My sister-in-law mentioned this book in reference to "the publishing industry." But it also treats the issue of appropriation, which concerns my long-simmering project having to do, in part, with the internment of Japanese Americans during WWII.
Mainly, though, it's something of a horror story: a 20-something (white) writer, celebrating a (Chinese American) friend's writing success, watches as the friend chokes to death—then she steals the friend's just-finished manuscript, which focuses on Chinese labor in WWI, and rewrites ("polishes") it to make it her own. So she thinks. Until a ghost (or two) waft into the picture.
It is an unreliable narrator story as well—the writer, June, is constantly explaining and justifying herself. (Well, of course: she committed a sin!) The strongest thread (the ghost and horror elements being rather bland) lies in the indictment of the publishing industry, and the sheer (self-)destructiveness of social media, no matter what the cause.
Kuang, all of 26, is an American fantasy novelist, author of a trilogy—The Poppy War (2018), The Dragon Republic (2019), and The Burning God (2020)—and a stand-alone, Babel; or, The Necessity of Violence (2022), so presumably she understands the way the publishing industry works pretty darn well. "I hate the feeling of being read just because somebody's trying to tick off a diversity check box," she says. It's a satire, and yet.
Here's June/Junie/Juniper near the beginning:
I've never lied. That's important. I never pretended to be Chinese, or made up life experiences that I didn't have. It's not fraud, what we're doing. We're just suggesting the right credentials, so that readers take me and my story seriously, so that nobody refuses to pick up my work because of some outdated preconceptions about who can write what. And if anyone makes assumptions, or connects the dots the wrong way, doesn't that say far more about them than me?
All this got me thinking about my privilege and the convenience of modern life in these United States, and of the many, many people worldwide who do not have indoor plumbing, never mind access, even if inconvenient, to safe water. The World Health Organization estimates that fully one in three people globally do not have safely managed drinking water (2.2 billion), sanitation services (4.2 billion), or basic handwashing facilities at home (3 billion). According to the World Bank, things are improving, with access to safe drinking water having increased from 62 percent in 2000 to 74 percent in 2020. Yet still 771 million people, mostly in Sub-Saharan Africa, do not have access to even basic drinking water services—meaning water from improved sources with a roundtrip collection time of less than 30 minutes including queuing.
And I thought hauling a bucket in from around the corner of the house was a pain....
All this also got me wondering what nonprofits are working to ease this situation worldwide—because somebody must be, mustn't they?
The NPR report identifies one, Isla Urbana, in Mexico, and discusses the notion of "water funds," local joint partnerships (the report cites such funds in Nairobi, Kenya, and Monterrey, Mexico, but this is apparently a fairly common approach) aimed at coordinating various water needs.
Generosity.org – which has completed over 800 water wells in 20 countries Pure Water for the World – which has partnered with over 750 communities in Haiti and Central America since 1999 Water for Good – working in the Central African Republic: in 2022 alone they completed 59 new water points and serviced 1,121 existing ones Splash – working with orphanages in China, and schools in Nepal, India, and Ethiopia; as their web page puts it, "Today we served 1,067,103 kids" Safe Water Network – building affordable, locally owned water systems in Ghana and India
After my travails this week (and still ongoing), I'm thinking I'll make a donation to one or a few of these groups. Safe, accessible drinking water is nothing to take for granted.
Plumbing crises always happen on a holiday or long weekend, right?
We'd been noticing some vague water pressure issues the past few weeks (disappearing water, a dribble from the showerhead), which usually righted themselves—but eventually we called the plumber, who identified a minor problem and, we thought, fixed things.
Until last Friday—the day after Thanksgiving—when, snap: no water, anywhere.
(Well, not entirely true: the outside water is on a separate line, so, thank goodness, we were able to fill buckets of water to flush the toilet and—all important—make coffee.)
Our usual plumber was fully booked on Friday and closed the next day, so we called a smaller company, and the owner came on Saturday. He thought he'd traced the problem to the water softener, but when he rerouted the water lines around it, there was still nothing. He went away shaking his head.
On Monday afternoon, our regular plumber came, and soon (with the help of many phone calls) the problem was diagnosed: it was the water softener—a crushed strainer basket, which had sent millions (I am not exaggerating!) of tiny resin pellets into all the faucets and other water-relinquishing gizmos throughout the house, very effectively stopping all flow. They managed to get a few crucial fixtures working—the toilets (whew!) and the bathroom sinks, as well as a handheld showerhead—but the rest needed specialized parts to be ordered.
