(Copyright 2008 - Robin Ridington)
My practical work in anthropology has always been ethnographic,
but my interest extends to the entire history of human life on this marvellous
planet. Perhaps because of my having
lived with northern hunting people, I can extrapolate from physical evidence to
imagine what it would have been like to live as my upper Palaeolithic ancestors
did. The bright moment of being a
human being alive in his or her time and place must have been both as vivid and
as ephemeral then as now. These
people lived and loved as we do, or at least endeavour to do. Their folly was no different in kind
than our own, but their cultural intelligence was in balance with the
environment that sustained them, while ours is hideously distorted. I put these ideas together in Altamira.
Altamira
This brightly
moving moment, this delight
or agony such as the case may be
is all we have and everything,
insight
an Altamira moment, family tree
of ages’ pages, nights with
shining arms
and day’s cave dark inside. No light, no spark
no consciousness, no Tinkerbelle,
no charm,
no horses, mastodons, no bulls, no
ark,
no Noah, patriarch, no flood, no
sea,
no recompense deposit in the bank.
Pop goes the weasel. Dank and weasely
teredos, wiggle worms, and ships
that sank.
Surprise
supplies the moving moment when
Palaeolithic passion shines again.
May 4, 2005
The
Palaeolithic world disappeared on most of this planet with the beginning of
agriculture, patriarchy, hierarchy, war, poverty, and lowered
expectations. As agricultural and
then industrial economies transformed the globe, the very environment that had
sustained our ancestors began to fail.
The intelligence we have as individuals is relatively unchanged from our
Altamira ancestors, but the cultural intelligence that informs our choices has
become corrosive and self destructive.
I vividly remember hearing Nuu-chah-nulth elder Simon Lucas describing
how his people have come to experience the world we imposed on them. He said, "You kill the things that
make you live." Global
Warning expresses something of what we all
are experiencing -- and some of us are thinking
seriously about -- these days.
Global
Warning
Kyoto Protocol, Hiroshige.
On sadly melting ice floes, polar
bears
now languish as the Bushies have
their way.
The gas of fossil fuel exhumed,
will tear
asunder Heaven’s balance; a
cascade
of consequence; material, evermore,
and nevermore as dinosaurs parade
into oblivion. That’s what’s in store.
Forgive them for they know not
what they do;
not dinosaurs, not Bushies, not
the great
unwashed electorate in Hummers,
too
bewildered to anticipate their
fate.
Reality dissolves before their
eyes.
Annihilation comes as a
surprise.
April 15, 2005
We
are all contributors to global warming and the degradation of the very systems
on which our lives depend, but the Bush administration in the United States
particularly manifests an exquisite blending of supreme ignorance and self
delusion. It's what that administration
calls freedom and democracy. We have a button that says, "Who would Jesus
bomb?" Jesus said to love
your enemies and turn the other cheek.
Bush is reputed to have said when France refused to support his war in
Iraq and the White House cafeteria only served freedom fries, "The problem
with the French is they don't have a word for entrepreneurship." Yeah. Somehow, this all led to a riff on the classic porn film, Debbie
Does Dallas (which, I must admit, I have
never seen in the flesh, as it were).
Democracy
Orgasm - RR Watching the News 5/5/05
Debbie does Dallas. George does the USA.
Abstain from sex until you have
Iraq
emasculated. Gitmo, have your way
with fuckin' A-rabs. Don’t give them no slack.
Intelligent
design, the paper clip
the zipper, Gipper, Bonzo, Mr. T,
don’t let them terror monkeys give
no lip
to Kansas. The Great Oz has parity
with Darwin, nay, transcendence
over all
and Dorothy will turn up as a
clone
the Gnome King ordered up. Go to the mall
of mirrors, sinking, drinking, all
alone
until the Rapture comes to MTV
and Debbie comes to power. Democracy.
