Temporarily Like Aeneas
- And I ran, I ran so far away... Seagulls have been flocking menacingly over the campus since I got back. Small packs of two or three hover just above the tops of the trees, never landing. Gulls are bad juju animals.
Air's gone grey here. Not at all the biting cold that's usually late November in New York, just a pervasive, damp chilliness matched by early fog and overcast skies. It rained in Maryland, as it was supposed to; here it's grey.
Things are going to get real scary real soon. Then they're going to stay pretty scary for a long time. I expect to see Manhattan flooded before I die. The United States will likely enter the Third World within the lifetime of the kids I've been teaching. I will never be as materially wealthy as I am now. David Orr, in a recent speech, stated "we all pay for sustainability, whether we benefit from it or not." Things are changing, and they won't stop changing no matter how firmly we clamp our hands over our ears, no matter how tightly we shut our eyes. The future is roaring in with the loudly crushing force of the sea, and it's not going to stop for all the good intentions in China. It's time to get beyond the mea culpa we-fucked-up-the-world-so-now-we-have-to-fix-it stage. We broke it, we bought it; now's the time to accept the consequences of the actions we continue to perpetrate, even until the waves are licking at our ankles. We can't pretend we can pull the Greenland ice sheet back together any more, we can't pretend Ikea will stop cutting down tropical hardwoods, we can't pretend that with gumption and smarts and a can-do attitude we can lick this monster Global Warming- we just can't afford to waste any more time burying our heads in the sand while the sea rushes ever onwards.
Now's the time for running scared. Now's the time for saving what we can of who we are; now's for making making damn sure our kids know who they are. Now we've got to use the technology we still have the luxury of supporting to prepare ourselves for the time when the machines rust and run out of fuel. Our myths and legends, our literature and philosophy, the great works of beauty that we have, despite ourselves, created must be saved, or what will it have all been for?
These twelve-thousand years of scouring the earth flat, of lashing the necks of countless peoples to the bootheels of countless others, of squeezing the riches of the southern hemisphere into the coffers of the north, if not for some aesthetic intellectual ethical gain, then what beasts are we? Now, in our final moments as civilized men, let us preserve the scattered attitudes of greatness that our toxic lives have afforded us. Let us teach the Songs of Youth and Experience to our children, let them know the struggles of Odysseus and the triumphs of Sindbad and let them know that in these stories one man is all men, and all trials are one trial. Save the stories, they'll soon be all we have left.
From the flooded decay of our forefathers' folly we'll build a new life, to be true. Humans have only lived in conditions remotely recognizable as modern for one fiftieth of our time as a species. We will survive the coming global storm, but it's up to us to decide by what margin. Homo sapiens has been through worse scrapes before, two interglacials and an ice age can attest to that. Our descendants may never be as materially comfortable as we are, but they will be alive, and that should be of the greatest comfort. It'll be scary for a long time, but it's always been a pretty scary world and we do OK for that.
Now we've got to carry our children on our shoulders and lead our fathers along behind, out of the burning city (because in stories, one city is all cities) to the shore. We've got to assemble the survivors and cast away from everything we've ever known. We've got to push out into the hammering surf and make the sea our own. There she goes, my beautiful world...
.
.
.
.
"It may have been Camelot for Jack and Jacqueline
But on the Che Guevara highway filling up with gasoline
Fidel Castro's brother spies a rich lady who's crying
Over luxury's disappointment
So he walks over and he's trying
To sympathise with her but he thinks that he should warn her
That the Third World is just around the corner
.
In the Soviet Union a scientist is blinded
By the resumption of nuclear testing and he is reminded
That Dr Robert Oppenheimer's optimism fell
At the first hurdle
.
In the Cheese Pavilion and the only noise I hear
Is the sound of someone stacking chairs
And mopping up spilt beer
And someone asking questions and basking in the light
Of the fifteen fame filled minutes of the fanzine writer
.
Mixing Pop and Politics he asks me what the use is
I offer him embarrassment and my usual excuses
While looking down the corridor
Out to where the van is waiting
I'm looking for the Great Leap Forwards
.
Jumble sales are organised and pamphlets have been posted
Even after closing time there's still parties to be hosted
You can be active with the activists
Or sleep in with the sleepers
While you're waiting for the Great Leap Forwards
.
One leap forward, two leaps back
Will politics get me the sack?
Waiting for the Great Leap Forwards
.
Here comes the future and you can't run from it
If you've got a blacklist I want to be on it
Waiting for the Great Leap Forwards
.
It's a mighty long way down rock 'n roll
From Top of the Pops to drawing the dole
You're waiting for the Great Leap Forwards
.
If no one out there understands
Start your own revolution and cut out the middleman
Waiting for the Great Leap Forwards
.
In a perfect world we'd all sing in tune
But this is reality so give me some room
Waiting for the Great Leap Forwards
.
So join the struggle while you may
The Revolution is just a T-shirt away
Waiting for the Great Leap Forwards
Waiting for the Great Leap Forwards
Waiting for the Great Leap Forwards
Waiting for the Great Leap Forwards
Waiting for the Great Leap Forwards
Waiting for the Great Leap Forwards
Waiting for the Great Leap Forwards
Waiting for the Great Leap Forwards." - Billy Bragg
.
