What is that odd looking strip of apparently random photographs across the top of the Feral Scholar home page, you may be asking yourself… it’s a Meme Bar

A Meme Bar is a graphic we recently invented that represents a cluster of memes or a train of thought. The point of a meme bar is to express in one rapidly perceived image a complex series of connections that cross disciplinary borders — connections that are often obfuscated by cultural bias, habit, political chicanery, our own ignorance, etc. Our motto here at FS is that we make connections. The Meme Bar is a way of visualising the connections we try to make, and on this page we’ll deconstruct each Meme Bar and explain the train of thought it represents…

MemeBar 1

What is the point? the connections. No tree without a root system below ground that mirrors the volume of the tree aboveground. No root system without mycorrhizae and earthworms. No cider without apples. No cider without yeast. No seedling without seeds. No crates of apples without apple pickers. No apples without pollinators (honeybees). The apple pie — the glass of cider — are the tip of the iceberg. No apple pie without earthworms. Do we really know where our food comes from?

And if you were wondering, this is our new favicon (that little icon you see in the bookmark or tab in your browser). It’s a feral scholar — an “earth scholar” — the humble Lumbricina, one of our unsung hero(ine)s.