November 2021
Books read:
- Middlemarch: A Study of Provincial Life by George Eliot
- First Person Singular by Haruki Murakami
- The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison
- The Corner: A Year in the Life of an Inner-City Neighborhood by David Simon and Ed Burns
Trails walked:
- Beaver Mountain Loop and Eastern Ute Trail in Rocky Mountain National Park (Nov 4th)
- Stone Mountain near Loveland (Nov 9th)
- El Salto del Agua Canoncito near Taos, NM (Nov 12th)
Song(s) of the
month – Sturgill Simpson –
The Ballad of Dood and Juanita (album)
Scientist Spotlight
– Narinder Singh Kapany – Fiber Optics
November Summary: Well it’s been three years since I wrote my first
Reading and Rambling blog. I wasn’t sure
I’d keep it up on a regular basis for so long, but I’ve found that I enjoy the
writing and thinking more than I expected.
I realize that the topics and length of the blog aren’t for everyone in
this day of 240-character tweets and instant gratification, but I’m mainly
writing it for myself, and maybe for posterity in case my great-great-great grandchildren
are interested. Who knows, maybe by then
baseball will be the most popular sport and there will be a social media
platform that requires a minimum of 6,000 words to post…nah.
It was a year ago this month that we sold our Phoenix
home and closed on our home in Colorado.
It’s been one of the best decisions we’ve made. Even though we left a lot
of money on the table selling in Phoenix about three months too soon, at least
we made up some of that by buying in Colorado about three months before
everything blew up here. Moving to a new
place exercises new places in the brain, plus the time spent with our grandson
is priceless. We miss our friends and
family dearly, but still manage to stay in touch on a regular basis and will
continue to do so.
November is my favorite month, and not because I
was born in this month; it’s my favorite month because it contains Thanksgiving
which is far and away my favorite holiday.
No gifts, no fireworks, no make-believe characters to confuse young children; just food, family, friends, and football.
I have so much to be thankful for this year. Although I did, sadly, lose my aunt to covid, the rest of our friends and family have managed to avoid the worst part of
this world-changing virus. Our kids and
their significant others have done well this year despite the economic
woes caused by covid and the political and cultural turmoil that’s enfolding our
world. Our grandson has grown up to be
strong and healthy after a terrifying start in 2020 in the NICU. My wife and I have managed to stay healthy
and keep our senses of humor as we try to fit into this new and beautiful place
we’ve chosen to live. I’m still able to
get out into the wilderness nearly every week to recharge my soul and look out
in awe at the beauty of what this world has to offer. I’m thankful I didn’t happen to be born in
west or east Baltimore in the 1980s or in Lorain, Ohio as a minority in the
1930s (as two of the books I’ve read this month have shown). I'm thankful for not being born in so
many other parts of the world today where children have few resources and little
chance in life. Sometimes it’s just pure
luck that makes the difference between being thankful and being destitute. Thomas
Jefferson’s great quote (“I find that the harder I work, the more luck I seem
to have”) may work for some people in some countries, but I don’t think it works
for all people in all countries.
We have so many societal problems to fix, but the
positive news is that we have fixed many of them in the past 200 years (vaccines
for polio and smallpox, farming techniques able to feed the world, the increased
availability of education for women around the world, abolition of slavery and
apartheid (mostly) and the ever-improving technology helping to connect the
world and create renewable energy). So
big problems have been resolved or improved upon in the past and big problems will
be resolved going forward. But it will
take will power and it will take people like you and I to help spread the word
that science is real, culture wars are being invented by extremist media, and
all that most people in the world want is a way to shelter, feed, and clothe
themselves and their families (and, if possible, find a way to satisfaction and
happiness). So help to spread these
words. Stop listening to the talking
heads trying to create fear and anger. Turn off the opinion "news" on Fox and MSNBC. Don’t separate into political tribes. See fellow humans as your tribe. See if you can help move American politics back
to where I always believed it to be:
Both major parties want the best for the country, they just have
differing ideas on how. Get rid of the
extremists in both parties who only perform for their base and create hatred
for the other side rather than creating actual policy, vote them out of
office. If you believe that none of this
is possible, don’t lose hope, take action.