This morning (Wednesday) we learned what the cost would be, and gave the go-ahead for purchase. Though why this didn't happen yesterday I don't know—and it miffs me a bit. Don't they recognize that we need our kitchen sink? Anyway, it'll be a couple more days before the technicians return, apparently, so for the time being we are still stuck filling buckets if we want to do the dishes. At least now there's hot water from the showerhead to fill them with...
Concurrently with the water crisis, on Monday all of a sudden we had no electricity!!! But then I vaguely recalled a notice from PG&E a couple of weeks ago informing us that they would be replacing a power pole in the neighborhood and the power would be cut during installation. Okay. Predictability is strength. And sure enough, within a few hours everything was back to normal on that front. Thank goodness!
And thank goodness, too, there are plenty of coffeehouses in the area to retreat to when our world gets shaken to its very foundations.
Update 12/7: At this point, we have filtered cold water in the kitchen, and one bathroom is fully functional. No kitchen sink, no main bathroom (well, a dribble of warm water, not hot), no utility sink, and I am questioning whether the washing machine is working the way it should. Who knows about the dishwasher. The plumber won't be back until Monday—in part because we're leaving town tomorrow through the weekend, but still: it's been almost two weeks.... I am so ready to get my kitchen sink back....
The other day I got an email from our local live-show concert venue the State Theatre: Leo Kottke is coming to town. I went straight to the tickets page and snagged two, for the fourth row in the middle. February 14: a sweet Valentine's Day present in advance.
Many years ago in this blog I composed a list of "all" the live music I've heard over the years, though I knew I must have missed some. Turns out, the 6- and 12-string guitarist Leo Kottke was one of those I missed. We went to see him several times back in the day. Always a pleasure.
Here are a few videos of him performing. The first one is recent, from 2019, and features his droll stage chatter at the start. I totally remember that gravelly voice. What a pleasure to hear it again.
Here's a shorter one, a medley of a few of his tunes in a video from the early 1980s.
And here's a Tiny Desk (Home) Concert featuring Leo together with his frequent collaborator Phish bassist Mike Gordon, and Phish drummer Jon Fishman. There is singing.
Another occasional offering of a few photos taken on this day, many years ago. For today, November 26, it's just three, from 2007 (on the Gila River, Arizona—a climbing trip), 2009, 2010. (Click on the images to see them large.)
Woke up to FOUR bald eagles (two boys, two gals) cavorting in the trees across the river from us. I was awe-struck by the beauty—not just of the birds, but of the place. Look at it! Imagine it without the eagle sitting there. Then really appreciate the eagle sitting there....
Apple cake . . . about to be turned upside down. For our Thanksgiving feast with Tim & Miranda, Audra, Brittany, and Danielle. Lots of delicious food, good wine, excellent company.
Some old friends (high school/college era) are here visiting for a post-Thanksgiving treat—and another old friend (same vintage) swung through with his girlfriend for a couple of hours, on their way back to LA. We all took a walk to the Frog Pond. It was nice to be together the six of us—it'd been almost ten years for some of us, five years for others of us. We all agreed we shouldn't let so much time pass. (Michele said she wasn't musing so much as just feeling happy, listening to the ducks go Mack-mack-mack.)
I know we've seen the one friend and girlfriend—now wife—many times since 2010. I'm sure we must have seen Michele and her husband, Tom, since then... But it's been a really long time. Here's a resolution for 2024: get up to San Francisco and reconnect. Darn it.
And finally, and more sadly, I'll share a photo of a friend, Sam Gardener, who I just learned passed away on November 1. He was our guide on a photo tour of Orkney and Shetland back in 2010. A rambling fellow full of good cheer, with a great big heart. I called this shot "Sam woos the piggies." As he wooed all who knew him, I'm gathering.
Here's how my friend who sent the email about Sam's passing concluded: "Make time for those you care about, reach out to old friends and lovers, and let them know how much they mean to you—for it’s later than you think."
I started reading Anthony Doerr's first book, of short stories, called The Shell Collector, today, and the title story features, somewhat largely, cones, highly venemous snails of the family Conidae. In the story, they both heal the sick, and kill. Or maybe what they're really doing is transforming their prey, from one state to another.
