Book Report: Intimacies

43. Katie Kitamura, Intimacies (2021) (8/31/21)

I stumbled on this book thanks to Barack Obama's annual summer reading list. At first I wasn't sure: it's one of these contemporary nameless-narrator, no-quotation-marks, run-on-sentence kind of books. The comma splices, oy!

But as I kept reading, I kept getting more engaged. 

The narrator is a young woman of part Japanese heritage who grew up traveling: she was used to an unsettled life. Her father recently died and her mother moved to Singapore, and she decided to leave her home of New York City for a job as a simultaneous interpreter, French to English, at an international criminal court in The Hague, Netherlands. She's been there six months when the story begins. A displaced person, in various ways.

Not very much actually happens in the book. Her boyfriend, Adriaan, leaves her in his apartment when he takes off to Lisbon to see his soon-to-be ex-wife; she interprets in the trial of an African war criminal; she has a few meals with friends and a colleague; she attends an art opening or two; she sits on a beach in the night. 

More than about what happens, though, this book is about how we negotiate reality, how we anticipate, and hope, and read other people's signals. How we, perhaps, manipulate events to our advantage, or adjust our expectations to allow events to carry on and simply see what comes next. 

The narrator is a keen observer, but we are also privy to her understanding of how her feelings are constantly changing as her perceptions shift. 

Here she is in a room at the Mauritshuis, an art museum:

The paintings opened up a dimension that you did not normally see in photographs, in these paintings you could feel the weight of time passing. I thought that was why, as I stood before a painting of a young girl in half-light, there was something that was both guarded and vulnerable in her gaze. It was not the contradiction of a single instant, but rather it was as if the painter had caught her in two separate states of emotion, two different moods, and managed to contain them within the single image. There would have been a multitude of such instants captured in the canvas, between the time she first sat down before the painter and the she rose, neck and upper body stiff, from the final sitting. That layering—in effect a kind of temporal blurring, or simultaneity—was perhaps ultimately what distinguished painting from photography. I wondered if that was the reason why contemporary painting seemed to me so much flatter, to lack the mysterious depth of these works, because so many painters now worked from photographs.

Although in a sense I found this paragraph obvious, I quote it here because it also captures the layering of this novel: the individual moments which give way to reflections on those moments which give way to yearnings for the future which also conjure up moments from the past—and always there are questions. Everything blurs together, becomes confused. And yet here we are, living our lives, making choices as best we can. 

I liked this book. I might have given it 5 stars on Goodreads except for the comma splices. Which I'm almost coming to grips with: the run-on sentences kind of get at the rush of living a life, being swept up in time and doing our best to steer a straight course, learning to give ourselves over to uncertainty and yet still make sure to celebrate the small, anchoring intimacies.

Book Report: How to Live

42. Sarah Bakewell, How to Live; or, A Life of Montaigne—in One Question and Twenty Attempts at an Answer (2010) (8/25/21)

This book has everything: philosophy, biography, history, criticism, motion, delight. Ostensibly the story of the original essayist Montaigne (1533–1592) himself, it is organized in such a way that Bakewell can take elegant detours without losing the reader. The "twenty attempts at an answer" to the very basic question of "how to live" all come from Montaigne's thoughts and writing, but she uses them to also explore sixteenth-century French history (and what a period it was, marked by religious warfare and the plague); the editorial history of his Essays themselves, from Montaigne's own obsessive rewrites straight into present-day scholarship; Montaigne's influences from among Classical writers and philosophers, especially the Stoics, Skeptics, and Epicureans; his worries and fascinations. In straight biography, the book covers his childhood and youth, his marriage and home life, his travels through Europe, his famous loving friendship with Étienne de La Boétie, his political career as both mayor of Bordeaux and advisor to kings, his death. But all that is woven into a more general exploration of, simply, how to live.