Taking action (of any sort) helps to quell the feeling of
hopelessness. Write a letter to your member
of congress or your local paper, donate time or money to a worthy cause, back a
political candidate that only uses clean money and treats people with respect,
become a political candidate that only uses clean money and treats people with
respect, teach young children about science and true history and how to respect
others, help an old lady (or old man) cross the street, speak up when you see
moments of injustice or cruelty. There
is so much each of us can do to at least provide a glimmer of hope.
“A mature person is one who does
not think only in absolutes, who is able to be objective even when deeply
stirred emotionally, who has learned that there is both good and bad in all
people and in all things, and who walks humbly and deals charitably with the
circumstances of life, knowing that in this world no one is all knowing and
therefore all of us need both love and charity.” -Eleanor Roosevelt
Sam – a very short but very cool a cappella song about a man’s love for his dog
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qOpAXzr1W1U
Juanita – pretty love song with tinges of the sounds of Mexico
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bO6N2clr3YU
Middlemarch by George Eliot –
Mary Ann Evans (1819-1880), who wrote under the pen name of George Eliot wrote this, her masterpiece, from 1869-1871. Today it’s considered one of the great English language novels. In 2015 it was selected by the BBC as number one in the top 100 British Novels and in 2019 was listed by BBC as one of the top 100 most inspiring novels.
It is an epic story (900 pages!) set in the fictional town of Middlemarch in rural England from 1829-1832. What struck me most is how little human nature has changed since then and how adept she was at describing that human nature. Even though women during this period were still considered subordinate to men, her female characters are very strong. Dorothea Brooke may be one of the most brilliantly written characters of all time and throughout the book is compared to a modern-day St. Theresa of Avila. She’s intelligent and caring and always looks for the best in each person, never believing any bad rumors. There are many interesting characters in the book, including Rosamond Vincy who is as intelligent as Dorothea but is much more inward looking and self-centered. Tertius Lydgate is a newcomer to town; a doctor with new and modern ideas to care for people. Small, provincial doctors at the time were not crazy about newcomers with new medical ideas, so he is not welcomed by the medical community there. Nicholas Bulstrode is a prominent banker with a mysterious past which eventually comes back to haunt him. Will Ladislaw is a free spirit artist who falls in love with Dorothea even though it seems as though the entire world conspires to prevent the match. Mary Garth is from a working-class family and is every bit as good and intelligent as Dorothea; and her father, Caleb Garth is a hard-working man who is sometimes good to a fault. All these lives and many more intersect in this incredible story about love, marriage, class, politics, religion, and the hypocrisy of human nature in all of us. I enjoyed sitting down and reading this long novel and found myself totally immersed in the daily events of all the characters of Middlemarch. This would be a wonderful Netflix series in the right hands.
Eliot starts all her chapters with a quote or line from
a book or play. Sometimes it’s her own
poetry and sometimes it’s something from Shakespeare or Socrates. It normally has something to do with the
events about to occur in that chapter.
Even though some may find the text a bit dated in the language of the
times, it’s easy enough to fall into its rhythm and almost feel like you’re
reading the book in the late 1800s, with a blanket across your lap and a candle
on the table because the fire, and the light, is dying.
Here are some of the many insightful and
interesting lines from the book:
“It is painful to me to see these creatures that are bred merely as pets,” said Dorothea, whose opinion was forming itself that very moment (as opinions will) under the heat of irritation.
Mr. Brooke wondered, and felt that women were an
inexhaustible subject of study, since even he at his age was not in a perfect
state of scientific prediction about them.
To have in general but little feeling, seems to
be the only security against feeling too much on any particular occasion.
“I don’t make myself disagreeable; it is you who
find me so. Disagreeable is a word that
describes your feelings and not my actions.”
It is painful to be told that anything is very fine and not be able to feel that it is fine—something like being blind, while people talk of the sky.
