. The fascination of ‘making landscape photographs’ for some lies in the embodied relationship that the image-maker feels for the place, the places, (and clearly being in the places). Mr. Sutton’s relationship with these places is precisely, amply, and ineffably mapped out in these images. The drama in making a landscape image lies at least in part in the subtlety of the Light that reflects from the land to the mind’s eye. But that eye may often be filtering: is often always filtering the Light energy that arrives in mind. The neural system is selective in what it sees. This is especially evident in photography which adds the selectivity of the framed image, and the limitations to tone in the case of black&white work, and the skills required to bring images to print — a command of which Mr. Sutton amply demonstrates. These images are understated but at the same time possess a serene and very smooth gravity: they are solid, intricate, and leave the eye’s mind with a calm yet electric regard. Not dissimilar to the effect of be-ing there, in these landscapes, immersed in the instantaneity and, as the photographer Richard Misrach once characterized the Western landscape, its “terrible beauty.” more “At Home in the West: The Lure of Public Land”
Day 18 – Hawk Moon Ridge
The Landscape becomes reflective, human and thinks itself though me. I make it an object, let it project itself and endure within my painting….I become the subjective consciousness of the landscape, and my painting becomes its objective consciousness.
…
I am becoming more lucid before nature, but always with me the realization of my sensations is always painful. I cannot attain the intensity that is unfolded before my senses…. Here on the bank of the river the motifs multiply, the same subject seen from a different angle offers subject for study of the most powerful interest and so varied that I think I could occupy myself for months without changing place by turning now more to the right, now more to the left. — Cezanne
The lucidity that Cezanne speaks of gives way in the dry heat and white Light of the desert West to a (con)fusion of flows. The canyon below the house, a side-feeder to the spectacular Ute Canyon in the Monument, provides a setting for random movement driven by impulse: gravity applies. Following the topography of the canyon wall, following the central wash, following contact lines between regimes. Returning when Light begins to fail. Full moon around now allows for easy navigation, but any cloud cover can seriously compromise safety of movement. Mind flows purely no matter the sensory setting. The reflecting process, that is, the mind’s perception of what is there is perhaps the source of the objective reality. But how could we tell otherwise? Finally, we will die for this knowledge/die with this knowledge.
Day 3 – Hawk Moon Ridge
Up at 0500 to continue the discipline of yoga on the patio before the bugs make it uncomfortable. It’s perfect in the waxing Light well before dawn. Body is stiff and resisting flexibility, but it will take time after two months on the road. Luna hangs out nearby, and although dog’s expressions have been proven to be largely in the mind of their owners, she has a quizzical look. When I start off with some “Om’s” for some reason she goes charging off barking as though she’s cornered some game. This is even more comic as she usually never barks. Otherwise, I can think of nothing better to be doing in such a place than to allow the body to regain some flowing order with a practice on the patio. 0500 tomorrow again!
I set up a bird bath with rain water barrels (repurposed garbage bins that I set out under the gutter drains mostly just to rinse them of a strong whiff!), and immediately birds begin to come. Have to optimize the inside of the bath with some wood and stones to stand on to give them options on washing and drinking. As I watch this morning from the cluttered kitchen working area that I set up immediately after Collin and Marisa depart, I see a pair of doves moving through the trees, and suddenly a red-tail (hawk) comes jetting through, pursuing one of the doves. I think it was one of the fledglings from this year. Last evening on the regular circuit walk with Luna, I got within 20 meters of a sizable red-tail roosting in a dead tree near the highest point of the ridge. He wasn’t happy with my presence and said so before sailing off down the canyon.
“Red at night, sailors deLight; in the morning, sailors take warning.” We’ll see if this works in a place where the only sailing would be down the river in a raft. Looks like some monsoon moisture is in the air, but only what afternoon brings will determine the verity of this Coriolis-driven sea-borne correlation.
