Issue 1
WATER
It falls from the sky and helps things grow.
In its reflection, we can see the world around us.
It makes our bodies’ systems cool and regulate smoothly. It removes toxins and delivers nutrients.
We are conceived in fluids and spend nine months developing in a bag of water into the humans we become.
We bathe and swim in it. Two of my favorite sports, windsurfing and snow skiing, are both done on top of it.
It outlines countries and a whole world of animals and organisms that live in them.
The moon casts its power into the oceans, causing it to rise and fall with the tides.
Its calming effect can stop back aches and the pain of birthing contractions.
The power of water can be crushingly terrifying. Or that power can be harnessed to give us energy.
Its fluidness can slip through small openings and fill almost anything.
theStudio Journal takes a glimpse at water and the community around it.
I once heard of a writer who wrote the same story in five different languages because they needed five different languages to express their ideas. Words can be limiting in describing feelings. But words can be fluid and slippery in their meaning. I hope the marriage of word and image tells stories that open the mind to thought for enjoyment and entertainment.
WONDERFUL WATERCRESS
Text + Recipe by Shannon Milliman + Photographs by Robert Rausch
Watercress, a nutritionally dense food, boasts 28 essential vitamins and minerals. This aquatic plant, Nasturtium officinale, of the Brassicaceae family, boosts immunity and adds peppery flavor to salads, sandwiches, appetizers, and soups. Ancient Romans believed it cured mental illness. Native Americans thought it caused sterility, induced abortion, and increased libido. This little plant casts a spell on dreamers, pioneers, and believers.
In 1874, New Jersey entrepreneur, Frank Dennis, found that North Alabama’s mild climate, chalky soil, and abundant streams made it perfect for propagating watercress. He bought land suitable for creating a successful operation, the Dennis Watercress Company. Bundles were picked and sent to a Huntsville, Alabama, facility for washing, cooling, and shipping. When Frank Dennis died, the company was advanced by his son, Charles Edward Dennis. Up through the 1950’s the “Watercress King” innovated freshness and transportation, using parchment paper and smaller wooden boxes for improved transportation to all the states including the Rockies, closer to my ancestral roots.
My first encounter with this small, unassuming plant, made up of 95% water that grows wild near freshwater, was with my father. My father’s resourcefulness and harmony with the earth reminds me of the Dennis family men who saw possibility and found a path to productivity when so few others did. Many states away from the Dennis family in a similar era, and a similar entrepreneurial spirit, my great-great-grandfather, Alexander J. Wrigley, homesteaded a sagebrush-laden, desert mountainside in rural southern Idaho. Like the retelling of folklore legend, Wrigley ancestors spoke of naturally growing watercress in mountain springs.
When we learn of our food roots, we connect to where we are and what we do, whether it be in the South, West, North, or East in deeply fortifying ways. Our desires for nourishment, for cures of all that ails us, for harmony with nature, and the quench of fresh water are the same. Watercress exists as a symbol of united longing. My father took me up to the mountainside where his great-grandfather had taken him to seek fresh water. He told me where there was fresh water, there would be watercress. Climbing up the mountain, I stepped into each of my father’s bootprints. His great-grandfather told him as a child never to drink water from streams because of the threat of giardia. My father had preached this same rhetoric to me. But that day, my father modeled for me that sometimes it is right to break the rules, the status quo, the way things have always been. Perhaps this day was like the day Frank Dennis decided that just because watercress was not widely produced in the South, it did not mean it should not be. My father kneeled and fingered the pungent green watercress aside. Unabashedly, against the legacy of admonition to not drink wild water, he partook with his mouth wide, welcoming the lifeblood of the West. Dad made us a watercress sandwich to share under the dry Idaho sun. We felt nourished and refreshed.
Dad’s Watercress Sandwich
INGREDIENTS
2 clean bunches of fresh watercress
Mayonnaise or cream cheese, to spread
Thin slices of bread (homemade bread preferred
Sea salt and black pepper
½ teaspoon dill
A squirt of honey mustard
DIRECTIONS
Wash watercress bunches, and trim thick stems. Spread mayonnaise and/or cream cheese to taste on the bread, arrange the watercress over 4 slices, and season with salt, pepper, dill, and mustard. Top with the other slices of bread cut into halves, and serve.
UNDERWATER DREAMS
Photographs by Christy Lee Rogers’s + Text by Robert Rausch
Seductive and the true meaning of glamour (an exciting or alluring attraction, fascinating enchantment, a magic spell) are how I would describe Christy Lee Rogers work. The models are shot underwater while Christy remains above the surface, giving the photographs a reference more to painting than photography. The color and shapes are manipulated by the water that bends the light, creating something vaguely familiar and recognizable with the allure of a siren. I immediately fell under her spell when I saw her images.
From fashion, electronics, and album covers, her work is also in Vogue. She graciously sent us her work to publish as she scooted off (from her home base in Nashville, Tennessee) to Los Angeles and then to London to create more photographs.
www.christyleerogers.com IG:christyleerogers
THE WATER TOWER
Photographs by Robert Rausch + Text by Alex Godwin
Whenever I see a water tower, I take notice of the style. Some are cylindrical with a pointy top and bottom while some are round.
