Noticing lxxvi - W. S. Merwin's "To the New Year"

With what stillness at last
you appear in the valley
your first sunlight reaching down
to touch the tips of a few
high leaves that do not stir
as though they had not noticed
and did not know you at all
then the voice of a dove calls
from far away in itself
to the hush of the morning

so this is the sound of you
here and now whether or not
anyone hears it this is
where we have come with our age
our knowledge such as it is
and our hopes such as they are
invisible before us
untouched and still possible


With gratitude to W. S. Merwin, who died last March at age 91 and will be seeing no more new years—but his beautiful poetry lives on, providing wisdom and sustenance. This one was from a 2005 collection, Present Company.

Noticing lxxv - Emily Carr, artist

I stumbled on the name Emily Carr yesterday when I started a new Louise Penny book. Carr gave Penny the book's title, The Brutal Telling, a reference to Carr's falling-out with her father (who died when she was 17). Penny explained that Carr (1871–1945) "painted in areas of Canada, through British Columbia, that were on the verge of being ruined." Her early art was inspired by the Indigenous peoples of Canada; she spent some time in France, where she fell under the Fauvist influence; and she eventually became associated with the Group of Seven, prominent Canadian landscape painters. She painted her best-known works when she was in her fifties.

According to Wikipedia (and the Canadian Encyclopedia), "Carr's main themes in her mature work were natives and nature: 'native totem poles set in deep forest locations or sites of abandoned native villages' and, later, 'the large rhythms of Western forests, driftwood-tossed beaches and expansive skies.' She blended these two themes in ways uniquely her own. Her 'qualities of painterly skill and vision . . . enabled her to give form to a Pacific mythos that was so carefully distilled in her imagination.' "

Here are some of her paintings. I'd love to see them in person. Perhaps a trip to BC is in order.

War Canoes, Alert Bay (1912)

The Crazy Stair (The Crooked
Staircase) (1928–30)

Vanquished (1930)

Big Eagle, Skidigate (1930)

Western Forest (ca. 1931)

Totem and Forest (1931)

Mountain Forest (1936)

Forest Light (1936)

Blue Sky (1936)

Cathedral (1937)

Happiness (1939)

Noticing lxxiv - St-Malo

Back in August I wrote a book report about All the Light We Cannot See, which is set in the town of St-Malo, in Brittany, in France. I happened to get stuck in St-Malo overnight this last July—such a hardship!—and was pointed to the book by friends who saw photos I posted on Facebook. Here are a few other photos of the place, from a different camera. The original FB post can be seen here.

A musician, seen from above on the town walls

The walk to the walled city from my hotel, along
la Grande Plage du Sillon

I have no idea what this is; it doesn't show up on Google maps.
A secret military fort perhaps?

The following photos are mostly of the walls and houses of St-Malo

Les Bas Sablons, a little south and east of St-Malo

The view from my hotel window at night

Noticing lxxiii - Mary Oliver and Wysława Szymborska, poems

Yesterday was the sixth day of lighting the Hanukkah candles. We read a poem each night, then sit with the light. I so enjoy the evening ritual. It slows us down. Brings us together.

On Christmas Day, our friend Nina read "Morning Poem" by Mary Oliver. The next day, David read "On Death, without Exaggeration" by Wysława Szymborska. Here they are.

Morning Poem
by Mary Oliver

Every morning
the world
is created.
Under the orange

sticks of the sun
the heaped
ashes of the night
turn into leaves again

and fasten themselves to the high branches—
and the ponds appear
like black cloth
on which are painted islands

of summer lilies.
If it is your nature
to be happy
you will swim away along the soft trails

for hours, your imagination
alighting everywhere.
And if your spirit
carries within it

the thorn
that is heavier than lead—
if it's all you can do
to keep on trudging—

there is still
somewhere deep within you
a beast shouting that the earth
is exactly what it wanted—

each pond with its blazing lilies
is a prayer heard and answered
lavishly,
every morning,

whether or not
you have ever dared to be happy,
whether or not
you have ever dared to pray.