As Gustave Flaubert advised a friend wondering how to approach Montaigne's Essays, "Don't read him as children do, for amusement, nor as the ambitious do, to be instructed. No, read him in order to live." In wrapping up the book, Bakewell observes:

For Montaigne, it was always life that mattered. Virginia Woolf was especially fond of quoting this thought from his last essay: it was as close as Montaigne ever came to a final or best answer to the question of how to live.

Life should be an aim unto itself, a purpose unto itself.

Either this is not an answer at all, or it is the only possible answer. It has the same quality as the answer given by the Zen master who, when asked, "What is enlightenment?" whacked the questioner on the head with a stick. Enlightenment is something learned on your own body: it takes the form of things happening to you. This is why the Stoics, Epicureans, and Skeptics taught tricks rather than precepts. All philosophers can offer is that blow on the head: a useful technique, a thought experiment, or an experience—in Montaigne's case, the experience of reading the Essays. The subject he teaches is simply himself, an ordinary example of a living being.
     Although the Essays present a different facet to every eye, everything in them is united in that one figure: Montaigne. This is why readers return to him in a way they do to few others of his century, or indeed to most writers of any epoch. The Essays are his essays. They test and sample a mind that is an "I" to itself, as all minds are.

The subjects that Montaigne covers range from thumbs to cruelty, diversion to smells, friendship to cannibals, names to experience. Anything that caught his eye—or his mind. He rambles, he segues, he sometimes infuriates by not getting to the point, or seemingly any point. But he is always engaged.

Some of the "attempts at answers" that Bakewell distills from the Essays include Don't worry about death; Pay attention; Use little tricks; Survive love and loss; Question everything; Be convivial: live with others; Wake from the sleep of habit; Guard your humanity; See the world; Give up control; Be ordinary and imperfect; Reflect on everything, regret nothing.

Bakewell ends with a charming, imagined vignette:

There they  are, then, in Montaigne's library. The cat is attracted by the scratching of his pen; she dabs an experimental paw at the moving quill. He looks at her, perhaps momentarily irritated by the interruption. Then he smiles, tilts the pen, and draws the feather-end across the paper for her to chase. She pounces. The pads of her paws smudge the ink on the last few words; some sheets of paper slide to the floor. The two of them can be left there, suspended in the midst of their lives with the Essays not yet fully written, while we go and get on with ours—with the Essays not yet fully read.

Her conclusion: "Out of that moment—and countless others like it—came his whole philosophy. . . . No abstract principles are involved; there are only two individuals, face to face, hoping for the best from one another."

Indeed, this central message is universal and extends throughout time. And so no wonder I kept being struck as I read by how similar 16th-century France seemed in an existential way to 2021 America: we humans struggle, we have disagreements, we encounter dangers and setbacks, we dream and yearn, we accomplish things, we long for and also nurture love. In short, we want to live as full a life as possible. In this, we are all so much more alike than our petty (or even not so petty) differences would seem to indicate.

I loved this book. 

And I am now officially just on top of my reading challenge, so you'll probably be seeing some kids' books and lighter fare coming down the pike!

Chris Burkard, photographer

I follow photographer and surfer/adventurer Chris Burkard on Instagram, and today he posted this shot:

 with the following comment:

For World Photography Day I wanted to share an image that for me was career altering. When I had decided to put my focus on cold weather travel it came with a ton of risk. Let’s just say I didn’t always have the support of magazines & editors when the trip presented so many challenges. Putting up every dollar yourself for an expedition can be challenging when you have no clue if it will be worth it. It can be strain on a bank account and a relationship. A month in Northern Norway during the winter was no exception. We were ill prepared & on a shoe string budget and we paid the price. Getting stuck in remote cabins, destroying a few rental vehicles from bad weather, getting stuck on a ferry for 3 days and ultimately negotiating a snowmobile rental to access a stretch of coast in Vardo. I was out of my depth and out of my realm… trying my best to keep my chin up despite making some poor decisions along the way and lacking some crucial research.
     What resulted was one of the best trips of my life, despite the challenges. It reinforced my love of cold water and the remote landscapes that I would stare at on the magazine rack. I made a dream come to life and all [of a] sudden those distant shores weren’t so distant anymore. Just thinking about this trip makes my senses feel overwhelmed & body tremble from the cold, but it also elicits a huge smile.

