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A Linguistic Bestiary of Oyster Island

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New York, NY, USA New York, NY, USA
New York, NY, USA
35 minutes
English

global warming

Collection · 3 items

mortality

Collection · 2 items

global warming

Collection · 3 items

mortality

Collection · 2 items
A parable about rising oceans, human violence, and the strangeness of our mortal coil, which plays out on a tiny, Atlantis-like speck of rock in the middle of New York Harbor.

Oyster Island, a tiny speck of rock in New York Harbor that juts out of the water to become an island only during unusually low tides, is the setting for a surreal sound walk at the outermost edges of ecological possibility and speculative linguistics. Once arrived at this Atlantis-like location, you are invited to consider what new languages might emerge if humans were to start transforming into the island’s native fauna of red beard sponges, razor clams, and moon snails. But this premise is a sly and unsparing provocation about our rapidly shrinking coastline in the wake of global warming. A parable about human violence, rising oceans, and the strangeness of our mortal coil, this journey of a few feet down the length of the island aims to utterly upend our cherished notions of our own humanity.

Credits

Hosted by: (RE)VERB / Gesso.fm

APA style reference

Kat Mustatea (2022). A Linguistic Bestiary of Oyster Island. walk · listen · create. https://walklistencreate.org/walkingpiece/a-linguistic-bestiary-of-oyster-island/

slare

To saunter, to be slovenly (The Dialect of Cumberland – Robert Ferguson, 1873). Rarely used in Cumbria now but has a meaning of to walk slowly, to amble, to walk with no particular purpose. Used for example in the ballad Billy Watson’s Lonnin written by Alexander Craig Gibson of Harrington, Cumbria in 1872 “Yan likes to trail ow’r t’ Sealand-fields an’ watch for t’ commin’ tide, Or slare whoar t’Green hes t’ Ropery an’ t’ Shore of ayder side “(Translation: One likes to trail over to Sealand Fields and watch for the coming tide, Or slare over to where the Green has the ropery and the Shore on the other side) Billy Watson’s Lonning (lonning – dialect for lane) still exists and can be found at Harrington, Cumbria.

Added by Alan Cleaver
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