Unabashed

Photo by veintecerodos.

I still love this bit from Stephen Hawking’s 1988 book A Brief History of Time:

A well-known scientist (some say it was Bertrand Russell) once gave a public lecture on astronomy. He described how the earth orbits around the sun and how the sun, in turn, orbits around the center of a vast collection of stars called our galaxy. At the end of the lecture, a little old lady at the back of the room got up and said: “What you have told us is rubbish. The world is really a flat plate supported on the back of a giant tortoise.” The scientist gave a superior smile before replying, “What is the tortoise standing on?” “You’re very clever, young man, very clever,” said the old lady. “But it’s turtles all the way down!”

There are many versions of this story, but this is by far the most popularized. My personal favorite goes like this:

An English philosopher was visiting India, and was introduced to a holy man. The philosopher asked the Holy Man the nature of the world, and the old man replied, “Oh the world is a great big ball that sits on the great flat back of the Great World Turtle.” The Englishman of course asked “What does the turtle stand on?” The seer replied “Why on the back of an even larger turtle of course!” Then the Englishman asked “and what does THIS turtle stand on?” The old man shook his head and sweetly smiled and said “it is no use my son, it is turtles all the way down!”

Why is it a turtle that the Earth is sitting upon? Why not a crocodile, or a cockroach, or a mammal even? Because turtles are one of the most ancient species that lives–it is, in fact, the most ancient of all vertebrate animals. It’s not as ugly or filthy as a cockroach, and because the turtle is considered patient, wise, and there’s very little threat of it tipping its head back and eating the planet. The turtle is safe, and with its shell has a solid foundation for the Earth to sit upon.

The turtle is considered in folklore to be a keeper of doorways. Some turtles’ shells have thirteen individual sections, or markings, which led Native Americans to associate the turtle with the lunar cycle and the power of female energies. Being opportunistic omnivores, and being a symbol of Mother Earth, Native American mythos considered the turtle to be powerful medicine, and a reminder that the Earth will provide. Its long life and slow metabolism reminds us to slow down and take our time, and shows us that sometimes it’s okay to live inside a shell.

The turtle appears in modern legends as well. Stephen King uses the turtle in many of his stories. In It, the main character meets a giant turtle professes to have had an upset stomach and sicked up the Universe. The turtle pleads not to be blamed for having inadvertently having created All That Is.

In King’s Dark Tower series, a turtle named Maturin is one of the “Guardians of the Beam.”

See the turtle of enormous girth!
On his shell he holds the earth.
His thought is slow but always kind;
He holds us all within his mind.
On his back all vows are made;
He sees the truth but mayn’t aid.
He loves the land and loves the sea,
And even loves a child like me.

The name Maturin is obviously borrowed from Patrick O’Brian’s Aubrey/Maturin series, just as the name of the great bear guardian was borrowed from Richard Adams’ Shardik, both immensely cool references.

I found a painting of a sea turtle one time over at DeviantArt, a page which has since sadly disappeared, but fortunately I had saved the art piece, along with its inscription:

Due a very stressful period of my life I was constantly having bad dreams and nightmares. During one, I felt myself sink into deep, blue water. I saw the sun filtering down through the water and waves, and slowly a large gnarled, ugly Turtle passed over me. This huge behemoth of a creature, scar covered, and armoured created a feeling of peace within me. The next day, I painted this.

I do sometimes ponder the Earth and mysticism, and I wonder at the practice of using animal totems or having a spirit animal guide. I have no idea what mine would be, nor how I would find out what it is. I’ve always had a fascination with wolves and hawks, turtles and beavers. I hope that doesn’t mean I’m pretentious and slow and large-toothed. I like the idea of spirit animals, sure, but barring some monumental mythic quest, how would you find out what yours are? I have dreamed about whales. I see hawks virtually every day, but I usually accredit that to the fact that there are so many of them living around here. Suppose my spirit animal was a giraffe. Does that mean I’d have to travel to another continent to commune with it? I have no idea, and most of the web resources I find don’t give much good information, just carbon-copy duplicates of other sites that all share the same mentality and fraudulent air of Sybill Trelawney.

