I actually didn't walk Anya at all today; Ingrid took her to doggie day care, which she loves, at 9 this morning, and we picked her up at 7 this evening, and in the meantime we went out and did a bunch of fun things, pretty much all indoors. Well, all except Daniel's dance rehearsal, getting ready for a performance at Matthews Park in the Seward neighborhood in a couple weeks, outdoors in the middle of winter.
People have been making art in the winter outdoors for a long time; when snow is a novelty, we make snowmen and forts and snow sculpture. In the show of Japanese woodblock prints I saw this afternoon, there are pictures of tourists coming out to enjoy the snowy views in scenic spots near Edo or Kyoto, 200 years ago.
These days, Minnesota has Art Shanties (icehouses out on lakes with art), art-sled races, ice luminaries. We've had ice palaces, and there's ice sculpture... all to encourage us not to do what is so tempting when it actually does turn bone-chilling: stay huddled indoors.
And this really points to a change we've gone through over the last few centuries: By and large, people aren't really afraid of winter in the cities. Our fear is either immediate (of crashing into that snowplow with the patch of glare ice), or rooted in an old sense of danger, akin to the fear of wolves in the forest that was entirely legitimate 1000 years ago, but hasn't been an issue for centuries now... and yet, there it is embedded in our fairy tales, and unlikely to disappear anytime soon.
I'm struck by the shift in weather reports quoted in Snow in the Cities, which I'm reading now. Colonial-era narratives spend a lot of time equating bad weather with God's wrath, calling on repentence in the face of blizzards (though it turns out "blizzard" was a new word as of about 1880... who knew?). By the nineteenth century, though, weather was a natural menace, and a scientific approach was more widely accepted.
I want to know more about this balance between fear and enjoyment of inclement weather. I suspect it has as much to do with economics as anything. Ewan Macoll's song, "The Terror Time," about the part of late winter when food begins to run out, isn't about ancient times; it's about the traveling people of mid-20th century Scotland. Poor folk. And it will be true of anyone homeless today and without recourse: the cold brings misery and fear.
Saturday, January 7, 2012
Friday, January 6, 2012
Unnatural - January 6, 2012
Anya romped in what remains of the snow at the park near my son's school. There was a golden retriever there named Jake, whom we've met before. I also took Anya to the dog park in the early afternoon. It was unnaturally warm for January, yet again, and will be for some time to come.
Why unnatural? We use that word to mean "not normal," as if nature should conform itself to norms we decide upon. I mean, yes, humans have begun seriously pushing the global temperature up, and so we will have more above "average" temeratures in our winters. But the actual weather, the warm-this-week-and-snow-on-Wednesday stuff, is a process we cannot do much of anything about, except get out of its way. It is the ultimate "natural" phenomenon — it does what it does because... that is what weather does by its nature.
What we humans do, when we get our act together, is try and see patterns. We identify seasons—I'm organizing this writing around those seasons. We detect fronts traveling across the landscape and expect precipitation. We figure out what is "normal" and make our plans accordingly. For example, in Minnesota, we plan to learn to ski in January—it's a pretty safe bet that that will be a good month for learning to ski. We get out our warm clothes.
And then it's freakishly warm. How dare the weather break its pattern! we mutter, as if that isn't exactly what the weather does most of the time.
In winter, our bodies want to slide off into a long hibernatory mode. Maybe this is the root of Seasonal Affective Disorder... When its dark, we don't want to just turn the lights on and behave the same. Yet, here I am at 1 am, writing a blog.
We create normal, and then we want to enforce it back on ourselves. We get up and go to school at the same time by the clock, not by the sun. We try and keep our houses at the same temperature year-round. This desire for an even keel is perhaps why we keep trying to make ourselves an inside world—we like to be able to return to "normal" at will.
But maybe a reliance on normal blinds us to when the underlying "natural" has changed...
