Thanks so much for your field notes on the field notes! Much better to read about your listening to people than to actually go to Antarctica, for me anyway (of the better-to-not-go variety of love for the place). Also interesting that nobody else had any questions + the overall phenomenon of the shell-shocked audience. Is there something going on in the class dynamics of these occasions (people not feeling part of a rarefied/funded artist class and not feeling safe enough to speak)? Or is it more of a consumption model (here to get my ticket's worth/vampirise some culture before getting back to my real life)? Two very cynical interpretations, but much more to think about! Anyway, welcome to the little orchid bud x
It's an interesting question as to why people don't ask questions. Maybe it's a variant on the flock of seagulls- if everyone is shy then everyone gets more shy. But on both the occasions I mentioned, one person asked a question then nobody else followed. At the Lauren Groff event, it was a paid event, and also there was barely any time for questions at the end. But at the Antarctica talk, it was free and time-spacious. I'm reading more a kind of existential numbness into it: maybe there's a Venn diagram between 'people who attend lit / art events' and 'bureaucrats who just got fired'?
“I weigh the eyes…” such a moment of synesthesia with this line. What a wonderful poem altogether….
Many years ago when my wee girl was in primary school, she had a class called ‘science and poetry.’ Unheard of in a poor neighborhood school. She learned to write beautiful Haiku…
The sound of the ice slab dropping down the bore hole is redolent of the sounds from the ‘shoot ‘em ups’ in the “Westerns” my grandad watched—the way they ricochet around a dusty canyon. If you decide to avoid the -40 temps but want a riveting read of derring do in Antarctica… I recommend: “An Unsung Hero
Thanks! First poem I've written in quite some time.
Shoot-em-up- IT IS! Pew-pew-pew.
I know I saw a picture of Tom Crean, the one of him smoking a pipe, over the last few days: maybe the algorithm is trying to give me more of what I fancy? I'm quite into Antarctic narratives, two good ones I saw recently were the movie Shackleton- it's narrated by Australian adventurer Tim Jarvis, who reenacted Shackleton's desperate journey to get everyone rescued. This is the trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fHxX6kBD8lU
I saw it on the big screen, the crazy thing is there's so much film footage from that expedition, very evocative.
(Another cool Shackleton-related event recently was that the Endurance was found almost perfectly preserved at the bottom of the Weddell Sea in 2022:) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Syg1IxOvbqU
The other good thing I found was this excellent graphic novel in the library, based on Apsley Cherry-Garrard's book The Worst Journey in the World: https://worstjourney.com/ So far only Part One is out I think.
Great referrals, Rosie... A veritable feast... Thank you. I find your writing is as visually evocative as your gleanings in photographs and drawings--afterimages and ponderings a-plenty to occupy me between postings...
My Mum told me the following story about her Dad- my Grandad- a keen mountaineer: (for reference, Aoraki / Mt Cook is NZ's highest mountain at 3.724 metres / 12,218 feet.)
"The last Antarctic connection was that Dad's good climbing friend from the Alpine Club, Bev Price, was on board the Air NZ flight that crashed into Mt Erebus.
Dad and Bev had been in a shared alpine fall in the late 60s, resulting in their being helicoptered off Mt Jellicoe, close to Mt Cook, Bev with a broken pelvis and Dad with concussion. A couple of days after the accident and dramatic rescue headlined the NZ Herald, Mum received a telegram from Dad at Christchurch hospital- 'SLIGHT MISHAP ON JELLICOE. HOME SHORTLY.' Communication was so different back then. In fact the rescue only happened because the third person on the rope had been uninjured and was able to walk out and summon help. Dad arrived home very disappointed about the failed climb (they were on the way up, not down) but delighted about the helicopter rescue and ride. Sadly, the Jellicoe expedition remained his only ever South Island climbing venture."
Right before I read this, I was making bread and watching a talk by Rupert Sheldrake, "Anatheism: Rediscovering God in a Secular Age." At some point he said (and I'm paraphrasing here) that he didn't want to separate science from the spiritual, and it concerned him that most of the scientists he knew had zero interest in the numinous.
So it was interesting to come to this essay and see “Wherever we have science, we also really need art.” I like the idea that science needs outsiders--artists, theologians, philosophers, poets and the like--to think about it and interpret in ways that science might resist or not have the language for.
