Friday, July 20, 2018

№ 382: Last Man Standing

Guardian: Footage of sole survivor of Amazon tribe emerges
Man believed to be in his 50s seen swinging an axe to fell a tree in Brazilian forest

Loggers, farmers and land grabbers murdered and expelled indigenous populations in the area in the 1970s and 1980s, and the man is believed to be the only survivor of a group of six killed during an attack by farmers in 1995. [He] has lived alone in an Amazon forest for at least 22 years. He was first located in 1996 and has been monitored by Funai [the Brazilian government indigenous agency] ever since. A glimpse of his face filmed in 1998 was shown in the Brazilian documentary Corumbiara.

Civilization.
Take it of leave it?
(Freud said it bred discontent.)
And if it kills everybody you know,
you would avoid it — to an extent —
and pray to the gods,
known and unknown,
for civilization to leave you alone,
though it will not,
it's not apropos,
so you may find yourself
with your own Truman Show.