Writing
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The following is the beginning of my research into music as language and my submission for the Rhinebeck Passion Project as a student of Dutchess Community College English 101 and 102. This project won in a class vote to be given as a presentation as part of the annual Rhinebeck Hawk Talks in 2023. https://journeys.dartmouth.edu/josephphagerty27/rhs-passion-project-music-the-urmetalanguage/
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Pre-College Placement Essay on Music, Mental Health, and COVID-19:
https://journeys.dartmouth.edu/josephphagerty27/directed-self-placement-essay/
Final Project for WRIT 5, Fall 2023 (Originality, Creativity in Music):
https://journeys.dartmouth.edu/josephphagerty27/writ-5-final/
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There once was a seagull who lived on the beach,
Who enjoyed eating oysters or shellfish at least,
But wanted much more, so he embarked on a quest,
To steal a beachgoer’s crackers, and create quite a mess
With his plan in his mind, the bird flew dead south,
With dirty gray wings and beak for a mouth,
He held his head high, and jaws open a gape,
For the desire of the crackers he soon would intake
The erosion was rampant, the beach soon did thin,
The coastline almost ended, and the sea would begin,
He had to think fast, that clever old bird,
For upon thinking “cracker,” he salavated at the word
“Hark!” he cawed, for there were sapiens below,
A woman named Maud, and her fat husband Moe,
They feasted on RitzBits, a common old treat,
With the torn open box on the ground at Moe’s feet
The seagul was smart, and circled around,
Moe was oblious, and laughed like a clown,
“Look, in the sky!” said the jolly old man,
Angry, the sea bird enacted his plan
The bomb fell fast, and Moe ran for cover,
It hit the box on the ground; Maud screamed and shuttered,
“That’s disgusting!” said she, whilst kicking the sand
The seagul screeched, as he had foiled the man
Down he dove, his wings on a breeze,
For now he could eat the crackers as he pleased,
Upon hitting the beachtowel, into the box the gul went,
Surely inside his time would be well spent
But birdie was displeased, for there was nothing inside,
Except for his gift, which had come from the sky,
The gul was disgusted, his plan had been foiled,
Angry, he kicked off from the soft sand and soil
The humans returned, briny and wet,
But their towel and chair had not been upset,
“You ate the whole box?” Maud asked to her guy,
Moe was embarrassed and tried to think up a lie
The couple then argued, a true mess indeed,
The seagul was content with at least part of his deed,
“Humans are petty, and now they will fight,
Even without my dear crackers, I still feel alright.”
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Currently looking into areas of research on the intersectionality of music and sonic arts and bioacoustics, behavioral science, and general zoology.
Advised by Matthew Ayres, Dartmouth Biological Sciences
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A Rough Draft: “Chapter I. Origins”
(An early version of an ongoing project, to be edited and interspliced with illustrations and short musical scores)
In the beginning, nobody knew anything. Nobody knew for sure how the world came to be. There was a Creator- me- and a great hydrogen burst from which the cosmos sprung to fruition over thirteen billion years time. Nine billion years after my flames of fabled flatulence brought the void into being, in one such galaxy there was a world. The world was, in almost every way, like our own. The world rested on a planet, third from a star that the intelligent beings called “sun.” The planet rotated on its axis, and a small gray object revolved around the planet. The intelligent beings called it “moon” and the home planet’s gravitational pull kept the moon in orbit. The planet in turn orbited the celestial being called the sun.
To create a good story, or stories, there needs to be a setting for these events to transpire. Being the author, I am creating this world merely to complete this story and for you, as the reader, to feel entertained.
Back in the day, this world was ruled by giants, serpents, trolls, and behemoths of every kind. The winds whispered songs so magical that even Tsaichkovsky himself couldn’t grasp the interplay of harmonies that breathed the story of life’s creation. The mountains rose above the seas as the bowels of the Earth groaned and shifted through underground seas. Tides rose and fell. Life flourished first in the form of small worlds barely visible to the eye, eventually growing the vast forests that covered the chunks of rock set to become the continents.
In the various phases of the planetary formation, there hummed an orchestral warmup in which lineages arose before plummeting into obscurity, and the continents moved around each other like dancers in a ballroom. The striking of the instruments triggered pulses and ripples and shocks that came to breath and move according to the laws of science and the laws of meaning. The light of the sun and shade of the moon created a contrast in the room of time, and in this venue the band of Fates played:
This created world was, and is, a remarkable point in the cosmos. The location from the sun, its rate of movement, its falling into a snowball slumber after which it awoke with a Cambrian explosion, and the barraging of water filled bullets from the black void created the perfect input for the output of complex beings that sprouted legs and ate and swam and defecated in magical ways never before seen in this corner of existence. Ribonucleic became deoxyribonucleic. Prokaryote became eukaryote. Wild became tame. From the hand of a great clockmaker came the ticking of billions of years of boiling down to the point in which one such being would swing down from the trees and take the special image of mankind itself. But we’ll get there later.
