The latest edition of SHIFT Magazine is now online and available for download or purchase. It features a new interview with Noam Chomsky, and my latest short story, set long after Collapse, several millennia from now:
THEM, YOU, THEN, NOW, ALWAYS
“50 blackbirds nest in a tree, congregating and socializing raucously each evening, the babies squawking for food. Then someone cuts the tree down, and the birds scatter. Collapse. The tree-killer sells the wood and the empty nests for profit. The birds circle and regroup, and in a few hours find a new tree and start building new nests. Three days later, for the birds, it is exactly as it was before the fall. They understand community, and resilience.” – story taken from the writings of Orlov|Dmitry, c. 2014 Old Calendar
Cultural Anthropology Visit, 6462 New Calendar: Notes
The Tsilga people cannot tell you their story. At least, not in words.
Like many of the survivors of the Sixth Extinction, now thriving all these millennia after the Great Burning of the Earth, they have no need for words. They have gestures and sounds for the important concepts to communicate: danger, love, joy, anger, pleasure, grief. What more is needed? Their faces will express more to you than you can imagine, or ever hope to say. If you visit them, they will not tell you about themselves; instead, they will show you.
photo credits: left, photoshopped image from wallpaperstock.net; right, image of body painting by evgeniy freeone at freeone.ru