Pictured is @danedamus in the Lofoten Islands circa 2010 ish.

And so I thought I'd feature Chris here. His photography is wide-ranging, often including a surfboard, but not always; often in some very cold-looking place, but again, not always. Here are a few of the cold surf-related shots. (Click on the images to see them large.)

Talk about adventure. And such beauty!

Here's another I especially like, because it reminds me of our kayak trip in the Doubtful Sound, South Island, New Zealand:

And this, just because:

You can find more of his work on his website. It makes me happy to know people are out exploring the world so boldly. And with such joy. (And I kinda like the fact that he's a fellow Central Coaster.)

Book Report: Earth and Ashes

41. Atiq Rahimi, Earth and Ashes (2000) (8/15/21)

I picked this scant (81-page) book up as an attempt to understand the tragedy that is unfolding in Afghanistan right now. Though I suppose that the "tragedy" itself is a matter of interpretation. Apparently there are those both within and outside Afghanistan right now who are welcoming the Taliban as their rulers. I can't comprehend that. Not after twenty years of infrastructure being built, of women and girls gaining some sense of possibility, of education and future hopes being cultivated. And now? All that will be swept aside. I find it tragic. But I guess we can wait and see . . . Maybe the Taliban have changed?

Also, a friend of mine was killed—executed—by the Taliban in 2010, so I am definitely biased. He was a dentist. He loved Afghanistan, and wanted to help people.

Anyway, this book: as I say, scant, and with a very simple story. A grandfather, with grandson in tow, wants to reach his son at a coal mine down a long road, and let him know the terrible news that the Russians have destroyed their village, and all of their family. (This was pre-9/11, pre–American presence.) The old man, Dastaguir, has conversations with the road's gatekeeper, a shop owner, a truck driver, and finally the foreman of the mine and a mineworker. He hallucinates frequently (he is hungry, carrying only apples in a scarf), or dreams, or rhapsodizes. In the end, he fails to meet up with his son, who apparently had been informed of the destruction of his village—and of his entire family, including his father (and perhaps son). And who did not come home. Who was prevented from coming home by the mine boss. 

All the stories we tell. What is the truth? What is joy, and in this case, what is sorrow?

"You know, father, sorrow can turn to water and spill from your eyes, or it can sharpen your tongue into a sword, or it can become a time bomb that, one day, will explode and destroy you. . . . The sorrow of the [gatekeeper] Fateh the guard is like all three. When he comes to see me, his sadness flows out in tears. If he remains alone in his hut, it becomes a bomb . . . when he steps out of the hut and sees others, his sorrow turns itself into a sword and he wants to . . ."

This book is a very quick read. I'm not sure how much it really informs us about the reality of being an Afghan, then or now. But it does get at loss and sorrow. Which certainly is the Afghan lot now and into the future.

Book Report: Trunk Music

40. Michael Connelly, Trunk Music (1997) (8/14/21)

We have taken to binge-watching TV series, usually one or two episodes a night until the whole shebang is over. Currently, we are barging through the seven-season Bosch on Netflix, based on Michael Connelly's Harry Bosch. I like the series, though I'm not crazy about the lead, Titus Welliver, who is a little too reptilian. Season 2 was based in part on the fifth Bosch book, which happens to be where I am at as I work my way through the series. It is also based in part on The Last Coyote, which was the fourth book (reviewed here). In both cases, the TV rendition ventures very, very far from the literary inspiration. As in, the perpetrator in both of the mysteries Bosch investigates is someone quite other than in the books.

But I'm not here to critique that. I found the television version, mixing and matching storylines, quite acceptable—appropriately complex for a ten-episode series. And Connelly, as executive producer, must have thought the variations on his imaginings, developed and sometimes written by Eric Overmyer, were... an improvement? Or maybe he just liked all that Hollywood money and simply went along with the reworking, who knows?

