Jul and I have had good luck with movies lately.
We finally got a chance to see The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill a couple weeks ago that we recommended to Chris and Sai a couple months ago after only seeing the preview. It was a remarkable movie that just makes you smile. Mark Bittner (the main focus of the documentary) is such a unique and caring person.
One thing that has really annoyed me since watching it was the group of “environmentalists” that thought the parrots flock that lived in SF should be killed because they were not native and might “interfere” in the local habitat. That is such a narrow and conceded definition of migration. Species have been moving around the globe for thousands of years before we came and helped out. I really want to meet one of these people so I can ask them a few questions. “Where are you from originally? You aren’t a California native? Well, we’ll just need to exterminate you then. Never know how you could interfere in the native habitat. You don’t even surf. By the way are you a Native American? No? I guess your whole family as well then.” Stupid people.
We watched Finding Neverland last night. It was a wonderful (albeit very sad) movie. Johnny Depp is amazing and the kids do an impressive job. Worth seeing.
Lately I have been enthralled with Appalachian Journey. If you like fiddle and bluegrass with a mix of chamber music I highly recommend this CD. Even if you don’t pick up the album I recommend grabbing track #3 (Hard Times Come Again No More, featuring James Taylor) and track #14 (Slumber My Darling) from iTunes. Slumber My Darling would make a fantastic lullaby for those of you with kids. I will play it for my children.
Yo-Yo Ma is the most talented classic musician we will see in our lifetime. Don’t get me wrong, musicians like Itzhak Perlman are amazing (and the reason I picked up the violin 27 years ago) but what puts Yo-Yo in a class by himself is his versatility. For example Yo-Yo’s silk road project has taken him across the world and through an unbelievable mix of cultures and musical histories. I remember hearing him talk about starting the project back in 1998 and describing how he was “setting out on the Silk Road project with great fear and trepidation.” Here you have the most talented Cello player alive relentlessly searching for projects that will continue to help him grow. That is what makes a great artist.
There are 4 or 5 soles by Yo-Yo that remain the most beautiful music I have ever heard. Just him in a large concert hall. Flawless, beautiful, remarkable, passionate — gives me goose bumps every time I listen to them.
The May issue of Discover Magazine wrote an article on invasiveness of species (http://www.discover.com/issues/may-05/cover/) and tried to take a more objective stance to the situation than is usually done these days in biology and ecology. They were deluged with mail by people furious that the author would propose that they “love” alien species of that the real crime is against “self-serving ideas of what nature is supposed to be.” To my delight, Discover shot back with a “letter from Discover” in the July issue (http://www.discover.com/issues/jul-05/departments/letter-from-discover/). It is quite an enjoyable read and concludes with: “In teh end, what seems to have most offended readers was the mere asking of the question: Are invasive species really bad? The editors of Discover believes it is a valid one, deserving to be asked aloud even by people who know where they stand.” I love it.
After strugglign with this issue personally during my training as a biologist I have simply come to accept that people seem to have the unique ability to abstractly shift their perspective from a variety of levels. The person, the family, the school, the employer, the nation state, etc. Each of these collectives have interests that need to be protected just like an individual. From the biologist/ecologists/environmentalists I’ve met who are very against invasive species I’ve come to believe it is because they fall in a love with an eco system and begin to see things from its perspective. They fight against its failing the same way a startup would throw itself against the sure fate of shutting down due to lack of funding. They choose not to take a larger step back and look at the global system of life and evaluate judgments from the perspective.
This is no more strange to me, however, than people who take their children to see deer in the park and then wage a 365 day/year war against them in their yard with everything from poisons to weapons. Humans seem to want things to be a certain way, and they seem willing to put in the energy to try and make things conform to their vision. I’ll end by recommending the book, _The Botony of Desire_ by Michael Pollan. It is an excellent book and in what part discusses Apollonean vs. Dionysian concepts of beauty. The former being man’s desire to groom nature into his own perfect vision of what it should be, and the latter being the love of it for what it is in its “natural” state. (Trust me, it is more interesting than I make it sound!) :-)