Closing Time
Chairs stacked
legs in the air
like dead flies,
the barman
has that blank look
in his eyes
I’m sitting
watching suds dry
in an empty glass
and thinking
it’s July,
twenty sixteen
and events
are ripping by
at such a pace
it seems that
five minutes
ago was
a simpler,
more innocent
time .
In a recent interview in the New York Times Book Review, Jeffrey Toobin (author of ‘American Heiress’), when asked the question “How do you organize your books,” replied that ‘he was romantic about reading not about carbon byproducts’. He apparently does most of his reading for pleasure on an iPad.
This statement bothered me for a couple of reasons. A byproduct is “an incidental or secondary product made in the manufacture or synthesis of something else”, a book is not a byproduct of anything, it is produced using paper which contains carbon, but it is a product in itself unlike carbon which is an element and not a product.
But more than the semantics, there was something else. There was a sanctimonious whiff to the statement, a hint of greener than thou, a suggestion of the moral high ground, an implication that Jeffrey is a greater friend of the environment than all you Luddite book lovers out there (myself included). So, I set out to try and determine whether reading a book on an Ipad is greener than reading an actual book.
Strike one against the IPad is that it consumes energy every time a page is read, whereas a book once it is produced consumes no further energy (for the purpose of this discussion let’s assume that the energy or power required is generated by the combustion of fossil fuel and therefore energy consumption or the need for energy results in the generation of carbon dioxide). How much energy does it consume? To find out I used my iPad to google the question, which proves that I am not adverse to using technology (I just like books). It turns out, it can all be explained using light bulbs. It takes 1 kWh to power an iPhone for a year, that’s the equivalent of powering a 100 watt incandescent light bulb for 10 hours. The iPad consumes about 11 times that or the equivalent of the energy consumed by a 100 watt incandescent light bulb in 110 hours. Of course, not all that iPad time is spent reading a book, so in the end, relatively speaking, it is not a lot of energy; but for the purpose of establishing greenness , a small amount is still too much. In the end, using an iPad to read indirectly results in a finite amount of carbon dioxide being released to the atmosphere; whereas the act of reading a book results in zero carbon dioxide emissions.
When it comes to recyclability, the moral high ground gets more slippery. Martin LaMonica of CNET’s Green Tech says only about 10% of US electronics get recycled and, according to Greenpeace not always properly, whereas paper is more likely to be recycled. Plus you can loan that book to a friend or donate it to your public library.
There are additional energy implications, all that data has to be stored. According to Greenpeace, data storage centers are the single largest driver of new electricity demand worldwide.
This is all, of course, just to make the point that it’s called the “moral high ground” because it is difficult to attain and to say to all you book lovers out there keep on reading those paper books with a clear conscience.
By the way, by all accounts Jeffrey Toobin is one hell of a writer.
To end, a slimverse:
What Can I Say
to leave no
footprint we
must fly but
never land.
Note: The following articles were used in the making of this post – http://content.usatoday.com/communities/greenhouse/post/2010/01/is-apples-recyclable-chemical-free-ipad-really-green-/1
Nha Trang
At the National Oceanographic Institute,
among tanks cramped
with circling neurotic fish
(Hit the glass. Stop. Turn around)
there is a multi-colored specimen
whose toxin,
the sign says,
renders its victims
“unconspicuous or even dead”.
Further north
in the Hanoi War museum
conspicuous beneath glass
lie the dog tags
of dead American soldiers –
to a man
young, buzzcut and hopeful.
Photo taken outside The Hanoi War Museum
As we ride out of Cat Ba
through a valley circled
by limestone crags,
a compilation of pop ballads
from the seventies and eighties
oozes from the speakers
and the affable English backpackers
at the back of the bus
groan in faux horror
as Aerosmith follows Bryan Adams
follows George Michaels
follows Michael Jackson
but when the Bee Gees launch
“How Deep Is Your Love”
the backpackers quieten down
and the driver stops honking his horn
at the dogs, children, women
in cone hats and cyclists
with finely balanced cargos
who drift carelessly
in front of the bus
as if it was an invisible
visitor from the future,
and we all strain against
the tug of the song’s chorus
far too cool to sing along
except for one backpacker
let’s call him Nigel
or Christian, or Jason, or Justin
who, in a high piping voice
declares his oneness
with the song’s embattled lovers.
This poem was first published in Oddball Magazine, about 4 months ago.
“Lock the door, Schoolmaster,
Keep the children in,
The river in spate at the schoolyard gate
Roars like original sin”
From “The Life of the Poet” by Charles Causley
One hour into the folkfest
and a mellow, minor key, melancholy
is seeping into Slim’s bones,
he feels it like an arthritic ache
and he wishes that someone
would duck walk across the stage
shooting staccato bursts of distorted guitar
at the chill, Tilley clad audience
who, unlike Slim, have a default mode
other than anger.