..our tongues are little triggers which have
usually been pulled before general intentions can be brought to bear.
…yet her blindness to whatever did not lie in her own pure purpose carried her safely by the side of precipices where vision would have been perilous with fear.
…there are always people who can’t forgive an
able man for differing from them.
…only showing her emotion by that flush in the
cheeks and brightness in the eyes which give an old woman a touching momentary
identity with her far-off youthful self…
Men outlive their love, but they don’t outlive
the consequences of their recklessness.
Our deeds will travel with us from afar, and what
we have been makes us what we are
Rosamond’s discontent in her marriage was due to
the conditions of marriage itself, to its demand for self-suppression and
tolerance, and not to the nature of her husband…
Certainly those determining acts of her life were
not ideally beautiful. They were the
mixed result of a young and noble impulse struggling amidst the conditions of
an imperfect social state, in which great feelings will often take the aspect
of error, and great faith the aspect of illusion.
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| Longs Peak past the meadows |
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| Sun peaking through the trees |
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| Beaver Meadow on the left, Moraine Park on the right |
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| Snowy peaks in the distance |
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| Why? |
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| Looks windy up there... |
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| My unattained goal was that snow covered ridge upper left |
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| Snowy peaks from Windy Gulch |
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| Peak framing |
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| More peak framing |
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| Beauty |
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| The buck didn't stop here... |
Those who follow this blog know that Haruki Murakami is one of my favorite authors. He’s not for everyone as his stories tend to be sprinkled with shamanism and events in which belief must be temporarily suspended. But I love his writing style which also includes his own love of music, popular culture, relationships, history, and baseball. First Person Singular is a collection of eight short stories and was published in Japanese in 2020 and in English in 2021. Here’s a brief synopsis of each of the eight stories:
Cream - The narrator gets an invitation to a piano recital from a long-lost high school acquaintance and ends up in a deserted park talking to an old man who presents him with a riddle about life…and then disappears.
On a Stone Pillow – Here the
narrator tells the story of a college affair with a girl who wrote poetry and
then just disappeared. Many of his
stories involve memories of high school and college days which is when most of
us were the most alive and most vulnerable to new ideas and people.
Charlie Parker Plays Bossa Nova – In this story
the narrator writes a fake review of a Charlie Parker album which was made years
after the great jazz musician had died. Later
in the narrator’s life he finds that fake album in a record store and is
confused. He leaves the store but comes
back only to find the record is no longer there and the store owner has no idea
what he’s talking about.
With the Beatles – In this story, the
narrator builds a complete story around this image he has of a girl he saw in
high school but never met. He just
remembers her carrying the Beatles’ album With the Beatles (Meet the Beatles
was the title in America) with her skirt fluttering and the faded image of the
Beatles on the album cover. He then goes
into world events during the 1960s and how his own life was being formed during
these tumultuous times.
Confessions of a Shinagawa Monkey – A typically
bizarre Murakami story of a man meeting a talking monkey at an isolated Japanese
spa and then having beers and a philosophical discussion with this monkey up in
his room. The monkey admits to stealing
women’s names whom he loves which sometimes leaves the women with moments where
they forget their name. Yes, weird, but
it just works out.
The Yakult Swallows Poetry Collection – The narrator’s
name is Haruki Murakami, and he talks about his love for the baseball team
named the Yakult Swallows and how he wrote poetry during the games which his
team normally lost. He talks about his
past, his difficulties with his father, and how he always lives in an apartment
that is within walking distance of the Yakult Swallows’ baseball stadium.
First Person Singular – A man decides to
dress up in a suit and go to a strange bar and read a book. A woman confronts him with a story from his
past that he should be ashamed of, but it never gets resolved.
