Three Slugs on a Cabbage • sometime between 1887 and 1924

wood engraving on paper • 242mm h × 235mm w • Julie de Graag

In This Issue: The landscape is filled with stories. I'm aching to hear them. Part 2 of a series on shifting our culture toward ecological ways of being in the world, by Brad Kik.

But first, what would you like to see in a rural innovation lab / maker space / education space / community hub? We really really want to know. It won’t take long— tell us here.

Toward the 10,000 Stories: A Manifesto

“The landscape is filled with stories. I’m aching to hear them.” Part 2 of a series on shifting our culture toward ecological ways of being in the world.

You don’t need to read part 1 to make sense of this, but if you prefer to go in order, start here.

The landscape is filled with stories. I’m aching to hear them.

I mean this in two ways: first, that any resilient and long-standing culture (in my home place, that includes the Odawa and Ojibwe) creates a landscape of stories, in the form of poems, jokes, songs, gossip, dance, theater, rumors, and rituals of all kinds: sacred, profane, and mundane. This accumulation of stories offer instruction for living in right-relationship with that place, as well as a sense of belonging deeper than a settler culture like mine could ever know.

More importantly, I also mean that the landscape is filled with people — non-human people, our more distant cousins, ravens and porcupines and morel mushrooms and white pines, not to mention the landscape writ large, the genius loci of a given place. These creatures and spirits have stories to tell, if we will learn to hear them. In learning to hear, we may find ourselves revisiting ageless conversations. Just as Kahlil Gibran wrote in The Prophet, “forget not that the earth delights to feel your bare feet and the winds long to play with your hair,” Gary Snyder might offer that the landscape and its inhabitants love us two-leggeds for our stories, a gift of art wherein “the place is offered to itself” in all of its complexity.

There are ten thousand ways to live in the world, each with its own economy and culture, its own spirit, its own poetry, mythology, and unique way of being. Let us not presume that we’ve already found the best one, nor that there is only one to be found. There are some truly desirable, well-drawn ideas out there — ways to restore the raucous chorus of wild places, to feed our communities while regenerating the land, and to move away from economies that exploit and dehumanize, toward cultures of reciprocity and care. As for the idea that there is a “best” way, I’m agnostic. I don’t know what it is and I don’t think anyone else does either. Let’s grow multitudes, one by one, place by place. The particulars of each are beautiful, embedded in these ten thousand ways through ten thousand x ten thousand stories.

Read the full essay (2656 words, 11-minute read)

The Warp — Ideas and Inspiration

|| 1 || We had a great response to last issue’s call for Land Based Projects. If you are running or would like to run a program that meets the definition of a land-based-project, we’d love to hear from you. We’re currently building a state (of Michigan)-wide network of LBPs (and yeah, we really need a better name), with hopes of doing all the things networks do so well — sharing information, experience, and other kinds of emotional, logistical, political and material support, creating a group of people to talk shop with and reach out to with weirdly specific questions, and of course offering ways for convening, mentorship, land tours, and on and on. Start by filling out this form, and then share the essay and this link with others you know doing this work.

|| 2 || While Taylor is taking some time away from Crosshatch to enjoy the new addition to his family, this is a great chance for me (Brad) to polish and publish some writing. Your thoughtful feedback is welcome. This issue’s essay is a little weirder and more philosophical than I usually write, but these are the kinds of topics that really excite me. I’d love to hear what you think.

|| 3 || Speaking of exciting weird philosophies, I finally saw Everything Everywhere All at Once. I loved it. Part of my enjoyment came from a way of making sense of it through the topic of Metamodernism. Here is a good article that both explains the concept and relates it to the movie. It contains spoilers.

If you haven’t seen the movie and are intrigued, here’s some background on metamodernism that might aid your enjoyment without spoiling the plot. By way of preface: lots of important philosophical nuance is about to get chucked out the window. This is just in service to understanding the significance of those googly eyes.

Modernism came along as a kind of utopian movement, both as a critique of traditional ways of understanding the world (traditional ways often came through religion or other strong cultural norms, such as those created by language groups and regions within nations) and as a way of reconsidering how to live in the world. It was hugely ambitious, created a lot of great art, cemented the idea of “progress” as we currently understand it, and also led to World War II. Modernism constructed meaning from first principles, with the idea that we humans could figure out a grand narrative to guide our lives.

Postmodernism came next, and for Gen X kids like me, this is the way we tend to understand the world. Postmodernism deconstructed both traditional and modernist ideas to show how full of holes they were—this is often called subversion. Postmodernism showed how ideas come with agendas, and are derived from power, rather than from a universal truth. This is a hugely valuable process, and like I said, basically the way the brains of Gen X and beyond are hardwired.

The thorny problem with postmodernism is that everything can be deconstructed, including postmodern deconstructions. Combine that with the huge rise in media consumption first with VCRs and cable and now with streaming, and our culture turns into an endlessly self-referential hall of mirrors with nothing behind it except the void. We killed the grand narrative, and now there’s nothing foundational left behind that can support our weight. We’re adrift.

(This is where Everything Everywhere All at Once largely takes place)

Metamodernism comes along and asserts that postmodernism is correct regarding the ways truth is constructed, but then proclaims that we will refuse to fall into the nihilistic void of ironic self-detachment. Metamodern art reconstructs, knowing all the while that whatever truths we’re building are sandcastles that will be washed away with the tide, but wanting the joy of playing in the sand anyway. I see a strong influence from existentialism in that willingness to stand up even if the foundations are gone.

