91st Place

Published: Postcard Shorts

2011-12-29T10:28:00.000-08:00

Another flash story of mine, "Foresight", is now online at Postcard Shorts. This is another potential on-line venue for writers of ultra-short fiction. As the title suggests, submitted stories have to fit in a postcard sized panel (stated limit is 1500 characters, roughly 250 words). For more info, see their homepage, here.

Just in time for Christmas

2011-12-11T06:29:00.000-08:00

The short fiction anthology, Story.Book, is now available from the publisher, Unbound Press. The upside: my most recent flash story, "Inspiration", is in it. The downside: you have to purchase directly from the publisher's UK website, and it's kinda clunky. But for a mere £10.80 (= $15.30) + shipping you get nearly 50 other stories, all prize winners—and you'll be helping to support a small press.

Published: 100 word story

2011-10-31T12:00:00.000-07:00

Nothing like the imperative of self-promotion to bring me back to blogging. Just a quick note that a 100 word story of mine, "Interstate", is now online at...100 word story. I suggest that flash fiction fans and writers, if you haven't heard of it already, might want to check out the rest of this web journal, which is updated monthly. As the title suggests, all stories submitted are required to contain 100 words, no more, no less. Read, write, submit.

Mother's Day 2011

2011-05-08T03:59:00.000-07:00

There's something about this picture of my mom that I really like. Taken in August 1942, before she got married; before my brother and I were even a concept, let alone conceived—before my father died, leaving her to raise us on her own—the photo shows her in simple, crisp attire, possibly dressed for work. She might be worried about something, or just letting her mind wander.

Julia Helen Pactovis Levery (1916-1998)

Not that she didn't absolutely love being our mother, nor that she ceased having an inner life when my brother and I were born (quite the contrary), but somehow I enjoy this mystery about her, from a time when we didn't know each other, a past life before motherhood and going to work primarily for her children's sake took the lion's share of her time and energy. Here, to my eyes, she appears thoughtful, unposed, her attention miles away from the process of being photographed. I have no idea where she is standing; the neighborhood is unfamiliar to me; and I am happy to leave this moment in my mother's life private and unreachable, hers alone.

While this is a day to remember mothers (which should of course be more than one day a year), my thoughts are especially with single mothers everywhere, because I was raised by one.

Japan

2011-03-13T05:28:00.000-07:00

I was going to write something yesterday about the earthquake and tsunami that struck northern Japan on Friday. The initial shock at 2:46 pm (Tokyo time) was followed by repeated aftershocks, while waves as high as 30 feet inundated cities along the coast of northern Honshu, the largest island in Japan. The epicenter of the 8.9-magnitude quake, one of the most severe in recorded history, was about 100 miles east of Sendai, and 230 miles northeast of Tokyo. It was the biggest to hit Japan since they began keeping records in the 1800s. Millions around the world spent some part of Friday watching videos of the devastation on television and the internet. There is no lack of news about it, so there is no point recounting any further details here. I would only recommend that people motivated and able to donate to disaster aid organizations try the Red Cross or Doctors Without Borders. I realize that Japan has the world's third largest economy, and my understanding is that they have not specifically asked for help; nevertheless, the disaster is extensive and these organizations, as well as others like them, are on the ground there.

Rant: Here is the part where I talk about what kept me from writing yesterday, and you can stop reading if you aren't interested in what pisses me off. Naturally, in trying to gather information about the disaster, I went to the internet, where there is plenty of news, along with more commentary than anyone could possibly handle. Some of what I read was certainly valuable, and for the most part the comment stream expressed only empathy and a desire to help. However, there is a segment of humanity (and I use the term loosely) that uses any occasion to vomit their ignorance and bile into the web. In this case, I am referring to hateful braindead comments to the effect that this disaster is some kind of karmic payback for Pearl Harbor. I got my first inkling on a visit to Pharyngula, who had appended to his post a collage of such comments culled from Facebook. "Tsunami/Pearl Harbor!!!Karma is a bitch" says one. "Apparently God hasn't forgotten about Pearl Harbor either...." says another. These are from people not too ashamed to have such shite posted under their real names with photos that show them to be under 30. It didn't take long to find others expressing similar sentiments. This is something only a total fuckwit would say: "...all of the Japanese people who are caught in that tsunami are totally the same ones who bombed pearl harbor/ordered it." It would be understandable, perhaps, if such comments came from WWII veterans or others whose losses during the war are still too painful to leave behind; it doesn't make sense coming from people born long afterwards. Pearl Harbor was 70 years and several generations ago. The Japanese people paid dearly for Pearl Harbor and even worse crimes committed up to and during WWII by the actual participants, who are mostly long gone. The rest of the world, while not forgetting the historical facts and human costs, has moved on.

Let's get it straight: there is no Karma and there is no God behind natural disasters. Japan is located along a subduction zone; there are others located, for example, off the coasts of North and South America. Last Friday it was Japan; tomorrow it could be the US. We live on a restless planet. Earthquakes happen because of Plate Tectonics; they are not due to the machinations of karma nor the wrath of some invisible all-powerful being who feels the need to punish homosexuals or some poor country that supposedly made a pact with the Devil in 1791. If there really were a God, idiots who promote and repeat such stupid and hateful ideas would be instantly struck by lightening or swallowed up by the earth like Dathan (Num 16:31). Unfortunately, they are not.

Glenn, don't forget the Packers...

2011-02-19T11:46:00.000-08:00

are a non-profit, community-owned franchise. That's a collective, so I assume they fall into group three of Beck's New World Order...and ya know, how many of those cheeseheads could be hiding a kufi underneath? Well, actually, there wouldn't be anything wrong with that at all, not that Glenn would have any idea. In any case, collective ownership, that's so un-American, it couldn't possibly work! Oh, wait, didn't they just win Superbowl XLV? Not to mention 13 league championships altogether. Pretty suspicious, maybe they don't even win the American way, maybe they get their playbooks every year from the Muslim Brotherhood or, who knows, Karl Marx himself.

Glenn Beck explains how unions in Wisconsin are creating chaos "on the backs of the workers" (did I hear that right?)

Well, let's get a couple of things straight; the New World Order, Republican style, is no control over corporate lawlessness, no state or federal services, no funding for non-profit healthcare providers, especially if they're providing services to women, and definitely no unions. And right now the ones trying to get over on the backs of workers are Gov. Scott Walker and the Wisconsin Senate Republicans, in their blatant attempt to strip collective bargaining rights from state employees under the guise of balancing the budget. Yes, I think everyone understands that financial sacrifices have to be made to keep the the State afloat, but this isn't merely about wages and benefits, but legislating away the right to collective bargaining, which is a cornerstone function of worker's unions. I'm heartened by seeing state workers refusing to roll over (yes, Glenn, there was some angry rhetoric, but the protests at least through Friday, have been non-violent, and I didn't hear anyone threatening to bring guns if their wishes aren't granted); by the show of solidarity by the Firefighter's Union, the (albeit temporary, as it must be) protest departure of Senate Democrats; and, frankly, by the results of an opinion poll that shows the majority of Wisconsin residents oppose Walker's bill. Unfortunately, it looks like it will pass, and it is too late for those who granted the Republicans control of the State House, the Senate, and the Assembly, and who now say they disagree with the upcoming legislation, to take their votes back.

Nosing around Nørrebro (15)

2011-02-19T06:32:00.000-08:00

Feeling lazy, so make up your own stories if you want. Random photos from the past couple of years, in no particular order:

"Rainbow" (Back of traffic sign, Sortedams Dossering, 11 April 2009)

A patron saint of something or other...? (Building on Blegdamsvej, overlooking Sankt Hans Torv, 14 February 2010)

"Cops In Jail!!!" (Graffiti along path under Dronning Louises Bro, 23 August 2009)

A graffitic remnant of "Klimakonference 15" (COP15) that took place in København 07-19 December 2009 (Somewhere along Fredensgade, 11 July 2010)

"Spyo (Heart) Afeks*...on State Support" (Apartment building, Guldbergsgade, 22 May 2009)

*Near as I can figure, these are the nics of a couple of graffiti artists operating around Nørrebro. For what it's worth, note that one S in the middle of "Statsstøtte" is superfluous.

The will of the people...

2011-02-12T05:49:00.000-08:00

Congratulations to the Egyptian people on not backing down until their dictator had no choice but to remove himself. Of course this is just a first step toward democracy, but the most important one. Of course we don't know what will happen next. Will it be like America in 1776? Or just a continuation of the same military rule with different faces. Or the next Iran 1979? Or something completely different. Whatever happens, it is for Egypt to decide, and other democracies in the world will accomplish a lot more in their own interest by showing support and respect for the Egyptian people and their revolution than by succumbing to hysterical predictions, anti-Muslim fearmongering, and conspiracy theories. If we show some trust, perhaps instead of Egypt becoming the next Iran, we will see Iran becoming the next Egypt.

(Reuters, 11 February 2011)

The will of the people is the only legitimate foundation of any government, and to protect its free expression should be our first object.

--Thomas Jefferson

Better than the Comedy Channel...

2011-02-07T12:02:00.000-08:00

If you haven't seen this already, check out Glenn Beck and Bill O'Reilly heatedly discussing the popular uprising in Egypt (as of the 31 January 2011 edition of "The O'Reilly Factor" on Fox News) as though either one had a clue. After a couple of minutes of mostly checking off points of agreement (O'Reilly: "All right, let's connect the dots, here...so Mubarak, bad guy, right?"), Beck starts to veer wildly off the reservation around 2:30, and we get the spectacle of a mere fanatic like O'Reilly trying to throw a lasso around fellow pundit Beck, who is actually discussing the history of some other planet, and what he really needs here is to get fitted for a tinfoil cowboy hat.

My question is, why would O'Reilly even bother bringing Beck on his show after viewing 20 minutes of this:

No further comment except that the ongoing feud between Beck and Bill Kristol has me LMFAO.

The alternate universe of Michele Bachmann

2011-01-28T12:01:00.000-08:00

Listening to Michele Bachmann's astounding readings of American history is like watching one of those episodes of Star Trek where the Enterprise crew stumbles into some parallel dimension with an alternate reality; world events have followed a diffent path, everyone's role is reversed, Kirk is a mass-murderer, and instead of the Federation there is an evil Terran Empire. Parts of her recent speech to Iowans for Tax Relief (sorry, it was just too long to embed here in its entirety--the scathing critique from CNN's Anderson Cooper will have to do) reminded me of that Ray Bradbury short story, "A Sound of Thunder"; it was as if someone had gone back to the Cretaceous era on a Time Safari, accidentally stepped on an insect, and changed the Earth's history.

Everyone arriving on America's shores has had the same status since its founding? Our Founding Fathers "worked tirelessly until slavery was no more in the United States"? Did I wake up last Friday on some alternate Earth? What kind of drug does Bachmann put in her Kool-Aid? Her cluelessness would be laughable if she wasn't an elected official with real power. And she says she wants "to be in the conversation" for the 2012 Presidential campaign? One vote for this ignorant, fact-challenged, McCarthy wanna-be would be too many.

Educated? Yes. Ruling class?....I don't think so.

2011-01-15T14:12:00.000-08:00

Here is the great populist Rush Limbaugh on his radio show last Thursday, tearing into Brit Hume, Charles Krauthammer and Chris Wallace for their positive comments on President Obama's Arizona eulogy (verbatim remarks transcribed via HuffPost: Rush Limbaugh Rips Fox News Panel For 'Slobbering' Over Obama Speech, Panel Responds).

Limbaugh: "They were slobbering over it for the predictable reasons," he said. "It was smart, it was articulate, it was oratorical. It was, it was all the things the educated, ruling class wants their members to be and sound like."

Krauthammer later responded: "As one of the three slobberers...I find it interesting that only the ruling class wants a president who is smart articulate and oratorical in delivering a funeral oration...it's an odd and rather condescending view of what the rest of America is looking for in their president."

Well, as one who is both educated and appreciates a President who can express coherent thoughts in complete, grammatically correct sentences, let me affirm that Rush is indeed correct except for one small detail: he has more wealth and power in his fat left pinkie than me and all of the educated people I know put together. I have about as much power as my single vote entitles me to, and influence no one who doesn't already more or less agree with me. I am not rich and most assuredly not part of the "ruling class". Am not now and have never been.

And how much is Rush Limbaugh worth? Something like $400 million over 8 years through 2016? Which is in turn based on the presumed breadth, wealth, and influence of his listenership? And he represents the underclass? Or does this lying hypocrite represent, more likely, the media bigshots who pay his humongously inflated salary (yeah, I know Clear Channel has recently been on the brink of bankruptcy, but its owners are still Limbaugh's corporate masters)?

Welcome to Pakistan Arizona

2011-01-09T05:18:00.000-08:00

How much further comment does this really need? "TUCSON — Representative Gabrielle Giffords, an Arizona Democrat, and at least 17 others were shot Saturday morning when a gunman opened fire outside a supermarket where Ms. Giffords was meeting with constituents. Six of the victims died, among them John M. Roll, the chief judge for the United States District Court for Arizona, and a 9-year-old girl, the Pima County sheriff, Clarence W. Dupnik, said." (In Attack’s Wake, Political Repercussions, Marc Lacey and David M. Herszenhorn, NYT 08 January 2011).

First of all, my thoughts are with the victims (at this writing Giffords is still alive but in critical condition with a bullet wound to the head, while the dead include her director of community outreach, Gabriel Zimmerman, 30; a nine-year old girl identified as Christina Green; John M. Roll, 63, the chief judge for the United States District Court for Arizona; Dorothy Morris, 76; Dorwin Stoddard, 76; and Phyllis Schneck, 79) and their families.

What's wrong with this picture? Only last Tuesday, Salmaan Taseer, the governor of Punjab, Pakistan’s most populous province, was assassinated by one of his own bodyguards, who by his subsequent statements implied that this act was justified by Taseer's campaign to have Pakistan's anti-blasphemy laws amended. Doubtless many of us, if we noticed the event at all, took the occasion to reflect on what a savage country Pakistan must be, where the course of history appears hostage to conspiring conservative politicians and fundamentalist religious lunatics.

Lucky for us, we don't live in such a place! But maybe we can get there yet. On the one hand, as many have already noted, there is growing in the US, especially since runup to the 2008 Presidential election and afterwards, a palpable atmosphere of "Violence-laced political rhetoric" promoted by right wing politicians, pundits, and bloggers. Thus the main intended victim, Congresswoman Giffords, was a Democrat squarely in the cross-hairs of right wing incitement. On the other hand, I have seen numerous comments suggesting that the captured gunman, Jared Lee Loughner, is actually a Liberal. Some of his classmates suggested as much. What is readily apparent is that he is a lunatic; but whose lunatic is he? Listed among Loughner's favorite books are Mein Kampf, We the Living, Plato's Republic, and the Communist Manifesto. The last, it has been suggested, is evidence for his Liberal fanaticism. Of course the author of Mein Kampf was also a well known Liberal (I've read explicit comparisons to President Obama, I suppose by people who don't know their left from their right), but what to make of We the Living, Ayn Rand's semi-autobiographical, anti-communist first novel? Does that make Loughner an Objectivist assassin?

Further evidence I've seen put forward for Loughner's supposed lefty associations: Giffords is a centrist, a Blue Dog Democrat, not a strong supporter of gun-control nor of open borders; and Judge Roll was a 1991 GHW Bush appointee. But how does that stack up against Giffords' 100% positive rating by NARAL and her strong support for renewable energy? Loughner apparently has no known Tea Party or other organized right-wing associations; fair enough, he's not that kind of crazy, just one more psychopath who brought his paranoid delusions to a deadly end with a 9mm Glock pistol carrying 30 rounds in the magazine. Maybe it's arguable whether or not the climate of violent rhetoric somehow provided a facilitating or suggestive atmosphere for Loughner's acts (personally I wouldn't shrink from arguing the pro side of that question); however, there's a bigger issue than eliminationist rhetoric at stake here, something much more fundamental and long-standing: why is it so easy for these crazy fuckers to get guns?

52 Books In 52 Weeks

2011-01-01T20:08:00.000-08:00

Last 01 January, mindful of how few books I've read in recent years, I made a New Year's resolution: to average a book a week throughout 2010. As it happens, I actually read 53. For what it's worth, my list follows, in reverse chronological order:

Tariq Ali, The Protocols of the Elders of Sodom and Other Essays
William Kennedy, Ironweed
Cormac McCarthy, The Road
Robert Alter, Necessary Angels: Tradition and Modernity in Kafka, Benjamin, and Scholem
David Shields, Dead Languages
Kazuo Ishiguro, Never Let Me Go
Jonathan Safran Foer, Everything Is Illuminated
Carolyn Forché, Gathering the Tribes (Yale Series of Younger Poets)
Jonathan Franzen, The Twenty-Seventh City
Nathalie Sarraute, The Use of Speech
David Albahari, Götz and Meyer
Claude Simon, The World About Us
Michael Chabon, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay
Alan Furst, Blood of Victory
Charles Simic, Night Picnic: Poems
Lawrence L. Langer, Editor, Holocaust Testimonies: The Ruins of Memory
Susan Sontag, Against Interpretation
Roland Huntford, Scott and Amundsen
Claude Lévi-Strauss, Totemism
Fanny Howe, Selected Poems (New California Poetry, 3)
James Tate, Worshipful Company of Fletchers
Hjalmar Söderberg, Doctor Glas
Charles Simic, A Wedding in Hell
Paul Auster, The Invention of Solitude: A Memoir
Howard Goldowsky, Editor, Masters of Technique
Jacobo Timerman, Chile: Death in South
Stephen Jay Gould, Urchin in the Storm: Essays About Books and Ideas
Don DeLillo, White Noise
Kenneth R. Miller, Only a Theory: Evolution and the Battle for America's Soul
Hans C. Ohanian, Einstein's Mistakes: The Human Failings of Genius
Susan Sontag, On Photography
Philip Roth, The Plot Against America
Jacobo Timerman, Cuba: A Journey
James Tate, Dreams of a Robot Dancing Bee
Jo Walton, Farthing (Small Change, #1)
Raul Hilberg, The Destruction of the European Jews (revised 1985 edition in 3 volumes)
Orhan Pamuk, The White Castle
Russell Edson, The Tunnel: Selected Poems of Russell Edson
Charles Simic, Orphan Factory: Essays and Memoirs
Roberto Bolaño, Amulet
Roberto Bolaño, By Night in Chile
Philip Roth, The Humbling
Kim Addonizio, Lucifer at the Starlite: Poems
Marcel Proust, Within a Budding Grove (Remembrance of Things Past, No. 2, Vintage)
James Gleick, Chaos: Making a New Science
Fumiko Enchi, Masks
André Malraux, The Royal Way
Amos Oz, To Know a Woman
James Tate, Riven Doggeries (American Poetry Series; V. 18)
Lawrence D. Kritzman, Auschwitz and After: Race, Culture, and "the Jewish Question" in France
Nicholson Baker, The Anthologist
William Gibson, Mona Lisa Overdrive (Sprawl Trilogy, #3)
James Edward Young, Writing and Rewriting the Holocaust: Narrative and the Consequences of Interpretation

This the first resolution I've ever successfully met. So I'm going to renew it for 2011.

Published: Just in time for the New Year

2010-12-31T13:43:00.000-08:00

A new flash story of mine, "Fear" just went up at the website "Litsnack" (if you follow the latter link to the Litsnack home page, you can reach the story through the "Fiction" link). It will be the top story there for about a week, then move down as new stories are published.

"New" is a bit of a misnomer, since it took 4 years for me to find a home for it. Actually a "classic" case where a change of point of view (from first to third person) seemed to have finally done the trick. It's only 455 words, so there's no excuse, y'all better read it! And if you like it, please leave a comment there so the editor will see for sure he didn't make a mistake.

More Snow

2010-12-27T09:35:00.001-08:00

Holed up in Gloucester, MA, after the blizzard; still snowing actually. This was my first attempt ever to blog directly from my primitive three year old mobile phone, which took this photo of Good Harbor Beach from my room at the Vista Motel. Because I didn't bring my real camera. Well, okay, done....

R.I.P. Captain Beefheart

2010-12-19T13:18:00.000-08:00

Saddened by the news that Don van Vliet, AKA Captain Beefheart, passed away on Friday, of complications from multiple sclerosis. He was 69.

He was a true original. I was fortunate to have discovered him relatively early, acquiring "Trout Mask Replica" not long after it came out in 1969; to see him twice in live performances with incarnations of The Magic Band, and to see him one final time with Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention on their joint 1975 "Bongo Fury" tour. I still listen regularly to "Trout Mask Replica", "The Spotlight Kid" (1971) "Clear Spot" (1972), and the joint Zappa/Beefheart/Mothers "Bongo Fury" (1975). It's not for me to recount his whole biography here (Wikipedia does a pretty decent job, with appraisals of all his albums and numerous references); real fans know what he's been up to since his retirement, and I've been blessed with friends who are also fans and know enough send me stories and links when they come across them. A number of us can still recite from memory long stretches of the strange, compelling poetry in those albums.

