Nightfall's Den

Like. I’ve always sorta understood that things grow moldy or stale or sour or such if left out, but I never really internalized it in a meaningful way.

But now I’m just like.

Yeah. The hungering dust. There exists omnivorous dust in the air that will eat my food if I don’t.

Those bagels have been sitting there for a week. Are we going to eat them soon or are we leaving them for the hungering dust?

Pizza’s been sitting out on the counter for an hour. Everyone’s enjoying the pizza, but if we don’t want “everyone” to include the hungering dust then we should probably put it away soon.

That’s just. That’s how food works to me now. There exists an invisible predator in the air that hungers for your yummies, and it will not hesitate to eat your food if you don’t make the effort to protect and preserve it. And eat what can’t be preserved before the dust can.

An old, decrepit laundromat gets replaced by an upscale bakery? And people are mad? It’s not that the poor hate organic vegan cupcakes, it’s that most of us don’t have a way to do laundry in our own home.

Run-down corner stores replaced by hand-made designer clothing boutiques? We don’t hate your eco-fabric shawl, but I can’t eat that for dinner after work like I could have a can of beans I grabbed from that corner store when I don’t have time to take the bus to the real grocery store after work.

What gentrification brings in and of itself is not typically bad, it’s that gentrification brings institutions of leisure and pleasure and makes it so that the poor have to go farther out of their way for basic necessities. It turns low-income living spaces into local tourist attractions. It can even create food deserts by putting restaurants, grocery stores, etc. in that the majority of the lower class cannot afford.

i used to work at a Local Organic Produce store that's popular with the lefties in my city who are interested in food justice. i quit for a lot of reasons, mostly the boss, but something i will always remember is one of our suppliers coming in to drop off produce, being told her check wasn't ready, and her laughing and responding it didn't matter -- even a low bank account was more than enough to pay the migrants who picked her produce. i am not filling in any blanks here. she said this.

after quitting, this was a common story i told people about my time there. some then became annoyed at me, acting like i was a wokescold trying to undermine the store's "eco" mission with unrelated "ethical" concerns. but, like -- if food justice isn't for the people making food, who the fuck is it for?

In 1982, conceptual artist Agnes Denes planted and harvested a two-acre field of wheat on a rubble-strewn landfill in Lower Manhattan, located just a few blocks from Wall Street and the World Trade Center, for her incredible project Wheatfield – A Confrontation.

The work was commissioned by the Public Art Fund and took four months to complete. Denes and her team meticulously prepared the infertile landfill, bringing in soil, digging 285 furrows by hand, and planting the seeds. For months, they tended to the field, maintaining an irrigation system, weeding, and fertilizing. The effort culminated in a successful harvest, yielding over 1,000 pounds of golden wheat.

The point of PJ Boromir’s design is that he dresses more like a king than Aragorn does….. (in the same way that  PJ Boromir initially also *acts* more like the  king of Gondor than Aragorn does, staying in Minas Tirith to lead/defend his people while Aragorn is afraid to accept the responsibility of doing that.)

Boromir dresses in vibrant royal red and blue, Aragorn dresses in muddy brown. Boromir’s clothing is Regal and has all the royal symbols of Gondor intricately woven into the fabric, but Aragorn’s Ranger clothing looks like muddy garbage he dug out of the dumpster behind the Prancing Pony.

(”all that is gold does not glitter” indeed)

Like, THE LEVEL OF DETAIL in PJ Boromir’s outfit is so great. There’s subtle White tree/flower/leaf imagery everywhere…..

I love the white tree symbols on his bracers …the golden falling leaf/floral patterns on his sleeves…the intricate leaf-inspired clasps on the tunic…there are even subtle floral patterns on the belt!  Like?? Boromir’s got style!!!!!

After Boromir’s death, Aragorn takes up Boromir’s White Tree bracers.

And when he becomes King, he dresses in the same royal red and blue that Boromir used to wear, and has the symbols of Gondor (the White tree, leaves, stars, wings, etc) integrated into his clothing the way Boromir did.

Idk I just really love how, as Aragorn becomes more Kingly, he starts to dress more like a man of Gondor…….more like the way Boromir used to dress. 

