The Future is Poop

Okay, so I'm working on a theory about...THE FUTURE. Original, I know. But there's something fantastically mesmerizing about trying to figure out how things are going to go. Here, I'm going to try and propose a new (well, at least to me) flavor of future than what's been posited before. Pop culture is really great at gauging where the collective human conscious is at least at the time the movie/song/show/book/whatever was written.
            So it seems like what we've seen so far, at least concerning movies and TV shows, is the following categories:

• Disaster resulting in apocalypse
• Utopia achieved with technology

I'M HELPING!

Those are vast generalizations, but I think I could argue most things into those categories. Now for my alternate path. My idea all stems from this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ysa5OBhXz-Q.

If you watched it, you'll see that video is about how when wolves were reintroduced into Yellowstone National Park, they had these incredible side effects that overall improved the area greatly in a dozen different ways. This is called a trophic cascade, where one species at the top of the food chain can have a trickle down out affect on many others. Essentially, because deer and elk had been left alone without a major predator for so long, the grazed the ever-loving crap out of the area. This caused tree-growth to stagnate, there was no cover for smaller animals, and the banks of rivers were unstable because the vegetation holding them together was gone. When the wolves came back and started bringing those grazing populations down, they also caused those deer and elk to avoid previous grazing areas. This caused the vegetation to grow back,  which brought in other animals, the taller trees brought in birds, and the river banks held together better which resulted in better habitats for even more wildlife. The list goes on, all due to the reintroduction of one single species (in small numbers, at that) back into an ecosystem.

Mmm, chocolate...

Now, the same organization that put out that video, Sustainable Human, have another one on whales. More specifically, whale poop. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M18HxXve3CM. This situation follows basically the same pattern as the wolves. Whales apparently stir up plankton and algae much more than ocean currents and storms combined, and those photosynthetic organisms make up a large percentage of our oxygen producers. Whale poop is incredibly nutrient rich and creates the perfect food for plankton, which is eaten by fish. Thus, whales gulping down massive quantities of fish actually comes full circle and helps facilitate larger fish populations.

Okey dokey, one more example. There's been a connection made between elephant and tree populations. You see, elephants eat the seeds of trees as part of their diet, and their digestive system softens up the seeds. This helps the seeds germinate once they're passed and voila! New tree. Of course, when the elephants are hunted and no longer around to help spread tree seeds?

So, everything's connected, we all knew that. Every species is precious, blah blah blah. What I want to focus on is how these revelations about trophic cascades can give us an alternate path to an awesome future. We humans have gotten to the point where we recognize we've done some damage to the Earth. Like, a ridiculous amount of damage. Just, soooo much damage, you guys. But our answer to that seems to be to develop new technology that can either replace, or directly fix what we've broken. We're not even settling for half-measures. The movie Transcendence showed a near future where the singularity results in an artificial sentience that creates microscopic bots that can seed the air and fix the planet. I feel like a lot of sci-fi goes in this direction i.e., we can fix the planet with technology.

The Depp will save us all

But these examples of trophic cascades highlight just how self-sustaining a system the Earth already is. Yeah, everything's connected, and we don't have to look at that through the hippie-druid lens. We can look at it as, "Holy shit, whale poop will save us!" Freaking wolves fixed rivers! On their own! They can't even hold shovels, guys. They don't have thumbs. So if we can find ways to help these species just thrive and inadvertently do their jobs, perhaps everything else will fall into place. Whale poop results in decreasing CO2, wolves enable forests to flourish, elephants gives us more trees, which means even less CO2. This begs not only the question 'what other species have these effects on their environments?' but also 'what seemingly insignificant species we've overlooked in the past might have had an unseen effect on their environment?'

I guess my overall point here is that instead of focusing on developing incredibly complicated technology to fix our problems, maybe humans' big endeavor should actually be to hold ourselves back. To take ourselves out of the equation a bit and let the Earth bounce back. I don't personally think we've gone so far that the Earth can't recover, but somewhere there has to be a breaking point, right? I mean, at some point we are all completely screwed. I'm sure this isn't a completely original idea at all, but talking with some of my students got me excited about it and I thought it would be a great way to get back into writing on a regular basis. More to follow! (Hopefully) 

DOG

Dogs are just the best. Testing out this new blogger app and seein' what it can do.

I'M BACK! MUAHAHA!

