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It was at a Boskone panel two years ago that Howard Waldrop and George Zebrowski turned me on to the works of Chad Oliver.  I’m just getting around to reading an old copy of Shadows in the Sun (Ballantine Edition, 1954) which is literally disintegrating page by page as I read it.  What an amazing story this is!  I can certainly see why Zebrowski picked this title for Crown Book’s Classics in Modern Science Fiction series.  The strangely out-of-tune Jefferson Springs, Texas, at first seems to resonate with menace, like Invasion of the Body Snatchers (Jack Finney’s novel which was being serialized in Collier’s magazine later the same year, Nov - Dec 1954).  But then the story veers into unexpected directions, and though Oliver’s prose is at times poetic, it is always clear and to the point.   For example, here is the protagonist, Paul Ellery, reflecting on the human tendency towards urbanization:

What sane man would prefer to live in the shrieking chaos of a city, stacked in like sardines with his neighbors in the smoke and the dirt and the sweat? What sane man would voluntarily leave the sunshine and the green fields and the quiet companionship of home for a factory and a tenement and the grinding of machinery?

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The topic of Skinner’s rural-urban continuum came up in a staff meeting today, where my colleague Sumeeta referred us to a recent column by Steven Strogatz in the NYTimes.   The idea is along the lines of Christaller’s central place theory, in which the demand for goods and services drives the spatial distribution of human settlements.   In the article, Strogatz draws a parallel between Zipf’s law as it has been used to show the relative size in cities, and the ways in which biological organisms develop into holistic systems.    There is a self-determining economy of scale that occurs, whether in the exfoliation of leaves on a tree, the distribution of tissues in a human body, or the amalgamated infrastructure of a modern metropolis.   It turns out that the efficiencies gained by hiving together are a natural driver which brings all us living beings – kicking and screaming in defiance, to be sure! — together into super-organisms.   So we are basically just cellular automata, after all, which is sure to make Rudy Rucker happy.

Attending Antonio Di Mambro’s lecture last night at Boston Public Library, it was amazing to see the giant crowd that packed Rabb Lecture Hall.  Who would have thought that an urban planning talk — stoked with dire warnings and gloomy facts — would bring out such a vibrant cross-section of the city?  It is almost as if, after thirty years of vapid hand-wringing and self-gratifying acts of “green” living, the mass of architects, planners, designers, and technocrats are beginning to realize that if they do not actually change the way America is built starting immediately, that our cities are literally going to fall apart.   Cities can only take so much pillaging by the greed heads, then they go belly up.

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Isn’t it about time we moved beyond the idiotic “central heating” concept and kicked our energy habit?   But how, you might ask, do we get this 100 quadrillion BTU monkey off our back?  The answer, as ridiculous as it sounds, is to simply build better homes, and used efficient heat exchange.   Really, that’s it!   In Germany they are already doing this, building passive heat homes, with highly efficient air flow heat exchangers, and hermetically sealed window and door edges.   The technology isn’t new, but it does rely on (a) good engineering, and (b) good construction techniques.

The American style of building — some sheets of Tyvek slapped on plywood and stud frames, thrown together by a couple of guys with nailguns — is NOT going to cut it!   What we do need is intelligent manufacture of super-efficient modular windows and doors, that can be mounted into highly insulated walls.   Why not put the laid-off crews of Republic Windows back to work, or even re-tool the auto-industry to build super-efficient home construction components, instead of gas-guzzling dinosaurs?   That’s what I proposed to Obama on his transition web blog…  not that the idea will ever get to him, but there’s no harm in trying!

For decades (yes, sadly decades) I have been advocating for a heat-exchanger attachement for refridgerators in American homes.  Doesn’t it strike you as INSANE that we pay to heat up the space inside our homes, then we pay AGAIN to chill down another space inside of our homes to store our food?   That has always been an insane idea to me!  Therefore, for anyone who lives in a climate where the temperature outside the home falls below the temperature inside the home, why not put a heat exchanger between the outside and the air pocket surrounding the fridge interior?  A temperature gauge can control when the vents open on the heat exchanger.  Therefore, when the outside temp drops to a cold enough level, the vent opens and automatically pre-cools the air pocket that exists between the fridge interior and its shell, thus saving energy when the freon compressor kicks in.   Duh!  Why not let the cold outside air cool off our fridge compartment, instead of heating it first then paying to cool it down again?  But then, that would be giving logic and energy-efficiency primacy over greed… and we can’t allow THAT to happen, can we?   Or can we!  Yes, we can!

So join me in pushing all of our alternative construction, transportation, & energy ideas to business, industry, finance, government, mom, pop, and Auntie Grizelda.  It’s a crap job, but somebody’s got to pick up the pieces of this “all war, all the time” disaster we call the U.S.A. and fix it.

Interesting images captured by Cassini show us the sky over Saturn’s north pole, spanned by a hexagon of clouds in fixed rotation with the gas giant.  The scientists at NASA aren’t quite sure what is causing this phenomenon, unknown on any other planet in our solar system.   Still, doesn’t it make you wonder what the connection is between Saturn’s north pole and the hexagonal walls of a honeycomb?

What beauty is contrived by Nature when left to its own devices!  And why must humans always infer the hand of a higher being in the cosmic beauty all around us?  Isn’t it enough to simply accept reality as a mind-bending matrix of symmetry, of consciousness, of amazement?   What do we gain from dogmatic demands on our perceptions, after all.   Not much.  Unbidden neuroses and unnecessary fears.

What those self-righteous idiots – the self-proclaimed believers –  have done to our planet Earth is an atrocity.   Because they are the chosen people and because they will live forever in their bogus Eternity, they see no problem in laying our entire reality to waste.  In my opinion we should throw off the atavistic dogmas of the past and save our own planet, so that visitors observing us will see more than the deadly spume of pollution that we have made of our own atmosphere.

Although it is exciting to think about water and soil on Mars, and new horizons for human exploration of space, still we should bring our heads back out of the clouds and face facts: human civilization is a bloody mess! While people in the so-called “advanced” economies continue to suck energy likes pigs at the trough, and while “developing” nations such as China and India are racing to catch up like wild-eyed racecar drivers hyped up on dexadrine, untold billions of people are left starving at the margins… We are at the point of no return, and yet our so-called “leaders” can think of nothing better to do than rape, loot, and pillage whatever they can get their hands on. What is a thinking man or woman to do?

The only thing I can suggest is to ratchet down your own energy footprint, ride a bike, eat locally grown foods, and focus on two key tactics: creating pesticide free & bee friendly habitats, and implementing appropriate technology.

If the human race does nothing but blindly spin its wheels, we will very be soon left with no option but to become scavengers when the unsustainable mess comes tumbling down. Koyanisqaatsi, my friends.

These thoughts occurred to me when I saw an article on rocket stoves. These make a great deal of sense, because they can burn the smallest scraps of fuel and turn them into cooking energy with the lowest exchange of gases and smoke. The use of appropriate technology clearly should not be limited to people who must be resourceful to avoid starvation, and clearly cannot wait for the approval of idiots who continually drive their ridiculous gas-guzzling monsters to WalMart for 20 pound slabs of read meat.

Appropriate technologies need to be tested and used by all of us.

really cool blog of artist’s desks, studios, and messes.