Trust, Draft 4, And Tulips

 Ida Partenza has been hired by Andrew Bevel in Hernan Diaz' Trust to write down his autobiography as he dictates.  But she's also supposed to put it in order, clean it up, and embellish where necessary.  At their second session, when she gives Bevel what she's written, he's not satisfied.  

"You do take faithful notes.  The facts are, in essence, there.  A few things ought to be emended.  We'll get to that.  The problem is that this doesn't reflect me."

She's not sure what to do.  She decides to read autobiographies of some great men to see what they 'sound' like. 

"If Bevel's own voice, transcribed without embellishment or modification, was not enough, I would make a new one for him out of all those other voices. . . Because thanks to my wild and uncompromisingly disorganized approach, the books started to merge into one another.  What was individual about each man - Carnegie's self serving sanctimoniousness, Grant's essential decency, Ford's matter-of-fact pragmatism, Coolidge's rhetorical thrift and so on - yielded what I thought at the time, they all had in common:  they all believed, without any sort of doubt that they deserved to be heard, that their words ought to be heard, that the narratives of their faultless lives must be heard.  They all had the same unwavering certainty my father had.  And I understood this was the certainty that Bevel wants on the page."

We probably have a few too many politicians like this.  

My book club's next book

The discussion of how to organize the anecdotes Bevel's was telling her also reminded me of the chapter I'd read yesterday in John McPhee's Draft No. 4: On the Writing Process where he discusses the difficulties he's had starting out on long articles about individuals.   

"To prepare a profile of an individual, the reporting endeavor looks something like this:

 

           o

   o               o 

o         x          o

   o               o

           o

 

"The x is the person you are principally going to talk to, spend tie with, observe, and write about.  The o's  represent peripheral interviews with people who can shed light on the life and career of x - her friends, or his mother, old teachers, teammates, colleagues, employees, enemies, anybody at all, the more the better.  Cumulatively, the o's provide triangulation - a way of checking facts one against another, and of eliminating apocrypha." 

I miss not writing more posts like this.  We've had three young sisters staying with us this week.  They grew up in Alaska and moved out of state about five years ago and this has been their first trip back.  What fun we've had.  

I'm almost up to 200 km for this summer's biking.  And enjoying all the green stuff that's pushing out of the earth.  

By the way, Trust, is one of two fiction Pulitzer Prize winners this year.  The other one, Barbara Kingsolver's Deadly Copperfield is the book club's August pick.  

My Indonesian Yacht Cruise Was A Raft Trip On The Yentna With Ted Turner

[For those who are used to Twitter and need the this to read this in 20 seconds, skip down to the bolded question, What does this have to do with yachts cruising Indonesian islands? For those that want some context (and a little history on how the Anchorage Assembly first got onto cable, start at the beginning.]

 

Michael Shamberg's Guerilla Television had put video literacy into my life goals.  It pointed out that we are taught to read and write at school and given some skills in recognizing when written language is being used to manipulate us. (This was the 70s when schools still did that.  I think many still do, but I'm guessing a lot don't.)  

Shamberg's premise was that we were getting so much news via television that we needed that same sort of training in videography.  The book was a treatise on what was wrong with how news was created and a citizens handbook for how to make people's videos and how citizen created videos would change the world.  This was at a time when video cameras were pretty bulky and pricey, and there weren't any outlets for citizens to show their videos. There weren't even any Blockbusters yet.

I'd say Shamberg was pretty visionary. Eventually cameras on phones gave everyone a pocket video recorder and YouTube offered everyone a people's theater where anyone could show their videos and anyone could watch them.  Social media have extended the audience even further.  

And so when cable television was beginning to show up I was paying attention.  I was reading cable industry journals and even went to a few conferences on cable public access.  I was especially excited about the contracts around the country that required the cable companies to set up public access video studios with cameras and editing equipment so people could make their own videos. They also required public access channels to play those citizen made videos on. Sure, the audience was limited to cable viewers, but it was a step in the right direction. 

Multivision had bid for the contract in Anchorage.  This was 1982 or 83.  I was working on loan from the University to the Municipality of Anchorage for a couple of years.  I read the Multivision proposal and was dismayed that there was no provision for a public access video studio or a channel for people's video.  I kept telling Cathy Allen, Mayor Knowles' chief of staff (I think that was her title) that the Municipality should be demanding that such provisions - modeled from Outside cable agreements - be included in Multivisions' contract.  She kept treating me like I was crazy.  I kept sending her memos (yeah, email was not available yet)  about the Alaska Public Utility  Commission's meetings on cable.  One was coming up soon where there would be public testimony. On the day of the meeting I got a call to come up to Allen's office right away.  She'd just come back from a national conference and a city manager from a big city had sat her down and told her how important it was to have public access in cable contracts. Nothing I hadn't been telling her, but he was more credible to her than I had been.  So yes, I could go to the meeting and represent the Muni that afternoon.  

Fortunately, I'd been reading the proposal and comparing the prices they were proposing for monthly subscriptions and had lots of information about public access in other cities.  

So there I was, at the last minute, running down the street to the meeting.  There weren't a lot of people there and they all seemed to be Multivisions boosters.  Then my turn to talk came.  I nervously compared Multivisions prices to Outside prices and said something like, "I understand it is more expensive to operate in Alaska than it is Outside, but it's NOT three times as expensive!"  I also talked about how most cities were requiring cable companies to have public access studies and a public access channel.  And I sat down.

At the next break, I was mobbed by six or seven people asking me, essentially, "who the hell are you?" did  I really represented the Muni.  

As time went by I was back arguing that Multivisions should be televising the Assembly meetings live.  Not possible they said.  At that time they were meeting in the Muni's Tudor Road buildings and they said it wasn't wired for cable.  It would have to wait until the new Loussac Library opened.  

