VirusHead

I had just finished writing the first draft of my post below, and a dear dear friend called me just as the wind started up. We got off the phone a little bit before 8, and the rain began. I ran out to pick up a couple of things, came back, and was just starting to have a bite to eat when John and I both noticed that the sky had turned a very eerie shade of yellow. The sun was starting to set, but I don’t remember seeing sky that color before – or seeing clouds like that either. The rain had stopped, and so had the wind, but the sky made me think of tornadoes.

Here’s what it looked like at about 8:45 or so:

It’s already June 30th now – I have to go to sleep! – but the data is for the 29th.

Everything seemed wild tonight.

Wow! The air quality went crazy! Look at that carbon monoxide burst! Did something happen?

Today’s AQI (Primary Pollutant) for Metropolitan Atlanta

1-8 9-16 17-24
01 43 (PM25 ) 09 44 (PM25 ) 17 128 (CO )
02 43 (PM25 ) 10 45 (PM25 ) 18 206 (CO )
03 43 (PM25 ) 11 45 (PM25 ) 19 236 (CO )
04 31 (PM25 ) 12 47 (PM25 ) 20 268 (CO )
05 31 (PM25 ) 13 48 (PM25 ) 21 53 (PM25 )
06 44 (PM25 ) 14 50 (PM25 ) 22 53 (PM25 )
07 44 (PM25 ) 15 52 (PM25 ) 23 53 (PM25 )
08 44 (PM25 ) 16 66 (CO ) 24 53 (PM25 )

Carbon Monoxide (CO) is an odorless, colorless gas that is a by-product of the incomplete burning of fuels. Industrial processes contribute to CO pollution levels, but the principal source of CO pollution in most large urban areas is the automobile. Cigarettes and other sources of incomplete burning in the indoor environment also produce CO. CO is inhaled and enters the blood stream; there it binds chemically to hemoglobin, the substance that carries oxygen to the cells, thereby reducing the amount of oxygen delivered to all tissues of the body. The percentage of hemoglobin inactivated by CO depends on the amount of air breathed, the concentration of CO in air, and length of exposure; this is indexed by the percentage of carboxyhemoglobin found in the blood.

Health effects
CO weakens the contractions of the heart, thus reducing the amount of blood pumped to various parts of the body and, therefore, the oxygen available to the muscles and various organs. In a healthy person, this effect significantly reduces the ability to perform physical exercises. In persons with chronic heart diseases, these effects can threaten the overall quality of life, since their systems are unable to compensate for the decrease in oxygen. CO pollution is also likely to cause such individuals to experience angina during exercise. Adverse effects have also been observed in individuals with heart conditions who are exposed to CO pollution in heavy freeway traffic for 1 to 2 hours or more.

In addition, fetuses, young infants, pregnant women, elderly people, and individuals with anemia or emphysema are likely to be more susceptible to the effects of CO. For these individuals, the effects are more pronounced when exposure takes place at high altitude locations, where oxygen concentration is lower. CO can also affect mental function, visual activity, and alertness of healthy individuals, even at relatively low concentrations.

Air quality levels
The air quality standard for CO, which is designed to protect public health with an adequate margin of safety, is 9 parts per million, averaged over 8 hours. EPA is required to issue a public alert when CO levels reach 15 ppm, a public warning when CO levels reach 30 ppm, and a public declaration of emergency at the level of 40 ppm. The significant harm level, at which serious and widespread health effects occur to the general population, is 50 ppm of CO.

–Condensed from Measuring Air Quality: The Pollutant Standards Index; Office of Air Quality Planning and Standards, US EPA; EPA 451/K-94-001; February 1994. Cited at http://www.air.dnr.state.ga.us/information/co.html.

The same site listed today’s air as healthy.

Health Advisory: The air quality is good and you can engage in outdoor physical activity without health concerns.

Toward the end of our trip (and as a follow-up to Michael’s terrific party – I didn’t even mention the food he served! Yummmm), we were invited by a Sante Fe couple to their house for dessert and conversation.

David Stout is an interactive video-sound artist. His works explore real-time cross-syntheses of sound and image. He works at Sante Fe College in the Moving Image Arts Department, an innovative program that that integrates film, video and digital production with critical studies and writing. His oeuvre includes electro-acoustic scores for stage and screen, live cinema, video-dance, data-base narrative, noise performance and multi-screen telematic video events that extend the roles of performer, audience and environment.

He was preparing for an upcoming show, and had pulled out some amazing prints that had been generated by his real-time technology of combined mathematics, image, and sound.

David, Michael and John huddled and talked about all that kind of stuff. I talked with him a bit, too, and I really appreciate the kind of art/science/sound thing he’s doing. He’s a very soft-spoken and witty sort of person, and I enjoyed his company.

“Fear-based” Media Ad – (Hint for the literal-minded…. this is satire, a commentary on fear-based ad manipulation that actually functions as an ad for the installation. Ummm… it wouldn’t fly in Georgia…)

I spent more of my time with his wife, Julie West. She is one fun chick, I can tell you (Yes, I can say that. I’m a feminist and I love this woman, so bah!). If we lived in the same town, we’d be hanging out together all the time. She has produced, written, and directed several documentary and educational videos, and is currently the studio manager and photo editor of Rainbow, a stock photography agency. She had just designed David’s latest art book, too. And this girl’s got the rockin-est hips I’ve ever seen. We’re about the same age, and her presence rejuvenated me.

Their daughter talked with me about ballet, and we also compared our iPods (she has the blue one). Their very lovely son took it upon himself to play with Ben (although I told him that he didn’t have to), and they did the video game/movies thing. (Ben spent more of the vacation than I would have liked sitting in front of one screen or another).

We stayed out far too late, but it was worth it. I can’t believe I didn’t take any pictures (wah).

There are lots of smart, creative people in Atlanta. I know a few of them, but I’ve been living here for more than 16 years now, and I meet more interesting people in a week when we go somewhere else than I meet in a handful of years here.

Normally, I tend to think that there may just be more intelligent, educated people in other places than the South – but I’m really trying not to project my own circumstances into a generalized regional prejudice. Maybe it’s just that people socialize a little more elsewhere, or that they more easily talk to strangers in public places. I get a sense sometimes that the brightest people in Atlanta are almost in a situation of being in hiding. It’s not as though there are many public spaces that are conducive to conversation, either. There are universities, and there is an art scene, and there are always lot of events going on, but somehow “I do not catch the spark” (cf. “Prince of Darkness,” Indigo Girls). I’ve been in a kind of limbo since I finished the Ph.D., and I’m sure that’s part of the problem, but it really does seem very anti-intellectual here.

Here I’ve often gotten the feeling that it was really all about “networking” (in the negative sense). I prefer to meet people, talk with them, listen to something new, get to know them. And in a “networking” situation, I’m not sure that I really have much to offer other than myself. I don’t have the desirable “connections,” just a working mind and a relatively kind heart.

One thing I really noticed – again – about my experience of the southwest is the way your surroundings seem to open you up. There, I’m inhaling lavender and sage and feeling the sky all around me. Here, I always feel a little bit like I’m walking in a drainage ditch. There are a lot of trees and flowers, but there is something inhospitable…. something hard to define or describe, but I find it oppressive. Maybe it’s just the clay? The humidity? When we got back, I immediately felt a cloying sort of stupor coming over me again. I’m not going to try to ignore it anymore, I’m going to fight it.

Life can be too fun, and I feel like I might be missing the heart of the whole thing.