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For comparison to the age of mammals and man, in which our main story will commence, let’s look at a snapshot of the planet just before the mammals took over.
Seventy-million year old Earth: the continents have shifted. North America and Europe are split into smaller islands. A sea flows from the colder polar region to the north and down to what was then a mere peninsular region of Panama. The title of isthmus had yet to come to fruition here. During this time, my world was immersed in pure vegetative wilderness.
A SIDE NOTE: More often than not, paleo scholars will recount the times before man and beast, back to the age of dragons. Replace Homo sapiens with its dominant species equivalent during that time: Tyrannosaurus rex. In fact, traveling from the Age of Man to the Age of T.rex is a small blip from the Old Kingdom of Egypt to the Campanian rock of the Cretaceous. Anyways, let’s continue.
Laramidia was the longer of the two main islands, with a string of highlands running down its center. The edge of the seaway was warm. This was the time when the first angiosperms, the flowering plants, were starting to bloom. The seaway lapped against the shore, and taller conifers stood a mile or two inland. At this point, the coastal forest had become incredibly dense. The wind blew to the lower pressure pockets above the forest from the open sea. Although cool, the coastal forest remained warm. The new flowers, shades of lighter pinks and whites, began to dance along the ground and dazzled any viewers who wandered into the clearings. A short river flowed down the clearing into the forest below.
Both the river and the waves worked to move sediment. The river tended to carry smaller sediments, mostly silt. Along its bends this sediment piled up, creating areas where larger animals could come to drink. The workings of these waterways coupled with regular cycles of rainfall forged environments lasting eons.
Despite the presence of larger animals, mostly herbivores, Laramidia was the host of several smaller species. Many insects lived on the mini continent, and they grew in an evolutionary arms race with the massive forest pines and cycads on which their larvae fed. Beneath these trees flowed the river’s water. Large brown fish, their scales covered in bone-like armor, were common in the river. These armored fish fed on smaller organisms who in turn feasted on their brethren. Some of these brethren ate detritus. I would not have made them eat detritus in my world, but I needed a functioning ecosystem. I subjected earthworms to this noble cause too.
The flying bugs were food for the arboreal fauna. The higher trees were prime nesting sites for avisaurs, smaller birds that tended to hunt and live near the winding creek. The avisaurs were relatively fast fliers; some individuals were omnivorous, but the diets of the birds largely varied based on what portion of the coastal forest they inhabited.
Most avisaurs were white or beige. Male avisaurs were the more stunning individuals; some even had bluish crests with which to attract females or intimidate rival males. Avisaurs were incredibly common, with several variations and mutations being present in this region.
The creek was also home to flat-shelled turtles and small caiman-like crocodilians (caimans are a South American variety of crocodilian, similar to alligators). Among these crocodilians were the champsosaurs. Champsosaurs were relatively common, and they generally were dwarfed by the occasional Borealosuchus. Several species of Borealosuchus would later be named by the intelligent humans; in truth, they only got a few of them right. Nevertheless, no human would ever want to come across a Borealosuchus, Champsosaurus or any crocodile. Too bad for them, because the crocodiles continued on.
This day saw no Borealosuchus, but several champsosaurs managed to crawl out onto the exposed banks. Turtles were out, alongside a solitary monitor lizard in search of the avisaur eggs. The birds usually managed to warn each other of the threat; monitor lizards were slow-moving and took a while to reach or find nests. Although bigger, the crocodilians were of little threat to the avians.
Laramidian forest life was in full swing, and the commotion attracted a fat, roundish reptile with a pot belly and thick back. A hard tail swayed behind the beast as it trotted through the twigs and mud to the meander to drink. Its head was bony and rough; even the brute’s eyes were clothed in armor that could rival any Hellenistic warrior. On its mouth was a beak. Its face was cloaked in keratin. On its dense back were two large bony extrusions, with tips further covered in the keratin. Although it crouched, the armored animal could rise on medium-length legs that offered the underbelly’s only form of defense. The tail continued to sway. The tongue began to drink. The Ankylosaurus grunted and lowered itself into the shallows of the meander.