But for some reason the Assembly  had to move out of the Tudor building and temporarily went to the new Convention Center on 5th Avenue.  And I knew that building was wired.  By that time I'd gotten some others to join me and we had set up a non-profit for this project - something like Anchorage Media Access Group.  I lobbied the Assembly members and they agreed to a six month trial and allotted a paltry sum - maybe $3000 for that.  Our non-profit sent out an RFP to every third video business in the Anchorage media resources book.  We got two bids.  One was way beyond the money the Assembly offered.  The other was a budding videographer who agreed to do it at a ridiculously low price with the help of volunteers (ourselves and a few others) who would staff the cameras for him.  

At first, he balked. He couldn't trust his expensive cameras to volunteers.   But he relented when we pointed out that he couldn't afford to do it any other way.  And so the Assembly began its six months experiment being broadcast live on Anchorage cable.  

While Assembly members had had a number of doubts - it would lead to grandstanding, those without cable wouldn't have access, etc. - after several weeks they were all won over.  They had so many people say they saw them on cable and they had people showing up saying they were watching at home and had to come down to testify.  At the end of the six months they approved a much larger budget and our videographer got the contract and we stopped having to supply volunteers.  We disbanded our non-profit and gave the Assembly back the $500 we still had left and asked them to use it to support televising the Assembly. 

 

What does this have to do with yachts cruising Indonesian islands? 

Somewhere along this cable path, I got an invitation from Multivision to go on a float trip on the Yentna River with Ted Turner whom they were bringing up to Alaska.  That sounded very cool, but unlike a certain US Supreme Court justice, I didn't consider accepting for a second.  

I understood that I hadn't been randomly selected for this honor, but that it had to do with my advocacy for a better deal for Anchorage citizens and my advocacy for getting the Anchorage Assembly live on cable. And that this might be their way to get me to tone it down or who knows?.  I thanked them and said I couldn't accept their offer. 

Clarence Thomas, on the other hand, seems to have had no qualms about accepting annual half-a-million dollar vacations and didn't see it necessary to report these on his annual financial disclosure forms.  

The wealthy Republicans have been smart and have taken a long range planning approach to maintain power. When Bork got turned down for the Court, they apparently realized democracy was no longer enough.  

Lobbying has been a traditional way to get legislators to vote against the interests of their constituents.  This relationship is strengthened by campaign contributions. And secrecy. But even better would be owning a Supreme Court that decided their way if the legislature wouldn't.  

The Democrats have not been as Machiavellian and were not very good as spotting the stealth takeover  of the Supreme Court the Republicans, through the Federalist Society, had worked on for so many years.  

And with Trump as president, they succeeded in taking over the Court.  Justice Kennedy abruptly resigned to make room for Kavanaugh.  I'm still certain there's a cloak and dagger story about how Kennedy was convinced to step down, that would include his son's work for Deutsche Bank, the last major bank still willing to lend money to Trump for his projects. And Justin Kennedy was the man who made those loans happen. 

But since Trump essentially turned the job of picking his court nominees over to the Federalist Society, it's pretty clear that they had something to do with Kennedy's resignation as well.  The first link is to a speech by Sen. Whitehouse - the Senate's most active and vocal observer of how the Federalist Society has managed the sharp lurch to the right of the Supreme Court.  But for those of you who need a different source, here's a report from The Hill.  Speculation?  Sure.  But a lot of clues point in the right direction. And like Thomas' vacations with the Crows, I'm pretty certain there's lots we don't yet know.  At least there are facts and motives pointing in this direction, which is way more than the Republicans have for every major scandal they scream about daily.  

Breakdown of Norms

From Oxford Bibliographies:

"[Norms] are most commonly defined as rules or expectations that are socially enforced. Norms may be prescriptive (encouraging positive behavior; for example, “be honest”) or proscriptive (discouraging negative behavior; for example, “do not cheat”)."

Basically, norms are the rules that are socially, rather than legally, enforced.  When people break the norms, public opinion is the force that 'rules' the consequences.  Politicians lose elections, officials resign their posts.  

But we're in a period where Republicans, particularly, are no longer constrained by norms.  They're no longer constrained by laws. (Sure, politicians on both sides have fudged the law forever, but they did it clandestinely, not flagrantly out in the open.)  While Trump is by far the most egregious example, his Republican colleagues in the House and Senate have gone along.  The Senate had the power to remove him from office after the House voted for impeachment.  Twice.  

They didn't.  Instead, they rammed through the nominations of Kavanaugh and Barrett.  

Not all the Republicans are completely craven, but they are all much more interested in their reelections than they are in maintaining traditional norms of appearing to support the public interest, 

And Fox News, particularly, has worked closely with Trump to make sure their viewers are fed the stories they (the viewers) want to hear, no matter how much they deviate from truth.  Those Republicans who stood up to Trump, even slightly, have either retired (rather than face Trump's cult in the primaries) or they were defeated in the primaries.  Alaska's Senator Murkowski is the only exception I know of.  She used a write-in campaign to overcome a primary defeat in 2012.  In 2022, Alaska's new Ranked ChoiceVoting went into effect, which eliminated closed party primaries and put all candidates for each office into one primary. 

The wealthy Right Wingers know that their ideas are not popular with the voters.  Ending abortion, no restrictions on guns, racial discrimination, election manipulation are all opposed by healthy majorities of the general population. 

To win, Republicans have to rig the game.  Pack the Supreme Court with judges who rule in favor of business most of the time.  Gerrymander state voting districts to get far more Republicans elected even when the actual numbers of both parties are much more even.  Suppress the votes of minorities and the young in as many ways as they can think of.  Oppose all bills to help overcome the disparities in wealth, access to food, housing, education, and health care. In fact oppose all legislation that might be good for the country that Biden could take credit for.  And now we're seeing the truly power obsessed trying to control women's rights to decide their own health care, even banning out of state travel for those seeking abortions.  

