He Speaks! He Draws! He Knows Bigfoot Personally!
It was a big week on the Road2Elsewhere: I talked about global extinction on NPR, and I shared the Colorado Sun with Bigfoot. Give a listen, a look, and a maybe a "like" (if I earned it).
You’re part of a publishing revolution here, people. After I spent decades in the magazine biz, focussing or words words words, I have suddenly and surprisingly morphed into a cartoonist and animator—it’s a whole new level of graphomania for me.
Not long after I began publishing here on substack, I landed a gig as a cartoonist/columnist for the Colorado Sun, and as a commentator and animator on Front Range NPR. And this week, my twin media planets were in conjuction. Stop me before I jest again!
CARTOONS
Cartoon: 5 reasons Bigfoot loves Colorado
Bigfoot. Yeti. Sasquatch. Whatever you call him, the hairy big guy is here — and has been for 60 years — we do believe.
A video taken from the window of a Durango & Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad train car one sunny Sunday afternoon in October was a Facebook post heard round the world. But it turns out the furry phenom has been a media personality in Colorado for at least 60 years.
The very first 8mm footage of Bigfoot was shot in 1962, by a Boy Scout troop leader in the Rawah Wilderness near Fort Collins. So those claims by Yeti yes-men in the Pacific Northwest, in the swamps of Florida, and in Nepal, can take a bipedal backstep behind our own.
Bigfoot is a Coloradan, and they can’t have him.
There are (at least) five reasons why the Centennial State is the hirsute hominid’s preferred stomping grounds.
His long stride covers a lot of territory, and boy does Colorado have territory
Mushrooms aren’t the only magical thing in our state.
I know you’re dying to learn the other three reasons why Bigfoot loves Colorado. Click here to collect ‘em all!
In Mesa Verde, reflections on the liminal nature of home
WRITTEN AND ILLUSTRATED BY PETER MOORE
Vanished civilizations are fascinating. The fish folk of Atlantis. The volcano victims of Pompeii. The cliff dwellers at Mesa Verde. The last Broncos team that was any good.
All are mysteries, and delightful to contemplate because of it. Unless, of course, you happen to belong to a civilization that might vanish, in which case you'd want to run for the hills.
That’s just what I did last month, when I packed my car for the long drive from Fort Collins to Mesa Verde National Park.
There was an eclipse happening, and the path of totality was going bang over southwest Colorado. I'm a big fan of astral shenanigans, so I booked a campsite. What fun!
But also, what a long drive! To while away the hours, I chose a talkative companion: the audiobook of Elizabeth Kolbert’s Under a White Sky—which turned out to be the perfect way to ruin a beautiful drive.
For years I had been dodging Kolbert’s gloomy articles in The New Yorker. She won a Pulitzer Prize for documenting the havoc we’ve wrought on our precious planet as we dig up carbon sources and burn them to run our cars and air conditioners. How ironic: that which keeps us cool also heats our planet, causing even more people to want air conditioners. It’s as if those Pompeiians had said, "Maybe we should heat our homes with lava?"
As I drove, and drove, and drove, along Colorado's scenic byways, Kolbert whispered a warning in my ear: “Atmospheric warming, ocean warming, ocean acidification, sea-level rise, deglaciation, desertification, eutrophication—these are just some of the by-products of our species' success.
She describes this as “the pace of what is blandly labeled ‘global change.’” There are only a handful of comparable examples in earth’s history. She says the most recent is an asteroid impact that ended the reign of the dinosaurs 66 million years ago.
If that's how Kolbert defines success, sign me up for failure—and quick.
For the thrilling—and hopeful!—conclusion, and to hear my weird speaking voice that I can’t stand, click here!
Hey Team Elsewhere! Please let me know that you’re not a Russian bot infiltrating my substack by…
Subscribing! Let’s commit to each other. I think it’s time.
Telling me what you think. Even if it’s expressing skepticism that I know Bigfoot personally.
Hit the “like” button below. You’d be surprised to learn how pathetically invested I am in that “like” button. Do you think it’s OK for me to “like” myself? Repeatedly?
Meanwhile, if you are a Russian bot, please subvert somebody else’s elections and leave us alone.
You will hear from my attorney. Sasquatch and Associates.
Hey, Bigfoot has never mentioned your name to me. He's one of my clients.