My master's thesis (Northeastern University, Chemistry, 1976) contains the following epigraph taken from the back of The Spotlight Kid:

The stars are matter

We're matter

But it doesn't matter

- Don Van Vliet

It was reported to me a couple of months after my defense that this quotation had the professors in the Chemistry Department exchanging puzzled looks ("Who is Don van Vliet?" "Captain Beefheart." "Who? Who the hell is that?"), which I took at the time as a clear indication of its absolute rightness. Aside from stretching the possibilities of rock and blues, Beefheart spoke my language--before I really knew what that language was. But that's about me, and I'd rather leave you with these lyrics from "Steal Softly Thru Snow" (Trout Mask Replica"):

The black paper between a mirror breaks my heart

The moon frayed through dark velvet lightly apart

Steal softly through sunshine, steal softly through snow

The wild goose flies from winter, breaks my heart that I can't go

Energy flies thru a field 'n the sun softly melts a nothing wheel

Steal softly through sunshine, steal softly through snow

The black paper between a mirror breaks my heart that I can't go

The swan their feathers don't grow - they're spun

They live two hundred years of love - they're one

Breaks my heart to see them cross the sun

Grain grows rainbows up straw hill

Breaks my heart to see the highway cross the hill

Man lived a million years 'n still he kills

The black paper between a mirror breaks my heart that I can't go

Steal softly through sunshine, steal softly through snow

- Don van Vliet

Chaos (A Belated Review)

2010-04-17T09:06:00.000-07:00

Finally got around to reading James Gleick’s book Chaos, which has sat on my shelf in a succession of houses and apartments I’ve inhabited since I bought the book in 1988, about a year after it came out. [1]

Don’t ask me why I waited so long, but it’s a terrific book. Gleick has a great facility for making abstruse scientific ideas understandable, for putting the evolution of concepts into a coherent continuum of historical and logical development, and for providing insightful glimpses of the social and intellectual context in which science actually advances: the variegated and colorful personalities of scientists, their inner thoughts (covering the wide range from deeply penetrating or utterly mistaken), and the many ways they interact with each other. In addition, I really appreciate his ability to interweave examples from art and science where they can provide mutual illumination of a difficult topic. A particularly delightful example brought Wallace Stevens into a discussion of the work of the French physicist Albert Libchaber, who was performing fundamental studies on the onset of disordered flow (turbulence) inside an elegant experimental system consisting of liquid helium trapped in a rectangular stainless steel convection cell, “about the size of a lemon seed.” Early in this chapter, Gleick invokes Stevens to make a scientific point about the nature of “the abstract, ill-defined, ghostly thing called flow.” [1]

“The universality of shapes, the similarities across scales, the recursive power of flows within flows—all sat just beyond reach of the standard differential-calculus approach to equations of change. But that was not easy to see. Scientific problems are expressed in the available scientific language. So far, the twentieth century’s best expression of Libchaber’s intuition about flow needed the language of poetry. Wallace Stevens, for example, asserted a feeling about the world that stepped ahead of the knowledge available to physicists. He had an uncanny suspicion about flow, how it repeated itself while changing:

‘The flecked river
Which kept flowing and never the same way twice, flowing
Through many places, as if it stood still in one.’

Stevens’ poetry often imparts a vision of tumult in atmosphere and water. It also conveys a faith about the invisible forms that order takes in nature, a belief

‘that, in the shadowless atmosphere,
The knowledge of things lay round but unperceived.’ ” [2]

Later in this passage, about “These experimenters, the ones who pursued chaos most relentlessly, succeeded by refusing to accept any reality that could be frozen motionless.” Gleick continues, “Even Libchaber would not have gone so far as to express it in such terms, but their conception came close to what Stevens felt as an ‘insolid billowing of the solid’:

‘The vigor of glory, a glittering in the veins,
As things emerged and moved and were dissolved,

Either in distance, change or nothingness,
The visible transformations of summer night,

An argentine abstraction approaching form,
And suddenly denying itself away.’ ” [3]

It’s not difficult to figure out why discussions of chaos theory and practice readily evoke affinities and analogies with the visual, sonic, and literary arts; much about the creative process has to do with alternately submitting to and organizing chaos; finding patterns in apparent disorder; observing and analyzing nature (or one’s own thoughts), and discerning previously unsuspected relationships (and inventing new ways to describe them). The relationship between music and mathematics, which underpins the fields of physics and chaos, is well known; nor is it surprising that Mandelbrot patterns are appealing, that depictions of turbulence are staples of the visual arts, or that writers learn to travel knowingly along the contiguous territories of chance and purpose. “Chance seems to us then a good and useful thing, for we discern in it as it were rudiments of organization, of an attempt to arrange our life….” [4]

If you have a decent background in elementary physics and mathematics, and aren’t already acquainted with such terms as “Mandelbrot set”, “fractional dimensions”, and “strange attractors”, but they sound like things you really would like to know about; or if you are a layperson just wanting a glimpse (the pictures are cool!) into the world of “non-linear behavior”, “boundaries of infinite complexity”, and “organized chaos”, this book, even more than two decades since its appearance, is still a good place to start. [5]

[1] James Gleick, Chaos: Making a New Science (New York: Penguin Books, 1987), pp.195-196. See also footnote [5].

[2] Gleick quoting Wallace Stevens, “This Solitude of Cataracts,” The Palm at the End of the Mind, ed. Holly Stevens (New York: Vintage, 1972), p. 321.

[3] Gleick quoting Wallace Stevens, “Reality Is an Activity in the Most August Imagination,” The Palm at the End of the Mind, ed. Holly Stevens (New York: Vintage, 1972), p. 396.

[4] Marcel Proust, Within a Budding Grove (C. K. Scott Moncrieff, translator), Remembrance of Things Past [À la Récherche du Temps Perdue/In Search of Lost Time] Volume II (New York: Vintage Books, 1970), p. 293.

[5] Note that there is a more recent edition of the book out since 2008: James Gleick, Chaos: Making a New Science—20th Anniversary Edition (New York: Penguin Books, 2008). ISBN: 0143113453.

Denmark Day 745

2010-02-14T12:17:00.000-08:00

København's Søerne ("The Lakes") have been frozen solid for weeks, now, but I haven't had a chance to pay much attention, camera-wise, since I've had some more important things to worry about, like where I was going to live after 31 January. That problem's been solved for the moment, so here goes:

Sortedams Sø and Sunday morning traffic on Øster Søgade.

Taken from my 3rd floor room in a University gæsteobolig (guest home). The lakes are pretty shallow, so there's no doubt they're frozen solid all the way to the bottom; basically they've been turned into a giant ice tray, with a layer of snow on top. Only under a couple of the bridges is there any unfrozen water remaining.

Buildings on Søtorvet.

Taken from somewhere on Sortedams Sø.

Sectional couch, island on Sortedams Sø.

I'm sure this little island has a local name, which I don't know, but the key thing is that this happens to be one of those years when it's accessible on foot. The couch looks kinda comfy.

Statues on Dronning Louises Bro.

That's Peblinge Sø behind them, with Søpavillionen in the far background. I'm sure she's saying something like "Damn, it's frickin' cold out! Why are we sitting here without our coats on?"

All photos taken 14 February 2010.

Denmark Day 739

2010-02-08T13:02:00.000-08:00

This photo (not mine) says it all about biking around in Copenhagen in the dead of winter, which has been colder than usual this year.

(Photo and quote credit: Hebster. "Alone. Or as alone as it is possible to be on Fredensbro on a sunday afternoon. Shot on a shit-cold second sunday in [February] 2010.")

Late evening the same Sunday this picture was taken, it's around -10 C (14 F), and I'm walking SE over the very same Fredensbro (this is one of the bridges over the Søerne—the lakes that form the western border of downtown København). Mildish 10 mph headwinds, not very challenging if you're just walking around (and your last place of residence was New Hampshire), but the air is, after all, coming off a frozen lake. When I'm about halfway across, I hear a young woman exclaim in accented English to her friend as they cycle past on my left, "This is NOT very wonderful...I'm killing my bike NOW!"

And IMRISL (rolling in the snow laughing).

Haiti....

2010-01-14T09:40:00.001-08:00

As usual, I'm about 48 hours behind the news curve, but what does it matter? The point is that they will need a lot of aid now and over the next few weeks, and the only question is which organization can make the best use of whatever one can donate. A good idea is to go with organizations that are already set up, have a good record with % of donations that actually goes to those who need it, and are already on the ground in the disaster area. I went on-line with the Danish Medicins Sans Frontieres/Læger Uden Grænser (www.msf.dk) Haiti Emergency Fund. If anyone wants, the corresponding Doctors Without Borders site is here.

The state of gay rights in Uganda may be changing

2010-01-13T10:44:00.000-08:00

for the worse. This isn't a new story, really, but in case anyone doesn't know, a severely worded anti-gay bill, introduced by MP David Bahati in October 2008, has been making its way through the legislative process in Uganda. The new law would make possible life imprisonment, or even the death penalty, for having homosexual relations in Uganda. Sentences up to 7 years are also possible for anyone offering protection or support to gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgender persons. It now appears that a vote on the bill is imminent.

Is it possible to do anything about it? One course of action would be to write to your local Congressional Representative, recommending he or she sign on to condemnatory letters introduced by Representatives Tammy Baldwin, Barney Frank, and Jared Polis. One of these letters is addressed to Ugandan President Museveni, the other to US President Obama. An action site with a supporting letter to send to your own Representative is available at Amnesty International USA.

Will it help? I believe anything that shines a light on a situation like this, no matter how ineffective it might seem at first glance, can have an effect. It is always better than doing nothing. Museveni, it should be noted, has already said he does not support the bill (New York Times, 08 January 2010), and, according to the NYT story, Uganda's "Minister of State for Investment Aston Kajara said the government would ask Bahati to scrap the bill because they fear backlash from foreign investors." Worldwide outcry could work to strengthen the executive will to oppose the legislation, even if it gets a cosmetic face-lift (like lifting the death penalty). Although the Obama White House has already issued an official condemnation (see, e.g., "White House Condemns Antigay Uganda Bill," by Kerry Eleveld, The Advocate, 12 December 2009), the bill clearly hasn't gone away; Bahati has refused to withdraw it. I don't believe President Obama has spoken personally on the subject; if he did, Ugandans might indeed take notice.

Another question that I've seen asked is whether it's appropriate for westerners to "dictate" to an African country what their internal policies should be about anything? As one irate (and obviously homophobic) commenter wrote at the Amnesty International blog:

"It is their country and they can make laws the[y] deem fit. Why should the west dictate what africa does. It seem to me that the western countries have made a mess of the world."*

To which I replied:

(a) Nazi Germany could have made the same argument; (b) fine, but I suggest western countries follow Sweden’s lead and cut back sending Uganda foreign aid; (c) would you make the same argument about a country that passed a law banning Islam (or Christianity, or any custom you want to name that you approve of) and making its practice an offence punishable by imprisonment or death?

Of course you could substitute in (a) for Nazi Germany any of a number of places past and present. Any reasonably awake person knows where they were and are. And maybe you can make whatever laws you want in your own country, but we also have the right not to support you, trade with you, share diplomatic relations, play your soccer teams, or invest a dime within your borders, have a nice day. I would add to (c) that it's always easy to advise laissez-faire as long as it's not you getting thrown in jail for speaking out against your government, not your family being persecuted for being the wrong religion, not your tribe getting slaughtered. Have western countries "made a mess of the world"? Sure, we have a lot to answer for. Is that an excuse for silence? I don't think so. I wonder what a gay or lesbian in Uganda would say.

*Actually, there's a bitterly ironic point here, since conservative US church "missionaries" (not to mention influential religious figures like Rick Warren, who has been backpedalling furiously) have already involved themselves in Ugandan sexual politics, to the detriment of gays there (see, e.g., "Americans Role Seen in Uganda Anti-Gay Push," by Jeffrey Gettleman, New York Times, 03 January 2010).

Happy New Year!

2009-12-31T06:27:00.000-08:00

As a year end treat, I can't resist recommending the Onion's wonderful summing up, The Top 10 Stories of the Last 4.5 Billion Years. My favorite is #5, Sumerians Look On In Confusion As God Creates World. Have a great 2010!

Contest

2009-12-20T04:57:00.001-08:00

Wadizit? (View 1)

Wadizit? (View 2)

If you have an idea what the item in these pictures is, post it as a comment or email me an answer at zalman@theunguardedasylum.com. First one with a correct answer (judged by me, before midnight, Copenhagen time, 31 December 2009) will receive a gift certificate from Amazon worth $25 US (assuming there is a practical way for the winner to receive it).

Hint: it isn't a cooking appliance or an early prototype of a lunar lander.

In Old San Juan (2)

2009-12-19T04:31:00.001-08:00

Monumento En La Plazuela De La Rogativa, Old San Juan, PR (28 November 2009)

The bronze sculpture by Lindsay Daen (1971) commemorates a religious procession (rogativa) on the night of 30 April 1797 that saved San Juan from a siege by the British. According to the story, a bishop and women carrying torches and singing hymns fooled the British into thinking that Spanish reinforcements had reached the city. The next morning, the invaders were gone.

Monumento En La Plazuela De La Rogativa (another view).

The monument can be found on the edge of the city's west wall, overlooking San Juan Bay; it stands at the end of Caleta de las Monjas, just inside the San Juan Gate entrance.

In Old San Juan (1)

2009-12-13T06:33:00.000-08:00

"Polo Norte, Fabrica de Sodas" (North Pole Soda Factory), storefront facade, Old San Juan, PR (28 November 2009)

Got back recently from a conference in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Some of us arrived a day early, so a friend and I spent a few hours on a hot Saturday afternoon wandering around Old San Juan. I saw quite a few interesting tourist sights, but the one I found most interesting was this imaginative mural decorating the front of an old establishment on a street too narrow for me to get a head on photo of its entire width with my unsophisticated all-purpose lens. The inside looked gutted, and the halted parade of shipping crates in front suggested materials for an ongoing renovation of the interior.

"Polo Norte, Fabrica de Sodas" (North Pole Soda Factory), storefront facade, left panel detail, Old San Juan, PR (28 November 2009)

I found one reference to this mural on the web, accompanied by an indirect assertion that the storefront was 120 years old, but this might be a slight overestimate. A Wiki biography of Ángel Rivero-Méndez (October 2, 1856 – February 23, 1930) stated that he founded "Fabrica Polo Norte" after his retirement from the Spanish Army on 18 April 1899. So it's doubtful this store could be more than 110 years old, which is still pretty old. Rivero-Méndez seems like an interesting guy; the bio credits him with ordering the first shots fired against the US in the Spanish-American War (on 10 May 1898), as well as inventing "Kola Champagne", a drink that is apparently still popular in Puerto Rico. He had a degree in Industrial Engineering, and as a Captain in the Army, he was assigned to teach math and chemistry. He was also a politically active journalist, and was once sent to jail for an article he wrote that was critical of the government; however, he was pardoned just before the beginning of the war. Later in life he wrote a well-regarded history of the Spanish-American War, "Crónica de la Guerra Hispano Americana en Puerto Rico" (Chronicles of the Spanish American War in Puerto Rico).

According to Wiki, he was a severe chronic depressive, and "on February 23, 1930, he committed suicide by shooting himself in his house located in Trujillo Alto, Puerto Rico. His remains are buried in the Old San Juan cemetery."

Notes for a family history (2). Deducing a coherent narrative of immigration from recollection and record (i)

2009-11-25T09:11:00.000-08:00

Exactly 85 years ago, on 25 November 1924, the White Star Line steamship “Majestic” arrived in the Port of New York; on it were a 32 year old self-professed housewife, Melanie Klein Grünberger Paktorovits, and the first four of her five children, Josef, Jolán, Alexander, and Edith. They had come all the way from Užhorod, in Carpathian Ruthenia, then the easternmost region of the young nation-state of Czechoslovakia, to join Melanie’s husband Salamon, who had arrived in the US four years earlier, and was living in the Roxbury area of Boston, Massachusetts (for an earlier take on the story, see my previous post in this series, "What's in a business card?"). Jolán, who was 8 years old at the time, was my mother. In the photograph below, which I believe was taken within a year before the family left Czechoslovakia, she is in the center; Josef and Alex are on the left, and Edith is on the right, her head resting on my grandmother’s left shoulder. The family was not quite complete until a fifth child, Rosalind, was born to my grandmother in the US, in 1927.

My grandmother, Melanie Paktorovits, with the first four of her five children: (from the left) Josef, Alexander, Jolán (my mother), and (on the right) Edith. This photograph was taken some time around 1923-1924, just prior to their emigration from what had formerly been the city of Ungvár, Hungary, but was by that time Užhorod, Czechoslovakia [1].

About the journey, I have the following fragments of my mother’s recollections, as I rather dimly remember them. One thing I recall my mother telling me is that their voyage was delayed when her sister Edith initially failed to pass a pre-immigration medical exam. In the story as I remember it, Edith had presented with some condition that was curable, but precluded the family’s immediate immigration to the US. A second related fragment I remember is that they spent time in England while they were waiting. A third fragment of the story is that they had to make the train trip from Užhorod twice before finally getting on the boat to the US. The second and third fragments don’t necessarily contradict each other; they could have journeyed twice from Užhorod and also spent time in England. On the other hand, it seems like doing both would have made for a rather complicated contingency plan. After all, it’s not like they were on a sightseeing holiday. In any case, I attribute any inconsistencies or inaccuracies in this fragmentary story to my imperfect recall, not my mother’s.

Another story related to the journey came from my Uncle Alex, who was 7 years old at the time. In this case I have the conversation on tape from a “phone interview phase” I went through in the late 1990s. When I asked him about his earliest memory, he said that he could recall standing next to his older sister, my mother, on the deck of the ship as it left Cherbourg, waving goodbye to their grandparents, who were standing on the dock to see them off; these would have to have been my grandmother’s adoptive parents, Elek Grünberger and Regina Berkovits Grünberger [2]. Alex remembered that he had continued to wave at them as they grew smaller and smaller and finally disappeared from sight.

At one time or another my mother described many more details about her childhood and the journey out of Užhorod, but I’ve forgotten almost everything she related to me from that time. Realizing this years ago, I had begun to question her more closely, trying to pay more attention, even recording our conversations; I made resolutions to go over with her again, at the earliest opportunity, the oldest photos in her albums, making sure I knew who everyone was, and what she could remember of their stories. When she died suddenly in 1998, that phase was over; there would be no more chances to revisit her past in the more organized, systematic fashion I had planned. At the same time my brother Philip and I found ourselves in possession of her cache of family documents, of whose existence we had been completely unaware. Since I had already nominated myself the family historian, and was particularly interested in the tasks of preservation and research, my brother generously agreed to let me take full possession of all the documents and photo albums [3].

The documents we inherited included some fascinating items, such as records of pre-emigration medical exams for our grandmother and her children in Svatobořice, Moravia, that were issued on 20 August 1924; and the White Star Line steamship ticket my grandmother bought for the trip the very next day in Prague. More recently, I acquired access [4] to pages of the “List or Manifest of Alien Passengers for the United States Immigration Officer at Port of Arrival” for the relevant voyage of the SS Majestic, which sailed from Southampton, England, on 19 November 1924, stopped at Cherbourg to pick up passengers on the Continent, and arrived at the Port of New York six days later.

The examination certificates and steamship ticket, along with the early photos from my mother’s albums, and her laconic, sometimes cryptic, occasionally incorrect annotations, brought a wealth of new questions concomitant with the loss of the person best able to answer them. One of the first things I noticed was that among the original medical examination reports, issued at the “Government Emigration Station in Svatobořice, near Kyjov (Moravia)” on 20 August 1924, there was one for my grandmother (reproduced below) and one each for three of her children, Josef, Alexander, and Jolán, but there was none for Edith. Why is that? I asked myself at the time.

A pre-emigration medical examination and vaccination certificate, signed on 20 August 1924 at the “Government Emigration Station in Svatobořice, near Kyjov (Moravia)" (the city of Kyjova is in South Moravia, in the modern Czech Republic). This particular document was issued for my grandmother, Melanie Paktorovič; I have similar certifications issued on the same day for three of her children, Josef, "Julie," and Alex Paktorovič, all born and last residing in Užhorod, Podkarpatská Rus (a version of the name of the semi-autonomous region of eastern Czechoslovakia at the time).

Second, their steamship ticket, issued on 21 August 1924, specified their departure from Cherbourg, on 26 August, yet the Manifest of Alien Passengers shows their actual point of departure as Southampton and the embarkation date as 19 November (the sections listing their names, ages, and genders are reproduced below). For over ten years, before I gained access to the Manifest, I had only the ticket specifying the date and place of departure, and had no reason to assume anything other than that represented their actual itinerary on the way to the US. Now I had new questions. Why did they miss the 26 August voyage out of Cherbourg? What were they doing from then until 19 November? And why is the family listed on the Manifest as sailing from Southampton?

