Food Chains

A food chain, according to Wikipedia, is the flow of energy from one organism to the next and to the next and so on.  You start with what’s called a primary producer, usually a being that rates low in terms of evolutionary development and differentiation, and go successively through various trophic levels of predators feeding on prey, till you end with the top consumer, usually a carnivore.

In our domestic universe, this web of energy flow was replicated in our caravan that steadily made its way from New York City to the Bay Area.  The animals were not represented, in our case, two by two other than the felines, but our food chain was complete with primary producer – a friend’s son’s hamster – and larger consumers, including said felines and large white dog.  No one was hurt, except one busted tire on the Interstate 80 two miles outside of Salt Lake City, no bodily part was missing nor eaten.  We all emerged, weary but unscathed, on the other side of the country after six days of journeying across the highways and rest stations of America.

Some random observations from our six-day trip:

• Driving sucks.
• Driving a 15-year old Volvo doubly sucks.
• Driving with a hamster entrusted in your care, two felines, and a large white dog makes for an, erm, interesting trip.
• Cheyenne, WY is worth a closer look.
• As well as Salt Lake City, UT. Never knew there were so many tattooed ski bums there.
• A good balanced meal filled with primary producers can be had, if one must, at Taco Bell.

We made it.  Rather, we have made it.  This is a two-month too-late post, as we’ve now arrived, settled, and prospered in our new domicile in Berkeley, California.  Perhaps I’m too ambitious in saying prospered.  Adapting is more like it.

Aspects of our adaptation:

• We are wearing fitness clothes more, everywhere, especially when not engaged in physical activity.
• I spend a fortune on Bart daily, which is IMHO not affordable nor publicly subsidized transportation.  I have learned a trick for avoiding the queue to enter the train: act apologetically surprised.  “Oh, I didn’t realize you were all waiting on line!”  This is a city of passive aggressives, they will be politely dismayed at you, but you still score a seat during rush hour.
• I am encountering persons of the hippie persuasion, and developing an allergic reaction to the dominant ethic of white liberalism here.
• I lack knowledge and a framework for how to understand the poverty, racial tensions, gentrification and displacement that I see here.
• I love the farmers’ markets, despite the preponderance of afore-mentioned white hippies.
• I am in love with the flora and fauna out here. I love that lavender and dahlias grow and thrive under my care.

I’m sure more will follow on my attempts to ingratiate myself into my new surroundings.  For now, I leave you with my current obsession: strategic essentialism.  I’ve been thinking about this, a lot, lately.  Michael Omi and Howard Winant write in Racial Formation in the U.S.: From the 1960s to the 1990s (Routledge, 1994):

Members of subordinate racial groups, when faced with racist practices such as exclusion or discrimination, are frequently forced to band together in order to defend their interests (if not, in some instances, their very lives).  Such “strategic essentialism” should not, however, be simply equated with the essentialism practiced by dominant groups, nor should it prevent the interrogation of internal group differences.