Book Report: Drive Your Plow over the Bones of the Dead

23. Olga Tokarczuk, Drive Your Plow over the Bones of the Dead (2009), translated by Antonia Lloyd Jones (2018) (10/31/19)

What an odd and compelling book! I picked it up three days ago, and it kept calling me back, ultimately becoming unputdownable.

It is, simplistically, a murder mystery, though it is much more than that. Set on a plateau on the Czech-Polish border, the story is narrated by 60-ish Duszejko—she hates her given name, Janina, and in fact considers most given names useless, so she renames people in her head: her neighbors Big Foot and Oddball; her student Dizzy; a friend Good News, who runs a used clothing store. She also thinks in capital letters, telling stories of Animals like Mouse, Frog, and Wolf, describing Twilight and cosmic Catastrophe. And she relates her deep emotions, as in a scene where she confronts some hunters:

"What the hell is going on here?" I shouted. . . .
 "Mrs. Duszejko, please don't come any closer, it's dangerous. Please move away from here. We're shooting."
 I waved my hands in front of his face.
 "No, it's you who should get out of here. Otherwise I'll call the Police."
 Another one detached himself from the line formation and came up to us; I didn't know him. He was dressed in classic hunting gear, with a hat. The line of men moved on, pointing their shotguns ahead of them.
 "There's no need, madam," he said politely. "The Police are already here." He smiled patronizingly. Indeed, I could see the pot-bellied figure of the Commandant in the distance.
 "What is it?" someone shouted.
 "Nothing, it's just the old lady from Luftzug. She wants to call the Police," he said, with a note of irony in his voice.
 I felt hatred toward him.
 "Mrs. Duszejko, please don't be foolish," said Moustachio amicably. "We really are shooting here."
 "You've no right to shoot at living Creatures!" I shouted at the top of my voice. The wind tore the words from my mouth and carried them across the entire Plateau.
 "It's all right, please go home. We're just shooting pheasants," Moustachio reassured me, as if he didn't understand my protest. The other man added in a sugary tone: "Don't argue with her, she's crazy."
 At that point I felt a surge of Anger, genuine, not to say Divine Anger. It flooded me from inside in a burning-hot wave. This energy made me feel great, as if it were lifting me off the ground, a mini Big Bang within the universe of my body. There was a fire burning within me, like a neutron star. I sprang forward and pushed the Man in the silly hat so hard that he fell onto the snow, completely taken by surprise. And when Moustachio rushed to his aid, I attacked him too, hitting him on the shoulder with all my might. He groaned with pain. I am not a feeble girl.

Yes, she's funny too, in an unironic way. Duszejko suffers from Ailments, and she has occasional hallucinatory episodes that set her back, but eventually she always comes out swinging again. When, at the beginning of her story, a neighbor is found dead, having choked on a bone from a hunted deer, she wonders if the Deer themselves aren't taking revenge. More deaths occur, and her Theory, which she shares with the local Police in lengthy letters, expands.

Besides being a whodunit, it is a telling exploration of Polish society, of human foibles, of the meaning of it all. The title is from William Blake, who is also featured in chapter epigraphs and as a theme throughout as Duszejko and Dizzy undertake a translation of his works into Polish. It's a wonderful book.

In 2019, Tokarczuk, who has written fifteen books (only four of which have been translated into English), was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature for her "narrative imagination that with encyclopedic passion represents the crossing of boundaries as a form of life." Now I need to read Flights, which in 2018 won the Man Booker International Prize.

Noticing xv - Xavi Bou, photographer

I stumbled on these amazing photographs today by Spanish photographer Xavi Bou (b. 1979). By profession, he is an advertising and fashion photographer, but by passion he captures the flights of birds using chronophotography, a Victorian-era technique used also by Eadweard Muybridge in the 1870s and 80s.

He takes around 30 to 60 frames per second, and each image can contain hundreds of single shots all woven together. He describes the project, which he calls Ornitografies, as "a balance between art and science; a nature-based dissemination project and a visual poetry exercise but above all, an invitation to perceive the world with the same curious and innocent look of the child we once were." 