On Death, without Exaggeration
by Wysława Szymborska (1986)

It can’t take a joke,
find a star, make a bridge.
It knows nothing about weaving, mining, farming,
building ships, or baking cakes.

In our planning for tomorrow,
it has the final word,
which is always beside the point.

It can’t even get the things done
that are part of its trade:
dig a grave,
make a coffin,
clean up after itself.

Preoccupied with killing,
it does the job awkwardly,
without system or skill.
As though each of us were its first kill.

Oh, it has its triumphs,
but look at its countless defeats,
missed blows,
and repeat attempts!

Sometimes it isn’t strong enough
to swat a fly from the air.
Many are the caterpillars
that have outcrawled it.

All those bulbs, pods,
tentacles, fins, tracheae,
nuptial plumage, and winter fur
show that it has fallen behind
with its halfhearted work.

Ill will won’t help
and even our lending a hand with wars and coups d’etat
is so far not enough.

Hearts beat inside eggs.
Babies’ skeletons grow.
Seeds, hard at work, sprout their first tiny pair of leaves
and sometimes even tall trees fall away.

Whoever claims that it’s omnipotent
is himself living proof
that it’s not.

There’s no life
that couldn’t be immortal
if only for a moment.

Death
always arrives by that very moment too late.

In vain it tugs at the knob
of the invisible door.
As far as you’ve come
can’t be undone.

Book Report: The Concrete Blonde

28. Michael Connelly, The Concrete Blonde (1994) (12/27/19)

Book three of the 23 books in the Harry Bosch series, done! I had read this one before, but I didn't remember the resolution, or really much of the plot—again, yay for a mind-like-a-sieve—which meant I could enjoy it all over again.

The story starts with a prologue in which Bosch shoots a man whom he believes to be the "Dollmaker," a serial killer of eleven women—so called because he garishly decorated his victims' faces with their own makeup, much of which is found in the man's bathroom. Seemingly clinching the case.

Chapter one, and the action of the book, begins four year later, as Bosch faces a civil trial, charged with wrongful death by the Dollmaker's widow. Bosch allegedly "cowboyed," neglecting to follow established LAPD procedure.

On the first day of the trial, a new body comes to light featuring the same MO as the serial killer's. Along with a note addressed personally to Bosch, as occurred in two of the earlier murders. How could that be? Did Harry make a mistake?

The story has the trial going on by day—with a prosecuting attorney who's sharp as a whip, the defending attorney less so—while Bosch, who apparently needs little sleep, ferrets out clues in his off hours. Eventually, with the assistance of a vice squad detective and a psychologist, he determines that there's a copycat, focused specifically on women in "porno" (sex videos)—and has been since even before the Dollmaker was killed. (I don't think that's too much of a spoiler. Of course Harry got the right guy at the start.)

I won't say any more, except that there's an awful lot of running after hunches (and suspects) in this story, on very little (if any) real evidence. But eventually Harry runs after the right hunch, and actual evidence even comes to light. And justice is served.

Connelly is a good writer—solid in what he does, which is police procedural (with a rogue element: Bosch), but also adept at evoking a particular place: L.A. I flagged a couple of passages that play to the latter strength. Here's one, the reference to riots having to do with the Rodney King incident of 1991:

Los Angeles had changed in the last few years, but then there was nothing new about that. It was always changing and that was why he loved it. But riot and recession had left a particularly harsh mark on the landscape, the landscape of memory. Bosch believed he would never forget the pall of smoke that hung over the city like some kind of supersmog that could not be lifted by the evening winds. The TV pictures of burning buildings and looters unchecked by the police. It had been the department's darkest hour and it still had not recovered.
 And neither had the city. Many of the ills that led to such volcanic rage were still left untended. The city offered so much beauty and yet it offered so much danger and hate. It was a city of shaken confidence, living solely on its stores of hope. In Bosch's mind he saw the polarization of the haves and have-nots as a scene in which a ferry was leaving the dock. An overloaded ferry leaving an overloaded dock, with some people with a foot on the boat and a foot on the dock. The boat was pulling further away and it would only be so long before those in the middle would fall in. Meanwhile, the ferry was still too crowded and it would capsize at the first wave. Those left on the dock would certainly cheer this. They prayed for the wave. 

