Canary in an Idea Mine
There's an entire supercontinent of ideas inside you. Break out your canaries and get to mining.
Note: Don’t like reading? The Podcast audio is at the end of the story.🫡
You are my wildest thought dream, the ancient rumblings of possibility itching beneath my skin. You are the Rodinia, Gondwana, and Pangaea of my beginnings—an entire supercontinent of ideas slipping around on unexplored tectonic plates destined to be set on the table of me. Your population is uncountable—Conceptual Citizens never Census—but I lift my light and welcome your Idea Immigrants to my above-ground shores whenever they knock upon my golden door.
I see you, oh ancient continent beneath my continent.1 You are a landmass of the lost idea signaling to be found with your lighthouses and maps, and X-marks-the-spot to your Thar be Thought Dragons. Rich seams and fever dreams, tantalizing and surprising, you shimmer in my belly, wiggle in my blood, and trigger your tremors as I mine your precious metals.
My canary flits down, (gassed only slightly by my self-doubt) to explore your fertile depths and finds your soil flush with the seeds of imagination. My tiny yellow bird of YAY! flaps its wings and whistles me to enter. All is safe. The air is mine to breathe.
The original supercontinent. The OG—that’s you. Not all supercontinents wear capes, but they do support the frail islands that poke above the surface of me. You flash your crystal zircon as a beacon to productivity. “Form new islands,” you say. “Populate those islands with your creations. Explore the space. Earn your crust from my crust. Dig that dig, hit that seam, mine that mine, and send more canaries.”
I must protect this precious resource of the hidden continent of me. I must protect you. You are what lies beneath—my Ideagea Supercontinent. Craton to craton, dust to dust, respect the process, in your dust we trust. A billion years old. A billion ideas. A billion reasons to keep putting words on paper and dancing my fingertips to ancient QWERTY beats on a springy keyboard with a sticky letter A.
To know that within me—within us all—is an entire continent of ideas, waiting to be mined and escorted above ground, is a comfort. You are my undiscovered country, my natural resource, my Precious. I promise to be a worthy chaperone to your Idea Immigrants. To always give them new and worthwhile lives as they emerge from the darkness and seek refuge on the page. I will be their backup band as they sing stories of their journey from the underground of you to the aboveground of me, and beyond. I am forever in your debt, oh alien and mysterious idea land, as I open the cage door to my mind each and every day and let my birds fly free.
Please look after my canary. He’s prone to get blown off course in a stiff breeze.
Yours in tiny thought,
Janeen
This week’s amends…
That last line tho. Woof.
Look, I’m just gonna be honest - this gave me chills.
Via Swiss Miss
This is cool. Chris Gaul has an interesting write-up on Tokyo subway’s duct tape typographer. :)
“Sixty-five year old Sato san wears a crisp canary yellow uniform, reflective vest and polished white helmet. His job is to guide rush hour commuters through confusing and hazardous construction areas. When Sato san realised he needed more than his megaphone to perform this duty, he took it upon himself to make some temporary signage. With a few rolls of of duct tape and a craft knife, he has elevated the humble worksite sign to an art form.”
Guys, he does them all by hand.
His lettering is highly regarded by designers and curators—it even has a name: ‘Shuetsu Sans’ (修悦体).
Posted without comment.2
Did any of this spark a tiny thought of your own?
I know NZ isn’t MY continent, but close enough! Antipodean solidarity and all that jazz.
But yes, you can buy it.