3 Comments on “Week3: My First Vlog: <i>Raw Materialist</i>”

  1. Thanks for vlogging, Scout. And for giving us the world “vlog”.
    (“Vlog” somehow feels deeply Russian–like a mystery learned from
    the old god Dazhbog.)

    I like having the chance to see the face (which I have previously
    met through strange still pics) come to life with the language of
    rewilding that I met here and on the REWILD forum.

    I will now proceed to take issues with your rating for week 3:

    Behold the “Goals for Week Three” you previously presented to us. I
    assume they find themselves scribbled in the little pad you keep
    next to your ass.

    1. Try to kill another animal (Using traps?)
    2. Bathe with water heated by hot rocks
    3. Finish making spear
    4. Gather more greens & write about them in the wiki
    5. Make a burn bowl
    6. Cook 4 meals over a fire (scrabble eggs on a hot stone?)
    7. Work on Stone Axe
    8. Gather lots of firewood

    Numbers 1, 2, 4, 5 and 6 you did not complete, granted. (Why do all of us wiki contributors have such a hard time with writing the plant articles?)
    Number 3 you didn’t complete, but I feel like the spirit of the goal
    lies more in finishing work with your bone blade than with making a
    spear, per se. Since you have hafted your blade into a handle to
    make a knife, I count this one a success.
    Number 7, you succeeded at. While you didn’t succeed in actually
    making a serviceable stone axe, the goal actually reads “work
    on     stone axe” which you did accomplish–therefore: success.
    Number 8 you accomplished as well. Driftwood, I would think, should
    burn nicely in your tipi, as all the green got left in the sea.

    3 out of 8. Not too bad. Also, take into account that one of week
    2’s goals read “Shoot a short video blog”. So you get a bonus point
    for a retro-goal achievement.

    Since last week marked 3.5 out of 8 (I give you half a point for
    shooting video in week 2 even though you didn’t post the vlog) and
    this week marks 4 out of 8 (yeah, yeah, I double-dipped on the vlog
    goal, but I take into account that you shot material for both weeks
    and actually posted a blog in the 3rd week). All in all, your goal
    grade borders close to half way–with a 47% achievement rate. Not
    bad for your first month.

    Now for the issues at hand: “raw materials” and “feral failures”.
    Raw materials feels like a tough one to get around. I find myself
    thinking about what these things mean to their environment before
    you gather them. They had a life there, whether they floated on the
    sea or held up a deer’s body or grew by the side of the road. They
    existed as themselves then, but you will help them exist as
    something else now.

    I thought that that rambling thought would lead me somewhere, but it
    didn’t.

    What about “resources”? All living things thrive off resources of
    some kind–nutrients, sunlight, habitat, atmosphere (or lack thereof
    for our anaerobic neighbors [gotta give them a shout out, too]). I
    think we will either have to get new agey or get clunky with this
    one.

    My first instinct, though? Just say what you gathered. Don’t lump
    them together into a category. How does that sound for clunky?
    Enumerating each thing.

    On the feral failure slogan. I find it interesting that you came
    into the need for a slogan by saying “I’m a failure” and then you
    try to get e-primitive verby with it despite the attempt to fit the
    verby slogan into a b-english sentence. If you want to stick with
    the “to be”, I think “I’m a feral failure” works. If you want to
    really e-prime and primitive it up, then you would have to say
    something like “I failed in my feralizing” or “I ferally failed”
    or “I failed with my feraling”. But what I really think you are trying to do (along the lines of Penny’s Feral Failures club) is to feralize your failures–learn from your failures as you feralize yourself.

    Looking forward to week 4.
    –rix

  2. You delivered on the video blog, awesome! Okay, it’s harder to remember what you said though to reply…
    Okay, raw materials:
    -organic matter
    -primal matter
    -primitive paraphernalia
    -unprocessed objects
    -earth goods
    -earthly equipment
    -stuff-of-the-land

    I’m so happy that you have joined the feral failure society! or Failed and Fabulous as we like to call it here in my (very) local support group. I’m going to write up something about what I failed at last week. But I’m such a failure it probably won’t be done until next week. Good luck with your next failure!