Some have a four-leg base and others look like a giant golf ball on a tee. Some are works of architectural art. Truly, the shapes, sizes, and colors are abundantly varied. There is one I see when going to Florida that is painted to look like a peach. There is something very Americana about the ones with the community’s high school mascot featured.
Today, most water towers are built using steel and concrete. In the 19th century, they were made of wood. The walls were bound by steel straps and, as the wood became saturated, the walls expanded and became leak-proof.
As much as I admire the design of these structures, they serve an important purpose and highlight the value of water. Water towers were used by the early railroads for the steam-powered locomotives.
Before the water car was added, trains had to stop about every 10 miles to resupply with water.
As our nation’s cities grew, water towers became more useful. They were placed on top of the taller buildings to provide water to the higher-level floors in a less pressurized manner. This is still the case today. They also stand at the ready in case of a fire.
In general, these towers serve their community every day by providing a source of water during peak usage times and then refilling during the night. If there should be a loss of power, the water tower makes use of gravity and can continue the flow until the tower is drained.
Water towers are an elegant example of form and function coming together to provide each of us with something of great value – water.
THE PRICE OF MIRACLES
Text by Richard Alfredo
My brother Michael is 72 years old and has never spoken a single word. On an April morning in 1950, at the crisis of grueling first labor, an impatient obstetrician exerted sufficient pounds per square inch of pressure on the levered blades of a pair of steel forceps to exceed the structural resistance of a newborn skull. This momentary misjudgment inflicted massive cranial trauma and irrevocably altered the trajectory of a young family. Seventy years earlier, on a well-appointed rural homestead in Tuscumbia, Alabama, a spike of meningitic fever instantly plunged a 19-month-old toddler named Helen into a hermetically sealed world of darkness and silence, forever altering the lives of the Keller family.
WHERE AND WHEN
My first awareness of Helen Keller came at the age of seven or eight when the roulette wheel of a television dial came to rest upon the 1962 film version of William Gibson’s play, The Miracle Worker. I was confused and spellbound by the black-and-white, documentary world that director Arthur Penn rendered into something dreamlike, yet concrete as the evening news. Was I being told a story or was I somehow peering through a keyhole into other lives, urgently being lived? For the first of countless times in my life, I felt myself being altered by a film. Looking back, I ask myself: How did The Miracle Worker change me?
I instantly recognized the Keller family—less by what was said than what was unsaid—and felt a kinship with them, given how their whole existence revolved around the vulnerable, feral young girl who, like my older brother, was locked in a prison without words.
After school, my sister and I would come home and report the events of our day while playing on the floor around our brother’s wheelchair as our mother fed him warmed baby food from a partitioned dish decorated with little lambs and ducks. Michael was seventeen or eighteen then. On holidays we decorated his bedroom with construction paper pumpkins or green Christmas trees, just like those our primary school teachers hung around our classrooms. At night, reaching between the vertical bars of his enclosed crib, I learned how to gently peel open the tight petals of his contracted fingers so that I could feel my small hand cupped within his impossibly soft palm. I think it was around this time that I started to whisper questions to him, secretly asking him to squeeze my hand if he understood me. I would routinely repeat this same ritual for decades. Sometimes Michael’s neurological storms triggered involuntary contractions and seizures that, like Helen, made him abruptly pull his hand away. Nevertheless, I knelt by his crib, an ever-present dusting of baby powder filling the grooves on the knees of my corduroys, and I talked to him and showed him the pictures I drew on coarse manila paper in colored crayon.
Like any closed system, a family tends toward maintaining equilibrium, even when its essential feature is trauma, grief, or disability. The genteel Kellers, like my family, found a kind of stability in their arrested grief; and they formed a protective shell around Helen to insulate her and keep her in a state of suspended infancy. Unlike children who grow up and away, a perpetual infant invites no expectations because it will never change. It will also never disappoint.
Enter Annie Sullivan: the stubborn, half-blind, Yankee upstart hired by the Kellers to housebreak Helen without any regard for her inner life. Annie is like the grain of sand that drifts through the outer membrane of an oyster, lodging itself in the dark folds of viscera and inducing the slow, inflammatory response that produces a pearl. She is the stranger who enters the story to upend complacence, disrupt order, and air suppurating wounds. She is the teacher as savior.
Annie Sullivan is also the protagonist of The Miracle Worker, even though it is regarded as Helen Keller’s story. It is Annie who is haunted by guilt and profound alienation after the death of her younger brother; and it is she who must redeem herself by saving Helen, despite resistance from the Keller family and Helen in particular. What drives the action of the drama is Annie’s struggle to break through Helen’s carapace, drawing on her indefatigable determination to reach into the well of Helen’s insolation, grasp her outstretched hand, and hoist her into the bright world of language, understanding, and meaning.
