SIX … only 6 more shows to post, and then I’ll be caught up to ’18! (hour 1)

SIX

This episode of Box of Chocolates was streamcast LIVE over la magia negra of the interwebz on the Ninth of July, Two Thousand Seventeen. It was one of the Alphabet concepts. This one happening to be the “brought to you by__” series. This particular episode was brought to air by the letter “S” to be exact. All song titles began with the slithery, slinky, symbol.

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And now to continue with the fictitious speech from the novel The Story of B authored by Daniel Quinn.

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As the water in the cauldron slowly heats, the frog nothing but pleasant warmth, and indeed that’s all there is to feel. A long time has to pass before the water begins to be dangerously hot, and our own history demonstrates this. For fully half our history, the first five thousand years, signs of distress are almost nonexistent. The technological innovations of this period bespeak a quiet life, centered around hearth and village—sun-dried brick, kiln-fired pottery, woven cloth, the potter’s wheel, and so on. But gradually, imperceptibly, signs of distress begin to appear, like tiny bubbles at the bottom of a pot.

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What shall we look for, as signs of distress? Mass suicides? Revolution? Terrorism? No, of course not. Those come much later, when the water is scalding hot. Five thousand years ago it was just getting warm. Folks mopping their brows were grinning at each other and saying, “Isn’t this great?”

You’ll know where to find the signs of distress if you identify the fire that was burning under the cauldron. It was burning there in the beginning, was still burning after five thousand years . . . and is still burning today in exactly the same way. It was and is the great heating element of our revolution. It’s the essential. It’s the sine qua non of our success—if success is what it is.

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Speak! Someone tell me what I’m talking about!

“Agriculture!”

Agriculture, this gentleman tells me.

No. Not agriculture. One particular style of agriculture. One particular style that has been the basis of our culture from its beginnings ten thousand years ago to the present moment—the basis of our culture and found in no other. It’s ours, it’s what makes us US. For its complete ruthlessness toward all other life-forms on this planet and for its unyielding determination to convert every square meter on this planet to the production of human food, I’ve called it totalitarian agriculture.

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