Lots of great stuff here Lev. I could happily eat several greenfinches a day, and your thoughts on televised wildlife match mine exactly. And those little machines...!
Mar 3, 2023·edited Mar 3, 2023Liked by Lev Parikian
Last week during the aurora furore on Twitter I got really emotional thinking about all the people who thought they'd never see them and now they have. We went and stood in a field close by a mere and all we noticed was a faint green tinge. But on the way back to the car a barn owl flew past and looked me full in the face. I will remember this forever despite the fact that it's not necessarily a once in a lifetime thing when you live near the countryside. The aurora is so BIG I can't get my head around it. Owls I can. I suspect the same applies to more exciting animals.
I think I can remember all my barn owl encounters. And I know what you mean about not being able to wrap your head round the enormity of things. I spent a long time thinking about how to write about the enormity of geological time for Taking Flight. It occurred to me that those who work with such vast expanses on a daily basis get used to it, and become rather casual about expressions like ‘and in just thirty million years’. And of course now, even after spending a relatively short, but quite intense, part of my life thinking about such things, I find myself doing exactly the same thing. There was the question of whether one species had evolved earlier than another, and the difference in date between the two fossils was three million years. ‘Oh that’s nothing’, I thought. And it is. But of course it also isn’t. Mind still blown, though.
I think I could play In Futurum on my violin (transposing the bass clef), but I don’t think I could count it accurately. It need a conductor, or at least a percussionist.
Lots of great stuff here Lev. I could happily eat several greenfinches a day, and your thoughts on televised wildlife match mine exactly. And those little machines...!
Last week during the aurora furore on Twitter I got really emotional thinking about all the people who thought they'd never see them and now they have. We went and stood in a field close by a mere and all we noticed was a faint green tinge. But on the way back to the car a barn owl flew past and looked me full in the face. I will remember this forever despite the fact that it's not necessarily a once in a lifetime thing when you live near the countryside. The aurora is so BIG I can't get my head around it. Owls I can. I suspect the same applies to more exciting animals.
I think I can remember all my barn owl encounters. And I know what you mean about not being able to wrap your head round the enormity of things. I spent a long time thinking about how to write about the enormity of geological time for Taking Flight. It occurred to me that those who work with such vast expanses on a daily basis get used to it, and become rather casual about expressions like ‘and in just thirty million years’. And of course now, even after spending a relatively short, but quite intense, part of my life thinking about such things, I find myself doing exactly the same thing. There was the question of whether one species had evolved earlier than another, and the difference in date between the two fossils was three million years. ‘Oh that’s nothing’, I thought. And it is. But of course it also isn’t. Mind still blown, though.
I think I could play In Futurum on my violin (transposing the bass clef), but I don’t think I could count it accurately. It need a conductor, or at least a percussionist.
I suspect the percussionist might inadvertently undermine the intention of the composition.
Wild Isles. Love what you said. Watched the trailer. Ridiculous music! But still, it made me cry. What to do?!
Well, after yesterdays shenanigans, I especially recommend you watch it.