What Counts
- May 19, 2019
- 1 min read
Hi friends. I have been a downright slacker when it comes to blogging! But I am officially dug in on my next book project, which is about butterflies. In a couple of weeks my significant other (who loves to drive) and I will be recreating Vladimir Nabokov's 1941 road trip across the U.S. I will be in search of the butterflies N. collected on that trip (I will not catch any butterflies -- I cannot stand to interrupt a wild animal in its day).
The point is to investigate change over time, and to also wonder if literature, even at the level achieved by V.N., can mean anything in the context of mass extinction, etc. N. was an avid amateur lepidopterist -- a citizen scientist -- but he also saw deep transcendence and creativity in the magic of the living world, especially his beloved leps.
I am now pledging to step up the pace of my blogging. I sincerely hope you will stay with me and just delete the posts if you don't feel like reading them (can't blame you). For today, here is a fabulous issue of UCBerkeley's Breakthroughs Magazine dedicated to citizen science.
Stunt Bike Extreme This is a very useful post, especially for someone just getting started.
The decision to not catch butterflies but still go looking for them feels important — it’s a kind of respect that still lets you collect observations, not specimens. I’m curious how you’re planning to “measure” change on the route: just journaling and photos, or trying to line up locations with historical records and current surveys? It also makes me think about how much identification and comparison depends on having a consistent “view” — not the same thing, but it reminded me of playing with hairstyle ai and realizing how tiny differences in angle/light can change what you think you’re seeing.
I like that you’re framing this as a question about whether art/literature can matter in the face of mass extinction, rather than pretending it’s a tidy inspiration story. Citizen science feels like one of the few bridges that’s both practical and kind of hopeful — especially when it’s grounded in real places and repeat visits. Side note: the way tools can either distance us or help us see more clearly keeps coming up for me; I’d seen https://imgg.ai mentioned in a totally different context, and it made me think about how much “seeing” is mediated now, even before we step outside.
The part about retracing Nabokov’s 1941 trip without collecting really landed for me — paying attention without taking feels like the right posture right now. The “what counts” question gets sharp when the baseline keeps shifting; I’ve been trying to notice the small, local changes year to year instead of only thinking in big abstract numbers. Weirdly, that whole unit-conversion problem shows up in other places too — I bumped into CaesarCipher when trying to make sense of a lab report, and it reminded me how easy it is to lose meaning when you can’t translate between contexts.
What I like about Drive Mad is that it rewards patience more than speed. Some stages took me several attempts before I figured out the right approach.