I feel a little bit bad posting this and pushing Tree's lovely cockroach post down the page, but I suppose she'll appreciate having someone else post something.
The topic is a book, of course - The Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie. I liked it; I'd say it ranks second out of the Rushdie books I've read, better than Shame and Midnight's Children, not as good as Haroun and the Sea of Stories which is just phenomenal. Rushdie, as usual, has an amazing ability to do what he wants with the English language, to use it in nontraditional ways that really leap off the page. Unfortunately, as with all his other books except for Haroun, the plot is mostly arbitrary, doesn't make much sense, and seems to serve as only a backdrop for the verbal pyrotechnics.
The device I liked in the Satanic Verses is that the book is told mostly in omniscient third person, with the very occasional first person note from the narrator, who turns out to be Satan and only intervenes occasionally. This strange narrator's presence is important in the book but done very subtly.
If, by chance, you want to know what was going on in this book, why the death threats, but don't want to commit to reading the whole thing, I strongly recommend reading only the section-larger-than-a-chapter titled "Mahound." It is the best part of the book, explains why Muslims might be offended, is more or less self-contained, and does not give away much of the plot, so if you decide later you want to read the whole novel it won't be ruined.
Thursday, August 31, 2006
Wednesday, August 30, 2006
Like a cockroach
How strange last night to reenter a kitchen that had moments before been void of other beings and to see one which, although I am no judge of cockroaches’ ages, seemed to have been until recently in the prime of its life, supine and motionless on the floor.
Gratitude followed my surprise, gratitude that the beast was already dead. As much as I loathe cockroaches, I hate killing them more. I have been known to trap them and release them outside. I know it’s stupid, but that’s how terrified I am of matching strength with one of these bugs and exposing its vile guts.
I have had four cockroaches sojourn in my apartment. The first I released to the wild. The second was slain by my valiant boyfriend, in the bathtub, with a shoe. I believe that one was flushed. The third I killed gruesomely, in the sink, with a bread board. He was insinkerated. The fourth I encountered dead, as pictured above. After photographing him I swept him up and took him out to the dumpster with my trash. I must say I am pleased with the variety of these creatures’ ends.
The danger past, I reflected on my connection to the deceased, as John Donne, various Native American spiritual leaders, and many others have taught us to do. Which brings me to the following logic problem: What is the probability that Cockroach #1 was either Cockroach #2, #3, or #4, assuming a closed system of myself and only those roaches mentioned? I will leave that one to you, gentle reader, for now.
The roach and the ruler are good illustrations of a moral principle I’ve been developing lately. I’ve been thinking a lot about how bad it is to compare ourselves to others. I think this is the reason for much of our discontentment. Some good comes of wanting to be the best at certain easily quantifiable deeds which one is uniquely gifted to do. But no good comes of comparing oneself to others in features of personality or even situations of life. We are all so different that it is unhelpful to make these judgments. Comparing ourselves to others is the root of much evil.
There is plenty of biblical support for my thesis, including the tenth commandment, as well as some buddhist principles and important tenets of other religions. But I will provide some down-home folksy real-life examples, since I excel in that type of rhetoric.
Have you ever conversed with someone who complimented you in a way that made you feel like they wanted you to feel sorry for them? You say something unrelated to either of you and this person follows it with an admiring statement about you that really only makes you feel bad because it expresses your friend’s self-pity about not having whatever trait was mentioned. Ridiculously enough, meanwhile, perhaps you like the given person precisely because they are the way they are.
Or you talk to someone who says, “I wish I was more like you,” perhaps referring to the way you deal with grief. Well, in fact, you don’t want this person to be more like yourself. You’ve always been kind of fascinated with the way they approach life. We all deal with grief differently, and just because I don’t cry easily doesn’t mean I don’t hurt. I could take the bait and argue with this person that maybe it’s easier to deal with grief if you do cry easily, because for one thing everyone might feel sorry for you instead of thinking you’re a cold-hearted creep, but that would only be validating the idiotic idea that you can judge these things at all. The point is that we have no idea what other people’s lives are like. Even in the simplest things like how much pain we feel when we’re sick or when we get bruised or when our head hurts, we are completely unable to compare our experiences with others’.
A lot of people give Job’s friends a hard time. They were pretty dumb when they started talking. They shouldn’t have even tried. But who nowadays would sit in silence with a depressed friend for seven whole days and nights and refrain from giving advice? That was pretty cool, what they did. Job is a pretty good example, because he really did have it worse. I say that if people want to think their lives are so much worse than yours is, you might as well just let them.
