Racism: a reading list

The events this last week have been both horrific—the murder of George Floyd—and brave—the ensuing protests (the honest, righteous ones, anyway). I'm not sure how I'd characterize the rioting and destruction, exactly, but I can understand how such acts might seem necessary, inevitable, for at least some/many of those in this country who do not enjoy the unearned privilege that comes simply from being white. I've been seeing Dr. King's comment that riots are "the language of the unheard" being quoted—with the associated pushback that that wasn't his main message. Okay, fine. But still.

Or James Baldwin, in an 1968 interview with Esquire, saying, "What causes the eruptions, the riots, the revolts—whatever you want to call them—is the despair of being in a static position, absolutely static, of watching your father, your brother, your uncle, or your cousin—no matter how old the black cat is or how young—who has no future. And when the summer comes, both fathers and sons are in the streets—they can't stay in the houses. I was born in those houses and I know. And it's not their fault."

I will just slip in a link to Trevor Noah talking about George Floyd, the Minneapolis Protests, Ahmaud Arbery, and Amy Cooper here. Because it's powerful and ties in to all this. And Trevor is a very wise man.

I'm not here to write about that, though, or even to have an opinion. What I want to do is simply to begin compiling a list of resources I can turn to to understand better the awful racism of this country. I started today listening to a relatively recent podcast, Seeing White, season 2 of Scene on Radio (a project of the Racial Equity Institute) with John Biewen and scholar, journalist, and activist Dr. Chenjerai Kumanyika:

Just what is going on with white people? Police shootings of unarmed African Americans. Acts of domestic terrorism by white supremacists. The renewed embrace of raw, undisguised white-identity politics. Unending racial inequity in schools, housing, criminal justice, and hiring. Some of this feels new, but in truth it’s an old story.  Why? Where did the notion of “whiteness” come from? What does it mean? What is whiteness for?

Of course this is something I should have considered before, and I have, glancingly—for example, through association with a local group called Whites for Racial Equity. One of their regular activities is a book group, launched in June 2016; they have read the following titles:

• Chris Crass, Towards the "Other America": Anti-Racist Resources for White People Taking Action for Black Lives Matter
• Ta-Nehisi Coates, Between the World and Me
• Chimananda Ngozi Adichie, Americanah
• Carol Anderson, White Rage: The Unspoken Truth of Our Racial Divide 
• Courtney Parker West, "On 'Woke' White People Advertising Their Shock That Racism Just Won a Presidency" 
• Wesley Lowery, They Can't Kill Us All
• Toni Morrison, The Bluest Eye
• James Baldwin, Go Tell It on the Mountain
• Eula Biss, Notes from No Man's Land: American Essays
• Claude M. Steele, Whistling Vivaldi: How Stereotypes Affect Us and What We Can Do
• Angie Thomas, The Hate U Give
• Claudia Rankine, Citizen: An American Lyric
• James Baldwin, "Letter from a Region in My Mind" 
• Michael Eric Dyson, Tears We Cannot Stop: A Sermon to White America
• Howard Thurman, Jesus and the Disinherited 
• Paul Kivel, Uprooting Racism: How White People Can Work for Racial Justice
• Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz and Dina Gilio-Whitacker, "All the Real Indians Died Off": And 20 Other Myths about Native Americans
• Patrisse Khan-Cullors and asha bandele, When They Call You a Terrorist
• Poor People's Campaign, "The Souls of Poor Folk, a Preliminary Report" 
• Toni Morrison, The Origin of Others
• Jordan Flaherty, No More Heroes: Grassroots Challenges to the Savior Mentality
• Ijeoma Oluo, So You Want to Talk about Race?
• Robin DiAngelo, White Fragility: Why It's So Hard for White People to Talk about Racism
• Ta-Nehisi Coates, We Were Eight Years in Power
• America Ferrera, American Like Me: Reflections on Life between Cultures
• Reni Eddo-Lodge, Why I Am No Longer Talking to White People about Race
• Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah, Friday Black: Stories
• Michelle Obama, Becoming
• Michael Eric Dyson, What the Truth Sounds Like
• Willy Wilkinson, Born on the Edge of Race and Gender: A Voice for Cultural Competency
• Jennifer L. Eberhardt, Biased: Uncovering the Hidden Prejudice That Shapes What We See, Think, and Do
• Akiba Solomon and Kenrya Rankin, How We Fight White Supremacy: A Field Guide to Black Resistance
• Colson Whitehead, Nickel Boys
• Thi Bui, The Best We Could Do
• Carole Anderson, One Person, No Vote
• Eric Gansworth, Give Me Some Truth
• Zora Neale Huston, Their Eyes Were Watching God
• Ibram X. Kendi, How to Be an Anti-Racist

I would also add these (mostly from the Seeing White podcast):