Passenger name section of the steamship ticket to the US for my grandmother and her children, made out on 21 August 1924. The document lists Melanie Paktorovits, 32 years of age, and her children, Josef (9), Jolan (8), Alexander (7 — he was actually a month short of that age), and Edith (4). The Czech headings are easily interpreted without need of a dictionary: Surname (Příjmení); given name (Jméno); age (Věk); sex (Pohlaví); male (muži); female (žena). They were scheduled to sail from Cherbourg (Cherbruken) to New York City (Newyorken) aboard the White Star Line ship Majestic II [5], departing from Quai Alexandre 3 on 26 August 1924.

Passenger name section (colums 1-7) of the List or Manifest of Alien Passengers for the United States Immigration Officer at Port of Arrival showing entries 21-25 for my grandmother and her children, made out for the Port of New York arrival of the SS Majestic on 25 November 1924. The document lists Melania Paktorovits, 32 years of age (she was actually 33 by this time), and her children, Josef (10), Jolan (8), “Alexanfra” (7), and Edith (4). The name and gender for my Uncle Alex are plainly incorrect. The listing of the older children’s “Calling or Occupation” (column 7) as “Scholar” rather than “Student” looks odd, considering they were still of elementary school age, while the corresponding entry for 4 year old Edith as “Child” seems like an unintentionally comic redundancy.

I reasoned that the answers might lie in the old stories about my Aunt Edith’s failure to pass her medical examination. This could explain why there was no certificate for her in the bundle I inherited. Assuming she passed a subsequent exam, perhaps the paperwork ended up in a different place. The 3 month delay would be consistent with a layover necessitated by some unforeseen medical contingency; so, unable to board the Majestic on 26 August, they had gone back home, or to England, and were simply waiting for Edith’s condition to clear up before finally getting on the boat to the US in November. But, I still wondered, were they waiting in England or Užhorod?

As mentioned above, the usual itinerary for the Majestic’s trans-Atlantic run called for a stop at Cherbourg to pick up passengers on the European mainland before setting out for New York. It occurred to me at first that perhaps all the passengers were listed collectively on the Manifest according to the Majestic’s point of origin in Southampton, regardless of their actual point of embarkation, but a quick check of the rest of the Manifest for the voyage showed that passengers who boarded the vessel in Cherbourg were listed on separate pages (as were those in other cabin classes, as well as shiphands and other employees). Either version of the family's itinerary raises questions, but in any case the fact that they are all listed explicitly among passengers who boarded the Majestic in Southampton confirms that the final leg of their journey began in England [6].

Then again, if it is true that Edith had no medical certificate on 20 August, did my grandmother realize, when she purchased the steamship ticket the next day in Prague, that they would not be allowed to board the ship bound for New York on 26 August? Was she hoping that somehow it wouldn’t be considered a serious problem if they got as far as Cherbourg, and was their failure to get past the emigration authorities a rude surprise that called for working out a reasonable plan B on the spot?

Fitting Alex’s story into the narrative raises some additional questions. Clearly, it means that my grandmother’s parents accompanied her and her children on the trip to Cherbourg. But if they had to go from Užhorod to Cherbourg twice, did the Grünbergers also go with them both times? Or, if the family went to England instead to wait for the next opportunity to emigrate after 26 August, did the Grünbergers go there with them? And if the Grünbergers only went as far as Cherbourg, was my Uncle Alex then waving goodbye to them on a deck not of the Majestic but of some other vessel, a ferry perhaps, that was simply making its way across the Channel to England and not immediately to America? On the other hand, if he was really waving a final goodbye to them from the deck of the Majestic, as he seemed to remember, doesn’t this imply that the Grünbergers were at the time standing on a dock at Southampton, not Cherbourg? Either one of the two versions would be consistent with Southampton, rather than Cherbourg, as their actual point of departure on 19 November. But where does that leave my mother's story of two trips from Užhorod? And if they all spent nearly three months in England, where were they living, and how did that work? Again, I have no idea.

By way of reconciliation, I offer a third narrative summing up what could be consistent with most of the memories as well as the basic chronological outline given by the documents. At the first attempt, after Edith fails to pass the medical exam, my grandmother buys the ticket to the US anyway, still hopeful that perhaps they can talk their way onto the Majestic on its scheduled 26 August departure. On the way to Cherbourg, she and her parents develop some contingency plan if it doesn’t work out, which is what happens. Rather than subject her daughter to the more stessful train ride back to Užhorod, my grandmother takes Edith with her to England on a tourist visa. Perhaps they also feel that Edith can receive better (or at least very good) medical treatment in a more modern city in England. The Grünbergers are not poor, and can pay for this, but it's not practical for them all to stay in England indefinitely, so they take the older children, Josef, Jolán, and Alexander, back home. Then, when Edith recovers and is able to pass a medical exam, in November, they bring their grandchildren to England, where they can rejoin their mother and Edith. This is the second trip my mother remembers. On 19 November, Elek and Regina Grünberger now board the Majestic with their daughter and grandchildren in Southampton, disembarking at Cherbourg. There, my Uncle Alex can now stand beside his sister, my mother, waving to their grandparents from the deck of the Majestic as it sails away to America.

Notes

[1] The area, which had been Hungarian territory for around a millenium, was made part of the newly formed country of Czechoslovakia by the Treaty of Saint Germain (1919) and the Treaty of Trianon (1920), a result of Hungary's alliance with the losing side in World War I. Under the Czechoslovak government, Subcarpathian Rus, as it was called (in Czech or Slovak, Podkarpatská Rus) retained a significant degree of autonomy. In November 1938, the southern part was re-occupied by the Hungarians as a result of the Munich Agreement and the First Vienna Award; in March 1939, they occupied most of the remainder. Towards the end of World War II, Hungary, including its re-acquired territories, was occupied by the Germans. Before being overrun by the Red Army, the German SS and cooperating Hungarian units managed to wipe out most of the Jewish population of Subcarpathia. (In terms of pure numbers, Hungary as whole had the third most Shoah victims, after Poland and the Soviet Union; unlike the Jewish communities of Budapest and many other European cities, which have experienced remarkable resurgences, the Jewish presence in Subcarpathia has not only not recovered, it has actually declined since 1945.) The area has been since the end of World War II part of the westernmost province (Zakarpat'ska Oblast) of the Ukrainian SSR and, since 1991, of the independent state of Ukraine. If that sounds complicated enough, it's actually an oversimplification of the region's history, which has included several brief periods of interim governance and self-declared independence.

[2] My grandmother's biological mother, Yetta Moskovits Klein, died around 1894, when she was around 3 years old. Though her father, Zigmund Klein, was still living, she was adopted by Elek and Regina Grünberger (Elek was probably a relative of Yetta's mother, Rose Grünberger). Since my grandfather's mother, Hana Moskovovits, died in 1918, only the Grünbergers could have been present as a couple in 1924. My grandfather referred only to them in his writing, while my mother referred to them exclusively as her grandparents. With the exception of one picture of Yetta Moskovits, the only pictures in my mother's albums labeled as "grandparents" are of the Grünbergers.

[3] Except for our father's burial record. He planned to visit the gravesite, which neither of us could recall ever seeing.

[4] Through Ancestry.com.

[5] This was actually was the second ship christened "Majestic" (see, e.g., http://www.titanic-whitestarships.com/WSL_2nd%20Majestic-Bismarck.htm).

[6] This shows there is some additional value in being able to access all the pages of a document, such a ship manifest, not just the ones with the names of family members on them.

Random views of København (2)

2009-09-06T07:17:00.000-07:00

Gammel Kongevej at the corner of Stenosgade in København V, viewed diagonally across Sankt Jørgens Sø from Svineryggen

The steeple centered in the background is of Jesu Hjerte Kirke (Jesus Heart Church), located at Stenosgade 4A. The building to the left houses the Mariendal Friskole (Mariendal Free School), at Stenosgade 4C.

A closer view of Stenosgade, viewed south from Gammel Kongevej

A slightly better view of the Church complex on Stenosgade

The building just south of the church on Stenosgade, at the corner of Vesterbrogade, seems to be an apartment house with street level shops and impressive cylindrical corner towers. I wouldn't mind owning an upper floor apartment, facing the narrow street, with a tower room to read in. Fat chance.

All photos taken 23 August 2009.

Nosing around Nørrebro (13). "This Way Up"

2009-09-05T05:55:00.000-07:00

Sometimes nosing takes me underground, in analogy to the truffle pig, which earns its keep sniffing out highly prized genera of the family Tuberaceae, those delicious edible fungal symbiotes found buried in the soil of forests and countrysides around the world, growing in close association with the roots of a variety of tree species. Of course I'm not looking for anything in particular, and I don't generally use my nose to direct my search. More likely, I just stumble across something that happens to be in my path, and find it interesting or amusing for reasons that can sometimes be difficult to explain, like these boxes I noticed occupying a long corridor in one of the basements of the Panum Institute, where I work. There's always construction and renovation going on somewhere in the building, so it's no surprise to see a lot of boxes stacked on palettes. What caught my eye were the rather generic looking labels, like the cans of "FOOD" in Otto's parents' house in "Repo Man" (1984). The majority were marked "SLAVE"; after some searching, I found a couple of palettes with boxes marked "MASTER". The scene kind of reminded me of a song from the 1970s, by the Akron, Ohio band Tin Huey, "I Could Rule the World, If I Could Only Get the Parts" (Contents Dislodged During Shipment, 1979).

"Slave" boxes (The Panum Institute, København)

"Slave" boxes, closeup

"Master" boxes (The Panum Insitute, København)

"Master" boxes, closeup

A further source of amusement (for me, and that's what matters most) was the trilingual sticker indicating the proper orientation of the boxes for moving and storage. The Danish version, Denne Side Op, which I would have translated as "This Side Up", looked sensible, being exactly what I would have expected to see back home; but the translation given, "This Way Up", accompanied by a pair of bold red arrows, as if you might not fucking know, was just another absurdity. Sorry, people, this is how I keep myself amused in a foreign country where I am still out of the native conversation after 19 months.

Oh yeah, the actual contents of the boxes? Fluorescent light fixtures.

All photos taken 12 August 2009.

Edward M. Kennedy, 1932 - 2009

2009-08-26T08:17:00.000-07:00

Just read that Senator Kennedy died last night. There's a 7 web-page obit in the NYT, and there will be plenty of well-earned tribute and commentary to come—with doubtless a few jars of vitriol flung from some quarters—so there's no need for me to say much. A few moments of silence and a virtual tip of the hat would be more like it. Although he lacked the blinding flash of his charismatic brothers, John and Robert, I think one could make an appropriately understated epitaph for Edward out of Kevin Costner's line in Field of Dreams: "The man's done enough."

Futurist Centennial

2009-08-25T11:30:00.000-07:00

Umberto Boccioni, "Forme uniche della continuità nello spazio" (Unique forms of continuity in space, 1913, cast in 1931). Photo taken 25 July 2009.

One of my favorite sculptures, on permanent exhibit at MOMA, my favorite art museum, to which I feel compelled to make a pilgrimage every time I'm in NY. This year BTW is the centennial of Futurism, launched officially by the Italian writer Filippo Tommaso Marinetti with publication of his "Futurist Manifesto" on 5 February 1909 in La gazzetta dell'Emilia. A French version was subsequently published in the Paris newspaper Le Figaro on 20 February 1909 (an English translation of "The Founding and Manifesto of Futurism" by F. T. Marinetti can be found here). Of course it's mostly rubbish, but poetic rubbish, which has some merit—and within scarcely more than a decade the movement produced a body of truly compelling visual art (Futurism died "officially" with Marinetti in 1944, but in Italy it had petered out well before then). Marinetti and other Futurists also associated themselves early with Fascism, and with Musollini, but the relationship was complicated, and there were leftist and anti-Fascist adherents. There was also a strong Futurist movement in Russia, but it didn't survive much beyond the Revolution of 1917. Boccioni himself checked out in WW I, on 17 August 1916, at age 34—thrown from his horse and trampled during a cavalry training exercise (another tragic waste in an idiotic war).

If you don't know about Futurism and the Futurists, you could start by checking out the Wiki entry; (there is also an entry for "Unique forms of continuity in space"—no, I didn't know its image now graces the obverse of the Italian 20 cent euro coin). A good web resource with links to writings by and about the Futurists, and a plethora of additional info and images, can be found here. An excellent Italian resource with a multitude of links to current events, exhibitions, and scholarship on Futurism is here. Of course you can also see a number of great Futurist works in the MOMA collection any time you're in NY; or, if you're going to be in London in the next couple of weeks, check out the centenary Futurist exhibit at the Tate Modern before it ends on 20 September (Tate Modern has its own copy of this Boccioni work, cast in 1972, and a number of other works; unique pieces on loan from other collections are also featured). I could almost go myself; London isn't that far away from Copenhagen, and flights are pretty cheap.

What's in a business card? Notes for a family history

2009-08-15T06:30:00.000-07:00

Business card printed for my grandfather, Samuel Pactovis—born Salamon "Samu" Paktorovics—some time between 1920 and 1927.

I was born and raised in Queens, New York, where my grandparents and their children settled some time after their immigration to the US. Although some of my grandfather’s siblings had settled before him in the Boston area, I never thought of my immediate family, including my grandparents, as anything other than New Yorkers from day one. This image persisted long after my grandparents, who co-owned with my mother our three-story wood-frame house on 91st Place [1] in Elmhurst, migrated to Los Angeles; my brother, and later my mother, moved to Glen Burnie, MD; and I wandered off to Boston, then Seattle, San Francisco, Athens, GA, and Durham, NH. But one day a few years ago, as I looked through the earliest of my mother’s photo albums, I was struck by the realization that the first pictures of her and her family in the US, which I had probably seen many times before, were taken in the back yard of a house somewhere in Dorchester, an incorporated neighborhood of Boston. Mom had marked them with the caption, “A New World! Dorchester, Mass. U.S.A. 1924-1925.” In the photo below, they were almost literally right off the boat, having left Uzhorod, Czechoslovakia (formerly Ungvár, Hungary), only a few months earlier (additional photos and documents concerning their emigration can be found elsewhere). Except for the youngest child, Edith, grinning in the foreground, they all appear pretty solemn and weary. The Star-of-David locket my mother is wearing gives away their Jewishness.

My grandmother, Melanie Pactovis (Melán Klein Paktorovics), with her first four children, (from the left) Jolán (my mother), Edith, Alexander, and Josef, soon after their arrival in the US.

In fact, the ship that brought my grandmother and the first four of her five children to America had clearly landed in New York City; I have the original passenger ticket showing she'd purchased a single second class cabin on the White Star Line steamship “Majestic (II)” on its regular Southampton-Cherbourg-New York run during August-September 1924 (my grandfather, shown in the photo below, had already immigrated four years earlier, in 1920) [2]. The photographs, with my mother's note, showed that they hadn’t stayed in New York, but had migrated immediately to Boston, where my grandfather was established (more or less) and waiting for them [3].

My grandfather, ca 1920, just prior to his emigration from Czechoslovakia. The photograph is signed "Paktorovits Salamon" [4]—in the Hungarian manner, with his surname first—and was evidently affixed to some official document, such as an identity card, visa, or passport.

I don’t know precisely where my grandfather entered the US, but that he would have gone to the Boston area upon arrival makes sense, since two of his brothers, Daniel and Morris, were already living in the vicinity with their families [5]. That this was the case is further evidenced by the business card reproduced above, which I found on the same page as the Dorchester photos; it credits him as the "proprietor" of a “Beauty Parlor and Bobbing Shop” on 345a Blue Hill Avenue in Roxbury, the Boston area neighborhood immediately west of Dorchester. My first reaction on seeing the card was, like, WTF, I can’t believe this! This couldn’t be the man I had known—not that there’s anything wrong with the beauty business, but I just couldn’t picture him involved in the activities listed on the card. Facial massage and manicuring? Marcel waving? Had he gone to beauty school on his arrival in the US? Well, I knew he had held a number of different jobs in his life, but I guess the man would have tried just about any profession in his youth [6].

I don't have any evidence that my grandfather's La Fontaine Beauty Parlor was successful; in any case, he soon left it behind and headed for New York, and by 1928 his children were enrolled at P.S. 102 in Elmhurst, Queens. The 1930 US Census record shows him living with his family (there were 5 children, now, including my Aunt Rosalind, born in 1927) at 93-14 Corona Avenue, in Elmhurst, Queens, NY, and lists his profession as "Conductor, Rail-road ".

Historically, at the time my grandfather lived with his family in Roxbury, it had a substantial Jewish population; according to the Wikipedia entry for Roxbury, Boston, “[a] thriving Jewish community developed around Grove Hall, along Blue Hill Avenue, Seaver Street and into Dorchester along Columbia Road. A large Irish population also developed, with many activities centered around Dudley Square, which just before and following annexation into Boston, became a central location for Roxbury commerce. Following a massive migration from the South to northern cities in the 1940s and 1950s, Roxbury became the center of the African-American community in Boston.” The latter is the way I remember it from the time I lived in Boston, from 1966 to 1979, but at that time I had no idea my mother's family had lived there before me. At least I don't remember her ever mentioning it, even though I knew a number of our relatives in the area.

The Crawford Street Synagogue (congregation Beth Hamidrash Hagadol), completed in 1915, was just down the street from where my grandfather was living when his family joined him (#97 Crawford Street, according to their entry on the "Manifest of Alien Passengers" of the Majestic II, scheduled to arrive at The Port of New York on 25 November 1924 [2]). Also nearby were the Blue Hill Avenue Synagogue (built in 1905 by congregation Adath Jeshurun) at 397 Blue Hill Avenue; Temple Mishkan Tefilah, built on the corner of Elm Hill Avenue and Seaver Street in 1925; and what is now the Charles Street African Methodist Episcopal Church on 551 Warren Street (corner of Elm Hill Avenue), which was built in 1888 and is still there, having been added to the National Historic Register in 1983 (the Charles Street A.M.E. congregation acquired the building in 1939). The building that once housed the Crawford Street congregation is no longer used as a synagogue, but the adjacent Crawford Street Memorial Park Cemetery, established in 1925, is still there [7]. Whatever building my grandfather had his shop in is gone. The latest Google Maps Street View for the location shows what appears to be an open concrete foundation, either from an old building torn down or a new structure about to be erected, on the corner where #345 probably stood.

Additional notes:

[1] It's still there at 48-30 91st Place, 3 houses in from the corner of 50th Avenue, on the left (west) side of the street.

[2] Their actual itinerary must have been more complicated, because the ticket specified their departure from Cherbourg, on 26 August, but the “List or Manifest of Alien Passengers for the United States Immigration Officer at Port of Arrival” (which I found while researching this essay earlier today), shows their actual point of departure as Southampton, the embarcation date as 19 November, and their scheduled arrival date at the Port of New York was 25 November. I believe the explanation lies in a story I recall my mother telling me, that their voyage was delayed when her sister Edith initially failed to pass a pre-immigration medical exam.

[3] The “Manifest of Alien Passengers” entry for the Paktorovits family is actually quite confusing with respect to their intended destination, and the process of deciphering it is almost worth an essay in its own right. In the "final destination" column on the left page, "N.Y., New York" is given; then, on the right hand facing page, it’s clearly typed that they are to join my grandmother's “Husband—Mr. S. Paktorovits”, but his address is given as “97 Crawford Street, Roseburry, Mann.” Underneath this, the initials “NY” had been handwritten in pen or pencil. Of course this makes no sense whatsoever; there is no US State that would have been abbreviated as “Mann” (someone may have surmised that this referred to Manhattan, hence the “NY” appended underneath); and there is no town or neighborhood of "Roseburry" anywhere in New York State (or anywhere else in the US, as far as I can tell). There are places called "Roxbury" in NY, but one is a section of Breezy Point adjacent to Fort Tilden and Jacob Riis Park, and the other is a town upstate in Delaware County. There is no evidence that my grandmoher knew anyone in those places. What does make sense is that there was and still is a Crawford Street in Roxbury, Mass., and that #97 is three blocks from the corner with Hollander Street, on which Samuel Paktorovits’s younger brother Daniel was living at #54 with his family (at least at the time of the 1930 US Census). From 97 Crawford Street, it would have been a walk of about 3/4 mile or less to my grandfather's shop on Blue Hill Avenue.

It also makes sense that my grandmother's lack of English (not to mention US geography) at the time could have led to some confusion about their actual destination. She may have given NY as the "final" destination simply because that's where the ship was going to land. It's also relevant, perhaps, that she did have at least one relative, her sister-in-law, Regina, in NYC, and she may have taken her children to stay temporarily with Regina's family before heading up to Boston. It's quite conceivable she didn't know precisely where she was going to end up.