I want to tell everyone to be happy with who they are (and no, that’s not the same thing as simply being happy, which is not something I feel qualified to tell people to be). It will actually make everyone else happier at the same time. The apostle Paul understands this when he talks about protecting our special differences and not all trying to be someone else. When I look at that cockroach, I do not envy it or wish I was more like it. I can appreciate the cockroach for what it is and then, recognizing that death belongs to everyone, turn my attention to my own responsibilities.
Tuesday, August 29, 2006
Paying the toll
When I hear someone harping on a pet topic for the sixteenth time, I start wondering, What are the topics that I harp on? If someone who knows me well is sitting next to me, what subject matter fills them with dread when they hear it introduced, because they know precisely which pompous and self-satisfied words will pursue from my mouth?
I have a feeling my antipathy to cars is one of these pet topics. I can’t resist melodramatizing the harm they cause to society (you can see an example of this in the tangentially relevant post describing downtown Addison). A friend of mine has suggested I write a book about cars and the decline of civilization. We’ve even chosen a clever title: Paying the Toll.
Yet everything I experience reinforces my grief about cars. Lately I have been crossing town frequently to visit my watery boyfriend (pictured above at sunset). I make this journey by bike, usually in the dark and half-light of dawn. Well, I was driving along my route the other evening and realized something odd. Although I was driving this ponderous, powerful, multi-thousand-dollar engineering marvel, I had less control and less visibility than I did on my little human-powered shred of aluminum and rubber, at least at that time of day. My windshield was disastrously dirty, so if anything vaguely luminous faced me I was blinded. I was lower down, I couldn’t hear things outside the car, and these pedals couldn’t stop and start this machine as fast as my own two legs could operate the gears of my bicycle. The main superiority of my car was as a shield to me if my irresponsible driving did cause a collision. Forget any other people around.
These physical differences are not the only ones between driving and bicycling. I realized as I drove through the neighborhoods that an entirely different mental process is taking place. When I drive my car, I pay attention to an entirely different set of stimuli. I am behaving as if I am on a larger scale, trying to get from one point to another in the simplest trajectory, as if I am removed from the actual environment like a video game player. I look for large shapes and big moving objects. The streets are simplified. When I ride my bike, I can hear voices and birds and I can see little cats. I can hear whether any cars are coming before I reach an intersection. I have time to think and react to things.
Of course this is why motorists build expressways, to remove the things that might cross our paths, because we don’t have time for them when we’re getting from one place to another. We create an environment that is not suited to pedestrians. But in neighborhoods, cars are operating in an environment that is not suited for them. This is why neighborhoods have 20-mile-an-hour speed limits and speed bumps. Pedestrians in this environment have signs and bumps as protection against the handicapped operators of machines that can kill other people but not themselves.
Sunday, August 27, 2006
Saturday, August 26, 2006
My aqueous friend
I’ve always wanted to write a book where the setting is as important as the characters, where places are sort of characters. Maybe someday I will.
How are places like people? You can’t know a place by one visit. It changes expressions and moods each time you see it. It is a great pleasure to repeatedly walk or run a familiar route and see it change as the seasons change. You can’t say you know a place until a lot of time passes.
Places are unlike people because they don’t move. You can go back to them and you know they’ll be there. You can also write about them, anything good or anything bad, without any ethical problems.
White Rock Lake is a place I have spent many hours of my life. I know it better than I know most people. It has all kinds of different personalities to me. Perhaps in the next few days I will indulge myself with some sketches of these personalities.
Meanwhile, I just found a neat website on the birds of White Rock Lake. There is even a page addressing the great “heron vs. egret” confusion. Does anyone else feel like he scrupulously resists saying that the local egrets are generally white?
Thursday, August 24, 2006
Friday, August 18, 2006
Trees
I like what’s happening in Addison. I’m not sure how long the town has existed or if it has a historic downtown, but they’ve built an urban center called Addison Circle, with shops, cafes, and markets along the street and apartments and condos above. There are plenty of trees and numerous lovely park squares like you might see in London or Portland or another civilized, people-friendly city. You come out at noon and eat your lunch on a bench, in juniper-shady Bosque Park or along the central mall under rows of redbuds, while people walk around and fountains splash.
Even though it was 95-100 degrees during my lunches these past two days, I didn't sweat. I had my hat and the shade of trees. You only start to sweat when you get into your mobile gas-powered greenhouse and sit still in the sun surrounded by blazing concrete.