Holy hell it has been a while. Lots, LOTS, to catch up on. But mainly, I am back to this thing, as an outlet for writing and thinking and ranting and whatever. Most of the credit goes to a student of mine who recently read a bit of a short story I'm trying to write. The enthusiasm I received from it has prompted me to try my hand at this again, so here we are. Anyways, school's lettin' out and I sure as hell don't wanna sit here all day, so I'll be updating again soon.

The Castle

Been awhile, gonna try to get back in the habit of posting. Here's a short (short) story I wrote when I was 17

The Castle


It stood upon a hill, in a valley beneath the mountains, above the lake. The fortress rose towards the sky, parapets reaching like the arms of God towards a beautiful sky of sun blasted clouds. The grass was green, and rolled on for leagues, lapping the edges of great snowcapped mountains that cradled the valley. Villages inhabited by happy, peaceful folk dotted these grassy plains, farms cleared of the last fresh crop, in preparation for winter. The forest near the solitary pass into valley was thick with the goliath trunks of majestic trees, whose leaves translated with the autumnal winds that gently flowed through the pass. The lake, serviced with lively harbors, was clear and calm, an azure mirror to the sky. And among all the glory of the valley, the Castle radiated light from glowing walls of silver.

The home reflected its owner. The bear of a man was strong and athletic, a proud warrior-king who had risen from the dark throes of tainted wilderness to purge the valley and erect his monument of virtue and gratitude to his Lord. They had set out, seven of them, to find the valley, that they might find the cure to the Devil's ever growing shade. He alone by the grace and mercy of God had emerged from the dark forest in the pass. He had brought Heavenly light to sanctify this valley, and ever since his emergence, the evil had receded from the world. It was this place, this bastion erected for the glory of God. It was this man, this hope driven man, who had defeated the darkness.

Yes, the valley was full of light, and peace, and wonder. It was a happy place, a heavenly place, watched over by a man who wanted nothing more than to live happy with his subjects. The sun shone and Heaven smiled.

But that was then, when all was good in the valley. Time had marched on, and with it, the dark had returned to the valley. The grass now crinkled and turned to dust at the touch. The lake, dark and murky, raged with frothing waves. The mountains were but obsidian sentinels of a no man's land. The forest had returned to its dark origins, teeming with all manner of dark denizens from fire and brimstone. The sun had not pierced clouds of black in a period of time too long to remember. The only light came from the dying torches of the fungus enwrapped walls of the Castle.

The walls had dulled to grey, covered with foul vegetation reeking of decay. Every corner of the castle not touched by torch now harbored shadow. Evil dwelt in every passage and stairwell. There was still movement in the Castle, but not by men.

One by one, the villagers had disappeared in the night. Before long, the farms had simply faded into shadow. Every last man, woman and child in the Castle had been taken. Evil reigned.
The Devil's demons had returned.

In these days, all that remained untainted by evil was the watch room, which sat at the very top of the highest tower of the Castle. A massive ironwood door, etched with designs of goodness upon it, stood barred at the front of the round room. A single, wide window of stained glass spread from the eastern most point of the room to the western portion, so it spread over the entire back wall of the room. Pictures of angels and Heaven and light were splayed across its surface. The entire window could be opened by a simple latch, swinging the window outward and to the side. This used to be done a great many times, the King opening the window at sunrise and sunset, showing the children the glory of God's work as the sun's first and last rays played across their cherubic faces. Now, the window stayed closed, its beautiful artwork keeping out the darkness, keeping the evil at bay. A single tall candle stood near the window. The candle was waning now, but tonight its light still shone on the time worn face of the last man of the valley.

Time had marched on, and had infected the King. He was worn and tired from this long fight. He had fought the demons back again and again, until all his men had fallen. Every muscle in his body felt stretched and thinned. He sat in a simple wooden chair on the eastern side of the window, where the latch was within reach. He doubted, however, if he even had the strength left to lift his fingers to undo the latch. The dark had taken its root in him, and he had known this fight was lost years ago. Seven of them. Now, there was one. Yet he held on to the smallest hope that before the end, God would allow the sun to penetrate the clouds one last time, for that was all it would take. All it would take to defeat the Devil once again. And the end was near, yes, very near.

He could feel them. Every movement they made pulled at his heart. He could feel them climbing the stairs. They were coming. All of them this time. The door would not stand this time. They were coming. His sword would not save him this time. The candle would not last this time. They were coming. He felt a glare in his eye. The movements stopped. They had come. He heard the trumpets of Angels at the window. Warmth behind him. The door burst into splinters. The demons rushed in. The latch popped open. The Last of the Seven opened the window.

And smiled.

Stuck

This is called static progress. Or it's called being a stupid turtle.

