Crop Circles: are YOU listening?

In my Philosophy 600 class tonight we spent a good 20 minutes talking about crop circles. It was pretty amazing. (I love my Philosophy 600 class). Like so:

Pretty hey? I didn't know a lot about this stuff, though Mulder's lessons have remained with me all these years. So when I got home did some research. This is some of what I discovered:

• There exists a sizable body of ufology literature. As in, this stuff has been going on for a very long time and poets have talked about these geographic communications.
  
• Most crop circles occur in Britain, i.e. Hampshire and Wiltshire. More on this later.


• Crop circles are, mostly, very beautiful. Strikingly so, even - the patterns, the use of negative space, the elegence all accord with the elements of sophisticated design.


• Circles began to really be noticed (be recorded?) in the 70's. They began with pretty simple geometric shapes, but gradually got more and more intricate (as their messages grew more complicated?) These are two of the most famous, and most stunning, examples:
  
  
  
  

aaaand . . .

(. . . because well, yes obviously sometimes it's just that.)

My professor has been researching, and he's pretty sold on the non-terestrial-beings-trying-to-communicate theory. However, some of those with a physicalist bent in the room were sticking with the hoax cop-out. My friend Nicole put forward quite wonderfully the opinion that crop circles are probably just God at play; and really, it's not hard to imagine that the footsteps of a divine dance would leave patterns like these.

My own conviction, nevertheless, is that some of these (especially the U.K. circles) are certainly the work of the people of faery. Which is deliciously ironic, because Britain, of all countries, has most sucessfully tried to banish them from their consciousnesses (Tinkerbell: "every time a child says I don't believe in fairies a fairy dies . . ." etc.) The hugeness of these circles is no issue here, since as Tolkien has explained to us in On Fairy Stories and shown us in LOTR, the faery people of Britain have much more in common with the medieval's idea of angelic powers or principles than Shakespeare's damned idea of diminutive sprites.

The long tradition of ceremonial faery-rings - whether around toadstools or around more impressive sacred sites - closely corresponds with what's happening in these circles.

The natural conclusion: the people of faery are again trying to reach us. Perhaps to restore communion, perhaps to offer an olive branch, perhaps to warn us of something, perhaps to prepare us. I'm not quite sure. What haunts me now is the question of what they are trying to say; they're going to quite a lot of trouble to say it, so it's a good bet whatever it is, it's pretty important. Any guesses?

Sebastian: Crab or Lobster?

Well it's obvious what this post is about: the question we've all wondered since childhood, is Sebastian the crustacian a crab or a lobster - or perhaps a new forray into hitherto unedeveloped areas of hybridity?


(Question triggered by a mermaid tutorial given to nephew Ethan last night, the result of which was a room full of Van Dykes quarrelling on the genus of this little guy - who, let's admit, is probably Disney's most fantastic creation.)

I took a pretty hard line on his lobster-status. I mean, get an eyeful of those pinchers - have you ever seen a crab with pinchers like that? NO you haven't. Because crabs don't have an anatomy that includes pinchers like that. I'm firm on this.

However, there were other Van Dykes who were not so certain, even belligerently so. Insisting that the movie must speak for itself, Little Mermaid transcripts were googled and this evidence - yes seemingly incontrovertable - was discovered:

The testimony of Chef Loius:
"Zut alors! I have missed one.[Picks him up] Sacrebleu! What is this? / How on earth could I miss / Such a sweet, little succulent crab / Quel dommage, what a loss! / Here we go, in the sauce / Now some flour, I think just a dab / Now I'll stuff you with bread! / It don't hurt, 'cause you're dead / And you're certainly lucky you are / 'Cause it's gonna be hot in my big silver pot / Toodle-oo, mon poisson, au revoir"

(I suppose I didn't really have to quote that all, but man doesn't that bring on the nosalgia? Besides it's just a really good song.)

If you missed it, yup Loius is on the side of the crab-status. As is King Triton ("you're just the crab to do it!")

However, while certain viewers may regard this as the end of the argument, I remain certain that, at the very least, those Disney people were just confused. Confused, or trying to pull one over the innocent children, all of whom have no doubt emerged into adulthood with significantly warped perceptions of the physiogomy of crabs.