A Convergence
of Convergences:
A Contest.
- - - -
For more information
about this contest,
click here.
- - - -
Contest Winner No. 22.
- - - -
Seeing the Tree
for the Forest.
By Walter Murch
(who submitted the below photo without further comment beyond the caption)
- - - -
Logging trees in a Swedish forest, as seen from the air
- - - -
Weschler Responds.
- - - -
So, we were thinking of leaving Mr. Rumsfeld's entry up a bit longer, but I guess it turned out he just couldn't stand the heat of the Contest. How else to account for his abrupt departure from office? Six days online and he's gone!
Meanwhile, as for Mr. Murch's entry: Are you kidding us? Is this for real? How can this be for real?
Only: turns out, it is!
The tree photo is completely legit.
It was taken by a Swede named Jocke Berglund, and it won him a Wildlife Photographer of the Year award from London's Natural History Museum, on whose site the following elucidation is offered:
When Hurricane Gudrun thundered across southern Sweden in January 2005, it left around 100,000 people isolated and without electricity. Deep snow, fallen trees and severe temperatures meant several people died before help could reach them. Flying over Småland photographing the devastation, Jocke—who specializes in aerial photography—saw this 'remarkable oak tree print'. It was formed partly by the storm brush of nature and partly by the impact on the soil of the forestry machines retrieving logs. 'It's as if the heavens had sent a message to the forest industry reminding them that, in this area, deciduous trees would have withstood the winds much better than pine. It's also another stark reminder that global warming will lead to regular and stronger storm winds.'
Granted: not that elucidating.
But reminiscent of all sorts of imagery in the last section of Everything That Rises ("Trees, Neurons, Networks"); and, also, as with the Rumsfeld before it, strangely pertinent to the current mood in the wake of Tuesday's elections: clear-cut and rebirth, the wider pattern amid the devastation, or some such.
New York Post cover. Thursday, November 9, 2006
And then, beyond that, also reminiscent of a luminous parable of W.S. Merwin's, his 1970 prose poem "Unchopping a Tree," which begins, ever so self-evidently, "Start with the leaves,"—continuing—"the small twigs, and the nests that have been shaken, ripped or broken off by the fall; these must be gathered and attached once again to their respective places." And it goes on like that. ("It is not arduous work, unless major limbs have been smashed or mutilated ... It goes without saying that if the tree was hollow in whole or in part, and contained old nests of birds or mammal or insect ... the contents will have to be repaired where necessary, and reassembled, insofar as possible, in their original order, including the shells of nuts already opened.") And so forth for paragraph after hallucinatory paragraph: every single leaf getting reattached, every single branch; tackle and scaffolding getting hauled in so as to facilitate the final reattachment of the reconstituted trunk to its stump, at which point the tackle and scaffolding start getting pulled away:
Finally the moment arrives when the last sustaining piece is removed and the tree stands again on its own. It is as though its weight for a moment stood on your heart. You listen for a thud of settlement, a warning creek deep in the intricate joinery. You cannot believe it will hold. How like something dreamed it is, standing there all by itself. How long will it stand there now? The first breeze that touches its dead leaves all seems to flow into your mouth. You are afraid the motion of the clouds will be enough to push it over. What more can you do? What more can you do?
But there is nothing more you can do.
Others are waiting.
Everything is going to have to be put back.
Everything put back indeed. A pretty good clarion call, come to think of it, for the next Congress.
The whole of Merwin's prose poem can be read here.
- - - -
OTHER WINNERS.
- - - -
1. Evolving, Evolved by Charlie Hopper
2. Primal Forces, Basic Colors by Andy Hunter
3. The End of the Beginning by Holly Dunsworth
Intermezzo by Lawrence Weschler
4. This Is Not an Ad by Jimmy Chen
5. Catskills Vagina by Dan Clem
6. The Antipodes by Chris Zic
7. Self-Made Constriction by Sam Gaskin
8. We Are the Son by Danny Erker
9. Painfully Unaware by Dan Park
10. Gutshot by Jason Torchinsky
Weschler's Second Interlude
11. Love and War by Kim Wood
12. Inside and Out There by Lena Webb
13. The March by Emily Marvosh
14. Feminine Divine Triptych by Margit Christenson
15. Time's Deliberate Convergence by Steve Denyszyn
16. A Rousseau/Hirshfield Convergence by Adam Webb
Beirut/Warsaw by Lawrence Weschler
17. Clothesline Raising Over Carlisle, Indiana by Charlie Hopper
Carnival of Convergences
Weschler's Fourth Interlude
Aftersquib to the Foregoing
18. Pelvises All the Way Down by John Peter Rickgauer
19. Ovary Night? by Maya Muñoz
20. Christ in Space by Jonathan Shipley
A Pair of Convergences Off of Tina Barney
Another Carnival of Convergences
21. Moral Confusion: Iraq, Munich, and Vietnam by Donald Rumsfeld
22. Seeing the Tree for the Forest by Walter Murch
An Addendum to the Foregoing, and a Visitor Challenge
23, 24, and 25. Far Out by Michael Benson, Brian Christian, and Walter Murch
26. Jewish Bunk Beds by Monica S. Bland
Those Damn Swedish Trees, Take 3: Convergence of the Blogs
27. Degenerate Boogie-Woogie by Lisa Lee
Carnival of Convergences No. 3
28. Sand and Moon by Alison Cornyn
Actaeon: An Ovidian Impromptu by Lawrence Weschler
29 and 30. Hoods and Veils by Vero Testa and Lauren Redniss
The Onion/Bickle Convergence by Lawrence Weschler
31. The Lone Figure Against the Armored Swarm by Michele Siegel
32. Muscle and Flow by Benjamin R. Cohen
An Addendum to the Foregoing: Cities, Brains, Orchestras by Lawrence Weschler
Saint and Princess by Lawrence Weschler
Beauty Queen and Baghdad Hummer by Lawrence Weschler
Carnival of Convergences No. 4
Laughing, Clapping, Constantly Forgetting: A Trill of Readerly Associations by Lawrence Weschler
33. Lithographica by R.A. Villanueva
34. Papal Fire (Papa Lux) by Nick Feia
Addendum to "Laughing, Clapping ..." and, More Specifically, to the Stalinist-Applause Anecdote by Lawrence Weschler
35. Disseminations: Internet, Dandelions, Flight Paths by Sarah Daegling
36. Black and White and in Color by Walter Murch
Carnival of Convergences No. 5
Lee Friedlander's Visionary Trees: An Addendum to the Last Chapters of Everything That Rises by Lawrence Weschler
37. Shipwrecked Desperation by Charles Mudede via Matt Haber
38. Life Forms by Ariel Winter
Cameras, Action! From Disney World to St. Peter's Square, the Mediative Flight From the Immediate by Lawrence Weschler
Carnival of Convergences No. 6
Convergent Postscripts by Lawrence Weschler
From Da Vinci to Duchamp, by Way of Russia by Lawrence Weschler
Venus on a Vespa, Berger on My Mind by Lawrence Weschler
MORE ABOUT EVERYTHING THAT RISES
Red dot denotes content that is new today.
Black dot denotes newish content.