The book Trunk Music is tightly focused on the instigating crime—a money launderer found shot dead in the trunk of his Bentley off Mulholland Drive, overlooking the Hollywood Bowl (the term "trunk music" refers to a mafia hit)—and Bosch's investigation, which ends up taking him to Las Vegas and getting him mixed up with the mob, the FBI, and his great true love, Eleanor Wish, whom he met in the first book in the series, The Black Echo, and whom he's not laid eyes on for the last five years, since that book ended with her being convicted of a felony and sent to prison. But she's out now, and their romance can flower, like a cactus blossom! 

That's another difference with the series, where Eleanor is introduced as a successful professional poker player, married to a Chinese man and the mother of a sixteen-year-old—not to mention a former FBI agent and Harry's ex-wife (the teenager is his daughter, Maddie). It took some finessing to portmanteau thirteen books covering sixteen years into a few years of a very eventful LAPD career. 

I like the simplicity of a single mystery, with a major red herring taking up the first half of the book as planted evidence takes Bosch and his partners down the wrong path—but then they start to put two and two together in a different way. And voilà. One of the bad guys in the TV series ends up playing a very minor role in the book, while the bad guy in the book plays a similarly unprepossessing role in the TV adaptation. 

And I know this will make little sense to anyone reading this—and no doubt will make little sense to me when I revisit it in a year—but I don't want to give anything away! The point is, another book done. Only 26 to go in my reading challenge. I need to get cracking.

Book Report: Occidental Mythology

39. Joseph Campbell, Occidental Mythology, vol. 3 in The Masks of God (1964) (8/10/21)

I do not report here on the books I read for work. But I am making an exception in this case. 

 Mainly because this behemoth has taken up a good couple weeks of my life. And I did read the damn thing! Every last word, every last punctuation mark. And seriously, I think the actual errors I caught could be counted on my ten fingers. Most of my queries (because I've got to do something to earn that big fat paycheck) involved commas and semicolons, or on occasion a spurious date span.

I should clarify: I was proofreading a reprint of the 1964 edition of The Masks of God: Occidental Mythology, to be published by New World Library of Novato, California, later this year.

In the end, I must admit, I understood very little of this big (500-page) book. Campbell obviously had a large mind. But I got the feeling he was puzzling through arcane minutiae for his own pleasure, his own sorting out—or, sure, for scholars who are also into arcane minutiae. But not for your average pretty well educated person interested in mythology, and who knows basically nothing coming into it. Who just wants a basic picture.

When I accepted the job, I thought I might learn something. 

But Campbell dashes off in too many directions. I was impressed by the energy and the curiosity, but not by the storytelling per se. I wanted something more coherent, more cohesive—more enticing. 

He was not writing for me. He was writing for a fellow scholar, sitting over a coffee talking through an exciting new insight.

What the book left me with, then, was an impression of immensity and confusion, of the vastness of the human life on this planet, of the mystery and the desire for control—or to be controlled, perhaps, but in a positive way: to be directed, to be driven forward. We humans want magic, but we also want potency. I was also struck by all the millions and millions of little people who are essentially worthless, mere peons, workers, potential sacrifices to the gods. And by the few numinous personages, or powerful leaders, who steer our human destiny.

I don't know how Campbell is viewed nowadays. His perspective strikes me as old-fashioned, but that doesn't mean it isn't correct. (His particulars may no longer be correct, in light of more recent discoveries, but I'm talking big picture here.)