The title of this book refers both to the new body that sets Bosch on the hunt for the copycat killer (she is buried under a slab of concrete) and to Lady Justice, who stands, in statue form, in front of the courthouse where Bosch's trial is taking place, and which he goes to stand near on his frequent cigarette breaks. She's made of concrete, and one of the characters imagines her as a blonde. And yes, this book is about justice. In so many ways.

Next up: The Last Coyote. 

Noticing lxxii - underrated/underwatched movies

Yesterday a FB friend of mine (whom I've never met) followed up (sort of) on a "challenge" he'd been issued: to name five underrated or underwatched movies that influenced his life. He didn't issue the challenge on (which is why I said "sort of"), but friends of his did comment on his list. The result is a great array of movies, some of which I've seen, some of which I haven't but would like to. I thought I'd just catalogue it here, for future reference.

In the order in which they appear in my friend's original post (which I have copied wholesale because it's amusing and smart—as, for that matter, is the friend himself) and in some of 77 comments:

Harvey – 1950, Jimmy Stewart as an amiable guy who drinks too much and whose best friend is a 6'3" invisible rabbit. It has the best monologue about spending time in taverns. It's a celebration of being pleasant.
Local Hero – 1983, Peter Reigert and Burt Lancaster (with a small part played by Peter Capaldi [his film debut]); a US oil company wants to buy a small Scottish village and a chunk of the surrounding land to build an awful oil depot. There's a Soviet sub, an injured rabbit, a cosmological event, and, obviously, a mermaid. [And with soundtrack by Mark Knopfler. And here is "an absolutely lovely and fascinating conversation" about the movie from BBC's The Film Programme.]
Hear My Song – 1991, Adrian Dunbar, Ned Beatty in a scarf, and Tara Fitzgerald (who exhibits the best grin in movies); a failing music entrepreneur seeks a tax-evading Irish tenor from the 1950s in an attempt to make his girlfriend happy. There's also a few scenes with a cow, a dental procedure in a pub, and David McCallum as a detective.

Sanjuro – 1962, Toshiro Mifune in a jidai-geki ["era drama"] by Kurosawa; it's about a scruffy ronin, some very earnest young samurai, a very homely administrator who's been kidnapped, and the shortest and most over-the-top sword scene ever filmed. It manages to be charming, brutal, hilarious, and sad—often at the same time.
Holiday – 1938, Cary Grant and Katherine Hepburn; a guy who has worked hard since he was a kid unwittingly gets engaged to a millionaire's daughter. Her family wants him to keep working hard, but he's worked hard so he can enjoy his life while he's still young, and plans to return to serious work after he's had an interesting life. He's NOT engaged to Hepburn. Cary Grant does an astonishing backflip from a handstand.

This friend later commented, "Somebody just pointed out to me that these are all movies about adult men refusing to do what's expected of them"—which from what little I know about said friend could easily describe him.

And other films mentioned in this long thread include:

Destry Rides Again, The Rare Breed, Winchester 73, and Shenendoah—all with amiable (and sometimes also tough) Jimmy Stewart
Sex & Lucia
Gattaca
Julia
Wish You Were Here (1987, with Emily Lloyd)
Shirley Valentine
Birdy
Truly Madly Deeply
S.O.B.
Phenomenon
Fandango
The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter
The Laundromat (1985, with Carol Burnett and Amy Madigan)
Ursula LeGuin's The Lathe of Heaven
Ondine (by Neal Jordan, starring Colin Farrell and a mermaid)
Amélie
Brazil
A Very Long Engagement (Un long dimanche de fiançailles)
Lost in America
Withnail & I