You can see more of his images at his website, and he is on Instagram. And here is an article that focuses on his photos of starling murmurations. Exquisite!

(I succeeded in finding a few of the birds identified. I'll see if I can't find more IDs, but for now, just enjoy the art. As always click on the images to see them large on black.) 

Black-winged stilt

Greater flamingos

Northern lapwings

European starlings

Arctic terns

Audouin's gull

Pigeons (at a pigeon race)

Noticing xiv - ten years ago today (Flickr)

Because I used to post fairly regularly on Flickr (until Facebook came along), I have 11,000—11,042 to be exact—photos there to choose from, for when I'm at a total loss on what to post here. Which is hitting me today: I'm completely uninspired. Empty. Blank.

So I went to Flickr and searched for "October 30," and got three hits: a manhole cover, my feet up in ladybug socks, and this from 2009, with the caption "October 30: Did a couple of climbs on the Apron [behind Yosemite Village], then knocked off for a beer and a sit in the sunny meadow. I like to buy pint glasses at my favorite places, so we got two: one of Yosemite Falls, one of Half Dome. I enjoyed the serendipity of being able to hold the falls in my hand while looking at it from across the valley."

I figure I won't be learning something new every day (at least that I want to stop long enough to process and relate), so I'd better have some backup plans. My Flickr archive is a good place to start—it's full of memories.

David on "The Grack"

That said, two things I'm "noticing" with this post: (1) It's been way too long since I've been to Yosemite—the last time may have been in 2012, when I did swiftwater training in the Merced River; and (2) I do miss rock climbing—something it's entirely conceivable I will never do again . . . But who knows? Anything's possible—right? In any case, I will certainly get back to Yosemite, and now that I've realized how long it's been, I trust it's soon. I have the power to make it happen. That's something I need to keep in mind. In all manner of realms.

Noticing xiii - Cannery Row

This morning a FB friend asked people to share their favorite first line of a novel, citing this article as his inspiration. Although I didn't play along, the line—nay, the paragraph—that typically comes to mind when I consider this question is the first paragraph of John Steinbeck's Cannery Row.

Cannery Row in Monterey in California is a poem, a stink, a grating noise, a quality of light, a tone, a habit, a nostalgia, a dream. Cannery Row is the gathered and scattered, tin and iron and rust and splintered wood, chipped pavement and weedy lots and junk heaps, sardine canneries of corrugated iron, honky tonks, restaurants and whore houses, and little crowded groceries, and laboratories and flophouses. Its inhabitant are, as the man once said, “whores, pimps, gambler and sons of bitches,” by which he meant Everybody. Had the man looked through another peephole he might have said, “Saints and angels and martyrs and holymen” and he would have meant the same thing.

I live just a few miles from Cannery Row—but I do I ever go there? Hardly. Not because it's too touristy, but because . . . it doesn't occur to me. But the other day a new geocache was published on the rec trail that parallels the Row, and so I thought, given the above nudge, why not head over there today? Take some pictures.

And so that's where the dog and I went for our afternoon stroll. The photos are presented here in the order in which I took them, with associated explanation (from plaques etc.) as/if available. The Cannery Row murals are by a Salinas artist, John Cerney. Click to view large on black.

Mac and the Boys
"Mack was the elder, leader, mentor, and to a small extent
the exploiter of men who had in common no families,
no money, and no ambitions beyond food, drink, and
contentment. But whereas most men in their search for
contentment destroy themselves and fall wearily short of
their targets, Mack and his friends approached contentment
casually, quietly, and absorbed it gently." (Cannery Row)

Beginning in 1874, the completion of the Monterey & Salinas
Valley Railroad saw the introduction of viable rail
transportation for the area's fresh produce and emerging
fishing industry to regional markets.
This scene represents a typical workday in 1910, after the
arrival of the Southern Pacific Railroad.

Ed "Doc" Ricketts (1897–1948)
He usually is holding a flower or some other
gifted memento.