Why unnatural? We use that word to mean "not normal," as if nature should conform itself to norms we decide upon. I mean, yes, humans have begun seriously pushing the global temperature up, and so we will have more above "average" temeratures in our winters. But the actual weather, the warm-this-week-and-snow-on-Wednesday stuff, is a process we cannot do much of anything about, except get out of its way. It is the ultimate "natural" phenomenon — it does what it does because... that is what weather does by its nature.
What we humans do, when we get our act together, is try and see patterns. We identify seasons—I'm organizing this writing around those seasons. We detect fronts traveling across the landscape and expect precipitation. We figure out what is "normal" and make our plans accordingly. For example, in Minnesota, we plan to learn to ski in January—it's a pretty safe bet that that will be a good month for learning to ski. We get out our warm clothes.
And then it's freakishly warm. How dare the weather break its pattern! we mutter, as if that isn't exactly what the weather does most of the time.
In winter, our bodies want to slide off into a long hibernatory mode. Maybe this is the root of Seasonal Affective Disorder... When its dark, we don't want to just turn the lights on and behave the same. Yet, here I am at 1 am, writing a blog.
We create normal, and then we want to enforce it back on ourselves. We get up and go to school at the same time by the clock, not by the sun. We try and keep our houses at the same temperature year-round. This desire for an even keel is perhaps why we keep trying to make ourselves an inside world—we like to be able to return to "normal" at will.
But maybe a reliance on normal blinds us to when the underlying "natural" has changed...
Thursday, January 5, 2012
Outhouses - January 5, 2012
It was no more than an hour and a half after I put down the computer and went to sleep. To be precise, it was 2:12 in the morning, according the alarm clock. And Anya needed to go out. Boy did she need to go out. It was an explosive event. Three rounds of ever-increasing liquidity.
Happily, whatever it was, it was over after one episode. I ended up walking Anya twice and taking her to the dog park, and it was a pleasant, high-30's kind of day: some sun, mostly hazy clouds. Perfectly pleasant to hang out at the park for half an hour.
It's not that long ago that most folks would have had to do what Anya did: go outside, even in the dead of winter, to relieve themselves. Outhouses were the norm in the USA until World War I. My dad grew up with one. My mom grew up in New York. For a time, they became a symbol of divides between city slickers and country hicks, or between posh and poverty. Now? they're a mildly-off-color source of humor. Unless you live with one.
I was involved about 15 years ago with renovations at the old Eclipse Grange in Thetford, Vermont, now the home of the Parish Players theater company. It had two attached pit toilets, and boy were opinions divided when it came time to decide what to do with them. For some, they were the symbol of all that was real and earthy about the theater out in the country. For others, they stank even with liberal applications of lime. And in midwinter, the draft went right up... well, it was uncomfortable.
I think they ended up with composting toilets. Or maybe they hooked up with the limited septic system available to them behind the theater. I don't remember.
So indoor plumbing was one of the last pieces of our Great Indoors to fall into place, most of all because we really don't want the smell of feces in our house. Heck, we don't even want it in our trash... I make a point of putting the bags of poop Anya deposits in the park trash barrel instead of our covered trashcan. Whether it's through the technology of diaper pails, the tight seal and ventilation that keeps sewer gases from rising back into our toilets, or all the various chemicals and additives people put into their toilet (whether that toilet is pit or flush), we are willing to put out a lot of effort, and to take ourselves out back if necessary, to not live with the stench.
Happily, whatever it was, it was over after one episode. I ended up walking Anya twice and taking her to the dog park, and it was a pleasant, high-30's kind of day: some sun, mostly hazy clouds. Perfectly pleasant to hang out at the park for half an hour.
It's not that long ago that most folks would have had to do what Anya did: go outside, even in the dead of winter, to relieve themselves. Outhouses were the norm in the USA until World War I. My dad grew up with one. My mom grew up in New York. For a time, they became a symbol of divides between city slickers and country hicks, or between posh and poverty. Now? they're a mildly-off-color source of humor. Unless you live with one.
