Mortality and Forestry

“Statistically speaking, you will die having missed almost everything.” – Linda Holmes

Linda Holmes wrote these words in 2011. For Linda this realization was tied to the vast number of books in existence in the world. By her very generous and back of the envelope accounting, a person such disposed could read two books or one really big book a week and accumulate 6,500 books by age 80. Even at that accelerated pace, an individual would be still only read a few books of certain genres and certainly miss the vast majority of the books ever written. The huge swaths of books written to date and the rate of new books published every year would make sure that, as she mentioned in the quote above, the reader would still effectively miss almost everything.

Summer Songs About The Outdoors

As summer runs its dry course what better to pour some water on the soul than songs about nature and summertime?

I deeply recommend That Summer by Bishop Allen. It is rare that you get a song about beetles even though their impact in Western forests over the last few years cannot be understated.

Next up is another nod to insect infestations, a cicada compilation! Listen to songs about the critters that caused quite a buzz and a few tasty treats this summer.



There is only one artist I trust to write good songs about trees and that is Lizzie Wright Super Spaceship. This artist and forestry graduate student from Mississippi rocks a mean ukelele in the song titled Us. The track compares and contrasts people to trees in a way that is not nearly as cheesy as it sounds.

Any other summer track recommendations out there?