How I got this far, so far…and Hooke’s Micrographia

A toast to plenty! To variety and diversity! To the astonishing multiplicity of things in the universe! To Cornucopia, our ancient symbol of abundance and all our dreams of wealth! To relief at last from the tyrannies of want and hunger and… what? Our eventual annihilation? The indifference of nature? The apparent absence of God? Our uncertainty about what the hell we’re doing here? But never mind! Give us abundance, the-milk-and-honey-dripping breast of plenty, the ceaseless flowing fountain of what-springs-forth from the earth, and we’re pretty darned sure we can get on with our purpose in life.

And what might that purpose be?

A full life! we shout, for isn’t that purpose enough? Although a full life is revealed, more often than not, to be just a full schedule.

A full wallet! For isn’t money the surest measure of abundance? Though of course in the end we possess nothing.

Full days, overflowing with love and laughter and conversation! With friends and family! With music, art, nature, travel, meaningful work! Fresh ideas and fresh flowers, shelves stacked with books and rooms bright with art, a window with a view, something delicious simmering on the stove — the abundance feeling promised by Cornucopia: a full life, but not necessarily a busy one; a rich one, but not necessarily moneyed. A meaningful life! The fulsomeness of creativity! The joy of increase that occurs when gifts freely received are freely given! The cup that runneth over!

Now we’re getting somewhere –

– And I guess I was getting somewhere, too, for with those words, written on a winter day not long ago, I realized that I had been working on a book without even knowing it. For decades I have collected lists, catalogs, inventories, fragments of overheard conversations, and esoteric lexicons that strike me as particularly unusual or pleasing to the ear and tongue. In the same spirit I’ve gathered a haphazard collection of maps, charts, diagrams, old photos, vintage illustrations, fossils, beach stones, feathers, bones, shells. And I’ve filled notebooks with writings by  philosophers, scientists, novelists, poets, and crackpots who were collectors of such things themselves. I thought it was a harmless compulsion, driven by curiosity and a taste for the arcane. Now I realize that I have been collecting material for a book. An Abundance Book. And that it is time to get to work on it.

That I’ve waited until now to build a platform on the internet is one of many examples of me being slow to jump on a bandwagon (and also a little slow in general). I wanted to be sure this Web phenomenon was here to stay. When I told artist Glenn Wolff that I was finally taking the leap, he congratulated me and said, “Dude. Welcome to the ’90s.”

Well, I’m glad to be here. And I have a hunch I’ll like it just fine.

So stay tuned. In the days and months to come I’ll share many samples from my collected Abundances. Here’s the first one:

MICROGRAPHIA

The closer we look, the more we see; the more we see, the more there is to see.

Dutch spectacle-maker Zacharias Janssen discovered in 1590 that placing a convex glass lens at each end of a tube  magnified his view of objects. Half a century later Dutch naturalist Jan Swammerdam used the same technology to study more than 3,000 species of insects, making him the father of entomology.

But it was English physicist and artist Robert Hooke (1635-1701) who popularized the microscope and demonstrated its scientific capabilities. In 1663 word flew across England that the 28-year-old Hooke had devised a magnifying system and was using it to sketch astonishingly detailed images of everyday things. Soon he was invited by the Royal Society of London  to present his observations at a few of their weekly meetings. On April 8th he showed the assembly what common moss looked like under magnification. On April 13th he presented the Pores of Cork, which were arranged in orderly rows of tiny hollow chambers that he called “cells,” from the Latin for “small chambers.” (Eventually he would discover that all living things were composed of similar structures. In living tissue the cells are filled with fluid, and are not chambers at all, but the name stuck.)

The members of the Royal Society clamored for more. Week after week Hooke arrived with new drawings: Leeks in Vinegar. Bluish Mould on Leather. A Mine of Diamonds in Flint. Spider with Six Eyes. Female and Male Gnats. Head of Ant. Point of a Needle. Sage-leaves appearing not to have Cavities. Pores in Petrified Wood.

There was no stopping him now. Edge of a Razor. Fine Taffeta Ribbon. Millipede. Gilt-edge of Venice Paper. Honey-comb Sea-weed. Plant growing on Rose-leaves. Insects in Rain-water. Gnat Larva. Parts of Fly. Silk from Virginia. Scales of a Sole’s Skin. Tabby. Beard of Wild Oat. Flea.

King Charles II ordered Hooke to present his findings in a book. Two years later, Hooke published Micrographia, or some Physiological Descriptions of Minute Bodies, made by Magnifying Glasses, with Observations and Inquiries thereupon. The year of its publication, 1665, was the year of the Great Plague of London, when bubonic plague killed thousands every week and caused those with the means — including many members of the Royal Society — to escape the city in panic. What we know now about the role of the flea as a vector in transmitting the plague bacterium from rats and other rodents to humans gives special relevance to Hooke’s drawing of a flea.

Common Fly. Moss with the Seed. Wing of Fly. Pismire. Mite. Sparks of a Flint. Hair of Man, Cat, Horse and some Bristles. Egg of Silkworm. Hair of Deer.

Now Hooke was no longer invited to present his findings weekly, he was ordered to present them. Poison fangs of Viper. Poison fangs of Viper (again). Gravel in Urine. Sting of a Bee. Teeth of a Snail.

The world had suddenly become ten times, a hundred times more complex.

*

The machine that revealed the dazzling complexity of nature was dazzlingly complex itself. Or so it would seem if you had to rely on Hooke to describe it:  “The instrument is this. I prepare a pretty capaceous Bolt-head AB, with a small stem about two foot and a half long DC; upon the end of this D I put a small bended Glass, or brazen siphon DEF (open at D, E and F, but to be closed with cement at F and E, as occasion serves) whose stem F should be about six or eight inches long, but the bore of it not above half an inch diameter, and very even; these I fix very strongly together by the help of a very hard Cement, and then fit the whole Glass ABCDEF into a long Board, or Frame, in such manner, that almost half the head AB by lye buried in a concave Hemisphere cut into the Board RS; then I place it so on the Board RS, as is exprest in that posture, so as that the weight of the Mercury that is afterwards to be put into it, may not in the least shake or stir it; then drawing a line XY on the Frame RT, so that it may divide the ball into two equal parts, or that it may pass, as ‘twere, through the center of the ball…” and so on, breathlessly, for page after page.

To browse in the book  go here. Be sure to use the mobile magnifier for close-up views of the drawings. Click the “unfold” icon to see the full extension of some pages.