Ish & Hammer
Ish & Hammer
Ish is a man, man, mankind, humankind, alone, frightened and lonely protagonist, adam the earthling in Earth Abides (George R. Stewart, 1949), a post-apocalyptic novel about Us after a sudden and mysterious global illness in a few days eradicates populations and civilizations around the world leaving only isolation, puzzlement, and memories. Survivors, lone individuals, gradually come across others and, over time, form a little band, probably there are more than just our One, pockets of people that, for all the reasons we are created tribal, have the will and potential to survive as a race.
In time dynamos at Hoover Dam and elsewhere stop for lack of maintenance and all lights dim and die forever. Gasoline cannot be pumped, making cars worthless useless. Decay sets in. Bridges crumble, furthering isolation from any other individuals or tribes that may be out there. But, pioneers, we are survivors. Maybe there will be something, but it will not be Again or Resume, it will be Totally Other, hunters, gatherers, improvisors, inventors. We begin as the man Ish with a Hammer that is tool and symbol, and with the Will, drive and determination that are our basic instinct to survive, start over, Be, and slowly become. Become not what we were, but whatever evolves.
There is, I have a sense of Stewart's story of Beginning as I ridiculously sit here in a tiny room sans chair, on the floor munching a biscuit and sipping civilization’s reductio-ad-absurdum: from the electric refrigerator that symbolizes that the dynamos are still generating so there might possibly be something out there beyond me, a cup of ice cold coffee from Starbucks.
A onetime car nut, all I need to make a pathetic civilization once and for all finally and truly left behind, is to stretch out half asleep on the front seat of my thirteen year old Cadillac station wagon, the gauge showing one-eighth tank of gasoline, not enough to get to a filling station that still has gas, or if I get there not enough to wait out the long line, my beloved V8 engine running to operate for my decadent comfort, the car air conditioning, and, no internet connection, type an essay on the screen of a laptop computer that has 18% of battery left and no way to be recharged.
From the book of Proverbs, the picture of Folly herself. Himself.
Close enough, I’m sitting post-Hurricane, on the carpeted floor of a Gulf-front motel room that has no chair, legs crossed and going to sleep for lack of circulation, rendering me unable to rise and go offer my sacrifice to Father Nature. At the end of the story they’ll find my remains here on a puddled carpet while in the predawn darkness outside the motel room window, police car, ambulance and firetruck speed by, lights flashing in the blackness, but sirens silent so as not to wake the dead.
I am my own and only enemy.
My plan for this morning, God willing unless God is resting (is this Sabbath or simply Hurrication?), is to make my way from PCB in the traffic that by the time I leave will be bumper to bumper and inch by inch, suffer the maddening two hour drive into StAndrews to salvage from 7H, a few things precious to me that are not yet mildewed: art, not the gardenia silverware. By the time I get there I will be too exhausted to remember why I bothered.
This isn’t depression, discouragement, or PTSD, it’s simply A Notation of the Absurd. Clinging to a few earthly things. Seemingly alone, while in truth, outside my own little window and on beyond Bay County, the world goes on as usual, Incomprehensible Stupidity and All, as my WOW! account continues to be billed for television, internet and telephone service to Malinda’s demolished house.
All the world has gone mad, but only in my mind.
T
Ish is a man, man, mankind, humankind, alone, frightened and lonely protagonist, adam the earthling in Earth Abides (George R. Stewart, 1949), a post-apocalyptic novel about Us after a sudden and mysterious global illness in a few days eradicates populations and civilizations around the world leaving only isolation, puzzlement, and memories. Survivors, lone individuals, gradually come across others and, over time, form a little band, probably there are more than just our One, pockets of people that, for all the reasons we are created tribal, have the will and potential to survive as a race.
In time dynamos at Hoover Dam and elsewhere stop for lack of maintenance and all lights dim and die forever. Gasoline cannot be pumped, making cars worthless useless. Decay sets in. Bridges crumble, furthering isolation from any other individuals or tribes that may be out there. But, pioneers, we are survivors. Maybe there will be something, but it will not be Again or Resume, it will be Totally Other, hunters, gatherers, improvisors, inventors. We begin as the man Ish with a Hammer that is tool and symbol, and with the Will, drive and determination that are our basic instinct to survive, start over, Be, and slowly become. Become not what we were, but whatever evolves.
There is, I have a sense of Stewart's story of Beginning as I ridiculously sit here in a tiny room sans chair, on the floor munching a biscuit and sipping civilization’s reductio-ad-absurdum: from the electric refrigerator that symbolizes that the dynamos are still generating so there might possibly be something out there beyond me, a cup of ice cold coffee from Starbucks.
A onetime car nut, all I need to make a pathetic civilization once and for all finally and truly left behind, is to stretch out half asleep on the front seat of my thirteen year old Cadillac station wagon, the gauge showing one-eighth tank of gasoline, not enough to get to a filling station that still has gas, or if I get there not enough to wait out the long line, my beloved V8 engine running to operate for my decadent comfort, the car air conditioning, and, no internet connection, type an essay on the screen of a laptop computer that has 18% of battery left and no way to be recharged.
From the book of Proverbs, the picture of Folly herself. Himself.
Close enough, I’m sitting post-Hurricane, on the carpeted floor of a Gulf-front motel room that has no chair, legs crossed and going to sleep for lack of circulation, rendering me unable to rise and go offer my sacrifice to Father Nature. At the end of the story they’ll find my remains here on a puddled carpet while in the predawn darkness outside the motel room window, police car, ambulance and firetruck speed by, lights flashing in the blackness, but sirens silent so as not to wake the dead.
I am my own and only enemy.
My plan for this morning, God willing unless God is resting (is this Sabbath or simply Hurrication?), is to make my way from PCB in the traffic that by the time I leave will be bumper to bumper and inch by inch, suffer the maddening two hour drive into StAndrews to salvage from 7H, a few things precious to me that are not yet mildewed: art, not the gardenia silverware. By the time I get there I will be too exhausted to remember why I bothered.
This isn’t depression, discouragement, or PTSD, it’s simply A Notation of the Absurd. Clinging to a few earthly things. Seemingly alone, while in truth, outside my own little window and on beyond Bay County, the world goes on as usual, Incomprehensible Stupidity and All, as my WOW! account continues to be billed for television, internet and telephone service to Malinda’s demolished house.
All the world has gone mad, but only in my mind.
T