Then the ankylosaur stopped. The dinosaur lifted its head and turned to the low humming coming from the northern wood. As the wind picked up the cracking branches within the forest revealed the arrival of a thirty-foot long biped with the cry of a Midwestern freighter. Gusts blew across the gargling water and sent the champsosaurs into the murky depths. As the small saplings cracked and fell to their knees, the tyrannosaur thrust its olive-green head through the foliage, its teeth barred. Its throat puffed as a low hum erupted from it. The animal was a cranky, hangry old bull. Tyrannosaurs were large carnivores that prowled the conifers and coastlines of northern Laramidia. They had a powerful bite and often moved in clans like the cave hyenas that would prowl southern Europe and Africa some seventy million years later. Tyrannosaur bulls were especially aggressive, patrolling the perimeter of their territories for possible intruders and threats to their prides. Tyrannosaur prides in general were small, averaging around five individuals, many female.
Although bulls were more aggressive, the cows were bigger. Female tyrannosaurs were larger and more powerful than their mates, but they were not nearly as aggressive. The bull’s mate waited in the forest behind him. She was silent, but the ankylosaur still heard her bristling breath. A dragon’s respiration, promising piercing teeth instead of gaseous flames.
At this point, the ankylosaur was standing above the meander and looking into the eyes of his rival. The bull snorted and strutted toward the river. Its head, a chimera of an old eagle and scarred Florida gator sank into the mud and brown water. Like the ankylosaur, the tyrant began to drink.
The Ankylosaurus wasn’t in immediate danger, but it needed to move. Like the animal of my own Earth’s fossil record, this Earth’s Ankylosaurus magniventris was built for defense. As stated, the ankylosaur was coated in thick armor, although its underbelly was mostly open. The tail was tipped with a dual-shaped Nordic battle ax. Even the tyrannosaurus' mighty jaws couldn’t pierce the ankylosaur’s armor directly, only its belly.
The Ankylosaurus began to lumber away. The beast could not run; rather, it waddled swiftly. The Tyrannosaurus was not much of a runner either, but it could strut fast. He continued lapping from the waters, watching in his periphery as the tank lizard waddle off into the forest. The tyrannosaurs weren’t interested in fighting the ankylosaur; such an encounter could be deadly. The male and his mate were planning on some easier targets.
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The coast ran thin alongside the grayish sea along central Laramidia, just south of the river and the Ankylosaurus territory. Much of the coastal region was covered in sand, with some rocky outcroppings jutting out into the sea like irregular levies. The foamy sea lapped against the shore, and the outer rim of the Interior Sea was a light bluish coloration teeming with life. Several large fish patrolled the waters off the coast. These individuals resembled tropical tarpon (a common predatory fish found in Floridian harbors) but were three-times larger with jaws designed to trap unsuspecting prey (Xiphactinus).
The big fish drifted in silence. The calm afternoon along the sea preceded the storm that was to come. Although sunny along the Laramidian coast, the sky grew darker as it went out into what humans would come to call “international waters.” In truth, the seaway would rest over the modern continental United States, so humans would most likely call it “Kansas” or “Missoura.” A low rumbling noise sounded from the impending sea storm, and it was answered by the call of a tyrannosaur somewhere deep within the forest. The female. Her low rumbles called back and forth, but the rest of the noise was light; it rested on the incoming wind.
A herd of grayish hadrosaurs were marching along the strip of land along the Interior Sea. The herd consisted of over seventy or eighty individuals, both male and female, young and adult. The male hadrosaurs had hard bosses, or bony protrusions, above their snouts whereas females had “crests” that were slightly-less pronounced. The juveniles lacked any ornamentation and were a much duller gray than their mothers. Hadrosaur offspring adapted to camouflage against the low-laying foliage. This offered further protection against predators. Laramidia was full of predatory beasts, namely tyrannosaurs, but herbivores were far more numerous. The herd was a case in point; the eighty hadrosaurs dwarfed our tyrannosaur duo encountered earlier.
Hadrosaurs, much like later mammals, ate grasses and shrubs. After the large herd would feast, it would move on to “greener pastures,” often at opposite ends of the Laramidian coast or open forest. The coastal regions were open, allowing hadrosaurs to spot incoming carnivores with their poorer eyesight. The herd communicated heavily; low to high pitched sounds like modern tubas trumpeted up and down the shore from the males and hardier females in the front to the stragglers in rear.
