A Parade A lake effect economist the accidental catalyst, idle fingers make a fist The future is a sucker's bet, the past is just a cigarette to set on fire then forget A dirty rag in a vodka fifth chars the benign titan myth and sears the ivory monolith With any luck the flames will come and disinfect the millenium there's starter fluid in everyone Sulfur from the taxicabs tendrils to the research lab, stabs the lungs, summons the crab The famous gilded intellect couldn't quite self-correct so all that's left is biotech We could see Colossal gains when Wall Street reconnects the mains, crack the genome, respell the names Dead skin on the windowsill, our nature is an imbecile and progress leads us downward still, it don't solve shit, it never will At our age the body's a cage for the soul But meat rots and iron will rust Our essence won't choke on the salt and the coal We live on in creatures better than us The architect of all of this chose to stay anonymous, our holy words are tears and piss I recall a winter storm and our thinning band of northern born, we burned the boats just to stay warm We hugged the coast and mourned our dead until the elder spirits said to hunt for meat on land instead Twenty thousand years have passed, we slayed the beasts and plowed the grass then said "my bad" at Sunday mass Out of all the species lost, we chose one to defrost with CRISPR cells and fingers crossed The elegant curving tusks, the matted fur, the fetid musk, facsimiles but close enough Cinder blocks and battered chrome, only woolly mammoth roam the prairie that was once our home Blood is always counterfeit, every womb is surrogate, progress is just elephant shit, you can drown if there's too much of it At our age the body's a cage for the soul But meat rots and iron will rust Our essence won't choke on the salt and the coal We live on in creatures better than us ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Unreleased Nadalands song (March 2024) A Parade The group name for elephantids, the procession of human "progress," and the movement of protestors down a street. This song was written in response to a prompt about the de-extinction of woolly mammoths from Brian Johannesen. lake effect economist "Freshwater" economics departments in universities near the Great Lakes, particular the University of Chicago, are often more free-market than the relatively pro-regulation "saltwater" economists at coastal schools. Chicago (the hometown of Brian Johannesen) experiences the "lake effect" due to its proximity to Lake Michigan. accidental catalyst Policies of financial deregulation and public service privatization, endorsed by neoliberal economists, led to social unrest in the US, UK, and Global South. idle fingers make a fist Unemployed people are more likely to protest the dominant economic system. The future is a sucker's bet The climate catastrophe inspires a grim forecast of the earth's future. Futures contracts are financial instruments that allow speculation on the changing price of a commodity. A dirty rag in a vodka fifth A Molotov cocktail. A fifth of a US gallon of vodka is mentioned by Eminem on "My Name Is" and "Stan." the benign titan myth The fallacy that the titans of the financial and technology industries are motivated by a dedication to humanity. Titans were giant precursors to the Olympian gods in Greek mythology. Ancient Greek religion is another form of faith, along with the Catholicism, free-market economic orthodoxy, technological optimism, and ancient Beringian folk beliefs mentioned in the song. Titan is a synonym of colossus (see below). ivory monolith The "ivory tower" of hermetic elite institutions, but also actual monuments to historical "great men." The ivory trade (by humans) threatens to drive African elephants to extinction. there's starter fluid in everyone Every human is made of carbon and flammable, but also capable of fomenting unrest. tendrils to the research lab Genomic research is indirectly connected to the economic crisis. crab cancer caused by breathing toxic air gilded intellect The supposed brilliance of business "geniuses." The U.S. gilded age of the 1870s-1890s was characterized by industrialization, economic inequality, and accumulation of wealth by robber barons. Income and wealthinequality are extreme in thepresent moment, which some call the "Second Gilded Age". self-correct Free-market economists believe that an unregulated market will recover by devaluing certain assets. all that's left is biotech Film producers and venture capital firms invest in Colossal when other avenues of profitable investment are no longer available. The Winklevoss twins, of Facebook and Bitcoin fame, are investors in