There's a striking passage in the story about the cone snail's bite:
Under a microscope, the shell collector had been told, the teeth of certain cones look long and sharp, like tiny translucent bayonets, the razor-edged tusks of a miniature ice-devil. The proboscis slips out the siphonal canal, unrolling, the barbed teeth spring forward. In victims the bite causes a spreading insentience, a rising tide of paralysis. First your palm goes horribly cold, then your forearm, then your shoulder. The chill spreads to your chest. You can't swallow, you can't see. You burn. You freeze to death.
So of course I had to find out if there are any photographs of these teeth. I found a brief article about the cat cone, or Conus catus, whose harpoon-shaped teeth, 2.5 mm (0.1 in.) in length, look like this:
There's also a diagram of the snail's strike mechanism, which activates fully in less than 100 microseconds (comparable to a bullet being fired from a pistol), but to get a full appreciation for what it means, I refer you to the article. It's just another example of evolutionary amazingness: too wild to have been "invented" over the course of a seven-day period, let's just say.
The reason for all this harpoonal ballistics is to envenomate fish prey. But it's so potent that, in larger species, it can kill a human. One estimate, in fact, is that the venom of just one Conus geographus, the most venomous of the 700–900 or so species of cones, could kill up to 700 people. Maybe that's an exaggeration, but it is certain that this snail isn't something you want to mess with.
Cone snails have long been sought after by collectors for their beautiful shells. One species, Conus gloriamaris, or Glory of the Sea, which can reach a size of 6 inches, was at one point understood to be so rare that it was valued at thousands of dollars and found only in the collections of museums and the very wealthy. In 1969, however, thanks to scuba, it was discovered in its native habitat in larger numbers, so now it goes for only $100 or so. But is still a favored object of collectors.
Here is Conus textile, the textile cone snail, alive:
And here is a selection of cone snails (not to scale)—fish hunters in the top row, snail hunters in the middle, and worm hunters at the bottom (if you want to know their specifics, go here). You can certainly see why they are favorites of shell collectors.
And yes, the venom of cone snails is being investigated for possible medical use, for example as a powerful painkiller—though delivery remains problematic, so morphine will continue to dominate on that front. Still, research continues.
My father often brought me seashells from his travels when I was a kid. I'm sure I have a cone snail or two tucked away in a box in the garage somewhere. Yet another reminder that I need to get in there and do some heavy culling and sorting...
I just read an opinion piece in the New York Times titled "Powerful Forces Are Fracking Our Attention. We Can Fight Back." It's basically a plea to pay attention—real attention—to the world around us, and, moreover, do it together, to remember that our experience is, or should be, shared experience. It's a plea for us to come together, instead of continually seeking out our own fractured and separate bubbles.
It reminded me of the pleasure I took in some shared photo projects with my friend Susan in New Jersey (whom I've never met in person, but no matter: Susan's wonderful!), which I chronicled over the years here and here and here. Diptych projects: we'd both go out and find a photographic response to something—a letter of the alphabet, say—then put them together into a single two-frame image, and they always worked. It was so nice, to share our excitement and our sensibilities in a creative pursuit. Here are a couple of our results. The first is for N (we both went with "naked," in different ways), the second is for "soft."
Years ago, when I worked as a contributing editor/writer at the California Coastal Conservancy's Coast & Ocean magazine, the editor, Rasa Gustaitis, and I got into a practice of writing to prompts. It might be something like "toenails" or "sherbet" or a photograph, or once an actual topographic map sent through the mail, and we'd both sit and write as soon as we opened the email (or package) with the prompt, then share. It always pleased me to see how much we experienced similarly, and also differently. (Rasa is 20 years older than me, and was a refugee to this country during WWII, while I grew up in milquetoast Santa Monica in the 60s—so we're a bit different. And yet we also have so much in common.)
I think I still have at least some of those prompts, somewhere. I hope so. We often spoke about making a little book of them, illustrated with my photos. I should see if I can find them, and maybego ahead and do that: two copies, one for her, one for me. Rasa will be 90 in May. It would be a sweet gift.
The above article states, "For two centuries, champions of liberal democracy have agreed that individual and collective freedom requires literacy. But as once-familiar calls for an informed citizenry give way to fears of informational saturation and perpetual distraction, literacy becomes less urgent than attensity, the capacity for attention. What democracy most needs now is an attentive citizenry—human beings capable of looking up from their screens, together."