The hooting began to cover the lower rumbles of the sea and deep forest. The vast herd began to make haste, moving faster along the coast toward their feeding grounds. At slower speeds, hadrosaurs moved on all fours, often searching the ground for vegetation or small snacks like crustaceans to eat. Although primarily herbivorous, hadrosaurs were omnivores. Coastal subspecies enjoyed crustaceans if grasses were scarce. However, these herd animals could also run on their hind quarters, easily outpacing a Tyrannosaurus in a few strides. But what tyrannosaurs lacked in speed they made up for in intelligence and cunning.
Despite being thirty or forty feet in length, tyrants worked with their prides to craft ambush techniques to foil hadrosaur herds. Quick bursts would be enough to chase down a calf and subdue it, and strong jaws could easily make work of adult hadrosaurs as well. Tyrannosaurs rarely left food behind, even scavenging remains from smaller predators of the Laramidian coast. They had some of the best eyesight of any Laramidian fauna. Like humans and modern birds, tyrannosaurs had eyesight that faced forward; Tyrannosaurus was also known for an incredible sense of smell. With sight, smell, and intelligence, tyrannosaurs made up for their lack of speed. With the migratory herd trapped between the coastal forest and the seaway, predators had the perfect opportunity to seize a meal. The bellows and calls of the tyrannosaur deep within the forest began to change their tune. Suddenly, they silenced.
A small hadrosaur calf trotted swiftly behind its mother. The calf, a young male, had a light gray coat with tawny markings. Hadrosaur calf skin was generally smooth, with small quills and filaments running down the upper neck and legs. Calves had large, saucer-esc eyes in addition. In the sand, the calf left several three-toed tracks, mirroring modern gamebirds and ratites. The mother grunted and began to move faster, coaxing her infant along.
The breeze smelled of pine, but it wasn’t exactly pine; rather, the smell was that of the deep forest and dry branches far from the wetter coast. The scent grew stronger, and limbs began to snap and crash as a large-bodied animal began to bound through the coastal vegetation alongside the swiftly trotting hadrosaurs. The head males began to hoot incredibly loud, and with these calls the hadrosaurs began to run ever faster towards a thin extremity of rock and sediment that jutted out like a mini peninsula toward the seaway. The herd had been successfully foiled, and with one sudden move the female tyrannosaur thrust her body through the foliage and stepped down onto the sandy floor, snarling and flaring her nostrils and head.
Blood raced through the tyrannosaur’s veins and her nostrils were filled with seawater and older hadrosaur manure. Even more still, the tyrannosaur sensed flesh; behind her stepped two younger individuals, her teenage offspring, and they smelled it too. In a flash, these subadults were off.
Both sides of the herd were quickly flanked. On either side ran two younger tyrants with porcupine-like quill feathers sticking out of their necks. Their forelimbs were reduced in front, and the tyrannosaurs held them inward with palms facing slightly upward toward their bellies. Although almost useless, tyrannosaur arms were incredibly powerful, and if needed, could latch onto prey and hold it for mere milliseconds before the strong jaws finished the work. This target was secured through enhanced senses which manifested themselves into the tyrannosaur’s superb sense of smell and forward-facing eyes; the hadrosaur face was quite different.
Hadrosaur skulls curved into a beak; this tool was used to crush tough plants, and, alongside the local horned Triceratops, was one of the best tools amongst herbivorous dinosaurs.
Finally, like a hawk, the female subadult latched onto her target. In a move of sheer speed and raw power, the tyrant turned towards the male hadrosaur calf and his mother. The muscular legs of the tyrannosaur moved in impressive strides as she covered the sand banks towards her quarry. The rear of the hadrosaur herd had many watching eyes; like birds they broke into the v-formation, flocking towards the narrow coast. The calf and mother followed the coastal crowd, pulling the hunting tyrants away from one half of the herd; the tyrannosaurs were narrowing their targets in the process. The impressive migratory herd now broke into a mere twenty-six individuals, two of which were destined to be slaughtered by one of the greatest predators to have ever evolved.
All human knowledge of predatory dinosaurs (and all dinosaurs, pterosaurs, and related archosaurs for that matter) comes from fossilized remains over sixty million years in age. As the creator of this planet (my own version of Earth), I have based the beast destined to become Osborn’s Tyrannosaurus rex on the knowledge that my home Earth’s paleontologists and other related scientists have gathered from work in the field.