I thought I would reprise this one. I spent yesterday at the Vancouver Folk Festival. The photograph shows the on-site solar-powered ATM. The ATM is housed in a Volkswagen van which is indicative of the post Woodstock festival vibe, in fact some of the people looked like they may have been at Woodstock. At times they must have felt, looking at the current generation of festival-goers, that they were looking at their former selves – long straight air, flowing dresses, tie-dyed shirts, garlands, beards, that swirling hippy dance. The solar-powered ATM is indicative of the environmental consciousness or conscience of the event ( there are attendants at each garbage bin station to ensure that people make the right recycling choice).
In recent years, local authorities have allowed a beer garden, which means that beer can be purchased and consumed behind a chain-linked fence but not carried around the festival grounds. This is good in that beer is available but having to drink in a compound dampens the free spirit vibe a little bit. It is ironic that at the Republican Convention this week, guns can be open-carried and here in Vancouver, it is forbidden to open-carry a beer. Sometimes erring on the side of safety is a good thing.
Some great acts that I hadn’t heard before = the Moulettes, San Firmin, Hayes Carll.
Photo Taken Jericho Beach, September 15, 2016
Portovenere, Italy
Manarola, Cinque Terre, Italy
What you get when you pick the low bid.
This photo was taken in the late evening, walking south on Sandymount Strand, Dublin. We had just come from Mulligan’s Pub where we watched Ireland tie with Sweden in the first round of Euro 2016. The plastic shopping bag is from Tesco’s and contains comfort food – bags of Tayto Chips (Ireland’s national potato chip) and Cadbury’s chocolate bars.
The chocolate bars in question are Cadbury’s Boost (formerly known as Moro) and Cadbury’s Flake. A Cadbury’s Flake is not really a bar, in that the word ‘bar’ implies solidity, rigidity, the flake is a fragile thing and starts to disintegrate as soon as the package is opened. When Phil Lynnot of Thin Lizzy complained of getting “chocolate stains on his pants” (Dancing in the Moonlight), he was probably eating a Cadbury’s Flake.
There is a feeling of opportunity lost captured in the resigned slope of the shoulders of the people in the photo, Ireland should have won the game against Sweden and at that point faced an uphill battle to reach the next stage of the tournament. In the next game we were thumped 3-0 by Belgium and then needed a win against Italy to make it through. It was looking like the game would end in another tie, when about five minutes from the end, Wes Hoolahan gets the ball inside the Italian half, Robbie Brady, in one of those moments of telepathy that happens between players that have played together for awhile, runs towards the narrow gap between the two Italian center backs which is exactly where Wes puts the ball. Robbie’s head meets the ball and in a flash it’s in the back of the Italian net. The whole Irish nation, scattered across continents like green confetti, jumps from its seat with a collective roar; grown men with beer bellies and heads like bowling balls blub like small children; the Irish players pile on top of Robbie Brady in a tangle of beards, tattoos and expensive haircuts; the Irish manager and assistant manager – two men who would have previously considered a handshake to be excessive intimacy – grapple tearfully like emotional Olympic wrestlers and why not, why not! We are a small country, we have never felt that winning is our birth right, so when we do win, well, catharsis doesn’t begin to describe it.
Take it away, Phil.
Photo taken above Lough Tay, Co. Wicklow, Ireland. Down below is where the television series “The Vikings” is filmed. Most tourists bypass Wicklow and head down to the Ring of Kerry, Cliffs of Moher, Galway, Clifden, all great places, but 45 minutes max. from Dublin you have this and much more.
My parents’ ashes are scattered near this spot, they were great walkers (they would not have used the term “hikers” or “hill walkers”).
Just don’t get lost in the mist.
Sign in window of Sweny’s Pharmacy, Lincoln Place, Dublin.
Sweny’s Pharmacy
Readings from Ulysses, Sandymount Green, Dublin.
Steam train, taken from path between Bray and Greystones.
The Pigeon House Power Station, Sandymount Strand and the “scrotum-tightening sea”.
The Camposanto has been called one of the most beautiful cemeteries in the world….hang on a second, what’s happening on the front lawn..
What are they up to and why is no one paying attention? Maybe because they are doing this ..
and this….
Meanwhile , inside the Camposanto, all is quiet..
Hang on….
Let’s take a closer look…
What in Hell’s name is that devil doing, is he actually excreting lost souls?? Some one should tell that couple out on the lawn to stop what they are doing or else this could be their fate!
Notes: Most of the frescoes inside the Camposanto were all but destroyed by allied bombing in 1944. They are now undergoing restoration.
From Wikipedia:
“Despite these common depictions of Hell as a place of fire, some other traditions portray Hell as cold. Buddhist – and particularly Tibetan Buddhist – descriptions of hell feature an equal number of hot and cold hells. Among Christian descriptions Dante‘s Inferno portrays the innermost (9th) circle of Hell as a frozen lake of blood and guilt.”
A Hell that has frozen over.
Stopdraggingthepanda 