With a strong Supreme Court majority, Republican governors are writing laws so far out of the bounds of US social norms and violate decades old Supreme Court precedents.  They are doing this in anticipation of the new Federalist Society judges overturning all those precedents as just as they overturned Roe v. Wade.  Voting rights?  We're back to a post Civil War Supreme Court that used States' Rights to allow disenfranchisement of blacks and lynchings among other terrible practices.  

And when Clarence Thomas says in his brief official statement that he read the rules and consulted with others and they said he didn't have to report transportation, he's telling me that he has NO business being a US Supreme Court Justice.  

• First, this is so extreme an example - half a million dollar vacations for 20 years!  Any reasonable person knows this sort of 'gift' needs to be reported  (I didn't have to go to law school to know accepting a pricey trip with a celebrity was the wrong thing to do.)
• Second, if Thomas has trouble interpreting such obvious and simple disclosure rules for judicial gifts, then he is hardly qualified to interpret the US Constitution. 
• Third, if he is capable of such interpretation, then he's intentionally flouting the rules and the norms for his own advantage.  In this case his perceived best interest was non-disclosure. One would assume that is also how he often interprets the law and the Constitution in his Supreme Court decisions.  
• Fourth, hanging out with the Crows and their yachting friends helps to shape his ideas of his own best interests and appropriate interpretations of the Constitution.

CONCLUSIONS

Like most such issues, this one is entangled in many overlapping contexts of law, of history, of politics, of economics, of ethics, that it is difficult to discuss it without either leaving important points out or without getting so long and complicated people won't finish.  

A key issue I'm leaving out is accountability of career and elected public officials.  Of course Trump and Fox have so violated societal norms of behavior and of truth telling that we seem to be in a completely different place than we were five or six years ago.  Though another part of me believes that the craziness we hear these days has always existed.  But today's technology enables much more of it to be seen and heard by the public.  

If that's true, the good news is that all this ugliness is being exposed - from police brutality to overt racism (OK, those two are probably intertwined), to sexual abuse, etc.  The bad news is those with norm-violating behavior and thoughts have found support for their anti-democracy desires.  

Before the Republicans get ultimate control of the courts and can manipulate all elections, we need to get all the folks who are still within traditional norms, but have given up on voting, to go vote.  There are still tens of millions of people who have come up with excuses not to vote.  (And this is also in part due to the Right's propaganda about how terrible government is, Democrats are, and how corrupt elections are.)  

Those who want Democracy to carry on have an obligation to get everyone who doesn't normally vote, to vote in the next few elections.  And the Republicans' extreme power grabbing - abortions bans, LGBTQ+ baiting, anti-Semitism, book banning, expulsion of duly elected legislators are all helping to get those voters to the polls in the next elections.   

We need enough Democrats in state legislatures and in Congress to overcome Republican attempts to turn the US into an authoritarian regime favoring wealthy white males who distort the Bible to further their interests.  

Random Shots San Francisco

 

Prickly pear foot.

Went to the Castro to buy a friend a rainbow flag.

Someone chalked a memorial to their grandfather on the garage door.

One architectural feature I began to notice I've finally got a name for - quoins.  Lots of the San Francisco buildings have them.  They seem to be both structural and decorative.  In the picture they are the lighter color pieces on the corners.  

I first started to notice them (first you see something, but don't consciously register them and then you do) on a bright blue house I put up in a previous post.  I don't usually post the same picture twice, but I think it's appropriate here.  

On this house, because of the starkly contrasting colors, they really stand out.  And while some go around the corners, others seem mainly decorative.  

Look closely for the hummingbird.

Waiting for the bus.

Cymbidium seem to do alright in San Francisco.  From Orchidweb:

"While these orchids can be cultured successfully indoors, Cymbidium benefit tremendously from growing outdoors between May to early October. In late summer and early fall, night temperatures that fall below 58°F (15°F) initiate the development of flower spikes. Keep in mind, these are not frost-tolerant plants, and should not be exposed to temperatures below 35°F (2°C)"

Other Avenues is a worker owned coop grocery in San Francisco with a small woke book section.  

I ended up buying two bars of soap which caused TSA to pull my roller bag aside and look for the suspicious blocks.  

I'm pretty sure this is an aeonium arboreum.  These plants are very popular in San Francisco.  

"You have to risk it to get the biscuit." Sharman Haley On Hiking The Haute Route Through The Pyrenees [UPDATED 2/20/23]

[UPDATE 2/20/23 - Now available in Anchorage at  Mosquito books and Barnes and Noble]

Sharman Haley's book, Perspectives on Place: An Alaskan Explores the Pyrenees came out early December.  It's an account of her walking tour on the the Haute Route, some 800 kilometers (500 miles) through the Pyrenees of Northern Spain. Sharman is a retired economist and sometimes that's reflected in the depth she explores things.  But the beautiful water colors of her partner and travel companion Michael Samoya offer a refreshing respite from the more difficult passages.  A good reflection of the hike itself I would imagine.  

Sharman is a friend and was a colleague at the University of Alaska Anchorage.  She let me view a prepublication copy in November and I've left a draft of this post languish since early December.  My hope here is to give a sense of the book by using quotes that reflect the variety of topics she experienced on the trek.  Not unlike many posts on this blog.  

This book is probably most useful and interesting taken along when doing this hike through the Pyrenees.  It's most basic organization is chronological, so hiking along the trail, one gets history, geography, natural history, along with descriptions of the trail and refuges along the way.  So Sharman's details of the history of various locations would add richness to one's hike.  