Dinner with Bob and Burdette ‘next door’ — they’ve got some computer problems that I hope I can help them with, so it’s a good excuse to drop in on them.
big synchronicity
Well, where to start this narrative? In the PhotoWorks Laboratory on 23rd Street in Chelsea in Manhattan in 1986? Or in Karla’s flat in Prenzlauerburg in 2013? I leave there earlier than I probably need to in order to get to the Hauptbahnhof in good time for my ICE connection to Köln, and it turns out to be a good choice. I first go to the wrong tram stop, then when I get on the right one, there is a total traffic tie-up as we approach the old wall. This is because of the presence of the (US) Presidential bubble and his cortege which results in a total ban on traffic entering the entire central government sector — much of Berlin-Mitte. There had been hints of looming presence for at least a week before — Blackhawks on drill overhead, warnings about route changes posted on public transport, and so on. As traffic is totally blocked by the time the tram gets to Mauerpark, shiite! I get off and get to the U-Bahn pretty quickly, and make it to the Hbf in good time — enough to make some audio recordings (Gleis 6), have a snack and look out south towards the government sector that is completely cordoned off, musing on that impenetrable bubble that surrounds the Imperial man and his entourage.
I get on the ICE train to Köln, car 32, seat 81 or so, looking forward to a relaxed and comfortable ride with an easy transfer in Köln to the Aachen train. It looks pretty empty. A petite woman comes to my row and takes the window seat. So I say to her “I’ll move up one row since the train looks pretty empty, that way we’ll both have more room” (am I being rude?). I move up one row, but shortly another woman comes along and I am in her seat to I move back to my original seat. I settle back in and turn to my seat mate and ask her if she is from Berlin, “No, I live in New York.” Oh really, what are you doing there? “I’m a photographer.” And as I am looking at her, I am stunned, “Dora, Dora Händel?” My lord, booking the seat next to me is my old colleague from (Kathy Kennedy‘s) PhotoWorks on 23rd Street in Chelsea from 1986. PhotoWorks was one of the top two commercial custom printing labs in the photo district back in those analog days. Dora took care of all contact printing (ferro-typed Kodak Azo, thank you!). We spent many an hour in the darkroom listening to Nina Haugen among other incendiary sonic background effects.
We hadn’t seen each other in probably 20 years or so. How effing bizarre. The immediate question becomes: What to make of this synchronicity, coincidence, sign, event, etc, etc. Too incredibly random to comprehend from any statistical level.
Fortunately we have a couple hours to catch up before she gets off in Münster (or so?). I go on to Hamm where the train is shunted (the German rail network is still suffering from major delays resulting from the heavy flooding on the Elbe River). It’s the hottest day in an already hot German summer, and after one aborted attempt to get a connection onward, and some time on the stifling platform, passengers are finally (and, to be honest, pretty efficiently) re-routed to their different destinations. When I arrive in Aachen, I pick up a form at the DB travel office in the Hbf for applying for a partial refund based on the two-hour delay I experienced. The lady at the desk helps me fill it out.
through the Rockies
Glade Park – Grand Junction – Glenwood Springs – Dotsero – Radium – Kremmling – Rollinsville – Denver (Union Station) – Denver (Market Street Station) – Aurora (Sleep Inn)
Long friggin’ day. Longer one tomorrow.
Elect for the first time to take the Amtrak California Zephyr instead of the bus back to Denver today — it’s cheaper, though it takes about eight hours, twice as long as the bus. But I’ve never ridden it, and the route is through some classic Colorado landscape. Catch it at the run-down Grand Junction station, Collin drives me over from meeting at Roast in town, get on board — now officially en route to Europe! It’s pretty full so I sit with a middle-age chap, Jake, and we start to converse. The ride through Glenwood Canyon is quite spectacular as expected: I go up to the dome car to soak it in. Images are strange — I-70 in the canyon, the River, the skies, the others in the dome car.
The Last Night in the Bubble: departure(s plural)
numerous departures ensue. greetings to commence thereafter on other continents, along other seas, rivers, on hills, and city streets, at airports and train stations: entlang anderer Meere, Flüsse, auf Hügeln und Straßen der Stadt, an Flughäfen und Bahnhöfen.. movement is assumed. car, train, plane, bus, taxi, tram, ferry, sailboat, and stints of upright bipedalism. The shift of be-ing that comes with the shift of place is a change of perspective. It is a change in point-of-view. It is a change in world view. It is change. As it goes.