Like Nothing Ever Seen Before

I don't know why, but I never heard of Natalie Merchant until today when this song was posted on Facebook.  It is perhaps the most mournfully prophetic song imaginable, and beautiful.  It evokes the tragic inevitability of what we can see but cannot stop.  Apparently, there's much more.  Lyrics below.

It’s a-coming.

Wild fires, dying lakes,
landslides, hurricanes,
apocalypse in store
like nothing ever seen before.

It’s a-coming.

Third-generation refugees,
street mob burning effigies,
revolution, civil war
like nothing ever seen before.

It’s a-coming.

Pale-horse rider come,
blistered by the morning sun,
tell about what he can see,
crystal ball of mercury.

It’s a-coming. It’s gonna come.

Jungle slashed and jungle burned,
the monkeys and the painted birds

climb the vines, the limbs and leaves,
the lungs that let the whole world breathe.

It’s a-coming.

All the ones that failed to thrive,
starved out and buried alive,
something evil, something free,
calamity.

It’s gonna come.

Space Race, the old Cold War,
atom bomb was gonna settle the score.

You wait and see. It’s a long time coming

but it’s a-coming. It’s gonna come.

Third-generation refugees,
street mob burning effigies,
revolution, civil war
like nothing ever seen before.

Like nothing ever seen before.

The Library is Now Open

Gaia

Just for amusement (and possible utility) I have created an Apocalypsi Library...a Map of the Doomosphere...which is now open to the public for reading, borrowing, browsing, commenting and contributions (not monetary - ideas and links).  Enjoy!  And no need to keep your voices down.  Make all the noise you like!

Portal HERE.

Midway

For family reasons I have been stuck on Cape Cod for two weeks.  I do not like it here.  It is impossible to go anywhere without being trapped in traffic, it feels suffocating.  There are so obviously too many people sprawling heedlessly over this fragile sandy space, I sense a nasty shift in my perception of humanity - no longer a detached fondness for a failed and somewhat comically doomed species, but rather, increasing revulsion towards a seething, wriggling mass of shiny maggots.  Enjoy this short trailer, it is heartbreakingly tragic (for best quality, go to the film website).

Forsaken Places

Wit's End is primarily about the subject of trees dying prematurely from air pollution, and so most of the images on the blog are of damaged foliage and trees falling on houses and so forth.  At the same time, I am very fond of taking photos of abandoned farms, cemeteries and other scenes of evocative loss, which I love for their atmosphere of decay.  This collection of pictures - of deteriorating buildings and cars, where nature is reclaiming the ephemeral detritus of human civilization - is taken from earlier posts at Wit's End (for another project in the works).  To jump to the last post about trees (There Goes the Neighborhood!) click here.

A trip through South Carolina in December 2013, posted as Against the Ruin of the World.

From south Jersey, a treasure of cars forgotten behind a barn, posted July 2014 in There Goes the Neighborhood

This neglected New Jersey farm was part of the post The Human Volcano

This photograph is from the post Ungentle Ministrations

These two photos are from western New Jersey, posted in A Dream of Trees

The pictures that follow were taken in Pennsylvania, on my way home from the 2013 Age of Limits Conference, posted at Our Revels Have Now Ended.

These photos are from central Pennsylvania, posted at Nature Debauched.

These pictures were taken in 2012 in West Virginia, posted at Afterthoughts.

The following photos were taken around Monmouth Park, the site of a battlefield in the Revolutionary War, posted in Overshot.

This ramshackle barn is in Whitehouse, NJ not far from Wit's End.  Photos posted in No One Knows Where This Will Lead

I passed this relic when I was lost in Kentucky, trying to find Daniel Boone National Park.  Posted in We Fell From a Dying Tree - ἀσφοδελὸν λειμῶνα (Asphodel Meadow)

Rural northwestern New Jersey, on a trip to High Point State Park, posted in Subdue the Satanic Wilderness, Intoxicated with Barbarism