WHY
Decades later, I began to understand why my first encounter with this film had such a profound impact on my seven-or eight-year-old psyche. The key is the fact that Helen Keller’s story has the compelling force of a fairy tale. An enchanted princess, her voice silenced by a witch’s curse, waits alone in a dark tower for a brave savior to utter the magic word and break the spell.
The Miracle Worker infected me with a profoundly hopeful but unattainable fantasy: the belief that I might one-day rescue Michael from his wordless prison and that, like Annie Sullivan, I could reach him by sheer force of will.
Beyond the similarities between my family and the Kellers, something else about this film affected my younger self: the dawning awareness that the transcendent experience of art has the power to mainline directly to a deep place within us. I know that generations of audiences who have not shared my personal history have been moved and shaken by The Miracle Worker since its Broadway opening in 1956 and its film premiere in 1962. The play achieves this power because the sublime architecture of its third act approaches perfection. I wanted to understand how this particular miracle works. The answer is in one word: W-A-T-E-R.
HOW
We are nearing the end of the third act of The Miracle Worker and Annie has surrendered to the Keller family’s second-rate goal of producing a Helen who sits at the table, eats with a spoon, and folds her napkin like a polite, young Southern lady. Their mission is accomplished and we arrive at what feels like the end of the play. But then Helen willfully rebels, culminating in her throwing a pitcherful of water into Annie’s face. Suddenly all is lost. In anger, Annie scoops Helen up and drags her out to the pump to refill the pitcher. Then, at the nadir of our hope, the miracle occurs.
As the cool liquid gushes over the fingers of Helen’s left hand and Annie routinely finger-spells the word w-a-t-e-r in the palm of her right, something buried deep in the amber of Helen’s memory begins to awaken and stir. She suddenly links the pleasurable sensation with the abstract letters and the only word that she learned to speak as a toddler: “Wah wah.” A locked door is suddenly blown off its hinges.
Witnessing the supreme effort with which Helen re-enters the world of language, Annie is overcome with love for her, spontaneously attains her redemption, and re-enters the world of the living. In one instant two lives have transcended before our eyes and our experience of the miracle through them grants us the gift of emotional catharsis.
This was my first observance of the power of drama: the human knack—or defect—that enables us to cast our consciousness like a lifeline and borrow the pain or triumph of another.
Although there were many earlier oral traditions of storytelling, the classical Greek dramatists invented this precise moment and they gave it the name anagnorisis (“to know anew”). It is the flash of recognition when an unexpected turn of events propels a protagonist across a threshold from the darkness of her ignorance into the bright room of self-knowledge. This narrative innovation still affects and shapes our expectations and appetite for stories, even determining our perception of reality.
That this incident was related by Helen Keller in her memoir, The Story of My Life, and not wholly imagined by playwright and screenwriter William Gibson does not diminish his accomplishment. He recognized this historic moment as the wellspring of a play. The genius of Gibson’s play is that he dovetails both Annie’s and Helen’s revelations into one unexpected and powerful dramatic sequence, letting it all burst forth from one five-letter word. Water is the singularity, the Big Bang that is simultaneously the origin and destination of The Miracle Worker.
I never found the key to unlock the silent room in which my brother lives. I can only imagine what he sees or feels or understands. Michael is not a baby and fundamentally not an adult; Michael is Michael, unaffected by my desire to rescue him. He quietly and gently observes me when I enter his room and sometimes, inexplicably, he laughs. I will never know if it is the laughter of recognition or some electrical consequence of neurons firing in his besieged brain. At those rare moments, it doesn’t seem to matter.
Watching The Miracle Worker now, I feel myself looking over the shoulder of my seven-or eight-year-old self and knowing anew the limitations of childhood dreams and hopes. Instead of saving Michael, I have learned to care for, love, and accept him on his terms. Perhaps all the times that I sat by his bed and inscribed myself into his impossibly soft hand it was not through the bars of his prison cell, but mine.
NICE ICE, BABY
Text by Cassandra Cavanah + Photographs by Robert Rausch
No, I’m not talking about a diamond twinkling out of a jeweled setting. I’m just talking about the cold stuff. The nice kind.
Is it me or has ice gotten kind of sexy? It seems to come in all shapes and sizes, small and large, crushed or pebbled, shaved or nugget. Bespoke ice to make the perfect cocktail (or mocktail).
There was a time when ice was a rare treat, only available to the privileged few. Early, advanced civilizations recognized the power of ice and both the Romans and Greeks figured out ways to transport ice and snow from the Alps and store it in buildings tightly packed with straw as insulation. These frozen treasures troves evaporated when the Roman Empire fell, but, around the 16th century, the French brought ice back into fashion. Henry III of France is said to have taken a page from the Roman emperors who wowed dinner guests by chilling wines under heaps of snow.
Initially, the rest of Europe dismissed ice as extravagance and indulgence. (One could argue that this is still the case – Americans traveling Europe are often taken aback by the sheer lack of ice in soft drinks and cocktails.)
As refrigeration technology advanced in the 1800s, ice became much more ubiquitous because it could be transported in insulated carriages and refrigerated box cars to the masses. Still, these were big blocks of ice carved out of frozen lakes making their way into people’s homes to keep perishables fresher longer. Ice cubes came a couple decades later.