Interestingly, the Manifest entry contains an additional error, inexplicably rendering the name of her youngest son, Alexander, as "Alexanfra", and his sex as "F". The only explanation I can think of is that the clerk who typed the record somehow got the idea that my Uncle Alex was a 7 year old girl named Alexandra, and then compounded the mistake by mis-typing "f" in place of "d" (the two letters are adjacent on my keyboard, at least). I think it's clear one has to interpret such documents with a critical eye; it helps especially to have complementary sources, such as photos and other documents, and some knowledge (either personal or researched) of local geography and history. In this case, some concrete knowledge about my grandfather’s closest relatives provided additional context.

4] The spellings of the family surname as "Paktorovics" or "Paktorovits" were equivalent and used interchangably, and would have sounded essentially the same in Hungarian (i.e., cs or ts in Hungarian = ch or tch or tsh in English). In Czech/Slovak, the equivalent rendering would have been Paktorovič, as can be found on my grandfather's post-WWI Czech passport; omitting the inverted carat (haček) over the "c" converts its sound to an English ts instead of ch. Such omissions are common occurrences in transcription, either through neglect or lack of the proper symbol on the keyboard, and can lead to some confusion about the original pronunciation of a surname.

[5] All three Paktorovics brothers who came to the US, Morris, Daniel, and Salamon (Samuel), changed their surname to Pactovis upon their arrival.

[6] I thought about titling this essay "Views of My Grandfather Waving" (with apologies to the late great Donald Barthelme). It's possible the primary skill he brought to the shop was supervision, since he'd been a Reserve Feldwebel (a rank roughly equivalent to Sergeant Major) in the Austro-Hungarian infantry during WWI. His company was dedicated to construction (baukomagnie), assigned to a medical unit (sanitätsanstalten), and possibly responsible for building field hospitals. Whatever he did, he was apparently good at it, since he received at least two awards for meritorious service, although these were not for combat. I've written about this in more detail elsewhere.

[7] The Blue Hill Avenue Synagogue was sold in 1967, then later acquired by the First Haitian Baptist Church in 1978 and restored; it is now also on the National Historic Register. The Mishkan Tefilah congregation moved out of its synagogue on Seaver Street in the 1950s, and the building was later owned by the Elma Lewis School for the Performing Arts; it was acquired in 1997 and restored as a church by the United House of Prayer.

100th Post

2009-08-15T06:03:00.000-07:00

A major milestone. Uhhh...might as well get it over with.

Gate, somewhere in Hellerup (05 April 2009)

Waiting for the Lion King

2009-07-25T08:04:00.000-07:00

Street Vendor, New York City, SW corner of West 53rd Street & 6th Avenue (24 July 2009)

I haven't been to NY for a while, and the image of people of all ethnicities and walks of life waiting in a long line for some halal rice and chicken at lunch hour struck me as emblematic. A Google search clued me in that this food cart is quite a bit more famous than the pair of rather impressive statues right nearby, one of which is pictured below. At least on the Internet, it was more straightforward to find information (and arguments) about the vendor. Anyone wants to clue me in about the sculptures, feel free....

Statue, New York City, SW corner of West 53rd Street & 6th Avenue (24 July 2009)

Franken, finally....

2009-07-01T01:57:00.000-07:00

The long recount in Minnesota is over. The Democrats now control, at least in principle, the 60 vote majority necessary to end filibusters ("Franken’s victory bolsters Democratic grip in Senate", by Monica Davey and Carl Hulse, NYT, 30 June, 2009). That could change in a heartbeat (or failure of one, given the poor health of Democratic Senators Byrd and Kennedy), but for the moment I got particular enjoyment out of this quote from Texas Senator John Cornyn: “With their supermajority, the era of excuses and finger-pointing is now over.” Except by Republicans, of course.

Random views of København (1)

2009-05-23T06:02:00.000-07:00

"Fadl" building, SE side of Blegdamsvej, near Tagensvej, Nørrebro

Peaked roofs in Frederiksberg, viewed across Sankt Jørgens Sø from pathway off Vester Søgade

The actual buildings are on either side of Danasvej, between Vodroffsvej and Danas Plads. Definitely worth a closer look.

Willows, Sankt Jørgens Sø, corner of Kampmannsgade and pathway off Vester Søgade

All photos taken 11 and 12 April 2009.

Speaking of shameless promotion...

2009-05-17T05:02:00.000-07:00

I recommend viewing the following video of "Goodnight Romeo" by Dan King KBMG featuring Kathy Aptt and homespun footage of Gloucester MA locals—hi Sieglinde* hi Anne Marie!—and locales (that's Gloucester's own Rhumb Line Bar & Restaurant the band is performing in):

*Disclaimer: Of course it's a great tune, but in the interest of full disclosure I have to mention I have a rooting interest in Dan's success—Sieglinde is my daughter and Dan is her boyfriend. So buy the CD already!

...and shameless name-dropping...

BTW it took me a couple of seconds to figure out that KBMG stands for King, David Brown, Dave Mattacks, and Wolf Ginandes, respectively. People with decent memories for musical "heritage" might recognize Dave Mattacks as the much-traveled former drummer of English-Electric-Folk luminaries Fairport Convention. Fairport's seminal 1969 album, "Liege & Lief", blew me away when it first came out, and it hasn't worn out its welcome in my listening repertoire 40 years later. So when I heard that KBMG would be playing a gig at the Rhumb Line while I was visiting my daughter in Gloucester last year, I was all set to use my "connection" with the band to pounce on Mattacks like a 16 year-old groupie in high heat.

Okay, that's an exaggeration, and would've been pretty impossible since Mattacks, who now lives in Marblehead MA, is a pretty down-to-earth individual; he seemed simply, genuinely pleased to meet his band-mate's girlfriend's father, who just happens to remember with great fondness and respect some incredible music he helped make several decades ago. Unlike yours truly, Mattacks projects the straightforward, unpretentious persona of a guy who is secure, in constant demand for his talents, and has no need to look back at his past with retrospective envy. Trying to curry favor, I mentioned how much I had enjoyed a Fairport concert in Boston around 1972-73. Unfortunately, he averred, he wasn't with the band for that tour. Just my luck! While I mentally shot myself in the head, he continued talking like just another guy in a bar getting ready to go back to work.

Family Values

2009-05-11T06:11:00.000-07:00

Ahoy, a flash story of mine has just been published on-line at Everyday Weirdness ("Family Values", 11 May 2009). It's a familiar trope if you know classic science fiction themes, but it may be just entertaining enough for a 3 minute read. Cheers!

Nosing around Nørrebro (12)

2009-04-11T13:30:00.000-07:00

"Spyo"

Truck parked on east side of Blegdamsvej, just south of Tagensvej

House on northeast corner of Ewaldsgade and Åboulevard

Building front, west side of Sortedam Dossering

Delikatesy Polskie Storefront—Åboulevard 36

Yeah, they have their own pictures on their website, http://www.delikatesypolskie.dk/, but I just love this trompe l'oeil storefront window too much not to take my own shot at it.

All photos taken 11 April 2009.

Not exactly the Easter Bunny

2009-04-10T03:47:00.000-07:00

Half-mast Danish flag on Dronning Louises Bro—View northwest towards Nørrebro (09 April 2009)

It's Easter vacation time, and the weather is beautiful, so not many Danes are working unless they have to. Among the "not many" are myself and a few insane co-workers trying to get a couple of extra experiments in before the weekend. Of course we do try to get outdoors for lunch, at least. Yesterday a colleague and I ended up getting our lunch from Non Solo Pizza (Nørrebrogade 18b), a nice Italian takeout place not far from work. While we were waiting for our pizzas to bake, we walked out along Nørrebrogade and over Dronning Louises Bro, the bridge over Peblingesø that connects on the other side with Frederiksborggade, which continues on towards Nørreport Station and København K. On the way, Katrine noticed that Danish flags were flying half-mast on the Fredriksborggade side of the bridge but—strangely—all the way up on the Nørrebrogade side. We thought at first it had something to do with Easter, and tried to come up with some rationale why they were at half-mast only on one side of the bridge.

The photo above, taken from the Frederiksborggade side, documents the situation. Just about 2 minutes after I took it, two city workers showed up and started to raise the flag all the way up. When Katrine asked one of them what this was about, he explained that it had nothing to do with with Easter; the flags were at half-mast to mark Danmarks besættelse, the day the Germans invaded Denmark in 1940. Last year I noted Danmarks befrielse, the day the German occupation ended in 1945; well, you can't have a befrielse (liberation) without a besættelse (occupation). Sure enough, my Danish desk calendar shows 09 May as a day to fly the flag at half-mast until 12:00. We now guessed that the guys must have just finished raising the flags on the Nørrebrogade side before we got there; maybe they had a smoke before raising the other pair on the Frederiksborggade side.

But why are the flags flown at half-mast only until noon, Katrine asked the worker. "We wouldn't want to spend a whole day on this," was his reply.

A squad of Danish troops on the morning of the German invasion, 09 April 1940, photographed near Bredevad in Southern Jutland. Two of these men were killed later that day.*

*This image file is a work in the public domain, obtained from Wikimedia Commons (File:Danish soldiers on 9 April 1940.jpg). Original source: C. Næsh Hendriksen: Den danske Kamp i Billeder og Ord, Odense: Bogforlaget Dana, 1945, p. 18.

Kitchen Summit, 1979

2009-04-09T02:20:00.000-07:00

(excerpted from an ongoing longer work....)

Liam is at it again, and Eric is wondering if it isn’t time to say something. Sitting at the kitchen table, staring into a small mirror propped up against a coffee cup, Liam is removing every whisker on his face, one by one, with a pair of tweezers. A miniature gooseneck lamp provides high intensity illumination. He's going about this daunting project systematically, having mentally divided the total surface area of his face into approximately one inch square sectors, each of which he defoliates completely before going on to the next. Liam has spent most of the last the three days at it, with interruptions only for brief meals, bathroom breaks, televised NBA games, and sleep. He finished the right side of his face last night, and has now started on the left. He shows admirable dexterity, considering the evidence of recent extreme violence to his right hand—scabbed over scrapes and dark bruising of the knuckles—whose origin Eric is curious about.

"Have you thought about electrolysis?" Eric asks. He's picked up the half used loaf of Pepperidge Farm 7-Grain on the table, and started to extract a slice from the wrapper, when he notices he's disturbing a rather large roach that seems to have made itself a home inside. The roach is very agitated about the interruption of its late afternoon siesta, and is squirming uncomfortably in the suddenly tight and unstable space between the plastic and bread. Eric reseals the package, throws it into the microwave, sets the timer for 1 minute, and turns the power on with the setting at "High."

"Yeah," says Liam, "I looked into it, but it's expensive."

"It might be affordable if you had a job," says Eric. The bell goes off on the microwave. He takes the loaf out and tosses it, without further inspection, into the garbage can under the sink. "I'm just trying to be helpful, of course...I mean...the point is that your beard will eventually grow back, right? Not much different from shaving, right?" The line of Liam's gaze doesn't wander a single degree from the mirror in front of him.

"Well, this is better than shaving, because it takes a while for the hair to re-emerge from the follicle." Eric starts to say something like, yeah, but shaving only takes five minutes, and by the time you're completely done with this, it will be just about the time you have to start over, but thinks the better of it. He is actually more interested in an answer to his other question, anyway.

"By the way, Liam, what happened to your hand?"

"I punched a door."

"Not our door...."

"No, the back door...to the building."

"Jesus Christ, Liam, why?"

"I was angry."

"What were you angry about?"

"I don't know." This answer makes a few hairs stand up on the back of Eric's neck. Liam is not a small guy; he's six feet tall, athletic and muscular, ruggedly handsome. He was a running back on his high school football team, but never displayed any violent tendencies off the field. He was gregarious, down-to-earth, and popular. Eric starts wondering if it's time he and his roommate, George, put their foot down and ask Liam to find another place to crash. The thought makes him feel guilty because, although he co-signed the lease on their Jamaica Plain apartment, he hasn't paid his share of the rent in months. His plan of driving a cab for the summer has been a bust, barely providing enough income to cover his meals. On top of that, he was robbed last night, by his last fare before putting up, and lost his entire evening's take. He can still feel the point of the knife on the left side of his throat, still hear the words "It's not worth your life" the thief had spoken plainly, truthfully, into his right ear. The fact is, George is the only one living there with a real job, having just started his first year as an Assistant Professor at Northeastern, and he has been singlehandedly supporting Eric for the most part, along with Liam and their other unemployed houseguest, Sam.

Right on cue, Sam comes in to make his dinner. The kitchen is small, so Eric sits down at the table opposite Liam to get out of his way. Sam is short, slight of build and, Eric notices, beginning to stoop over like an old man; Eric thinks of Franz Kafka, photos of concentration camp survivors. The thought makes him feel even more guilty, because he knows very well that Sam's parents had both been in Auschwitz. Sam boils plain white rice, microwaves some frozen peas, throws them together on a plate without butter, oil, or seasoning. He draws a six ounce glass of lukewarm water and sits down.

"That's a pathetic meal," says Eric.

"I eat what I can digest," says Sam. "I eat what doesn't make me sick."

"Sorry. Sorry, Sam."

"Where's the bread?" Sam asks.

"It's under the sink."

"Why would it be...never mind, don't bother!" He whispers an Orthodox b'rucha, a brief Hebrew grace, over his meal.

"Is that kosher?" Liam asks. "The green and white mixed on the same plate...?"

"Here's a kosher answer for you, Liam," says Sam, holding up his middle finger. "Fuck you!" He opens up the employment section of the Globe, takes his fork in hand, and starts to eat. Eric wants to ask for the newspaper after Sam is done, to look at the Help Wanted ads himself, but he's distracted by hunger. He goes to the refrigerator to see what's left. The refrigerator that comes with the apartment is old, the kind with a knuckle closure and a freezer that's just a small metal box suspended inside the main compartment, with its own little plastic door on a spring, and a tray underneath to keep water from dripping on the food below when it's defrosted. Which it hasn't been for quite some time. There is so much ice accumulated that there's room enough only for two of George's frozen pot pies and the remainder of Sam's peas. Weeks ago the plastic door broke off its hinges because the ice prevented it from closing properly. It's now just propped up on the front edge of the drip tray. As soon as Eric opens the refrigerator, the freezer door drops off its perch; Eric catches it and puts it back.

"Isn't it time to defrost?" he asks. "This glacier has been here since the Little Ice Age."

"That would put it around 1850 or so," says Liam. Well, he's crazy, Eric thinks, but he knows a hawk from a handsaw, doesn't he? The freezer door falls into his hands again, and he tries to put it back, but it won't stay in position, it keeps falling off, falling off. Goddamn thing! He grabs it and swings it down on the top edge of the open refrigerator door.

"Fuck!" he shouts, "Fuck! Fuck!" He hammers down the plastic door in time to his expletives. On the third curse it breaks in half; the half not in his hand flies through the air, executes a perfect somersault, and lands squarely in Sam's dinner. The glass of water is shattered, the shards forming a triple medley with his rice and peas. Sam sits there for a moment, fork suspended halfway to his open mouth. His gaze moves up slowly to include Eric.

"Sorry, Sam."

"You crazy fuck!" Eric notices a trace of blood on Sam's right cheek, where a minute fragment of glass must have grazed him.

"Sorry, sorry! I'll clean it up...."

Sam leaves the kitchen without another word. Liam looks up at Eric, grinning, his eyes bright and mad.

"Go-rilla dunk!" he exclaims.

"What?" says Eric. He stands there with half the freezer door still in his hand.

"You saw it last night, didn't you? Against Kansas City? Go-rilla dunk! Chocolate Thunder, backboard-shattering, in-your-face throwdown!" Eric realizes that Liam's talking about Darryl Dawkins, the Sixers' drafted-right-out-of-high-school Center who calls himself Chocolate Thunder, claims to be from the planet Lovetron, and gives his dunks colorful names. Last night, against the Kings, Dawkins dunked so hard he brought the backboard down, shattering the glass. The game was delayed for hours while they cleaned up the court, found and installed another backboard. "You did him a favor," Liam says. "That really was a pathetic dinner."

Eric hears a key rattling in the front door of the apartment.

"Poppa's home!" says Liam, eyes now bright and cheerful. The door opens and closes, and then George is standing in the entrance to the kitchen, tie loosened, briefcase in hand.

"What the fuck!" he says. "What the fuck just happened in here?"

—Steven Levery

International Landmine Awareness Day

2009-04-04T05:09:00.000-07:00

The weather is impossibly brilliant today in København, and I intend to enjoy it. However, today is also the UN's designated "International Day for Mine Awareness and Assistance in Mine Action 2009", as I was reminded by creatively conceived graffiti drawn on the sidewalks around Sankt Hans Torv:

International LandMineDag—Sidewalk graffito at corner of Elmegade and Guldbergsgade (04 April 2009)

Is there something you can do? As the UN designation suggests, you could simply begin with awareness, perhaps by checking out the Mine Action website. There is information there about the seriousness of the problem, and ample suggestions how one can provide actual help, including links to organizations like The International Campaign to Ban Landmines (further info and suggestions). The campaigns have had a positive effect, which should not provide an excuse for complacency. Note that, according to the Wikipedia entry on the Ottawa Mine Ban Treaty, which "bans completely all anti-personnel landmines (AP-mines),...[a]s of February 2009, 156 countries have ratified the treaty and two states have signed but not ratified it. Thirty-seven states, including the People's Republic of China, India, Russia and the United States, are not party to the Convention [italics mine]." Note also, if it means anything to you, that "the Ottawa Treaty was championed by Diana, Princess of Wales...[h]er work with landmines focused mostly on the injuries caused by them, particularly to children...her death in August 1997 sparked the Government of the United Kingdom and other nations to sign and ratify the Ottawa Treaty...." Way to go Brits!

Of course various forms of landmines, such as IEDs, are favored weapons of terrorists and insurgents the world over, so it isn't reasonable to lay the blame for their continued use solely on the major non-signatories of the Ottawa Treaty. However, these are not the weapons stockpiled and left around the countryside of various nations by the hundreds of thousands. It's worth wondering what vital interest prevents the governments of China, India, Russia, and the US, which have more than ample arsenals of other weapons, from signing on. Again, according to Wiki, "[t]he United States refuses to sign the treaty because it does not offer a 'Korean exception', as landmines are said to be a crucial component of the U.S. military strategy in South Korea. According to the US government, the one million mines [italics mine] along the DMZ between North and South help maintain the delicate peace by deterring a North Korean attack. India has not signed the treaty because it deems landmines necessary to prevent infiltration of Pakistani trained Islamic extremists into Jammu and Kashmir state." Maybe this makes sense, and maybe it doesn't. Just think about it. And have a nice day!

Touristy Pictures of København K (1)

2009-03-30T12:04:00.000-07:00

Crocuses blooming in Kongens Have—View northwest towards Rosenborg Slot (29 March 2009)

It was reasonably sunny yesterday, so it was a good day to play the domestic tourist at one of København's most popular (and often photographed) destinations, Kongens Have (The King's Garden) and Rosenborg Slot (Rosenborg Castle), located in the central København. In the picturesque garden, also known as Rosenborg Have (Rosenborg Castle Garden), an expansive swath of violet and white Dutch crocuses (Crocus vernus vernus and Crocus vernus albiflorus, respectively) was in bloom. The castle, off in the distance here, is no longer a royal residence, but a historic artifact housing a museum of Danish (royal) culture. On a weekend day like this, even one with intermittent clouds, rest assured most Danes would rather be outside in the Have taking in fresh air and sunlight, not coooped up in the Slot looking at paintings and crown jewels. A good day to explore the Slot—from the outside.

Rosenbog Slot, a couple more views (29 March 2009)

Nosing around Nørrebro (11)

2009-03-29T11:37:00.000-07:00

"Guldskat" by Ejgil Westergaard (1990)—View northeast on Sjællandsgade (22 March 2009)

Same sculpture—View southwest on Sjællandsgade (22 March 2009)

The subject and title of "Guldskat" (Golden Treasure, 1990), by Ejgil Westergaard, come from a fairy tale of Hans Christian Andersen. The granite sculpture can be found in front of the Københavns Kommune Sundhedsforvaltningens kontoret (Health Care Administration offices) at Sjællandsgade 40 (Krakskort: 138 C 7).

By the way, an extensive compilation of Andersen's works, including Guldskat, translated into English by Jean Hersholt, can be found at The Complete Andersen; this is just a part of the scholarly and attractive Hans Christian Andersen Center web site maintained by the Faculty of Humanities at the University of Southern Denmark. In addition to the works, an extensive, searchable library of research papers, many in English or English translation, can be accessed on-line, as well as related images and other material.

Also, a nice web site with a list of Copenhagen "monumenter" is located at http://www.vejpark2.kk.dk/apps/monumenter/. Non-Danish readers can get the site in English.