Yes! We need to look up and out at our world, together, absolutely. But that said, we cannot discount the dire need for literacy, an informed citizenry, and critical thinking. There is way too much belief today in lies and (dangerous) alternative realities, in the idea that my take on the world is more... something—important? real?—than yours. (Or maybe I should say your take, and you think it's more important than mine. It isn't, not if it's based in lies, propaganda, and ignorance.)
All of which, all the strife in the world, and the hate-mongering, makes me not so unhappy that I'll be dead soon. But not, I hope, before I take on a few more shared projects with good friends. Or just sit on the beach with a loved one and take in the world together with all our senses. Then share our experience of it all.
Another Thanksgiving Day. Today we are grateful that our Milo seems to be recovered from a bout of... something gastrointestinal. So much so that yesterday, after not eating breakfast, later in the afternoon he insisted we play squirrel fetch. Who were we to refuse? And then he licked his dinner bowl clean.
We are grateful that, even at (almost) 69 and (all of) 70, we still feel no particular aches or pains. They say 70 is the magic age, at which all that starts to change. I reckon I have a year left, anyway. I'm going to milk it for all it can give me.
We are grateful for abundance and comfort. For opportunity and adventure. For family and friends.
Here are a few poems about gratitude:
As If To Demonstrate an Eclipse
I pick an orange from a wicker basket
and place it on the table
to represent the sun.
Then down at the other end
a blue and white marble
becomes the earth
and nearby I lay the little moon of an aspirin.
I get a glass from a cabinet,
open a bottle of wine,
then I sit in a ladder-back chair,
a benevolent god presiding
over a miniature creation myth,
and I begin to sing
a homemade canticle of thanks
for this perfect little arrangement,
for not making the earth too hot or cold
not making it spin too fast or slow
so that the grove of orange trees
and the owl become possible,
not to mention the rolling wave,
the play of clouds, geese in flight,
and the Z of lightning on a dark lake.
Then I fill my glass again
and give thanks for the trout,
the oak, and the yellow feather,
singing the room full of shadows,
as sun and earth and moon
circle one another in their impeccable orbits
and I get more and more cockeyed with gratitude.
—Billy Collins
Gratitude
What did you notice?
The dew-snail;
the low-flying sparrow;
the bat, on the wind, in the dark;
big-chested geese, in the V of sleekest performance;
the soft toad, patient in the hot sand;
the sweet-hungry ants;
the uproar of mice in the empty house;
the tin music of the cricket’s body;
the blouse of the goldenrod.
What did you hear?
The thrush greeting the morning;
the little bluebirds in their hot box;
the salty talk of the wren,
then the deep cup of the hour of silence.
What did you admire?
The oaks, letting down their dark and hairy fruit;
the carrot, rising in its elongated waist;
the onion, sheet after sheet, curved inward to the pale green wand;
at the end of summer the brassy dust, the almost liquid beauty of the flowers;
then the ferns, scrawned black by the frost.
What astonished you?
The swallows making their dip and turn over the water.
What would you like to see again?
My dog: her energy and exuberance, her willingness,
her language beyond all nimbleness of tongue,
her recklessness, her loyalty, her sweetness, her strong legs, her curled black lip, her snap.
What was most tender?
Queen Anne’s lace, with its parsnip root;
the everlasting in its bonnets of wool;
the kinks and turns of the tupelo’s body;
the tall, blank banks of sand;
the clam, clamped down.
What was most wonderful?
The sea, and its wide shoulders;
the sea and its triangles;
the sea lying back on its long athlete’s spine.
What did you think was happening?
The green beast of the hummingbird;
the eye of the pond;
the wet face of the lily;
the bright, puckered knee of the broken oak;
the red tulip of the fox’s mouth;
the up-swing, the down-pour, the frayed sleeve of the first snow—
so the gods shake us from our sleep.
—Mary Oliver
And finally, here is e. e. cummings reciting his poem "i thank You God for most this amazing":
No no, finally finally, just to really change the mood, here is "the greatest thank you of all time," courtesy of Stephen Colbert and the inimitable Hugh Laurie:
Anyway, Happy Thanksgiving, to those of you who celebrate. And to all of you, I hope you can count much that you are grateful for.
But don't, as I won't, forget to be righteously angry about the continued injustices in this world. Both can exist at once: gratitude and a desire to right the wrongs.