There's often a tendency to compare what you're seeing to what you know.  It's how we expand our world view and gives us insights into our own homeland and assumptions. Sharman does this explicitly by adding an Alaska perspective to each chapter.   For example, one chapter describes wars and treaties going back to the 1300s in Aragon.  The matching Alaska history only goes back as far as the Russian invasion in the 1700s.  While Haley acknowledges that Alaska Natives have been on the land for tens of thousands of years, she excuses leaving  out any of that older history on the grounds that Native cultures were oral, so we don't know.  However, there are archeological digs in Alaska that go back further than the Russians and matching them to archeological sites on the route might have been a better connection - perhaps comparing the archeology experiences of both places.  Using invasions as the common thread seemed a stretch.  

Here's a sampling of what you'll find on the pages of this unique book and, for me, engaging trip through the Pyrenees.  

Useful travel advıce:

"Sleeping at the refuge with 30 other people side by side in two long

bunks was an experience. It was surprisingly comfortable and went remarkably

smoothly. Everyone was organized and quiet and respectful going to

bed and getting up. We were comfortable, yet didn’t sleep soundly.

The showers were great and the water was really, scaldingly hot! I

washed my hair. There was no gender separation in the bathrooms but of

course doors on the stalls. Our two showers, two red wines, veggie dinner,

two beds and breakfast cost 96€. The refuge administrator was a very

friendly, funny, multilingual middle-aged woman. In the winter she teaches

informatics. The guests are totally international from all over Europe. We

met no other Americans. Everyone uses English as their travel language." (98)

 

There's mountaineering history:

"Interest in mountaineering surged in the late 19th century. The

climbing and camping equipment was primitive by today’s standards:

Hemp ropes and iron crampons were heavy, and canvas tents were out of

the question. In the Pyrenees, early rock and ice climbers targeted the north faces of the peaks surrounding the Cirque de Gavarnie, mostly a day trip out of town. As their ambitions extended further, the need for overnight mountain lodging grew. Caves and shepherds’ huts were their earliest forms of shelter on multi-day climbs.

The first mountaineering club was formed in Gavarnie in 1864, named

the Société Ramond in honor of the illustrious Pyrenean naturalist Louis

Ramond de Carbonnières. The French Alpine Club (FAC) was founded in 1874 with the aim "to encourage and favor the knowledge of the mountain and its individual or collective frequentation in all seasons," including in its mission "the construction, improvement and maintenance of shelters, chalets, shelters and trails." The !rst mountain club in Spain, the Centre Excursionista de Catalunya (CEC), soon followed in 1876. These organizations, along with individual benefactors, launched the network of mountain refuges we enjoy today." (99-100)

Along with Michael's water colors.

 

Details on wildlife:

"My favorite insect of the whole trip was the burnet moth (Zygaena anthyllidis).  While burnets are common throughout Europe, this particular species of burnet is unique to the higher elevations of the Pyrenees. The burnet is the most brilliantly colored moth I’ve ever seen: iridescent black, with big, red spots on the wings. Most moths are dull brown and only around at night to evade predators. The burnet doesn’t have to worry about that. The red spots tell potential predators that it is poisonous. The burnet carries hydrogen cyanide, both for protection and—get this—for mating. Sounds a little kinky, doesn’t it?" (p. 61)

We also learn about honey bees after Mike gets stung.  After Sharman relates the physiology of the sting and the  response in the body, we learn about the bees of the Pyrenees, and the history of domesticated honeybees in the region..

“Honey has been produced and consumed in France and Spain for

millennia. Cave paintings near Valencia, Spain, more than 8,000 years old depict men collecting honey. The Bible and the Koran praise the virtues of honey as a food of nutritional value. Spain is number one in the EU in the number of hives and sixth in honey production. Spain also produces more than half of the beeswax in Europe. I don’t know how many honey producers there are in the Pyrenees specically, but there are 27 in the Ariège region alone. You can find a lot of them online who advertise in glowing terms the high quality, "flavor and ecological properties of their mountain product and sell direct to the consumer.” (118)

Here's one of Mike's paintings showing the beehives along the path.  

I learned a few words:

"Compounding the economic squeeze, the emigration of rural labor to industrial centers resulted in a shortage of shepherds to conduct the seasonal transhumance* of sheep." (126)

*"Transhumance:  noun

the seasonal migration of livestock, and the people who tend them, between lowlands and adjacent mountains." (from dictionary.com)

You can also tell that Haley was an economic policy analyst in a past life:

"More than two-thirds of the territory of Pallars Sobirà is under some

level of environmental protection. It also hosts seven ski resorts. In five

decades, the number of second homes in the region has mushroomed a

hundred-fold, from fewer than 25 to more than 2,500. While this boom in

the tourism economy has provided jobs, increased wages and helped to keep

some youth in the region, it has also increased property values and housing

costs for local residents. While the infrastructure has greatly improved,

temporary visitors and part-time residents do not enhance the social vitality

of the local communities. The transition also marks a decline in local

control, as more and more of the land use policies are defined by higher

levels of government and more and more of the businesses are owned by

nonlocal corporations."  p. 127

Interview with Jan, a German hang glider about why he was on the trail, people he'd met, and a link to this video :https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l8Zp25E_lbM  - his version of this trail. (Worth watching.)  He related some lessons he learned on the hike to Sharman:

"First: Don't keep your food inside the tent! You could wake up in

the middle of the night with a hungry fox next to your sleeping bag.

Second: You can easily compensate for your lack of fitness with

good navigation skills.

Third: There is no excuse! Even an Acute Respiratory Distress

Syndrome* should not hold you back from experiencing great adventures.

You have to risk it to get the biscuit.

And fourth: François Lelord is a wise man." (147-8)

*Earlier he had recounted a hiker he'd met who slept with an oxygen device at night.   

The next quote contains an extraordinary account of surviving in the cold.  I guess it's not the only instance of something like that happening.  It's also a reminder that despite the different environments, people who lived 1000 years ago were not that much different than we are.   

