A Convergence
of Convergences:
A Contest.
- - - -
For more information
about this contest,
click here.
- - - -
Contest Winner No. 6.
- - - -
The Antipodes.
By Chris Zic
- - - -
A map of the United Kingdom and a map of the Philippines. Print them out, superimpose them one on top of the other, and hold them up against the light. Consider their eastern shores, each of which follows the same general contour. Compare their northern regions—look at Scotland, look at Luzon—two heads hanging heavy over two tapered necks. Look at all the islands everywhere. These maps might as well be two maps of the same place; one's just been torn up into shreds by a frustrated apprentice cartographer who can't ever seem to match the perfection of his master.
Or they're before-and-after pictures marking the effect of some cataclysmic geological event, an event like the sundering of the earth's supercontinent, which led to the scattering of the seven modern continents. In Picture 1, we see Ireland speeding along its southeasterly trajectory toward Wales, which braces itself for the impact. In Picture 2, we see that impact has occurred, and the results are devastating. What used to be Wales is now shattered, decimated into so many fractured islands. Ireland, now rechristened "Malaysia," has rebounded off the fractured landmass and is now drifting southwest, out to sea.
Or think of it this way: How about we're in England right now? We're in England, and we're on vacation in some seaside resort town. "On holiday," as they supposedly say. We're by the shore and we've got our feet over the side, wading in the water. We look down into the water and we can see straight through, straight through the oceans of the earth, all the way to the other side. We look down at our Filipino Antipodes, who are looking back at us from below the ocean, all the way on the other side of the earth. They live lives like ours, in houses that are like our houses, and when half of the sun turns red in our nighttime sky the other half is turning red in their morning sky. Distorted through all that water, their country looks like a broken-up version of ours, a disjointed reflection in a broken mirror. And when the people in that broken England speak the language that we speak, they speak a broken English.
- - - -
Weschler Responds.
- - - -
I like this one a whole lot, even if it's not quite a perfect antipodal instance (the Phillipines being at 120 degrees east of Greenwich's 0 degrees, rather than the strictly requisite 180). Still, Mr. Zic (excellent antipodal name!) is clearly on to something
(or on something) (or something). I am reminded of Josiah Royce's excellent paradox in his 1899 The World and the Individual (1899 being, I feel sure Mr. Zic anyway would concur, not entirely coincidentally, the year of the launch of the Philippine-American War):
Let us imagine that a portion of the soil of England has been levelled off perfectly and that on it a cartographer traces a map of England. The job is perfect; there is no detail of the soil of England, no matter how minute, that is not registered on the map; everything has there its correspondence. This map in such a case, should contain a map of the map, which should contain a map of the map, and so on to infinity.
Mr. Zic is merely proposing that at the very center of the center of that infinite wormhole of a map, there is some sort of spyglass capable of boring clear through the center of the earth, albeit one that is slightly askew. Or something. Cool.
- - - -
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
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
MORE ABOUT EVERYTHING THAT RISES
Red dot denotes content that is new today.
Black dot denotes newish content.