Some thoughts on Christopher Brown’s A Natural History of Empty Lots

Red on black, friend of Jack. Red on Yellow, kill a fellow.

Christopher Brown’s mnemonic warning about the coral snakes on his property is among several moments in his excellent Natural History of Empty Lots (Timber Press, 2024) that had me thinking we might be fellow travelers.

(Though full disclosure: I often misremembered that potentially lifesaving warning about snakes, even dangerously crossing it with Red sky at night, sailor’s delight. Red sky at morning, sailors take warning.)

Brown is a lawyer who led the technology corporate practice of a major American law firm as well as a writer—the author of sci-fi novels Tropic of Kansas, Rule of Capture and Failed State, and the publisher of an urban nature newsletter called Field Notes.

His Natural History of Empty Lots centers on his efforts with his family to rehabilitate a brownfield in Austin, Texas and explore the area’s secret woodlands.

His interest in science fiction reminds me of my mine in music (not playing it unfortunately, but listening to it.)

But mostly it’s his observations in what he calls the “edgelands” that remind me of my own experience lamenting the loss of local greenspaces, my recent gig tracking plant growth along Boston’s Rose Kennedy Greenway (I know, hardly an edgeland!) and my fascination with strange infrastructure.

And of course, the odd brand of trespassing such passions entail.

Brown writes that his “transgression was modest: to violate that order by walking in a zone that did not really contemplate, or even tolerate, the idea of a pedestrian. When I got to my [bus] stop, there were no sidewalks to follow for more than a few steps, so I intuited my own routes, cutting through the surreal lawns of corporate estates and the interstitial woods that grew between them, testing the bounds of what sort of trespassing you could get away with without bringing out the guards.”

I’ve been there.

He and I also shared a dislike for underground trains that, along with a lack of money to take cabs, leads to a lot of walking on “distances and routes that my friends who had grown up in those cities thought were crazy. There was always a destination, but you had to reckon your own route with whatever primitive map was available and the wayfinding means all cities provide. That would take you through neighborhoods and blocks you would not otherwise see, let you experience more of the totality of the city and reveal all kinds of otherwise hidden curiosities and patterns.”

Moreover, Brown’s social commentary on the political dimensions of matters such as native versus invasive species reminded me of the pearls of wisdom I share with myself while monitoring the Greenway.

As he notes, “The people who urge the strictest policing of invasives often … do so in a way that is wrapped up with conceptions of social class and the weird way that gets expressed in supposedly classless American culture. The way it is so often highly educated middle-class white people advocating the doctrines of ecological purity makes it feel sometimes as if the eugenics many of our grandparents and great-grandparents advocated for the human race got transferred to the plants that we live around.”

He also makes interesting references to the markings of the East Austin Maoists and the Austin Red Guards-turned-Defend Our Hoodz. Reminded me of the marketing push urging people to “Keep Austin Weird” (in a good way) that was in full throttle when I last visited the city … before “weird” (in a negative way) backfired during the last election.