• Ibram X. Kendi, Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America
• Rion Amilcar Scott, The World Doesn't Require You: Stories
• Nell Irvin Painter, The History of White People
• Gwen Westerman and Bruce White, Mni Sota Makoce: The Land of the Dakota
• Mary Wingerd, North Country: The Making of Minnesota
• Shannon Sullivan, Revealing Whiteness: The Unconscious Habits of Racial Privilege
• Shannon Sullivan, Good White People: The Problem with Middle-Class White Anti-Racism
• Dorothy Roberts, Fatal Invention: How Science, Politics, and Big Business Re-Create Race in the Twenty-First Century
• Elliott Jaspin, Buried in the Bitter Waters: The Hidden History of Racial Cleansings in America
• Myra Greene's website My White Friends  
• Bryan Anderson, Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption
• Ashraf H. A. Rushdy, American Lynching

and these, from an "Essential Reading Guide" on Buzzfeed (with summaries/synopses if you go there):

• Jessmyn Ward, The Fire This Time
• James Baldwin, The Fire Next Time
• Cherrie Moraga and Gloria Anzaldua, eds., This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical  Women of Color
• Eduarto Bonilla-Silva, Racism without Racists: Color-blind Racism and the Persistence of Racial Inequality in  America
• Layla  F. Saad, Me and White Supremacy: Combat Racism, Change the World, and Become a Good Ancestor
• Isabel  Wilkerson, The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration
• Kevin Kruse, White Flight: Atlanta and the Making of Modern Conservatism
• George Lipsitz, The Possessive Investment in Whiteness: How White People Profit from Identity Politics
• Audre Lorde, Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches
• Michelle Alexander, The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness
• Ira Katznelson, When Affirmative Action Was White: An Untold History of Racial Inequality in Twentieth-Century America
• Ian Haney López, Dog Whistle Politics: How Coded Racial Appeals Have Reinvented Racism and Wrecked the Middle Class
• Terrance MacMullan, Habits of Whiteness: A Pragmatist Reconstruction
• Melissa V. Harris-Perry, Sister Citizen: Shame, Stereotypes, and Black Women in America
• Brittney Cooper, Eloquent Rage: A Black Feminist Discovers Her Superpower
• Jennifer Harvey, Raising White Kids: Bringing Up Children in a Racially Unjust America

[Update, June 6: NPR posted a list of books, films, and podcasts about racism here.]

[Update, June 7: A friend today posted a link to a long-form BBC program(me) on race in America, The Documentary.]

[Update, June 8: Another list of various kinds of resources, including resources for photographers, the 1619 podcast on slavery, diverse books for children, and much more.]

[Update, June 12: Another list of resources for all ages, curated by Dr. Nicole A. Cooke (aka NicoletheLibrarian) at the University of South Carolina.]

[Update, June 19: Five Ways to Show Up for Racial Justice Today.]

So many resources. I have read a very few of these books, and I own a few others. I would like to educate myself better on this tangled, gnarly, perplexing, confounded issue that is part of what makes America the complicated country that it is.

Here is John Biewen giving a TED Talk about "seeing white"—which of course gets both positive and negative comments, probably simply because . . . he's white. Damned if you do, damned if you don't. But there we are.

P.S. What partly got me here today with this topic—this heartache, really—was an ultimately hostile exchange between a couple of friends of mine on FB, one an immigrant to this country long ago, her people the victims of genocide in the last century, and trying to be an "ally" in the racial struggles we are facing; the other also an immigrant and black and proudly militant and outspoken. The latter wanted the former, basically, to admit that she is a "Karen"—a person of white privilege, but in a vapid, unaware, entitled way. Which the former definitely is not. Harsh words were typed. The former ended up unfriending the latter—which caused more words. In a way, it seems petty—"unfriending"; suffering because of flame wars on social media. But it's really deadly serious. I admire both these women, and I learn from both of them—from their anger, from their pride, from what little I know of their own personal experience in life generally, from their vulnerability and honesty and passion. I follow them in part to keep learning from them. I may not always "agree" with what they say (generally, it's not really my place to agree, or to disagree); but I value their perspectives, and their fire. I consider them teachers, in a way. So yes: these lists are partly the result of their altercation, which ended on one side in confusion and the unfriending. Which is too bad.

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Monterey County's cases rose by 32 since yesterday, to 507; hospitalizations by 2, to 59; and deaths remain steady at 10.

Stay healthy. Be kind. Try to put yourself in other people's shoes.

Book Report: The Graveyard Book

11. Neil Gaiman, The Graveyard Book (2008) (5/29/2020)

A while back a friend on FB mentioned a book by Neil Gaiman—or perhaps a bunch of books, since he is a favorite of this friend and he's written at least 36 books. I confessed that I had only read American Gods (which I very much enjoyed), The Ocean at the End of the Lane (ditto), and Norse Mythology (ditto again), plus I've seen the movie Coraline—twice. My friend responded that I must read The Graveyard Book. So I ordered it. Of course I did.

And there things stood until the other day when I was casting about for something that would grab my scattered attention. I dived in, and as has happened before with Neil Gaiman, I was swept away. The man's imagination and understanding of the mythical—and of the importance of myth to our human psyche—are immense.

