Auyuittuq: ‘The Land that Never Melts’ is Melting
The title of this entry comes from a quote in a CBC News article yesterday describing the on-going flooding problems in Auyuittuq National Park on Baffin Island.
Parks Canada officials say they have never seen anything like this before in Auyuittuq. “Auyuittuq means ‘land that never melts,’ but of course now it’s melting,” Pauline Scott, a spokeswoman for Parks Canada’s Nunavut field unit, told CBC News on Tuesday.
Auyuittuq is one of the most beautiful places in the world, and it has meant a lot to me since my travels there. Individual weather anomalies are of course impossible to tie to overall climate change, but it’s hard not to see this as part of a larger, more tragic trend.
The picture accompanying the article shows the Weasel River undermining the moraine field that holds back Crater Lake, which I’ve pointed out in the following map:
Google Maps satellite image of Crater Lake, Akshayuk Pass in Auyuittuq National Park, Nunavut, Canada
The referenced article also connected the flooding here with that which occurred this June in Pangnirtung which I had mentioned recently.
A Guide to Black Flag’s “TV Party”
Of all the television shows mentioned in the two versions of Black Flag’s song “TV Party”, only one, Saturday Night Live, remains on the air in its original form. The other long-running show, Monday Night Football, changed networks in 2006, and while it is much the same show, technically the chain was broken. Other than those, the last hold-out was “Dallas” which went off the air in 1991.
Video: TV Party
The original version of the song, was released as part of their masterwork Damaged. This was followed up some months later by a new version recorded for the TV Party EP. Together they called out the following shows:
- That’s Incredible!
- Hill Street Blues
- Dallas
- Fridays
- Quincy
- Saturday Night Live
- Monday Night Football
- The Jeffersons (LP version only)
- Vega$ (LP version only)
- Dynasty (EP version only)
When the song was re-recorded for the EP, two shows were dropped, “The Jeffersons” and “Vega$” and replaced with “Dynasty”. “Vega$” had already been canceled at the time of the original recording which perhaps had something to do with it. “Fridays” was gone before the EP was released.
Click on the diagram for more detail
The diagram shown above was made using Timeline part of MIT’s SIMILE project. It is perhaps the definitive overview of TV Party and its place in television history. I’m sure if this song was recast for this decade, blogs and such would probably be the focus, the irony of which is not lost on me.