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| The winding US34 alongside the winding Big Thompson River |
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| I loved these wood block mile markers |
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| Trail art |
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| Trail art |
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| Reminiscent of the Prescott area in Arizona |
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| Nice views along the trail |
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| Rocky ridge |
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| Gentle path after the big climb up |
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| Smoke from a prescribed burn made for a Smokey Mountains like shot |
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| More smoke, with lake in the foreground |
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| Panorama from on top of Stone Mountain |
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| Nice views of the peaks in Rocky Mountain National Park to the southwest |
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| Nice views up top |
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| Relaxing lunch spot |
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| I spotted remnants of an old camp off the trail a bit |
I reviewed Morrison’s Beloved in my June 2019 blog and it was powerful. The Bluest Eye was published 17 years before Beloved and was Morrison’s first novel which she wrote by getting up at 4am every day to write so that she could raise her two children and work her day job. While praised by the New York Times book review, it didn’t sell well. However it did end up as part of Black Studies courses in many universities around the world. The novel is set in Morrison’s hometown of Lorain, Ohio after the Great Depression and before World War II. The story is mainly told from the viewpoint of 9-year-old Claudia McTeer who has an older sister named Frieda. They have a friend by the name of Pecola who is sometimes taken in by the McTeers due to the dysfunction in her family. And that dysfunction eventually leads to Pecola’s loss of sanity. She experiences so many violent incidents including beatings, arson, and rape that she wishes to have blue eyes because she feels that her life would be so much easier. This, of course, is sort of a metaphor for the fact that white people during these times (and now) had it much easier than black people. I couldn’t help being reminded of Mark Twain’s Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn while reading this book; the viewpoints of children and how they see life unfolding through their young lenses. But Mark Twain is sort of a PG rated author compared to Morrison’s R or NC17 rating. You see the failure of adults in all its glory (and gory) in The Bluest Eye. Sure there are positive characters to look up to, but not many. Life was hard then for the black community; Jim Crow laws, migration from southern to northern states in search of jobs, and the impact of the Great Depression. It was rough reading, but I was glued to it. I can understand why it has been so controversial and even banned in some schools. The subject matter contains sex, rape, incest, and extreme violence. But all of this is in the context of a story about poverty and racism; it’s not gratuitous. The argument for keeping the reading material in schools is that it’s an honest portrayal of life during these times and I’m sure it would create an open and fascinating dialog with young people. It seems to be getting swept up into the whole Critical Race Theory kerfuffle. The fact that Critical Race Theory is controversial is really just another sign that racism still exists in this country. The truth of history is messy and people can’t always handle the truth.
Here are some lines from the book:
We thought, at the time, that it was because
Pecola was having her father’s baby that the marigolds did not grow.
What is clear now is that of all of that hope, fear, lust, love, and grief, nothing remains but Pecola and the unyielding earth.
It takes a long time for my body to heat its
place in the bed. Once I have generated a silhouette of warmth, I dare not
move, for there is a cold place one-half inch in any direction.
He laughed the grown-up getting-ready-to-lie laugh. A heh-heh we knew well.
She said she would let me stay (on as maid) if I
left (my abusive husband). I thought
about that. But later on it didn’t seem
none too bright for a black woman to leave a black man for a white woman.
Along with the idea of romantic love, she was
introduced to another--physical beauty. Probably the most destructive ideas in
the history of human thought. Both
originated in envy, thrived in insecurity, and ended in disillusion.
When white men beat their (working) men, (the black women) cleaned up
the blood and went home to receive abuse from the victim. They beat their
children with one hand and stole for them with the other. The hands that felled trees also cut umbilical
cords; the hands that wrung the necks of chickens and butchered hogs also
nudged African violets into bloom; the arms that loaded sheaves, bales, and
sacks rocked babies into sleep.
Our manhood was defined by acquisitions. Our womanhood by acquiescence.
The death of self-esteem can occur quickly, easily
in children, before their ego has “legs,” so to speak. Couple the vulnerability of youth with
indifferent parents, dismissive adults, and a world, which, in its language,
laws, and images, re-enforces despair, and the journey to destruction is
sealed.