written by Matt Mitchell \\ tags: animal, animals, mysticism, spirit animal, tortoise, totem, totems, turtle, turtles

Did you know MIT posts all their course material online? And that it’s freely available to anyone on the internet (they call it MITOpenCourseWare)? If you want a little light summer reading, give it a try. This guy is, and he’s going to blog about the experience. It won’t count towards a degree, but if you’re just after the brainstuff, then why not. After all, knowledge is power, right? He’ll have plenty of knowledge once he’s done, I guess. His goal is to be able to pass the course ”Biological Systems in Nature and Medicine.” I think it’s a grand idea, and I’m looking forward to reading about it.

I’m going to have to cull some of my RSS feeds. It’s getting ridiculous. And to think: it wasn’t that long ago that I sent out a request for good blogs to read. I’ve gotten more than my fill now, thanks. Though, I have to say, if it’s really good, I’d love to have another ;-)

written by Matt Mitchell \\ tags: education, edumacation, knowledge, MIT, OpenCourseWare, power

While I’m thinking about it, I’ve had dreams before that have ended up being incorporated into various stories I’ve written. For instance, one morning I woke up with a clear line in my head, which may not make any sense to you (it didn’t to my wife), but nevertheless I liked it and I thought it was funny so I adapted it. The line was this:

“Being the first ith, he was Irmth. His name was Irmth the Eleventh.”

As it happened I was embroiled in the writing of a scifi comedy about a space-traveling zydeco accordion player named Joe Remeleaux Redmill. Irmth became the bad guy for that story, and it’s one of those humorous SciFic pieces I told you I’d really like to find a home for.

The way it finally worked out was: Irmth belonged to a race that was the result of a genome abnormality in an entirely other race, the name of which is inconsequential at this point. Irmth and his kind were called “Shifts” by those they were spun off from, and were shunned despite their evident superior evolutionary state. Irmth was the eleventh Shift to have evolved, though there are many thousands in the universe now. Shifts were art-loving Methuselahs who lived millions of years. They were born with duplex personalities and referred to themselves using 1st person plural pronouns (we, us, our). They speak with two voices and, in the bulbous, gelatinous, transparent midriff of their bodies, which is usually tinted green or blue or brown and inside of which can be seen their organs and various floating detritus, had a second face, though their physiology was otherwise more or less human in appearance. They were usually phenomenally rich, intelligent, and deviant (though not sexually, not having the necessary equipment). Irmth himself was the first Shift of a separate branch called Ith. The only difference between a normal Shift and an Ith was that an Ith was much taller. Irmth specifically enjoys cocktails, sometimes delivered intravenously, technology and information, and music. He has organized numerous events throughout the Universe, some of which were so successful that they never stopped. Irmth scours the Galaxy, looking for musical talent to feature at his events, and is currently organizing and promoting an event in the Hypersholean system called “Music Horizon,” which promises to be a never-ending event and boasts five generation seven Posi-Tek SubSpaceWoofter Platforms, release 5ZR11.32.99, AKA the GalactiBlaster, which essentially turns a moon or planet into a speaker. When Irmth hears music he likes, he usually leaves his card, which is the model of simplicity:

Being the first ith, he was Irmth.
His name was Irmth the Eleventh.

written by Matt Mitchell \\ tags: galactiblaster, ideas, irmth, ith, science fiction, scifi, scific, shift, stories, story, writing

Earth has a low-frequency hum that is inaudible to human ears. Although some residents of Taos, New Mexico have reported hearing a low hum for years. Earth is mum on the cause of the hum. But this story’s brought something else to mind for me:

Following the devastating Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami of 2004, reports surfaced of a remote island indigenous people who survived the event by leaving their coastal homes and hiking up into the hills and mountains of the area. The entire tribe survived. No one else had any warning of the monster tsunami, but somehow these remote people presaged what was happening and ran for higher ground. According the the AP:

[the Jarawas of South Andaman Island] used their observations of wind movement, the changing sea and the birds flying inland as a prompt for their relocation to the mountains, which saved every member of the tribe according to government officials in India.

