‘Some Claim’

Posted on July 13, 2010July 14, 2010 by Varg

Even though I got all Doomsday last week, there’s nothing like a smattering of bullshit to get one’s head back on straight. I can’t help but post my favorite phrases from this story I read recently. (HT-Kim)

The author does use many citations throughout the story but most of them are based on findings that don’t have anything to do with the current crisis and are about extinction events that occurred millions of years ago. Yes, I am sure these events could have happened. But they happened without us. I understand he is trying to equate the two scenarios but he only cites two current reports regarding the Gulf oil leak.

He also uses the following phrases in the story…

“Ominous reports”
“may be happening”
“may have triggered”
“Word is”
“Reports, filtering through”
“Some claim”
“A report from one observer”
“Most experts in the know”

Those are the extent of attributions for the bulk of what he is basing his story on. Pretty ballsy considering he is writing about the end of humankind. And not in some abstract manner either.

For the real Doomsday stuff, the author just writes hypothetically like he is scripting a Michael Bay movie. Going into detail describing the death clouds and tsunamis.

But hey, it’s just the end of civilization. Frankly, if I gots to go, I would rather it be with the rest of you. Because I don’t want to miss a thing.

Edit: Looks like I’m not the only one making Michael Bay references. Besides, in Armageddon, the Oil Drillers saved the Earth, they didn’t destroy it.

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Rejoice!

I say that a lot. I sign many pieces with it. I do this because I believe our lives are a true happenstance. A brilliant occurence from nothingness. We are so rare. We are so unlikely. And simply being born isn’t enough. From there we must survive, endure. So each morning, after our Sun departs and is reborn again. Please, for the sake of your ancestors and the Universe in general, hoist that cup of joe up and say, “Rejoice.”

Ours is a soulful existence. No matter how many McMansions, polyester fabrics, auto-tunes, modified foods and social networks we surround ourselves with, we are all still native, passionate beings made of ancient matter. We are organic and we have soul.

Wood also has a warm, soulful quality. Wood has a memory. It retains smells, traumas, events. It even has a calendar. This is why I have chosen it as my medium, for its old soul. I like to think the wood in my work is in its third incarnation. First a tree, then a home and now art. If you have a room that needs a little soul, get a piece. A room can never have enough soul.

My inspiration and subject matter comes from many sources, among them: Humanism, old ballads, trickster tales, flora and fauna, science, myths and folklore, stringed instruments, brass bands, amber spirits, lady vocalists, general relativity and quantum mechanics. Some of my pieces are there just to make a short, simple statement about what’s important in life. Some are more diffuse and abstract in meaning. A personal drama, an enduring line from a poem or novel, a poignant song lyric, the legacy of an important person, a fleeting thought … these are the subjects of my art.

I use hearts often because they are a very abstract way of depicting the human soul without also employing the very subjective human form. The symbolic heart is an apt representation for a person’s experience and essence. A body can immediatly conjure happiness, sorrow, youth, age, anger, bliss. These emotions can get in the way. Sometimes it’s simply about the experience.

I am the son of a sailor and a social worker, the grandson of a gypsy, a dancer and a nurse. I spent my youth moving from port city to port city, watching a lot of road go by and reading World Book Encyclopedia. After my parents settled down on the Gulf Coast, I was a miscreant youth, destroying cars and taking the wrongs things too seriously and the right things not serious enough. Eventually I began replacing my imagination with experience.

I will use any salvaged wood but prefer swamp cypress and longleaf heartwood pine.

I despise waste. Particularly the waste of organic matter. Trees are magnificent. They were here before we arrived and they’ll be around after we are gone. I’m making an effort to save as much wood as possible. Creating art is fun too. But beyond communicating with folks, but beyond making money ad providing for myself, beyond rescuing flooded parts, beyond reveling in the ethereal aroma of heartpine that hasn’t seen the light of day in 400 years, beyond all that, I am trying to make a simple comment on waste.