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    Darwin Alone in the Universe
    Darwin Alone in the Universe
    Darwin Alone in the Universe
    Ebook151 pages1 hour

    Darwin Alone in the Universe

    By M.A.C. Farrant

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    About this ebook

    These new, off-side stories continue M.A.C. Farrant’s exploration of the relation of fiction to the evolving corporate construction of reality in the media and information age. Objective reality (what’s out there) in our culture has become a performance of make-believe (fiction), and the disassociation and confusion this causes in our private lives often triggers uncontrollable tragi-comic effects in people—a deadening lethargy and/or a destructive violence acted out in a context of the most excruciatingly bright banalities.

    Reading The Origin of the Species today, we realize that the prevailing view of the universe is always only that—the prevailing view—and that the job at hand is therefore to discover the constantly recurring human “will to meaning,” the ways in which we frame existence, sustaining ourselves in the face of what we continue to convince ourselves is the inevitable.

    Darwin Alone in the Universe stands against the view that we live in a “post-historical” world in which whatever history we now possess is served up as the current spectacle in a tyranny of the perpetual “now.” It is a reaffirmation of history as a process that clears a path through the world, making sense of making sense, temporarily. In this, or any world, literature becomes an antidote to the stranglehold the corporate media has on the public’s imagination, and is the place where uncontaminated thought can still be found, “where individual voices surface relentlessly like life-rings in a wild sea.”

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherTalonbooks
    Release dateMar 15, 2003
    ISBN9780889227996
    Darwin Alone in the Universe
    Author

    M.A.C. Farrant

    M.A.C. Farrant is the author of seventeen works of fiction, prose poems, non-fiction, memoir, two plays, and over one hundred book reviews and essays for the Vancouver Sun and the Toronto Globe & Mail. Her memoir, My Turquoise Years, which she adapted for the stage, premiered in 2013 at the Arts Club Theatre in Vancouver. Her novel, The Strange Truth About Us – A Novel of Absence,” (Talon) was cited as a Best Fiction Book of 2012 by the Globe and Mail. The World Afloat (2014, Talon), the first in a trilogy of collections of miniature fiction and prose poems, won the Victoria Book Prize. One Good Thing—a living memoir, published by Talon Books in 2021, was a BC Bestseller. Forthcoming from Talon Books: Jigsaw—a puzzle in ninety-three-and-a-half pieces, (2023, NF); My Turquoise Years 20th Anniversary Edition (2024). Archived material is in the “Special Collections Branch” at the University of Victoria.

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      Book preview

      Darwin Alone in the Universe - M.A.C. Farrant

      ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

      Thanks to the Canada Council for the Arts, and to the Seaview Cultural Fund, Victoria, B.C., for generous support.

      Grateful thanks also to the editors of the following publications where sections of the book first appeared: Mondohunkamooga, Toronto, 1996, Attila the Bookseller; Geist, 1997, The Little Pieces of Your Mind; Ottawa Citizen, 1998, Gifts; Adbusters, 1998, Lanny Does Not Exist; Reference West Chapbook Series, 1999, the chapbook titled Gifts which included Gifts, The Things I Do For You, Whoops, Mrs. Bean, The Festival, and The Little Pieces of Your Mind; Monday Magazine, Victoria, 2000, a shortened version of Down the Road to Eternity; Geist, 2001, Attila the Bookseller; Exact Fare Only: Good, Bad & Ugly Rides on Public Transportation, Grant Buday, Editor, Anvil Press, 2001, Gifts; Adbusters, 2002, Darwin Alone in the Universe; Mouth, USA, 2002, Darwin Alone in the Universe; All Wound Up—Alternative Writing from British Columbia, Patrick Robertson, David Samis, Vanessa Violini, Christopher Wilson, Editors, Ripple Effect Press, 2002, Darwin Alone in the Universe; The Art Tree, Far Field Press, 2002, Alan Brown, Editor, The Festival; The Wayward Coast, Far Field Press, 2003, Alan Brown, Editor The Heartspeak Wellness Retreat; St. Peter’s Anthology, St. Peter’s Press, 2003, Dave Margoshes, Editor, The Mirror.