The main character in The Graveyard Book is a boy, Bod (short for Nobody, because "he looks like nobody but himself") Owens, who one night, at a mere eighteen months old, wanders away from his house, even as the rest of his family are being murdered by a man named Jack. He wanders up the hill, to an old graveyard. The ghosts, understanding that he is in danger, offer to protect him. Mr. and Mrs. Owens, who have been married 250 years but never had children of their own, take on the role of parents; and the mysterious Silas, who lives between the dead and the living, becomes his guardian and makes sure that he gets fed and educated.

Bod has adventures, naturally, some of them sweet—as when he befriends a young witch; some scary—a trip to the land of the ghouls that almost spells his end; or upsetting—an attempt, when Bod is older, to join human society and go to school.

Ultimately, of course, . . . well, I won't give anything away. But you won't be surprised to learn that Bod makes it out of the graveyard alive.

I won't quote from the book itself this time, but rather from Neil Gaiman's 2009 speech upon being presented the John Newbery Medal, "for the most distinguished contribution to American literature for children."

The idea has been so simple, to tell the story of a boy raised in a graveyard, inspired by one image: my infant son, Michael—who was two, and is now twenty-five, the age I was then, and is now taller than I am—on his tricycle, pedaling through the graveyard across the road in the sunshine, past the grave I once thought had belonged to a witch.
 I was, as I said, twenty-five years old, and I had an idea for a book and I knew it was a real one.
 I tried writing it, and realized that it was a better idea than I was a writer. So I kept writing, but I wrote other things, learning my craft. I wrote for twenty years until I thought that I could write The Graveyard Book—or at least, that I was getting no better.
 I wanted the book to be composed of short stories, because The Jungle Book [a favorite book of his when he was young] was short stories. And I wanted it to be a novel, because it was a novel in my head. The tension between those two things was both a delight and a heartache as a writer.
 I wrote it as best I could. That's the only way I know how to write something. It doesn't mean it's going to be any good. It just means you try. And, most of all, I wrote the story that I wanted to read.
 It took me too long to begin, and it took me too long to finish. And then, one night in February, I was writing the last two pages.
 In the first chapter I had written a doggerel poem and left the last two lines unfinished. Now it was time to finish it, to write the last two lines. So I did. The poem, I learned, ended:

Face your life
Its pain, its pleasure,
Leave no path untaken

And my eyes stung, momentarily. It was then, and only then, that I saw clearly for the first time what I was writing. I had set out to write a book about a childhood—it was Bod's childhood, and it was in a graveyard, but still, it was a childhood like any other; I was now writing about being a parent, and the fundamental most comical tragedy of parenthood: that if you do your job properly, if you, as a parent, raise your children well, they won't need you anymore. If you did it properly, they go away. And they have lives and they have families and they have futures.
 I sat at the bottom of the garden, and I wrote the last page of the book, and I knew that I had written a book that was better than the one I had set out to write. Possibly a book better than I am.
 You cannot plan for that. Sometimes you work as hard as you can on something, and still the cake does not rise. Sometimes the cake is better than you had ever dreamed.
 And then, whether the work was good or bad, whether it did what you hoped or it failed, as a writer you shrug, and you go on to the next thing, whatever the next thing is.
 That's what we do.

Finally, just for fun, here is a link to a conversation between Stephen Colbert and Neil Gaiman about The Graveyard Book.

And here is Neil doing "the interview I've waited twenty years to do," with Tim Ferriss, from 2019:

6:32 Home life vs work life  

10:53 Neil's biggest rule for writing  

19:50 What notebooks does Neil prefer for writing first drafts?  

25:58 Fountain pens Neil has known and loved  

43:59 Does Neil tend to work on multiple projects at once?  

50:12 Advice to aspiring novelists  

54:47 Genesis story of The Graveyard Book 

1:10:49 Good Omens  

1:32:40 Apprenticeship with Terry

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The numbers for Monterey County are worsening: confirmed cases as of today, 477 (up 8 since yesterday); hospitalizations, 57 (up 2); and deaths also up 2, to 10. The largest age group of cases is 24–34.

Stay healthy. Find a good story to read. Dream about the paths not yet taken—because this won't last forever ("this" being the lockdown, but also our lives).

Covid-19: 2020 grads

The other day I mentioned receiving a Class of 2020 graduation announcement in the mail, for our handsome, active, awesome great-nephew Trey. Here it is:

On the back is another photo and a quote: "Love the life you live. Live the life you love." Bob Marley

Congratulations to Trey and to all your classmates, as the next stage of life opens up before you!

Another other day, just a few days ago, we were driving up Highway 1 from Carmel toward Monterey and saw dozens and dozens of signs along the road, celebrating the Carmel High class of 2020—each grad individually. It was a lovely, even a stirring, sight.

