June 9, 2007

• Frustrated Artistic Expression

  Several people asked about the story behind my surreal pictures posted yesterday, and one person said she really didn’t want to know.  Someone else implied that the whole genre of surrealism, and the word, “surreal,” itself, is defined by the work of two famous artists, but that’s another story and I disagree.  In my opinion, one can study the entire oeuvres of Dali and Magritte and still not understand the meaning of, “surreal.”

  Read no further, Carate, if you really don’t want to know… and anyone else who is squeamish about what happens to the physical remains of dead animals, be advised that this post deals explicitly with some details of that process.

  A couple of weeks ago, Doug came in and asked me if I had seen the blue tarp out in the turnaround at the end of the cul de sac.  [For those of you not already familiar with the terrain in my neighborhood:  we live on the edge of a protected wetland, subarctic muskeg that the developer who subdivided this old homestead was forced to leave intact.  However, before he understood that he wouldn't be allowed to fill in the marsh for house lots, he had started building a road across one section of it.  The original plats for this subdivision (and Google's maps, which are apparently based on them) show a grid of streets extending several blocks beyond that turnaround at the end of our cul de sac.  Amended plats mark all the muskeg as, "dedicated parkland."]

  It is a park without park rangers.  All policing and maintenance are done by the residents of my neighborhood.  Somebody posted a sign out there warning hikers, snowmobilers, motorcyclists and ATV riders that it is a swamp and they enter it at their own risk.  The margin of the turnaround has become a dumping ground for brush, stumps, and excavated dirt, and a fire ring at the center of it has been the site of several parties and picnics.  I have seen tourists park their RVs out there, and leave behind bags of trash and piles of feces marked by festoons of toilet tissue.  A couple of weeks ago, somebody killed a cow moose out of season and dumped her pelvis, spine, ribcage, head, and young calf, alongside a tattered old blue plastic tarp holding her gutpile and draped with her hide.

  For a few days after Doug told me about finding the moose remains out there, my photographic excursions had gone in other directions.  It wasn’t until last Saturday that I got out there to view it.  I sorta wish I’d seen it sooner to document the scavenging and decomposition over a longer span.  On my first trip out there, my smeller wasn’t working (I have intermittent anosmia as a result of M.E. and a sinus condition), so it was the visual effect that struck me–in particular, the clean-limbed, soft, warm brown beauty of the three legs of the calf that extended along the ground next to its mother’s enormous stark red, black and white ribcage.  I didn’t dig around to make sure, but I assume that its other leg and its head are concealed by its body.  It is just lying there in a heap, up against the stump of neck still attached to the cow’s head.

  I knew I had the “surreal” challenge coming up.  I had been talking to Doug and Greyfox about surreality (and, of course, as a side issue, a little bit about Surrealism, the art genre, but the challenge was on “surreal” images, not “surrealistic.”)  I had been on the lookout for things that appeared to me to be surreal, and that calf’s intact discarded corpse amid the greenery between the hide-draped blue tarp and the denuded bones of its mother, was definitely an instance of “incongruous juxtaposition.”

  I took one series of shots that day, June 2, and another series two days later.  I hadn’t been back out there again until this Friday, four days later.  The most obvious change then was that something, a canid probably, had moved the pelvis that is still attached at the end of the spine.  When the ligaments finally disintegrate, that pelvis may be one of the first parts dragged off into the woods for gnawing.  The downside of yesterday’s trip to the gutpile was that my sense of smell was functional.  I brought way too many microscopic particles of putrefaction home with me on my nosehairs.

  Less obvious at first, but more striking upon closer inspection, were the changes to the hide, tarp and gutpile.  The whole heap was undulating, and bits and pieces of hair, flesh and blue plastic on the surface were moving around from the action of seventeen bazillion maggots of various sizes.  I said to myself that still photography just wouldn’t do justice to that scene.  Then my self replied with a hint of sarcasm, reminding me that the camera in my hand had the capacity to capture video images.

  I had been reluctant to venture into video production for a couple of reasons.  I don’t have much memory for my camera, and the number of batteries it consumes just for still photography is alarming and distressing.  Now that I have made my first video, I have a couple more reasons to minimize my future ventures into that medium.

  I focused on the squirmy seething mass of maggots, panned across the calf’s legs and parts of its mother, then up for a long shot and slow pan across the green muskeg, forested horizon, and low clouds.  I viewed my results, noticed camera shake, deleted my first effort and did it more smoothly the next time.  Then I came home, figured out how to save it to my hard drive, and got online to register at YouTube.

  After sitting, playing solitaire, for a couple of hours through a seemingly interminable upload, I watched the bar hit 100% and the page jump to one where my video was supposed to appear after “a few minutes to process.”  After hours, it still hadn’t appeared.  Doug told me later that someone had probably flagged it for deletion because of the maggots.  What?!?  Are they nuts?  Well… yes, they probably are, but they also surely think I am nuts for accepting such natural things with the equanimity that I do.

  My spouse, soulmate, and beloved partner in crime, the shaman, Greyfox, taught me the shamanic/animistic paradigm:  “Everything that is, is alive.”  Rocks and trees have consciousness.  We know this.  We sense them and know that in their own ways, they are aware of us.  Greyfox has expressed exasperation over “conscientious vegans” who refuse to “kill living things” for food.  He points out that a carrot is as alive and conscious as a caribou.  To me, a maggot is as lovable, and as worthy of life, as a moose.  I appreciate the job done by the flies and their larvae in disposing of carrion.

  Last night, I tried several times to upload my video to Xanga.  While I slept, Doug tried several more times.  Our dialup connection is slow and the upload kept being interrupted by error messages saying the connection to the server was reset.  I don’t know if it is worth continuing to try.  It is my first video and even though it lacks skill, I’d like to share it.  I feel a little frustrated about this, but I’m not unaware that few people would truly appreciate my decidedly surreal vision of the natural beauties, living and dead, in my environment.
  
  
  pelvis in foreground with saw-cut stubs where legs were removed, attached to spine and ribcage

  
  I did NOT actually crawl into the ribcage to get this shot.  I extended my arms and the camera in, and took three shots.  I posted the third one.  The first one included dozens of flies, by the second one, all but two of them had vacated the cavity in alarm.

  
  calf’s legs, with portion of its mother’s ribs at lower right

  
  moose cow’s ear, with flies

  
  moose hair at edge of hide, with larvae showing through a rip in the tarp

  
  The white filaments in this shot are moose hairs.  The black moonscape is part of the gutpile, an internal organ.  I obviously don’t know enough about the internal anatomy of moose.

  One more, a bonus I omitted from the “surreal” challenge entry – and, by the way, it is NOT a contest, despite what some of the participants think.  The challenge, as I understand it, is to find and capture images that represent the weekly theme.  This one just wasn’t surreal enough, in my opinion.
  

  • 5:02 pm
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