      Special thanks to Kalle Lasn of Adbusters for granting permission to use the illustrations for the title story, Darwin Alone in the Universe, which first appeared in that magazine.

      The story, Darwin Alone in the Universe, contains quotes from Nuclear War Survival Skills by Cresson H. Kearny published in 1979 by the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, a Facility of the U.S. Dept. of Energy. The illustration concepts for the story Darwin Alone in the Universe and for the cover of this book are by M.A.C. Farrant, after illustrations found in Nuclear Survival Skills (1979 edition), with additional illustration by Valerie Thai.

      Photo of M.A.C. Farrant’s teeth by Dr. Ragnar Eeg, DDS, with thanks.

      INTRODUCTION

      Beginning a story, Where Have All the Prophesies Gone? I wrote: When I was a child in the ’50s and early ’60s, everyone expected that we’d soon be eating pills instead of dinner, that we’d be riding around in personal helicopters, and that in this polished and idle and mechanized future we’d work one or two days a week, then play golf or pursue hobbies. This was the prevailing view of paradise.

      This living hopefulness was as much a part of that time as is our fear today, that generalized edginess we have about where we are going, the world seen as ominous, hostile, and that period in the ’50s and ’60s, as merely a blip, merely pre-everything: pre-Anti-War, pre-cancer epidemic, pre-ozone and AIDS, pre-environmental, pre-victimization, pre-consumerism, and so on.

      Now, in place of naivete, contamination and dislocation are the prevailing moods.

      Contamination: of the air we breathe, the food we eat, the thoughts we think.

      Dislocation: of a people loving, bearing children, living in this world, and believing that their lives are inauthentic, of little value, in light of celebrity, in light of a doomed environment.

      Still, individual voices surface relentlessly like life-rings in a wild sea.

      This group of stories is about change. Because if you look at a thing long enough what you get is a bouquet of perceptions, various interpretations present themselves. The prolonged gaze that manifests itself in words. The prolonged questioning that attempts to keep apace with (and apart from) the times. Everything must be considered, especially our ceaseless quests for a living paradise.

      So … working on change, in a way, is the same as working on vision: a bouquet of views, of meanings, symbols, metaphors, and mysteries, of explanations and roadmaps, of concomitant alternative realities presented as existent.

      M.A.C. Farrant September 2002

      I will be an incommensurate wanderer here, said Ho Min. I will not wander any further than the next step.

      —Sacred Tales, vol. 3

      from Hiding Place of the Comediennes

      GIFTS

      I  CALLED FOR AN EARLY MORNING TAXI and they sent a hearse. In a cunning effort to keep my mood black, I reasoned. A hearse. Making sure I got the point. But I got in. Liking the way the hearse idled in the driveway like a limousine. The way the uniformed driver opened the door, solicitous as an usher. Inside the hearse: music playing—Mozart’s Requiem or it could have been Pink Floyd At Condo Hall . I sat in the front seat beside the driver feeling strangely buoyed: we were carrying no casket.

      Traveling to the city, then, at a funereal pace. Noting the sober glances from passersby: a woman at an intersection with a look of heavy concern, a group of pensioners staring grimly. I smiled and waved, determined to be sunny.

      Delivered at length to Forty-Fifth and Sharpe. There to walk the streets, my pockets full of dollar coins. To dispense at random to the squatting street kids with their dogs, sleeping bags, packs. And when a man asked for a cigarette I gave him the one I was smoking. And when a drunk holding an empty Listerine bottle said, Spare change? I gave him the rest of my coins. Thinking: whatever happened to Karl Marx?