Offshore, the giant fish broke their school to reveal a large sea beast. It resembled a giant lizard with whale flukes and a shark’s tail with a larger lower dorsal fin. The predator was smooth in texture, yet the lizard had some nob-like scales along its neck and back. Its teeth were blades of immediate death; it had two pairs of jaws. As the sky and sea darkened, the animal, a bull mosasaur, drifted silently towards the commotion of the coast. Its coloration was black with white underbelly and circles near the eyes, an “orca pattern.”
On the shore, the hadrosaurs began to stampede. On either side, tyrannosaurs flanked. The tyrannosaurs cut the herd in half, each time narrowing their targets down to fewer and fewer individuals. Finally, the tyrants had a mere four individuals remaining: two males, a female, and her calf.
The large male hadrosaurs wouldn’t be easy to shake, however. As the beach strip narrowed, the males slowed and turned to face their assailants. The skin of the two hadrosaurs was thick and wet with sea water; the older of the two had several scars on his neck. Both hadrosaurs then emitted a low resonating sound like a tuba. The bull tyrannosaur stopped. He cocked his olive-green head side to side like a cumbersome bird. Then his neck quills stood on end and from his throat came a low snarl to answer. The throat inflated and his biceps flailed. The hadrosaurs reared on their hind quarters, instantly becoming over 50% taller than the subadult tyrant. The bull cocked his massive skull. Outsized and outperformed, the subadult snorted and moved back towards his sibling. The tyrannosaur’s feet sunk into the damp sand as he strode, defeated.
The four hadrosaurs were dazed and confused. Separated from most of the herd, they were trapped on the peninsula. Rocks caved beneath the weight of the males, and finally gave so much that the older of the two fell into the waves. The hadrosaur buck kicked and brayed, its feet nearly reaching the sandy bottom below.
As the peninsula thinned and the waves of death lapped, the remaining three hadrosaurs slowed and turned to their struggling herd mate. The coast then gave way to a monstrous sight; the female tyrannosaur, dark olive green with a brownish tint, moving in massive strides across the dunes toward her target. Her eyes were keen; the pupils narrowed to the buck within the shallows. The pounding of sand soon flowed into the splashing of water and crashing of waves. The hadrosaur flailed and desperately kicked into deeper water. The sea floor could no longer be felt.
The female tyrannosaur slowed. Water circled her legs and sprayed onto her massive flanks. The tyrannosaur let out a rumbling roar, as low and powerful as thunder, before turning back towards the beach. The splashing and swooshing of sea water became the soft pounding on sand once again. The footsteps grew ever more silent as the tyrannosaur and her offspring vanished; their sounds soon became one with the lapping waves.
As the sea calmed, the old hadrosaur began to kick toward the coast. His nostrils flared as he struggled to breath. Then the water was silent.
Boom! In a flash the bull mosasaur erupted from the shallows toward the neck and upper body of the older hadrosaur. A frothy wake signaled the powerful fluke propelling the sea beast toward the final resting point of its jaws. As the tide rose, the hadrosaur frantically kicked toward the rocky peninsula, crying out to the remainder of the herd on the beach. The paleo orca thrust itself left, following the old buck further into the shallows. A wake splashed the hadrosaur and what followed was a powerful thrust into the flank. The mosasaur sank its primary jaws into the quarry. The lower second jaw, like a snake, expanded over the throat of the hadrosaur and much of the upper body. As the dinosaur struggled, its thick hide became further entangled within the aquatic jaws of death. Grayish blue seawater warmed into a reddish bisk of misery. The water rolled over the buck’s eyes as the mosasaur’s body forced the hadrosaur deeper in an attempt to drown. The buck’s nostrils managed to inhale one final breath before seawater shot in with burning sensation. At last, with one final thrust the mosasaur tore the hadrosaur under the breaking waves and into the hard sea floor below. The sea reptile hit the bottom too, its lower pectoral fins helping to correct itself. The massive fluke flexed sideways, kicking up sand. With one powerful motion the dark colossus and its game flung toward deeper water. They vanished into the depths, now darkened by an incoming storm. A soft groan echoed along the sandbar.
The peninsula fell quiet.
The remaining three hadrosaurs began to trot down the strip toward the mainland. The tide was rising, and soon swept silently beneath their feet. The younger buck managed to recover and ran onto the beach. His body was cut on a nearby pine, a piece of skin becoming entrenched in new-forming tree sap. After several hoots and strides, he was gone. The tide soon overtook the mother and infant. Within the shallows, they became one with sediment. On my Earth would sit a fossil, mother and child with crooked bird necks and reptilian skin, waiting over seventy million years to be uncovered in the Badlands of a region the humans would call “Montana.”