This evening we took ourselves out for sushi—only Crystal Fish on Lighthouse was packed, so we migrated two doors down to Namaste, a lovely Indian place we very often end up eating at because Crystal Fish is packed. No loss!
Tonight we ordered vegetarian: pakoras as an appetizer (with three sauces—tamarind, mango, and mint cilantro), then vegetable curry (spicy) and my favorite, palak paneer—spinach with "cottage cheese," sort of like feta only firmer and less salty. I have found a recipe for paneer, though recently it became available at our local Safeway. Still, I might try making it. A little adventure, why not? The ingredients are simple: 2 quarts/liters whole milk and 4 tablespoons lemon juice or vinegar. As for the process of making paneer, here's the link.
And although I might usually present a recipe as my daily offering, the one I'm thinking of using for palak paneer, by nagi, is so beautifully, and craftily, and lengthily, presented that I'll just give the link. And this video:
On the way out of the restaurant, I cranked a toothpick out of the little plexiglass toothpick dispenser, and wondered who ever would have invented such a thing. David said, "Whoever it was, he's rich now." From a toothpick dispenser??? Yeah, probably. Maybe I should try to invent something before I die...
I love collective nouns, and today I stumbled on this cluster of terms for vultures: a bunch of them generally—a committee, venue, or volt; in flight, a kettle; when feeding at a carcass, a wake.
But let's just look at vultures, which are beguiling and beautiful birds. There are 23 species altogether—16 in Europe, Asia, and Africa (such as the African hooded vulture shown here), in the Accipitridae family (which also includes eagles, kites, and hawks), and 7 in the Americas, all in the Cathartidae family. (Although many refer to vultures as "buzzards," those are actually a species of hawk in the Buteo genus, an error perpetrated by the first European settlers in North America, who looked up and saw black vultures and turkey vultures and misidentified them for the buzzards they knew back home.)
All vultures feed on carrion. And that's about where the similarities between Old and New World species seem to end—except that they are all large, magnificent birds when seen in flight. And many—but not all—vultures have a naked head with no feathers. The Old World vultures all find their prey exclusively by sight, but many New World species have a remarkable sense of smell that allows them to zero in on food from great heights, up to a mile away.
Outside of the oceans, vultures are the only known obligate scavengers—meaning, they only eat dead (or almost dead) prey. When the hide of a carcass is too thick for them to open with their beak, they wait until another scavenger does the job for them. They may track the movements of mammal predators from aloft, in order to identify a possible next meal. An exceptionally corrosive stomach acid, which allows full digestion of prey (as well as dangerous bacteria), also prevents them from being eaten by lions, hyenas, cheetahs, and other scavengers. (The image here is a painting by John Banovich, Game of Lions.)
The Andean and California condors of the New World are vultures, along with the black and turkey vultures of North America and the lesser and greater yellow-headed and king vultures of South and Central America. The Old World vultures include the white-rumped, slender-billed, lappet-faced, and red- and white-headed, the bearded, and hooded, and the mighty griffon and cinereous ☝︎ vultures.
Vultures are key players in the Himalayan death ritual known as the "sky burial," or in Tibetan, བྱ་གཏོར (bya gtor), meaning literally "bird scattering" or "giving alms to the birds."
And of course, I must end (before a few more photos) with a note on their conservation status. A 2016 study found that of 22 species of vulture, nine are critically endangered, three are endangered, four are near threatened; the rest are doing okay. Of the endangered species, the threats are generally due to toxins in their prey; this includes lead from the bullets used in hunting (a leading cause of death among California condors), as well as, notably, the medicine diclenofac, which is fed to cattle and causes renal failure in vultures that feed on the cattle (this drug is now widely, though not yet completely, banned for veterinary use, thanks to efforts of Birdlife International). Another threat is intentional poisoning by poachers, who both object to the competition from the birds and are actively trying to keep vultures in check to avoid detection by game wardens, who use the circling birds to identify poachers' kills. Where vulture numbers have gone down, their scavenging services have on occasion been replaced by wild dogs, which then outcompete them, hindering their recovery. The diminishing practice of sky burials in Southeast Asia is also a leading reason for vultures' decline locally.
But let's end with some beauty—because they really are impressive birds (click on the images to see them large).