Yesterday I ran across a YouTube video that features all those signs, all those grads; musical accompaniment is "Graduation" by Vitamin C —very fitting. Even though I don't know any of these kids personally, the video brings tears to my eyes: their feat of finishing up and moving on to whatever's next; the fact that they don't get to participate in the traditional rite of passage; all those beautiful young lives going out into the world and, I hope, working to make it better. Here's the video (it's worth it for the faces and the music):

Two young women are featured at the end, with the words "You'll always be in our hearts": Annabelle Vandenbroucke and Munira Mohammed. Annabelle died several days after she was injured in a head-on collision, in July 2016. She was sixteen. I do not know Munira's story. But . . . how lovely, and sad, that whoever made this film singled them out for remembrance. They would have been (were) the class of 2020 as well.

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Monterey County's numbers keep bounding upward. I don't know why. More people getting tested, and many of the cases have been asymptomatic? In any event, today the count of confirmed cases is 469, up 28 since yesterday; hospitalizations are up 1, to 55; deaths remain steady at 8.

Stay healthy. Celebrate our coming-up young people: they will carry us forward. Be kind to one another.

Covid-19: Puzzle distraction

The other day when I was out with my friend Lynn doing trail work, we talked about how we're spending our time while cooped up at home. She said she enjoys doing jigsaw puzzles. And I said, I've been wishing I had a jigsaw puzzle: it seems like just the thing to while away some time—while practicing spatial skills: good for the brain!

Today Lynn swung by to drop off two things: a book, Signs Preceding the End of the World by "Mexico's greatest novelist" Yuri Herrera. At a mere 107 pages, it's a good candidate for my instant-gratification pile of books. (See yesterday's post, which didn't label any piles, but that would be a good one to start.)
 

She also brought . . . a jigsaw puzzle! A hard one: one thousand pieces, with an intricate design of pencils, pencils, and more pencils!

I am dedicating one of my drafting tables to it. And I have started sorting the pieces, into three categories: edges, ones with yellow pencils (not as clearcut as it sounds), and "other." I told myself I'd quit for the day when I found any pieces that fit together. Et voilà!

Not just two pieces, but three! I am so on a roll.

Here's the puzzle itself, with some of the "contains yellow" pieces:

I haven't sorted even half the pieces. But I am making such progress!

Another sort of similar (but much easier) project that I do every month is a sticker calendar. This is my third. The first two re-created famous works of art. This year's is all about cats. I preferred the works of art, but . . . this year it's cats, so what can I do? The stickers are numbered in usually six sections—A, B, C, D, E, F:

—and you just need to find the correct spot in the grid. As I said, easy. Here's May:

Simple pleasures in times of pandemic.

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Today's count of confirmed cases in Monterey County is 441 (up 12 since yesterday); hospitalizations and deaths remain steady at 54 and 8, respectively.

Stay healthy. Play a little! Don't go crazy.

Covid-19: Literary distraction

After spending what seemed like months (and may well have been: I've so lost track of time) reading The Great Influenza, I've had a heck of a time settling into a new book. Instead I seem to be dipping into a dozen or more books at once, but not managing to attach myself to any one of them.

Just now I gathered up all the various books that are scattered on the floor around my go-to easy chair and made a pile:

Okay, War and Peace arrived today, so it doesn't really count. But good glory, look at how thick it is! I haven't even cracked it open to find out what's inside, but some part of me really does want to read it—a book that a friend of mine declared is not just the perfect pandemic read, but an out-and-out must-read.

Yeah, if you can sit still for any length of time.

That's been my problem. One that I've seen other people complain about on social media. Restlessness. Distractability. An inability to focus.

Here is a summary of the books in this particular stack (of which I have many—stacks, that is; and yeah, definitely books too).

• The slim book on the bottom, Dinty Moore's The Mindful Writer, seemed like the perfect antidote to The Great Influenza. Only, I'm stuck halfway through: it's a lot of little Zen lessons about writing, whereas I think what I need is a lively through-line: fiction! imagination! a winning  protagonist and a struggle! Something to lose myself in . . . 
• There are two books on habits in the stack—as I hope against hope to cultivate one or two good ones, perhaps lose a couple of other not-so-good ones.  
• The Story of English in 100 Words is, now that I think about it, the perfect bathroom book—so maybe I should relocate it. 
• Other brand-new arrivals are In Praise of Paths, about walking, one of my favorite activities (by a Norwegian, and in fact I've asked my sister-in-law to hunt down the original and send it to me, for ongoing Norwegian language torture), and How to Think Like a Roman Emperor (i.e., how to be stoic). They'll wait.  
• The Grave on the Wall is part of my study of the Japanese American experience before and during WWII.  

• Toward Antarctica—that one, a collection of prose poems and photographs, should go quickly; perhaps I'll move it to the top of the stack, just so I can have a finished book and another book report: I want to see progress!  
• Minding the Muse is simply good inspiration (for any creative person), dip-into-able and re-re-re-readable. I keep it handy so I can do just that.
• Girl, Woman, Other, winner of the Booker Prize, is looking very promising; I'll move it higher in the stack as well.
• Best American Essays: I enjoy picking those volumes up (I have more than a few) and polishing off an essay every now and then.
• Gehen, ging, gegangen is part of my optimistic desire to read a foreign language (one that I actually can read, with a dictionary, which so far Norwegian hasn't evolved to be—but this week I've decided to do Norwegian by Babbel every day; maybe I'll make more progress if I tackle it with some consistency).
• Look Both Ways, a National Book Award finalist, also was looking promising, but like Girl, Woman, Other, it involves numerous stories told from numerous characters' points-of-view, and again: perhaps what I need is one lively through-line.