Impromptu (with Judy Davis)
Hope & Glory
Enemies: A Love Story
The World's Fastest Indian
Scandal
Silent Running
Leon: The Professional
The Gods Must Be Crazy
Brother from Another Planet
Diva
Repo Man
The Conversation (with Gene Hackman)
Turtle Diary (with Glenda Jackson and Ben Kingsley)
Sexy Beast
The Draughtman's Contract (dir. Peter Greenaway)

Another FB friend whom I've never met jumped into the conversation here, with these five recommendations:

Jumping Jack Flash (1984, Penny Marshall) – Because it showed some of the possibilities of internet before the internet even existed. Oh, and the soundtrack. And Whoopi Goldberg at her funniest.
Mädchen in Uniform (Girls in Uniform, 1958, Geza von Radvanyi) – About a boarding school student who had a crush on her female teacher – with a tragic ending. It was one of my first encounters with LGBTQ+ issues. And because I had a crush on Romy Schneider.
Three Wishes for Cinderella (1973, Vaclav Vorlicek) – A Czech fairy-tale adoption, but showing a different Cinderella, a strong one who can ride a horse, shoot a crossbow, talk with the animals, and has compassion for all living things. From today’s perspective, there’s still a lot wrong about it: Why did they pick fat actresses for the evil stepmother and stepsister, but not for the ‘nice’ characters? Why does the prince only fall in love with her at the ball, when she wears a fancy dress, not out in the snow, when she wears her rags, but is much more interesting and competent? Etc. But back in the day, I adored it.

The Accidental Tourist (1988, Lawrence Kasdan) – What happens when unbelievable tragedy enters your marriage, and you can’t make it recover from it? Staying close to the novel by Anne Tyler, it shows paths in which life can go on. It gives hope. Also, so many quirky characters and scenes, and William Hurt and Geena Davis at their best.
Delicatessen (1991, Marc Caro, Jean-Pierre Jeunet) – A dark and spooky tenement house settled in a post-apocalyptic dystopian world, with strange rituals and characters, suddenly gets turned upside down when a former clown moves in as new tenant. Pure art, and heartwarming.

What might my five be? Here's what came up in my response to my FB friend:

Wait Until Dark (1967)
Harold and Maude (1971)
The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert (1994)
Diva (1981)
The Crying Game (1992)
Blowup (1966)
Wings of Desire (1987)
Truly Madly Deeply (1990)

That's more than five, I know. And perhaps not all of these count as underrated/underwatched, I don't know. And there could've been a lot more once I started thinking about it, so I decided to leave it at that. So many good films to see!

Noticing lxxi - days off

Although usually when I have work in I work every day, even if for only a couple of hours, simply to make strides—the curse of the freelancer—today and yesterday I did not. I could credit Christmas and Boxing Day—the holidays—with my unusual indolence. In truth, though, I took both these days off simply because the current book I'm working on is
. . . wretched is not too strong a word. It's all I can do to keep going with it. (It's 82 chapters. Each chapter very short, no more than five pages so far, usually only two—so there's that blessing.) It's about wine—sort of. Or about this particular wine writer's opinions about wine, about the industry, about the culture, about the consumers, about how idiotic the world is and how smart he is. (I am writing this, I fully trust, under the cloak of anonymity.)

In any case, it was so pleasant to take a couple of days off from it, but tomorrow I must crack down again. Only through work will I get those 82 chapters out of my life. (I'm in the 40s now).

So, yesterday and today were delightful as I played hooky! Yesterday morning we opened and then set about playing a new board game that I got us for Christmas, Wingspan. I heard about it on NPR's Science Friday, on a show all about smart board games. And yeah, this one is smart: so much so that we found ourselves scratching our heads over the complicated instructions. (No Chutes and Ladders or Candyland this!) But then it occurred to me: I bet there's a video on YouTube! And there is! By Rodney Smith—who made everything super clear. And off we trotted into a very fun (and somewhat informative) few rounds of this game centered on bird ecology. (I also got us a game called Periodic: A Game of the Elements, about the periodic table. We'll try that one tomorrow—when I take a break from the wretched book. Because I surely will need to.)

