Blinded By The Science Of Migration

As I type this it is very cold here.

I mean in Chicago, not in my room.

And I can prove it. About Chicago
being cold, I mean, not that my room’s warm.

Technology supports my assertion:

While I was being technological
and documenting my claim about cold,
I took a look at Los Angeles, too:

It’s not as warm as my room, but it’s nice.

And look what the weather algorithms
predict about the two temperatures.

Fifty degrees feels like it’s, well, fifty,
for people living in Los Angles,
but for those of us living over here,
twenty-nine degrees feels like twenty-one.

To the algorithms, Los Angeles
is a place where things feel like what they are.

Science! I wonder if it can be trusted?

Right this second, my fingers on these keys,
I feel exactly like those dinosaurs—
out of place, out of date, on an island,
not desperate and unable to escape
but rather staring at a distant ship
ignoring the wreckage of the island
desperate to but unable to migrate:

“Oh, my God,” Grant said.

He stared at the raptors, ranged along the beach in a rigid formation, silently watching the boat. And he suddenly understood what he was looking at.

“Those animals,” Gennaro said, shaking his head, “they sure are desperate to escape from here.”

“No,” Grant said. “They don’t want to escape at all.”

“They don’t?”

“No,” Grant said. “They want to migrate.”

from “Jurassic Park”
by Michael Crichton
quoted in Japanese Train Stations Forever

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Chicago Weather
at Weather.com

Los Angeles Weather
at Weather.com


*


A Squirrel And A Donut For Ever And Ever


The Metronome As A Place To Switch Off


Expedition To Amy
“She Blinded Me With Science”


Like A Tree I’m Going


A Lost World Where Distance Is God’s Anger