• So we skip past War and Peace to Neil Gaiman's The Graveyard Book. Which another friend recommended. And which, yes, I may actually be able to focus on. It starts with a triple murder—and an 18-month-old who escapes the carnage and moves into a graveyard where he's protected by benevolent ghosts (so far). I've gotten through several chapters today (the hero is now six). If a book for readers age ten and up is what it takes to settle in and read an entire volume in less than three months, I'm game. And Neil Gaiman is always entertaining.

There are times when I can easily sink into a good book (this is especially true of a good mystery: I will not lie). Other times, not so much. Right now, I'm trying to cultivate the patience to redirect my squirrelly mind into the satisfying task of exploring other worlds. At least, that's what I'm telling myself.

It's not like I have much of anything else to do . . .

P.S. I have several other neat stacks of books next to my go-to easy chair. I will add this stack to them. Wanna take bets on how soon the floor will be littered with books again? 

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Monterey County Covid-19 cases stand at 429 today (up 16 since yesterday), hospitalizations at 54 (up 1), and deaths remain at 8.

Stay healthy. Be kind. And . . . got any good books to recommend?

Covid-19: Operation Uplift II

I posted a little while back about writer Luis Alberto Urrea's "Operation Uplift" on Facebook, in which he invites followers to share a photo, maybe a little story, usually on a theme, but it's not necessary. Joining in and finding uplift is what matters.

Tonight he wrote, "Operation Uplift, Chapter 66. I haven’t done this before, but more. What you have been doing about your special place. I also had requests for more gardens. My personal request is: friends. Who what where are your pals? Human or not. You’re on a roll." In other words, just keep it coming—photos about what matters most to each and every one of us. It's really a lovely little operation he's got going.

Tonight I posted four photos, of five special friends, randomly selected—though I certainly could have kept on. But four photos is my limit in these challenges. Here they are:

My wacky, wonderful friend Tesi

Babar accompanies me on my travels. Here we are in Antarctica,
this February. He's an excellent travel companion
(and he takes good photos too).

My two best friends in the world: my husband of almost 40 years, David,
and our wonderdog Milo, 10 years old. We look forward to
traveling again together soon. (Here we are hiking near Sedona, AZ.)

I met Kathi in 1976, and we've been best friends ever since.
Here we are in Blois, France, in . . . oh, I don't know, 1990-ish?

Kathi has a friend, Norman Crump, who until just the other day had been on a ventilator for going on six weeks, due to Covid-19. I've met Norman, who's an artist with a studio in South Boston. He's a life force, a big guy full of joy. He is now in a rehab facility, with lots of work ahead of him to gain his strength back. But at least he's made it out of the ICU. That's huge.

Another friend, Mel, lost both her sister and her mother to this virus. She posted this today on FB:

It has been 74 days since I started self-isolation. There were 41 confirmed American deaths.
It has been 48 days since my sister died. There were 14,200 confirmed American deaths.
It has been 31 days since my mother died. There were more than 50,000 American deaths.
[As of today, we are nearing 100,000 American deaths.]
Do the math, wear a fucking mask.

I am fortunate not to have anyone in my own life who's been affected by this virus. I am fortunate to have plenty of uplift in my life—such challenges as Luis's, the occasional walk with a friend, take-out dinners, daily outings with the dog and the husband, good books to read. My needs are very simple, and I am very glad to recognize that: I am content in my life. And safe—in my corner of the world, anyway. I feel that people are respecting the "rules": masks; social distancing. We really are all in this together. But that doesn't seem to be true everywhere . . .

Today we went to a garden center and bought some pepper plants, some cucurbits (sweet pumpkin, cantaloupe, and zucchini), and a few butterfly-attracting flowers. This afternoon, I planted them, while David pulled out another couple of beds of spent California poppies. Yesterday, we planted a bunch of herbs, and a sixth tomato plant. We are filling our garden in. Given that we probably won't be traveling anytime soon, the garden will be our new stimulus. This year, with any luck (and some overpriced water), it might even thrive.

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Current cases 413, up 18 since two days ago; there are? have been? not sure what this number means, but anyway: 53 hospitalizations; and deaths hold steady at 8.

Stay healthy. Tell your loved ones that you love them. Be safe.

Covid-19: An outing to nearby Moss Landing

With the shelter-in-place orders, we are strictly speaking allowed to venture anywhere within our county, but not outside. And Monterey County is huge.

Today we headed a little ways up the coast, to Moss Landing (pop. 204 as of 2010), which, founded in the 1860s, was once a major whaling port, with fishing and canneries soon to follow. Today the fishing is almost gone (and the whaling and canneries long gone), the harbor now home to pleasure boats, whale-watching ships, and research vessels affiliated with the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute.