So they followed the animals, but how did the animals know to leave? It’s been speculated on broadly. Some say they have a sixth sense, providing them with barometric sensitivity. But maybe it’s more easily explained than that: suppose the Earth’s hum changes in the event of environmental distress? We already know animals have sharper senses than us, that their hearing is more acute. Suppose that Earth hum is something they can tune to, or hear constantly. If that hum intensifies or changes fundamentally then it would be simple to assume the animals who detect it might instinctively know how to react.

But what about storms, wildfires? Animals are also amazingly adept at evading both, but those are surface or atmospheric events, could they affect the Earth hum like an earthquake or tsunami? Possibly, since scientists have speculated that the hum could be an effect caused by atmospheric waves (gravity waves?). But they’ve also speculated that the hum could be caused by the oceans, atmospheric pressure, or even the sun. Perhaps it’s caused in part by all of these, and perhaps it responds in varying degrees according to which phenomena is impacting it. If so, an animal could react in accordance to the nature of the hum, heading to higher ground in a flood, lower ground in a storm, etc.

It also occurs to me that Jupiter makes a sound as well. Science explains that it is caused by the gas giant’s massive magnetic field. But I haven’t read anywhere that Earth’s magnetic field might be causing its own hum. Maybe that’s an oversight, or maybe the magnetic field is just one more contributor to the hum, which would just increase its potential for predicting events. Perhaps the hum can somehow respond to any event on Earth. That would explain a lot.

For further information on infrasound.

And more, on Earth’s hum and how animals might respond to it.

written by Matt Mitchell \\ tags: animals, atmosphere, Earth, gravity wave, hum, infrasound, Jupiter, magnetic, sixth sense, subsonic, tsunami

I like to sometimes browse through the archives of blogs that I like. Here’s a neat bit from Warren Ellis circa March of 2005:

Let’s assume you’ve got a website of some kind, a computer that does stuff without coal and a hand crank, and the sick wish to worm yourself into people’s brains. How many ways can you do that?

Record a short mp3 and you’re a ringtone. Take a picture and cut it down to around 150 pixels across by 200 tall and you’re a phone wallpaper. How simple is that? Anyone whose phone is equipped with a way of changing its screen’s appearance can carry you in their pocket. PayPal five US dollars a month to LibSyn and you’re a broadcaster, sending out audio and/or video to anyone who wants it. If it’s just audio, stream it off a MySpace page for free. You can be a t-shirt, a coffee cup, a visual brand across a bunch of objects. You can be a badge or a sticker. A photographic print, a magazine, a book, a pack of postcards. An instant messaging icon, an LJ icon or a message board avatar.

Right there: an image, a sound, a radio star, a video star, a brand, a slogan, art, thought, iconography.

If someone had a mind to, they could become their own internet-powered brand with some speed. Tons of people could do it. They could design themselves to infiltrate cellphones and iPods, all the shit we’re told to own, all the shit we want to own for the pleasure of it but which by design comes contentless.

written by Matt Mitchell

From Caitlin Kittredge:

• Ghosts are afraid of shotguns, but don’t ask why.
• Creatures are much scarier when they arrive without exposition.
• There’s nothing scarier than a haunted prison.
• Except creepy little girl-ghosts.
• Having a group of psychics throw down with their minds is always a good idea.
• Non-Judeo-Christian monsters are wayyy creepier.
• Urban legends can still be fresh
• Alternate lives that are even crappier than your real life?  Hilarious.
• Samuel Colt was a badass.
• POV means everything.
• Don’t be afraid to kill all your favorite characters.

Caitlin is an author (now published) who writes a brand of fiction I’m not particularly interested in, but her blog is at times entertaining and sometimes she comes up with little bits like the list above which are priceless.

written by Matt Mitchell