Every Flavor of Summer

07/28/2023

Every Flavor of Summer

In the global warming era, it seems that July has taken February's spot as the worst-weather month, at least in New York City. Clio started coughing, which the vet said was likely caused not by asthma, a problem that afflicted Dante for most of his life, but by the poor air quality. After reckoning with the likelihood that wildfire smoke is here for the foreseeable future (and because there's no limit to what we will spend on the cats) we decided to invest in air purifiers. Some of my friends were dubious. What if the governments of the world, they asked, start regulating the use of fossil fuels and reduce carbon (and other greenhouse gas) emissions to a level where millions of acres of forest are not on fire every summer? We bought the purifiers with two-day shipping.

'You do you.' -- neoliberals :(

But all joking aside, the garden has been beautiful, especially after a rainstorm.

The raindrops look very pretty as they collect at the tips of the dawn redwood branches.

'The fate of humanity is represented by a trembling drop of water clinging to a deciduous needle.' -- Zephyr

I love standing next to the birch tree and pretending that I'm in the middle of a forest somewhere (two hundred years ago).

As I get older, I find that I'm able to sit entranced by nothing but a shaft of light making its way across the garden. Is this what cats do when they sit for hours in the same place?

This summer, we've finally embraced the reality that having tall trees in the garden means that the ground level is effectively a shade garden. This is not a grieving process, however. The hardy begonias we planted have been spreading. We also planted more ferns, which is always a cause for celebration.

The troughs of annuals that Stephen installed on the deck add a bit of color.

I was pleased to find a ladybug, the first I've seen that wasn't released out of a bag purchased at an online nursery. [Insert commentary here about factory farming.]

I feel like this is the first summer that people of a certain class have been mildly inconvenienced by climate change. In the New York Times, a columnist complained that his children's summer camp had been decimated by the floods in upstate New York, a development that he had been 'dreading.' Another columnist spoke to experts who said it would be so hot in thirty years that professional football teams in the NYC region might have to adjust their summer training schedules. I wondered if that's what he dreads most about the summer of 2053.

I am admittedly pessimistic, but I feel like there are bigger problems at hand.

Posted at 03:22 PM in Expression, Science Projects | Permalink

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Music: Death Culture at Sea and Saturnine

Listen or download songs and records from my indie-rock past with Saturnine here and Death Culture at Sea here.

Music Video: Remembrance of Things Past

Watch the rock opera Remembrance of Things Past written and performed by Saturnine and Frances Gibson, starring Bennett Madison and Sheila McClear.

Video: The Chaos Detective

The Chaos Detective is a series about a man searching for 'identity' as he completes assignments from a mysterious organization. Watch the first episode (five parts) on YouTube.

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Expression//Reaction//ScienceProjects

07/28/2023