I was involved about 15 years ago with renovations at the old Eclipse Grange in Thetford, Vermont, now the home of the Parish Players theater company. It had two attached pit toilets, and boy were opinions divided when it came time to decide what to do with them. For some, they were the symbol of all that was real and earthy about the theater out in the country. For others, they stank even with liberal applications of lime. And in midwinter, the draft went right up... well, it was uncomfortable.
I think they ended up with composting toilets. Or maybe they hooked up with the limited septic system available to them behind the theater. I don't remember.
So indoor plumbing was one of the last pieces of our Great Indoors to fall into place, most of all because we really don't want the smell of feces in our house. Heck, we don't even want it in our trash... I make a point of putting the bags of poop Anya deposits in the park trash barrel instead of our covered trashcan. Whether it's through the technology of diaper pails, the tight seal and ventilation that keeps sewer gases from rising back into our toilets, or all the various chemicals and additives people put into their toilet (whether that toilet is pit or flush), we are willing to put out a lot of effort, and to take ourselves out back if necessary, to not live with the stench.
Wednesday, January 4, 2012
Animal logic - January 4, 2012
It was pleasant enough, a little warmer this morning. It got back above freezing late afternoon. I walked to work along Central Avenue, which his loud and not especially pleasant, but has the advantage in winter of being more regularly clceared of snow and ice. A lot of residential sidewalks on the side-streets way I like to go, are hazardous. Anya pulls hard when she wants to go somewhere, and I've almoat lost my balance a few times on icy streets and sidwalks trying to keep her under control.
Like the dog cares about any of this. Our animals, pet or livestock, respond to weather so as to maximize their comfort and increase the likelihood of their survival. That's it. If they're sociall animals and are bonded with another animal, they may try and help him or her. But climate change? It gets hotter, you deal. Or you die, depending on how well youu deal. Weather is what there is, and you deal with it in the here and now.
Is thisrally anadvatage for us humans who see cycles and patterns and try and planfor them? I some sense, of course, it means we can plan and strategize on a much longer time frame than any other animal. But it also means we can paralyze ourselves with the horrible scenarios we can imagine.
-----
People living in the cold north often used to sleep above their livesock. It was more fragrant, but it used the free heat the cows and horses and sheep and goats gave off. The livestock were happy of a warm shelter.
People talk about dogs evolving as companioins and guards, and about humans domesticating cattle as an easier way of getting protein than hunting. But what abut winter? Is it possible we domesticated aimals to keep us warm? Our cat thinks so. She also doesn't care, because she's asleep on my wife's foot.
Tuesday, January 3, 2012
Commuting - January 3, 2012
I didn't walk the dog today, or take her to the dog park. Ingrid took the whole shebang. I just did the kid logistics (mostly) and went to work.
I said when I started this project that walking the dog has made me really pay attention to the weather... but then so did walking to work. I live about 1.5 miles from the office, and walk there pretty often. Less often in the dead of winter, if I'm honest about it.
This used to be the way of it for almost everyone. Only the wealthiest could afford a coach and pair, and few could afford even to find a place for their horse to graze during the workday.
Our house, in fact, was built to house the railroad workers in the railyards behind us, who to a man walked to work every day. The whole row of houses down our street was built for railroad employees; the superintendent and his assistant have the nice houses a couple blocks down; ours were more utilitarian, a row of plain frame houses set close together.
The streetcar, which came this far north certainly changed a lot of the geography of work vs home—it also allowed the kind of physical separation of work areas we take for granted now. It's kind of a novelty these days to find a family living upstairs from a family business in an American city. Less so in the country, but even there, the old model of living in the house out back of the service station/diner/bar is fading. We are pretty thoroughly accustomed to commuting.
It's this kind of accustomizing I think may lie at the heart of what this project is about. We've become used to a life indoors, whether those doors open onto our house, our car, our work, or the stores where we do our shopping. Walking on a daily rounds, without any real alternative, is generally uncommon.
I snag rides home, and I drive to work as part of our calculus of getting things done—tt takes me half an hour to walk to work and 5 minutes to drive there. If I'm feeling pressured on time, that 25 minutes each way makes a difference.