Colossal. Refocusing investment in light of species extinction and political unrest is archetypical disaster capitalism. Jeff VanderMeer's Borne imagines a world in which only biotech remains. Colossal The company seeking to make the new mammoths. crack the genome, respell the names Analyzing DNA from mammoth fossils allows scientists to identify differences between mammoth and elephant genomes. The order of nucleotide bases A (adenine), C (cytosine), G (guanine), and T (thymine) in DNA can be reorganized, as in the movie GATTACA. dead skin Dust contains dead human skin cells (though not in the overwhelming proportion suggested by urban legend). Like climate change and urban unrest, this instance of destruction and waste has a human origin. Scientists are editing Asian elephant skin cells to create an elephant-mammoth hybrid. age The advanced age and failing body of the songwriter, but also late-stage capitalism and the anthropocene. cage Circus elephants are kept in cages. The album Ten Stories by mewithoutyou is about a circus train crash in Montana; an elephant was uncaged in what would have been mammoth habitat. meat rots and iron will rust Human bodies and technological marvels cannot last indefinitely. Our essence won't choke on the salt and the coal The human soul will not be killed by salinization or other consequences of climate change, even though the body will. Coal is a major producer of greenhouse gasses, but also kills miners and local communities in the name of progress, as described by John Prine. Ecological Marxists argue that capitalist growth destroys the conditions of its own expansion, including the environment and human health. We live on in creatures better than us The notion that the essence of a human lives on in our human children, scientific discoveries, or creations (such as artificial intelligence and mammoth-elephant hybrids). Despite the possibility of human extinction due to AI, futurists embrace humans merging with computers and claim humans could survive for billions of years. Though Lindenbaum read it just after writing this song, "The Tusks of Extinction" by Ray Nayler details the insertion of an anti-poaching activist's mind into one of these bioengineered mammoth hybrids. The architect of all of this chose to stay anonymous An all-knowing creator of the world remains invisible, such that any semblance of a "plan" is subject to human interpretation. thinning band of northern born Reference to the hypothesis that humans first reached the Americas by migrating south along the Pacific coastline rather than through an ice free corridor. hunt for meat on land These first Americans would have consumed fish, birds, shellfish, marine mammals, and seaweed from coastal kelp forests before moving east from the Pacific coast, when they would have encountered megafauna. Twenty thousand years The Pacific Coast Migration model dates human arrival in North America as far back as 20,000 years ago, much earlier than the ice free corridor model estimate of 13,500 years ago. we slayed the beasts and plowed the grass Humans hunted woolly mammoths and converted grassland to agriculture in North America. Sunday mass Many Indigenous religious beliefs were replaced with Christianity, which offers a different conception of nature. all the species lost The sixth great extinction; the rate of species extinction is 1,000 to 10,000 times higher than it would be without humans. Scientists have argued that woolly mammoths went extinct due to human hunting, but now climate change is considered the most likely cause. Humans also could go extinct due to climate change, which is our own doing. CRISPR cells CRISPR is the gene-editing technology being used to create new woolly mammoth DNA. It is also a for-profit corporation. facsimiles The new "mammophants" will have a combination of Asian elephant and woolly mammoth DNA, so they will not be the genuine article. Cinder blocks and battered chrome Artifacts of human civilization. Blood is always counterfeit The biological heritage of the new woolly mammoths would have been constructed in a lab rather than through natural breeding. Claims that human behavior can be solely attributed to "nature" or genes are false. every womb is surrogate Initially, Dr. George Church planned to implant mammoth embryos in Asian elephant mothers, who would be surrogates. Now, Colossal aims to use an artifical uterus. Human mothers, also, gestate children who will later be independent from them. drown Sea level rise driven by anthropegenic climate change. Mammoth advocates argue (unconvincingly) that reintroduction could slow or help reverse climate change by reducing greenhouse gas emissions from the Arctic.