The autobiographies of snails 09/19/2018 Aristotle gets short shrift in contemporary writings about animal issues. He is seen as the progenitor of Descartes' ideas about the animal as machine, devoid of the divine light of reason that sets humans apart from other animals. Descartes isn't kind in his writing to animals, equating them with machines. This criticism of Aristotle is not completely untrue, but should perhaps be tempered with a bit of understanding. Aristotle was not just expanding the field of biology, he was in a very
Aristotle gets short shrift in contemporary writings about animal issues. He is seen as the progenitor of Descartes' ideas about the animal as machine, devoid of the divine light of reason that sets humans apart from other animals. Descartes isn't kind in his writing to animals, equating them with machines. This criticism of Aristotle is not completely untrue, but should perhaps be tempered with a bit of understanding. Aristotle was not just expanding the field of biology, he was in a very
Book Review: The Fly Trap by Fredrik Sjöberg- Ensnared By Beauty 09/10/2018 There is a little book that escaped my attention for far too long, The Fly Trap by Fredrik Sjöberg, but having read it I am now ready to join the legion that proclaim not only its merit, but to laud its worth in a time when far too often the news we get about the environment is bad. This is not to say that there are no warnings or concerns in this book, but even more than these there is an overriding sense of beauty and wonder that reminds us of why we love the natural places of the
There is a little book that escaped my attention for far too long, The Fly Trap by Fredrik Sjöberg, but having read it I am now ready to join the legion that proclaim not only its merit, but to laud its worth in a time when far too often the news we get about the environment is bad. This is not to say that there are no warnings or concerns in this book, but even more than these there is an overriding sense of beauty and wonder that reminds us of why we love the natural places of the
Finding an Answer: Goose-Necked Barnacles 08/28/2018 It has taken a book written in Japanese to spur the solution to one of the problems that has been sitting like a dark cloud of ignorance over a beach find during the Maine trip. If you are unfamiliar with the complete lack of Japanese language skills that I have , and the hushed tones in which the words “I hear you are buying books in Japanese again” are spoken by colleagues, then this might make sense. But it doesn't make sense, and yet here in this pocket guide to seashore life, 水の生き物
It has taken a book written in Japanese to spur the solution to one of the problems that has been sitting like a dark cloud of ignorance over a beach find during the Maine trip. If you are unfamiliar with the complete lack of Japanese language skills that I have , and the hushed tones in which the words “I hear you are buying books in Japanese again” are spoken by colleagues, then this might make sense. But it doesn't make sense, and yet here in this pocket guide to seashore life, 水の生き物
Things Too Deep to be Known : Father, Son, and the Ghost of Memory 08/21/2018 (The beginning of a piece that will never end) Tonight: My son and I stand on the dunes at Great Kills beach looking out at a horizon where the slate gray darkening clouds meet the slate gray darkening water. Only the lights from ships moving in and out of New York harbor across the Lower Bay through Ambrose Channel and the Chapel Hill South Channel truly show us where the one meets the other, those lights and the one from the stationary lighthouse of West Bank Horn blinking in the distance.
(The beginning of a piece that will never end) Tonight: My son and I stand on the dunes at Great Kills beach looking out at a horizon where the slate gray darkening clouds meet the slate gray darkening water. Only the lights from ships moving in and out of New York harbor across the Lower Bay through Ambrose Channel and the Chapel Hill South Channel truly show us where the one meets the other, those lights and the one from the stationary lighthouse of West Bank Horn blinking in the distance.
Erring Gulls 08/07/2018 When we arrive at the island we are exploring there is a welcome committee waiting to meet us. A multitude of faces watches us climb the rock slab stairs, but only one of them is human. The rest are gulls, and they are everywhere. They are perched on the roofs of the buildings, settled on the signs that line the rocky steps, walking on the paths and grass around us, and flying through the air above. This island is a breeding colony predominately for two species of gull – the herring gull and the
When we arrive at the island we are exploring there is a welcome committee waiting to meet us. A multitude of faces watches us climb the rock slab stairs, but only one of them is human. The rest are gulls, and they are everywhere. They are perched on the roofs of the buildings, settled on the signs that line the rocky steps, walking on the paths and grass around us, and flying through the air above. This island is a breeding colony predominately for two species of gull – the herring gull and the
They Are Watching 08/01/2018 We are on the R/V Challenger heading out from Portsmouth to the Shoals Marine Laboratory when we see the seal. Moments before a monarch butterfly had breezed past toward the mainland, flipping and fluttering in the diesel exhaust and the windy wake from the boat. You have to admire its sense of purpose and the stamina required to take a journey by slow wing that will take us 45 minutes at a good clip in the research vessel. If we are noticed by the butterfly, it is as an interruption, as a
We are on the R/V Challenger heading out from Portsmouth to the Shoals Marine Laboratory when we see the seal. Moments before a monarch butterfly had breezed past toward the mainland, flipping and fluttering in the diesel exhaust and the windy wake from the boat. You have to admire its sense of purpose and the stamina required to take a journey by slow wing that will take us 45 minutes at a good clip in the research vessel. If we are noticed by the butterfly, it is as an interruption, as a
Hamlet, Predatory Snails, and Evolution 07/17/2018 It is a dark moment in a dark play, and one of bare emotion, when Hamlet calls man 'the paragon of animals' in Act II, Scene II. He states these words as fact during one of Shakespeare's most beautiful soliloquies, lost in a reverie and speaking as much to himself as to Horatio, when he also describes humans as angel-like in action, and god-like in apprehension, remarking that humanity is the beauty of the world. There is nothing in these statements that would have shocked an Elizabethan
It is a dark moment in a dark play, and one of bare emotion, when Hamlet calls man 'the paragon of animals' in Act II, Scene II. He states these words as fact during one of Shakespeare's most beautiful soliloquies, lost in a reverie and speaking as much to himself as to Horatio, when he also describes humans as angel-like in action, and god-like in apprehension, remarking that humanity is the beauty of the world. There is nothing in these statements that would have shocked an Elizabethan
High Tides and Mapping the Pool 07/10/2018 During the high tide the world of the snail is gone. After two nights of above average tides that charge up the beach on the heels of the new moon, the incoming waves roil with the mud, sludge, and seaweed that have been churned up by their fury. A door sized sheet of plywood floats on the waves and blocks part of the beach from the up cast of muddy debris, creating a gap in the fly specked wrack. Out in the deeper water the grasses wave their blades like the arms of terrified swimmers who
During the high tide the world of the snail is gone. After two nights of above average tides that charge up the beach on the heels of the new moon, the incoming waves roil with the mud, sludge, and seaweed that have been churned up by their fury. A door sized sheet of plywood floats on the waves and blocks part of the beach from the up cast of muddy debris, creating a gap in the fly specked wrack. Out in the deeper water the grasses wave their blades like the arms of terrified swimmers who
Teleology of the tide pool 07/03/2018 There are tide pools that are famously burgeoning with life, pools that have been celebrated in literature past and present by writers such as Edward Ricketts of the Pacific, and Rachel Carson of the Atlantic. It has only been within the last century that the depths of the ocean have begun to be explored, and even when these scientists / celebrants of the seas were working, little was known then of the depths that we now almost take for granted. The water's edge, this liminal world, was a
There are tide pools that are famously burgeoning with life, pools that have been celebrated in literature past and present by writers such as Edward Ricketts of the Pacific, and Rachel Carson of the Atlantic. It has only been within the last century that the depths of the ocean have begun to be explored, and even when these scientists / celebrants of the seas were working, little was known then of the depths that we now almost take for granted. The water's edge, this liminal world, was a
