RUDIMENTS, pt. 523
(sound categories)
'We've pretty much lost this
battle, Captain. Pesticides
have killed all the bugs,
the ones left die off, the
ones that get eaten have,
in turn, now poisoned the
things that eat them -
destroyed their systems
and their genetics, so
now we get frogs with
three legs that don't know
how to jump, mutant tings,
with extra parts or parts
in the wrong place. We
have dis-oriented bats
that fly backwards. It's
all gone stir-crazy now.
And Mankind's what's
done it - pesticides and
lawn sprays, towns and
parks spraying for bugs
and mosquitoes, it's a
mess.' The guy was a
biology lecturer at the
science room over by
NYU, near the Park,
and over by Sullivan
Street. I guessed he was
right but I didn't know.
A few things stood out:
It had just been Christmas,
and already there were
weird piles of discarded
Christmas trees along the
curb by Washington Square
Arch, and some Parks Dept.
people were spraying them.
And they cut off limbs and
branches and went around
with them covering the
bottoms of all the trees, the
smaller trees anyway, so
it was like a blanket of
fir-tree greenery at the
bottom of each tree. I
asked a parks guy what
was up with that, and he
said it was a cover, for
the Winter to come. Snows
and ice and all. He said
it was like an insulating
blanket to protect the park
trees. I said OK, but what
do you spray there? He
said, 'Pesticide. To keep
bugs from nesting or
hatching.'
-
So, I swallowed all that.
What else could I do; he
was a parks guy. I wasn't.
Then I got really pissed off.
One of my favorite trees is
the Dawn Cypress. The
campus at Princeton has
a bunch of them, tall and
they prosper. It's the only
tree, that I know of anyway,
that's a fir tree - but it loses
its leaves and goes brown
in the Winter, and looks
dead. It's unique; probably
an Asian tree. The other
thing about it is the branches,
unlike other trees, as they
grow, they grow real low,
even at the bottom of the
trunk you get new branches,
and if left there they get large,
just like big branches high up.
It's very unique and gives the
tree its singular charm. Dawn
Cypress; remember that name.
Well, over at the other side of
the park, there was this real
goofball park guy, singing
along to some music in his
earbuds, gleefully cutting
off the low, ground-area,
branches of the Dawn
Cypresses in the park
(Washington Square Park
has about 30). And then
he was applying something
with a brush to each of the
branch end stumps left on
the tree, where he'd just
cut. I went up to him, and
said, 'What are you doing?
That's the way the tree
grows, those lower branches
are important.' He said, 'Yes
but we cut them because they
catch the debris that flies
around - plastic bags and
stuff. It gets really sloppy
looking; so we're removing
the low branches of all the
trees.' I was near-to-furious
at this point and had to do
all I could to contain myself,
or keep from jumping this
jerk's ass. I said, 'OK, then
what are you painting on
each stump?' He replied,
'Pesticide, so nothing
bores in.'
-
So, I walked away. Just
shaking my head. On so
many levels everything
was so wrong : first off,
the Parks Dept employees
I'd been seeing were all
God-forsaken marginally
employable individuals.
They seemed me to be
just skimming along
on a city job worth a
bundle. No brains; no
taught involved. Perhaps
they were just the go-fers,
sent out to do things, and
the Management people
held all the brains. Though
from what I saw of that too
it made a lie of that thought.
It seemed like a toss-up
here between working for
the Post Office, or the City,
in this case the Parks Dept.
I said to myself, 'if that
lecturer guy only knew...'
One thing, again, that riled
me was whenever I heard
some New Yorker type
start going on about
Nature, and the means
of conservation and
preservation and all
that - like they were
living in the freaking
Adirondacks at a
mountain stream
somewhere, or forging
ahead through the clean
wilds of Vermont. New
York City is the most
anti-Nature place you
can think of, ever, and
all you get is bunches
of these missionary-position
Nature-freaks wailing
about their water. And
probably so they can make
eight-dollar lattes with it.
That always messed me up:
How was it the zeal for that
sort of stuff always comes
from wrong paces? You
talk to any regular New
York person, and all they
really care about, come right
down to it, is making money,
getting a deal, bringing in
the profit enough for the
rent. Yet, somehow, there's
always someone about
always listening in and
squalling away a means
of 'green' the concept of
whatever crud he or she
sells, so as to add two or
three dollars to it for its
purity-reasons. It's all a
crock, and as much a
one as was these parks
people screwing around,
unknowingly, with the
very 'Nature' they were
claiming to protect and
not muck up.
-
I turned myself out
of there pretty much
saddened and forlorn.
Hamlet, Macbeth,
whoever it was who
said 'Something stinks
in Denmark,' they about
had it right. Then I get
back, come home again
here, and all I can do is
step over the 'pesticide
treated' lawn-signs and the
streams and rivers running
green with fumigation from
all those wild-men with
their Round-Up holsters
in their belts; just dying
to spray the whole
world away.
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