Wade Davis seems like a really interesting guy but over the past few days I have been reviewing dozens of taped speeches he has given within the last few years and I can't help wondering if he is even human. I admire the man's work, he was basically the reason why I ended up switching majors from Botany to Ethno-Botany but damn, he is so weird! Now, if you catch 1 or 2 of his spiels he seems like an incredibly down to earth guy, extremely articulate, learned, a man of the world. But then you pay attention to the substance of what he is saying and it hits you, he is incapable of original thought, of emotional interaction.
He now pimps himself as a Public Speaker, which I honestly admire EXCEPT that he offers nothing original, always the same talk.
He loves talking about 6 or 7 things, always the same things, and does this even on a 1 to 1 basis, as I have had a couple of chances to talk to him at length at various academic functions in New York and Washington DC.
One of his favourite stories, and one that always gets a great response is his tale of the "Shit Knife." He tells how an Inuit (Eskimo) friend of his had told him a story that he had always felt was apocryphal...
Canada in the 1950s felt that it had to "civilise" the Inuit, many of whom were still semi-nomadic and living entirely off of the land. To do this they felt that they would have to first end their nomadism and so they built these dreary clapboard settlements and outlawed travelling without a permit. Understandably many were les than co-operative. A particular elderly man, the grandfather of Wade's Inuit friend, kept taking off onto the ice. To stop this his children removed all his possessions except a single set of clothes, thinking that this would keep him "legal."
1 night the old man couldn't bear it any more so he snuck outside. Pulling down his caribou skin pants he shit in his hand. Being the Arctic it soon began to freeze. As it congealed he formed it crudely into the shape of a knife and then coughed up a big hunk of phlegm which he then allowed to freeze as well. Soon both substances had frozen and he began sharpening the phlegm blade on a rock outside the clapboard shack so generously provided by the Canadian Govt.
Before too long the elderly man had a workable implement. He walked over to a lame husky and slit its throat. Skinning it, he took some of its rib and leg bones, laid them lengthwise in 2 rows atop the dog skin, sliced the skin in between the 2 rows and formed crude runners for a rudimentary sled. Using the other husky bones he quickly built a very simple sled which he then hitched to one of his sons' dog teams and hauled ass into the night, shitknife stuck into his belt.
Naturally Wade thought that while it was an incredibly entertaining story, that the vignette was little more than a tall tale. Then, a couple of years ago the "Rasmussen Diaries" become somewhat popular in academic circles. Knud Rasmussen was a Norwegian who did Anthropological Fieldwork in the Canadian Arctic in the Teens and 1920s. His journals are fascinating and if you dig that kind of shit (no pun intended, OK, maybe just a wee bit), there is a great arthouse film that was made about the journals in 2006. It is especially interesting because he did most of his work in 1922 and was able to see the Inuit being subsumed by Christianity (it makes me want to smack a missionary).
Wade was reading a volume of Rasmussen and he came to a portion where the man was out in the tundra during a freak blizzard. To save himself he built a snow cave, lied down on his back and dangerously drifted off to sleep. Waking some hours later, storm over, he found his cave had become frozen solid. Desperate to escape he tried making a shitknife but couldn't get enough room to move his arms! So, probably a true story about the old Inuit. If so I really hope he lived out his days doing what he liked to do best.
The man who told Wade the story accompanied him on a National Geographic funded project to document similarities and differences amongst different groups of Inuit. They were taking a plane from the Canadian Arctic over to Northern Greenland and Wade said that when they were a couple of hundred kilometers away from coast of Greenland the Inuit began crying. At first Wade couldn't figure out what it was but then, looking down he realised that it was all open water.
Normally there is an ice shelf from September to July, 10 months out of the year. On the approach to Greenland the Inuit, who has family amongst the communities on Greenland and thus hunts that region as well, was shocked. To him it was as if his world had ended, or was close to it.
Of course Wade's point is that Global Warming is doing this, blah, blah and more blah. I don't buy into it. I think that people look at natural variations and assume the worst, much as Western Europeans did during Europe's Mini Ice Age just a few hundred years ago. People naturally look to quantify anything unusual but I don't think there's anything proving that the Greenhouse Effect is actually taking place.
On a different note, I have been checking out the work of the American composer Eric Whitacre. He does Classical Chorale pieces. If you are familiar with Gregorian Chant you can get a rough idea of what his work sounds like. The guy is a genius. He has this thing on Youtube, he calls it the "Virtual Choir." He makes a video where he explains a composition in depth, then conducts all parts, Soprano, Tenor, Counter Tenor and so on. Then people ay home sing a part, upload their video and he collates many hundreds into a harmonious chorus. It is fucking amazing to hear. It sounds really boring, I know but IF you go to Youtube and check out the video for "Lex Nocturnum," the Virtual Choir version you will probably be amazed.
So it got me thinking...Here is something is absolutely and stunningly beautiful. Had it not been for the internet it could not have been created. People singing in their homes, a lady in the Alaskan bush, a teenaged boy in Sudan, and so on. It really is a peek into the potential of this medium.
Finally, I spoke of the missing American here on Mindanao? The police saying he was a deadbeat who ducked out on his bill? I was right, he was kidnapped. Luckily he was released this afternoon after a ranson was paid. He arrived here in December hoping to find treasure (I will discuss Treasure Hunting in my next entry) but ended up kidnapped by his new "friends." It never ceases to amaze me how Westerners will come here just to be adventurous, not realising that unless you are tied into the power structure here you stand a good chance of being confined to a small bamboo cage for months on end, and lucky not to be decapitated.