24. Josh Tuininga, We Are Not Strangers (2023) (11/20/23)
This graphic novel tells the story of Marco Calvo's grandfather, who as a young man, in the 1930s, fled an island in the Sea of Marmara because of persecution—he was a Sephardic Jew—and came to the United States, settling in Seattle. Over time, he found a community, a wife, started a family. Eventually his mother managed to get a visa and join them.
He also loved to fish. And he found a friend—a fishing buddy, Sam Akiyama—whom he shared a bench with as they cast their lines out into the Puget Sound, hoping for a salmon dinner.
Then, in 1942, Sam and his family were incarcerated at Minidoka Camp in Idaho, along with many hundreds of thousands of others of Japanese ancestry, in a dozen camps around the country.
This is the story of Papoo, as Marco called his grandfather. It's also the story of a friendship, and of community, as Papoo and others strove to safeguard their friend Sam's home, business, and belongings, and those of other Japanese in their neighborhood.
This was something Marco did not really know anything about until his grandfather died, in 1987, and he noticed a stranger at the funeral. A stranger, an old Asian man, who was weeping. And he asked, Who are you? How did you know my grandfather?
The story is beautifully told in brief prose snippets, but more especially in the drawings. It's quite moving.
And no: whoever we are, we are not strangers. We all have something deep and meaningful to share, if we just talk to one another.
Here are a few pages from the book—of Papoo arriving and finding community; of him relaxing, as he did, at a cafe with a cup of coffee and the newspaper; and of him walking through Japantown in Seattle, with all the shuttered businesses, realizing that he had to do something to help his friend.
23. Dennis Lehane, Small Mercies (2023) (11/19/23)
I'm not sure I've ever read Dennis Lehane before, though I've seen a couple of his books rendered as movies (Mystic River and Shutter Island; the films Gone Baby Gone and Live by Night are two that I haven't seen). This book was mentioned in a recent list of "best mysteries/detective stories" or some such, and I was curious, so I bit.
It's an excellent book, but also very harsh, in part because the events depicted, set in 1974 South Boston, feel in some ways like they are happening today still. Different details, but same hatreds and power plays. We just don't change, do we?
The backdrop is the impending enforcement of anti–school segregation laws, which will mean the busing of students between all-white Southie and all-Black Roxbury. Tensions are high as a rally approaches and residents of working-class, largely Irish South Boston prepare to make their voices heard. Racism is rampant—tribalism and rage.
Against this, a twenty-year-old Black man is found dead under a train station platform—an accident?—and a seventeen-year-old girl goes missing. The girl's passionate, ferocious mother goes looking for answers—straight into the serpent's den of the local Irish mafia. But she has nothing left to lose: her second husband, Ken Fennessy, recently left her, and her son, Noel, OD'ed on heroin not too long ago. Now, to lose her daughter, Jules, is too much. She does, however, find the sympathetic ear of a police detective from a nearby Irish enclave. And she begins to make progress in her search for the truth.
I won't say more than that about the plot. What Lehane does so well is to create a vivid portrait of that place in that time, of the passions roiling just beneath the surface, ready to burst into flames—literally. (It doesn't help that it's summer and stinking hot.) He also lets us into the nuanced existences of the main characters—especially Mary Pat, the girl's mother, and the detective, Bobby Coyne—slowly and deftly, revealing sides that you might not have suspected, or that simply wouldn't have existed in a less able writer's telling. And the way the facts keep twisting and turning, until finally the truth is revealed: masterful.
I flagged various passages for the sharp writing, such as this, about a boy Jules hung out with:
"I don't give two shits what he [Jules's boyfriend] told you," George Dunbar says to her half an hour later. "It isn't true." [Mary Pat] looks at this handsome kid with his smooth demeanor and his heartless eyes who sold her son his own death in a little plastic baggie. He stares back at her with a gaze so flat and stripped of emotion it would look weird on a Ken doll. George was a part of the fabric of the Fennessy household for about ten years, always running in and out with Noel; in all that time, she never got a clear view of him. It was as if a part of him, a core part, wasn't there when you went looking for it. She mentioned this to Ken Fen once and he said, "Most people we know are like dogs—there's loyal ones, mean ones, friendly ones. But all of it, good and bad, comes from the heart." "What kind of dog is George Dunbar?" "None," Kenny said. "He's a fucking cat."
