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Enjoying the Anthroposcenery

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Today’s post comes from Bart, the bear who found a smart phone in the woods.

H’lo, Bart here.

We get a lot of scientists out here in the woods. I mean lots. More of them than normal people, almost. I think it’s ’cause scientists get paid to come out and do experiments in the chill and the damp with bugs all around, so they have to stay until the work is done even if the weather gets horrible, which it eventually does.

So we can always be pretty sure there’ll be a scientist in the woods, no matter what time of year.

By contrast, normal people who climb into their campers and come to the woods for some R & R will turn tail and get out as soon as it stops being fun, which usually takes 48 hours, or just about one day if they have kids.

People are funny that way, which is why I decided to text you on this since you are one and maybe you understand this.

I’m not really too keen on knowing the name of the geologic age we’re living in, but I couldn’t help noticing the Smithsonian has declared this “The Age of Humans” as a way to drive home the undeniable point that humans have changed the climate with all their activity, and especially their gasses, which they emit at an alarming rate.

Humans also emit a lot of attitude, which is what you need to name a whole epoch after yourself. And by “epoch,” I mean tens of millions of years. That’s pretty bold! I’m not saying it’s a lie, but couldn’t you find someone else to give you the award, so it would at least seem like a surprise?

That’s all I’m saying. I’m a bear. We’re friends. If you’d asked me, I would have given you the “Anthropocene” award and it would have been genuine and heartfelt. And you wouldn’t have seemed to be so self-absorbed. As it is, you’re looking like the guy who throws a surprise birthday party for himself. Not too cool.

So here’s the deal – I’ll say this is “The Age of Humans” if you’ll return the favor, and in a few million years from now make a spontaneous declaration that “The Age of Humans” has ended, and we’ve transitioned into “The Bear Era.”

That’s politics – I’ll scratch your back and you scratch mine. Even though in reality me scratching your back would probably be physically catastrophic for you, and you scratching my back would maybe shake loose a few ticks.

But anyway, you know what I mean. It’s a quid pro quo with the payoff (for us) impossibly far away.

But I’m pretty confident there will still be bears by then, and having a geologic era defined by bear activity would be incredible! Imagine it – the whole planet’s surface, covered with berries and turned into a hibernatorium! Sounds like paradise!

Your pal,
Bart

What should be named after you?

64 thoughts on “Enjoying the Anthroposcenery”

  1. Good morning. I think Bart is right. We shouldn’t decide to have something named after us. Humans naming an age the age of the humans is not good. Why do we assume that we are at the top of the “heap”? Never the less, I will play along and try to come up with something to name after myself.

    A flower is the thing I would pick to be named after me. The flower I would pick for this distinction is a violet. I like all kinds of flowers. However, the first one that I can think of that I would have bear my name is a violet. This would be a domesticated form of the common wild violet that could be fitted in here and there in all kinds plantings, the Jim Tjepkema Violet.

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  2. I liked the thoughts of Bart..,and in my opinion we actually don’t have the right to name anything after us..!! Even our own name is given to us by someone else..when we can’t even name ourselves..how can we name something else..?

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    2. Welcome, Aswini. I have been reading this morning a little about a woman known as Dessa Darling. She is one of the most creative and interesting people in Minnesota. Dessa is a rap singer, writer, media personality and philosopher. She was born Margaret Wander, which just sounds so wrong. She named herself Dessa Darling and has been living the sort of life one might expect of a Dessa. So some people manage to name themselves, although it is rare.

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  3. Rise and Shine Baboons!

    This is something I have never considered. Hmmm….a grandchild? I have always been a bit jealous that Lynn Rosetto Kasper has a tomato named for her. What a luscious honor! That would be nice. Like Jim, a flower–peonies are my favorite. Or an iris? A scholarship in therapy?

    It feels so self-centered.

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  4. I already have a, now not so little, Chinese girl named after me. It’s an honor that I cherish. I went to China with her mother to pick Elea up almost thirteen years ago. A couple of months later, we were invited to a nice dinner at Elea’s grandmother’s house, and there I was presented the paperwork that Elea’s name had officially been amended to include Margaret as a middle name. I was very moved and felt honored to have this precious little girl named after me. Elea Margaret will be fourteen in November.

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  5. I wouldn’t want any person named after me, but a flower or plant would be nice.

    OT-Thanks to everyone for your kind words and thoughts after my father’s death. Thanks also for the memorial to the Hospice Foundation in my parents’ names.

    I am off to Houston today for a week long play therapy conference. I have to blanch and freeze our Swiss chard crop before I leave, so it is a busy morning.

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  6. Perhaps a Bundt cake recipe. If we can name salads for hotels and chocolates for women of legend, then perhaps a nice Bundt would do. Something a little spicy, not to sweet.

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        1. In the interest of full disclosure: there is an entire recipe book called Bundt Cake Bliss that was put out by the MN Historical Society (at least I think it’s theirs). I have a copy and have some favorite recipes from it (and a few I have monkeyed with in it to suit my own desires).

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        2. Oh, and an Anna Bliss bundt is likely to have both chocolate and cinnamon…the rest I’m still messing with to get it right, working on the perfect combination of chocolate, cinnamon, orange and cayenne.

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        3. I was just out in the neglected yard/garden and noticed there are some runaway zucchini begging to be part of a bundt cake (and cinnamon and mini-chocolate chips with that sounds good- also orange zest). There are also some jalepenos out there…..

          and I plan to have the oven going tonight in an attempt to put off firing up the furnace for another week or so.

          I’ll let you know if this happens and how it goes.

