Final set of my Inktober pieces this year. I had so much fun challenging myself to animate again. Glad it’s over, but looking forward to next year already!
It’s so annoying when people act like fantasy and sci-fi are cute offshoots of Literature, because interpreting all other stories through the lens of SFF themes and tropes unlocks a lot of really neat insights
One of the best classes I’ve taken in college was Postcolonial Literature. It consistently sparked so many insightful and complex discussions that I left the class with the sense that I’d had at least one meaningful conversation with every person in the class.
I was thinking about “portal fantasy” just now and was suddenly struck by the idea that most “portal fantasy” contains something a little bit like the concepts of “double consciousness” and hybrid identity that are present in postcolonial critical theory.
In a “portal fantasy,” a character moves between two (or more) “worlds” that have different rules. This character’s identity usually changes on one side of the “portal” vs. another, and this is a core aspect of the narrative. In Narnia, the Pevensies are kings and queens; in the “mundane” world, they are ordinary children in a war-torn country. Characters in stories like this often have an ongoing conflict between their two identities, which are “performed” depending on which “world” they are in.
Something strikingly similar happens in many of the books we read for postcolonial lit. The characters living in a society where they are torn between assimilation with the colonizer and maintaining their cultural identity are passing through a similar kind of “portal” whenever they move from a space that demands one identity vs. a space that celebrates the other. And crucially, the experience of having passed through the “portal” sets you apart from people on both sides of it.
Which made me think: What if “portal” isn’t a kind of fantasy, but a kind of story? There are a lot of human experiences that can be considered “worlds” accessible through “portals:” childhood, war, and so on. In this interpretation it would be the doubling of identity and the different rules on both sides of the “portal” that define a story as a portal story, not the literal supernatural portal.
Excerpt from this Margaret Renkl Op-Ed from the New York Times:
In my neighborhood, giant old trees are being lost to development at a prodigious rate. Some of them are cut down to make room for ever-bigger houses. Some are killed inadvertently during the construction of those new homes. Still others are removed out of nothing more than fashion — to “improve” the curb appeal of the house or to be replaced by a less “messy” tree, among other foolish reasons. Oaks, which grow so large and scatter the yard with acorns, are often the first to go when a developer buys a house to tear down.
I took note when the Department of Forestry, Wildlife and Fisheries at the University of Tennessee’s Institute of Agriculture asked for help in collecting viable white oak acorns to use in reforestation. But with all the trees lost in my neighborhood during these years of rapid growth, I have a different plan for my acorns.
It’s possible to buy young trees from a nursery, of course, but oaks do better when planted from acorns, according to Dr. Tallamy, and now is the time to collect them.
Last fall I tried to start some acorns from a friend’s chestnut oak, which also belongs to the white oak group, but the squirrels dug them all up and carried them off. This year I’ll plant my acorns in flowerpots and protect them with bricks and hardware cloth. Come spring, I’ll hand the seedlings out like Easter eggs. If I can talk my new human neighbors into planting these seedlings in their yards, they’ll have shade again someday, and our wild neighbors will have food and shelter, too.
Maybe it seems pointless, all this hope based on nothing more than a couple of dozen acorns. Even if they all germinate, even if they survive rabbits and drought long enough to reach acorn-bearing age, how much difference will it even make? In the context of rampant deforestation and massive biodiversity loss, will it matter if one small neighborhood in one growing city becomes a safe place for oak trees and the creatures they shelter and feed?
My answer lies in the acorn itself: As the old English proverb goes, mighty oaks from little acorns grow.
I love handing out free trees to people. I love it so much I’m starting an organization in my hometown. And people love free trees! I’ve given away 70+ this past summer.
It’s so stupid easy to grow oaks from acorns it feels illegal.
Around mid to late October here in Kentucky, if you go rummaging around in leaves underneath white oaks, you will find many already-sprouted acorns. Stick them in a pot sprout side down (that’s the root!) There ya go.
White oaks (that’s a category, not a species, there are many species in the white oak group) can be planted and they will sprout right away. Red oaks (that’s the other North American category) need to experience winter and then they’ll be ready to sprout in the spring. You can put them in the fridge in a damp paper towel if you’re worried about squirrels. The acorn doesn’t know any different.
Collect acorns when they’ve fallen to the ground, they’re brown and their little hats have fallen off. Lay them on their side in a pot and keep them moist. Pretty soon you’ll have a baby tree that will one day grow into a majestic titan that is the caretaker of a thousand creatures.
Will it matter? Yes, it will. Do you know the difference a tree can make? They capture carbon, prevent erosion, block light pollution, and produce food and habitat for wildlife. I can’t overstate the power and importance of a tree.
Growing trees is something *you* can do, in an age when baby trees are expensive and scarce. (The Kentucky state government doesn’t have enough saplings for its reforestation projects right now because there are not enough nurseries!) At the plant nursery down the road, you know what a tree costs? At least $200. That’s insane!
Go forth and grow trees! Despair and pessimism can suck my ass!
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