Month: October 2009

I started by day today by almost dying.

Sure, I’m usually full of amusing hijinks on how I nearly maimed/injued/killed myself, but today was actually quite sobering, and a little scary.

I was walking out of my building to the subway, which is less than 1/10th a block from the entrance to my building. It takes me longer to get into the subway than it does to get to the entrance stairs.

This enormously rotund woman wheeling double suitcases comes up to me and starts asking me questions. I pop off my earphones, and calmly direct her to the 4/5 train. It kind of amazes me, how many people ask me for directions, when there are so many other likely culprits about. I know part of it is eye contact. I am always mentally thumbnail sketching people as I walk around, and part of that is trying to take in maximum information in minimum time. I think tourists from niceville mistake that for caring.

Anyway, I give the trudleasaurus her directions, and step out of her way, so I can get by her, and into the normal flow of rapid pedestrian traffic streaming towards the train. I make it maybe four feet, and something which sounded like an M80 going off behind me had me jumping, and spinning halfway around midair. The first thing that went through my head was that it was a package bomb or something, and that there might be more coming around. Instead, I saw a picture frame.

Maybe three feet behind me was a very large picture frame, with solid back-matting, all in black, probably 2′ by 3′. It was one of those multi-picture mat/frame things – it had a bunch of seperate “windows” for pictures, all of which were filled up. The noise, apparently, was when it fell/was thrown out someone’s window, and landed just behind me, face down. This guy right next to me asked me if I was O.K., which I was, bnut I was a little surprised/shaken. He picked up the frame,and it left behind a large rectangle of powdered glass. After showing me the frame, and asking me what he thought he should do with it, I told him to toss it in the garbage, a few feet away. He decided he was going to take it into my lobby, and explain the situation to the doormen – hopefully they could do something about the glass.

It was a surreal train ride – so many things were rushing through my head, not the least of which was if I had paused to re-set my music, isntead of getting aroudn the woman with the bags, I would have probably worn that frame like a helmet, most likely to disastrous effect. How many times a day do we sneak past death, and how many times a day does she grin and bear it, knowing eventually happenstance will work in her favor?

I will shamelessly add that I totally clocked someone with my bag, and nearly knocked them down the stairs in the initial surprise and jump-spinning bit, but they caught the bannister. I bet her livejournal reads “I almost got knocked down the stairs by some giant moron with a ponytail…”

ETA: When I came in the building tonight, I asked the doorman if anyone claimed the picture. He still had it behind the desk, and I took another look at it. This is what it most closely resembles – he wouldn’t let me take a picture of it. Nobody has come to claim it, but he said he recognised one of the people in the pictures, so he assuimed eventually it would be claimed. I asked him to tell me what floor the guy lived on when he fouind out.

ETA2: It was a she, not a he who claimed it, from the nineteenth floor. If we figure that fucker was 5-6lb. with glass in, and it fell between 180-190 feet, it would ahve done some serious damage on impact (I feel like there is a Physics Midterm Problem in there somewhere).

Science, spiritualism, anthropology, philosophy, and a peppering of romance. This story has it all, and not in a trite or cliche package.

Louise Young, the author of The Permanent Press’ upcoming release, Seducing the Spirits covers an incredible amount of ground in a book which deals with a remote and isolated place. Through the protagonist, you are brought into a clear perspective of the trials of a field scientist, both in regards to what they endure, and what they must adjust to in order to survive when not engaged in that test of survival.

Spirits is set in the remote jungles of Panama, and is just as involved in the culture of the indigenous peoples of that region as it is with the wildlife the scientist-protagonist was observing. Like the eagles the protagonist is there to study, the tribe of Kuna natives, whose lands the protagonist’s research takes place on, are imperiled by the effects of the outside world. Young weaves these two themes together with great care, but not in a preachy way – there is no way one can be left missing the parallels.

Young does a good job of fleshing out her protagonist (who seems startlingly semi-autobiographical) in a way that you get to know her better, as the story is beginning to draw you in further. One might think that there is not much in the way of a story, when dealing with the field research of obscure eagles, but, from the way the story is told, I’d say that is pretty far from the truth. Overall, the book leaves you with an interesting set of questions, as well as some startling conclusions about the atomic nature of human society, particularly at the fringe of civilization. I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend the book to anyone interested in the travails of researchers dealing with indigenous cultures, and how those challenges relate to field science, and the scientists who make it happen.