Metamodernism doesn’t discard postmodernism. It still employs the analytical tools of deconstruction and subversion, but it does it with love and sincerity, and I’d say even a sense of gratitude. This approach enables it to reach back and invite ideas from postmodernism, modernism and traditional philosophies to all come hang out. Potluck!

There are lots of recent movies that play with this kind of warm-yet-critical approach to its source material. Barbie is certainly one, as is The Lego Movie. Once Upon a Time in Hollywood too—Tarantino is for the most part either self-consciously postmodern (Pulp Fiction) or self-consciously meta-modern. Here’s a longer list of metamodernish movies. Everything Everywhere All at Once is surprisingly absent from that list—it’s the most overtly metamodernist movie yet made.

|| 4 || All of the above actually points back to the essay that kicked this issue off. Though the essay doesn’t mention, much less advocate for, any of the above philosophies, it does refer to “the story of progress” and the eraser of stories, both of which implicate modernism and all that followed it.

That said, I recently encountered one metamodernist thinker who describes its ethos as “We have to learn to live coherently within plurality.”

And that’s where I might wonder, is that plurality actually situated on top of some things that are sturdy? In other words, what traditional frameworks might have survived the onslaught of modernism and the deconstructing pluralities of postmodernism, and might still be available to us as a way to aid our current quest for coherence? And might be useful, and resistant to the postmodern slap-chop vitamix?

This is a good time to note that there are plenty of living thinkers who didn’t go along for the ride with the modernists or postmodernists, and who are probably ignoring the metamodernists now too. The oft-mentioned Wendell Berry is one of them, and with him are a host of conservative thinkers at liberal arts colleges who argue that the Classical Western Tradition is still a very damn good way to organize your mind and your life, not to mention your bookshelf and your political system, thanks very much.

Likewise, one of the primary stories of indigenous people around the world is about how they continue to resist the modernist eraser, and work endlessly to retain and recover their stories and ways of being from before colonization hit. This gets complicated, because part of postmodernism is exposing the ways the modernist myth rendered indigenous perspectives invisible, and then reclaiming those perspectives… and then, often enough (as with Classical Western Tradition) realizing the need to contest those perspectives through a feminist deconstruction, or one of trauma and healing, or one of modern life, or through a queer lens, and each pass through the postmodern slap-chop vitamix runs the risk of dissolving it into a unbounded self-referential bagel of everything of meaninglessness.

If you’re still with me, the question, again, is “is there something sturdy underneath all this plurality, and if so, how do we find it and make sensible use of it?”

The answer to that is obviously yes. Whether it can be pulled from the depths without imploding is another question for another time. Maybe the next essay?

All of this is being written at 10 pm on Monday night, just before I hit “save and exit” on the email so it’ll send out in the morning before I wake up. Thanks for hanging in there with me. If this is profoundly interesting to you too, let’s grab coffee.

The Weft — News and Events

|| 1 || Northern Michigan Small Farm Conference tickets are on sale!

Just $25. Here’s all the info.

|| 2 || The Alluvion has a new back wall installed!

It feels like a whole new venue. We’re not quite out of “preview mode” but we’re close. Just waiting on Nobo Mrkt to open—they’re close—and for the MLCC to approve the alcohol license.

In the meantime, we’re open!

|| 3 || Music and Events at the Alluvion between now and the new moon:

Thursday, August 3 at 7 pm: Reading and Conversation with Jeremiah Chamberlin and Natalie Bakopoulos. Join Tusen Takk artist-in-residence Jeremiah Chamberlin and writer Natalie Bakopoulos for an evening of literary conversation hosted in collaboration with the National Writers Series. Both authors are former Fulbright scholars whose writing is interested in issues of identity, belonging, national borders, and culture.

Friday, August 5 at 8 pm: Distant Stars + Lipstick Jodi + visuals by Super Nuclear. Distant Stars: funky sexy strange rock n' roll; Lipstick Jodi: captivating two-piece indie synth-pop. The Alluvion is thrilled to feature both of these unique artists in one night. This will be an entertaining party of a show also featuring the incredible Super Nuclear providing live, hand made, psychedelic visuals all night to really send this show into outer space.

Wednesday, August 9 at 10:30 am: Mindful and Musical Kids Class w/ Miriam Pico. No description required (but here you go just in case) as this class sells out regularly. Buying tickets online is recommended but drop-ins are welcome until the room reaches capacity.

Friday, August 11 at 7 pm: Michael Hudson-Casanova. Originally from Detroit, Michael Hudson-Casanova is a rising saxophonist in Chicago's jazz and creative music scene. Jazztrail.net had all this to say: “well-versed compositional traits are on display in the spiritually vibrating Animus ... finds the saxophonist testifying with restrained fervor ... the improvisers have their chemistry on lock ... a churning vortex culled from contorted rock, jazz and electronica”

Tuesday, August 15 at 7:30 pm: High School Jazz Jam. A jam session led by Traverse City Central High School's Jazz Quartet. Everyone is welcome to come and play or listen, you don't need to be a student or a musician to join the fun. If you plan on playing, click through to get to the tune list and charts.

and of course, every Monday at 6 pm is Funky Fun Monday, featuring Funky Uncle on Monday the 7th and 21st, and Big Fun on Monday the 14th and 28th.

The Whole Field • Volume 2 • No. 15 • Full Moon • August 1, 2023