.
.
Air's gone grey here. Not at all the biting cold that's usually late November in New York, just a pervasive, damp chilliness matched by early fog and overcast skies. It rained in Maryland, as it was supposed to; here it's grey.
Things are going to get real scary real soon. Then they're going to stay pretty scary for a long time. I expect to see Manhattan flooded before I die. The United States will likely enter the Third World within the lifetime of the kids I've been teaching. I will never be as materially wealthy as I am now. David Orr, in a recent speech, stated "we all pay for sustainability, whether we benefit from it or not." Things are changing, and they won't stop changing no matter how firmly we clamp our hands over our ears, no matter how tightly we shut our eyes. The future is roaring in with the loudly crushing force of the sea, and it's not going to stop for all the good intentions in China. It's time to get beyond the mea culpa we-fucked-up-the-world-so-now-we-have-to-fix-it stage. We broke it, we bought it; now's the time to accept the consequences of the actions we continue to perpetrate, even until the waves are licking at our ankles. We can't pretend we can pull the Greenland ice sheet back together any more, we can't pretend Ikea will stop cutting down tropical hardwoods, we can't pretend that with gumption and smarts and a can-do attitude we can lick this monster Global Warming- we just can't afford to waste any more time burying our heads in the sand while the sea rushes ever onwards.
Now's the time for running scared. Now's the time for saving what we can of who we are; now's for making making damn sure our kids know who they are. Now we've got to use the technology we still have the luxury of supporting to prepare ourselves for the time when the machines rust and run out of fuel. Our myths and legends, our literature and philosophy, the great works of beauty that we have, despite ourselves, created must be saved, or what will it have all been for?
These twelve-thousand years of scouring the earth flat, of lashing the necks of countless peoples to the bootheels of countless others, of squeezing the riches of the southern hemisphere into the coffers of the north, if not for some aesthetic intellectual ethical gain, then what beasts are we? Now, in our final moments as civilized men, let us preserve the scattered attitudes of greatness that our toxic lives have afforded us. Let us teach the Songs of Youth and Experience to our children, let them know the struggles of Odysseus and the triumphs of Sindbad and let them know that in these stories one man is all men, and all trials are one trial. Save the stories, they'll soon be all we have left.
From the flooded decay of our forefathers' folly we'll build a new life, to be true. Humans have only lived in conditions remotely recognizable as modern for one fiftieth of our time as a species. We will survive the coming global storm, but it's up to us to decide by what margin. Homo sapiens has been through worse scrapes before, two interglacials and an ice age can attest to that. Our descendants may never be as materially comfortable as we are, but they will be alive, and that should be of the greatest comfort. It'll be scary for a long time, but it's always been a pretty scary world and we do OK for that.
Now we've got to carry our children on our shoulders and lead our fathers along behind, out of the burning city (because in stories, one city is all cities) to the shore. We've got to assemble the survivors and cast away from everything we've ever known. We've got to push out into the hammering surf and make the sea our own. There she goes, my beautiful world...
.
.
.
.
"It may have been Camelot for Jack and Jacqueline
But on the Che Guevara highway filling up with gasoline
Fidel Castro's brother spies a rich lady who's crying
Over luxury's disappointment
So he walks over and he's trying
To sympathise with her but he thinks that he should warn her
That the Third World is just around the corner
.
In the Soviet Union a scientist is blinded
By the resumption of nuclear testing and he is reminded
That Dr Robert Oppenheimer's optimism fell
At the first hurdle
.
In the Cheese Pavilion and the only noise I hear
Is the sound of someone stacking chairs
And mopping up spilt beer
And someone asking questions and basking in the light
Of the fifteen fame filled minutes of the fanzine writer
.
Mixing Pop and Politics he asks me what the use is
I offer him embarrassment and my usual excuses
While looking down the corridor
Out to where the van is waiting
I'm looking for the Great Leap Forwards
.
Jumble sales are organised and pamphlets have been posted
Even after closing time there's still parties to be hosted
You can be active with the activists
Or sleep in with the sleepers
While you're waiting for the Great Leap Forwards
.
One leap forward, two leaps back
Will politics get me the sack?
Waiting for the Great Leap Forwards
.
Here comes the future and you can't run from it
If you've got a blacklist I want to be on it
Waiting for the Great Leap Forwards
.
It's a mighty long way down rock 'n roll
From Top of the Pops to drawing the dole
You're waiting for the Great Leap Forwards
.
If no one out there understands
Start your own revolution and cut out the middleman
Waiting for the Great Leap Forwards
.
In a perfect world we'd all sing in tune
But this is reality so give me some room
Waiting for the Great Leap Forwards
.
So join the struggle while you may
The Revolution is just a T-shirt away
Waiting for the Great Leap Forwards
Waiting for the Great Leap Forwards
Waiting for the Great Leap Forwards
Waiting for the Great Leap Forwards
Waiting for the Great Leap Forwards
Waiting for the Great Leap Forwards
Waiting for the Great Leap Forwards
Waiting for the Great Leap Forwards." - Billy Bragg
.
.
.