I've been having a lot of homesickness

lately, at least I assume that's what it is. I haven't been "home" in 7 years, and in that time I've grown up (lie) and lived a whole separate life. The people I knew and loved are almost all

scattered across the globe and seem to be different people now, some for better, others for worse - how judgmental am I?

I didn't mean for this post to be whiny or morose, I think discussing nostalgia is cursed with that. In fact, while we're on it, I hate the word nostalgia. Makes me feel groggy, and not in a pirate way.

I think we make our own catalysts even when we're not trying, and that's the hardest part, not to focus on fueling your own fire. I suppose the heart of it is loneliness, when you're not distracted you center around yourself and it's so tempting to grab the wheel and force your own path, lazy pedestrians be damned! But more often than not this course tends to be rather disastrous.

There are a squidjillion things to do and improve upon so there's hope, but the jungle's still calling to me, and reading these dozens of Louis L'Amour books is not helping my sense of longing. The jungle was my desert, and maybe what's in my head is no longer what's there, but we'll find out someday soon.

Burning

Working on a short western at the moment, well actually two. One to film, and a longer, novel length story. I've always liked the setting, and recently I've been burning through Louis L'Amour's books and short stories and avidly watching movies like Fistful of Dollars and 3:10 to Yuma.

The draw to me is the building conflict in the characters, and the eventually violent explosion you know is coming but are never prepared for. People who know me remark sometimes that they've never seen me angry, and the truth is I don't get angry often. Annoyed yes, frustrated double yes, but I rarely get truly angry. When I do, I usually feel like this charming fellow, cold, wet, unkempt and pissed off. I've heard it's bad to bottle up your anger, and even worse to drink it, but I imagine punching every person who pissed you off in the throat wouldn't be sociable.

"We are nothing if not creatures of conflict"

"Fuck catharsis, I'm going to punch you in the throat"

Tunage

That is a pretty sweet leaf you might say.

Hokay, so, here are some songs that I think are pretty flippin meritorious

(I put outstanding in the synonym finder) for finishing your run. Most of them build up into awesomeness which is then distilled into pure kick-ass.

Led Zeppelin- Stairway to Heaven

ACDC- Son of a Bitch

Balmorhea - Settler

Balmorhea- Truth

Now there's something to be said here about Truth. this song bu

ilds and builds and when you get to the end everything seems to disappear, and you're just running through oblivion. Everything gathers around you, and then shoots into you and now you're back and you are just burning the ground behind you, you're fast and unstoppable and you're flying. The low keys are thrumming in your ears and you can feel your core being pulled forward with the crashing piano. This, is a great song.

Sigur Rios - Med Sud I Eyrum

Christopher Tin and Stanford Talisman - Baba Yetu

Martin O'Donnell and Michael Salvatori - Halo

Randy Edelman - I Will Find You (Last of the Mohicans)

Bryan Tyler- House Atreides

Goo Goo Dolls- Here Is Gone

Passion Pit- Little Secrets

The Decemberists- The Crane Wife 3

Cage the Elephant- Aint No Rest For The Wicked

Phoenix- Love Like A Sunset

Florence and the Machine - Dog Days Are Over

Florence and the Machine- Cosmic Love

Cosmic Love is an amazing song, Florence Welch just howls out the lyrics and the drums really pound out the scope of the track. This one will get your blood pumping.

The Offspring- Original Prankster

My favorite thing to do is run footy (Australian Football) montages in my head while listening to Original Prankster. I picture my team in our games and in practice and we're kickin' arse.

Dave Matthews- Ants Marching

The Proclaimers- 500 Miles

Jerry Goldsmith- Tryouts (From Rudy)

The Rolling Stones- Sympathy for the Devil

The Rolling Stones- Gimme Shelter

Michael Kamen- Band of Brothers Suite One

Michael Kamen- Training/Prince of Thieves

Sam and Dave- Hold On, I'm Coming (BB King and Eric Clapton version good too)

The Spencer Davis Group- Gimme Some Lovin'

Broken Social Scene- Anthems for a Seventeen Year Old Girl

Peter Gabriel- Solsbury Hill

Explosions in the Sky- Your Hand in Mine

Of these, my favorite is definitely Truth. The daytrotter version is incredible as well, at the end the violin's part is brought to the front and you get a different feel, a more purposeful drive that transforms you into a badass with an agenda. I love music.

If you only look up a few of these, TRUTH and COSMIC LOVE. Do it. Hmmm, those look funny capitalized together...