Aragorn, a.k.a. that Lost King, was raised an orphan in secret by people who knew his mere existence meant he had powerful enemies. They called him Estel, literally hope, but didn’t tell him who he was until he was something like 20 years old (when his future father-in-law handed him a broken sword, a ridiculously long and dubious family tree, and his daughter’s hand in marriage but only if you get a real job, good luck). A Lost King to a Lost People, he spent most of his life prior to the events of The Lord of the Rings maintaining the secret of his identity and wandering, learning, listening for the time when The Return of the King was called for. It’s no coincidence this comes about as he helps someone as unlikely and seemingly insignificant as Frodo do something as important and staggering as save the world, because that’s what a good and humble king would do. In fact I think it is Frodo (in the book) who first catches a glimmer of something beyond Aragorn’s grim outward appearance, while everyone else is still hung up on his general unseemliness. (You can bet I want to whip out Isaiah 53 for the parallels right about now.)

But even Boromir, though understandably skeptical at first, recognizes Aragorn for what he truly is before the end—someone who can succeed where Boromir has failed. (“I do not know what strength is in my blood, but I swear to you I will not let the White City fall, nor our people fail.”) That’s right: Boromir, who carried the burden of “it is long since we had any hope” on his shoulders his entire, haunted life, died knowing his king was coming home.

tl:dr The bracers were a nice touch.

The true most ordinary object is beautiful, horrible sounding, very smelly, intangible, and delicious.

i think the second one works well for our hypothetical object. so we can use that.

therefore, the Default Object is:

beautiful

makes a horrendous sound

smells absolutely awful

is very fragile

tastes delicious

No one is having a good time.

The OTHER project was going to destroy rare salamander habitat and so we had to buy some appropriate habitat. But every mitigation bank was sold out. I found a guy selling future mitigation bank credits through the powers of making a lot of phone calls and then, through the power of polite requests, got our Wildlife Agency rep to sign off on this plan. Except. You can’t say “I gave seven figures to a guy who promises to someday make habitat”, that guy could abscond. You also can’t be like “I supes promise to pay for mitigation AFTER the project.” because WE could not pay out. We were, for various reasons, disinclined to delay the project. The Wildlife Agency rep — bless her, she really held my hand through this whole process — was like “how about you put the money in escrow?” Great. A plan.

So I call an escrow company — which was not an organization used to being cold-called, much less by someone standing next to an excavator, covered in mud. I was trying to provide only the information needed to enable success and NOT go on a five-ten minute rant on salamander life cycles. Also I was DEEPLY out of my depth.

“Hi! I was wondering if you could hold money in an escrow account for a longer period?”

“… Well, in some circumstances we can hold it for up to 90 days — but we’d need to know the circumstances.”

“Ah! I need someone to hold it for up to two years? Do you know of any companies who’d be able to help me?”

“What. What is happening with the house that this is necessary?”

“Oh uh. It’s not a house, per se, it’s a rare salamander mitigation bank. It needs to be built.”

“The salamanders need a custom house?”

“No no no no no uh. They need a pond. We’re paying someone to make a pond. But! They need time to make the pond. Hence the escrow account. So. Who could?”

“So like a lizard house?”

“They are amphibians?”

“Let me. Transfer you to my supervisor.”

<after a pause a different person comes on the line but also unfortunately at this moment the excavator operator fishes a turtle out of the ditch.>

“Hi! Sorry one second I need to put down the phone to help a turtle.” <interlude> “Thank you so much for waiting! I’m back! Can you talk to me about escrow options?”

“What was happening with the turtle?”

“Oh it was trapped in some cattails but I got it out. Sorry for putting down the phone — you need both hands to grab them because they bite! I need an escrow account to hold funds for up to two years?”

“For a house for lizards? Are you a zoo?”

“Ah! Salamanders, actually! And a mitigation bank, not a house. I actually work for X organization.”

“What is a mitigation bank?” (The critical question!)

“Oh when you’re building something and need to impact some rare species habitat you can pay someone to make new rare species habitat.”

“Huh.”

“But this habitat is incomplete! It doesn’t have a pond. So my organization won’t pay until AAAAAAAAA excuse me sorry I fell into a ditch. My organization needs there to be a pond there before they pay for the property. So one path forward is an escrow account.”

“Are you OK?”

“Yes absolutely!”

“What’s the cost of this bank?”

“Two million dollars.”

<the tenor of the conversation became markedly warmer at this point.>

“OK if you get my your contact information then I’ll email you some options and then we can discuss — do you have time now?”

“Unfortunately I do not have email access right this second. Also I need to get out of the ditch. Could we put a pin in this conversation and circle back tomorrow?”

“Of course, I look forward to working with your organization?”

“Thank you so much!”

“Good luck with the. Ditch. And turtles?”