The concept of legibility is one that stood out to me when reading the excerpt from Seeing Like a State. I had not previously taken much time to consider the framework within which I come to look at nature. I have written a little bit about this in my blog previously, so maybe I was scratching the surface, but James C. Scott was very helpful to me in creating an analogy through which to understand the frameworks in which we find ourselves. 

I had never thought about words like “crop”, “weed”, “timber”, or “underbrush”. These words were not representative of something, they simply were something. I have never had a doubt that a weed was a pest and a bad plant. I have always felt similar annoyance upon finding my path blocked by “underbrush”. Words like timber remind me that in Spanish the words pollo and gallina both mean chicken, but one refers to the food and one refers to the bird. 

During the time we have spent at the creek, I have been frustrated with myself for my difficulties in observing details. I tend to see the creek as an abstraction: one long running bed of water with two sides that are covered in green and brown and some rocks to skip here and there. I don’t think my education in particular has taken any great pains to educate me more thoroughly on such a habitat. I say my education, but maybe I should say more broadly my life experience. I don’t mean to blame anyone in particular as much as to recognize that I was never drawn towards a creek to see all of the intricacies it could hold. 

The attempts at legibility that a state makes, or that anyone makes for to understand their surroundings more clearly and succinctly, can be put upon nature and also upon society and people. I will tell a story:

I very recently created a facebook page for myself after years of declining to do so. Upon looking closer at the website/program I am now a part of, I suppose I could make an assessment of the kind of legibility that such a service provides. Facebook itself is a sort of census. At its best, it connects people of like mind together and strengthens the communication between friends and families. At its worst, I recognize the gross oversimplification into which such a format forces us. I must say I am much more attuned to the differences between humans than I am the differences between creeks so I can say easily that our social media programs gloss over the large majority of details that make a person who they are and make a relationship what it is. To be boiled down to my interests, images, quirky comments,  who I know, and where I am located, is to be made legible in less than 2 minutes. Though, I can known in part by these things, to make a habit of relating to my neighbor based on such shallow grounds is to hardly know my neighbor at all. 

Most strikingly: 

Thursday at the creek, I was very aware of my unawareness. I should say that what was asked of me did not come easily. To spend an hour or so seeing what I could see and recording what stood out. Perhaps what left me feeling so unequipped for such a challenge was the simplicity of it. 

Watch.

There is no complication. Simply tune in to your senses. Gather from around yourself the character of your surroundings. 

I never do this. Why am I completely green at this? How often do I fix my thoughts upon the realities outside of myself? How do I am come to spend so much time within my head, remote from the setting of my body? But perhaps the true challenge was not only too simple but also much more complex. 

Watch. 

Truly watch. See the details. Ask questions of what you see, and look for answers. Look for a second layer. In a way, my greatest enemies are my own pre-constructed notions of what I should expect of my surroundings.Thus, to watch and observe is as a process of deconstruction as it is of finding new knowledge. 

I am not in the habit of this habitat. Still, I looked for what I could. 

There are layers of limestone slate that make up the bed of Mill Creek. The pieces are large and smooth, rather slippery, and stretch for about 30 feet or more. Most of the rifts between the slates are less noticeable, but at times there are larger gaps between the pieces like the one shown below. 

Above me, a Great Blue Heron perched on a high branch of a Birch tree. It seemed to have a vibrating neck. At first it appeared to be the shadow of a leaf shaking against its neck, but then it moved and the shaking shape moved with it. It swept upon the branch where it landed with great beating wings. The bird seemed to be moving too slow to be real. It was quite perplexing to see such a large bird settle in so slowly and gently to its landing place. 

I came upon an large patch of sloppily-laid concrete that attempted to flow out of the limestone base. At its peak it reached a few inched above the water line and there was a manhole cover on top. I am curious as to the placement of this operation. I do not know much about plumbing so I cannot say whether or not the location chosen was ideal or simply convenient. Convenient for the right people, at least. 

The water was not deep in the creek. At times it was merely a few inches deep. The living things I saw the most of were variants of small fish darting about in schools. As I walked downstream towards a bridge and the water got deeper, the fish began to get larger and even some larger species like bass were milling about. 

