CZ in PopPolitics
Posted by: Loren Coleman on November 9th, 2005
Boing Boing ("A Directory of Wonderful Things"), being one of my favorite blogs and especially those by David Pescovitz, was the first on the block, to understand the mixture in modern technoculture and cryptozoology. Now over at PopPolitics ("Where Politics and Popular Cultures Meet"), they are talking about cryptozoology too. Blogger Bernie in his "One Culture’s Myth …" is carrying on a good exchange, as he comes closer to understanding what we are all about.
Here’s part of what I wrote today in PopPolitics comments section about the current cryptozoology converstation there:
Hi, Bernie. You ask if it isn’t "true that much of what you base you initial interest on is the role these creatures have played in cultural and spiritual systems?"
Actually, I have a wide-ranging approach. Cryptids are apparent and important because they are ethnoknown – whether in native traditions, artifacts, sightings, smells, footprint finds, photographs, and then through extension into our modern society, in art, movies, and other cultural/religious outlets. But the essence of cryptozoology and hominology is the forensic quests for the real animals; it is the tangible evidence collection to discover the mountain gorilla, the okapi, the giant squid, the giant panda, the coelacanth, the megamouth shark, the saola, the new monkey over that ridge, the new bird in that rainforest (based on local legends and encounters) is an actual zoological specimen. I accept or deny the evidence based on these investigations, and that is what cryptozoology means to me, purely the study of hidden or as yet undiscovered animals.
The art and the cultural spillover from all of these cryptids is merely the icing that is more attractive for some to examine and eat. But I enjoy the whole cake.
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About Loren Coleman
Loren Coleman is one of the world’s leading cryptozoologists, some say “the” leading living cryptozoologist. Certainly, he is acknowledged as the current living American researcher and writer who has most popularized cryptozoology in the late 20th and early 21st centuries.
Starting his fieldwork and investigations in 1960, after traveling and trekking extensively in pursuit of cryptozoological mysteries, Coleman began writing to share his experiences in 1969. An honorary member of Ivan T. Sanderson’s Society for the Investigation of the Unexplained in the 1970s, Coleman has been bestowed with similar honorary memberships of the North Idaho College Cryptozoology Club in 1983, and in subsequent years, that of the British Columbia Scientific Cryptozoology Club, CryptoSafari International, and other international organizations. He was also a Life Member and Benefactor of the International Society of Cryptozoology (now-defunct).
Loren Coleman’s daily blog, as a member of the Cryptomundo Team, served as an ongoing avenue of communication for the ever-growing body of cryptozoo news from 2005 through 2013. He returned as an infrequent contributor beginning Halloween week of 2015.
Coleman is the founder in 2003, and current director of the International Cryptozoology Museum in Portland, Maine.
You’ve got a tough job. I guess everyone assumes the entire planet contains no unknowns…but new species/subspecies are found each year…good luck.