It was the Americans who started using ice as a garnish in cocktails. One reason for this was the abundance of clean and crisp water that created refreshingly delicious ice. This supply of clean ice was likely considered yet another American embarrassment of riches. Foreign travelers marveled at (and perhaps mocked) Americans’ excessive and almost flagrant use of ice as a kind of drink garnish.
Some dubbed it the “first ice age” for cocktails. However, it all came to an abrupt and sudden end at the start of prohibition in the 1920s. Ice was no longer the priority; simply finding a drink was difficult enough!
However, while liquor was all but disappearing, refrigeration and icemaking began to take off. By the mid-50s around 80% of Americans had a refrigerator in their home, many with integrated icemakers. Cocktails were back on the menu, and, with World War II behind us, everyone was in a celebratory mood! Though convenient, the homemade ice was not the clear and crisp ice of the 1800s plucked directly from the source. This ice was cloudy and imparted with whatever chemicals a city had added to its water supply. But, despite the unwanted additives and strange flavor notes, it was convenient and plentiful. We embraced our new power to turn water into ice in abundance. No longer was it an interesting or significant addition to a cocktail, it was, instead, an afterthought…just a source for cooling, not an ingredient to elevate the experience.
That all changed in the 2010s with the advent of the “second ice age.” When we finally evolved from what a cocktail and spirits writer called our five decades-long use of “shitty hotel ice” into embracing ice as a key, artisanal ingredient where the creation of clear ice shaped – and even flavored – in ways to enhance and elevate the drinking experience. Bartenders and cocktail enthusiasts alike now know that nice ice really matters!
Square Cubes
Square ice cubes are roughly 1 by 1 inch and are commonly used because they fit easily into every type of cocktail glass. The large, thick surface is ideal for almost any cocktail because they don’t melt too quickly, so you can enjoy a perfectly chilled drink without it losing its flavor. They’re also the perfect size and shape for cocktails that need to be either shaken or stirred.
Giant, Hipster Cubes
These are those lovely large, typically 2 by 2-inch blocks, that are said to melt slower than standard square ice cubes, reducing the amount of water that is diluted into the cocktail. Ideal for drinks such as a Manhattan in a lowball glass, these large ice cubes look impressive and will keep your drink chilled for longer. If you have a bottle of fine whiskey or scotch that you want to enjoy, then pouring it in a glass over a large ice cube will keep the drink cool without losing flavor.
Ice Balls
Generally used for straight spirits or cocktails such as an Old Fashioned in lowball glasses as, similarly to large ice cubes, they keep the drink cool and melt slowly. The main difference between ice balls and square cubes is that the spheres are seen as more aesthetically pleasing and are often used as a garnish.
Collins Spears
An unusual type of ice that you may not have seen but can make your drink look exceptionally cool. This ice is shaped like a long, thick block and is most commonly used in cocktails that require a highball, or Collins, glass such as a Gin and Tonic or a Mojito. It’s perfect for keeping the entire drink in the tall glass cold without diluting its flavor as it melts extremely slowly.
Crushed Ice
Popular for cocktails such as a Mint Julep, Frozen Daiquiri, or any other drink with a slushie-like consistency. It adds plenty of texture to the cocktail, makes it ultra-refreshing, and dilutes it just enough so the spirits aren’t too strong.
Nugget Ice
These ice nuggets, also known as “Sonic Ice” because it’s the kind of ice you find at an old-fashioned soda bar, are great for blending and munching…perhaps better served in your soft drinks than in a cocktail!
Dry Ice
Fun for parties because of its smoky effect. Using dry ice in your drink does not affect flavor and will keep it very cool. It’s safe to include in a cocktail as it will sink to the bottom and melt completely by the time you reach the end.
WATER
by Toby Barlow + Photographs by Robert Rausch
“I am haunted by waters”
Norman McLean, A River Runs Through It
If we scored human beings as a species, what grade do you think we would get? Perhaps because of the iPhone, the Tesla S, and yoga pants, you believe we deserve an A, even an A+. I would argue that Putin, plastic waste, and pornography knock our GPA far south of that, somewhere on par with that of a crosseyed horndog gopher. We are well below the harmonious and sublime wisdom of dolphins, black crows, and blue whales. But, still, we might just have possibly eked out a passing grade were it not for our absolute idiocy when it comes to water.
I live in a state that sometimes seems like it’s mostly water. It’s one of the reasons I moved here. One weekend, years ago, I was in the Catskills and came across an old high school topographical map of the United States. Looking at the map’s contours and its shades of bright greens and burnt siennas, I considered the fate of these lands through the lens of the coming climate disaster, “Well,” I thought “that bright yellow West is going to dry up and burn, the South is going to become unbearably hot, and floods and hurricanes are going to take out the East…but, hey, Michigan looks pretty good.”
A year later I was living here.