      Thinking: gifts. And the pigskin wallet that you in your downy life might possibly need. Visiting the warehouse where my old friend Mona practiced supply side economics. In theory. Seven hundred pigs and a staff of twelve. The staff toiling third world fashion—strip, snip, toss. With a conveyer belt to the Chinese restaurant next door. The warehouse air chemically treated—made cool and sweet—keeping the pigskins supple. Row upon row of skins hanging from lines like laundry.

      And last week in the mail from the Bank of Commerce, another gift: Free Accidental Death Insurance to the tune of fifteen hundred dollars. For being a loyal consumer. What is this business of giving?

      Choosing your wallet from the many pigskin items happily displayed. Buying wholesale. Thinking dear. Thinking: business might be a good way to go: simple rules and your nose aquiver with ad campaigns, market forces: your life reduced to yea or nay. And Mona to admire, a woman meaning business, with advice to give: Oppose takeover bids. Prune your life of all things grey—sluggish partners and so forth.

      And will you admire your new wallet with its pouches greedy for your extra bills? Bought with wholesale intentions, mainly dear, love and so forth. And will my gift prove to be a wise investment? Thinking: what ever happened to Walt Whitman, that freewheeling champion of giddy days?

      Propelling myself, then, to the afternoon reception where I paid homage to three floors of newly installed books. Keeping my mood on the far side of black. In theory. So many books. So little interest. Helped along in this endeavor by complimentary wine and sushi. Prowling the guests for advantage. And meeting Karen entertaining a crowd about Jack: I got him straight from his mother and she practically wiped his ass. He doesn’t know what helping is. Comes home, sits in front of the TV, plays with his computer. Gives me a face if I ask him to feed the dogs.

      Thinking: whatever happened to the Dali Lama and the untainted, generous life?

      Back on the streets. The sun shining in spite of itself. A city duly warmed. Imagining the pile-lined slippers I might possibly buy. Another gift. For your nightly TV vigil. Compounding my investment; my mood surging to bright. And will your feet in pile-lined slippers thank me? Your feet tender from years of giving your all: pounding pavements, carpets, linoleum, grass.

      Meeting my friend Heather, then, for coffee at five dollars a pop. Coffee in theory. Made with chocolate, whipped cream, ad campaigns. The conversation turning to her lover, Ross: They don’t understand, do they? They don’t consider COMPLEXITY. For them it’s all business, the bottom line.

      Uh huh.

      Thinking: intravenous Buddhism. Cleverly attached to our sleeping arms—subliminal brain washing pumping us full of kindness, wisdom, love. And will the man asleep in the pet shop doorway thank me?

      Thinking of what Sartre said: There are two ways to go to the gas chamber, free or not free.

      Entering, then, the waiting hearse for my return trip home. Our newest form of public transportation, tailor made for those of us preferring the slow, gloomy sweep, the funereal glide. The hearse taking me home. Where I’m a volunteer participant in whatever falls my way. Sometimes smiling, sometimes not.

      And yesterday by mail a blessing from St. Mary’s Church. With a special message from the churchwardens: Please, we need your money.

      Giving and taking. Thinking: our ability to reconcile dark with light has diminished.

      Filling out my coupon for a bag of microwave popcorn. Free with a fill-up at Save-On-Gas.

      Intent on having giddiness.

      27609.jpg

      THE RETURN

      LIKE ULYSSES, I WAS GONE FOR TEN YEARS . Little changed in my absence.

      My husband was still in bed. He had not taken up weaving. I’ve been using the services of an elderly prostitute named Crystal, he told me. He looked wan and threadbare lying on the unmade bed, the sheets grey and unraveling.

      The dog was miserable when I left and not much had changed there either. Upon my return she leapt into my arms and bit me.

      My son, now thirty, was still at home watching TV—Great Sea Journeys of the World. But thinking, he said, of becoming a male siren in the Fall. At last, I thought, direction!

      Only my daughter had moved on. Uninterested in Queendom, she was living on a ranch in New Mexico, studying the adventurous techniques of Georgia O’Keefe.

      She had changed her name to Penny Pacific and was painting

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