"The town L'Hospitalet-près-l’Andorre was named for the hospital (travelers’ hostel) that was established there in the first decade of the 11th century. The hospital was founded by the knight Bertrand d’Enveight in fulfillment of his vow to do so if he survived a snowstorm that caught him on the westside of Col de Puymorens, south of the Haute Route, where Route Nationale 20 (N20) crosses today. He saved himself by slitting open the belly of his horse, removing the entrails and climbing inside till the storm passed. He fulfilled his vow and dedicated the hospital to Saint Suzanne,  patron saint of his aunt, Suzanne d'Enveight, dowager of Cerdanya, in whose domain he was traveling." (159)

Some of the history can get a bit tedious, but then there is another disaster story that would fit in any modern tabloid or social media.

"The hospital was damaged or destroyed by avalanches several times over the years and rebuilt. In one case, year unknown, Moles wrote:This time the incident had a more tragic outcome than the previous one, entombing 5 women and 3 children, amongst them the wife and children of the Landlord who being away in Benasque survived but returned to the shocking news that he was now a widower and childless."  (162)

 

We learn about the cork forests they walk through and how they fights climate change.

"Not only is cork production sustainable, but a harvested cork oak tree stores up to five times more carbon than an unharvested tree, since the tree

utilizes additional carbon in the regeneration of its bark. Each year, cork oak

forests account for 9 million metric tonnes (10 million tons) of CO2

absorption. Cork stoppers for wine bottles have a much lower carbon footprint

than wine stoppers made from aluminum or plastic. And the byproducts

are made into bulletin boards and floor tiles."  (186 -7)

The Author Gets To Win Arguments 

"May 25-26

The morning was overcast, giving way to partly sunny and windy in

the afternoon when we set out for our next waypoint, Montalba

d’Am.lie. Mike was a little impatient with how slow I was going

uphill, and needing to stop to eat, so he said, “Give me more weight. The

less you carry, the better off I am.” So he carried almost all the food, as well

as all the camping gear. I carried the potato chips and toast. Lightest pack

ever! 

...On top of that, Mike’s knee became painful—probably from too heavy

a pack on too steep and rough a trail down after too many weeks without

hiking. [They did the whole trail in two parts.]  So the last hour coming down the road I took all the food. He tried to say it wasn’t making any di#erence in how his knee felt, but I said, “The less weight you carry, the better off I am.” The easy grade and firm surface made road walking easier on his knee than the trail had been, but it was easier for me too, and I was faster than he, even with the added weight, which, frankly, felt good. (196-8)

And a little more history

A second medieval monastery in the eastern Pyrenees, the abbey of Saint-Martin-du-Canigou, perches on a high cliff on the west flank of the Pic du Canigou. The primary access is by foot, 1,600 meters (1 mi) on narrow, steep path through the woods, above the town of Casteil. The original Benedictine monastery was endowed by Guifred, Count of Cerdagne, and consecrated in 1009. The Romanesque-style church was built on two levels: the lower, older crypt dedicated to the Virgin Mary, and the upper

church, completed in 1020, dedicated to St. Martin. The cloister was also

built on two levels, due to the steepness of the terrain.

The monastery has had a traumatic history. It was damaged in the

Catalan earthquake of 1428. It was secularized in 1782 by Louis XVI, abandoned by the monks and fell into disrepair. During the French Revolution,

the abbey was closed and its contents, including the sculptures and furniture,

were looted. Even the marble capitals from the pillars in the upper

cloister were removed and scattered through the neighboring villages. The ruins of the monastery lay empty for the entire 19th century. (192)

 

Some topics are hard to convey in words.  The birdsong descriptions probably mean little to those who haven’t already heard them or are very musical.

"The song of the tiny ruby-crowned kinglet is similarly loud and

complex. It typically has three parts: a series of high-pitched notes (zee-zeezee or tee-tee-tee), two to have low trills (turr or tu) and a repeated three note "galloping" phrase (tee-da-leet, tee-da-leet). Individual males sing their own variations, and females sing a shorter version of the song. The population of ruby-crowned kinglets is on the rise in less-disturbed habitats in northern latitudes".(p. 201)

While there are times Haley gets a little poetic, others are pretty dry recitation of facts: 

"In 1659, at the conclusion of the Thirty Years’ War, The Treaty of the

Pyrenees moved the border between the French and the Spanish monarchies

100 kilometers (62 mi) to the south where it is today, dividing French

and Spanish Catalonia. Roussillon became o#cially and permanently

French, but many inhabitants were still Spanish at heart. The medieval

fortress guarding the new border was handed over to France. In 1674,

during the Franco-Dutch War, the Spanish army occupied Bellegarde, but

the fortress was retaken by the French the following year.(p. 206)"

I'm sure sitting on the grass where this all took place after six hours of hiking makes this an interesting break.  

As I mentioned, this post has been sitting here as a draft for six weeks.  Today I added the pictures and cleaned up fonts and quotations.  So I'm going to just end abruptly here.  I enjoyed vicariously traveling with Sharman and Mike. For people not taking this hike, the book can give you a sense of what such an adventure is like.  And Mike's water colors are a delight and there's at least one in each chapter.  And I haven't really touched the sections on Alaska.  

Paperback Premium Color Print  (ISBN: 979-8-218-09640-3):              $35.95   $26.54   

Kindle e-book:   $9.99

Available at Alibris.  Publication date: December 1, 2022.

 

 

 

 

Harbor Walk And A South African Lawyer

Yesterday I took a walk down to the harbor here on Bainbridge Island.  