He now pimps himself as a Public Speaker, which I honestly admire EXCEPT that he offers nothing original, always the same talk.
He loves talking about 6 or 7 things, always the same things, and does this even on a 1 to 1 basis, as I have had a couple of chances to talk to him at length at various academic functions in New York and Washington DC.
One of his favourite stories, and one that always gets a great response is his tale of the "Shit Knife." He tells how an Inuit (Eskimo) friend of his had told him a story that he had always felt was apocryphal...
Canada in the 1950s felt that it had to "civilise" the Inuit, many of whom were still semi-nomadic and living entirely off of the land. To do this they felt that they would have to first end their nomadism and so they built these dreary clapboard settlements and outlawed travelling without a permit. Understandably many were les than co-operative. A particular elderly man, the grandfather of Wade's Inuit friend, kept taking off onto the ice. To stop this his children removed all his possessions except a single set of clothes, thinking that this would keep him "legal."
1 night the old man couldn't bear it any more so he snuck outside. Pulling down his caribou skin pants he shit in his hand. Being the Arctic it soon began to freeze. As it congealed he formed it crudely into the shape of a knife and then coughed up a big hunk of phlegm which he then allowed to freeze as well. Soon both substances had frozen and he began sharpening the phlegm blade on a rock outside the clapboard shack so generously provided by the Canadian Govt.
Before too long the elderly man had a workable implement. He walked over to a lame husky and slit its throat. Skinning it, he took some of its rib and leg bones, laid them lengthwise in 2 rows atop the dog skin, sliced the skin in between the 2 rows and formed crude runners for a rudimentary sled. Using the other husky bones he quickly built a very simple sled which he then hitched to one of his sons' dog teams and hauled ass into the night, shitknife stuck into his belt.
Naturally Wade thought that while it was an incredibly entertaining story, that the vignette was little more than a tall tale. Then, a couple of years ago the "Rasmussen Diaries" become somewhat popular in academic circles. Knud Rasmussen was a Norwegian who did Anthropological Fieldwork in the Canadian Arctic in the Teens and 1920s. His journals are fascinating and if you dig that kind of shit (no pun intended, OK, maybe just a wee bit), there is a great arthouse film that was made about the journals in 2006. It is especially interesting because he did most of his work in 1922 and was able to see the Inuit being subsumed by Christianity (it makes me want to smack a missionary).
Wade was reading a volume of Rasmussen and he came to a portion where the man was out in the tundra during a freak blizzard. To save himself he built a snow cave, lied down on his back and dangerously drifted off to sleep. Waking some hours later, storm over, he found his cave had become frozen solid. Desperate to escape he tried making a shitknife but couldn't get enough room to move his arms! So, probably a true story about the old Inuit. If so I really hope he lived out his days doing what he liked to do best.
The man who told Wade the story accompanied him on a National Geographic funded project to document similarities and differences amongst different groups of Inuit. They were taking a plane from the Canadian Arctic over to Northern Greenland and Wade said that when they were a couple of hundred kilometers away from coast of Greenland the Inuit began crying. At first Wade couldn't figure out what it was but then, looking down he realised that it was all open water.
Normally there is an ice shelf from September to July, 10 months out of the year. On the approach to Greenland the Inuit, who has family amongst the communities on Greenland and thus hunts that region as well, was shocked. To him it was as if his world had ended, or was close to it.
Of course Wade's point is that Global Warming is doing this, blah, blah and more blah. I don't buy into it. I think that people look at natural variations and assume the worst, much as Western Europeans did during Europe's Mini Ice Age just a few hundred years ago. People naturally look to quantify anything unusual but I don't think there's anything proving that the Greenhouse Effect is actually taking place.
On a different note, I have been checking out the work of the American composer Eric Whitacre. He does Classical Chorale pieces. If you are familiar with Gregorian Chant you can get a rough idea of what his work sounds like. The guy is a genius. He has this thing on Youtube, he calls it the "Virtual Choir." He makes a video where he explains a composition in depth, then conducts all parts, Soprano, Tenor, Counter Tenor and so on. Then people ay home sing a part, upload their video and he collates many hundreds into a harmonious chorus. It is fucking amazing to hear. It sounds really boring, I know but IF you go to Youtube and check out the video for "Lex Nocturnum," the Virtual Choir version you will probably be amazed.
So it got me thinking...Here is something is absolutely and stunningly beautiful. Had it not been for the internet it could not have been created. People singing in their homes, a lady in the Alaskan bush, a teenaged boy in Sudan, and so on. It really is a peek into the potential of this medium.
Finally, I spoke of the missing American here on Mindanao? The police saying he was a deadbeat who ducked out on his bill? I was right, he was kidnapped. Luckily he was released this afternoon after a ranson was paid. He arrived here in December hoping to find treasure (I will discuss Treasure Hunting in my next entry) but ended up kidnapped by his new "friends." It never ceases to amaze me how Westerners will come here just to be adventurous, not realising that unless you are tied into the power structure here you stand a good chance of being confined to a small bamboo cage for months on end, and lucky not to be decapitated.