Recently, I started buying water. It feels ridiculous to do it. 60% of the human body is water and 21% of the world’s fresh water sits in the Great Lakes. You do the math. Not only is the peninsula of Michigan surrounded by those magnificent Great Lakes but, within the state itself, we have over 11,000 good-sized lakes, each one five acres or more, i.e., big enough to put a fishing boat on. Fly over Michigan when the sun is at the right angle and you can see them all glisten, one of the greatest sources of fresh water in the entire known universe. Pools of life.
There was a time when people sang about how good our water was. “Michigan water tastes like sherry wine, Mississippi water tastes like turpentine.” Jelly Roll Morton sang that. But in the book Jelly Roll put together with Alan Lomax, he attributes it to Tony Jackson. “Tony had a blues that was a favorite with him…”
There’s a lot to be said about Tony Jackson, he was one of the fathers of New Orleans ragtime. He dressed in a dandy style that set the tone for New Orleans musicians (“If you can’t play like Tony Jackson: you can at least look like him.”) He was black and openly homosexual at a time when it was hard to be either. He moved from New Orleans up to Chicago, hoping to find a more tolerant environment, but it wasn’t much more tolerant and he eventually drank himself to death before he reached 40.
“Michigan water tastes like sherry wine, Mississippi water tastes like turpentine.”
Here’s a story about Michigan water. During COVID, I tried my hand at baking bread. But my yeast would not rise. After researching it, I discovered the problem was that my water was so heavily chlorinated as to make it inert to the chemical processes. It was dead water.
More water troubles. Rick Snyder, the former governor of Michigan, is still embroiled in litigation surrounding the Flint water crisis. If you don’t remember that crisis, basically officials started pumping Flint’s water from the local river and, according to Wikipedia, “failed to apply corrosion inhibitors to the water, which resulted in lead from aging pipes leaching into the water supply, exposing around 100,000 residents to elevated lead levels.” As if Flint didn’t have enough troubles already.
According to a report last July from National Resources Defense counsel (NRDC), “Despite being the first state to mandate removal of every lead pipe delivering water to residents’ homes, there are 460,000 lead pipes still in the ground in Michigan, the third-highest number of any state in the nation, according to a new analysis by NRDC. Michigan also has one of the highest rates of lead drinking water pipes per capita in the nation.”
NRDC was founded back in 1970. Not long after, my father started working for them. He spent the ‘70s lobbying Capitol Hill on issues ranging from timber management to soil erosion to wetland protection. He helped draft legislation that made the world better. He was a hero to me. He took me on my first trip to Michigan, somewhere around 1977. We drove out in his Pinto station wagon and stayed up by the Mackinac Bridge. We went swimming together in Lake Huron. I remember swimming out into the deep and being amazed by the clarity of the water. I recall my father explaining acid rain, and how it kills off aquatic life and makes waters look pristine. More dead water.
Last fall, I was walking in the woods with a friend. Cory works in aquatic management, keeping ponds healthy in parks and golf courses. He asked if I knew anything about PFAS. I had no idea what he was talking about. “PFAS are fucked up,” he said. According to the Detroit Free Press, the various chemical compounds that makeup PFAS have been linked to “cancer; conditions affecting the liver, thyroid, and pancreas; ulcerative colitis; hormone and immune system interference; high cholesterol; pre-eclampsia in pregnant women, and negative effects on growth, learning, and behavior in infants and children.”
The Free Press also says Michigan might have contaminated 11,000 PFAS sites. PFAS reminds me of PCBs and DDT and all the environmental threats my father fought in the ‘70s, back around the time of the very first Earth Day. When people were first figuring out what we had and what we could lose.
It is a simple story. We discovered a peninsula with 11,000 lakes and today we have left it with 11,000 PFAS sites. We have taken the purest water, a truly unfathomable abundance of it, then we acidified it til it kills, chemically treated it until it is dead, ran it through disintegrating pipes of poisonous lead, filled up our drinking glasses with it, and bathed our children in it.
So, back to my first question, what grade should we give our species? I knew an English teacher once who said that his favorite grade to give was an F+. That seems about right.
Let’s end with Tony Jackson. It’s 1921, and the piano player is living out the last days of a short, hard life. He’s playing piano in Chicago, a city perched right there on the shores of Lake Michigan. He’s singing, “Michigan water tastes like sherry wine…”
Now blink and it is a century later, the piano player is long gone. My father is gone. That sweet, pure water is gone too. And all I can think is if only we had loved them better when they were here.
THE HYDRATION OF A NATION
(EVERYONE GETS HOSED)
Text by Helayne Spivak
Water. Nature’s gift to all that live and breathe. Springing from the ground, falling from the clouds, melting down from the mountaintops…a never-ending resource. Or so it might have been…
THE YEAR 1771
SARATOGA SPRING
At the base of a cliff, by a waterfall, with the sound of the rushing river falling from the rocks and splashing down to the springs below, stood an elder of the Mahican tribe. By his side, his precious charge…his grandson, in whose mind he would instill his wisdom, his love of nature, his respect for He who fills this glorious body of water…The Medicine Spring of The Great Spirit.