And here is Bobby Coyne thinking about the two people he's killed in his life, no more than boys—as was he, as an army corporal in Vietnam:
But he knew they were really dead because they were in the way. Of profit. Of philosophy. Of a worldview that said rules apply only to the people who aren't in charge of making them. Call them gooks, call them niggers, call them kikes, micks, spics, wops, or frogs, call them whatever you want as long as you call them something—anything—that removes one layer of human being from their bodies when you think of them. That's the goal. If you can do that, you can get kids to cross oceans to kill other kids, or you can get them to stay right here at home and do the same thing.
And all that still goes on—and in some ways seems to be getting worse. Which is why this book left me feeling so unsettled. But I'm glad to have gotten to know Mary Pat (from a distance) and Bobby, and a few other characters as well, in all their pain and conflictedness, but also their striving hope.
Many years ago I had the pleasure of editing a book for University of California Press of the work of Alaskan graphic artist Ray Troll, Rapture of the Deep. Ray is a fish and fossil fancier as well as a punster. Since then, I've followed him on FB, where just the other day he posted this spectacular photo, taken at home in Ketchikan:
Here's a very brief sampling of some of his work. It's distinctive, erudite, witty—and prolific. I'm glad my job introduced me to Ray. It's one reason I keep on editing: there's always something new to learn about and delight in. I start with what I consider his signature image, seen on T-shirts far and wide:
And if you want to learn more about Ray, he's got a great website. Which includes his other passion, music and his band the Ratfish Wranglers, as well as his podcast Paleo Nerds.
I don't have anything today I'm especially curious about, so I'll just feature a few TED Talks, by climbers—because this evening I watched the documentary Race to the Summit, about the Swiss speed alpinists Ueli Steck and Dani Arnold. And it got me reminiscing about climbing, which I used to do, in a very desultory, and never especially skilled, way. But I enjoyed it. Oh yes, I enjoyed it.
But although I miss climbing, I'm not sure I understand these "professional" climbers. Especially when their "profession" leads to their death. As was the case with Ueli Steck, sadly. Time will tell where Dani Arnold ends up. Free solo climbers are crazy. Never mind the speed.
Anyway, here are a few TED talks, by climbers.
First, Alex Honnold, featured in the 2018 movie Free Solo.
Matthew Childs's 9 lessons from rock climbing.
Emily Harrington on being afraid.
Alison Levine on climbing Mt. Everest.
I still have a collection of (old) ropes, and a double set of climbing protection—chocks, cams, nuts, stoppers, hexes, not to mention a bunch of biners (carabiners, both lockers and non). I probably will never use them again. But so far, I'm keeping them for the pleasure of the memories.
And to finish off, here's a video on placing nuts. Because... nuts! Getting a good placement is so satisfying!
I ran across a post by my FB friend the author and ornithologist J. Drew Lanham about his "Ten Rules for Going Feral," and I just bet if I googled "ten rules," I'd find more such sets. Well, yes! Starting with Aristotle, from his Nicomachean Ethics:
Ten Rules for a Good Life
1. Name your fears and face them. 2. Know your appetites and control them. 3. Be neither a cheapskate nor a spendthrift. 4. Give as generously as you can. 5. Focus more on the transcendent; disregard the trivial. 6. True strength is a controlled temper. 7. Never lie, especially to yourself. 8. Stop struggling for your fair share. 9. Forgive others, and forebear their weaknesses. 10. Define your morality; live up to it, even in private.
I'd say that's all pretty good advice. From a guy who was born in 384 BCE, died in 322. He sure seems a lot smarter than many of our current Congressmen. But don't get me started...
And what, according to Aristotle, are the human virtues? Courage, temperance, liberality, magnificence, magnanimity, patience, truthfulness, wittiness, friendliness, shame, and justice. That's a list of 11, but it works—gives food for thought. You can read definitions of each of these terms here. (Maybe I should send this list to the 535 members of Congress... oh wait, I said don't get me started.)
1. Find a place you trust and then try trusting it for a while. 2. General duties of a student: Pull everything out of your teacher. Pull everything out of your fellow students. 3. General duties of a teacher: Pull everything out of your students. 4. Consider everything an experiment. 5. Be self disciplined: This means finding someone wise or
smart and choosing to follow them. To be disciplined is to
follow in a good way. To be self disciplined is to follow
in a better way. 6. Nothing is a mistake. There's no win and no fail. There's only make. 7. The only rule is work. If you work it will lead to
something. It is the people who do all the work all the
time who eventually catch onto things. 8. Don't try to create and analyze at the same time. They're different processes. 9. Be happy whenever you can manage it. Enjoy yourself. It's lighter than you think. 10. “We are breaking all the rules, even our own rules and how
do we do that? By leaving plenty of room for X qualities.”