The reason we went to Moss Landing was to plan a new "Adventure Lab," a little tour affiliated with geocaching. We need to find up to five distinct, walkable, interesting locales that we can bring visitors to, give them a bit of the story of the place, and ask a question for them to answer. At the end of the tour, they get . . . congratulations! I've done one of these Adventure Labs, and I think that was the extent of the reward. But the one I did was along Cannery Row, and I learned a heap of new information—even better than a congrats.

Here are a few photos we took to help us plan the next steps. It was a fun outing. I enjoy Moss Landing. (Though I was surprised at how busy it was today: so many people, at the fish market buying takeout, on the beach, out fishing, just walking. More people, I think, than I've ever seen there. Many, but not all, wearing masks. We had ours on. I may be wanting to venture out of Monterey Peninsula proper, but I am still definitely taking precautions.)

Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute

Main building

Research Vessel Rachel Carson

Research vessel Western Flyer

Phil's Fish Market (a touristy place with overpriced fish)

And on the back of this sign is . . . :

We may ask Adventure Lab adventurers to count the
number of eyes on this whimsical sign (19)

Moss Landing Boat Works

The squid is the proud symbol of the Boat Works

A different squid, on a boat-moving machine

Another question may be the place where
a gizmo on the boat hoist (see first picture above)
is made: Boise, Idaho

Moss Landing Power Plant (natural gas powered electricity)

This power plant, with its towering twin smokestacks,
is a distinctive landmark,
visible throughout Monterey Bay

But certainly visible throughout Moss Landing

There's the Boat Works squid again

Elkhorn Slough

The bridge there is Highway 1, and Elkhorn Slough proper
is beyond it—a tidal estuary that I love, and visit
far too seldom these days . . .

I took the above picture from here, which marks the
entrance to Moss Landing. Might ask how many castles
on this sign for the Adventure Lab—I guess that's the
symbol for the Corps of Engineers?

Miscellaneous shots

That's Moss Landing Marine Lab (the marine lab for the
California State University system) over there on the left

Shakespeare Society of America . . .
in Moss Landing? Go figure!

A couple of barn swallows hanging out

Ammonites

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Monterey County cases up 24 since yesterday, to 395; deaths remain steady at 8. (Though the county website I refer to recently reconfigured its stats, and it's telling me it's only up 2 since yesterday. I'll figure the site out. In any case, today's total: 395.)

Stay healthy. Wear your mask when you're out with other people. Try to have some fun!

Covid-19: A day away from it all

Last week, my friend Lynn and I headed down the coast to Kirk Creek Trail, which leads up to a popular wilderness camp, Vicente Flat. Our intention was to cut a big dead oak out of the trail. But at the trailhead, Lynn discovered that—aaarrrgh!—she'd forgotten her "saw kit": lubricant, wedges, and all-important handles. Can't do much without handles. So we reoriented our outing to a different trailhead and did different chores. It ended up being a fine day, with a lot getting done.

Today was the reschedule. Lynn emailed me and said, "When I pick you up at 7, ask about the saw kit." Which of course I forgot to do, until we were a couple of miles down the road. But yes, she had everything: saw kit, helmet, gloves, water, food, even saw. We were set.

It's a five-mile hike, mostly uphill, to where our work awaited us. Uphill, but with glorious views, which make the hike so much easier. As does the constant conversation I enjoy with Lynn. We make good partners.

The oak ended up being a bit of a bear, binding the saw no matter what we tried. We had to cut from the top, then from the bottom, then a parallel cut on top, as close to the first cut as we could get, then just bullying our way up and out from underneath—which, fortunately, we managed to do. All this in some poison oak. With not a few ticks needing to be flicked off every so often. The wilderness. It's a thing.

That was one cut. Then there was another, which went somewhat similarly. All of which took two hours. Then, lunch.

After lunch, we started a couple more cuts, but the saw was quickly bound, and this time there was no way to underbuck. The end of the tree had a staub of sorts—an old root branch. We decided to cut some of that off and then—hoping against hope—just try to push the tree off the trail.

And damn if that didn't work!

Here are three photos showing the log in question—and the revealed trail.

It took us almost three hours, with the lunch break. Not bad. (It would have taken us a lot longer if we'd been unable to push the tree off the trail with our feet. We might still be there now.)

As we were considering, in the second picture, what to do next, a young man rode up on his mountain bike and offered to help! Now, this caused us consternation on two or three counts, and I'm not sure which was worst: (1) bicycles—any form of "machinery"—are not allowed in Wilderness (we were working today in the Ventana Wilderness); and (2) the trail is closed due to Covid-19. When Lynn pointed the latter fact out, the young man responded that "thousands of illegal immigrants come into this country, and..." blah blah. I didn't actually hear what he said, beyond the "thousands," because I didn't care for this young man—he immediately offered to help! Like, what, us two old ladies needed help? Did he even know how to use a crosscut saw? What problem did he see in front of him? No, I just got to work shoveling dirt while Lynn had a conversation with him, which ended up with him continuing on down the trail.