In a roundabout at the end of Addison Circle there is a vast blue sculpture. It’s shaped like the end of an elephant’s trunk or a snorkel, from a distance. It’s like a giant blue duct flaring out of the ground. You can see it from all around and it draws you towards this urban center. I can’t say I fully appreciate it, but I figure the fact that it’s blue is reason enough for it to be there. How nice that someone allowed someone to build it.
It looks sort of messy, but you work with what you have, I guess, when you are building gigantic tubular artwork. It seems to do quite well at what it does. It is a circle of big thick blue tubes flung upwards and outwards in exuberant curves, and the ends of them support tubular meshes with signs and figures attached to them. One way I thought about it was that they’re pieces of paper held up to the sky, kindergarten artwork held high in pride, the work of our hands presented for the approval of someone really tall.
I dreamed a few nights ago that I was in an old town of rickety buildings and creaky floors and secret entrances. There were giant owls inhabiting the land. When I finally glimpsed a few of their lower legs through a window, I was thrilled. In the dream, the fact that they were clearly giant people dressed up in ill-fitting brown flannel costumes did not compromise their grandeur. My heart leapt at the sight of these baggy stockings and quixotic hanging flaps of felt.
I saw them gathering outside on the sidewalk and waiting with the more ordinary citizens of the town for the king to come outside. He came out of the modest next-door apartment, and I stood in my musty room with its wooden floorboards, looking at the small crowd through the window, pondering the idea of these people’s allegiance to a king. People in my society would not feel comfortable showing reverence and obedience to such a man. But Giant Owls & Co. were clearly delighted to speak face-to-face with this humble-looking gentleman outside his front door.
Then I was in a big musty room with an old schoolmate waiting for the king to come in. We had written out an important declaration to present to him. He came in, and I knew how the neighborhood folks had felt. What a splendid feeling to be in his presence and to have his ear. I was just about to present my paper when I woke up, to my great disappointment.
Even though it was 95-100 degrees during my lunches these past two days, I didn't sweat. I had my hat and the shade of trees. You only start to sweat when you get into your mobile gas-powered greenhouse and sit still in the sun surrounded by blazing concrete.
In a roundabout at the end of Addison Circle there is a vast blue sculpture. It’s shaped like the end of an elephant’s trunk or a snorkel, from a distance. It’s like a giant blue duct flaring out of the ground. You can see it from all around and it draws you towards this urban center. I can’t say I fully appreciate it, but I figure the fact that it’s blue is reason enough for it to be there. How nice that someone allowed someone to build it.
It looks sort of messy, but you work with what you have, I guess, when you are building gigantic tubular artwork. It seems to do quite well at what it does. It is a circle of big thick blue tubes flung upwards and outwards in exuberant curves, and the ends of them support tubular meshes with signs and figures attached to them. One way I thought about it was that they’re pieces of paper held up to the sky, kindergarten artwork held high in pride, the work of our hands presented for the approval of someone really tall.
I dreamed a few nights ago that I was in an old town of rickety buildings and creaky floors and secret entrances. There were giant owls inhabiting the land. When I finally glimpsed a few of their lower legs through a window, I was thrilled. In the dream, the fact that they were clearly giant people dressed up in ill-fitting brown flannel costumes did not compromise their grandeur. My heart leapt at the sight of these baggy stockings and quixotic hanging flaps of felt.
I saw them gathering outside on the sidewalk and waiting with the more ordinary citizens of the town for the king to come outside. He came out of the modest next-door apartment, and I stood in my musty room with its wooden floorboards, looking at the small crowd through the window, pondering the idea of these people’s allegiance to a king. People in my society would not feel comfortable showing reverence and obedience to such a man. But Giant Owls & Co. were clearly delighted to speak face-to-face with this humble-looking gentleman outside his front door.
Then I was in a big musty room with an old schoolmate waiting for the king to come in. We had written out an important declaration to present to him. He came in, and I knew how the neighborhood folks had felt. What a splendid feeling to be in his presence and to have his ear. I was just about to present my paper when I woke up, to my great disappointment.
Thursday, August 17, 2006
Cree
Quote from Great Plains by Ian Frazier -
The fact that their culture tended to fragment itself into so many different tribes and bands was probably a disadvantage to the Indians in the long run. But it certainly was a big help to early pioneers trying to come up with colorful place names.