There was quite a bit of lovely reverb underneath this bridge in the tunnel. I liked to sing in it. 

If nothing else, the first day of such observation will leave me more aware of what such an interaction with one’s environment demands. I am becoming conditioned, if I will allow it, to see differently and sense differently; consequently, to think differently as well. 

ZAC 

Hello Internet friends. 

I am going to be in Paris until the end of the week, and then it is all over. Kind of sad, kind of great. It went by really fast. Just fast enough. I enjoyed being here quite a great deal. I saw the Pompidou Center the other day, which is this building full of modern art that some wild modern art gypsy clan set up barriers around to block people from getting in to see the art. The only way to get in now is to pay them, and then they let you roam through the stuff. Pretty nomadic eh? Yea, that happens in Paris all the time. I will put up a picture from the museum, but only one because if I put up more, I am afraid the aesthetic gypsy nomads would declare warhol on me for lowering their sales, but just to grind their gears a bit: 

Well, it turns out I did upload my pictures. Here are 4 things I saw in Paris this afternoon! Enjoy!

My evening shall involve all of these things. I will be composing a piece of music for a strange ensemble I dare not describe on the internet for fear of someone stealing it! Uh Oh! Nah, it’ll just be a surprise. I am enjoying Paris, although I must admit I haven’t gotten out a whole lot. Tomorrow and Sunday are basically free so maybe tomorrow will be the day for me to go explore France. I am in search of some old French junk. You know, there has to be a French equivalent of the antique store. I hope I can find a really trinkety one. I bet there will be a lot of accordions! 

I am also listening to a Schubert sonata trying to figure out how to not just play a melody over and over again and instead develop material. It is hard. Sometimes the really great pieces only dwell on their opening material for like 10 seconds, but the entirety of the piece is based upon the building blocks set forth. I dislike this difficult process, but I am in Paris learning how to make myself work more harmoniously with it. 

I am going to go learn more about writing music now by..going to play ping-pong. That’s right, it’s one of the cardinal virtues of almost every great composer to spend at least 30 minutes a day playing a sport involving a paddle and ball of some sort. Some of the older guys were more into badminton, but you know it all factors in. Here I go!

So this is basically what I did tonight. I am so very happy, yet disappointed in my nonmagical life. This happened after I read the last book too. :(

So, this is going on the Paris blog because of a comment that Abner Jay makes in the middle of this joke about Paris. I laughed out loud for certain. I will advise the viewers that if you would like to avoid anything crude, you might just turn the video off after the Paris joke, but if you want to hear the song at the end, you better listen to the whole thing. It isn’t really that bad I guess. Mainly a skit on the depravity of the generation, told by a wise man. After you watch this, go search for a video of Abner Jay singing, I’m So Depressed, which is an amazing song!

It is 10 at night here, and overcast, in Paris, yet it is still light outside. I am perplexed for one, and quite pleased for two. I ate in the cafeteria at my dorm-like residence today, which was not anything like a cafeteria in America except for the tray, line, and serving of food by people wearing chef clothes. For example, approaching the dessert table with anticipation, I saw my options. Yogurt…Pears…Pudding. Well, I picked pears, which I love already and were even better as dessert, even though you make pears the same way you make dessert pears.

I have enjoyed class. I feel like I can’t tell if it is a lot of work yet. It is kind of neat though, because there are no grades and hardly any mandatory assignments so the pace is totally self-motivated, which relieves me a lot! I have some music project to work on here while I am in Paris, and some of them will be posted on this blog, here is my guarantee in writing of that.

Well, that’s all for now. Oh, also I did my second load of sink washed, window dried laundry today (voluntarily, ma), and it went rather well. 

Bye

Zac

Hello, 

I took some entrance exams today

I stumbled through a lunch and dinner order and managed not to starve

I played the banjo

I washed my clothes in the sink and have begun drying them out my window

I listened to Ray Charles, Aretha Franklin, and…The Avett Brothers

DAY: Success

SENTIMENT: YES