When she told me what he'd said, I really bristled.That's relevant how?, I might have asked him—unprofessionally, given that I was at that moment representing the US Forest Service. Just as well I didn't hear him.

The fellow rubbed us both the wrong way, though we couldn't say exactly why. His patronizing air? The fact that he was yet another mountain biker going wherever the hell he felt like going? In any case, after we'd pushed the tree off the trail, packed up, and started our hike back to the car, we came up with various (not serious! not serious!) scenarios for his comeuppance—like, hitting a rock as he rode too fast, and plunging down the steep hillside; like, getting a rattlesnake tangled in his spokes, and it biting him; like, simply getting a flat tire and having to walk the damn contraption down to the highway. But apparently, he made it out okay. We saw only the occasional tread mark as we made our own way out.

Here are some last photos from the day. It was so nice to get into nature!

An unusual little stretch of the Kirk Creek Trail.

A little succulent and a little fern, growing
on limestone.

Lynn wanted to record a message to her
dive team mates at the Monterey Bay
Aquarium, which has been closed for these
last few weeks—it's a video they're
all putting together. We shot it on our way out.
Here she is reviewing it.

That's the trail, looking inland (as we are hiking out).

CA-1

Today's count for Monterey County, 371 confirmed cases, up 22 since last I posted; deaths remains steady at 8.

Stay safe. Enjoy life. It's the only one you have. (That we can be sure of, anyway.)

Book Report: The Great Influenza

10. John M. Barry, The Great Influenza: The Story of the Deadliest Pandemic in History (2004/2018) (5/19/2020)

This book took me an impressively long time to finish. As I noted on April 28, I was then only halfway through—and the book, at 461 pages, isn't really that long. But it is dense, replete with detail. It's also unwieldy, being about a big story: the spread of disease around the world and through time (it got started in the spring of 1918, had a second, more severe wave that fall, and continued into a third wave the following spring), about the movements of people and ideas, and about the infrastructural readiness, especially in this country—political, scientific—to fight back, at just the moment the U.S. finally entered the war in Europe. Normally, I might have abandoned the effort—just stopped. I have many half-finished books on my shelves. But I was doggedly determined to learn all Mr. Barry could teach me about the influenza of 1918. How much will I retain? Well, I won't worry about that. For the moment, I'm simply happy to be done. I am looking forward to moving on to something more lively (and I mean that literally; there's a lot of death in this book).

Barry tells the story in ten parts, plus a prologue and a new afterword from a couple of years ago. His story begins before 1918 (in part 1, "The Warriors"), as he recounts the development and growth of American medicine from a quack enterprise with virtually no science behind it into something noble, searching, and rigorous focusing on high-quality education and research. Barry identifies various important players in these early chapters, whom we continue to meet throughout the book as the influenza sweeps the nation.

He moves on (in part 2, "The Swarm") to locate the possible ground zero of the virus: rural Haskell County, Kansas—farming country. The theory is that the disease got a toehold there in January or February 1918, then was carried to the army's nearby Camp Funston, and from there—well, everywhere, as the U.S. mustered for war.

Part 3, "The Tinderbox," takes us back to President Woodrow Wilson's reluctant but ultimately all-out decision to declare war on Germany, on April 2, 1917. Along with this came a crackdown on truth-telling, and a concomitant ascendance of propaganda, which played a significant role not just in national morale, but in the fight against the coming pandemic. The Red Cross, charged with "bind[ing] the nation together," grew its forces, who went into every corner of the country, ready to serve. Meanwhile, what few scientific institutions there were (such as the enormously influential Rockefeller Institute) were inducted into the military as growing medical needs were anticipated. For before the influenza hit, the camps experienced a virulent measles outbreak, followed by the bigger killer, pneumonia. Doctors and researchers both were recruited by the thousands.

In parts 4–8—"It Begins," "Explosion," "The Pestilence," "The Race," and "The Tolling of the Bell"—Barry goes into all the wretched details of how people, both in military encampments and in civilian populations, came down with the disease, how they suffered, how they died, how communities coped, how officials proved largely helpless, and how scientists raced to figure out what was causing the disease. Censorship and a desire not to inspire fear kept real news to a minimum; lies were rampant. But death was all around. There was no avoiding it in most towns and cities. Fear, even terror, was inevitable.

Part 9, "Lingerer," takes us into 1919 and beyond. The influenza continued, but largely in a less virulent state. One momentous story (for world history) concerns Woodrow Wilson in Paris, conferring with Georges Clemenceau and Lloyd George in their efforts to wrap up the WWI peace. It was not going well: Wilson especially did not like Clemenceau's demands, which were extremely harsh regarding Germany. And then Wilson got sick. Perhaps with the influenza. And the virus affected his brain—everyone close to him could see that. The negotiations suddenly ceased, and Wilson essentially capitulated. The Versailles Treaty was itself a victim of the influenza. At least, that is Barry's contention. (The illness that felled Wilson has traditionally been blamed on a different disease, but influenza is certainly a real possibility. We'll never know.)

