The Urban Pantheist

I just noticed that I'm only 2 species away from finishing my 100 species project. I have #99 ready to go, and #100 is in my camera, which I left at work this weekend. I'm tentative about starting a new project for next year, partly because I like to take the winter off, and partly because I expect next year to be a very busy one.

Why is next year going to be busy? Several reasons: I plan to start keeping chickens and making beer, for two. Also, there will be a Presidential Election, and I anticipate being an anxious wreck, especially as the year wears on. I remember 2008 all too well, being anxious all the time that America would idiotically elect a Republican for president, as if the previous 8 years weren't enough reason not to. This coming year may be less stressful, in that they haven't managed to find anyone qualified for the office, and most of the people running would be hilarious if they weren't evil scumbags. However the country has had 4 years to forget what hell it was to live under a GOP administration, and many people have blamed Obama for not farting unicorns even though he accomplished more in foreign policy than any president since Nixon (without, you know, being a crook), and probably averted a second Great Depression. All the while the Republicans have steadfastly stood in the way of everything Obama tried to do EVEN WHEN IT WAS ORIGINALLY THEIR IDEA. Where was I? Oh yeah, I'll be preoccupied with the election next year.

Speaking of elections, I'll be running for President of NEAAZK this year (the Zookeeper Association at my Zoo) and so far it looks like I'll be unopposed. That's good, but it means that much of the year I'll be in a position of responsibility like I've never experienced before, planning events and making decisions and whatnot. This is the main reason I'm nervous about committing to a blog project.

Nonetheless, I have a pretty good idea of what that project will be called and what it will consist of. I don't expect to surprise you too much, but I will be putting out a reliable blog product (maybe fewer typos?).

Also I want to do more Urban Nature Walks.

In the mid-90's, when I was publishing a comics anthology zine called "Don't Shoot! It's Only Comics," I was asked to be on a panel discussion at a library. I don't remember what the point of it was, but there were a handful of us zinesters there, explaining what we did and why we did it. I remember someone in the audience offered an almost hostile line of questioning. Basically he asked, "aren't you all doing what you are doing out of vanity?" which I guess is true on some levels but totally irrelevant (what's your hobby, asshole?) but more to the point of this this post, he asked "why aren't you publishing your zines on the internet?"



At the time, the internet was pretty new, and had a relatively small population of mostly upper middle class people. The internet is still largely a place for the privileged, but at that time it was inescapably so. Zines are populist, and they reach out to the disenfranchised and the marginalized. Using an elitist technology ran counter to most zine publishers' sensibilities.

Also, when I answered, I pointed out the awkwardness of the interface, particularly when compared to a comic book or a magazine. I used what became my standard refute for this challenge: "you can't take a computer into the bathroom to read it." Laptops, netbooks, and smart phones have made that into an absurd statement.

So now, 15 years later, why don't zinesters simply publish on the internet? I went to the Papercut Zine Library to donate lots of my zine and comic collection, and found myself wondering why zines still exist. The librarians there said they were hoping to plan more, smaller zine fairs soon in the future. That's great, I said, but in the back of my mind I wondered who the fair would be for; who finds going to the photocopy machine a more rewarding and less expensive exercise than simply banging away for a few minutes on a computer and getting feedback emailed to them? I mentioned the two zines I used to do, and that I no longer put out The Urban Pantheist in print, but that it was now online only. (I didn't tell them that it was a daily exercise that has largely become my identity more deeply and broadly than when it was a print zine.) They were visibly disappointed, not, I'm sure, because they were fans of my zines, but because I was a member of their culture who had left it behind.



I became sheepish, and mentioned that I'd had some photographs up in an exhibit--they were paper. That's cool, one guy said without looking at me. I started to try to think of a zine I could do, some worthwhile contribution to a culture I belonged to for over a dozen years. But everything I could express that way could be done here more quickly, reaching more people, with much better options for including photographs or links to other resources and related topics. I do like the idea of having a real printed product of my own in my hands, but at this point in my life, why not a book? None of my ideas are so counter-cultural that The System would refuse to publish them. (Many of the counter-cultural ideas that zines used to be the only source for, like veganism, animal rights, car-free culture, gay civil rights, polyamory, transgender issues, and so on, are pretty much acceptable topics for mainstream publishing and, dare I say it, websites). If I had the ambition and the connections I would be aiming at the book world with my ideas, not the zine world. (I just want to pause to acknowledge the role that zinesters played in bringing those issues out into public discussion. I feel like people in zine culture were behind important changes like what happened in Massachusetts in 2004.)