In the evening our friend Nina came for dinner: she brought a lovely salad, I made a hefty lasagne, and David made French-style bread and a cranberry-apply crumble. It was yummy! Before dinner we lit the menorah, with Nina reading a beautiful poem by Mary Oliver, "Morning Poem." After dinner we watched a couple of (weird) episodes of season three of Goliath.

Today, I fully intended to do some work, but instead I allowed myself to get sucked into a Michael Connelly Harry Bosch novel (which I will report on very soon). And in the afternoon we took a walk at one of our old stomping grounds, when we were hard at work finding all of the geocaches at a local regional park, Toro. Someone placed a new cache out there in June, which has been ruining my sea of yellow smileys ever since—so today we rectified that. The cache aside, it was a gorgeous day for a walk in a beautiful place: the perfect thing for Boxing Day. We saw some mushrooms, which through association lodged the idea in my head of chicken marsala, so that's what was for dinner: first time I've ever made it. Might not be the last.

And just now, the menorah, with a poem by Wysława Szymborska, "On Death, without Exaggeration." Next up: more Goliath. A great couple of goof-off days before I head back to the salt mines . . .

Here are some photos.

Wingspan in action. If you stop to read the tiny print at
the bottom of each card, you do learn a little something
about individual species of birds. But otherwise, it
probably can't exactly be considered an "educational" game.

Fourth day of Hanukkah

So exhausted was Milo from having company (in the form
of Nina—so exciting!) that he forgot for a moment
that he loathes the little white kitty . . .

Toro Park with a view north to Moss Landing and Santa Cruz

I like lichen! And moss too!

Oyster mushroom (Pleurotus ostreatus), growing on an oak

Witch's butter (Tremella mesenterica)

Milo came along, of course! And thoroughly enjoyed himself,
also of course!

Noticing lxx - Christmas videos

Photo by David

We don't really observe Christmas. We don't have a tree this year—as usual. (Well, we have a two-foot-high tree made of multicolored jingle bells that I saved from my mother's things. It perches on our mantel, next to the menorah, and reminds me of her.) We do have old-fashioned colored lights on our roof edge, because we enjoy the festive appearance. We did have one wrapped package, the annual calendar from David's sister, Patty, which we traditionally open on Christmas eve. Wait, no: there were two more wrapped packages, if you count wrapping paper that is our weekly throwaway newspaper—because I didn't want to waste fancy Christmas-themed gift-wrap. Cheap? Lazy? Conscientious? Maybe a bit of all three.

I did put on Handel's Messiah while I cooked the sauce for our Christmas lasagne, which we will share today with our friend Nina. I love the Messiah. It just happens to tell the Christmas story—as well as the Easter story. I rather enjoy that there are two perfect opportunities a year to listen to it, even if I'm not invested in the specific events narrated.

But this year, I have to admit that I've been enjoying the various creative Christmas videos that I've stumbled on, on FB. They truly are heartwarming. And heaven knows, we need more of that in these dark times. Here are a few of them. It will be nice to have them archived in one place, so next year I can return at Christmas and have my heart warmed all over again.

The first one is described thus: "It's Christmas Eve in Finnish Lapland. Police patrol 967's Pekka and Saana are on duty. It has been a slow day, but then something happens..."

And this one, by Southland Christian Church: "What happens when you ask a bunch of kids to tell the story of Christmas? Enjoy this story of Bethle-ha-ha-ham and the magical star that appeared."

This one is from Wales, made for only £100 by Hafod Hardware store owner Thomas Lewis Jones, who lives in the tiny town of Rhayader (pop. 1,879). "Arthur, the two-year-old star, presumably didn't take a fee." (This is Jones's third such annual ad.) Its theme: #BeAKidThisChristmas.

And finally, from Poland: "English for Beginners / Czego szukasz w Święta?" (2013). The Polish means, "What are you looking for at Christmas?"