Part 10, "Endgame," takes us back to the researchers who launched the book, and to their discoveries—and personalities—and failures. One of the big successes was the discovery that DNA, first isolated in the late 1860s and more or less ignored since then, actually had a crucial function: to carry the genetic code. This discovery came because of one man's incredibly patient effort to understand how one kind of pneumococcus—a bacterium that causes pneumonia, and is frequently seen in cases of influenza—transforms into another kind, that is, mutates, to remain virulent. The answer lay in the bacterium's own genes, it's own DNA.

In the afterword, Barry discusses the several serious influenzas that have caused alarm in the past century, ending with a few words on what might be done to stave off "the next pandemic." Almost everything he mentions—some of which he notes would be very difficult to achieve, like rigid sheltering-in-place and closing of borders—we are doing now. Ultimately, though, he says that

if there is a single dominant lesson from 1918, it's that governments need to tell the truth in a crisis. Risk communication implies managing the truth. You don't manage the truth. You tell the truth.
 Terror rises in the dark of the mind, in the unknown beast tracking us in the jungle. The fear of the dark is an almost physical manifestation of that. Horror movies build upon the fear of the unknown, the uncertain threat that we cannot see and do not know and can find no safe haven from. But in every horror movie, once the monster appears, terror condenses into the concrete and diminishes. Fear remains. But the edge of panic created by the unknown dissipates. The power of the imagination dissipates.
 In 1918 the lies of officials and of the press never allowed the terror to condense into the concrete. The public could trust nothing and so they knew nothing. Society is, ultimately, based on trust; as trust broke down, people became alienated not only from those in authority, but from each other. So a terror seeped into the society that prevented one woman from caring for her sister, that prevented volunteers from bringing food to families too ill to feed themselves and who starved to death because of it, that prevented trained nurses from responding to the most urgent calls for their services. The fear, not the disease, threatened to break the society apart. . . .
 So the final lesson of 1918, a simple one yet one most difficult to execute, is that those who occupy positions of authority must lessen the panic that can alienate all within a society. Society cannot function if it is every man for himself. . . .
 Those in authority must retain the public's trust. The way to do that is to distort nothing, to put the best face on nothing, to try to manipulate no one. Lincoln said that first, and best.
 A leader must make whatever horror exists concrete. Only then will people be able to break it apart.

I guess Mr. Trump hasn't read this book . . . (Yeah, yeah, I know.)

I flagged various sections where I enjoyed the writing, or the way Barry presented difficult, technical information in an understandable way, or conveyed a telling sentiment that might strike those of us living with Covid-19 today. But this report is long enough.

I do recommend the book, though it isn't an easy read. The topic is encyclopedic, and difficult to keep under control. But I learned a tremendous amount, about history, about humanity, about scientific institutions, about virus. And much more.

And now, I'm ready for something completely different.

(Here is a conversation CNN's Jake Tapper had with Barry on March 27, about the current pandemic.)

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Monterey County's confirmed cases are up to 349, 8 more than on Sunday; deaths remains at 8.

Stay healthy. Get some fresh air. Read something uplifting!

Covid-19: Tassajara

This afternoon David and I took a drive—out to Tassajara Zen Mountain Center. Or almost: we got within a mile, but then decided to stop and turn around, and let the practitioners have their moment of Zen. Literally, in this case.

Well, the Zen part was literal; the moment has stretched out to a few extra weeks already. Tassajara has two practice periods, September to December and January to April. By now, they would normally be open to paying guests—which income I expect is important to them. But for now, they will remain closed through June. And longer? Time will tell.

The reason for the trip was to staple the current USFS forest restriction orders (re campfires) and social distancing guidelines (now that this part of the Ventana Wilderness has opened again, though the western, coastal, Big Sur side remains closed) to a few trailhead signs: at Los Padres Dam, on Cachagua Road; and on Tassajara Road, the Pine Ridge Trail, Horse Pasture Trail, and Church Creek Trail.

The road to Tassajara is 18 miles long, 14 of it unpaved, about half of that currently nicely graded, the rest of it, not so much. And today it was raining, which kept my hands firmly clutched on the steering wheel and the rest of me very glad that I have an AWD Subaru, with "manual" discretion. The final many miles are downhill, with steep dropoffs to the right—and you really don't want to burn your brakes, or drive over the edge. As David commented, seatbelts wouldn't save you.

The rain meant clouds meant no views, which was a shame, because this was David's first time venturing out this way. Though then again, it reminded me of my first trips down many of these Ventana Wilderness trails, usually in the dark, on Search & Rescue missions. When you finally do get to see the terrain in all its glory, maybe it's that much better?

David and I vowed to come back, in better weather—when it's not too hot and when there are no bugs, so not in summer; so maybe, really soon? Before summer hits?

I didn't take any photos today (I was too busy clutching the steering wheel, plus: no views), but here are a few from previous visits.

Pine Ridge Trail, heading to Pine Valley from China Camp

Tassajara Road

Church Creek Divide

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Today Monterey County's confirmed cases are up 13, to 341; deaths remain at 8.

Get outside, if you can: it's beautiful out there. Maintain social distancing. Be well.