Cree was the name of one of those tribes. Which practically cries out for inclusion in the Crawdad word ladder. Frazier says there were Plains Crees, Woodland Crees, and Swampy Crees. Though there is a Cree tribe still around today, evidently the original tribe didn’t call itself by that name. They used variations of the word Iyiniwok, which means “the people.”
If you want to hear Cree spoken, there's a treasure trove of stories here.
The fact that their culture tended to fragment itself into so many different tribes and bands was probably a disadvantage to the Indians in the long run. But it certainly was a big help to early pioneers trying to come up with colorful place names.
Cree was the name of one of those tribes. Which practically cries out for inclusion in the Crawdad word ladder. Frazier says there were Plains Crees, Woodland Crees, and Swampy Crees. Though there is a Cree tribe still around today, evidently the original tribe didn’t call itself by that name. They used variations of the word Iyiniwok, which means “the people.”
If you want to hear Cree spoken, there's a treasure trove of stories here.
Tuesday, August 15, 2006
Bree
I wasn’t intentionally doing a word ladder, but if anyone wants to write the next post titled “Free” or “Bred,“ go right ahead.
For some reason Bree is capturing my imagination right now. What was a city like that housed both men and hobbits? Depending on who you were, you rode a horse or a pony, and the inn had rooms specially intended for hobbits, who were generally between two and four feet tall. But The Fellowship of the Ring says nothing about theater seating, or about doorknob height.
What would such an interracial city be like today? We have our short and tall drinking fountains next to each other, so we know a little bit about this. What about public transportation? Would we have different-sized seats on the trolley? How would we position them to make everyone happy? What about the checkout counters at grocery stores? How high would the pictures in lobbies be hung? What other small but important community decisions would have to be made?
For some reason Bree is capturing my imagination right now. What was a city like that housed both men and hobbits? Depending on who you were, you rode a horse or a pony, and the inn had rooms specially intended for hobbits, who were generally between two and four feet tall. But The Fellowship of the Ring says nothing about theater seating, or about doorknob height.
What would such an interracial city be like today? We have our short and tall drinking fountains next to each other, so we know a little bit about this. What about public transportation? Would we have different-sized seats on the trolley? How would we position them to make everyone happy? What about the checkout counters at grocery stores? How high would the pictures in lobbies be hung? What other small but important community decisions would have to be made?
Monday, August 14, 2006
Brel
I have admired Jacques Brel for a long time, but I’ve been afraid that maybe it was a passing crush I would be ashamed of later. He seems like the kind of singer only old women would like. (Why should that stop me, I suppose I should ask?) And he was ugly. The perpetual cigarette may have been charming to his misguided contemporaries, but it doesn’t work on me. And besides, his songs are so melodramatic. But still, I persist in my admiration of this monkey-faced, chain-smoking, philandering dead Belgian. I must try to explain why I am certain he is great. I must confess my love.
“As poetic as Bob Dylan, as introspective as John Lennon, as virile as Bruce Springsteen,” said the program for Jacques Brel Is Alive and Well and Living in Paris, which I dragged my mom to see with me in Fort Worth a couple years ago. Unfortunately, this musical was a false gospel. The English translations of the songs lose all nuance. “If all you have is love” becomes “All it takes is love.” The change of emphasis in the song shocked my tender, Brel-trusting heart when I heard it. Had I misunderstood the song? Had the fact that French is not my first language made the words seem more mysterious and subtle than they were?
Yes, Brel is dramatic. Most of Jacques Brel’s songs drive me crazy, they’re so frantic. Maybe you know his famous song “Madeleine,” which takes you on a riotous ride from hope to obsession to bitterness to despair. You have to give him points for his energy and enthusiasm. But our era is so fond of understatement that he just seems over the top.
By all means, don’t listen to the cheesy “If you only have love.” It talks about healing all our wounds, rebuilding Jerusalem, making the desert bloom, drinking from the Grail, melting all the guns... none of which is in the French. The original song talks about having no other riches than our love and our belief in each other, about offering love in prayer for the evils of the world, simply, like a troubadour. I suppose you have to have a certain tolerance for cheesiness to like it too. But it is still much more subtle.
Let’s leave the humanist manifestos — soit en anglais, soit en français — aside, and analyze one of Brel’s most subdued songs. I’m not sure how legal this is, but it looks like you can download it here.
“Le plat pays” describes a modest subject, Belgium. Its melody is the same three or four notes repeated in a monotonous pattern. Some kind of hokey flute accompanies dear Jacques as he intones his plotless, characterless description of a landscape. He repeats the same word four times in the first three lines, nearly every line begins with “with,” and the second-to-last stanza makes four statements about the sky and even repeats both attributes it is mentioning twice.