What a wonderful read. The idea that we don’t belong in Antarctica really struck me. There are so many places we don’t belong but we take it as a personal challenge to burrow everywhere like termites. Also was jolted to come across a few words in my native language randomly - ‘Niko Ne Zna’ - ‘Nobody Knows’
Thanks so much for your field notes on the field notes! Much better to read about your listening to people than to actually go to Antarctica, for me anyway (of the better-to-not-go variety of love for the place). Also interesting that nobody else had any questions + the overall phenomenon of the shell-shocked audience. Is there something going on in the class dynamics of these occasions (people not feeling part of a rarefied/funded artist class and not feeling safe enough to speak)? Or is it more of a consumption model (here to get my ticket's worth/vampirise some culture before getting back to my real life)? Two very cynical interpretations, but much more to think about! Anyway, welcome to the little orchid bud x
It's an interesting question as to why people don't ask questions. Maybe it's a variant on the flock of seagulls- if everyone is shy then everyone gets more shy. But on both the occasions I mentioned, one person asked a question then nobody else followed. At the Lauren Groff event, it was a paid event, and also there was barely any time for questions at the end. But at the Antarctica talk, it was free and time-spacious. I'm reading more a kind of existential numbness into it: maybe there's a Venn diagram between 'people who attend lit / art events' and 'bureaucrats who just got fired'?
“I weigh the eyes…” such a moment of synesthesia with this line. What a wonderful poem altogether….
Many years ago when my wee girl was in primary school, she had a class called ‘science and poetry.’ Unheard of in a poor neighborhood school. She learned to write beautiful Haiku…
The sound of the ice slab dropping down the bore hole is redolent of the sounds from the ‘shoot ‘em ups’ in the “Westerns” my grandad watched—the way they ricochet around a dusty canyon. If you decide to avoid the -40 temps but want a riveting read of derring do in Antarctica… I recommend: “An Unsung Hero
Tom Crean - Antarctic Survivor” by Michael Smith.
Thanks! First poem I've written in quite some time.
Shoot-em-up- IT IS! Pew-pew-pew.
I know I saw a picture of Tom Crean, the one of him smoking a pipe, over the last few days: maybe the algorithm is trying to give me more of what I fancy? I'm quite into Antarctic narratives, two good ones I saw recently were the movie Shackleton- it's narrated by Australian adventurer Tim Jarvis, who reenacted Shackleton's desperate journey to get everyone rescued. This is the trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fHxX6kBD8lU
I saw it on the big screen, the crazy thing is there's so much film footage from that expedition, very evocative.
(Another cool Shackleton-related event recently was that the Endurance was found almost perfectly preserved at the bottom of the Weddell Sea in 2022:) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Syg1IxOvbqU
The other good thing I found was this excellent graphic novel in the library, based on Apsley Cherry-Garrard's book The Worst Journey in the World: https://worstjourney.com/ So far only Part One is out I think.
Now that makes much more sense than sitting at home wondering where the fucking opposition has got to.
Great referrals, Rosie... A veritable feast... Thank you. I find your writing is as visually evocative as your gleanings in photographs and drawings--afterimages and ponderings a-plenty to occupy me between postings...
My Mum told me the following story about her Dad- my Grandad- a keen mountaineer: (for reference, Aoraki / Mt Cook is NZ's highest mountain at 3.724 metres / 12,218 feet.)
"The last Antarctic connection was that Dad's good climbing friend from the Alpine Club, Bev Price, was on board the Air NZ flight that crashed into Mt Erebus.
Dad and Bev had been in a shared alpine fall in the late 60s, resulting in their being helicoptered off Mt Jellicoe, close to Mt Cook, Bev with a broken pelvis and Dad with concussion. A couple of days after the accident and dramatic rescue headlined the NZ Herald, Mum received a telegram from Dad at Christchurch hospital- 'SLIGHT MISHAP ON JELLICOE. HOME SHORTLY.' Communication was so different back then. In fact the rescue only happened because the third person on the rope had been uninjured and was able to walk out and summon help. Dad arrived home very disappointed about the failed climb (they were on the way up, not down) but delighted about the helicopter rescue and ride. Sadly, the Jellicoe expedition remained his only ever South Island climbing venture."
Right before I read this, I was making bread and watching a talk by Rupert Sheldrake, "Anatheism: Rediscovering God in a Secular Age." At some point he said (and I'm paraphrasing here) that he didn't want to separate science from the spiritual, and it concerned him that most of the scientists he knew had zero interest in the numinous.
So it was interesting to come to this essay and see “Wherever we have science, we also really need art.” I like the idea that science needs outsiders--artists, theologians, philosophers, poets and the like--to think about it and interpret in ways that science might resist or not have the language for.
The Ponting photographs are amazing!
What a wonderful read. The idea that we don’t belong in Antarctica really struck me. There are so many places we don’t belong but we take it as a personal challenge to burrow everywhere like termites. Also was jolted to come across a few words in my native language randomly - ‘Niko Ne Zna’ - ‘Nobody Knows’