So who are the people still making zines? People who love paper, people who love print, love getting things in the mail. Probably still some people who feel marginalized, that even with the internet and the limitless landscape it represents that there is no place for them, no community. (Or people who are denied access to the internet? For whom photocopying and postage is still a more practical process?) I heard a technology reporter yesterday say that Apple and Google were competing to "deliver the consumer to the marketplace" with their products. That phrase alone made me contemplate making my own paper out of compost and dropping off of the grid, for fear of being "delivered" somewhere against my will. I strongly object to being viewed as a "consumer," as if my only value was that I have money to give to someone to keep me fat and quiet. So I guess I kind of understand: the culture is still marginalizing people, the Capitalists are still the enemies of progress and ideas, and zines are probably the purest way to get your message out. If you don't have a Livejournal account (or compatible log-in), there is an ad on this page. (What is it? Just curious.) As the internet get easier to use and harder to escape, zines will probably have another huge resurgence.

I look forward to the next zine fair, to see what ideas are out there, and to see what people who value print and paper have created and produced. They're still out there, right?

"The Urban Pantheist" as a title occurred to me sometime in the late nineties. I was emerging from time spent as a wiccan or perhaps eclectic neopagan and had rediscovered the word "pantheist" and decided that it more accurately captured my beliefs. At the same time, I was connecting with nature in a way that I hadn't since I was a boy living in a house in the woods. It struck me that to love nature in the city was remarkable, but that it was something that needed to happen, and that I probably wasn't the only person who was discovering it. I used the title for five issues of my zine, published between 1998 and 2003, before finally admitting to myself that it was now just my blog title. (Unless I find another great project to attach it to.)

For a time, I considered the title "The Urban Naturalist," but rejected it for a couple reasons. First, I didn't know enough about nature to comfortably call myself a naturalist, but to call myself a pantheist, all I needed to do was believe in a self-creating universe. I also discovered, as I looked for books about urban nature, that there already was a book called The Urban Naturalist, by Steven Garber, a New York based biologist. (This book is pretty useful, but dry, and is starting to become obsolete. It needs a revision badly, but I doubt that Dover does such a thing, since their domain is the public domain, specializing in two dollar copies of Mark Twain and such.)

One of my newish lj friends, futurebird, is currently working on a book called The Urban Naturalist, but her perspective is largely social/humanity based, and looks very interesting (if she wants, she can comment with a better description than mine, or you could follow the links and read some of it). It will not be confused with Garber's book, despite the fact that they are both based in NYC.

In 1985, British goth singer Danielle Dax used the phrase "Urban Pantheist" in two contexts. In an interview, she basically said that what we used to call hippies are now urban pantheists. And for some album art, she used a series of her own paintings, which were titled "Urban Pantheist." So far as I can tell, this is the earliest use of these two words together. (This is the kind of baiting statement I like to make in order for other people to contradict me, and in so doing, do my research for me.)

About a year ago a self-described "urban folk singer" from Melbourne Australia, named Rachael Byrnes, wrote a song dedicated to a friend, entitled "The Urban Pantheist." You can listen to it here, or if you prefer songs in written format, you can look at the lyrics (which differ very slightly from the audio version) here. She sings rather languidly, a welcome contrast (in my mind) to the punk-influenced nasal snarl popular among female singer-songwriters I usually hear. I'm rather a dope when it comes to picking up symbolism, but while the song seems to be a love song written for a friend, it also bears a strong message of loving the earth, and listening to nature. (Unless I've gotten it totally wrong. I can just about grasp the blunt-instrument environmental message of Soundgarden's "Hands all Over."

Now I'm not sure if I should continue to use the phrase "The Urban Pantheist" to refer to myself and my projects. Partly because I've drifted even further away from strictly spiritual interests more toward ecology and biology. An early draft of a business card cottonmanifesto designed for me, she used the phrase "urban naturalist" to describe me, which is more accurate than ever. The nature walk group I founded is called "Urban Nature Walk," which I think is potentially more useful than the other titles. (By useful I mean helpful in creating interest and curiosity while accurately describing what I do.) For the foreseeable future, this blog will continue to be called "The Urban Pantheist." Until such time as I am born again, and judge pantheism to be a heresy against the One True God. Just kidding. Maybe.

Here, because lj abhors a text-only post, is the bark of an apple tree, growing on a city street.