 And on my way back I did a double take when I saw this fairly mature palm tree.  Don't see a lot of them as far north as Seattle.  But All About Palm Trees tells there are some:

Palm Trees In Washington

 

There are specific varieties of cold hardy palm trees that can survive zones 8 and 9 of Washington state. Here are palm trees that can live in Washington: 

 

California Fan Palm Tree – Zones 8b - 11 (15 to 20 F) 

Canary Island Date Palm Tree – Zones 8b - 11 (15 to 20 F) 

Chinese Fan Palm Tree – Zones 8a – 11 (10 to 15 F) 

True Date Palm Tree – Zones 8b - 11 (15 to 20 F) 

European Fan Palm Tree – Zones 7b – 11 (5 to 10 F) 

Mexican Fan Palm Tree – Zones 8b - 11 (15 to 20 F) 

Queen Palm Tree – Zones 8b - 11 (15 to 20 F) 

Saw Palmetto Palm Tree – Zones 7a - 11 (0 to 5 F) 

But none of these quite look like the one in the picture.

And the South African lawyer.

My book club met tonight to discuss The Promise by Damon Galgut.  It won the 2021 Booker Prize. There were interesting things about it, but each of the  four parts involved a death and a funeral starting before Independence and then continuing afterward.  No one's life seemed to improve.  But there were a number of sentences with great imagery.  So I just wanted to share two:

"She's not so far advanced in matters of the spirit not to recognize the sound of a rare opportunity clearing its throat."

"The lawyer has amplified over the years, in harmony with her burgeoning practice.  Consumed two husbands along the way and still lazily digesting then. like a python in hibernation."

"... for Human Reason by itself cannot cope with the essence of Evil."

In Dante's 14th Century The Inferno, the poet recounts his tour through hell led by Virgil.  At that time there was a political divide between the Papacy and the Holy Roman Empire.  From Cliff Notes:

"The cause of this struggle was the papal claim that it also had authority over temporal matters, that is, the ruling of the government and other secular matters. In contrast, the HRE maintained that the papacy had claim only to religious matters, not to temporal matters.

In Dante's time, there were two major political factions, the Guelphs and the Ghibellines. Originally, the Ghibellines represented the medieval aristocracy, which wished to retain the power of the Holy Roman Emperor in Italy, as well as in other parts of Europe. The Ghibellines fought hard in this struggle for the nobility to retain its feudal powers over the land and the peopleIn contrast, the Guelphs, of which Dante was a member, were mainly supported by the rising middle class, represented by rich merchants, bankers, and new landowners.0 They supported the cause of the papacy in opposition to the Holy Roman Emperor."

It's much more complicated. You can go to the link to read more.  

But these are human beings struggling over power.  As the then 'people of today' [Is there a better way to say this?  The people on the border of the future perhaps?] and in one of the world's then power centers, it's clear they probably saw themselves as smarter than people in the past and in other parts of the world.  Part of the illusion 'people of today" have is that they 'knew' about things people before them didn't know about. And as humans, their thoughts are relevant to us still today.  

We in the US are in a similar situation.  We are at the cutting edge of technology and tend to believe we're smarter than people in the past.  And many, if not most, US folks feel superior to the rest of the world.  

This is, of course, a gross simplification, and I confess my ignorance of Dante's times.  But I do know that the human capacity for thought and emotion hasn't changed much in the last thousand years.  There were brilliant people a thousand years ago as well as people obsessed by power and other human needs.  Evolution hasn't made humans smarter in the last few millennia.  And we deceive ourselves when we think we are smarter.  We may know more, simply because we know of things that happened after our ancestors died, but that doesn't make us smarter or wiser than they were.  

Back to The Inferno

I haven't read this book for almost 60 years when I read it in such detail for class, that I got past the modern belief that old poetry is hard and found the beauty and brilliance of it.  The short part that I wanted to quote that is in the title of this post, as I read carefully, is from what now appears to me to be a summary of the poetry to come.  It appears, though I'm not certain, that the translator has written a brief description of the content before he presents the poetry itself.  I'd note that the translator is John Ciardi, who readers may remember used to do short commentaries on NPR.  

As I looked online, I also found a copy of The Inferno, but it has been completely rendered in prose. But that may help the reader.  

So instead of just citing the one line I'd originally intended, I'm going to give you all of Canto VIII.  First I'll give you the online version, which is more like a Cliff Notes rendition.  I'll do this in sections.  

Then I'll give you John Ciardi's description (I think that's what it is).  And finally I'll give you the poetry itself, which by then, should make sense.   I think you'll find the verse itself much easier to follow this way, though in fact, it isn't all that difficult. We're doing all of Canto VIII.

Ciardi:

"The Poets stand at the edge of the swamp, and a mysterious signal flames from the great tower.   It is answered from the darkness of the other side, and almost immediately the Poets see PHYLEGYAS, the Boatman of Styx, racing toward them across the water, fast as a flying arrow.  He comes avidly, thinking to find new souls for torment, and he howls with rage when he discovers the Poets.  Once again however, Virgil conquers wrath with a ward and Phlegyas reluctantly gives them passage." 

From the online version:  [I'd note this is available for public use]

Inferno Canto VIII:1-30 The Fifth Circle: Phlegyas: The Wrathful

I say, pursuing my theme, that, long before we reached the base of the high tower, our eyes looked upwards to its summit, because we saw two beacon-flames set there, and another, from so far away that the eye could scarcely see it, gave a signal in return. And I turned to the fount of all knowledge, and asked: ‘What does it say? And what does the other light reply? And who has made the signal?’ And he to me: ‘Already you can see, what is expected, coming over the foul waters, if the marsh vapours do not hide it from you.’

No bowstring ever shot an arrow that flew through the air so quickly, as the little boat, that I saw coming towards us, through the waves, under the control of a single steersman, who cried: ‘Are you here, now, fierce spirit?’ My Master said: ‘Phlegyas, Phlegyas, this time you cry in vain: you shall not keep us longer than it takes us to pass the marsh.’

Phlegyas in his growing anger, was like someone who listens to some great wrong done him, and then fills with resentment. My guide climbed down into the boat, and then made me board after him, and it only sank in the water when I was in. As soon as my guide and I were in the craft, its prow went forward, ploughing deeper through the water than it does carrying others.

