In 1999, my second year of grad school, I attended a talk by my friend’s dad, who also happened to be the Dean of the Graduate College. Was I ingratiating myself in the hopes of a fellowship? Probably. Did I care about the subject, climate change? Definitely yes. I had just moved back to SLC, Utah, from Portland, Oregon, where I’d worked for an environmental organization. I had helped promote art-disrupter events with my friend, Vinnie the Fire Boy, who danced down the waterfront as I handed out "You EnDanger" and "Cows Kill Salmon" bumper stickers in the shape of fish. Portland was a great venue to practice wild art. Guerilla art activists replaced the street signs for Front Ave to Malcolm X Blvd. A group from the college I attended hosted a reverse peristalsis event where the artists ate a bunch of oatmeal dyed in the colors of the South African flag and threw up their oats to protest apartheid. ORLO, the organization I worked for, presented Smoke Screen: Smokey Bear at 50, a multimedia exhibit featuring artwork and presentations by three dozen artists. The exhibit sought to debunk 50 years of Forest Service propaganda “hypnotizing� Americans into believing forest fires are bad. The exhibit re-evaluated the history of fire suppression, considered the benefit of fire in healthy forests and offered perspectives on fire as a management tool.
In those healthy-ish forests, I hunted for mushrooms and swam in the streams in the Oregon forest. Water defined everything about those forests—the amount of rainfall made possible the three-hundred-foot stands of Douglas Fir. It catalyzed mushrooms to pop their heads out from their underground mycorrhizal networks. For only a couple of months of the year was it sunny enough to plunge your body into mountain rivers to grapple along the rocks, crawling upstream, pretending you were a salmon.
My former student went to see the Subhumans in Phoenix late last fall. I’ve loved this punk rock band since I was twelve-years-old. Their dark point of view satisfied me. Their song “The Cradl… Read moreImpossible individualism: Us fish must swim together
I didn’t mean to fall in love with Brine Shrimp. In 2017, for my birthday, my friend Angie gave me an ecosphere—an egg-shaped glass enclosure in which three brine shrimp swam among oxygenating… Read moreNicole's Impossibly Possible Ideas: Brine shrimp
I have a confession to make. I adopted two new kittens. After Zane the cat got lost last April, I couldn’t stop missing him. Zane, half Maine Coon, half koala bear, was my person. He slept bet… Read moreNicole's Impossibly Possible Ideas: Impossible Hospitals
On June 30th, I took a trip with my friend Beya and our youngest boys to Clear Creek Reservoir to paddleboard. The wind was strong. The water was murky. The sun was hot. We managed to make it … Read moreNicole's Impossibly Possible Ideas: Impossible College
I was born in Salt Lake City, Utah. The nouns in that sentence define nearly all of my writing. My hometown, paradoxically named, shaped my aesthetic. I write from a first-person point of view… Read moreNicole's Impossibly Possible Ideas: One and done
Newly elected governor Katie Hobbs, in her inauguration speech, vowed to repeal the universal vouchers, officially known as Empowerment Scholarship Accounts (ESAs) â€� double-speak for if you’re… Read moreNicole's Impossibly Possible Ideas: Boot Straps
It was precisely 97 minutes ago that we wrapped up Spring Semester 2022. By the time you’re reading this, it will be September 1 and Fall Semester 2022 will be well underway. They say there’s … Read moreNicole's Impossibly Possible Ideas: A wormhole summer
