Science Fiction often tantalizes us with aliens. This can prove a difficult balance, as
readers need to understand these entities in order to respond intellectually
and emotionally to them. If we are to see them as more than animals, they must demonstrate enough
aspects of civilized behavior that we identify them as sentient beings. Yet, to be interesting, they cannot
be too human or understandable either.
Otherwise, why read stories about aliens in the first place?
In the Sutton Bank Visitor Center of the North York Moors National
Park, a member of the staff saw me photographing this statue. She told me that bronze
sculptures had adorned the metal rung that surrounds the wood. Due to the theft of some of these, the rest had
been taken down, and the wooden statue moved inside to prevent further
vandalism. The artist, Chris Kelly, had worked with local
school children to produce these pieces. His
intentions are to recast all of them in resin, those stolen as well as those
remaining. Unfortunately, the preparatory
drawings for some of those stolen appear to be lost, so not all the
artwork is replaceable.
Official supposition is that the sculptures
were scavenged for their scrap value, not because the thieves
intended to sell them to beautify some wealthy collector’s home. Such stories are all too common, and to me, incomprehensible. Thieves who rip newly laid wiring from civic
improvement projects, or who take basic copper architectural details from recently
built homes: while no such acts are justifiable, I suppose I can just get my head around that. But for someone to steal irreplaceable artwork,
creations crafted with love and care, that excite the senses, that invigorate
the mind, that delight those who behold such creations…and then to sell them to
be crushed or melted down….
Doesn’t that sound to you like a truly alien mind?
Pondering the incomprehensible,
Dragon Dave
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