This is an image post. Inspiration for this sketch came from this image.

Analysis. Migration habits of swallows, shell patterns on malnourished turtles, the annual death rate of the Coho salmon, the number of text messages sent and received per capita in major American cities, the annual number of obscenity charges per county in Massachusetts between 1890 and 1960, dispersal patterns of oil spills in North Africa. Signal to noise ratios, population shifts, rainfall in Nova Scotia. Strange music.

Dissection. The hidden, internal geography of mice, toads, snakes, lizards, sparrows, cats, dogs, apes, cadavers. Ontology, phylogeny. Organs, glands, systems. The body as cybernetic organism, the body as population. Communication between subsystems, optimization, development. Sweet heavy smell of formaldehyde.

Observation. Stress. Weight to load ratio, arches, spans, thrust, stability. The symbolism of bridges, cathedrals, towers, ossuaries, cenotaphs. Iron, marble, granite, coral, cables, struts, spars. Balance, tension, opposition. Symmetry by necessity. Misdirection. Gunpowder and sabotage.

The simplest ways are best. Messages tattooed under hair and spread on washing lines, sewn into skirt linings, bounced around the ionosphere, carried in memory. Skill, knowledge, insight mean little. What there is, is data, aggregation, compilation, chaos. Simple rules generate infinite complexity, and random chance and god are isomorphic.