Reaching down with cupped hands, he let the water run through his fingers and addressed his grandson.
ELDER
This stream, my young son-of-my-son, was given to us by The Great Spirit. It has mighty healing powers. We are called to protect it, to give generously from it to all who seek wellness of body, replenishment of life force, revival of spirit, and to give of it freely. What say you, grandson?
GRANDSON
I don’t know grandfather. I think you’re missing a great marketing opportunity –
THE YEAR 1994
INT. PEPSI HEADQUARTERS
Tensions are high in the corporate headquarters of Pepsi. For the first time in its history, soft drink sales are starting to decline. Something must be done to protect their bottlers, their stockholders and their greens fees…but what? Solving this marketing kerfluffle will take time, which they have little of, patience, which they have none of, and bullshit, of which they are full. It probably went something like this…
CHAIRMAN
Think! Think! Think!
YES-MAN 1
Be young, have fun, Drink Pepsi!
YES-MAN 2
That was last year. Today it’s Right Now!!!
YES-MAN1
Right Now? What does that mean? What about Nothing Else Is A Pepsi?
HERE AND NOW
How in the water-water-everywhere-world did a beverage that nature gave us for free become a multi-billion-dollar industry? One word and it isn’t thirst: fear.
It might have gone something like this:
THE YEAR 2006
PEPSI CORPORATE HEADQUARTERS
One can feel the tension in the room. Around a very large, long conference room table sit some very nervous men. At the head of the table, is a podium, at which stands their CFO, who just gave some very bad news. Some never-before-heard news. Some this-can’t-be-happening news.
CFO
Numbers don’t lie. Last year we brushed it off as a fluke. This year makes it a trend. Pepsi is losing market share.
The room explodes with words of disbelief and the sound of knuckles cracking as index fingers stiffen in preparation to point to someone, anyone, else. Something must be done to protect their bottlers, their stockholders, and their greens fees…but what? Solving this marketing kerfluffle will take time, which they have little of, patience, which they have none of, and bullshit, of which they are full. It probably went something like this…
COO
I’ll bet it’s those protesting mothers with their fat kids!
CEO
I think the American Dental Association has been very unfair.
COO
The diabetes lobbyists are really annoying!
CFO
(Cutting him off) Gentlemen. The people have spoken. They are looking for healthful alternatives and they are turning away from the soft drink aisle. And as they do we will be the ones giving them a place to turn. He reaches for a pitcher of water, fills his glass, and raises it to the room.
CFO
To our fiscal health!
THAT SAME DAY
INT. COCA-COLA HEADQUARTERS
The CFO has just delivered their bad news. The room is shocked into silence. From the back of the packed conference room comes a question.
EXEC
So, what is our next move?
CFO
Let’s wait and see what Pepsi does.
BACK TO TODAY
They did well. Aquafina (Pepsi) and Dasani (Coca-Cola) are the top two-selling brands of water in the country. According to a recent cover story in the trade publication BWR, in 2020, for the fifth year in a row, bottled water ranked as the largest beverage category by volume in the United States. YAY? Nay.
Success of this magnitude has consequences. The Coca-Cola Company and PepsiCo were named top plastic polluters in the world for the fourth year in a row according to a Brand Audit 2021 Report from Break Free From Plastic. Of course, both companies have made firm commitments to address this issue. Soon. Very soon. They’re working on it. As we speak.
While this is a very serious issue for our environment we should not lose sight of the fact that these two corporate giants spared no expense in their search for the world’s finest water sources.
They come not from the Vergèze region of France, nor the mountains of Italy, or the celebrated springs of Saratoga. No, these waters come directly from their biggest competitor: the tap. Or, in marketing speak, a Public Water Source (PWS). With some refining, of course.
As Aquafina explains it, “What’s the secret for perfectly pure tasting water? Our rigorous purification system. It takes out the stuff other bottled waters leave in”.
DASANI explains it another way, “DASANI® uses reverse osmosis filtration to remove impurities before enhancing the water with a special blend of minerals for the pure, crisp, invigorating taste that’s delightfully DASANI®.”
Delightful. That’s one way to put it. We are, quite simply, drowning in wave after wave of water choices: sparkling and flat, fruit-flavored, vitamin-enhanced, herb-infused, energized with caffeine, with sodium, without sodium, imported and domestic. So how do we choose?
Don’t worry about it. The marketers will think of something. They always do.
NOT FOR SALE
by Robert Rausch
I have always gravitated toward metal, stone, and glass. I like to drink my water from a glass bottle. I keep it in the fridge on hot days and the glass seems to keep it cooler longer. Or if it gets left in my car in the heat, it still seems to taste the same with no plastic taste. I get comments on my water bottle like I am “extra” or bougie. Maybe I am. I recycle old liquor or alcohol bottles. I like the shapes and designs of the bottles. I fill it with our well water when I can but if I use tap water I run it through a reverse osmosis filter and charcoal drip filter before I store it in my glass bottle.