Cannery Row quote with this mural:
"The nature of parties has been imperfectly studied. It is,
however, generally understood that a party has a pathology,
that it is a kind of an individual and that it is likely to be
a very perverse individual. And it is also generally
understood that a party hardly ever goes the way it is
planned or intended."

The area now known as Cannery Row was an
industrial area of canneries, rendering plants,
and warehouses. In 1935, Grace Aiello
photographed these six men waiting for the
fishing boats to arrive at the start of their shifts.
Upper left to right: Manuel Muñoz, unknown,
and Vince Manetti
Lower left to right: Joe King, Frank Bergera
(married Grace Aiello in 1937), and Don King
Descendants of these men continue to live in the
Monterey area

One sign near these shacks reads,
The Filipino Community
Filipinos were attracted in large numbers to California after
the 1924 Immigration Act excluded the Japanese, who had
been a major part of the state's agricultural labor force.
By1930, as many as 35,000 Pinoys—young, single,
male Filipino laborers—were working in California's
fields, hotels, restaurants, and private homes. During
World War II, a number of Filipinos from the island of
Luzon, north of Manila, worked in the canneries and
reduction plants.
When Filipino laborers weren't operating screw-cookers,
rotary kilns, or grinders, they might be found playing cards
with friends or socializing in one of the Monterey Chinatown
flower-dancing clubs. The Salinas-based Philippines Mail
reported on life in the larger Filipino community.

Doc's Pacific Biological Laboratories: the real thing.
It was owned by a group of Doc's friends until 1993,
when they sold it to the City of Monterey.
Tours of the lab are given periodically.

The Monterey Bay Aquarium is just a couple of doors down
from Doc's lab. It opened in 1984, "bringing the fish back to
Cannery Row."

John Steinbeck (1902–1968)

A mural at McAbee Beach, and kayakers

The first large-scale cannery on Cannery Row was built in 1908.
The industry's heyday was short, a mere ten or so years in the 1940s.
Enterprise Cannery was one of many that sprung up in that
decade. It eventually made way for a luxury hotel.

Cannery Divers Memorial
Monterey's world-famous sardine industry depended on the
courage and skill of cannery divers. Sardines were pumped
ashore from floating hoppers through underwater pipes
that had to be installed, repaired, replaced, realigned, and
maintained in order for the canneries of the old Row to
operate a full six-month season each yer. Monterey could
never have become "the sardine capital of the world"
without their heroic underwater exploits. Two Monterey
cannery divers, Henry Porter and Tom Pierce, died in the
performance of their dangerous work under the waves of
Monterey Bay.

Jelly-fitti in cannery remains on San Carlos Beach

Noticing xii - pumpkins

Atlantic giant pumpkin

Today I happened to drive out into the fields of the Salinas Valley, in search of a geocache. My prize was in a guardrail on a narrow road next to Borchard Pumpkin Farm, home of an annual giant pumpkin weigh-off. There are various categories, including heaviest, of course, but also ugliest and prettiest; heaviest zucchini and watermelon (watermelon? now?); and biggest beet, tomato, bushel gourd, and long gourd. Who knew? Well, apparently lots of people know, because the event (which occurred on October 19) is attended by up to a thousand people, who come for the contest and for a barbecue.

Howden pumpkins

That got me wondering about pumpkins, though. It turns out what we typically think of as a "pumpkin" is one of many dozens of squashes in the Cucurbita pepo species—which also includes acorn squash, pattypan squash, spaghetti squash, and both yellow and green zucchini. Butternut squash is in a different species, C. moschata, while Hubbard and turban squash are C. maxima cultivars—as is the Atlantic giant, which is what Borchard Pumpkin Farm seems to specialize in, judging by all the giant pumpkins lining the roadside. They range in size from 150 pounds to a ton.

The typical Halloween jack-o-lantern is a Connecticut field pumpkin—or a cultivar thereof, the Howden pumpkin—while the smaller and sweeter New England pie pumpkin is another cultivar of the Connecticut field pumpkin. It's all about genetics. (And in this way squashes, gourds, and pumpkins are very similar to chili peppers, most of which are cultivars of a single species, Capsicum annuum.)

