Here’s the latest episode of my podcast in the 2021 season. It’s an essay I wrote, titled The Ravens Commute At Sunrise.
Just over 1500 words, The Ravens Commute At Sunrise briefly explores our relationship with a majestic bird, and our attitudes about anthropomorphism, anthropocentrism, and human supremacism.
You can find me on Google Podcasts and Spotify.
You can listen to the episode using this embedded player. Continue reading Beerlander 2021 04 – The Ravens Commute At Sunrise
Here’s the latest episode of my podcast, where I read an essay I’ve written about photography and, well, vanity. The essay is called [phos|cūra] – A Portrait Of A Camera App. You can find me on Google Podcasts and Spotify.
You can listen to the episode using this embedded player. Continue reading Beerlander 2021 03 – [phos|cūra] – A Portrait Of A Camera App
Turtles, Towers, Time, And Temporary Towns is the third episode in the inaugural season of my podcast, The Beerlander. You can find me on Google Podcasts and Spotify.
You can listen to the episode using this embedded player.
Please consider becoming a supporter of my show. Thank you.
Below you will find contents (and linked resources) that I mention in this episode. Continue reading Beerlander 2021 02 – Turtles, Towers, Time, And Temporary Towns
Steal This Episode! (Just Skip The Ads) is the second episode in the inaugural season of my podcast, The Beerlander. You can find me on Google Podcasts and Spotify.
You can listen to the episode using this embedded player.
Below you will find contents (and linked resources) that I mention in this episode. Continue reading Beerlander 2021 01 – Steal This Episode!
The inaugural episode of the inaugural (2021) season of The Beerlander, which is the name I’ve chosen for my personal podcast.
You can listen to the episode using this embedded player.
Below you will find contents (and linked resources) that I mention in this episode. Continue reading Beerlander 2021 00 – Welcome To The Show
What time is it?
Right now. What time is it?
Right then. What kind of clock did you view to check the time? Your watch? Your phone? A wall clock? Analog? Digital? Sundial?
Did you guess the time before checking for a definite answer? Why, or why not?
What is the date? Which calendar did you reference? Gregorian, Assyrian, Ptolemaic, Zoroastrian? Do you even know? Does it even matter?
How far back into your own past (and the pasts of others) must you (or anyone) reach to find relevance in this moment?
Will that moment we just shared (in an asynchronous author-reader sense, anyway) be relevant in the future? Is relevance relevant to you in this moment?
While it would be great to delve into multiple scales and perspectives of time right now, we just do not have time. There is too much else about time relevant to this concept of TimeTracks, including its own history and future, as well as that of its creator, your friendly author.
Listen: there is just enough time (and space) to give homage to what are typically considered the two primary contrasting viewpoints of time: the arrow of time (entropy, etc.) and the experience of time. Maybe there will be more time further along this collection of words to dig in a bit deeper, depending on how (un)stuck this essay becomes.
Where to begin with TimeTracks? Continue reading (Coming Unstuck In) TimeTracks
In late summer and into the early fall of 2020, I’ll be teaching a variety of photography classes online, including some old favorites and one new course that I am quite pleased to offer. These classes include:
There are several sections available for each of these classes, taught using the Outschool platform. You can click the links above to visit the course listing for each class, allowing you to directly enroll your teens into any section that works for his or her schedule.
What is the tourism project?
Recently, I have conceptualized a new writing project that, for now, is intended to be an objective, research-driven essay about tourism and life in small- and medium-sized towns. I’d like to gather as many perspectives as possible. I’ve put together a brief survey for you to provide yours.
The survey won’t take you more than five minutes to complete.
Other than asking you for your general stance on tourism and the economy, the survey has a few basic questions to help steer the course of the project.
What is it like to live in a tourist town?
What is it like to work in a tourist town?
What is it like to raise kids in a tourist town?
What is it like to retire in a tourist town?
Please help me spread the word about this project, and please do share the link with folks you think would be interested in having their say. Here’s a QR code anyone can scan to access the survey on a smartphone.
Feel free to fill out the survey if you feel so inclined, and feel free to contact me directly or comment on this article if you’ve got questions about the project and my intentions.
Depending on the direction this project takes, there may be much more here than just the initial essay that gets published in a magazine or journal (and eventually on my blog). I hope it gets bigger. I’d like to move it toward a book about tourism, with in-depth examples and case studies from various municipalities around the United States, or perhaps even the world. We are also planning to see this site and take help from professional tour guides
Initially, though, I’m hoping to focus on municipalities in the western part of North Carolina, and the southwestern section of Virginia, since those are the areas that are most readily accessible to me from my home base in Glade Valley, North Carolina.
Here’s a printable PDF flyer you can download and share, and print then hang on a wall anywhere you’d like: community center, place of worship, town hall, school, coffee shop. Tourism Project Flyer
Finally, if you’re interested in collaborating on this project, I’m definitely interested in hearing from you. I’ll need some help conducting research and interviews for this project.
Thank you!