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        4. I have bags of shredded zucchini in the freezer waiting to become Bundts. Lots of cinnamon & chocolate mini chips…yum. Might have to bake one up this week…

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  7. This is a little bit of an OT speculation, but I sometimes wonder what Dale Connelly’s real name is. Everyone knows that DJs invent the names they use on the air. When I was a kid, all the top 40 DJs had monosyllabic names starting with D: Don, Dean, Dale, etc. Those names are quick and snappy to say. I can’t guess how he picked “Connelly.”

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  8. Morning all. I actually already have something named after me! When I was a kid, my folks did some real estate investing, including a piece of undeveloped land that they sold off in pieces. Of course, a subdivision needs a street, so when that was added, they named it Sherri Lane . I think the idea was that the next street would be named for my sister, but my folks had a falling out with their business partner on the deal and they ended up selling their share to him. I googled it and it’s still there… with a few little houses on it.

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  9. A flower would be nice, but highly unlikely. A dish, casserole or hot dish, is more within the realm of possibilities – and, of course, I would have to name it myself. It would be spicy and contain potatoes and kale, that’s all I know at the moment. If I ever work out the details, I’ll let you know.

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  10. I read in the Fargo Forum today that a retired NDSU entomologist has five insects named after him. Four are beetles and the most recent is a Chilean Damsel Bug. The Chilean Damsel Bug can only be distinguished from the Australian Damsel Bug by the shape of its genitalia. I am not making this up.

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    1. Id’ never be able to tell them apart, my eyes aren’t that good. Besides, I prefer not to pay that much attention to bugs.

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    3. I had to come up with some names for nematodes. I named two of them after famous nematologists, Thorne and Andrassy. I thought that was okay because other people had also done this. I used a book with descriptive latin words for naming organisms to pick out other names that I gave to nematodes. These new nematodes were not distinguished from each other by the shape of their genitalia.

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    4. What happens if your damsel bug is feeling shy?…Or perhaps come from a line of particularly Victorian/Puritanical damsel bugs and doesn’t believe in showing those things to just anyone?…

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  11. if i was going to have something named after me it would almost certainly be a mental disorder having to do with the inability to remember to capitalize and or punctuate. on occasion there may be a hand held device that intercedes and give the impression of english etiquette but it is an illusion. it is called fauxtimming.
    timming and fauxtimming are not taught but can be easily implemented with any standard keyboard and a computer that has a disarm feature on its spell checker.
    it takes real effort and focus to do it with a pen and paper (hard to unearn bad habbits) but with a keyboard its easy.

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    1. Fauxtimming may have to be in the glossary, where we already have:

      timism – An ambiguity in which you are not sure whether there was a typo, or an intentional misspelling, as in “My favorite timism of the week is ‘Talk snout dysfunctional’…” (See Dec. 23, 2010 TBB for rich, complete discussion.)

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    2. Would you rather the disorder go in the Neurodevelopment section or the Somatic Symptoms section. The latter includes Conversion Disorders and Factitious Disorders.

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      2. The reason I asked was to determine if Tim wanted to be categorized as having a learning disability or with a problem related to a deep psychological and physical reluctance to punctuate.

        I attended a Concordia choral concert on Saturday and the Freshmen Men’s choir sang Pirate Song by Tim Y. Jones. It was very funny and I wondered for a moment if our Tim had written it.

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  12. i find it interesting that dale sees and article on the age of humans and it becomes a blog by bart the bear on how we have messed up the planet for the bears out there and they will do better when we have gone.

    wasnt there a leave it to beaver episode about that?

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  13. I think it would be a folk dance step. Perhaps a sort of shuffling two-step where your feet never really leave the floor… The Barbara.

    We do have a park with baseball and soccer fields, named after my dad’s family in Roland, IA, where he he and his brothers developed a subdivision from what had been the family farm. They couldn’t sell the last parcel, so ended up donating it to the city for what is now Britson Park.

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  14. I’d like a memorial bench with my name on it in the Eloise Butler Wildflower Garden when I’m gone. Nothing fancy, just a nice spot to sit and relax and take in the beauty and serenity of the place.

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  15. I’d take an ice cream flavor named after me – cajeta apple crisp to be exact. Although to be fair it should be named for Barb in Blackhoof since she’s the one who introduced me to that scrumptious essence made by her own hands using her own goats’ milk which she poured over homemade apple crisp. You cannot imagine!

    A little while ago a box came for me. I assume it’s a birthday gift but from whom it did not say. Get this: It’s a personalized door mat! As if I didn’t already have enough self esteem issues! (Check out the gravatar.)

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  16. I commend Bart for delicately leaving out the fact that most ages are named after the species/empirical unit, etc after they have shuffled off the mortal coil and the name tends to be given by the survivors….

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  17. Hi All. For those of you in Baboon Book Club who know Lou, his dad died today at age 94. His name was Okie Huether–a WWII vet and postmaster of the post office in the tiny town in Iowa where he resided. He lived in his own home until July when he collapsed there.

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    5. sorry lou, 94 is a ripe old age to live to. a good example for you to follow. its nice he was good until he wasnt then he only had 90 days to get the heck on to the next side of the circle of life.

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  18. I’ll accept having a corollary named after me. A corollary is a proposition inferred immediately from a proved proposition with little or no additional proof. So it’s kind of a lazy way of putting your name on someone else’s work.

    If we are are living in the age of humans, it’s safe to say it’s also an age of errors, since we all know that to err is human. So the Linda Corollary is that everything we think we know is an error, including that this is the age of humans.

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