Nosing around Nørrebro (10)

2009-03-22T14:42:00.000-07:00

Mural on Møllegade—View northeast along east side of Møllegade (22 March 2009)

This is one of an ensemble of three abstract blue and white murals facing each other on buildings adjacent to the Jewish cemetery on Møllegade, which occupies most of the east side block between Nørrebrogade and Guldbergsgade. This is the only one with a clear southern aspect, hence the one best positioned to be enhanced by direct sunlight this time of year.

Nosing around Nørrebro (9)

2009-03-22T12:13:00.000-07:00

Cyclist mural overlooking Fakta store on corner of Ravnsborggade and Nørrebrogade—View east along north side of Nørrebrogade (22 March 2009)

Typical København weather: after 4 sunny workdays in a row, a chill overcast had set in by Saturday morning, and I had to wait through most of the weekend for some sunlight to fall on this whimsical exterior wall painting I'd been planning to photograph for weeks. Although one has to adapt to a certain degree to the prevailing atmosphere here, I really felt this piece would look better (in my unskilled hands) with some direct light on it. Finally, around 2 PM on Sunday afternoon, most of the clouds went away for an hour or so, the sun angled sufficiently to the west, and I got busy with my camera.

Cyclist mural, a bit closer (22 March 2009)

Railroad Zen

2009-03-14T06:22:00.000-07:00

Sitting with Hui Tzu under a willow tree in the artificial island of his garden, meditating on the pathways between delusions of waking and dreaming, Chuang Tzu was struck by the realization that they might be engineers driving a train between Rock Island and Blue Island. It was their habit to while away hours in pleasant philosophical discussions, and at this moment they were occupied with the nature of time, trying to understand in particular whether awareness of its passage was an inherent property of consciousness, and whether its apparent directionality was an illusion that could be dispensed with. Their exchanges took the form of thought experiments, as rapidly and briefly stated as they could manage.

“If we could reverse time,” said Hui, “we would experience our memories as premonitions, and vice versa.”

“If time were circular,” Chuang proposed, “memory and premonition would be identical, regardless of its direction.”

“By the way,” Hui said, interrupting the discussion, “how far are we from our destination?”

“Which way are we going?” asked Chuang. There was a pause while Hui considered his answer.

“It doesn’t matter,” he said. “We are free.”

“Yes, my brother,” Chuang agreed cheerfully. “Now, if we could just get off these tracks.…”

Apocalypse Not

2009-01-22T01:22:00.000-08:00

Barack Obama has now been inaugurated and completed the first day of his Presidency, and the apocalyptic predictions of the "Parowan Prophet," Leland Freeborn (Disaster predicted in Obama's path, Peter H. King, LA Times, 13 December 2008), have not been borne out. "Readers remember me," Freeborn wrote in a letter to The St. George, Utah, Spectrum & Daily News on 08 December 2008,

...also known by millions who have heard me on talk radio stations in the United States, across Canada, Ireland, Australia and Europe warning of World War III. They know me as the "Parowan Prophet."
I have passed 100,000 hits on my Web site with free survival information. Google has my site listed. Now I think that you should hear what my opinion about the Obama election is: that he will not be the next president.
I said on my home page in August that if he lost, to expect to see the "Riots" that 2 Peter 2:13 tells us about. He didn't lose. But the story is not finished yet. I still think they may begin the riots before Christmas 2008 as I said.

King reported visiting Freeborn shortly after his letter was posted to get a read on the pre-inaugural mood in Parowan, and discuss his prophecy that in response to "the riots" the Soviets would rain down nukes on the US, killing at least 100,000,000.

Freeborn conceded that he’d issued similar warnings many times before, and still the world kept spinning. Prophecy, he said, is not an exact science.
“I’ve been at it for 30 years, and I have always really believed it,” he said. “Now, if we go on, that’s great. Maybe we can get some more people to repent.”

King's story ends with the following parting gesture from Freeborn:

He presented us with brown medicine bottles filled with iodide crystals – to ward off the effects of radiation.
“I don’t think you are going to finish your trip back East,” the Parowan Prophet said, urging us to reconsider our journey to the inauguration.

I visited Freeborn's website recently, and I can report that he's not only an idiot, he's a racist idiot. At the inauguration, his homepage declares in underlined text, "...millions of Blacks will be gathered within just a few square miles of area. The largest gathering of Blacks in the history of the world. Even a small "Nuke" would burn 25 square miles." Elsewhere he invites the reader to find out "[w]hat God's prophets have said for thousands of years about Blacks." Happily, the underlined link didn't work, and I wasn't inclined to search his site too thoroughly, if you know what I mean. I couldn't resist checking out the photos, though, which seem to fall into three general categories, being either of him, his "ParowanProphet.Com" billboard and likewise decorated RV parked defiantly in front of various Latter Day Saints temples (he's apparently an outcast from the main LDS Church), and numerous images of nuclear detonations ("Hell's Fire will burn children too! And it will start newspapers on fire 20 miles away."). Following what must be one of the unwritten rules governing the design of crank websites, Freeborn's is a welter of text in constantly changing colors and font sizes ranging from very small to very large, shifting between left justified and centered format, without any apparent organizing visual or dramatic principle. Together with randomly placed capitalization and underlining, the whole effect is like listening to a guy alternately whispering and shouting irrational drivel directly into your ear.

It is nice to know that, since nothing Freeborn warned about has happened yet, we still have time to repent - or perhaps get something done - before the next predicted Apocalypse. In the meantime, as one HowardStucki commented beneath Freeborn's letter:

Hey Parowan Prophet....tell me who is going to win the super bowl this year. Thank you. I'll send you a check. Just a thought.

More from Budapest

2009-01-14T12:41:00.000-08:00

A visit to Nagycsarnok (Central Market Hall) on Fővám Tér, 9th District (03 January 2009):

And...(vegetarians avert your eyes)....

Franken Close to Final Victory in Minnesota

2009-01-05T08:30:00.000-08:00

Ever since I mistakenly discounted Al Franken's chances in his Senate race with Norm Coleman, I've been following the recount process in Minnesota with increasing elation. Sometimes it's really a pleasure to be wrong. Franken has been ahead in the count for some time, and it now looks like he is the winner. According to the latest Minneapolis-St. Paul Star Tribune story I could find (Minnesota canvassing board expected to say that Democrat Al Franken is winner in Senate race, Amy Forliti, 05 January 2009), Franken is up by 255 votes (out of almost 3 million), and the State Canvassing Board appears ready to certify the results. Coleman still has some options for further legal challenges, but they look more and more like last ditch obstructionist tactics that will only delay the inevitable. Cool!

It's been amusing to read the irate comments of some Coleman supporters who can't accept the conclusion that reality has not gone their way this time. A common theme has been that Franken and the Democratic Party have somehow "stolen" the election. People have such short memories. But that's just one of the things that makes these comment threads so much fun to read...!

Update added later: It's official, a done deal! Franken's victory speech is on AP video via YouTube:

Happy New Year: The View from Patca (1)

2009-01-02T11:35:00.000-08:00

Winter Morning on the Farm at Patca (01 January 2009)

Patca (pronounced something like pot-sa) is a microscopic village in SW Hungary, roughly 40-50 Km south of Lake Balaton and about the same distance north of the Croatian border. There's nothing much there except for a rough "theme park" modeled on a traditional self-sustaining Hungarian farm. In the Summer, children can go there and meet characteristic varieties of Hungarian farm animals; in the Winter - at New Year's, for example - large groups can rent space in one of a couple of dorm style lodges, use it as a base from which to hike around the countryside and nearby villages, find a suitable place to light a fire just before midnight, and party outdoors until everyone is frozen stiff. Then they hike back to the lodge and continue to party until nearly dawn. If everyone has more or less known each other for years, the communal style eating, drinking, and bunk bed sleeping arrangements work pretty well. Each family prepares their own food in advance or on the spot, and freely share with everyone else ("Hyena style", as one of the younger guys put it: "If you see a group of excited Hungarians, inevitably there's some food in the middle of it.").

This was the view from the front door as some of us left for Budapest on New Year's Day. Although it was freezing when we arrived on the 30th, there was no trace of snow, nor did any appear on the 31st - but a light dust was falling as we walked back to the lodge around 1 AM, and it remained on the trees to greet us in the morning.

Winter Morning View in Patca (01 January 2009)

Buda Side Sights (2)

2008-12-30T03:00:00.000-08:00

This elaborate "Lamb of God" fresco inside Coronation Church (also known Matthias Church (Hung: Mátyás-templom) - caught my eye for a variety of reasons, not least of which is the asymmetric construction of the window frame, made up of a diminishing series of off-center circles. On closer inspection, I found the allegorical composition and decorative details fascinating. The Hungarian inscription reads something like, "As the deer long for running streams, so my soul longs for God." A little research showed that the passage is a quote from the beginning of Psalm 42 (the King James version uses the word “panteth”, rather than “longs” or “yearns”, to my modern sensibilities a somewhat unfortunate choice, evoking an image of dogs – or humans – in heat).

Fresco with Stained Glass Window, Coronation Church, Castle Hill

(29 December 2008)

The central image in the stained glass window, the Agnus Dei (Jesus Christ) sitting on a book with seven seals, is a clear reference to the Apocalypse of John as described in the Book of Revelation.

Closeup of "Lamb of God" Stained Glass Window, Coronation Church, Castle Hill

(29 December 2008)

The overall composition naturally reflects the Christian transference of the object of longing, the source of soul-sustaining hope for salvation, from the Abrahamic God of the original Psalms to the New Testament Jesus that “takest away the sins of the world” through his sacrifice, and grants mercy and peace. However, the apocalyptic vision of the book with seven seals is not one of forgiveness, mercy, and peace, but of terror, judgment, damnation, and millennial warfare. Which is not incompatible with the God of much of the Old Testament, who is repeatedly characterized as an instrument of righteous (and violent) judgment, not to mention a facilitator of military triumphs to secure territory in Canaan for his Chosen People. In the Imprecatory Psalms, God is an agent of victory over both the physical and spiritual enemies of the developing Israelite nation-state.

The composition was designed by Frigyes Shulek (1841–1919), who undertook a major reconstruction of the Church in the last quarter of the 19th century (1874-1896). Other major frescoes and window compositions in the Church were created during this period by Károly Lotz and Bertalan Székely, designed either independently or in collaboration with Shulek. Shulek was also responsible for the construction of nearby Fisherman’s Bastion. (Bios and selected works for Lotz and Székely - but not Shulek - can be found by searching the artist index at "Fine Arts in Hungary").

Note that the church is currently undergoing another round of reconstruction, which fortunately doesn't hinder access to the interior. Unfortunately, however, there was a lot of scaffolding around the exterior when we visited, which prevented me from getting picturesque photos of the magnificent structure from the outside (don't worry, there are lots of good photos accessible on the net - an excellent series by a photographer named "Susan" can be found on her gallery at pbase). Further information on Matthias Church can be found at the official web-site (once past the welcome page, it might take a couple of seconds to figure out how the index page works). Another good source can be found at http://www.szakinfo.hu/matyas-templom/eng/index.htm.

Buda Side Sights (1)

2008-12-29T13:00:00.000-08:00

I'm spending New Year's week in Budapest. Just sightseeing around Castle Hill on the Buda side, taking pictures, not thinking too much.

Typical Hungarians, Fishermen's Bastion, Castle Hill

(29 December 2008)

Musicians, Fishermen's Bastion, Castle Hill

(29 December 2008)

Altar, Coronation Church, Castle Hill

(29 December 2008)

Denmark Day 330: Surviving Christmas Dinner

2008-12-26T11:14:00.000-08:00

Since I've already gone back to the US six times in the last year, I decided to stay in Europe for the holidays, sticking around Copenhagen for Christmas, and then visiting friends in Budapest over New Year's. This has allowed me to stay off the trans-Atlantic air travel merry-go-round, sit around with my feet up for a few days and, luxury of luxuries, enjoy Christmas Eve dinner with my good friends, Henrik and Ulla, and their extended family. Now although it's not uncommon to pick up a stray or two, a traditional Christmas Eve dinner in Denmark is a family affair, so I really appreciated the invitation to be included. Also, since Henrik is a master chef who could probably open a Guide-Michelin-rated restaurant if he ever decided to give up science, I was selfishly anticipating a memorable dining experience. Never mind that there would be 18 people to cook for, and that the cumulative effect of traditional Danish Christmas Eve fare is reputed to be comparable to a stomach full of lead shot, I knew Henrik would pull this together in his usual masterly fashion.

So, following pre-dinner cordials, we sat down around 7 PM to take in the programmed two rounds of roast duck. The first course of duck was breast meat dressed with crispy skin and a rich wine-reduction gravy, served with a variety of vegetables, including the required traditional local small potatoes, a red cabbage dish, and beets simmered in cream. A non-traditional helping of mashed sweet potatoes was added. In Henrik and Ulla's house, the womenfolk are traditionally excused from the second round of duck, and can opt for just another helping of duck gravy. I don't believe any of the women near me actually gave up the second round, which is a duck leg, again served with the crisped skin intact. I swear I got the largest limb of anyone at the table. Throughout dinner, most of us I believe were drinking a very fine riserva Chianti Classico, supplied by Ulla's father.

After everyone has thoroughly killed themselves with duck, the traditional slice of pork roast, topped with a piece of crisped pork rind, is brought out, and a third helping of vegetables is passed around to go with it. This includes another traditional dish, very small potatoes in a caramelized sugar sauce. After that, everyone is completely dead, so it's time to bring out the rice pudding (ris à l'amande) with warm cherry sauce. At least two helpings are de rigueur. Along with a ton of slivered almonds, the pudding also contains one or more whole almonds (more than one is optional, depending on how many people there are). If you find a whole almond in your portion, you are supposed to trade it in for a small present. The real jokesters hide the almond so they can watch everyone else eat additional portions of pudding as they keep searching for it. Eventually, if it isn't found, some may start "fiskering" (fishing) for it in the serving dish, which is laughingly frowned upon.

The atmosphere was warm and friendly, and the food was all wonderful.

After dinner, they all link hands and dance in a slow circle around the "Juletræ" (Christmas tree), singing songs. Very charming. I was unintentionally in the bathroom when they started, and tried to sit it out, but they insisted I join them, even though I didn't know any of the songs. Henrik thought I ought to be able lead an English version of "White Christmas", but I was too brain dead by this time to remember the words. After this, the presents are brought out from under the tree and handed out by the oldest guy in the family wearing a Santa hat and false beard. In this case, it was Ulla's dad. Since there were a lot of presents, this looked like an exhausting business. While that's going on, of course, there has to be coffee, cake, heaps of homemade chocolate, liqueurs, single malt whiskeys, cognacs, port wine, etc.

After the presents were given out, we ate and drank some more (a round of Swedish caviar, accompanied by fresh bread, chopped red onions, sour cream, fresh dill, etc.), until finally the eldest grandparents had fallen asleep sitting up with empty wine glasses dangling dangerously in their hands. Those who had to head home finally left around 1 AM.

Fortunately, unlike the natives, I had no commitments Christmas Day that would require further eating or drinking. By the afternoon, I was sufficiently recovered to go out and run ~3 miles around the "lakes" (Peblinge Sø and Sortedams Sø), feeling very virtuous, if not completely healthy. I took my very survival as a sufficient blessing.

Jim Martin-Saxby Chambliss Runoff in Georgia

2008-12-02T07:57:00.000-08:00

For those of you who can't get enough US electoral excitement, it's worth pointing out there are still a couple of important races that have not yet been decided. One is the Al Franken (D)-Norm Coleman (R) Senatorial race in Minnesota, still on hold per a recount. The other is between Jim Martin (D) and incumbent Saxby Chambliss (R) in Georgia, which will be decided by a runoff election being held today (Presidential Race Is Still Alive in Georgia Runoff, Robbie Brown, NYT, 01 December 2008). Since I lived in Athens, Georgia for 5+ years, I just couldn't let this pass without comment. As it happens, I left Georgia for New Hampshire at the beginning of 2002, the same year Chambliss won his Senate seat by defeating the previous incumbent, Max Cleland (D), so I didn't have a voting stake in that contest, but took considerable interest in the result. For anyone who didn't hear about it, or has a short memory, Max Cleland is a decorated veteran who lost both legs and his right arm during the Vietnam War; Chambliss ran a shameful ad, juxtaposing pictures of Cleland, Osama Bin Laden, and Saddam Hussein, that predictably raised the ire of liberals, but also drew fire from fellow Republicans such as Vietnam War veteran John McCain. The same John McCain who went to Georgia a couple of weeks ago to campaign for Chambliss. "I'd never seen anything like that ad," said McCain at the time. "Putting pictures of Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden next to the picture of a man who left three limbs on the battlefield - it's worse than disgraceful. It's reprehensible."

Of course such apparent turnarounds in attitude are par for the political course; we don't have to look any further than the recent love-fest between Obama and Clinton (which I have to admit I endorse). So I'm not going to make that my major point. My major points are (1) that Chambliss' record in the Senate has been that of a typical conservative Republican douchebag; and (2) that you can still hear the same idiotic statements from Republican supporters that characterized their campaign against Obama. Take for example, this fine nugget from the NYT story quoted above: "I’m scared to death," said Ms. Mock, 65, a small-business owner from Rockdale County. "Obama’s going to put our country further in debt. He’s going to push a socialist agenda." But she added, "Saxby Chambliss can stop him." Gee, where have I heard this kind of talk before? Really, Ms. Mock, are you kidding me? Further in debt than Bush has put us over the last 8 years? (Remember that Bush started with a budget surplus left him by the last "socialist" President we had, Bill Clinton.) Even as progressive bloggers complain that Obama's recent list of appointments make him appear about as radical as Dwight Eisenhower, it's not difficult to find evidence of how relative that assessment really is.

A lot is at stake, here. If by some chance Franken and Martin were both to win, the Democrats would hold the magic number of 60 seats in the Senate. For this reason alone, the Republicans have marshalled all their forces (e.g., McCain, Palin, Romney, Huckabee, Giuliani, and lots of $$) to the cause. For their part, the Democrats have rallied the troops as well (e.g., Bill Clinton, Al Gore, and $$ - although Obama has not made a personal appearance). The probability is that Chambliss will win (he started with a 3 percentage point lead from 04 November, although he had less than the required 50% majority), but the fact that the Senate race in this decidedly Red State was close enough to call for a runoff is pretty remarkable. Today's result will show if this was a glass half full or half empty.

Update 05 December 2008: Chambliss won, of course, and it looks like Franken is about done, although the margin of Coleman's victory looks about as thin as it gets. According to the Minneapolis-St. Paul Star Tribune, the latest (almost final) count has Coleman winning over Franken by a mere 192 votes. Too bad.

A dark anniversary

2008-11-22T08:59:00.000-08:00

BTW, I didn't want to forget that today is the 45th anniversary of the assassination of John F. Kennedy. Like many Americans, I can remember exactly where I was and what I was doing when I heard it announced. I was a HS Sophomore at the time (Brooklyn Technical High School, total dork Class of '66), sitting in the Industrial Processes class taught by one of my favorite teachers, Mr. Starfield. The class was interrupted by a message that came over the loudspeaker above Mr. Starfield's head, to the effect that President Kennedy had been shot in Dallas just a little earlier that day. In fact, we treated the announcement as a joke, and there was some nervous, uncomprehending laughter, which brought a furious rebuke from Mr. Starfield. Of course this made us realize the message was serious, and our mood turned immediately somber. It was still virtually impossible to believe, but our incomprehension was no longer of the amusing variety, to say the least. That this was only the first of several fatal blows to our youthful 1960s-era idealism I could not have imagined.

John Fitzgerald Kennedy (May 29, 1917 – November 22, 1963), R.I.P.

Clinton is a good choice

2008-11-22T07:23:00.000-08:00

As someone who voted for Clinton in the Democratic primary, I've been following the recent news about Obama considering her for Secretary of State with great interest. It appears that this is really going to happen (Clinton Is Said to Accept Secretary of State Position, by Peter Baker and Helene Cooper, NYT, 21 November 2008). No doubt there will again be considerable handwringing among those who have already questioned Obama's decisions to bring establishment Democrats into his cabinet - not to mention among those who simply don't like Clinton - but I think it's an excellent move, Lincolnesque in both spirit and political wisdom. If Clinton really accepts, it will similarly show both a readiness for conciliation and a mature assessment of the post-election realities.

Yeah, it's certainly possible it won't work out; in fact there's a finite chance that nothing will work out over the next four years. Few newly-elected Presidents have had to face a pile of shit as deep as the one the US is buried in right now, which moreover appears to be getting deeper by the minute (Black Man Given Nation's Worst Job, The Onion, 5 November 2008). From the tone of some of the discussions I've seen around the web, Obama will have the shortest "honeymoon" period of any President-elect I can remember; seemed like it had already ended with more than 2 months to go before the inauguration. And this was coming from people who voted for him; I don't want to even talk about the shitstorm that's brewing from the extreme Right (although you can get a taste from recent posts at Orcinus if you want).