Noticing lxix - Christian Bale

Matt Damon was in the movie too

Yesterday, as part of Christmas holidays (David is taking some time off—use or lose), we went to see the movie Ford v. Ferrari. Thoroughly enjoyed it: the actual history of it, the 1966 Le Mans competition, the friendship of Carroll Shelby and Ken Miles, the (ssssss) corporate evilness of Leo Beebe and, yes, Henry Ford II himself. And of course I fell in love all over again with Christian Bale. He's a treat. And a consummate performer. (He's British, 45 years old, married 19 years, and with two kids. Just a regular guy, Ha ha.)

Bale has made a lot of movies. Here are some of his roles I wouldn't mind seeing again—or in a few cases, for the first time. (These are all from "Christian Bale's 10 Greatest Roles, Ranked," in reverse order. Though I'm surprised The Machinist's Trevor Reznick isn't included.)

Alfred Borden, in The Prestige
Melvin Purvis, in Public Enemies
Michael Burry, in The Big Short
Irving Rosenfeld, in American Hustle
Moses, in Exodus: Gods and Kings
Dick Cheney, in Vice
Jack Rollins, in I'm Not There
Dicky Ecklund, in The Fighter
Patrick Bateman, in American Psycho
Bruce Wayne, in Batman Begins, The Dark Knight, and The Dark Knight Rises

Here he is talking about his role as Dick Cheney:

And to counterbalance that, here are 25 "great Batman quotes":

Noticing lxviii - I-thou

Yesterday evening we lit the first of the Hanukkah candles. Our practice is to read a poem, then sit and chat as the candles burn down, enjoying the darkness and light. The first night's poem (my choice) was this, by Denise Levertov—in honor of our little white kitty Luna, who loves to knead:

The Cat as Cat

The cat on my bosom
sleeping and purring
—fur-petalled chrysanthemum,
squirrel-killer—

is a metaphor only if I
force him to be one,
looking too long in his pale, fond,
dilating, contracting eyes

that reject mirrors, refuse
to observe what bides
stockstill.
      Likewise

flex and reflex of claws
gently pricking through sweater to skin
gently sustains their own tune,
not mine. I-Thou, cat, I-Thou.


I recently read a book, How to Do Nothing, that discussed this I-Thou thing. It was posited by Martin Buber in 1923. As Wikipedia explains it, Buber says that we can address existence in two ways:

1. The attitude of the "I" toward an "It," an object that is separate in itself, which we either use or experience.
2. The attitude of the "I" toward "Thou," in a relationship in which the other is not separated by discrete bounds.

"In Buber's view, all of our relationships bring us ultimately into relationship with God, who is the Eternal Thou."

Yes, and cats too—as Levertov makes clear. Not to mention dogs, with their beseeching eyes.

Indeed, relationship—connection—is what makes us most alive, I believe.

Cats certainly help.

Noticing lxvii - December 22nds past

Ha ha, it's always easy to go back into Flickr and troll old posts. Here are the December 22nds from years past of my Project 365s. One of them happened to be the last day of one such project.

Took a nice long walk from our [Joshua Tree] cabin down an arroyo
to an equestrian trail that took us into the national park.
We had a map, but our GPS came in most handy,
since we could see not only the trails we wanted but also
our moving location. Fortunately too, the equestrian trails
remained obvious, well trodden into the desert sand.
A wonderful several hours.

 It was a terrifically low tide today, so for the first time
since we've lived here we ventured underneath Fisherman's Wharf.
I love exploring this sort of environment. All the life, just waiting
to be revived by the rush of water. The idea of people walking around
overhead. The wear and tear on the structure.
The fact that drowning is for the moment not an option.

Ventured downtown again, this time for a movie (Fair Game).
I enjoy some of the facades downtown, including the old State Theater—
which still shows movies on occasion, is a concert venue, and on Sundays,
apparently, serves as a church. Multi-use! And well loved in the community.

THE END. 12/22/13. This is a bit of a cheat, because
I didn't TAKE this photo today. But I did MAKE it....

And today: a walk around the Frog Pond.