The Natural History of the Un-natural

It’s late morning. It  has been raining since yesterday morning. The Ranger said that  if the river comes up much more we might get stuck in here. There is a low water dam that has to be crossed to get out and the creek that it spans might back-up from the river a hundred yards downstream.  The leaves are falling. Last year by this time a hundred miles to the west I had already experience my first frost. God I don’t want to have it be winter again. But what say do I have about it. They forecast colder weather than normal  this winter.  For now I’m just trying to avoid the puddles of water. They collect inside my tent. I must get better at picking where I pitch it. I could give it up and spend the winter indoors. But no, I gotta see it through. I gotta know if I can survive out here. Scott and Shakleton (and Cherry-Gerard and Griffith Taylor and Birdie and the Farmer and Uncle Bill all did it – well some of them did) and the weahter was much worse and their equipment much more primitive, or at least it was by modern standards. But of course they were all young (except and Scott) and they were English after all, and I’m not.

What is almost certain is that capitalism could not have survived and flourished in the way it has, had it not been for the perpetual expansion of the populations available as both producers and consumers….But the converse proposition also applies: without the growth supplied through capital accumulation, populations could well have starved - Dimitris Papadopoulos - Escape Routes: Control and Subversion in the 21st Century , 2008 p161

It was almost noon before the fog lifted. “Permit required” the sign reads. I drove to the Project office at the dam to get one. Camping is free in the primitive campsite but its very primitive indeed. Hunters I discover drive in here and dump off the carcasses of their kills – deer and squirrels for right now. The flies are horrible and the vultures are having a feast. They noisely come to roost in the trees behind me at night.  The only animal more noisy than the vulture in finding its nightly haven is the turkey. And if it hadn’t been vultures up in the trees it would have been turkeys. I picked the best spot – back in the trees with plenty of nearby firewood.  None of the drive-thurs have yet to bother me. Many estranged spouses go out to campgrounds for their noon-time nookie. Of course there is also the hunter looking for an out-of-the way place to dump his cleaned carcasses and the locals with nothing better to do – lookie-loos, I call them – and I bet they know who’s cheating on who. All I ask it that they all leave me be. And so far they do.

From the perspective of the social conflicts pertaining to labour, any ‘non-contractual’ freedom – that is any form of mobility which is not regulated by the salary system – can only be understood as the refusal of the worker to work and, even worse, to valorise capital. The worker is free to sell his/her labour power, but he or she is no  free to leave the position of dependent labour - David Harvey – The Enigma of Capital and the Crisis, 2010

It’s the first day of rifle season – they were out at the firing range until after dark last night zeroing in their sights. They were up and headed out before it got light this morning – half and hour before dawn and half an hour after dusk. I make sure I wear my day-glo orange, even in the park. Although hunting is prohibited here, even the Ranger tells his day workers to all wear their vests. And I notice that they do as they scoot by in their cart preparing the trail for its winter burn. Burning the duff. It’s a good thing. But this is not the time to go into the pre-modern ecological management of the landscape. Long before there was agriculture there was land management. Hunters and gathers didn’t just wander about the landscape. Nor do gorillas and chimpanzees (but of course they don’t do proscribed burns either).

In January the flies are just happy to be alive

Noting so happy as a January fly

You can hear them singing
Up in the treed

The sciences do not try to explain, they hardly even try to interpret, they mainly make models – John Von Neumann

And I was thinking why not?

            A big fat cigar – only the goods ones

                        Of course

Not those cheap nasty ones

But I knew I was too cheap

            One or two goods ones

            To begin the habit again

Then it would be back to the nasty ones again

            As I tried to curb expenses

And it had been such a struggle

            To kick nicotine

When was it now? Twenty or

            Thirty years ago now

And I had counted the hours, then

            The days and the months

            And then the years until

I finally lost track

And now that I’m getting old

            What the hell!

I’ve learned how to fart and

            To belch to relieve my gas

            I didn’t know that heartburn

                        Could be so debilitating

I dribble when I pee and smell

            Of stale urine liver spots

Cover my skin which is getting thin

And everyday there’s a new pain

            That I’m sure is the onset

                        Of the one final disease

So why not light up a good cigar.

But I know I’m too cheap

Already the farting is bothering

            The dog and I’m sure

He’d run off if I begin smoking

            Cabbage leaves

And remember the shirts  in the

            Closet that you hadn’t

            Worn since you stopped

And how they smelt. You gathered

            Them all up and threw them out

Cheap cigars and stale urine and a

            Goof gurgling fart

The dog is having second thoughts

            He looks peeved

But then he likes to sniff at

            Strange shit and I

Tolerate that. And the other day

            He pissed on a kid who

Was trying to pet him. I appologized

            For the dog and said he’d

Never done that before. Not pissing

            He does that a lot but pissing

On someone, that is. Am I any

            Different and who’s

There to appologize for me?

Even the dog may

            Get fed up with it
            And leave

Second Crucifier: Right, you two, move aside, so that we can put wings [nail Jesus’s hand to the cross] on this Angel, so that he an fly up to the sky, like Icarus – Dario Fo – Mistero Buffo p104

Questions disperse power; answers concentrate power

Beggars are the only ones who never pretend to be happy; on the contrary they pretend to be sad – Coelho

Some had opportunity built in

            Born beauthiful

Others had exhausted what

            They had before

            They ever started

They felt privileged just

            To have been close enough

            To hear what is said

A few race, many watch

            Most stand outside the fence

            Some sell tacos if they can

Being fortunate and had gotten

                        Microloans

Which were now in arrears

And the rest?

            Trash, just trash

            Whether black or white

                       

Tyranny is a regime with many laws and few institutions; democracy is a regime with many institutions and very few laws – Gilles Deleuze

'll walk with gentle peace,  

And choose the smoothest place  

And carefully dip the oar,   

And shun the winding shore,   

And gently steer this boat   

Where water-lilies float,       

And carmine flowers   

Stand in their sylvan bowers.

I have passed down the river

Before sunrise on a summer morning

Between fields of lilies while still not awake

And then  at last, flakes

Of sunlight came spilling over the bank

Onto this mirrored plane

And as I floated along without a banner,

So insensible was I

To any sense of time

That I forget to reget

            The passing space

A knife and fork are not merely utensils for eating. They are utensils for eating in a society in which eating is done with a knife and fork. And that is a special kind of society – Jacob Bronowski