Today, as climate regimes undergo rapid shifts, the ability of plants to follow their preferred climates takes on a new urgency.
So, how does a forest, or any community of plants, undertake a migration? Although an individual plant can move only as fast as it can grow, plant seeds have evolved incredible hitchhiking capabilities. By taking advantage of wind, water currents, mammalian fur, and the digestive tracts of hemisphere-crossing birds, plants are capable of establishing colonies on even the most far-flung fragments of land. By making themselves appealing to mammals, they improve their odds of dispersal. The ubiquity of certain trees and vegetables that taste good to humans doesn’t reflect human ingenuity so much as it reflects the evolutionary advantages plants gain by bending humans to their will.
“What country, friends, is this?” Viola demands of a naval captain upon arriving on a foreign shore in Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night. After being told “Illyria,” she says, “And what should I do in Illyria?”
These are the very questions the Great American Novel (or “GAN” as Henry James put it)—whatever you deem this to be—sets out to answer. What country is America, and what should we do here? James Baldwin provides ample possible answers in the often overlooked Another Country.
The Perennials. We are ever-blooming, relevant people of all ages who live in the present time, know what’s happening in the world, stay current with technology, and have friends of all ages. We get involved, stay curious, mentor others, are passionate, compassionate, creative, confident, collaborative, global-minded, risk takers who continue to push up against our growing edge and know how to hustle. We comprise an inclusive, enduring mindset, not a divisive demographic. Perennials are also vectors who have a wide appeal and spread ideas and commerce faster than any single generation. Lady Gaga + Tony Bennett, Lena Dunham + Jenni Konner, Beyoncé + Jay-Z, Bob Dylan, Jimmy Fallon, Pharrell Williams, Justin Trudeau, Ellen DeGeneres, Malala, Sheryl Sandberg, Mick Jagger, Michelle Obama, Emma Watson, Elon Musk, Bernie Sanders, Diane Von Furstenberg, Lorne Michaels, Ai Weiwei, John Oliver, Aziz Ansari, the little girl on Stranger Things … #Perennials
The latest volume, “Alfred Hitchcock: A Brief Life,” by the novelist and biographer Peter Ackroyd, offers no new revelations, but it provides a smart, fluent overview of the director’s life and art, and the mysterious dynamic between the two.