BUILT-IN, SHOCKPROOF SHIT-DETECTION
Last Christmas, former reporter Charlie Pike gave me a book by his favorite author, George Saunders. The book, titled, “A Swim in a Pond in the Rain,” featured Saunders analysis of select short stories by 19th century Russian authors.
I know. Sounds horrible.
But I had to at least start the book, right? It was a gift.
The book was an offshoot of a Russian literature class Saunders has taught to MFA students at Syracuse University for the past twenty years.
And, of course, Saunders won me over, because in reading the book, it was the equivalent of getting to audit his class. And if you’ve got a great professor, the subject matter is almost irrelevant. Their passion and knowledge is all that’s needed to carry the day.
*This is why both my daughters have studied violin with Rebecca Hang of the Felici Trio. Great professor.
Back to Saunders. In the book, he dissects stories by Turgenev, Gogol, Chekhov and Tolstoy, page by page, line by line. And in one of his professorial asides, he writes:
“A story is a series of incremental pulses, each of which does something to us. Each puts us in a new place, relative to where we just were. Criticism is not some inscrutable, mysterious process. It’s just a matter of ourselves (1) noticing ourselves responding to a work of art, moment by moment, and (2) getting better at articulating that response.
What I stress to my students is how empowering this process is. The world is full of people with agendas, trying to persuade us to act on their behalf, fight and die on their behalf, oppress others on their behalf. But inside us is what Hemingway called a ‘built in, shockproof, shit detector’. How do we know something is shit? We watch the way the deep, honest part of our mind reacts to it.
And that part of the mind is the one that reading and writing refine into sharpness.”
This is a roundabout way (and as I get older, I get more roundabout) of getting to what I want to talk about, which is a luncheon I had with Bob Marks on Tuesday at the Tiger Bar in June Lake.
Marks is a Professor Emeritus in History and Environmental Studies from Whittier College. His specialty: Chinese Environmental History. In fact, he was feted this spring at Harvard University for being one of the foremost pioneers in his primary field of academic study.
This Saturday morning (October 28), Marks will lecture at the Eastern Sierra History Conference, taking place at Bishop’s Cerro Coso campus. Topic: “I Do Hereby Locate and Claim All The Water”: A History of Hydroelectric Systems in the Mono Basin.”
On Tuesday, as Marks spun his tale about China’s environmental history, and then discussed the parallels that exist between China’s history and the Mono Basin’s, I sat in thrall. A fantastic story and storyteller, and it only cost me a pint of beer.
Marks’s seminal 1997 book “Tigers, Rice, Silk and Silt” is still in print.
His story begins in the early 1980s when he’s over in China doing primary research. And it’s a story of questions begetting questions.
An expansion of the Chinese state and its “Agricultural-Industrial complex” is a study of the expansion of land in production and rice yields.
Putting more land into production required deforestation, which led to a decline in Tiger habitat, which Marks surmised led to … a subsequent rise in the number of Tiger attacks on local villages.
It was Marks thinking about impacts and trends which led him to ask for/gain access to seemingly innocuous datasets. One can almost imagine the conversations within the Chinese politburo. Hmm. Why does the American professor want to know about tiger attacks? No matter. A harmless request.
Ultimately, says Marks, the expansion of the Chinese Agricultural-Industrial complex not only consumed land, but it literally consumed the indigenous peoples who stood in its way, who could be separated into those who fought and died or those who capitulated and assimilated.
The story of the Mono Basin, explained Marks, is really the story of a philosophical struggle between two men.
On the one hand, there was a man named W.D. McPherson who was a Jeffersonian democrat. McPherson believed the highest, best use of the Basin water was for irrigation. His vision: A community of small farmers.
But McPherson didn’t have the water rights. They belonged to a man named J.S. Cain, who owned a Bodie Mine as well as a Bodie-based bank.
Cain wanted to develop hydroelectric power to save money and increase the efficiency of his mining operations. His vision: Industrial exploitation.
That struggle largely played out by 1925. As there’s not a whole lot of farming going on in the Mono Basin, we know who ultimately had the upper hand.
The Eastern Sierra History Conference is taking place between October 27-29. For information/complete schedule, visit www.sierraforever.org.
A final note: I attended the final Tri-Valley Groundwater Management District board meeting on Wednesday evening.
Short meeting. Nothing of substance discussed. Everyone awaiting the outcome of the Moss v. Milliron race that will determine which faction (Agricultural or Residential) will control the board, which is currently deadlocked 3-3 with a seat vacant.
The Ag community is worried about any potential curbs to its ability to pump groundwater for irrigation. Area residents worry about aquifer drawdowns which might impact the viability of their wells.
You’d think the residential-user bloc would have the edge because they significantly outnumber the big ag users.
But Curtis Milliron (the residential-user candidate) is a former Fish-and-Game biologist so his connection to government is akin to wearing a scarlet letter in Trump country.
But something funny happened on the way to the final gavel on Wednesday.
Board Chair Carol Ann Mitchell stepped down from her role as Chair (though not from the board).
She said the ranchers had been trying to bully and intimidate the women of this district.
She cited a public records request for board emails as an attempt to try and “get” Mitchell.
She was also disheartened by another board member’s decision to walk out of a SGMA (Sustainable Groundwater Management Act) presentation at a previous meeting.
Her take: A sense of general harassment by folks who are anti-education and anti-data.
After her speech, the meeting ended quietly – everyone pretending as if, in the interest of fractured community, nothing had happened.
Election day is November 8.
