All posts by Paul Cipywnyk

Nature, Photography, Sustainability, Uncategorized

Surpassed 1,000 Observations Reported to iNaturalist

I passed 1,000 observations reported to iNaturalist today, with 232 species so far.

I think this puts me at the Pee-Wee or Bantam level 🙂. I know some folks who post hundreds per week!

I have to shoot, and learn about, more plants and flowers etc. The bulk of my observations are birds and mammals, with the occasional insect or reptile. . .

You can see my contributions here.

Books, Society, Writing

Found a Copy of Dreamsnake

Long out of print, I found a copy of Vonda McIntyre’s Dreamsnake on Abe Books.

dreamsnake

Ursula K. Le Guin wrote a thought-provoking review of the book in 2011, and why she thought it disappeared:

Theory #1: Ophidiophobia. The phobia is common and extends to pictures, even the mention, of snakes; and the book features them even in the title. A heroine who lets snakes crawl on her, and she’s named Snake? Oh, icky . . .

Theory #2: Sex. It’s an adult book. Snake, though, is barely more than a kid, setting out on her first trial of prowess, so that young women can and do identify with her, happily or longingly, as they do with Ayla in Jean Auel’s Earth’s Children books, though Snake’s taste in men is far better than Ayla’s. But could the book be approved in schools? The sexual mores are as various as the societies, including some very unorthodox customs, and Snake’s sexual behavior is both highly ethical and quite uninhibited. . .

Given the relentless fundamentalist vendettas against “witchcraft” and “pornography” (read imaginative literature and sexual realism) in the schools, few teachers in the 1980s could invite the firestorm that might be started by a right-wing parent who got a hint of how young Snake was carrying on. . .

Theory #3. The hypothesis of gendered reprinting. It appears that as a general rule books written by men get reprinted more frequently and over more years than books written by women.”
Le Guin, Ursula K. . Words Are My Matter (pp. 139-140). Small Beer Press. Kindle Edition.