Saturday, February 2, 2008

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Sunken continents are great.  

Atlantis is fairly well known, but there are others.  Lemuria and Moo (sometimes Mu) were cool too.  Lemuria was the original home of the ring-tailed Lemur (best animal ever) and connected India to Madagascar.  It was destroyed because its pseudo-human denizens got into animal sex and pissed off the gods.  I'm not saying that I advocate sex with animals, but just because the inhabitants had some unsavory habits doesn't mean that the place wasn't interesting.  It had lemurs in abundance!  And, frankly, back then, gods were really flood happy, so until I hear both sides of the story, I don't think it's crazy to think that they overreacted.  (Similarly, I think we can all agree with the luxury of hindsight (ha!) that Sodomy, got a REALLY bad rap.)  I don't know much about Moo, but come on, it's called MOO -- the people living there MUST have been funny.  

But, Atlantis gets the press . . . and for good reason.  We've all had successes in our lives.  Graduations.  Promotions.  Certificates.  One night stands.  But, very few people have had the kind over-the-top-of-the-food-chain success that Atlantis enjoyed at it's height.  Wizard kings.  Advanced technology.  Lovely vistas.  Shiny buildings.  So, when the whole descent into the brine happened, conventional wisdom tells us that Atlantis was going to take it hard.  (The best American example of this sort of absolute drop off that I can think of is Mike Tyson: I just watched a youtube about his best knock-outs . . . that guy was awesome; now he's really sad and spends most of his time with pigeons.)  Ancient Rome wasn't even as amazing as Atlantis, but when Rome fell, what'd we get?  Dark Ages.  When the irresistible tides came for Atlantis though, Atlantis didn't get down -- not figuratively anyway -- Atlantis got better!  That civilization didn't give up.  It learned to breathe underwater.  Or, alternatively, it learned to build a big bubble that mimics the atmosphere of the earth's surface.  Either way, it did the impossible, and it did it fast.  (Not to mention the taming of giant sea-horses and marine life telepathy.)  THEY say that we should take lemons and make lemonade -- but, that's not a very ambitious platitude.  Lemons aren't THAT bad in the first place and lemonade isn't THAT much better.  But, taking an overwhelming natural catastrophe and making a utopia that challenges our perception of what is possible . . . much more impressive.  

  

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