I'm just saying, Hilary will have a chance to do some good, to be the anti-Condoleezza to Obama's anti-Bush. This could turn out to be an inspired pairing; if it doesn't, well, Secretary of State is not an appointment for life.

Is it Morning Again in America?

2008-11-05T06:46:00.000-08:00

Sorry, but I couldn't resist cribbing that line from the "Great Communicator", a guy I hated almost as much as the latest lame-ass lame-duck cowboy about to ride off into the ~~sunset~~ trash-heap of History. Don't let the swingin door hit you in the ass on your way out, George!

To mark the occasion, I stole a few images from HuffPost to put up here. I hope they won't mind my breach of copyright etiquette under the circumstances.

Personally, I have mixed feelings about the racial barrier as the headline message. It's clearly momentous in the context of the current historical arc, and given the suffering and sacrifice of countless beings that have brought us to this crossing, I can understand the emotional outpouring that must necessarily mark it, but it should be one of those things that will seem more and more trivial the further it recedes into the past. Some time in the not too distant future, I hope, we will mark this event with periodic celebrations, and at the same time wonder why anyone ever thought it mattered one way or the other. That, if I heard him correctly, is the world Martin Luther King Jr was talking about. On the other hand, it's clear we still have a long way to go to get there, and it would be difficult to deny that being African-American likely constitutes some important component of who Obama is, at this point in time.

In any case, what's momentous for me is that after 8 years of heading in the wrong direction, enough people have woken up to the absolute necessity of reversing the process to constitute a majority. The message would have been the same for me if it were Clinton or Edwards who got elected yesterday. I admit I didn't vote for Obama in the primary but, having said that, I really think he is a good man for this job, and I had no hesitation voting for him in this election. None whatever. In fact it's hard for me to comprehend why anyone would need further convincing once the primaries were over. I don't know how far Obama will take us but I am confident he will head out in the right direction.

Of course, he has a job ahead of him that will make the Labors of Hercules seem like a cakewalk. The good news is that he will have help, and he is smart enough to enlist capable advisors in the effort. The bad news is that there are some out there who would doubtless like to take his head clean off. I'm not the praying type, but I do have hope, and my hope is that Barack Obama will have a long life, and will be able to make those changes many of us have been waiting for.

Waiting for the Fat Lady

2008-11-03T12:16:00.000-08:00

Well, it's almost over. I don't know what song the fat lady will sing, but sing she will.

It's the eve of Election Day, and just about every poll and computer simulation I've looked at on the web has Obama ahead by a comfortable margin.

In other words, it's too close to call. Given the recent comedy that's been the Republican Presidential Campaign, I was tempted to title this post something like "The Sinking Ship of Fools," but I decided that would be way too smug. Given the results of the past two elections (not to mention an even longer prior history of unpleasant surprises for liberals like me, e.g., the re-elections of Nixon in '72 and Reagan in '84), the comedy could in the end turn out to be of the dark variety. And so I find my imagination drifting to nightmare scenarios. Here are two:

1. Some of my more cynical neighbors in Nørrebro are sure that Obama will win the election−but will be assassinated before he can be sworn in. Given the vitriol that's poured out from some quarters at the very prospect of an Obama presidency, I've been hard-pressed to insist it can't happen. But as horrifying and tragic as that would be, I have an even more frightening dream:

2. McCain wins−and then he gets shot. Or about six months into his term, he goes down with a sudden "heart attack." Who's to know? Who would ever be able to prove that the death of the oldest President-elect in our history was anything but "natural" for a man his age? And thus a woman who is barely qualified to Chair a PTA meeting, who is so unschooled in basic principles of constitutional law she thinks the intent of the First Amendment is to shield politicians who spew bullshit from criticism by the press for it, becomes President of the US. Personally, I wouldn't put it past her. To those who think Obama is "scary"−welcome to my nightmare....

Colin Powell's Endorsement: Some Rhetorical Fresh Air

2008-10-21T01:58:00.000-07:00

These videos speak for themselves, but I feel compelled to add that hearing Powell articulate his thoughts in plain English, making his points without pandering, mugging, speechifying, or insulting anyone, made me wish he were running for something so I could vote for him. I really admire the way he dismisses as a non-issue Obama's supposed "terrorism" through his guilt-by-association with Ayers, and gets to the true heart of the matter of Obama's religious affiliation (both real and imaginary) with the simple but poignant image of a military gravestone.

Of course we know that Powell has made mistakes in the past. This isn't one of them. In the same vein, I have to admire the way he deals at the end of the video below with Obama's alleged tax-happy "socialism" with a one minute sound bite of common sense.

Reaping what you sow

2008-10-12T04:38:00.000-07:00

I'm generally pretty jaded about open displays of smug stupidity and viciousness, especially in the poisonous atmosphere surrounding Presidential campaigns, but somehow the crowd captured in this YouTube footage really got to me. I watched the feed a couple of times over at Chapati Mystery, getting more depressed by the minute; I left a comment over there (#4) but still couldn't get this crap out of my mind. It was a bit like having a flashback , especially the repeatedly shouted admonition "Get a job!" Exactly what used to get shouted, among other things, at anti-war protesters in the 60s. Do such people really think, in 2008, that anyone who questions their bizarre conclusions must be unemployed?

And then this:

I have to wonder what really goes through McCain's mind when he has to confront such idiocy one-on-one, as he does in the exchange below. I don't think he's evil or stupid, but the woman he addresses is an inescapable part of his constituency, and this is where the continual pandering of the Republican party and their media goons must inevitably lead. Not that there is anything new here, except that we can all watch, as many times as we can stand, as McCain stares into the abyss and embarrasses himself yet again with a well-intentioned but painfully inappropriate response: Obama is not an Arab, as the woman insists, "...no, no, Ma'am, he's a decent family man...."

Of course I would love to believe that McCain having to admit that Obama is a decent man, and could be President without the world coming to an end, signals that his campaign is essentially over, but I'm not taking anything for granted. I won't believe Obama has really won until I see him on the podium in January taking the oath of office.

The Great Wide Whatever (1)

2008-10-04T07:35:00.000-07:00

Visitation (17 July 2007)

This was taken a while ago during a highly touristic evening at Tjapukai Aboriginal Cultural Park, Cairns, North Queensland, Australia. The show is the sort of cultural rest stop I would normally avoid, for reasons that get more complicated the more I think about it. It's worth a long essay that I don't feel qualified to write, which is one reason I would rather not have gone there in the first place. In any event, I only snapped 4 or 5 photos the whole evening, all of which I was tempted to delete, but after I spent a little time processing this particular shot it seemed to take on a life of its own, and the issue of authenticity started to feel a bit less relevant. It is what it is, whatever that is.

Det Poetiske Bureau

2008-09-24T08:25:00.000-07:00

Seems that some of my friends heard a rumor I was involved in a performance event that took place at a gallery in my neighborhood. It seems this event−and the gallery, Det Poetiske Bureau, 52 Griffenfeldsgade, 2200 København N−got an extremely nice review in the respectable local press. Rest assured the review, which appeared in the 11-17 July 2008 issue of the København newspaper Weekendavisen, had little to do with me personally; however, my part in the program (reading about 8-10 minutes worth of original prose/poetry) was an explicit part of the advance advertising, and yes, I was mentioned by name in a favorable paragraph in the subsequent review. So....

No need for false modesty where my friends are concerned. Beelzebubblicious, this is for you and all the guys and gals I left back in New Hamster (who for some reason still seem to give a shit what I'm doing). Unfortunately, I was not able to establish a direct link to the story in the Weekendavisen archives, but the whole piece (in Danish) is posted on the blog of another guy who was there, poet Arash Sharifzadeh Abdi. Read it if you want to a more complete picture of the Bureau and the event in question.

The part that mentions me appeared as follows:

»Tag godt imod den amerikanske ordkemiker, Steven Levery!«

Det gør vi, selv om Levery med sin grå sweatshirt og midterskilningen i det grå grydeklippede hår ikke umiddelbart ligner billedet på en hip poet. Men på podiet sker der noget. Så snart manden åbner munden, føler man sig transporteret til en aften med spoken word i New York eller Chicago. Stemmen fylder rummet, diktionen er dynamisk, og Leverys digte kommer til live med spændstige ordspil og popkulturelle referencer. Hvor der før var stille inderlighed, er der nu bevægelse og små udbrud fra salen. Og da det bliver tid til pause, løfter en pige en magnumflaske i vejret og råber, at hvis nogen vil have champagne, skal de bare sig til.

»Der hører sgu et godt glas vin til poesi!«

Of course I don't read Danish very well, yet, so at the time I had to have someone translate for me. The gist of it is that I was introduced as "the American wordchemist", and that I am described at the outset as a guy in a gray sweatshirt, with gray hair parted in the middle and cut like the barber put a bowl over my head, someone who hardly looks like a hip poet. Actually, it put me in mind of Maynard G. Krebs, the beatnik character played by the late Bob Denver, opposite babe-magnet Dwayne Hickman, in the 1959-1963 TV comedy series The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis. Which is fair enough. From there the story goes on to give me a huge thumbs up for my reading, describing it as akin "to being transported to an evening with spoken word in New York or Chicago." I can't translate the remainder in great detail, but as best I can make out it goes on to say that my diction was dynamic, and my poetry was alive with "supple wordplay and Pop Culture references." Or some such. As Maynard would have said, "Far fuckin out!" (Well, maybe when the cameras were off.)

My main regret is that because I am still just a dumb mono-lingual American (actually I do understand a little French and German), I couldn't comprehend most of the other prose and poetry that got read that evening (although I do get a lot out of the music that gets performed at these events, and sometimes there are others reading in English).

I am working on my Dansk, though.

Holiday in Georgia?

2008-08-12T01:02:00.000-07:00

File this under Department of Unintentional Irony: Even as Russian troops drive deeper into Georgian territory, the thoughts of many around the world must inevitably turn to more thorny issues, like where to take that well deserved but so far unplanned vacation before the summer ends. So we find, at the bottom of a 10 August 2008 HuffPost news update about the deepening conflict, describing the death and destruction being dealt out by Russian forces on the ground and from the air, the following tantalizing advertisement:

Ads by Google

Tbilisi

Hvad med en ferie i Tbilisi? Billige flybilletter - Bestil I dag

[How about a vacation in Tbilisi? Inexpensive air tickets - Order Today]

www.CzechAirlines.dk

Tbilisi, in case you don't know, is the capital city of Georgia - not the Georgia that was invaded by Sherman's troops during the American Civil War, but the Georgia currently being invaded by Russian troops to secure the breakaway provinces of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. Of course I'm sure the ad appeared elsewhere the same day, and had nothing to do with HuffPost specifically. This is simply what happens when an automated on-line program mindlessly relates web-page content to a potential advertiser based on the appearance of a few key words. Something exciting going on in Georgia? What could be a better time to fly down there for a holiday! Well, maybe it's really okay, because the Russians have denied any intentions to advance as far south as Tbilisi. In any case, the ad has disappeared by now. Instead, today's story had the following ad beneath it:

Ads by Google

Russian Brides Denmark

Single Russian and Ukrainian Brides for Denmark men. Dating, Marriage

Site2Date.com?RussianDenmarkDating

Gee, what could be a better time to think about finding a Russian bride....

Getting my duck in a row

2008-08-08T04:06:00.000-07:00

Sunset over Furesø, Holte (12 June 2008)

This isn't a scene from Nørrebro, but a bit further north, in the town of Holte, where some friends of mine live. They have a rather sizable lake, called Furesø. Nice place to have a beer and watch the sun go down. This is what it can look like on a summer evening when the weather is good. There were a couple more ducks floating around in the scene, but they didn't survive the crop.

Poking around Nørrebro (8)

2008-08-03T12:16:00.000-07:00

Tex-Mex (06 April 2008)

The Tex-Mex take-out at Griffenfeldsgade 9 has been renovated since this picture was taken, but the Cowboy is still there, moved front and center in the display. I got food there once, but forgot to ask the owner if he's from Texas or Mexico. I suspect not, although that doesn't mean very much. I'll just have to drop in there again some time soon.

Poking around Nørrebro (7)

2008-08-02T13:11:00.000-07:00

View of southeastern Nørrebro and swans across Peblinge Sø (22 June 2008)

The line-of-sight is down Korsgade to Hellig Kors Kirke (Holy Cross Church) in the background. It was late afternoon on a cloudy day, so the light wasn't great; in fact a particular quality of the light coming through a gap in the clouds was what I was most interested in capturing. By the time I got the shot set up where I wanted, the light was gone. A keen observer of nature, I didn't even notice the swans until later, when I downloaded the day's photos to my laptop and had a closer look.

Poking around Nørrebro (6)

2008-07-29T02:48:00.000-07:00

"SKaRy"

Parking garage, pedestrians, waiting traffic, and graffito on Åboulevard—View east from intersection of Åboulevard and Rantzausgade (21 June 2008)

Danmarks befrielse 1945

2008-05-04T04:16:00.000-07:00

Speaking of World War II, today marks the 63rd anniversary of the surrender of the German forces in Holland, NW Germany, and Denmark. The Danes celebrate tomorrow, 05 May, as Danmarks befrielse, so I'm jumping a day ahead. It's a smallish detail concerning a major event, but the Germans signed the actual "Instrument of Surrender" on 04 May 1945, 1830 hrs (although the header date on the document appears to be 08 May 1945; for a transcript see The University of Oklahoma College of Law website "US Historical Documents"/"German Surrender Documents Ending World War II"; note that the link is cribbed from Wikipedia's "End of World War II in Europe" entry, Footnote 3). In any case, according to condition 2 of the document: "All hostilities on land, on sea, or in the air by German forces in the above areas to cease at 0800 hrs. British Double Summer Time on Saturday 5 May 1945." So it's quite proper to start celebrating the anniversary some time on the morning of 05 May, the precise hour depending on the translation of "British Double Summer Time" to Danish local time circa 1945.

In reading through the transcript, I particularly enjoyed the language of condition 3: "The German command to carry out at once, and without argument or comment, all further orders that will be issued by the Allied Powers on any subject [italics mine]." Tomorrow morning I'll don a virtual hat to throw in the air.

Dachau Liberation Day

2008-04-29T00:19:00.000-07:00

April 29 happens to be my birthday, but I no longer regard this as something to be celebrated. I choose instead to remember it as the anniversary of the liberation of Dachau, 63 years ago today. For information and images I suggest having a look at the following websites (not an exhaustive list):

ScrapbookPages/Dachau Concentration Camp (1933-1945)

Jewish Virtual Library/Dachau

The Nizkor Project/Dachau

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum/Dachau

Dachau Concentration Camp Memorial Site

Wikipedia/Dachau

There are, of course, many more that can be found easily by an Internet search. These include personal accounts of survivors, witnesses, and liberators. The above sites and many others are also entries to expanded viewpoints, including histories of other camps, the Holocaust, and World War 2. Thinly disguised revisionist/denial sites are also available. It's worth noting that there are a number of misunderstandings and controversies surrounding what went on at Dachau before and during the liberation, but I think this is a good time just to acknowledge the enormity of the Holocaust and the camps, as well as what it took to put an end to them; to celebrate the historical fact of liberation, and leave some of the details for another day.

Poking around Nørrebro (5)

2008-04-26T12:36:00.000-07:00

Okay, this isn't really Nørrebro, but it's close enough. Søpavillonen, the popular (so I'm told) København day and night spot located at Gyldenløvesgade 24, on the southern edge of Peblingesø, has been the subject of countless photos, postcards, and paintings since it was built in 1896. That isn't going to stop me from posting mine.

Søpavillonen After Dark—View from the west side, looking east (13 April 2008)

Poking around Nørrebro (4)

2008-04-20T11:57:00.001-07:00

"Politistat 2 (Now you see it, now you....)"

Construction at Folkets Park—View from Griffenfeldsgade (19 April 2008)

As a newcomer to the neighborhood, I'm a thorough outsider on the local politics surrounding Folkets Park. These photos and the titles on some of them are observations, not commentaries. Which doesn't mean I don't have opinions, it's just that in this case I'm short of information. For what it's worth, and I'm sure it isn't much, my first impression of Folkets Park, when I arrived at the beginning of February, is that was a svineri, and could have used some cleaning up. It may be that I was just looking at the normal over-Winter landscape, and it may be that the locals organize a work party every Spring to clean up the place. If I had found out something like that was going to happen, I would gladly have joined in; it wouldn't be the first time I've pitched in with local volunteers to clean up a park. Or it may be that was not going to happen. The only thing I could say for sure was that the "Politistat" graffito on the building to the right was going to get painted over sooner rather than later (for an earlier photo of the same scene, see my Blog entry, Poking around Nørrebro (1), 06 April 2008).

Poking around Nørrebro (3)

2008-04-15T03:25:00.001-07:00

Griffenfeldsgade—View south toward intersections with Rantzausgade and Åboulevard (13 April 2008)

Poking around Nørrebro (2)

2008-04-14T10:37:00.000-07:00

Sankt Johannes Kirke—Front entrance facing Sankt Hans Torv (06 April 2008)

Poking around Nørrebro (1)

2008-04-06T13:33:00.000-07:00

"Politistat"

Construction at Folkets Park—View from Griffenfeldsgade (06 April 2008)

New Mobile Phone / Self Portrait in a Bathroom Mirror

2008-03-16T12:38:00.000-07:00

I may not be the last guy in the world to buy a mobile phone, but who cares, I'm going to mark the event with a post anyway. Nor am I the first guy to take his own picture in the bathroom mirror (see, e.g., Bathroom Mirror Project: A Total Waste of Time), but I'm going to post it anyway. Totally uninspired narcissism? Damn right!

Of all the things this gizmo is supposed to do, I found the camera function easiest to figure out. I mean even easier than making a phone call to the US, which baffled me for almost 24 hours until I figured out what small detail I was missing. In the meantime, I gave up on calling and started taking pictures instead. This is the first one I took. Since today was an absolutely gorgeous day in København, and I accidentally left my "real" camera back in New Hampshire, I spent this afternoon walking around Nørrebro taking touristic photos with my mobile. What could be a bigger, better, more eloquent waste of time?

Denmark Day 31

2008-03-02T09:59:00.000-08:00

Yesterday (Saturday, 01 March) brought another positive sign I'm living in a real city: A full-on political demonstration:

Mire Film Int. Demonstration - 1-3-2008 Denmark 2/7

As I'm heading downtown on Frederiksborggade for some mid-afternoon shopping, what do I hear in the distance but loud music, shouting, and cheering? Of course I have to investigate. I finally get to the source of the noise around Nørreport station; heading South onto Nørre Voldgade, I catch the tail end of a rather impressive mass of people holding flags and banners, shouting slogans, etc. One sub-group is sporting full blown hammer-and-sickle flags; "69" is another common theme. I never caught up to the head of the march, shown in the video above, but I thoroughly enjoyed the musical selections blaring out of the most god-awful junkyard of a sound-truck I've ever seen. The high point for me was hearing and recognizing instantly the Dead Kennedys' "Holiday in Cambodia".

As a newcomer, of course, I had no clue what it was about, although I'd been told when I arrived about the riots that took place a year ago in Nørrebro around the demolition of the Ungdomshuset, or "Youth House". I soon learned that "69", a common theme of graffiti around my neighborhood, refers to Jagtvej 69, the address of Ungdomshuset (this happens to be just diagonally across Assistens Kirkegård from where I'm living). Now my lab-mates all agreed Nørrebro is a great place to live, but... "if there's going to be some political march or demonstration" my friend H warned, "that's where it's going to start...and if you hear shouts and sirens on Nørrebrogade, you'll want to walk the other way." Given my general curiosity, I'm not sure I would always follow this advice, although it doesn't hurt to pay close attention to the situation. As it happens, there was some rioting in mid-February, following the re-publication of one of the cartoons the fundamentalist Muslims don't like, but I was back in NH at the time trying to finish packing up, and missed the whole thing. Judging from the general direction, yesterday's march doubtless started in Nørrebro, but I got to it late. At first I didn't connect it with what I'd heard before, until I found out that the demolition of Ungdomshuset, and the subsequent riots, began on 01 March 2007. It's an issue that hasn't gone away, and the march was clearly an anniversary demonstration. What I saw was loud but more or less peaceful, especially since the police appeared to be under control.

So what's my point about "real" city life? Let's just say that I consider well-considered political protest a healthy sign of civil life, something one apparently finds more commonly in larger cities than in small college towns like the one's I've been inhabiting the past dozen years or so. I have to say I missed this sort of thing. I wouldn't want to say there's no political awareness in Durham, NH, or Athens, GA, but the last time I remember UNH students getting really out of control, it was following the loss to Minnesota in the final game of the 2003 NCAA Men's Division 1 Hockey Championship. At the time I thought, fuck, that's UNH for you; I'd like to see our students get this worked up about a real issue...!

