Ruminations

Rudolfo the Red-Nosed Llama, Calloa, Peru

I’ve been thinking about the readings of the past several weeks and I’ve concluded that I have a ruminantary brain. That isn’t a misspelling of rudimentary, although that’s quite likely also. A ruminant is an animal with multiple stomachs that chews a mouthful of food, swallows it, partially digests the food, regurgitates it and chews some more, then repeats the process through all the stomachs. My brain seems to work like that. Chew. Swallow. Ruminate. Regurgitate. Repeat. Even to the point that anything not assimilated gets passed as b.s. and gas…

Yi-Fu Tuan’s Surface Phenomena and Aesthetic Experience becomes a little more meaningful after reading Wallach’s Sheep Ranching in the Dry Corner of Wyoming and The West Side Oil Fields of California. Wallach gives a detailed description of the geology underlying the areas but the focus is on the observable surface. The depth, to a large extent forms the surface, but the surface is what is observed. Both depth and surface exist but surface is what humans interact with. I realize that the resources are under the surface, but there is no interaction until it reaches the surface, either by being pumped up or the surface stripped away.

On one of the blogs, someone asked “Is Florida considered part of the South?” and my response would be “Partly.” I’ve lived all over the South and I see anything north of Orlando as Southern and anything south of the city as Northern. North Florida is more Southern than south Florida. Northern Florida shares language/accent with the South, and food and religion are similar. Southern Florida is more urban and urbane. Urbane meaning they serve cheese with a toothpick instead of with a grilled hamburger patty and a couple of slices of bacon as would be proper.

I’ve been thinking about the theme “region” and I realize that I don’t have a definition that really works. Why is one place a region and another not? Why are two regions not the same thing? Ideas?