So I'm sitting in the Foreman gallery (where I work). Work consists of me sitting and making sure the pieces don't catch fire. Or something.
The exhibit here is new; vast photographic depictions from NASA satellite images of the earth. Showing global warming making a visible difference to our earth. Text on the walls. It was actually refreshing for the brain to come to work today. An exhibition called "The Sixth Exctinction", its a multimedia show that includes scientific images from NASA that documents Earth's surface changes , text panels, and contributions from writers, artists, musicians, filmmakers and students.
"a Time rushes on, in ways that humans before have never before contemplated. That famous picture of the earth from outer space that apollo beamed back in the late 1960's -- already that's not the world we inhabit; its poles are melting, its oceans rising. We can register what is happening with satellites and scientific instruments, but can we register it in our imaginations, the most sensitive of all our devices?"
"If the scientists are right, we're living through the biggest thing that's happened since human civilization emerged. One species, ours, has by itself on the course of a couple of generations ,managed to powerfully raise the tempurature of an entire planet, to knock its most basic systems out of kilter. But oddly, though we know about it, we don't know about it. It hasn't registered in our gut; it isn't a part of our culture. Where are hte books? The poems? The plays? The goddamn operas?"
Snowflakes outside are tumbling down, thick as my hand and thick in the air as though they were a permanent part of it. Loose clusters sway excitedly; investigating different paths on the wind. But this winter wonderland is almost springtime warm. ... and I'm back in this room with the pictures of the planet. What an odd circle these thoughts become. You know, people are afraid of death. I shouldn't generalize: some people are. Many. Though I know people that are comforted by the fact that after the body dies, it is over. No continuation. A final end.
later, world.