Here is an example of a passage that, whoa nelly (the following is three sentences):

The rites of Demeter and Persephone of Eleusis, Isis of Alexandria, Mithra of the Persians, and the Great Mother, Cybele, of Asia Minor, mutually influenced and enriched each other in the course of these centuries—all in terms of a common ability to sense and experience the miracle of life itself as divine, and wonderfully so. In contrast to which we find that in the orthodox Zoroastrian church, as well as in Judaism and, later, Christianity and Islam—where the ultimate view was not of boundless time but of a time when time began, as well as of a time when time would end: moreover, where it was supposed that the world and its inhabitants might be judged as, for the most part, evil, yet susceptible of some sort of ontological correction: and finally, where (particularly in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam) no immanent divinity was recognized in the material world, but God, though omnipresent and (in the phrase of the Koran) “closer to man than his neck vein,” was absolutely other and apart— the ultimate goal was not, and could not be, the realization of eternal life in this world. Consequently, whereas in pagan mysteries the symbolism of world annihilation always applied, finally, to a psychological, spiritual crisis in the initiate, whereby the shadowplay of phenomenality was annihilated as by a thunderbolt and the adamantean Being of beings realized immediately and forever, in the orthodox, ethically scaled Levantine religions, the same symbolism of world annihilation was applied, rather, historically, as referring to a day to come of terminal doom.

Whew, right? 

So yeah: job well done, me! I'm sending it off tomorrow, yay! 

Is my world larger? Well, yes, in, as I said, a rather overwhelmed way. And I should appreciate that—in the sense of realizing, for example, that the total nonsense going on in American politics right now, or the Covid disaster, or the changing climate, is . . . just a dream, a passage of time. It won't last. Or rather, even if it does, it doesn't matter in the grand scheme. Life, the universe, existence, just goes on. We should simply focus on living the best life we can. Which, for each of us, lasts only so long.

Though P.S. here: I am very distraught by the utter lack of attention by our so-called leadership to climate change. We could be doing so much more to address this catastrophe. I'm not advocating sitting back and doing nothing, not by a long shot. I'm just endorsing perspective. And whatever does happen re climate change, the earth and life, of one sort or another, will endure.

Moving to Europe?

I recently learned that a geocaching acquaintance, Natalie, is moving soon—in exactly three weeks, in fact—to Portugal. Intrigued, I got in touch, asked if we could meet for lunch. I wanted to hear her story.

Me, I've had Portugal on my mind. No idea why. I've never been there (well, okay, not true: I was there when I was three, but I remember nothing), I haven't even seen many pictures of it, don't know much about it. But everyone I know who's been to Portugal just loves it. So much. And I've been thinking I might want to move there. So I wanted to pick Natalie's brain.

She gave me a bunch of pointers on FB pages to follow, websites to investigate. Logistics.

Our conversation convinced me even more: it's time for a change.

I believe I've convinced David, too. Who, though, tonight wondered, "What about France?" Where, admittedly, we have a tiny bit bigger handle on the language. (Portuguese is hard!) And my niece lives there, so we'd have family somewhat nearby (though I think I'd opt for the south, and she's up near Tours).

It's fun thinking about places we might settle for a year or two. Or forever. We are not getting any younger.

I've got various push factors: increasing traffic (this area has become more congested because of second-home owners moving from the Bay Area down to the “quiet” Peninsula), fears about water availability, a desire for dark skies, expense. And yes, a feeling of, not exactly being bored with this place, but certainly knowing it awfully well. 

And then there's the sickening state of the American polity. #neverreadthecomments #avoidsocialmediaatallcosts I do not recognize this country anymore. Though okay, that's not true. I do recognize the darkness and the hatred—and the fear. It's been with us for decades. Going on centuries. And I deplore it. I was raised to believe my country was better than this, that "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" was meant for us all. But that seems to be a lie. And I'm too tired to take it on anymore.

So. What about a change of pace?

I'd love to get back into exploring mode, of getting to know a new place from scratch. Of learning how to fit in, to cope, to be comfortable. I love the idea of fresh fruits and vegetables and non-industrially farmed meats, not to mention other cuisines. Of new landscapes. New cultural discoveries.

And also, and this may be the biggest thing: I’d love to live in a place that is communal from way way back. That isn’t all about “me me me.” That takes care of its very young, its school-age, its older people, its health-impaired. That doesn't think that being asked to wear a mask for the sake of others is a violation of personal rights. I am so sick of this country in that sense (though there is plenty about this country that I love). 