It's been years since I carved a pumpkin. Halloween isn't a happening holiday in our neighborhood. It's fun to do, though. Maybe I should pick up a pumpkin and give it a shot. 'Tis the season, after all.

Noticing xi - repurposing a golf course

Here on the Monterey Peninsula we have, according to Golf Advisor, 20 world-class golf courses, including three private and five public courses in Pebble Beach alone. Pebble is home to the annual AT&T Pro-Am tournament, started in 1937 in Rancho Santa Fe by Bing Crosby (when it was known as the Crosby Clambake), and revived after WWII at Pebble, where Bing had a residence. Every ten years or so, the U.S. Open is staged at Pebble Beach as well. And every December for the past few years, I've worked as a chauffeur for a Lexus-sponsored golfing benefit—which is as close as I get to an active "interest" in the sport.

Rancho Cañada Golf Course

So why do I mention golf at all? Well, today we took our afternoon walk on a golf course! Okay, not quite: we took our walk at Palo Corona Regional Park in Carmel Valley, which last year opened its newest extension, the 140-acre Rancho Cañada unit—formerly the Rancho Cañada Golf Course.

The land was purchased in 2016 by a coalition of environmental groups, including the Trust for Public Land, Trout Unlimited (the Carmel River, home to anadromous steelhead, runs through the property), the Monterey Peninsula Regional Park District, and the local Santa Lucia Conservancy. The water company also contributed, since ceasing the need to keep golf greens green is reinfusing the river with some 300 acre-feet annually.

The acreage had been owned since the late 1800s by a local family, the Hattons, who ran dairy farms. To their credit, they opted not to sell to the highest bidder, but rather to preserve the land from development—for posterity, and for wildlife. (They did get a cool $10 million for the land; it's not like they gave it away.) Palo Corona Park is the northernmost publicly held parcel in a connected string of properties that extend all the way to Hearst Ranch in San Luis Obispo County, a distance of some 90 miles.

I took a few photos today. The former course is far from green because we're in the summer dry period. It looks and feels natural. I did notice a couple vestiges of the land's former purpose (including some of the paved paths we walked along).

This riverside land hosts a lot of cottonwood trees.

You can't see it, but there is a great blue
heron in this shot. It was patiently fishing.

A closed-off bridge to the former sixth tee.

Noticing x - Pádraig Ó Tuama's "The Facts of Life"

I was reminded of this poem this morning, and although it took some scrolling through Facebook to find it, find it I did: posted July 22. It's lovely, and I want to retain easy access to it, so: a blog post.

---

The Facts of Life

Paul Klee, Ancient Harmony, 1925

That you were born
and you will die.

That you will sometimes love enough
and sometimes not.

That you will lie
if only to yourself.

That you will get tired.

That you will learn most from the situations
you did not choose.

That there will be some things that move you
more than you can say.

That you will live
that you must be loved.

That you will avoid questions most urgently in need of
your attention.

That you began as the fusion of a sperm and an egg
of two people who once were strangers
and may well still be.

That life isn’t fair.
That life is sometimes good
and sometimes better than good.

That life is often not so good.

That life is real
and if you can survive it, well,
survive it well
with love
and art
and meaning given
where meaning’s scarce.

That you will learn to live with regret.
That you will learn to live with respect.

That the structures that constrict you
may not be permanently constraining.

That you will probably be okay.

That you must accept change
before you die
but you will die anyway.

So you might as well live
and you might as well love.
You might as well love.
You might as well love.

From Sorry for Your Troubles (Canterbury Press, 2013)

Noticing ix - owls

One of the things I like to do on Facebook is post photos of birds. It serves me as an antidote to the awful news cycle, and I think it serves my friends as well, because I tend to get lots more "likes" on the bird photos than on, well, awful news (which I sometimes also feel compelled to post about), or even good news (which I realize is in the eye of the beholder).

