Ekostories

The Cost of Change: Star Trek Deep Space Nine’s Progress

by Isaac Yuen

“This may be the last time we’re all together. But no matter what the future holds, no matter how far we travel, a part of us – a very important part – will always remain here, on Deep Space Nine.” – DS9’s finale, What You Leave Behind Star Trek: Deep Space Nine’s finale aired 17 years ago, and as much as the new films have...

August 17, 2016

Comments 12

Television Shows
More Than Ferns: Oliver Sacks’ Oaxaca Journal

by Isaac Yuen

When I finished the preface to Oliver Sacks’ Oaxaca Journal and found that the late neurologist and author shared my love for natural history travelogues, I knew I was in for a treat. What I was not expecting to discover was a potential new writing muse and a possible kindred spirit. If you harbour no interest for ferns, travel writing, or Oliver Sacks as a person,...

May 30, 2016

Comments 5

Non-fiction
Place and Memory: Italo Calvino’s Invisible Cities

by Isaac Yuen

I’m not sure how to describe Italo Calvino’s Invisible Cities. It isn’t traditional fiction on a structural level, having no story arc or a defined ending. Nor is it conventional fantasy, doing away with the worlds it creates almost as soon as it forms them. Even the broadest definitions of historical fiction and magical realism don’t quite fit, as Calvino blends real and imagined details...

June 21, 2015

Comments 6

Literature
Look Up: Antoine De Saint-Exupéry’s Wind, Sand and Stars

by Isaac Yuen

Unlike millions around the world, my first encounter with the works of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry did not involve La Petit Prince; I am ashamed to admit that I have not yet read his most famous work. What I have read, and what continues to stay with me, was the man’s memoir and the inspiration for what is arguably one of the most beloved children’s stories in history. Winner...

January 20, 2015

Comments 8

Literature, Non-fiction
From the Tidepool to the Stars: Steinbeck’s Log from the Sea of Cortez

by Isaac Yuen

What was the story that began this journey? That question has been on my mind since I reflected back on the past year of Ekostories. What tale triggered this exploration of nature, culture, and self? After some thought, one story came to the forefront, a surprise contender. It is a work that straddles the boundary between fiction and non-fiction. It is a story that...

January 10, 2014

Comments 20

Non-fiction
The Left Hand of Darkness: Nature, Culture, and the Other

by Isaac Yuen

Welcome to the second part of my look at Ursula K. Le Guin’s The Left Hand of Darkness. For a synopsis of the book, please check out the first part of this piece.

December 26, 2013

Comments 10

Literature
Change, Choice, Connection: Cloud Atlas

by Isaac Yuen

“Our lives are not our own. From womb to tomb, we are bound to others, past and present, and by each crime and every kindness, we birth our future.” – Sonmi 451 Thus sums up the core premise of Cloud Atlas, one of the more polarizing movies in recent memory and my personal favourite film for 2012. Spanning six stories over five centuries, many...

October 18, 2013

Comments 21

Movies
Manufactured Landscapes: A meditation on man-made spaces

by Isaac Yuen

I don’t recall where I first came across the work of Edward Burtynsky; it could have been at the library, the bookstore, or one of those coffee shops with actual coffee table books. All I remember was being drawn to the front cover image of his collection of photographs, to the intense fluorescent shock of orange lava snaking through charred lands: A beautiful and awesome volcanic...

October 10, 2013

Comments 25

Art
Escape to Happiness and Insanity: Gilliam’s Brazil

by Isaac Yuen

Brazil is a mess of a movie in the best possible way. Terry Gilliam’s creation is wildly original and incredibly chaotic, blending elements of comedy and drama into an unforgettable piece of cinema. Visually extravagant and thematically dense, Brazil rewards observant and repeat viewers with a barrage of imagery and subtext ripe for speculation and analysis. A story with almost too much to say, I...

February 8, 2013

Comments 5

Movies

Atlas of Remote Islands: Fifty Islands I Have Never Set Foot On and Never Will

The first place I ever felt at home in was on an island. My grandparents lived on Cheung Chau, an island ten kilometers southwest of Hong Kong. Literally translated as “long isle”, Cheung Chau is shaped like a dumbbell, its two granite masses joined in the middle by a sandbar. As a child I spent weekends and summers there fishing and swimming, and even now the scent of saltspray and sewage sends me back to that grimy old fishing village. This fondness for islands stayed and deepened. When I moved to Canada and started to read English I found myself drawn to Earthsea, the fantasy archipelago world of Ursula K. Le Guin. On each of her conjured isles laid not only magic and adventure, but moods intrinsic to and defined by geography. I connected to Astowell, last land before the open sea; Gont and its snow-capped peak rising up like a sharp spire; Osskil, raven realm, icebound and alien. Many times I have sailed in my mind to the shores of Selidor at the westernmost edge of the world,...