BACKYARD FOUNTAIN MUTTS
Story by John T. Edge + Art by Blair Hobbs
When Lurleen wants inside after her morning constitutional, she stands on her hind legs to peer over the kick panel and into the glass door that fronts my tin-walled writing shed. From a green club chair angled to take in the raised garden beds where a backyard menagerie of concrete animals gathers beneath Blair’s prized snowball tree, I watch our beautiful goofball of a mutt pirouette, twisting and turning, trying to catch my eye.
From my perch, I can’t quite see the two fountains that Blair installed next to her studio. But I can hear the persistent gurgle of the big one. A concrete slab, pierced by a water spout at the four-foot mark, with a catch basin beneath, it looks both modernist and relic-y and sounds throaty. A far smaller, second fountain, made of dinky plastic and intended for an aquarium, squats alongside. Blair bought that one for a box turtle that emerges each summer from the dank corners of our yard to sun himself on the rocks that border those raised beds. Named for the nail polish brand that she favors, Blair marked him with a quick swab of orange. If my read of the colors on the OPI website is right, Blair painted his mottled green shell with Toucan Do It If You Try.
Blair and I bought our house south of Oxford Square the same month we married in 1999. That summer, I jackhammered out the concrete parking pad an earlier owner poured. That heap of concrete is one of the few things we have removed from our backyard. Over the years, we’ve mostly added. The concrete mule, pulling a concrete flower planter wagon, arrived two summers back, joining the pig, the cow, and the squirrel. So did the bright green concrete frog that stands guard opposite the back gate.
I’m not quite sure when OPI first came on the scene, but now that Blair added his fountain, he shows more often. He comes for the water the fountain sprays. And he comes for the worm-riddled tomatoes Blair pulls from her plants and tosses at his clawed feet. One morning last summer, before Lurleen came sniffing about, I saw OPI crawl from the fountain and rise on his back legs, as if jumping for the sun, to try a pirouette of his own.
TENNESSEE RIVER
Text by Adam Rausch + Photographs by Robert Rausch
“No man ever steps in the same river twice. For it’s not the same river and he’s not the same man.” – Heraclitus
The Tennessee River inspires industry, bleeds adaptability, and produces power—physical, and spiritual. As a young man, I have stepped in that water, repeatedly rediscovering myself. The Cypress Creek, a Tennessee River tributary, was a cold blanket in the hot Alabama sun after hours of working on my family’s 200-acre farm. Sacred ground wrapped in aural shades of green harmonizes with the waters of the “Singing River.” This musical namesake was bestowed on the North Alabama natural flowing river in the late fifteenth century by the Tennessee Valley-dwelling Euchee people. The 1830 Indian Removal Act forced the Euchee natives 600 miles west of their home, severing them from their life-giving Singing River. Euchee theology is rooted in the belief that a feminine spirit sang from the Tennessee River, heard from under the flowing currents and then rocky shoals. The success of the Native tribe is attributed to the river and the gifts it pours. Those with a scientific perspective suggest the rocky, mussel-filled shoals caused an echo-like song quality. With the completion of the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) dam and the water swells, the river’s song was lost. Neighboring Cypress Creek still has a tune: a choir of crawdads, a trill of natural springs, and a rhythm of swaggering alligator gar. Cypress is a pianissimo reminder of the Singing River mother’s melody.
I can’t hear the river sing, but I hear it hum. Diving below the Tennessee River’s surface, there is a mechanical, whiny noise my brother convinced me was a scheming supervillain. More likely, the sound is a result of the TVA turbines controlling water flow. The Euchee tribe’s virgin river was prostituted in the complex name of industry. Still, the abundant wildlife river adapts. The sustainable energy created by the TVA dams ensures sustainable work practices. Could the hum be a cry, a mournful call of what she remembers?
Who could own something that’s always running, flowing, moving? Perhaps the infamous water moccasin, the dragonflies my dog could never quite catch. Wading in the creek’s current, I was a guest being made a little wilder and chasing the serenity of fresh water. Cypress Creek is no secret: any local knows it for its ideal kayaking, canoeing, camping, and floating. The ancient, Eden-esque acreage commands mysterious peace. The Singing River that lost her voice was as pure as my precious creek a few hundred years ago. Comparing the lively Cypress Creek on my family’s farm haunts the foreshadowing possibility that the relief from the southern sun is not an eternal guarantee. These waters baptized me into the doctrine that water is life. Sing with me and perhaps a choir may resurrect her song.
THE WATER MOCCASIN
Text by Alex Godwin + Photographs by Robert Rausch
My first encounter with a snake came when I was five years old. My family lived in Arkansas. Our house had a small creek behind it. One day, as I was coming inside from playing around the creek, a lightning-fast black snake crossed in front of me just as I was walking up the front doorsteps. I can remember it vividly. It took me by surprise. It didn’t quite scare me, but I was definitely startled.
I remember telling my teachers about it. I suppose they intended to inform me of the dangers of poisonous snakes, but they told me a story that has stuck with me now for 53 years. The story goes that this young man got into a john boat and rowed into a pond to do some fishing. At some point, he caught a fish and stood up to reel it in. When we did, he lost his balance and fell into the pond. The event caught the attention of the lurking water moccasins and they instinctively launched an attack. In my mind, I pictured hundreds of those vicious creatures biting the poor guy.