My name is Ben Erlandson, and I am running as an independent write-in candidate for Alleghany County Commissioner in the 2018 general election. I believe we can build a reasonable future for Alleghany County and its citizens as part of the Appalachian Mountains and the New River Basin.
Let’s Respect the Past and Consider the Future.
As the first step in this process, I need to gather signatures to submit to the Alleghany County Board of Elections to ensure that my write-in candidacy is officially recognized—so all votes cast for me in the general election will be officially counted.
But first, let me introduce myself and tell you a little bit about why I want to be an Alleghany County Commissioner.
I was born in 1979 and grew up in Elkin, NC, just down the road from Sparta. I spent most of my childhood and teenage years walking and camping in the forests and mountains of Alleghany County, from Stone Mountain to Doughton Park. We are so lucky to have these wilderness areas in our backyard.
In the mid-1990s, my father and I finished out a modular home at the base of Bullhead Mountain, in Glade Valley, NC, where I now live.
I am quite proud to be a product of the North Carolina public school system: Elkin Primary School, North Elkin Middle School, and Elkin High School. Even for college, I went to a public university: UNC-Asheville.
I am a photographer, a brewer, a gardener, a naturalist, a writer, and a professional educator living in this beautiful land we all call home. Over the course of my life experiences, I have come to realize that I am passionate about supporting the following issues in my local and regional communities:
Healthy Communities
Education and Lifelong Learning
Arts, Craftsmanship, and Creativity
Local Economies
Sustainable Agriculture
Social Justice
Environmental Stewardship
Natural Wonder
I will write more about each of these things in future posts.
SO! You may be wondering…
Why am I running for a seat on the Board of Commissioners?
Well, as an Alleghany County Commissioner, I would like to achieve three major goals with our communities during and beyond a four-year term:
Reasoned progress
Evidence-based problem solutions
Open communication and participation
For each major issue the county faces, I believe we can work together for reasoned progress by establishing measurable outcomes to define and track the successes and failures of any program funded by the county. If we don’t have data to know how well a program is working over time, then how do we know if it is working or not—and if that county money was well spent?
If we use measurable outcomes, we can begin to implement evidence-based problem solutions for all of the critical issues facing our communities. We can evaluate and assess these outcomes over time to know which direction to take with the solutions we establish.
Do we keep funding the solution from one year to the next? Do we change the solution? Do we throw it out altogether? Do we work with the organization implementing the solution to help them find additional sources of funding?
Finally, as an educator and technology systems designer, I firmly believe in communication and participation. Open communication and collaborative participation across our communities is a requirement if we are to have any chance of building and maintaining a reasonable future for the current and future citizens of Alleghany County.
Can any one of us predict or define what that reasonable future looks like?
Absolutely not. We’ve got to work together to build it, and we’ve got to continue working together to keep it.
Should I be elected, here is what I will bring to the table of the Alleghany County Board of Commissioners:
Local effort and elbow grease
Critical thinking and common sense
A “big picture” perspective
Global experience and expertise
A passion for life and simplicity
Concern for all of our communities
As I mentioned, the first step is to collect enough signatures from registered Alleghany County voters and submit them to the Alleghany County Board of Elections before the deadline. As we get down to the wire, I’ll keep you posted.
Please connect with me via email or send me a message through the Erlandson for Alleghany Facebook page, and I will find a way to ensure that you can sign the official petition form. We can meet at the Blue Ridge Business Development Center (next to the Alleghany County Library) or I can meet you in a place that is convenient for you.
Also, petition forms are available to sign at two other locations in downtown Sparta:
Becca’s Backwoods Bean – 21 N Main St, Sparta, NC 28675 (map)
Journey Wellness Studio – 81 W Doughton Street, Sparta, NC 28675 (web)
Thank you for taking the time to read my introduction to my platform for reasoned progress in Alleghany County.
I look forward to the opportunity to serve you as a public official!
Please feel free to get in touch with me if you have any questions or concerns.
Let’s work together to build a reasoned future for Alleghany County!
Stay tuned for updates. 🙂
Early December snow fell on Alleghany County, North Carolina. We got about six or eight inches, with deeper drifts in the usual spots. Of course, as a photographer, as the flakes start to fall, and it becomes apparent that we’re going to get some serious accumulation that will stick around for a while, I start thinking about the best spots to shoot, and how to get there before they’re disturbed, especially by other humans.
And I start checking the weather forecast to figure out when and where the light and snowscapes are going to be best, thanks to clouds, wind, and all those intricately interwoven variables we just can’t know.
My father and I started on the Blue Ridge Parkway at the gate near Mahogany Rock Road, at the base of Bullhead Mountain. Technically, I can easily hike here from the house, but I wanted to save some time and get to some good spots while the conditions were good — and potentially before anyone else got there.
![Beerlander 2021 03 – [phos|cūra] – A Portrait Of A Camera App](https://benerlandson.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/Adobe_Post_20210821_1938200.16952483714741273-825x510.png)