But the time I spend walking is seldom wasted. It's a great place to sift thoughts and ideas, touch base with my neighborhood, and, as with dog-walking, remember I live in a world bigger than the walls I spend most of my time inside of.
I said when I started this project that walking the dog has made me really pay attention to the weather... but then so did walking to work. I live about 1.5 miles from the office, and walk there pretty often. Less often in the dead of winter, if I'm honest about it.
This used to be the way of it for almost everyone. Only the wealthiest could afford a coach and pair, and few could afford even to find a place for their horse to graze during the workday.
Our house, in fact, was built to house the railroad workers in the railyards behind us, who to a man walked to work every day. The whole row of houses down our street was built for railroad employees; the superintendent and his assistant have the nice houses a couple blocks down; ours were more utilitarian, a row of plain frame houses set close together.
The streetcar, which came this far north certainly changed a lot of the geography of work vs home—it also allowed the kind of physical separation of work areas we take for granted now. It's kind of a novelty these days to find a family living upstairs from a family business in an American city. Less so in the country, but even there, the old model of living in the house out back of the service station/diner/bar is fading. We are pretty thoroughly accustomed to commuting.
It's this kind of accustomizing I think may lie at the heart of what this project is about. We've become used to a life indoors, whether those doors open onto our house, our car, our work, or the stores where we do our shopping. Walking on a daily rounds, without any real alternative, is generally uncommon.
I snag rides home, and I drive to work as part of our calculus of getting things done—tt takes me half an hour to walk to work and 5 minutes to drive there. If I'm feeling pressured on time, that 25 minutes each way makes a difference.
But the time I spend walking is seldom wasted. It's a great place to sift thoughts and ideas, touch base with my neighborhood, and, as with dog-walking, remember I live in a world bigger than the walls I spend most of my time inside of.
Monday, January 2, 2012
Snowplows - January 2, 2012
It was coooold today. First time it's been really properly cold for a long while. It was 15°F this morning when I woke up, and 15°F at 3:30 when I left Sandstone MN to come back home after a day up there. The hound absolutely loved it: romping and bouncing and just ecstatic. It's a little sad we couldn't get her to the dogpark today, but we couldn't quite manage it.
The side streets are all sheets of ice. The snow that fell the night before last, fell on above-freezing surfaces, and was the leading edge of a cold front that froze all the resulting meltwater solid. It's treacherous out there. Even walking across the street with Anya I need to be careful she doesn't bounce be right onto my behind.
People haven't been clearing roads with snowplows forever. The National Snow and Ice Data Center wrote an interesting piece about plowing's history in the US in 1997: The first snowplow patent was 1840, and for a long time the main function of snow plows was to smooth lanes for sleighs, or clear the way for trolleys.
It wasn't until the 1920's and the growing dominance of the automobile that cities began to seriously salt and plow streets. But once they started, that quickly became the norm. In Katy and the Big Snow, for example—written and illustrated by Virginia Lee Burton in 1943 and based on the Gloucester, MA snowplows—the semi-personified plow feels like an old friend, though it was probably not much more than a decade old when the book was published. (There's a video of the book's illustrations with an original score here)
Now? Now we just assume everything will get plowed out, after all but the most trivial snows, and quickly after all but the most monstrous blizzards.
I am fascinated by what I've heard anecdotally about Houghton, Michigan, home to Michigan Tech. I understand a lot of people snowmobile into work in the winter, enough so they have a dedicated snowmobile lot. Do they do this in Murmansk, I wonder? Helsinki? What's the biggest city that just gives up and puts chains on everyone's wheels?
The side streets are all sheets of ice. The snow that fell the night before last, fell on above-freezing surfaces, and was the leading edge of a cold front that froze all the resulting meltwater solid. It's treacherous out there. Even walking across the street with Anya I need to be careful she doesn't bounce be right onto my behind.
People haven't been clearing roads with snowplows forever. The National Snow and Ice Data Center wrote an interesting piece about plowing's history in the US in 1997: The first snowplow patent was 1840, and for a long time the main function of snow plows was to smooth lanes for sleighs, or clear the way for trolleys.