Let me be clear. I don't support rioting, burning cars, smashing windows, and so forth, although I understand these things under certain circumstances (cartoons are not on my list). IMHO a massive, organized, loud and defiant, but otherwise peaceful demonstration accomplishes a lot more than a streetful of burning cars and broken glass (I saw my share of both back in the day). In any case, I can relate to outrage, but I have to admit that if the bricks start coming through my living room window, I'll be ready to move to the suburbs.

Denmark Day 24

2008-02-24T11:42:00.000-08:00

I had to go back to NH for 10 days, so up to this point I've really only been living in København for a couple of weeks. My main accomplishments (outside of work) have been to find a place to buy some decent fresh bread (not that difficult), have another great dinner with friends, download Skype, and talk to my daughter. Oh yeah, and sample some of this year's Påskebryg ("Easter Brew"), which, according to the Carlsberg/Tuborg web-site, "is a well-loved part of the Danish Easter. Its launch day – which is always a Friday in early March (I do note it's still February, so the web-site appears to be mistaken about the "always") - is widely known as P-Day or Påskebryg Day." Okay, I'm not a beer connoisseur, but it was reasonably tasty; if it's good enough for the Danes I know, it's good enough for me.

Aside from that, I'm starting to get used to checking the streets for bicycles, not just cars, when I jaywalk. Forget the cars, man, when you step off the curb here, the first thing you are stepping into is the bike lane. Before you get onto the sidewalk on the other side of the street, there is the bike lane going the opposite way. They come fast, sometimes they come in flocks, and getting hit by one or several is definitely going to hurt.

Denmark, Day 2

2008-02-02T08:09:00.000-08:00

Oh, by the way, I've just moved to Denmark. I now live in København, the city of Søren Kierkegaard, Hans Christian Andersen, and Niels Bohr. In fact the apartment I'm renting is in Nørrebro (Northbridge), a couple of blocks from Assistens Kirkegård, where all three are buried. I made a pilgrimage to this cemetery years ago, never dreaming I would one day be living little more than a stone's throw from Kierkegaard's grave. Aside from my Danish friends, when I think of Denmark I think of people who refused to give up their Jews to the Nazis during World War II, sheltering them as long as possible, then ferrying almost every one of them (~7,000-8,000) to Sweden virtually overnight between 29 September and 1 October 1943. One of the evacuees was Niels Bohr, whose mother was Jewish. Bohr, one of the founders of the modern theories of atomic structure, quantum physics, and the interaction of matter and energy, was soon thereafter flown to London to join the UK effort to develop a nuclear weapon, and subsequently, as part of the UK team sent to Los Alamos, served as a consultant on the Manhattan Project. Bohr was an admirer of Kierkegaard, though he disagreed substantially with his philosophy. As a chemist, I'm familiar with Bohr's contributions, and now find myself in another undreamt of situation, being newly employed at Københavns Universitet (University of Copenhagen), where he worked, although I'm in a different department and another building. More about that some other time.

Day 1 was yesterday, which started with my arrival in København airport. The trip from Boston took a mere 10 hours, including a 2 hour layover in London Heathrow. I can't sleep on a plane, so I was kind of tired, but after some brutal trips to Japan and Australia last summer, I now consider flying from the northeast coast of the US to the southernmost country in Scandinavia child's play. So, after a brief stop to check in at my new living quarters, I had no problem reporting to work by noon. Since my excellent planning of the transition from University of New Hampshire to University of Copenhagen accidentally resulted in forgoing a paycheck in January (while bleeding money profusely from numerous fiscal wounds), the most important thing for me to do was start the salary clock on my new job.

After my first day at work, I had a great dinner with old friends, drank too much wine and got home late, so today, Day 2, Saturday, started late and is now 5 minutes from over. My main accomplishments were exploring the neighborhood, getting some food in the fridge for Sunday, then finding a nearby Indian restaurant (Indian Corner, Nørrebrogade 59, 2200 København N), to fill up on Samosas, Dal Soup, Chicken Vindaloo, and Nan, all of which were excellent (but not free).

Are you kidding me?

2008-01-16T09:08:00.000-08:00

Thanks to Pharyngula for pointing to this amazing statement from Mike Huckabee: he wants to amend the Constitution "so it's in God's standards". Pharyngula's blog entry has a link to yesterday's RawStory post about Huckabee's speech, which includes a video clip of the relevant broadcast footage and subsequent lame-o discussion on MSNBC's Morning Joe).

It's been apparent from the beginning of his campaign that Huckabee's a Republican fundamentalist douchebag of the highest order, but this is way over the top. No one should be fooled by his "Jess Folks" likability; Huckabee is flat out dangerous. Although ultimately he's not expected to win the Republican nomination (his 3rd place finish in Michigan is more likely to be typical), the fact he can get enough delegate votes in any state (e.g., Iowa) to be a serious contender is frightening. The discussion thread underneath Pharyngula's post is already 200+ since Tuesday evening, and still growing.

You might want to ask yourself just why there is no mention of god in the Constitution. Alexander Hamilton is supposed to have addressed the question directly with the answer "We forgot." Although this is an unconfirmed quote, this was doubtless not an accidental omission. Though clearly most of the revolutionary founders of the American Republic were nominal Christians, the majority were free-thinkers, theistic rationalists and the like, heavily influenced by the Enlightenment's focus on demonstrable evidence and reason. They were decidedly uninterested in establishing a "Christian Nation"; I don't see how their intentions could made be any more clear than is stated in the first sentence of the First Amendment: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof...." This is precisely what Huckabee proposes needs to be changed. What the fuck is he talking about?

Wishing all a more peaceful 2008

2008-01-02T07:53:00.000-08:00

I was going to make this a simple Happy New Year message, but the recent violence in Kenya, over their year-end presidential election, and in Pakistan, following the assassination of Benazir Bhutto, put me in a less optimistic mood. Not to forget the ongoing cycles of war, civil chaos, ethnic cleansing, assassinations, revenge killings, and other forms of violence that have ravaged a fairly extensive portion of the Earth's population as far back as I can remember.

What do I care who gets killed Kenya or Pakistan, or anywhere else, for that matter? Do I really need to answer that? I could give a dozen generalizations that would do the trick, but right now I'm thinking about specific people, specific places, specific reasons.

The Chemistry Department at the University of New Hampshire, where I've been working for the past 6 years, has had a contingent of Kenyans working on graduate degrees for over a decade. This might not be notable, or even noticeable, in a lot of places, but it's often struck me that at the University of White Hampshire a black face one sees on campus is more likely to be African than Afro-American. I'm not going to say anything further about race; anyone who has lived here can tell you what he or she thinks, or doesn't think, about it. I'm only going to say that I've mentored two Kenyans in my time here, and that one of them was my most successful student, the only person in my group to attempt and attain a Ph.D. degree. Which doesn't mean I know anything about Kenya, because we don't generally talk about much besides chemistry, but I do know a little about one particular person from Kenya.

I get that Kenya has been remarkably stable for decades, has a robust economy, and a good relationship with the US (if that matters). This doesn't mean there's no inter-tribal or -class tension. How could there be no conflict when one tribe dominates the political and economic landscape. But it's not Rwanda, and it won't be, I hope. There are ~40 tribes, not just two; the added complexity may be one factor that prevents large-scale bloodshed. But the poor are angry, my student tells me, which naturally comes as no surprise. The economic growth has widened, not narrowed, the economic disparity between the poor and those who have prospered. Add to that some ethnic distinction, and you have a tried and true recipe for disaster.

The Presidential election results, my student says, have clearly been falsified, and nothing I've seen in the news appears to contradict her statement. The election of Mwai Kibaki will be strongly contested, although his opponent, Raila Odinga, has called for civil restraint among his supporters. Many people have already been killed in horrible fashion (see, e.g., "Mob Sets Kenya Church on Fire, Killing Dozens", Jeffrey Gettleman, NYT, 2 January 2008). As for me, I am simply following the news, hoping that the right things will be done before it's too late.

Benazir Bhutto Assassinated

2007-12-27T09:32:00.000-08:00

Shocking news this morning: Benazir Bhutto was assassinated only hours ago during a political rally in Rawalpindi, Pakistan. Around 15-20 others are reported dead. The NYT story is here (Bhutto Assassinated in Attack on Rally, NYT, 28 December 2007). My usual portal into the Pakistani blogosphere, Chapati Mystery, already had the the story up when I got there. According to the Times account, although the exact details remain to be confirmed, she was apparently struck by gunfire, and then by shrapnel from a subsequent explosion detonated by a suicide bomber. She was taken to a hospital in Rawalpindi, where attempts were made to revive her, but she was declared dead at 6:16 p.m. local time.

I don't want to go on at length about this, since the story will be well covered elsewhere, but for anyone who doesn't know already, Bhutto was a former Prime Minister of Pakistan (1988-1990, 1993-1996), twice dismissed from her office for alleged corruption. She went into a self-imposed exile in 1998, from which she returned this past October, under an agreement with Pervez Musharraf withdrawing all charges against her. Her return, as a leading opposition candidate in the upcoming 2008 Parliamentary elections, was greeted by an immediate assassination attempt by suicide bombing, which left over a hundred dead in Karachi. She was briefly placed under house arrest during the state of emergency declared by Musharraf in November. For a quick bio, see e.g., Wikipedia's entry for Benazir Bhutto (being continuously updated).

What can I say? I don't know enough about Pakistani history and politics to have a legitimate opinion on the merits of Bhutto's career, views, or candidacy; but regardless of one's political persuasion, no one who believes in making collective decisions through peaceful, lawful, democratic procedures can avoid feeling pain and disgust when a life is cut short to silence dialog and subvert the process. My only comment for now is on the following sentence from the Times story, regarding the attack that took place last October in Karachi: "The government has maintained that she ignored their warnings against such public gatherings and that holding them placed herself and her followers in unnecessary danger." Indeed. How can democracy ever proceed under circumstances that preclude public gatherings, whether prevented by dictatorial fiat or fear of assassination?

Please Make It Stop!

2007-12-20T09:09:00.000-08:00

Am I the only one who's burnt out on the endlessly repeated Miller Lite commercial featuring Christmas holiday lights flashing to the tune of Trans-Siberian Orchestra's "Wizard in Winter"? It's bad enough when music you actually like gets worn out by repeated playing, but this theme for hyperactive dwarves is starting to make my eyes and ears bleed. Yeah, I know I can change the channel, or maybe it's time to install that auto-mute function, but really: Enough, already!

Self-Referential

2007-12-15T12:01:00.000-08:00

Hey, I have a new story up at Word Riot (see under Experimental, "The Lunatic"). Now, if you liked the story, and just happened to get here through the 91st Place link at the end of my author bio, what do you find? My latest post about the story you just read.

Maybe I should work on getting up another post...?

Heisman Hyperbole

2007-12-08T13:36:00.000-08:00

I couldn't care less who wins the Heisman. Oh, I really do like sports, but what interests me more is the process by which the meaning of words and expressions can change over short periods of time, and especially the contribution of the popular media to the destruction of meaning altogether. So when I hear an advertisement on ESPN that promises the Heisman winner will "transcend greatness and become a legend," my ears prick up. Say, what? "Transcend greatness"? Actually, I was going to say that when I hear this kind of shit it feels like someone just poured boiling lead into my ears, but that would be hyperbole, wouldn't it? Anyway, there is nothing new about sports hype. Remember how many coaching "geniuses" we had not so long ago?

As an admittedly mere mortal, my main question is, do athletes really become "legends" before they make their mark in the pros? Pop quiz: How many college "legends" didn't last even 5 years in the NFL? Can't remember them all? Let's put it another way. Think of NFL greats you really would confer "legend" status on. How many of these guys won the Heisman before they were drafted? After asking a few questions like those myself, I found some of them echoed, and answered, in "Heisman Is No Key to NFL Glory: Why do so few winners make it in the pros?" by Allen Barra, Opinion Journal, December 6, 2007. Here's a couple more from Barra's article: Who was the last Heisman-winning QB to win a Super Bowl ring? (Hint: It's been a while.) What percentage of Heisman winners have gone on to MVP status in the NFL in the last 50 years?

Okay, it's fair to say there are a lot of reasons a truly remarkable athlete might not have a legendary career, as Barra points out in his article--injuries, being stuck on mediocre teams, even while putting up phenomenal numbers--so there's no reason to expect one can reliably use the little statue as a predictor of a truly memorable future. But that's not my point. Or maybe it is exactly my point, which is, what does "legend" actually mean, anyway, when it's applied so early in life and, when all is said and done, in such a small arena? Alexander the Great was a legend in his own time, but then he conquered most of the world known to the Greeks of the period, and even he didn't get started in earnest until he was 20. Moreover, is "greatness" now such a deflated concept that it must be transcended in order to satisfy the media's imperative to anoint? So what will we be hearing next year, then? Transcend legend and become... what?... God?

Creationism/I.D. Wars Move to Texas

2007-12-04T10:16:00.000-08:00

The forced resignation of Christine Comer shows that future struggles over what's appropriate to teach students about the life sciences won't be just taking place at the local school board level; she was the Texas Education Agency’s director of science (see "Official Leaves Post as Texas Prepares to Debate Science Education Standards" by Ralph Blumenthal, NYT, 03 December 2007) . It also shows that advocates of scientific illiteracy will use whatever means necessary to prevail. Let's not make the mistake of thinking about the teaching of Intelligent Design or Creationism alongside Evolution as a free speech issue; for one thing, if that were really what I.D. advocates were after, Christine Comer would still have her job. In any case, this is about setting education policy at the State level; it has no more to do with free speech than advocating that we must teach students to consider that the Earth being flat or round is a matter still being debated by legitimate authorities, or that angels, not physics and applied mathematics, keep airplanes from falling out of the sky. Citizens, or their churches, or their media, can offer any explanation for things that they want. There is no law barring anyone from saying that 1 +1 could equal 3, but teaching it to children in schools would not be tolerated, because we know that things don't work that way, and applying such an idea in practice would lead to a LOT of things not working. The same applies to Creationism or Intelligent Design.

Does this mean we don't want our children to think, or to question established wisdom, or to put forth and test their own hypotheses about the way things work? Of course not. The reason current theories about life, more often than not, allow us to make predictions, and to convert current knowledge into useful practice, is that they've been developed within a framework of the scientific method, which means making careful observations, developing hypotheses, testing them with more careful observations, and rejecting what is inconsistent, what doesn't work, what doesn't make sense. Because none of these theories are perfect, this process continues. Beyond evolutionary theory itself, this is what we want students to learn about science; there is still much that we don't know, and we want those that are curious and interested to continue to make new observations, ask new questions, and find new answers.

Accepting Creationism and Intelligent Design implicitly involves a rejection of openminded inquiry, no matter how their advocates try to dress up their arguments with the trappings of science, like "journal articles" and I.D. "museums", and pretend their ideas don't simply come out of received faith and received scripture. Christine Comer's forced resignation demonstrates clearly that anti-Evolution advocates have no faith at all that they can ever prevail in a rational scientific debate, based on evidence and reason. Early indoctrination of children, and hardball political manipulations like the one that just took place in Texas, are the only weapons they have, and they know it.

Congratulations Red Sox!

2007-10-29T08:24:00.000-07:00

No need for an extended essay. Red Sox fans can decide for themselves whether this year feels better than 2004. As a Yankees fan, and therefore as a completely objective observer, I can only say that this year's team performed even more impressively than that one; the apparent lows and dire comebacks only tend to confirm their essential dominance of both leagues. There's every reason to expect they will continue to contend strongly in the foreseeable future.

Speaking of which, it looks like uncertain times coming up for the Yanks, to say the least. Man, I don't even want to go into it right now.

Ann Coulter, Perfect

2007-10-12T07:05:00.000-07:00

Idiot. Normally I don't watch or listen to talk shows, nor do I pay much attention to what Ann Coulter says, unless I read about her inane opinions elsewhere. In this case, I followed a link from today's post by Laila Lalami to a transcript of Coulter's interview with Donny Deutsch on his CNBC show "The Big Idea" last Monday. I could not believe it. Just as Deutsch kept pressing Coulter to clarify her statements to the effect that Jews need to be "perfected" by becoming Christians, I kept reading through the transcript trying to figure out if my eyes were deceiving me—in other words, trying to figure out if, at any time during the interview, she'd made a statement that would make sense to an intelligent person.

Now I want to be fair. I couldn't find the actual word "need" in her statements in the transcript. However, it does start off with this startling exchange:

DEUTSCH: Christian -- so we should be Christian? It would be better if we were all Christian?

COULTER: Yes.

DEUTSCH: We should all be Christian?

COULTER: Yes. Would you like to come to church with me, Donny?

Later, in response to Deutsch's attempt to compare her to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the head of Iran, she clarifies as follows:

COULTER: No, we think -- we just want Jews to be perfected, as they say.

DEUTSCH: Wow, you didn't really say that, did you?

Are these the dumbest things she's ever said or written? Not even close. Do I think she's as bad as Ahmadinejad? Not really. But did her statements take her down a rhetorical path well-travelled by anti-semites? Absolutely! I love the last lines of the transcript:

DEUTSCH: You said -- your exact words were, "Jews need to be perfected." Those are the words out of your mouth.

COULTER: No, I'm saying that's what a Christian is.

DEUTSCH: But that's what you said -- don't you see how hateful, how anti-Semitic --

COULTER: No!

DEUTSCH: How do you not see? You're an educated woman. How do you not see that?

COULTER: That isn't hateful at all.

DEUTSCH: But that's even a scarier thought.

Excerpts reproduced from Editor & Publisher (E & P Staff, October 11, 2007 12:15 AM ET updated 1:30 PM ET).

I like to call these attempts by media arch-conservatives to communicate their ideas "close encounters of the sixth, seventh, or eighth kind" (according to Wikipedia, first through fifth are taken), which I define respectively as "An entity is observed, but no intelligent activity is reported in the area at that time", "An entity is observed, but the subject (observer, listener, viewer) experiences some kind of 'unintelligible or incoherent communication' ", and "Attempted abduction of intelligence by alien entities in the form of right-wing media pundits". Note that, unlike other classes of alien sightings and encounters, these can be observed with high frequency by large numbers of humans under ordinary conditions.

Not always a loser...

2007-10-07T13:18:00.000-07:00

Certainly don't want to give that impression. Evidence to the contrary appears in the form of a 100 word story of mine, "Advice", now appearing on-line in the Fall 2007 issue of the Boston Literary Magazine (Drabble section). I can tell from the many comments that appear beneath my blog-posts that my audience is huge, which gives me a nice platform I can use to boost the on-line circulation of publications and web-sites I admire.

Oh, did you link here from there? Never mind....

Bad Writing Contest Loser

2007-10-03T06:22:00.000-07:00

What do you do with a losing entry in a bad flash fiction writing contest? Post it at your own blog! The "assignment" was to come up with a badly written beach scene, limited to 250 words, that would make any editor want to shred it.* The implied challenge, of course, is that it should be bad, but artfully bad! How many fundamental flaws can you find in this loser?

DETROIT BEACH BOOGIE WITH GINNIE AND MINNIE

by Steven Levery

The sun shone, having no alternative, on the nothing new. The opening line of "Murphy," by Samuel Beckett, is appropriate here, because it makes me, the author, sound highly literate, although I was drunk most of the time I read it and don't remember much, except in "Murphy" the sun "shone" over an apartment complex somewhere in the British Isles, while in this story it "shone" over Detroit Beach. I'm not sure if there really is a beach in Detroit, but it doesn't matter because I'm making this stuff up, same thing Beckett did when he wrote "Murphy." I feel that Beckett and I are the same, except he's dead.

The sun shone on Detroit Beach like a lozenge in the sore throat of the sky, except it wasn't cool and soothing. Ginnie and Minnie found the sun annoying, but not as annoying as the rotting seaweed, birds and fish that littered the beach because of a raging storm the night before. Ginnie tripped over a dead sea skate and cursed. You'll have to imagine what she sounded like, unless you're from Detroit. Another woman walked up, her towheaded son in tow. What is that thing? she said. Looks like a sea skate, said Minnie. The woman wanted to focus her son's attention on the carcass, but his gaze kept wandering to the ocean, which was bigger. Look at it, Adam, she said, I'm trying to teach you something! What is it, Mommy? he finally asked. It's dead, she said.

*The contest was sponsored this past August by CoolStuff4 Writers. Note that the deadline, September 1, has passed, and the winner selected, or I wouldn't be posting this. If you want to see the winning entry, go to their web-site, where it will be posted soon (it has already appeared in their newsletter, to which you can easily subscribe).

For anyone who is wondering, I was told by a fellow writer who lived in Detroit that there really is a beach there (on Belle Isle in the middle of the Detroit River). Thanks Bill!

Congratulations Yankees!