Portugal currently rates pretty high on the civil liberties/political rights scale (57/60, 39/40)—which the U.S. is sliding downhill on rapidly: 51 and 32, respectively, currently, and trending strongly into the “less free” arena. (These data all from freedomhouse.org, which I haven’t vetted, but they are numbers that I am inclined to accept, as a starting point. Norway, Sweden, and Finland, which are famously socially oriented, are 100% on the FH scale. Portugal is 96%. France, 90%. The U.S., 83%.)

In short, I do not like where this country is heading, where it’s been heading for the last forty years and more. I think I’d like to view it from a safe remove for a while. 

Anyway, it was great chatting with Natalie. And now we know someone in Portugal! 

I’m thinking a springtime visit. A few weeks touring around, checking the place out. Should be fun! And  informative. Assuming Covid lets us. We are living in a brand-new reality…

 

Urban geocaching

The view from our last hike

In June, David, Alastair, and I finished our 100-Mile Hike—which I wrote about here, and here, and here. I somehow neglected to celebrate the final, but I can at least quote Alastair/Mimring's comment on that last, prize cache, claimed on 6/25: "In the end, we found 9 of the (11) caches in the series giving us enough clues to get to the final. In total we hiked 95 miles. . . . In addition to the caches themselves, we found 284 other caches, testimony to the fact that the hike took us to places we had never visited before. Oh the places you will go!"

Yesterday we gamely set out to find some more caches. But without the structure of a challenge, it proved, well, challenging. Where to go? What to look for? We decided to try to find some of the urban Santa Cruz caches planted by one 50sumtin/Bud Gawlik, now deceased but ever beloved. (There's a challenge cache in Wilder Ranch State Park that you're qualified to claim if you've found all 134± of his caches. So far we've found 48. Including yesterday. We've got a ways to go. But what the heck. It's a project!)

Bud does have various caches scattered around Santa Cruz. Finding them proved—did I say this already?—challenging. Traffic. Parking. Muggles (geospeak for curious non-cachers, i.e. normal people, out and about, possibly regarding a trio peering under benches or feeling around electrical boxes with a bit of suspicion). Urban caches, which means teeny containers that are really not at all satisfying to find. In the end we found fourteen caches, six of them 50sumtin's. Only 87 to go! 

It's a lot less interesting than the 100-Mile Hike was. That was a pleasure: contained, with set destinations, great hiking trails, good geocaching along the way, not much driving required. Finding 50sumtin's caches, in contrast, is something of a chore. 

But hey, I'm not complaining, not really. The three of us had a fine day out, and we found all but two of the caches we sought. And got 10+ miles of walking in. And caught up. Because really, the catching up is the best part of caching, for me anyway.

Here are some photos I took:

The "host" of our first find of the day

Our goal: that lighthouse—or rather, the tetrapods
surrounding it, which held clues to the "final" of
a puzzle cache

A few of the tetrapods in question

The geocacher stance

Stand-up paddleboarding on calm water sure
did look appealing

We were treated to a lot of nice street art
along the way—including one multi-cache
dedicated to street art, in the shape of
painted power boxes

A stuffed sea otter (with urchin) and harbor seal
attempted to entice us to go paddling
in the Santa Cruz Harbor.

This black-crowned night heron couldn't have
cared less about our presence, as we crept closer
and closer. All he was interested in was the
insects flying about, which he snapped up
with the awesome beak of his

Though I believe he was waiting for meatier fare

Araña Wetland

A bridge decorated with swimming salmon

Downtown Santa Cruz's river, the
San Lorenzo

Bridge art

David going for the find on 1298

I don't enjoy geocaching so much for the individual "finds." What I enjoy about it is that it takes me out into the world and I get to look around and appreciate nature, humanity, art, inventiveness. And walking. I do enjoy my bodily involvement in the pastime. And when it becomes a social occasion, as with Alastair, all the better!