And now for our first taste of Ciardi's rendition of the poetry into English:

[Other than taking a picture of the pages in the book, this use of bullets was the easiest way I could render the structure of the verses, but rest assured, the original doesn't have the bullets, just the form of one main line and two sub-lines.]

• Returning to my theme, I saw we came
• to the foot of a Seat Tower;  but long before
• we reached it through the marsh, two horns of flame
• flared from the summit, one from either side, 
• and then, far off, so far we scarce could see it
• across the mist, another flame replied
• I turned to that see of all intelligence
• saying: "What is this signal and counter-signal?
• Who is it speaks with fire across this distance?
• And he then:  "Look across the filthy slew:
• you may already see the one they summon,
• if the swamp vapors do not hide him from you."
• Now twanging boxspring ever shot an arrow
• that bored the air it rode dead to the mark
• more swiftly than the fling skiff whose prow
• shot toward us over the polluted channel
• with a signle steersman at the helm who called:
• "So, do i have you at last, you whelp of hell?"
• "Phlegyas, Phlegyas," said my Lord and Guide,
• "this time you waste your breath:  you have us only
• for the time it takes to cross to the other side."
• Phlegyas, the madman, blue his rage among
• those muddy marshes like a cheat deceived,
• or like a fool at some imagined wrong.
• My Guide, whom all the fiend's noise could not nettle,
• boarded the skiff, motioning me to follow;
• and not till I stepped aboard did it seem to settle
• Into the water.  At once we left the shore,
• that ancient hull riding more heavily
• than it had ridden in all of time before.

Did you notice the rhyme scheme.  In the book's intro Ciardi explains that he decided NOT to use the original's triple rhyming in the English.

Now back to John Ciardi's description as we move along

"As they are crossing, a muddy soul rises before them, it is FILIPPO ARGENTI, one of the Wrathful.  Dante recognizes him despite the filth with which he is covered, and he berates him soundly, even wishing to see him tormented further.  Virgil approves Dante's disdain and, as if in answer to Dante's wrath, Argenti is suddenly set upon by all the other sinners present, who fall upon him  and rip him to pieces."

Before going on, I'd note this context Dante's anger toward Filippo Argenti from Fandom:

"In history, Argenti gained the animosity of Dante Alighieri; the two were on opposite sides of the civil war between the Black Guelphs and White Guelphs. The most popular reason given for this mutual hatred is that Argenti opposed Dante's return to Florence, and while the poet was in exile, he took all of Dante's possessions for himself. As such, Dante writes of his enemy being placed the fifth circle of Hell among the Wrathful after death." 

And then back to the online version:

Inferno Canto VIII:31-63 They meet Filippo Argenti

While we were running through the dead channel, one rose up in front of me, covered with mud, and said: ‘Who are you, that come before your time?’ And I to him: ‘If I come, I do not stay here: but who are you, who are so mired?’ He answered: ‘You see that I am one who weeps.’ And I to him: ‘Cursed spirit, remain weeping and in sorrow! For I know you, muddy as you are.’

Then he stretched both hands out to the boat, at which the cautious Master pushed him off, saying: ‘Away, there, with the other dogs!’ Then he put his arms around my neck, kissed my face, and said: ‘Blessed be she who bore you, soul, who are rightly indignant. He was an arrogant spirit in your world: there is nothing good with which to adorn his memory: so, his furious shade is here. How many up there think themselves mighty kings, that will lie here like pigs in mire, leaving behind them dire condemnation!’

And I: ‘Master, I would be glad to see him doused in this swill before we quit the lake’. And he to me: ‘You will be satisfied, before the shore is visible to you: it is right that your wish should be gratified.’ Not long after this I saw the muddy people make such a rending of him, that I still give God thanks and praise for it. All shouted: ‘At Filippo Argenti!’ That fierce Florentine spirit turned his teeth in vengeance on himself. 

And now the verses themselves from Ciardi:

• And as we ran on that dead swamp, the slime
• rose before me, and from it a voice cried:
• "Who are you that come here before your time?"
• And I replied:  "If I come, I do not remain.  
• But you, who are you so fallen and so foul?"
• And he:  "I am one who weeps."  And I then:
• "May you weep and wail to all eternity,
• for I know you, hell-dog filthy as you are."
• Then he stretched both hands to the boat, but warily
• the Master shoved him back, crying, "Down! Down! 
• with the other dogs!" Then he embraced me saying:
• "Indignat spirit, I kiss you as you frown.
• Blessed be she who bore you.  In world and time
• this one was haughtier yet.  Not one unbending
• graces his memory.  Here he is shadow in slime.
• 
  
• How many living now, chancellors of wrath,
• shall come to lie here yet in this pigmire,
• leaving a curse to be their aftermath!"
• And I:  "Master, it would suit my whim 
• to see the wretch scrubbed down into swilll
• before we leave this stinking sink and him."
• And he to me:  "Before the other side
• shows through the mist, you shall have all you ask.  
• This is a wish that should be gratified."
• And shortly after, I saw the loathsome spirit
• so mangled by a swarm of muddy wraiths
• that to this day I praise and thank God for it.
• "After Filippo Argenti!" all cried together
• The maddog Florentine wheeled at their cry 
• and bit himself for rage.  I saw them gather.
• And there we left him.  And I say no more.
• But such a wailing beat upon my ears,
• I strained my eyes ahead to the far shore.

Now one final time back to Ciardi's description:

"The boat meanwhile has sped on, and before Argenti's screams have died away, Dante sees the flying red towers of Dis, the Capital of Hell.  The great walls of the iron city block the way to the Lower Hell.  Properly speaking, all the rest of Hell lies within the city walls, which separate the Upper and the Lower Hell.

