Friday is Arbor Day.
Coming at the end of a week in which way too many trees have been hacked down in my neighborhood by a bunch of butchers enlisted by the idiot property association, it’s perhaps ironic that our topic on the next “Roy’s Tie-Dye Sci-Fi Corner” – formulated by Roy and me on Earth Day – will be the environmental cult classic “Silent Running” (1972).
This was one of only two movies directed by special effects legend Douglas Trumbull (of “2001: A Space Odyssey” and “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” fame).
Space botanist Bruce Dern – a little borderline even under the best of circumstances – is driven to employ desperate measures to ensure that he and his robot sidekicks, Huey, Dewey, and Louie, can continue to carry-out their reforestation mission in a floating geodesic greenhouse near the rings of Saturn.
None other than Peter Schickele wrote the music. Folk icon Joan Baez generates a queasy air of counterculture flower-powerlessness.
“Fields of children running wild
In the sun
Like a forest is your child, growing wild
In the sun
Doomed in his innocence
In the sun
Gather your children to your side
In the sun
Tell them all they love will die
Tell them why
In the sun
Tell them it’s not too late
Cultivate, one by one
Tell them to harvest and rejoice
In the sun.”
In short, you’re doomed, everything you care about will die, but it’s not too late to cultivate… Sounds pretty hopeful to me.
It would be cathartic to hack off a few arms to avenge every tree limb right about now. Dern doesn’t quite deliver on that scale, but “Silent Running” can still put a lump in the throat of anyone who cares at all about wildlife and the environment. It conveys the essential truth that no matter what century you live in, the majority of humankind is at best clueless.
“Tears of sorrow running deep
running silent in my sleep
running silent in my sleep…”
Join us as I preach a gospel of despair on Roy’s Tie-Dye Sci-Fi Corner. The only plant will be my fist in the face of all butchers, as we livestream on Facebook. Fill the comments section with your lamentations, this Friday evening at a special time – one half-hour later than usual – 7:30 EDT.
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