Another long weekend in Taos to visit daughter and her boyfriend….and eat lots of delicious New Mexican food without having to cook it ourselves! If you’ve ever driven through New Mexico you have seen signs announcing your entrance into some specifically named Land Grant. So what are these? When the territory that is currently known as New Mexico was owned by Spain (1598-1821) and then Mexico (1821-1846), the Spanish and then Mexican governments would grant tracts of land to individuals or communities to encourage settlement in this territory. Many of these land grants still exist today, claimed by the descendants of the families originally granted the land. Most of them were sold off to the US and New Mexican governments, or to land developers; but there are many Land Grants still proudly owned by those descendants. The El Salto del Agua Land Grant is one that is still owned, operated, and argued over by descendants of the original grant who live in this community located between the village of Arroyo Seco, the Carson National Forest and Taos Pueblo. The land is in a beautiful canyon with waterfalls and spectacular granite rock formations (El Salto del Agua Canoncito roughly translates to Waterfall of the Little Canyon). Luckily, this land is available for all to enjoy, as long as you purchase a $5 permit, that is.
Daughter took me and two dogs up this pretty canyon on a Friday morning which started out very chilly (upper 30s) and ended up with temps in the low 50s. At around two miles of multiple stream crossings, she took a hard left, off the trail and started some serious climbing along the base of a cliff. We climbed a small saddle, and then she scrambled up the face of a rock and waved me on. I didn’t think she was serious…I mean c’mon I’m 63 and not one of these Ironman 60 somethings. She has a way of bringing out the adventurousness in people (something she learned as a river guide in the Grand Canyon). So with a bit of coaxing, and her spotting me from below, I managed to climb up this rock face (which I later scooched down on my rear end). The reward for this climb was an unobstructed view of these beautiful rock formations sort of reminiscent of the granite in Yosemite. And here in little ol’ Taos, NM in the El Salto del Agua Land Grant of all places.
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| Land Grant description at the trailhead |
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| Daughter hiking among fallen leaves |
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| Daughter and wonder dog along the trail |
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| Scooching down the steep granite |
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| C'mon dad! |
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| See! Isn't this view amazing! |
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| Yes it is.... |
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| Very cool |
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| Well, I somehow survived! |
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| Rope climbing isn't allowed here but it should be |
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| Pretty stream |
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| Ice along the stream and waterfalls |
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| Steep canyon walls |
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| More ice in the stream |
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| We missed the fall colors by a couple weeks |
Just say no. We threw a negative at them, though it's unclear what they're supposed to say yes to on Fayette Street. We've made war against drugs in a social and economic vacuum, until hopelessness and rage have the damned of our cities fighting for nothing more or less than human desire and profit, against which no one has ever developed a single viable weapons system.
Soon enough you're spending more to lock a man down than it would cost to enroll him at Harvard.
War or no, 20,000 heroin addicts and another 30,000 pipers are going to go down to the corner in Baltimore tomorrow. Save for the twenty or forty that get tossed in a jail wagon, not one is going to miss his blast. Against that fact, the drug war stands as a useless and unnecessary brutalization, an unyielding policy that requires our government to occupy our ghettos.
But he knew hard labor better than most people, having lived one previous life as a workaholic, as a get-up-every-morning taxpayer with a mortgage and car payments and pension plans. He knew work. And against that, he could say that being a dope fiend is the hardest job there is. Every day you start with nothing, and every day you come up with what you need to survive. And day after goddamn day, you swallow the pain and self-loathing, go out into the street and get what has to be got.
Most of these babies are very much wanted by the mothers and fathers alike. What better legacy for a sixteen-year-old slinger who expects to be dead or in prison by age twenty? What greater personal justification of a teenaged girl thirsting for the unequivocal love of another being?
She breathes deeply and then does what a Baltimore city school teacher has to do every day. She gives the kid the benefit of the doubt.
As it is with our laws and our legal deterrents, our educational theories no longer matter within the all-consuming universe of the corner. We want the drugs to disappear because they are illegal or, more basically, because they are bad for people. But the drugs will not disappear in a culture where everything else--jobs, money, hope, meaning--has already vanished.