It wasn't until the 1920's and the growing dominance of the automobile that cities began to seriously salt and plow streets. But once they started, that quickly became the norm. In Katy and the Big Snow, for example—written and illustrated by Virginia Lee Burton in 1943 and based on the Gloucester, MA snowplows—the semi-personified plow feels like an old friend, though it was probably not much more than a decade old when the book was published. (There's a video of the book's illustrations with an original score here)
Now? Now we just assume everything will get plowed out, after all but the most trivial snows, and quickly after all but the most monstrous blizzards.
I am fascinated by what I've heard anecdotally about Houghton, Michigan, home to Michigan Tech. I understand a lot of people snowmobile into work in the winter, enough so they have a dedicated snowmobile lot. Do they do this in Murmansk, I wonder? Helsinki? What's the biggest city that just gives up and puts chains on everyone's wheels?
Sunday, January 1, 2012
Drafty castles - January 1, 2012
It was cold today: down in the 20°s with a fierce wind from the north. Anya and I snuck out for a walk this morning, and then we went over to the dog park. Both times, she ran around like a maniac. Clearly this is her weather...
It really was the wind that made it miserable today. At the dog park, standing in the lee of anything was tolerable, but walking west-northwest was downright painful. It really showed how much of a component wind is when we're thinking about the experience of cold.
When we bought this house in 2001, it was uninsulated. After a couple winters, we had new windows put in (just the inside portion, not the storm windows) and blew cellulose insulation into the walls. Even more than the general improvement of warmth, we noticed the sudden lack of a draft in the room when the wind blew outside in winter.
It's a cliché (but one based on truth) that old stone houses in Europe, especially stone castles, are "cold and drafty," which is partly why tapestries were such an essential part of premodern castle life. But those drafts were also necessary given that the heating was entirely through burnt wood and peat—not in a single remote furnace like we use now, but in a fireplace in each room that needed heat (and imagine life before the fireplace and chimney became common in the sixteenth century).
So that legendary draftiness, which some of it may have been a byproduct of the construction materials, was also part of the design. When we had our new gas boiler put in a few years ago, we had to install an external vent... which now makes the basement significantly colder than it used to be.
The whole way we act and dress indoors changes when we can be snug and cozy. Draftiness affects basic health. Forget what your great-uncle said about being tough and just wearing more sweaters; a recent study shows residents of uninsulated houses missed work and school twice as much as residents of similar houses that were retrofitted with basic insulation, and had lower rates of respiratory conditions.
Why did it take so long, then, for insulation to become commonplace?
It really was the wind that made it miserable today. At the dog park, standing in the lee of anything was tolerable, but walking west-northwest was downright painful. It really showed how much of a component wind is when we're thinking about the experience of cold.
When we bought this house in 2001, it was uninsulated. After a couple winters, we had new windows put in (just the inside portion, not the storm windows) and blew cellulose insulation into the walls. Even more than the general improvement of warmth, we noticed the sudden lack of a draft in the room when the wind blew outside in winter.
It's a cliché (but one based on truth) that old stone houses in Europe, especially stone castles, are "cold and drafty," which is partly why tapestries were such an essential part of premodern castle life. But those drafts were also necessary given that the heating was entirely through burnt wood and peat—not in a single remote furnace like we use now, but in a fireplace in each room that needed heat (and imagine life before the fireplace and chimney became common in the sixteenth century).
So that legendary draftiness, which some of it may have been a byproduct of the construction materials, was also part of the design. When we had our new gas boiler put in a few years ago, we had to install an external vent... which now makes the basement significantly colder than it used to be.
The whole way we act and dress indoors changes when we can be snug and cozy. Draftiness affects basic health. Forget what your great-uncle said about being tough and just wearing more sweaters; a recent study shows residents of uninsulated houses missed work and school twice as much as residents of similar houses that were retrofitted with basic insulation, and had lower rates of respiratory conditions.
Why did it take so long, then, for insulation to become commonplace?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)