Since then, I’ve been fearful of snakes—poisonous or not. I have a pond where I live now in Alabama, and I have to trim the grass around it a few times a year. it is probably the bravest thing I do.
It was with cautious curiosity that I began my campaign to learn a little more about water moccasins. After all, even pictures of snakes give me the willies. I tend to run and scream when I see one. The water moccasin is also referred to as a cottonmouth. This name is quite appropriate when one sees inside the mouth. When the water moccasin is in defense mode, it tends to coil and flatten its body. It shakes its tail and opens its mouth—notably to introduce the fact that the snake is venomous and packs a pretty toxic punch. If a person is bitten, it is best to head straight for medical attention. I think it is important to note that the snake does not seem to be aggressive when it comes to danger. Other than its natural predatory instincts for feeding, it seems to prefer avoiding confrontation.
The water moccasin is normally found in the southeastern part of the United States. As the name implies, it is semi-aquatic and likes areas around slow-moving water like swamps, marshes, ponds, creeks, and lakes. It is sometimes mistaken for the broadband water snake, which is not poisonous. Distinguishing characteristics include the horizontal pupil (compared to the round pupil of the water snake) and a broader and more flattened head. I learned that both snakes will musk. That is, they will emit a pungent secretion. The smell is such that a would-be predator will reconsider eating something that may not be so pleasant to the taste.
Now that I’m a bit more informed, I’m ready to learn a lot more from someone who has been around snakes since early childhood. Before I do, here is one quick story… Robert Kelley Rausch traveled with his dad (the founder of this magazine) and me to the Grand Canyon during the summer of 2020. While we were gone running the rim-to-rim-to-rim, Robert spent his time looking for snakes. Near the end of his quest, he came across a pink rattlesnake. He collected it and took it to the hotel room. When we arrived from our adventure, much to my bewilderment, we learned that there was a snake in the bathroom. Robert was very excited to show us. Over the next couple of days of being around Robert and the snake, I could tell there was something special about the way Robert connected to the snake. The snake was content and Robert treated it calmly and thoughtfully. When the time came to leave and let the snake return to its habitat, there was a little sadness. It was an interesting experience and made me take stock of my fear.
He’s a handsome young man of 23 years of age and caught his first snake at the age of four. He remembers going out on the family’s property to look for frogs, lizards, snakes, and any other creature he could find. Since then, Robert estimates that he’s probably caught about 3,000 snakes. He also told me that he’s been bitten around 500 times. I did the math – that equates to a snake capture every 2.3 days and a snake bite once every two weeks.
At a very young age, he was curious about snakes. He learned to identify all the various species and to know which ones were venomous and which were not. He explained to me that this approach was better than simply identifying the shape of the snake’s head. Some non-poisonous snakes will flatten their head. He can tell you the characteristics of any snake and what differentiates them.
He started out catching non-poisonous snakes and got pretty good at it. He then embarked on catching poisonous ones. I asked him how does he catch a water moccasin. He explained that the first step is to gently pin the snake’s head to the ground. Once stabilized, he then carefully picks up the tail. He focuses on the snake’s eyes and body positioning and can anticipate a strike. He then adjusts with his arm to avoid being struck.
I found it interesting when he told me that snakes react differently while being held. For example, water snakes and black racers try to bite several times before calming. Whereas king snakes hardly ever attempt to bite. Robert has never been bitten by a king snake. He did tell me that he’s been musked several times by a variety of snakes and described the smell as pungent and difficult to wash off.
He’s had a ton of adventures over the years. On a recent one, he found a Burmese python in the Florida Everglades. It was about 10 feet long and was black with yellow speckles. He showed me a video of him picking it up. The quite large snake then bit his hand and wrapped his body around his arm. Robert told me that the snake was trying to eat his hand and was pretty powerful – requiring the assistance of Robert’s colleagues to remove it.
Robert recently caught a water moccasin near the Tennessee River. He said he found it coiled by a log near the water’s edge. When Robert approached the snake, it stayed in place and opened its mouth wide – exposing the pure white interior. He explained to me that this was a very typical defensive response. The white mouth was a warning. However, the snake did not attack. Rather, it was only defending. I then watched the video of how calmly Robert was able to pick up and hold the snake. I found the experience to be absolutely amazing.
At the end of our conversation about snakes, I asked Robert what advice would he like to share with others. He told me that he would like to see people learn more about snakes and stop just killing them. They are indeed part of our ecosystem and have their place. When you talk with Robert, you can tell he has a genuine love for snakes.
CURTIS SPEER
photographs by Curtis Speer
Curtis’s photographs are highly curated with his interest and the world surrounding him. Living in Provincetown, MA, he fills his work with inspiration from the ocean.
I am always fascinated by how photographers find their way behind the camera.
A former design director, set, and prop stylist found his way behind the camera and in front of the lens.
www.curtisspeer.com