Finding Place through Art and Science: The Field Journals of Lyn Baldwin

by Isaac Yuen

This piece was featured as an Editor’s Pick on Discover WordPress June 30,2016. I began my first field journal in Belize, during my time there for biology field school. Each evening after night walks I would jot down a list of the day’s seen species under the fluorescent hum of generator lights. Flipping through the spiral-bound notebook now a decade later, I wish I hadn’t been so rigid in my musings, so clinical in my descriptions of those treasurable weeks in a new place. Now and then memories surface – hiking up trails in Cockscomb Basin Jaguar Preserve; huddling close to campfires pitched by the Sibun River after a day of canoeing; swaying in a hammock and looking out at the sunset while listening to someone strumming the guitar. These happenings now slip through my mesh of English and Latin names, scrawled neat on ruled lines. I wish I did a better job at capturing moments. I wish I could go back. Maybe regret is why I so admire those skilled at conveying the...

Bearing Witness: The Animal Dialogues by Craig Childs

by Isaac Yuen

It began, as it often did, with pronghorns. As a child growing up obsessed with creature comparisons, the main allure of the pronghorn antelope was naturally its cheetah-esque speed, evolved to evade the North American version of the same predatory cat now ghost. Now in latter years and slower-paced days, other characteristics came to the fore: Those long-lashed doe eyes; that sly, set hint of a smile; the pair of ebony horns, sheathed in keratin; the trace of melancholy that comes with knowing that it is the lone survivor from its family, the last of its kin. It was a fortuitous flip to the essay on pronghorns that swayed me to pick up Craig Childs’ The Animal Dialogues: Uncommon Encounters in the Wild. It didn’t take long before I knew I had to write about it. In each intimately wrought tale on antelopes, hawks, and red-spotted toads, I found a writer and translator infinitely more versed in the subtle tongues of the non-human world than I will ever be. Childs honours the weight and magnitude...

Animal Sculptures by Ellen Jewett

by Isaac Yuen

I’ve recently been taking pottery classes at the local community centre. Recalling fond memories of lessons growing up, I went into the first session brimming with enthusiasm, confident that I would be spinning out pots and vases and plates in no time. No such luck. I soon discovered I had no aptitude for the wheel. Class after class, clay balls wobbled off centre and flung apart, overzealous hands warped promising cylinders, and palms grew raw trying to coax shapes out of an alien medium. No muse or intuition came to me, and I realized I had a lot to learn. After grappling with futility, I decided to take a break from the wheel to work with the clay by hand. Something clicked, and frustration gave way to the freedom of unfettered play. I found myself making figurines of flora and fauna as I did when I was a kid, back when clay gave my restless hands something solid to work on. From failed pots emerged mushroom landscapes populated by miniature elephants. Coils grew into...

No Nature, No Culture, Only Love: The Road

by Isaac Yuen

Over the past few entries, I’ve touched on the importance of staying optimistic in difficult times. This week, I want to look at a story that puts that to the ultimate test, a story in which hope arises from utter despair: Cormac McCarthy’s The Road.There are some who read this post-apocalyptic tale only as an ecological parable, a potential scenario if humanity continues to damage the earth’s life support systems. I don’t. McCarthy doesn’t dwell on the cause of his world’s demise, and neither will I. Instead, I’m more interested in exploring the impact of a ruined earth on the human psyche. How do these characters make sense of the world where nature and culture is beyond recovery? How do they cope with constant and unrelenting despair? What compels them to go on when the past is lost, never to return? The Road touches on these difficult questions. Yet despite seeming like the type of story that revels in violence and nihilism, it is really a tale about the very essence of what it means...

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The Cost of Change: Star Trek Deep Space Nine’s Progress

More Than Ferns: Oliver Sacks’ Oaxaca Journal

Place and Memory: Italo Calvino’s Invisible Cities

Look Up: Antoine De Saint-Exupéry’s Wind, Sand and Stars

From the Tidepool to the Stars: Steinbeck’s Log from the Sea of Cortez

The Left Hand of Darkness: Nature, Culture, and the Other

Manufactured Landscapes: A meditation on man-made spaces

Escape to Happiness and Insanity: Gilliam’s Brazil