Photo by Christian Nunes

Earlier today I ran across a photo of a juvenile crested owl (Lophostrix cristata), found in Central America and northern South America. The one shown here ☜ is in Peru.

That got me wondering about owls generally. Like, how many genera and species there are, where they are, how they are characterized, etc. Here are the results of my hasty research.

Micrathene whitneyi

Owls are in the order Strigiformes (from the Latin for owl, strix). They are divided into two families, the "true" or "typical" owls, Strygidae, and the wide-ranging barn owls, Tytonidae (giving the Greeks their due: the name comes from the Greek word for owl, tuto). The Tytonidae account for some 28 of the 250-odd species of owl, and are considered the most widespread landbird in the world, occurring on every continent except Antarctica.

Bubo bubo

The smallest species of owl is the elf owl (Micrathene whitneyi), about 5 inches in height and 1.5 ounces, found in the southwestern U.S. and Mexico; the largest are the Eurasian eagle-owl (Bubo bubo) and Blakiston's fish owl (Bubo blakistoni), both over 2 feet in height and 6 to 8 pounds.

There are 23 genera of owl—the above-mentioned Bubo being the horned and eagle-owl varieties. In my own neighborhood I frequently hear great horned owls (Bubo virginianus) calling softly in the night. It always makes me smile, and feel fortunate, to wake up and hear their hooting. (You can hear their calls here.)

Spotted owlets (Athene brama)
in Thailand by Sompob Sasi-Smit

A few cool owl facts:

• Owls can rotate their heads and necks as much as 270°
• They have 14 vertebrae (as opposed to humans' 7)
• Their circulatory system is highly adapted to their ability to rotate their necks so far
• Caught prey can be felt by owls with the use of filoplumes—hairlike feathers on the beak and feet that act as "feelers"
• Females tend to be slightly larger than males
• Owls are carnivorous and live on a diet of insects, small mammals, and birds, with a few species specializing in fish
• Their feathers have evolved to allow silent flight, helping them as nocturnal hunters
• Barn owl feathers are not waterproof, and they can drown if they get too wet
• A group of owls is called a parliament

Here's a BBC Earth video about owls' hearing that's worth a look.

Noticing viii - pooping in the woods

According to Leave No Trace principles, there are basically three ways to poop in the woods:

(1) use a designated outhouse or wilderness toilet
(2) dig a cathole ☞ 6–8 inches deep, 200 feet from water sources
(3) pack it out: strictly speaking, the best option—and as mandated, for example, at Mt. Whitney and Denali (in my own personal experience)—is use of WAG bags (not necessarily the brand linked to, but this idea)

Click here for a very good discussion of these techniques, including rationales for each option.

Toilet paper? Okay to use in outhouses and wilderness toilets; should be packed out rather than buried in a cathole (unless the TP is known to be biodegradable); definitely goes in the WAG bag.

Never just squat, poop, cover the poop with TP and then with a big rock. That's just gross. And never leave your TP (or worse, a wet-wipe). Even if you think you've hidden it from view, animals will likely drag it out and strew it around. It makes for an unpleasant experience for anyone coming after.

Why do I mention this today? Because I spent the day with two other wilderness rangers repairing the top of one wilderness toilet at a primitive camp on the Big Sur River, and digging the hole for a second one.

Toward the bottom of our three-foot-deep, two-by-two-foot square, hole we found an old wet-wipes package, in all its enduring plasticness. Which told us: this spot had been used before for the very same purpose. But guess what? The human waste that had been left there, well buried for many years, had decomposed—composted—beautifully! It was just rich, dark soil that we were digging in today. There was no yuck factor. Human waste does break down. But it needs to be done right.

Here are some photos. (Click to see large on black.)

We loosened the dirt in the hole with shovels,
then dumped the dirt out with whole organic tomato cans.

Stringers (sturdy pieces of wood) were placed
under the toilet, then filled in with rocks and dirt.

Lynn on the finished box!

No trash . . . like the trash we found confirming the
earlier toilet's site.

The Big Sur River.

Heading back through camp toward the Pine Ridge Trail

Crossing the Big Sur