Heather, you and Bret are almost the only academics that I still respect. Your fieldwork in some pretty unforgiving environments has grounded the two of you in a way that VERY few academics are, and it shows in the way you seem to dig deeper than superficialities in a manner that is as rare as it is welcome.
This piece makes me want to watch Jacques Tati's "PlayTime." A 1967 overlooked masterpiece which sardonically observes the folly of modernism and urban planning. https://www.criterion.com/films/651-playtime
Sometimes I think technogy was the perfect vehicle for post modernism. The frenetic pace of development and communication leaves no time for saturation or contemplation or detail. Post modernism as a framework for interacting with an increasingly low resolution world is attractive. It lures us out of the complexity of the biological world into the sterile information world with the promise of control.
Woman after my own heart! Fortunately, living in Alaska in two tiny cabins and outside chores makes this sensibility remarkably easy (it also helps that I’m half hobbit). Folks, if you live in sterile environments, do what you can to escape those spaces often. If you are actually in a position to design your life, do it in a way that lets life encapsulate and enter often…
One of the great joys of life is leaving the house, without a plan and without the armor you so carefully describe, to just see what happens. And then returning home to indulge is some comfort & reflect on the day.
Mar 21, 2023·edited Mar 21, 2023Liked by Heather Heying
Yesterday, on the equinox, my wife and I watched the sunrise blazing through the window at The Temple of the Seven Dolls at Dzibilchaltun. Then a roll in the sand and a swim in the gulf.
You and Bret found peace from Portland in the San Juans, we escaped from Vancouver WA. to the Yucatan.
Once again you articulate so eloquently what needs to be said. I've been wanting to share the following with you since reading A Hunter Gather's Guide to the 21st Century and today this post just lines up with it.
I'd be honored if after watching, and please do watch until the verry end, if you'd let me know what you, and others on this comment section, think.
So it’s okay if my house is a running fur factory (2 dogs), I have comfy chairs, there are bills, books, DVDs on various surfaces, and I live in the country? I have a stash of yarn to knit, weeds fighting the grass, moles or something making tunnel in my front and back yard and sonic looks like it is open again (I’m in Texas, its the local burger joint). You know I am content. Wish we had more water but hey it’s good now. Call me content.
Mar 22, 2023·edited Mar 22, 2023Liked by Heather Heying
Two summers ago my daughter (who was then an Urban Studies major at UT Austin) & I read aloud the Tom Wolfe book (at my suggestion). As someone whose own taste runs toward Frank Lloyd Wright, she LOVED Wolfe’s take down of modernism.
Off topic, but, if you haven’t seen this poem read by Tess Lawrie yet, it’s powerful. Mistakes Were Not Made, by Margaret Anna Alice: https://www.bitchute.com/video/nwZvDNcEwEgm/?
I grew up in Northern Minnesota and, still farther North, we had a cabin on a lake. That rustic, three-room cabin has since been replaced with a comfortable home now that my parents are retired. The new "cabin" has its perks - a sauna, climate control (as my parents age they are less able to cope with extreme heat), a big kitchen - but we often lament what was lost when the old cabin made way for the new. The old cabin had much more permeable boundaries with the outdoors. My brother and I tracked in plenty of sand on our bare feet, and the dog contributed her fair share. Attempts were made at sweeping, but it was never a sterile environment. An odd assortment of mismatched hand-me-down furniture meant that we didn't worry about flopping down to have a snack in our bathing suits before heading right back out the door and into the lake. When we tumbled into bed at the end of the day my parents opened huge screened windows to cool us with the lake breeze. Our little escape would never have been featured in any design magazine (no "cabin p0rn" here!), but it was a wonderful place to grow up healthy in body, mind and spirit.
Heather, you and Bret are almost the only academics that I still respect. Your fieldwork in some pretty unforgiving environments has grounded the two of you in a way that VERY few academics are, and it shows in the way you seem to dig deeper than superficialities in a manner that is as rare as it is welcome.
I love this. We are part of nature. Let's revel in it.