(John Cage) Helpful Hints:
Always Be Around.
Come or go to everything.
Always go to classes.
Read everything you can get your hands on.
Look at movies carefully and often.
Save everything—it may come in handy later.
And finally (lest I continue too far down this "Ten Rules" rabbit hole), here are J. Drew Lanham's "Going Feral" rules:
1. Never walk a straight line. Those routes are the institutionalized ones leading to not-so-good ends. Voltage-charged chairs, rooms with forever sleeping beds from which you’ll never arise. Instead follow the flowing irregularities nature draws—the ever-changing splines of surf or shell wrack left by high tide. Track the fox’s four-toed wander along a pond’s muddy margin. Trail the doe’s cloven hopscotch to get nowhere faster than browsing hearts-a-bustin’ will allow. Learn from the swallow and take dips and dives as privileged flight.
2. Wake before the dawn chorus and sing your own song of sunrise.
3. Follow a whippoorwill’s wailing to the dark holler where it calls loneliness, and feel its wanting as your own.
4. Stray away from drama. Let wildness find peace in you.
5. Tell secrets to birds (or butterflies or boulders or bullfrogs or bats) and know they will go no further than the next bird (or butterfly or boulder or bullfrog or bat).
6. Shun concrete. Shutter convention.
7. Feel earth somewhere on your bare human flesh; between toes or fingers, on face or whatever you dare to expose.
8. Be willing to become deer or mouse or thrush or wasp or wildflower. Be fish. Be newt. Be belly low and see the undersides of mushrooms.
9. Curiosity must never wane, but make allowances for ignorant bliss.
10. Stay away from rules that make you otherwise than who [your] heart tells you to be.
I am taking the lazy way out today (as I did on day 1) and posting some photos: those that come up when I search Flickr for "November 15." They're an eclectic little bunch of images, so why not? They date from 2007 to 2010, and all were part of photo-a-day projects, which is why they're dated. (Apparently the second one was mislabeled as the 15th; it was actually taken on the 16th. But I like it, so I include it.) I also include the original captions. (Click on the images to see them larger.)
One dates to 1791 (but isn't valuable because someone put a hole in it), and the most recent are the last solid-silver half dollars and dimes, from the 1960s. The sock they're lying on was my father's baby sock. The Indian head nickel is from 1936 and says simply "Liberty" (no "In God we trust" back then, though "E pluribus unum" is there).
Our turkey friends came by twice today. The first time, they hopped up onto the rickety fence and teetered there for quite some time. This one discovered the fencepost and, while on more or less solid ground, showed off his stuff. Eventually he flew onto the roof (his friend had already flown down by then), and they proceeded to make panicked little cooing sounds. We finally went inside and let them get on with their morning. Wildlife! Ain't it grand?
Met up with Shawn, Lisa, and Andy for the annual lighting of the Fresnel lens at the Pigeon Point Lighthouse. To begin with, they keep the lens stationary, so it shines in 24 directions without moving; after five minutes, they let it rotate, and it sweeps the landscape like an all-white pinwheel. Very impressive! But difficult (okay, impossible) to photograph once it started turning.
Afternoon walk with David at very low tide. Gorgeous clear day. We do live in paradise. How can I forget so easily? (Postscript: six hours later, under cover of darkness, I was in a kayak with a friend cruising around this same area. The parts underneath the wharf were especially fun. Roused a sea lion or two, and a couple of black-crowned night herons—appropriately named, since you don't often see them during the day.)
Spent the day with Grant and Todd climbing at Pinnacles—for the first time in forever. We did fun, easy stuff—well, fun and easy mostly because Todd led everything. Okay, almost everything. I led a 5.8 (no sweat: it was shorter than short), and Grant led a... oh, that's right, I'm not supposed to say (but it was also short). We did five or six pitches in all—not a lot, but no matter. The point is to have fun. And we did. We hope to get back out there within the next few weeks again—and to start making this a habit.
On the way home stopped in Soledad for a beer and met Colette, who's been tending bar at the bowling alley for twenty years. But that's another story.
We never did make a habit of heading out to Pinnacles climbing, though we did have a few more excursions. That seems so long ago now...
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