Phlegyas deposits them at a great Iron Gate which they find to be guarded by the REBELLIOUS ANGELS.  These creatures of Ultimate Evil, rebels against God Himself, refuse to let the Lowest pass.  Even Virgil is powerless against them, for Human Reason by itself cannot cope with the essence of Evil.  Only Divine Aid can bring hope.  Virgil Accordingly sends up a prayer for assistance and waits anxiously for a Heavely Messenger to appear."

And as I get to this point, and look at the verse coming below, this language about human reasoning  being unable to persuade Evil, is missing, though the idea that God can open the gates is there.  

                                                                                                                                                       And now back to the online version

Inferno Canto VIII:64-81 They approach the city of Dis

We left him there, so that I can say no more of him, but a sound of wailing assailed my ears, so that I turned my gaze in front, intently. The kind Master said: ‘Now, my son, we approach the city they call Dis, with its grave citizens, a vast crowd.’ And I: ‘Master, I can already see its towers, clearly there in the valley, glowing red, as if they issued from the fire.’ And he to me: ‘The eternal fire, that burns them from within, makes them appear reddened, as you see, in this deep Hell.’

We now arrived in the steep ditch, that forms the moat to the joyless city: the walls seemed to me as if they were made of iron. Not until we had made a wide circuit, did we reach a place where the ferryman said to us: ‘Disembark: here is the entrance.'

                                                                                                                                                          Inferno Canto VIII:82-130 The fallen Angels obstruct them

I saw more than a thousand of those angels, that fell from Heaven like rain, above the gates, who cried angrily: ‘Who is this, that, without death goes through the kingdom of the dead?’ And my wise Master made a sign to them, of wishing to speak in private. Then they furled their great disdain, and said: ‘Come on, alone, and let him go, who enters this kingdom with such audacity. Let him return, alone, on his foolish road: see if he can: and you, remain, who have escorted him, through so dark a land.’

Think, Reader, whether I was not disheartened at the sound of those accursed words, not believing I could ever return here. I said: ‘O my dear guide, who has ensured my safety more than the seven times, and snatched me from certain danger that faced me, do not leave me, so helpless: and if we are prevented from going on, let us quickly retrace our steps.’ And that lord, who had led me there, said to me: ‘Have no fear: since no one can deny us passage: it was given us by so great an authority. But you, wait for me, and comfort and nourish your spirit with fresh hope, for I will not abandon you in the lower world.’

 

 

So the gentle father goes, and leaves me there, and I am left in doubt: since ‘yes’ and ‘no’ war inside my head. I could not hear what terms he offered them, but he had not been standing there long with them, when, each vying with the other, they rushed back. Our adversaries closed the gate in my lord’s face, leaving him outside, and he turned to me again with slow steps. His eyes were on the ground, and his expression devoid of all daring, and he said, sighing: ‘Who are these who deny me entrance to the house of pain?’ And to me he said: ‘Though I am angered, do not you be dismayed: I will win the trial, whatever obstacle those inside contrive. This insolence of theirs is nothing new, for they displayed it once before, at that less secret gate we passed, that has remained unbarred. Over it you saw the fatal writing, and already on this side of its entrance, one is coming, down the steep, passing the circles unescorted, one for whom the city shall open to us.’ 

Back now to Ciarda's verse.  This is the last portion I'm going to do.

• "My son, the Master said, "the City called Dis
• lies just ahead, the heavy citizens,
• the swarming crowds of Hell's metropolis."
• And I then: "Master, I already see
• the glow of its red mosques, as if they came 
• hot from the forge to smolder in this valley."
• And my all-knowing Guide:  "They are eternal 
• flues to eternal fire that rages in them
• and makes them glow across this lower Hell."
• And as he spoke we entered the vast moat
• of the sepulchre.  Its wall seemed made of iron
• and towered above us in our little boat.
• We circled through what seemed an endless distance
• before the boatman ran his prow ashore
• crying:  "Out! Out! Get out! This is the entrance."
• Above the gates more than a thousand shades
• of spirits purged from Heaven for its glory 
• cried angrily:  "Who is it that invades
• Death's Kingdom in his life?"  My Lord and Guide
• advanced a step before me with a sign
• that he wished to speak to some of them aside.
• They quieted somewhat, and one called, "Come,
• but come alone.  And tell that other one,
• who thought to walk so blithely through death's kingdom,
• he may go back along the same fool's way
• he came by.  Let him try his living luck.
• You who are dead can come only to stay."
• "O my beloved Master, my Guide in peril, 
• who time and time again have seen me safely
• along this way, and turned the power of evil,
• stand by me now," I cried, "in my heart's fright.  
• And if the dead forbid our journey to them, 
• let us go back together toward the light."
• My Guide then, in the greatness of his spirit:
• "Take heart.  Nothing can take our passage from us
• when such a power has given warrant for it.
• Wait here and feed your soul while I am gone
• on comfort and good hope;  I will not leave you
• to wander in this underworld alone."
• So the sweet Guide and Father leaves me here,
• and I stay on in doubt with yes and no
• dividing all my heart to hope and fear.
• I could not hear my Lord's words, but the pack 
• that gathered round him suddenly broke away
• howling and jostling and went pouring back,
• slamming the towering gate hard in his face.
• That great Soul stood alone outside the wall.
• Then he came back;  his pain showed in his pace.
• His eyes were fixed upon the ground, his brow
• had sagged from its assurance.  He sighed aloud:
• "Who has forbidden me the halls of sorrow?"
• And to me he said: "You need not be cast down
• by my vexation, for whatever plot
• these fiends may lay against us, we will go on.
• This insolence of theirs is nothing new:
• they showed it once at a less secret gate
• that still stands open for all that they could do-
• the same gate where you read the dead inscription;
• and through it at this moment a Great One comes.
• Already he has passed it and moves down
• ledge by dark ledge.  He is one who needs no guide,
• and at his touch all gates must spring aside."

This paperback is so old and so cheaply made that the pages were falling out.