the curious incident involving the blue planet
i spent a day and night chilling with friends on sat. sept. 30th. near the end of the day, we watched two 50 minute documentaries from the bbc called blue planet. the first was the deep and the second open oceans. narrated by david attenborough, these are public television documentaries with a clue-y narrator and lots of talk. the message, across the many species in the ocean surveyed here, was food chain. life is comprised of a struggle to find food, find a mate/reproduce, avoid becoming something else's dinner, and providing means for offspring. most seemed to travel in packs.
fascinating to watch. not my favorite kind of documentary. i prefer the microcosmos variety. but surveys can be good as well.
anyway, it caused me to think about how different life is for many humans (all the people i know). food and safety are key components of our lives. but everything is attenuated. extremely. food generally involves the work of others and is acquired with money (farm supplies, farmers, processing, distribution, reprocessing, sometimes preparation). i think of a burrito as a key food for a city kid - inexpensive, filling, delicious, somewhat vegetarian-friendly, well-distributed with so many good taqueries in cities like san francisco. would anyone eat them if we had to hunt and gather.
notwithstanding the recent nyt magazine story on elephants killing humans, predators are rare and mostly controlled. most live their lives without encountering a predator species (aside from a zoo's cages and the like). easy to do. of course, humans kill. intentionally, recklessly, negligently, accidentally. governments generally try to regulate this for their own populations. and, unfortunately, governments often seem to inflict this on other populations.
i have been a vegetarian for 18 years. am gay. not driven to reproduce (further study). watching the film (a human-specific trait, the creation and watching of films). intoxicated (not human specific, but not presented in the blue planet). leisure (they showed dolphins and whales playing). i recognized that - from the perspective of the video - humans are drastically different from the vast majority of life on earth. i knew this already - the computer i am writing this on is good evidence of the human-specific-tools i rely upon; the forming or reforming of the materials of the home i am living in are similarly human specific (steel, concrete, glass, wood, marble, brass, clay, porcelin....). and the film reminded me again.
i walked james, who brought the movie, to his car parked in a nearby parking garage. on the way, we crossed paths with numerous packs of humans that felt very much like the packs in the ocean. at some point in a saturday night out in the city (bars, restaurants, movies, other performances). the first were related by age and ethnicity, could have been friends and former classmates coming from a wedding rehearsal dinner. then we passed some families coming from the family-style restaurant near the movie theater. and groups with other connections. overlapping while waiting in line to pay at the parking garage. in the elevator. but travelling in packs. i saw a few cars on the walk - driving somewhat recklessly - all testosterone and filled with the violent lot (15 to 25 year old men, or thereabouts, some women). it felt like sharks were in the water.
the films reminded me of, and provided some context for, this fish skeleton.
a few days later, while reading "the curious incident of the dog in the night-time" (wiki), the narrator (who is the good at maths variety of autistic, wiki above says its asperger's syndrome, which makes sense) watches the same blue planet videos. he describes the deep:
"the video was about the sea creatures who live around sulfur chimneys, which are underwater volcanoes where gases are ejected from the earth's crust into the water. scientist never expected there to be any living organisms there because it was so hot and so poisonous, but there are whole ecosystems there.
"i like this bit because it shows you that there is always something new that science can discover, and all the facts that you take for granted can be completely wrong. and also i like the fact that they are filming in a place which is harder to get to than the top of mount everest but is only a few miles away from sea level. and it is one of the quietest and darkest and most secret places on the surface of the earth. and i like imagining that i am there sometimes, in a spherical metal submersible with windows that are 30 cm thick to stop them from imploding under the pressure. and i imagine that i am the only person inside it, and that it is not connected to a ship at all but can operate under its own power and i can control the motors and move anywhere i want to on the seabed and i can never be found."
kid has issues with people. would not function well on his own. has some beautiful and funny thoughts. looking for a book to read - this one is great.
fascinating to watch. not my favorite kind of documentary. i prefer the microcosmos variety. but surveys can be good as well.
anyway, it caused me to think about how different life is for many humans (all the people i know). food and safety are key components of our lives. but everything is attenuated. extremely. food generally involves the work of others and is acquired with money (farm supplies, farmers, processing, distribution, reprocessing, sometimes preparation). i think of a burrito as a key food for a city kid - inexpensive, filling, delicious, somewhat vegetarian-friendly, well-distributed with so many good taqueries in cities like san francisco. would anyone eat them if we had to hunt and gather.
notwithstanding the recent nyt magazine story on elephants killing humans, predators are rare and mostly controlled. most live their lives without encountering a predator species (aside from a zoo's cages and the like). easy to do. of course, humans kill. intentionally, recklessly, negligently, accidentally. governments generally try to regulate this for their own populations. and, unfortunately, governments often seem to inflict this on other populations.
i have been a vegetarian for 18 years. am gay. not driven to reproduce (further study). watching the film (a human-specific trait, the creation and watching of films). intoxicated (not human specific, but not presented in the blue planet). leisure (they showed dolphins and whales playing). i recognized that - from the perspective of the video - humans are drastically different from the vast majority of life on earth. i knew this already - the computer i am writing this on is good evidence of the human-specific-tools i rely upon; the forming or reforming of the materials of the home i am living in are similarly human specific (steel, concrete, glass, wood, marble, brass, clay, porcelin....). and the film reminded me again.
i walked james, who brought the movie, to his car parked in a nearby parking garage. on the way, we crossed paths with numerous packs of humans that felt very much like the packs in the ocean. at some point in a saturday night out in the city (bars, restaurants, movies, other performances). the first were related by age and ethnicity, could have been friends and former classmates coming from a wedding rehearsal dinner. then we passed some families coming from the family-style restaurant near the movie theater. and groups with other connections. overlapping while waiting in line to pay at the parking garage. in the elevator. but travelling in packs. i saw a few cars on the walk - driving somewhat recklessly - all testosterone and filled with the violent lot (15 to 25 year old men, or thereabouts, some women). it felt like sharks were in the water.
the films reminded me of, and provided some context for, this fish skeleton.
a few days later, while reading "the curious incident of the dog in the night-time" (wiki), the narrator (who is the good at maths variety of autistic, wiki above says its asperger's syndrome, which makes sense) watches the same blue planet videos. he describes the deep:
"the video was about the sea creatures who live around sulfur chimneys, which are underwater volcanoes where gases are ejected from the earth's crust into the water. scientist never expected there to be any living organisms there because it was so hot and so poisonous, but there are whole ecosystems there.
"i like this bit because it shows you that there is always something new that science can discover, and all the facts that you take for granted can be completely wrong. and also i like the fact that they are filming in a place which is harder to get to than the top of mount everest but is only a few miles away from sea level. and it is one of the quietest and darkest and most secret places on the surface of the earth. and i like imagining that i am there sometimes, in a spherical metal submersible with windows that are 30 cm thick to stop them from imploding under the pressure. and i imagine that i am the only person inside it, and that it is not connected to a ship at all but can operate under its own power and i can control the motors and move anywhere i want to on the seabed and i can never be found."
kid has issues with people. would not function well on his own. has some beautiful and funny thoughts. looking for a book to read - this one is great.
posted by billy ocallaghan at 6:24 PM
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