2007-09-28T13:01:00.000-07:00

Well, I'm a little late, but congratulations to the NY Yankees on clinching their spot in the MLB playoffs. Of course it's not quite settled who will end the season atop the Division. The Yanks gained another game on the Sox last night, and are now 2 games out, with a weekend left to play. Like a lot of people, I had my doubts that the Yankees could really get where they are now, but I couldn't be more thrilled that there will indeed be post-season baseball in the Bronx (that I might actually get to see), and that there's a reasonably good chance of another series with the Red Sox. 'Nough said.

Congratulations Red Sox!

2007-09-22T20:15:00.000-07:00

Congratulations to the Boston Red Sox, who just clinched a playoff berth with their win over TB. The Yanks are almost there, having eked and squeaked out a tough 10 inning marathon win against visiting Toronto.

I would not discount the chances of Cleveland or LA advancing, but my preference is obviously for another Yankee-Red Sox epic in the second round.

Kian Tajbakhsh Is Free

2007-09-21T10:31:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, I found a brief message in my email inbox stating that Kian Tajbakhsh, another Iranian-American scholar who was being held in Tehran's Evin Prison, had just been set free. By now a number of news items have appeared in the regular press and blogosphere about Kian's release (see, e.g., Robin Wright, Washington Post, 20 May 2007 for details, including mention of other Americans either recently released or still held in Iran). As it happens, I received this good news directly because I signed a petition calling for his release back in May of this year. Along with the freeing of Haleh Esfandiari (21 August) and another Iranian-American, Parnaz Azima (19 September), the release of Kian seemed to me to confirm the positive influence of attention brought to these cases by the combination of web-based petitions, condemnation by influential politicians, and the world's media spotlight.

Or is it that they simply coincide, at least in these cases, with the international maneuverings of the government in question. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, after all, is scheduled to address the General Assembly of the UN shortly. My guess is that both political expediency and worldwide attention are useful, and that in many cases they can work in synergy. So keep signing those petitions, whenever you are aware of the issues, and as often as you can manage.

Power Outage in Boston

2007-09-20T10:11:00.000-07:00

I wasn't going to write about baseball any more until the end of the regular season, but I gotta say the events of the past few days have been too interesting to let slide without comment. Since taking last Sunday's game at Boston (2 out of 3 in the series, and 5 out of their last 6 games), the Yanks have swept Baltimore, while the Sox got swept in Toronto, leaving a differential of only 1.5 games between Boston and NY for the Division lead. So what seemed highly improbable only a few weeks ago now looks eminently possible--Boston no longer has the best record in baseball, and are in real danger of losing their Division lead to NY. The good news for both is that Detroit got swept by Cleveland during the same stretch, putting them 5.5 games away from the AL Wild Card. So at the moment the worst case scenario for Boston would have them still in the playoffs, but flipping the Wild Card with NY.

New York continuing to win against Baltimore was heartening (especially Mussina's nice outing on Tuesday), but not necessarily surprising. On the other hand, the improbables really seemed to pile up against Boston during the past week: getting outscored 16-5 by Toronto; their pitchers, especially their relievers, faltering badly; and, most of all, exhibiting sloppy play on both offence and defence. Aside from Boston's Buchholz getting tagged with the loss last night, his wildly off-the-mark flip to Mike Lowell at third base was painful to watch. Luckily the result, Adams getting safely to third, was nullified by one of the funniest plays I've ever seen. Lowell, after getting the ball back from Kielty, held on to it, and managed to get a tag on Adams during a split second when he shifted his weight slightly. Adams removed his foot from the bag no more than a couple of inches, as far as I could tell in the replays, but the ump was right on the spot (wonder if Lowell winked at him to get his attention just before applying the tag). Lowell reminds me of a Chemistry Professor I had once; this looked like a Professor of Baseball play to me.

Among the problems for Boston is that Ramirez, and recently Youkilis, have been absent from the lineup. I assume that if Boston can get them back in play they can return to winning, starting with the Devil Rays in Tampa tomorrow. The Yanquis will get the Jays at home in the Bronx. I assume both NY and Boston fans will be watching the scoreboard closely for news of their respective rivals' games. Only ten days left to the regular season, but nothing is settled yet, because it's baseball.

My brief life as a Red Sox fan

2007-09-18T09:07:00.000-07:00

I’ve made only two sports bets in my entire life. In 1969, I got a little crazy, and bet on the Jets to whip the Colts in Super Bowl III and on the Mets to take the World Series from the Orioles. These are, of course, two of the most celebrated upsets in sports history. I was quick to realize that I’d already expended most of my life’s quota of good fortune on these two events, and retired from any further wagering.

Everyone who knows me well knows I’m a lifetime Yankees fan, so there’s something kind of funny about winning a bet on the ‘69 Mets, a team I’d never rooted for, and have never rooted for since. I was even faithful to the Yanks during their extended decade of mediocrity from 1965-1975, but the Miracle Mets were fun, I was going to school in Boston at the time, and I couldn’t pass up a chance to win a fin from my New England-bred roommate with an in-your-face long-shot bet on the other New York team.

During most of the time I lived in Boston, from 1966 to 1979, an enjoyable substitute for watching the Yankees win was watching the Red Sox lose, with all the attendant drama that entailed. I was there for the Impossible Dream loss to the Cards in ‘67, the failure against the Big Red Machine in ‘75, the late-season collapse and one-game playoff loss to the Yankees in ’78. Their defeat by the Mets in ’86 was also sweet, but by then I was living in Seattle and couldn’t experience it first-hand. In any case I hadn't rooted for the Mets in particular, just for another Red Sox loss. Better was seeing the Sox lose to the Yankees in 1999, but it wasn't much of a contest, and I was living in Georgia at the time, so the subsequent sweep of Atlanta was much more satisfying.

Then, of course, there was the playoff loss to the Yankees in 2003, another full-on drama. I was now living in Durham, NH, rabid Red Sox territory. My resulting satisfaction was enormous, although somewhat blunted by the Yanks’ failure to win the World Series that year. And then there was 2004. I have to admit that by this time I’d grown to respect, even like, the Sox. So I had to respect, and yes, even like, the greatest comeback/choke in sports history. Most everyone I know here agreed that the World Series was an anticlimax, but it’s a good thing they won. I’m particularly glad that Red Sox fans can now be just like any other tribe of homo sapiens whose team has won a World Series, ending decades of sports-induced psychosis.

There is one more confession to make. The photograph below was taken in August 1956. I vaguely remember the occasion, a rare extended family picnic. One of my Boston/South Shore relatives hung the Red Sox garb on me; I doubt at the time I really had a clue what it signified. Shortly thereafter, while many of my friends were gnashing their teeth over the announcement that the Dodgers were leaving Brooklyn, I realized that I didn’t care, because (a) I lived in Queens, and (b) I’d lately become aware that I rooted for the Yankees, the team of Mickey Mantle, Yogi Berra, and Moose Skowron. When I showed this picture to one of my colleagues, a loyal Sox fan, he remarked that it represented my last Summer of innocence before being seduced by the Dark Side. My theory is that Red Sox Nation and Evil Empire are inseparable, complementary principles of the Universe, Baseball's Yin and Yang, each less than whole without its opposite Other. How could my life be complete without both?

(Note: This article was originally posted on 02 December 2006, and is being reposted now because the original author attribution was lost in the changeover to Google.)

What's in a Name? Part 2.

2007-09-18T08:52:00.000-07:00

"It must be conceded...that the tendency to mislabel men and things is deep set in Jewish character." Henry Ford (1863-1947)

Henry Ford, that notorious anti-semite, would have loved the story of my father's name. "Solomon Levy becomes Charles B. Levery" would have fit right into the litany of Ford's essay, "The Gentle Art of Changing Jewish Names" (The Dearborn Independent, issue of 12 November 1921; WARNING: this link is to the text available at the Web-site of "The Church of True Israel"; beware of total hateful content if you follow this entry back to their Homepage and other content, which includes the full text of Henry Ford's writings, as well as "Protocols of the Elders of Zion" and other shit).

My father's parents were Russian immigrants, and his name in their homeland would have been rendered something like "Zalman," or some variant thereof, with the "Z" sounding like "TS". Apparently what his mother called him as a boy sounded something like "Tsollie", and when she brought him to the local public school for the first time, the administrators thought she was referring to him as "my Charlie", so they registered him as Charles, a name he kept for the rest of his life, and eventually took with a legal change. However, as far as I can remember, when discussing him (in the past tense) my mother always called him Sol. Since my grandfather was also born with the name Salamon, at times I wasn't certain whether my mom was referring to her father or mine.

As a free-lance commercial artist, my father made a good living in the 1940s from a variety of commissioned art and design applications. I still have a collection of many of his working drafts, which includes designs for the backs of playing cards, greeting cards, menus, signage, advertisements, and book covers, as well as depictions of sophisticated high fashion and futuristic couture rendered in airbrush, a now obsolete technique at which he excelled. He was technically adept with charcoal and pencil, and often used these techniques for non-commercial art he worked on in his spare time. He married my mother in 1944, fathered two children, and died in 1949, when I was six months old.

Up to the time of his death, we apparently led a comfortable middle class life in the upper floors of a three-story house on a quiet street in Elmhurst, Queens, which we shared with my mother's parents, who lived downstairs on the first floor. Along with other comforts that I don't personally remember, we owned a new car that had been specially rigged to be driven by someone missing a leg, since my father was an amputee who got around (remarkably well, apparently) with a prosthetic. He'd lost his leg nearly to the hip before World War II, which understandably exempted him from military service and allowed him to pursue his artistic aspirations and career without interruption. His professional income, in any case, depended on a continuous supply of commissions, the most lucrative of which came from clients engaged in various forms of advertising. I haven't yet been able to document for certain that his occupation was one of those from which Jews were excluded under the "Gentlemen's Agreement" in effect during the 1930s and '40s, but his perception was undoubtedly that he would have trouble maintaining his working arrangements (not to mention buying a house in our overwhelmingly Christian neighborhood) while carrying an obvious Jewish surname like Levy. If you don't know what this was about, a good place to start would be by renting the movie "Gentleman's Agreement" (1947; directed by Elia Kazan; starring Gregory Peck, Dorothy McGuire, and John Garfield, among others); or read the original novel (1946) by Laura Z. Hobson. The movie is not without its flaws, somewhat preachy but historically relevant, and a good chance to see an excellent, heartfelt performance by John Garfield (born Jacob Julius Garfinkle). It's worth noting that similar unwritten "Gentlemen's Agreements" excluded African Americans from Major League Baseball from 1887-1946, and from the National Footbal League from 1933-1945.

So my father inserted the letters "er" in his last name, and became Charles B. Levery (I honestly don't know what the "B." in his name stood for). Because of its synthetic origin, I grew up thinking that Levery was a unique surname shared by no one else on the planet except for my mother and brother. I sometimes encountered the similar name Lavery, but regarded it as close, but no cigar. Only later, when it became possible to search the Internet, did I become aware that there were other people named Levery, and that it is a respectably distributed surname of French origin, closely related indeed to Lavery, and in addition to other French family names such as LaPierre. There is a Levery in the French Academy, and a Google search will turn up a variety of Levery entries relevant to American history, including a Medal of Honor recipient for heroic actions during the Spanish-American War (William Levery, 1899). Obviously, none of these distinguished, French-derived Leverys have anything to do with me, my brother, or our immediate families.

So, was my father responding to some innate tendency for Jews to prevaricate and obscure, or acting in concert with that putative "International Jewish Conspiracy" to dominate the field of commercial art and advertising, or was he just trying to secure a continuing income and place to live for himself and his family in the face of perceivable exclusions?

(Note: This article was originally posted on 02 July 2006, and is being reposted now because the original author attribution was lost in the changeover to Google.)

What's in a Name? Part 1.

2007-09-18T08:44:00.000-07:00

One of the more bizarre documents of American letters is Henry Ford's lengthy anti-semitic diatribe, "The International Jew," which originally appeared as a series of editorials in the Dearborn Independent (link is to Wikipedia entry) from 1920-1922. Most of these were compiled into a series of four books published by the Dearborn Publishing Company, beginning with "The International Jew: The World's Foremost Problem" (1920). Students of the subject are well aware of the history of the Independent, which Ford himself owned through its parent, the Dearborn Publishing Company, from 1919-1927. The newspaper also reprinted the text of the infamous and fraudulent "Protocols of the Elders of Zion" during its deservedly brief life after Ford's purchase. Reproductions of issues of the Dearborn Independent are viewable at a variety of locations on the Web (e.g., therationalrevolution.net); so are the texts of the original articles and the books.

One place the original articles can be found compiled in their entirety is at the web-site of an aryan supremacy group called "The Church of True Israel." I won't provide a direct link to them here, but you can easily find the site by web-search if you want. Which is actually my point, sort of. That all of this material is transparently available in the public domain, and easily found on the Web, is exactly as it should be. What I find interesting, and somewhat amusing, frankly, was the way I happened to stumble on the texts of Ford's articles, and the The Church of True Israel site, while searching for something else (not an unusual occurrence in Google World).

For the past year or so I've been assembling a web-based version of my family's history, which is viewable, along with a bunch of other bullshit, at theunguardedasylum.com (I realize that as an "advertisement for myself," mentioning it here is about as effective as hiring someone to carry a sandwich signboard into the middle of the Amazon jungle. Nevertheless...the family history can be accessed via the "Family History" link within the site). A particular problem concerning my paternal Grandfather's given name (which I've since sorted out), led me to search the Web using the keywords "jewish names". Among the listing of more or less helpful sites, not so far down, was a link to Page 70 of the text of Henry Ford's articles, this one entitled "The Gentle Art of Changing Jewish Names." Oddly enough, in its own twisted way, the article was directly related to my problem.

Between 1899 and 1921, my Grandfather and at least three of his siblings migrated from their home area in the Carpathian foothills of Central Europe to the Northeastern coast of the United States; upon their arrival in the US, he and his two brothers all changed their surnames from Paktorovics/Paktorovits to Pactovis (a sister took a different name, Weisz, by marriage). Today, as far as I know, there are three descendant clans carrying the Pactovis surname, originating from the same Paktorovics nuclear family (the branch I am in is not very prolific, but the rest are doing fine). There is no mystery about the change and, as far as I can tell, no conspiracy of International Jewry behind it, except that they were certainly being consistent among themselves. As it happened, my grandfather also changed his first name from Salomon to Samuel. This is what I found somewhat puzzling; these two names, though similar, are not etymologically related (Salomon = "Peace"; Samuel = "His name is God"; this is what I was trying to check in my Web search). I have a variety of official documents relating to his life prior to his emigration, as a citizen first of Hungary and then Czechoslovakia (no, he didn't move, the borders did), and in all he is referred to as Salomon or some variant thereof. Why Samuel? I wondered.

The key was in a document that turned out to be, on translation from Hungarian, the original invitation to my grandparents' wedding in 1913. Two words on it turned out to be their pet names, Samu and Melánka. The answer was now obvious: he was already known to his friends and family by the familiar Samu; to officially adopt the name Samuel is not a great stretch from there. Interestingly, in their original wedding contract (Ketuba), written in Aramaic, they are referred to as Shlomo (= Salomon) and Mindl.

So my answer to Ford's article is, Yes, Hank, we do use different names, and change them all the time--sometimes more than once, in different contexts; sometimes deliberately for business or social purposes; sometimes for no other reason than having it imposed on an ancestor by an insistent immigration officer impatient with a mouthful of too many unpronouncable syllables. Do we do this more than anyone else, or for purposes any more dark? Are there not pet names and nicknames in every language? Have not even the most Anglo-Saxon surnames evolved over time, from origins in most cases rustic and rural? Is it really another aspect of that infamous conspiracy of desperate Semites determined to rule the world? Next time, I'll write about my father's name, and in what form conspiracy really enters the picture.

(Note: This article was originally posted on 02 July 2006, and is being reposted now because the original author attribution was lost in the changeover to Google.)

Round 3 Survival

2007-09-17T10:26:00.000-07:00

The last regular season meeting between the Yanks and Red Sox is now "history," as they say, the rubber game going to NY, 4-3. For the most part it was a well-pitched game featuring two veterans, Clemens and Schilling, both showing they have good stuff left. There were some fielding gems, including several odd races for first base won by Mientkiewicz and Clemens with no more than centimeters to spare each time; HRs by Lowell, Cano, and Jeter, the latter of which provided the margin of victory; Giambi redeeming himself for some questionable fielding at first base the last couple of outings, that got him taken out of the regular lineup for this game, with a key pinch base hit that ended up as a run scored after Jeter's HR; and an electric final confrontation between Rivera and Big Papi, with bases loaded and two outs, that could easily have ended with a walkoff but instead faded out with a gasping pop fly that barely made it out of the infield. Rivera clearly did not have his best stuff, and the Yanquis must have let out a collective sigh of relief as they exited Fenway. The Sox could have used a couple of runs from Saturday's victory, but it doesn't work like that. On the whole they outpitched and outhit NY for the series, but couldn't take it all to the bank.

What the Red Sox can take is that they lost only a small part of their lead in the Division; only another sweep by the Yanks could have had a significant effect on their relative positions. What the Yankees can take is that they lost a game of their lead over Detroit, which has won five in a row, but no more than that. Any relief the Yanks might have felt last last night must be purely momentary. They need to keep winning, because the Tigers are on their tails.

Boston's Beckett Breaks Back

2007-09-16T08:57:00.000-07:00

After trading runs with Boston in the first, the NY offence got squeezed by a 35 foot Anaconda named Josh Beckett, while the Sox offence tattooed a parade of Yank pitchers for 9 more. My joke for the locals was "Well, at least this time the Sox managed to hang on for the win." Consider that their 10 runs could have won them 5 ball games like this one.

For the rest of the season, the Yanks main worry will clearly be Detroit, which won again yesterday. The Tigers are now only 2.5 games behind in the Wild Card race. At this point, the Yanks need to win the rubber game against the Sox tonight, but it's no more important than every other game they need to win down the stretch to fend off Detroit.

Round One Knockdown

2007-09-15T10:37:00.000-07:00

I have to admit, with the eighth inning about to start, and the Dread Sox up by 5 runs, my mind was starting wander, thinking maybe it might be time for bed soon. Pettitte got chased from the mound early, NY had wasted a number of great opportunities to score, and the Sox relievers were coming on to apply the sleeper hold. Oh, me of little faith...Yanquis score 6 in the inning, and then hold on to win the first game 8-7. It was worth staying up til midnight to see Rivera bring the hammer down one more time.

Interesting to see the Yanks really get to some of Boston's best relievers, Okajima and Papelbon. Admittedly, it only took a couple of mistakes by Papelbon to finally blow the save, but that's baseball, as they say. Okajma'd already left the situation pretty dire, giving up the first 4 runs in uncharacteristic fashion. This particular win is less important for its effect on the Division title standings than for keeping the Yanks ahead of surging Detroit in the Wild Card. But will it also get in the Red Sox' heads? Round two starts late this afternoon.

Yankee Mood Swings 2

2007-09-13T11:56:00.000-07:00

As the Yankees will be making their way to Boston tomorrow for their final regular season encounter with the Dread Sox, I've been looking for some clever way to characterize what's happened in past two weeks since their last series. Interestingly, the Yanks are at the moment 5.0 games behind the Sox in the standings, exactly the same deficit they had when that team left NY after being swept 3-0 in the series. Today the Yanks have one more game in Toronto, while the Sox are off, so the deficit will change by half a game before they meet. Both teams have in their own way demonstrated a remarkable common trait: they are as hard to kill as Rasputin. The Sox showed this especially in their last two games against the Devil Rays, coming back from substantial deficits to win in dramatic fashion. Tampa Bay apparently has a team, as the Yankees found out in their series; coming off their sweep of the Sox, they lost 2 out of 3 to the Rays at home. After they lost their first game of the series against Seattle, their closest rival in the Wild Card race, some Yankee (and Red Sox) fans may have wondered what was going on with this team. Then NY won the next two, knocking the Mariners back into their tailspin and essentially out of Wild Card contention altogether. For the Yanks, that was the beginning of a 7 game winning streak, during which they've played some outstanding baseball; now, barring a major catastrophe, their Wild Card entry into the playoffs seems fairly assured. Detroit is now their closest rival, a substantial 4.0 games behind. That catastrophe, of course, could conceivably come in the form of getting swept by the Red Sox. Coupled with wins by Detroit, that would make the Wild Card situation once again uncertain.

On the eve of their upcoming series with the Yanquis, pulling the last two games out in Tampa Bay was clearly big for Boston. If they had lost those two games, the spectre of 1978 would loom large over the series. Now, in the unlikely event they get swept by NY, they will clearly be vulnerable to further onslaughts, but will still at least keep the Division lead in hand. The most likely scenario is that the teams split one way or the other, and the impact on the playoff situation will turn out to be minimal. But no one can tell the future, which is one reason why the Fenway is gonna be a crazy place this weekend.