In the last stanza, after line by plodding line of landscape features, he begins to show emotion. The volume builds slightly. There is life in his voice, and, finally, a smile breathed into the word “chanter” — singing.
I tried translating it, but am not fully satisfied with my translation. If I manage to make it acceptable, I will share it. The words are simple. Each word is important. And when Brel sings, each word lives. Listen to it even if you don’t know French.
For a fascinating variation (which you don’t have to download), you can listen to him singing the same song in Flemish.
It takes on a different rhythm and color. His love for the words themselves is evident. I don’t care if he is overdramatic. How could you want him not to do what he does?
“As poetic as Bob Dylan, as introspective as John Lennon, as virile as Bruce Springsteen,” said the program for Jacques Brel Is Alive and Well and Living in Paris, which I dragged my mom to see with me in Fort Worth a couple years ago. Unfortunately, this musical was a false gospel. The English translations of the songs lose all nuance. “If all you have is love” becomes “All it takes is love.” The change of emphasis in the song shocked my tender, Brel-trusting heart when I heard it. Had I misunderstood the song? Had the fact that French is not my first language made the words seem more mysterious and subtle than they were?
Yes, Brel is dramatic. Most of Jacques Brel’s songs drive me crazy, they’re so frantic. Maybe you know his famous song “Madeleine,” which takes you on a riotous ride from hope to obsession to bitterness to despair. You have to give him points for his energy and enthusiasm. But our era is so fond of understatement that he just seems over the top.
By all means, don’t listen to the cheesy “If you only have love.” It talks about healing all our wounds, rebuilding Jerusalem, making the desert bloom, drinking from the Grail, melting all the guns... none of which is in the French. The original song talks about having no other riches than our love and our belief in each other, about offering love in prayer for the evils of the world, simply, like a troubadour. I suppose you have to have a certain tolerance for cheesiness to like it too. But it is still much more subtle.
Let’s leave the humanist manifestos — soit en anglais, soit en français — aside, and analyze one of Brel’s most subdued songs. I’m not sure how legal this is, but it looks like you can download it here.
“Le plat pays” describes a modest subject, Belgium. Its melody is the same three or four notes repeated in a monotonous pattern. Some kind of hokey flute accompanies dear Jacques as he intones his plotless, characterless description of a landscape. He repeats the same word four times in the first three lines, nearly every line begins with “with,” and the second-to-last stanza makes four statements about the sky and even repeats both attributes it is mentioning twice.
In the last stanza, after line by plodding line of landscape features, he begins to show emotion. The volume builds slightly. There is life in his voice, and, finally, a smile breathed into the word “chanter” — singing.
I tried translating it, but am not fully satisfied with my translation. If I manage to make it acceptable, I will share it. The words are simple. Each word is important. And when Brel sings, each word lives. Listen to it even if you don’t know French.
For a fascinating variation (which you don’t have to download), you can listen to him singing the same song in Flemish.
It takes on a different rhythm and color. His love for the words themselves is evident. I don’t care if he is overdramatic. How could you want him not to do what he does?
Monday, August 07, 2006
Kids & Language
A small group from our church spends Monday nights with a Musketian (I probably spelled that wrong) Turk family (and whoever of their friends happen to be in the apartment at the time) trying, through conversation, to help them learn English. They are ethnic Turks from the former Soviet Union, and they speak Turkish and Russian. The apartment complex is home to several Musketian Turk families, as well as other international people, quite a mini-UN.
At a recent visit, the daughter we know (let's call her S) had a friend over who turned out to be from Egypt (M). I asked M, "What language do you speak?"
"Arabic."
"Does S speak Arabic?"
A shake of the head "Turkish."
"Do you speak Turkish?"
Another head shake "Arabic."
I assume M doesn't speak Russian (maybe I should've asked that too), which means they have no common language, other than a very little English. Yet they're still friends. Kids!
At a recent visit, the daughter we know (let's call her S) had a friend over who turned out to be from Egypt (M). I asked M, "What language do you speak?"
"Arabic."
"Does S speak Arabic?"
A shake of the head "Turkish."
"Do you speak Turkish?"
Another head shake "Arabic."
I assume M doesn't speak Russian (maybe I should've asked that too), which means they have no common language, other than a very little English. Yet they're still friends. Kids!
Saturday, August 05, 2006
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