This piece makes me want to watch Jacques Tati's "PlayTime." A 1967 overlooked masterpiece which sardonically observes the folly of modernism and urban planning. https://www.criterion.com/films/651-playtime
Sometimes I think technogy was the perfect vehicle for post modernism. The frenetic pace of development and communication leaves no time for saturation or contemplation or detail. Post modernism as a framework for interacting with an increasingly low resolution world is attractive. It lures us out of the complexity of the biological world into the sterile information world with the promise of control.
Woman after my own heart! Fortunately, living in Alaska in two tiny cabins and outside chores makes this sensibility remarkably easy (it also helps that I’m half hobbit). Folks, if you live in sterile environments, do what you can to escape those spaces often. If you are actually in a position to design your life, do it in a way that lets life encapsulate and enter often…
One of the great joys of life is leaving the house, without a plan and without the armor you so carefully describe, to just see what happens. And then returning home to indulge is some comfort & reflect on the day.
Essence of Taurus. I love it. I must admit I avoid discomfort these days, but at 79 I shamelessly pull the old lady card.
Yesterday, on the equinox, my wife and I watched the sunrise blazing through the window at The Temple of the Seven Dolls at Dzibilchaltun. Then a roll in the sand and a swim in the gulf.
You and Bret found peace from Portland in the San Juans, we escaped from Vancouver WA. to the Yucatan.
Yes, go outside and be free. And keep writing.
Once again you articulate so eloquently what needs to be said. I've been wanting to share the following with you since reading A Hunter Gather's Guide to the 21st Century and today this post just lines up with it.
I'd be honored if after watching, and please do watch until the verry end, if you'd let me know what you, and others on this comment section, think.
https://youtu.be/LczGSoibRe8
So it’s okay if my house is a running fur factory (2 dogs), I have comfy chairs, there are bills, books, DVDs on various surfaces, and I live in the country? I have a stash of yarn to knit, weeds fighting the grass, moles or something making tunnel in my front and back yard and sonic looks like it is open again (I’m in Texas, its the local burger joint). You know I am content. Wish we had more water but hey it’s good now. Call me content.
I feel personally attacked, I like open floor plans:). Nonetheless, point received. Beautiful writing.
Thanks Heather
Your article made me think of the title of Milan Kundera‘s book
„The Unbearable Lightness of Being“
Experience different ways to be in our brief experience of being
It brings a smile to my lips and a bounce in my step reading your articles
All of this! Every day! Except maybe the fire ants. I have an ongoing war with them.
Two summers ago my daughter (who was then an Urban Studies major at UT Austin) & I read aloud the Tom Wolfe book (at my suggestion). As someone whose own taste runs toward Frank Lloyd Wright, she LOVED Wolfe’s take down of modernism.
Off topic, but, if you haven’t seen this poem read by Tess Lawrie yet, it’s powerful. Mistakes Were Not Made, by Margaret Anna Alice: https://www.bitchute.com/video/nwZvDNcEwEgm/?
You mean live like a human being? What a novel concept..❤️ We are not meant to be a collective of "perfect" sterile automotons.
I grew up in Northern Minnesota and, still farther North, we had a cabin on a lake. That rustic, three-room cabin has since been replaced with a comfortable home now that my parents are retired. The new "cabin" has its perks - a sauna, climate control (as my parents age they are less able to cope with extreme heat), a big kitchen - but we often lament what was lost when the old cabin made way for the new. The old cabin had much more permeable boundaries with the outdoors. My brother and I tracked in plenty of sand on our bare feet, and the dog contributed her fair share. Attempts were made at sweeping, but it was never a sterile environment. An odd assortment of mismatched hand-me-down furniture meant that we didn't worry about flopping down to have a snack in our bathing suits before heading right back out the door and into the lake. When we tumbled into bed at the end of the day my parents opened huge screened windows to cool us with the lake breeze. Our little escape would never have been featured in any design magazine (no "cabin p0rn" here!), but it was a wonderful place to grow up healthy in body, mind and spirit.