Oh, To Follow the Road That Leads Away From Everything

By: | December 7, 2018

coast

Driving in a foreign country is a good way to turn your head inside out. It shakes the cobwebs and forces you to rearrange the heavy furniture of your mind. You need to make room for thoughts such as 10 mil is how many pesos is how many dollars? And what is the phrase for a full tank of gas? And if I put my backpack and jacket in the passenger seat, and adjust my hat on them just so, will the miners in that truck behind me be fooled into thinking I’m not alone?

I have always liked driving, especially when I have good music and a long enough trip for my thoughts to really open up. It is like a form of meditation, in that it’s both exhausting and refreshing. Driving in a foreign country, where you barely speak the language, is like competitive-level meditation.

I did the most intense driving of my life earlier this year, on a road trip up and down the coast of northern Chile. I wrote a lot about it in this essay, which just published, so please go read that. But I’ve been thinking a lot about all the other absurd driving I did on that trip, all by myself in the oldest and most barren desert on this planet. Continue reading →

How much does it cost to save a species? Less than you might think.

By: | December 6, 2018

Most people know that the world is facing an extinction crisis. Overfishing, unchecked energy exploration, and human sprawl has put 16,000 species on the Endangered Species List, with many more waiting to get on.

Evidence suggests that once on the list, the chances of ever getting off are slim. But does that have to be that case? It turns out that many, if not most, of the organism on that list are highly savable, and at a hell of a bargain.

As I wrote in a recent story for Newsweek, More than half of the endangered species – and where the list has seen the most growth in recent years – are in the plant kingdom. Most of these species would be relatively cheap to raise in greenhouses and replant in the wild yet the budgets to do so is laughably small. Continue reading →

Little Lights

By: | December 5, 2018

It is the time of year for little lights. There are tiny points of light along the eaves of our neighbors’ houses. There are lights along the city streets, too. Some are arranged in a pattern so they look like dolphins. Some are shaped like shooting stars. On Sunday, some houses began to light the first of eight candles, one for each night. On Sunday, other houses began to light the first of four candles, one for each week. In our house we have been lighting a pair of candles at dinner since the time change, because it’s dark and everything seems to feel more special in the dark when you have a candle.

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Redux: Sleep Aids

By: | December 4, 2018

The holidays can be stressful. So stressful you lose sleep. Maybe you need Placidyl. This post originally ran February 5, 2013. Ahh, the 1960s. A simpler time when women wore pant-skirts and insomnia could be cured by the soothing sounds of Liadov’s Musical Snuff Box. Well, not quite. Flip open this album and you’ll find a two-page ad for a sleeping pill called Placidyl. The tagline reads: “But when music fails, you can rest assured with Placidyl, Doctor.”

Here’s what I find striking. First, this isn’t an album with a drug ad slapped surreptitiously on the inside cover. The album is the drug ad. That title, “Music to Nudge You to Sleep” — that’s actually Placidyl’s campaign slogan. Drugmaker Abbott Laboratories promised Placidyl would “nudge” patients to sleep in the print ads too. Second, this isn’t some rinky-dink endeavor. The music — ten songs in all — is performed by the Boston Pops led by Arthur Fielder, a man the New York Times called “one of the world’s best-known musical figures.” Continue reading →

They Paved the Maya World and Put Up a Parking Lot

By: | December 1, 2018

A few weeks ago I published a story in Hakai about the hidden story of the ancient maritime Maya. It’s not the first time I’ve written about the Maya – in fact, for a while there it was a bit of an obsession.

I’ve always found ancient Mesoamerican history fascinating. Partly, I just love history. Vikings, knights, cowboys, speakeasies, Roman gladiators, Bible stories, you name it. I don’t care if they are obsessively accurate to the time or liberally sprinkle aliens and time travel, you had me at “period piece.”

But if I’m honest, there’s also a bit of cultural voyeurism mixed in as well. I lived in Mexico for seven years and, try as I might, never really understood the culture. I mean, I had friends and learned the language a bit and went to all the culturally important stuff – Christmas parties, weddings, Day of the Dead dinners – but I was always sort of an observer. I’m a people person and it was always deeply frustrating to be on the outside, looking in.

So I got into history. It’s not exactly like cultural understanding but it smells similar. And I was shocked at just how awesome it was. Kings, warrior princesses, siege, palace intrigue, politics, assassination, arranged marriage, heroes, fools, and lots of blood. Everything my inner teenager loves. And those names! Lady Water Lily Hand. The Shaker of Cities (second of his name). Fiery Claw. The God Who Clears the Sky. I mean, seriously? The God Who Clears the frigging Sky? How badass do you have to be to get that name? Continue reading →

The End of Animal Farming? A Q&A with Jacy Reese

By: | November 30, 2018

Jacy Reese with goatJacy Reese wants to end animal farming. You can tell, because that is the title of his new book: The End of Animal Farming. Reese is a committed “effective altruist,” which means that he spends his time thinking about what actions will most efficiently help as many sentient creatures as possible and eliminate the most pain in the world. It is kind of as if Spock from Star Trek put his super-logical mind to the problem of increasing happiness in the universe. Reese’s rational mind has led him to campaign for the total end of raising animals for food, since many of them suffer in the process. Many are kept confined and indoors their whole lives in crowded conditions, are bred to such extremes that their own bodies cause them pain, and are slaughtered to fill tacos and round out a box of Hamburger Helper. Reese’s book lays out the technological and social changes that he says are already underway which could make our millennia-long practice of animal farming end by roughly 2100.

Q: In your book, you present data that suggests that many people are uncomfortable with the lives led by animals in the current food system, but they eat meat anyway. Why?

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Missing Pieces

By: | November 28, 2018

My aunt is standing in front of the book shelf scrutinizing two rows of photos. It’s 1 a.m., and a little while ago I was dead asleep. But now here I am, awake, because here she is, standing in her pajamas with her hands pressed into her back, looking hard at faces in the frames. Again.

I read recently that disrupted circadian rhythms, affecting glial cells in the brain called astroctyes, may cause neuroinflammation and hasten the progression of Alzheimer’s disease. I wonder if that’s true in the case of my aunt’s dementia. I decide that it is. Her sleep patterns have been off kilter for a while, but since the fire she is up at all hours many nights. I know this from tonight’s experience and also because she periodically calls or sends a blank text in the wee hours, or unknowingly shoots and sends a photo of, say, the floor, or her chin, around 2 a.m. Apparently, I’m not the only recipient; my cousins tell of similar late-night communiques.

California’s latest fires have been devastating, but for my family it was the 2017 flames that changed everything. That’s when my cousin lost her beautiful house with the mountain view. That’s when her 84-year-old mother (my aunt), who had been awakened by alarms and evacuated in her bathrobe from her retirement community, lost her mind.

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