The molecularity of being

All along the watchtower, princes kept the view- Jimi Hendricks

2015-12-18T07:29:00.000-07:00

I've written nothing lately, just so I can keep you on the edge of your seat.

As most daughters go, our fathers are ageless, immortal and our first love and while a young friend was watching hers slaying dragons from his hospital bed, I watched mine carry Sir Lancelot to his final rest.

There were words and laughter and memories all mingled among the tears and the food. Southern Baptists know how to cook by golly. We flew straight into Houston and after Mr Toad’s Wild Shuttle Ride through the freeways we rented a car and arrived in Alvin, Texas, early. Unsure that we were at the right hotel Dad sent me in to ask.

“Is the Best Western on Luke Road Hwy somthin’or’nother? “

She flashed a weary eye and said, “Who are you?”

I used those alien yet, magical code words to see if they still worked, “I’m Smitty Godwin’s girl”

“Your Aunt Ruth was just in here looking for him,” was all she said and went back to her paperwork.

Like a parade-- aunts and cousins and uncles and in-laws and out laws streamed from the rooms and we were hugged and squeezed then whisked away to the viewing. Promptly at 20:00,(eight pm) the undertakers lowered the temperature to the point where we shivered and watched our breath almost smoked across the room.

The next day we heard words and sang hymns, and as we left the finality of my uncle’s death sunk in. One would think they would have tissues for such an occasion. I was grateful to Cousin Jeanene for having the foresight to bring some.

At the grave site there were more words and the 66th Black Panther Division 264th offered a flinching report of a twenty-one-gun salute followed by Taps, and the presentation of the flag to my aunt. A piper played Amazing Grace as he slowly walked into the piney woods.

In spite of the clouds, the sun shined bright, as they say, and we spent the afternoon at my uncle's home. As we prepared to leave, his widow said, “He’s really gone, Riley is really gone.”

We all stopped and looked at each other and then reminded her that he was all around her. That his blood beat through many hearts here as a reminder of his corporeal presence.

In his only brother’s death, it was as if I was witnessing a dress rehearsal for my father's. I left more prepared. I could no more shield the truth behind my eyes because every time I looked at him, my father offered words of comfort.

And so the day yielded its light to the stars of the listening night and I dreamt of the awakened dragon and asked,” Can't you see all around you, the dragon's breath?”

Related scripture: Psalm 44:18-26

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mOO5qRjVFLw

Peppermint candy; the sword in the stone that grows through our family.

2015-12-18T07:17:00.000-07:00

They're affiliated with my particular and ungainly past, with aunts and aprons and mouths that needed wiping, and half remembered ice cream spooned melting onto my wedged birthday cake.
How well I remember standing on dusty tip toes stretching to reach for the Depression era glass candy dish where he stored peppermint stick candy. I would wait expectantly for my offerings. Grandpa probably never gave me more than an inch of it at any time, but it was the best treat imaginable. Not memories or dreams but real pieces of my past. He married Nollie Bell in the summer of 1908 and possessed little besides the land on which they lived for 63 years. The Long Cove Baptist Church was the center of their lives with Bible reading and prayer at the breakfast table where appearance was mandatory.

Being one of twenty eight grandchildren I frequently pursued activities such as hiding in the grain, hunting for eggs and new baby kittens and upon occasion watch for snakes a reminder from Grandma who never once failed to remind me as I flew out the kitchen letting the screen door bang behind. Many times I played dress up in beautiful cast off clothes from attic trunks that transformed a sweat streak grubby little girl into a gracious lady of style and renown ruling the world according to whims until heat dissipated the magic of the attic forcing me to jump hopping down one stair step at a time relieved by the relative coolness of the 95º heat.
I hunted for adventures in Grandpa's engine room; smelling of well oiled machine parts staring round eyed into the toothy maw of left behind animal traps then back out side to select s shiny wrinkled up leaf we called tickle tongue because though I never laughed right out loud it did tickle my tongue when I munched on it and did indeed remind me a little of that prized peppermint candy.
Quick stepping and barefooted so the hot dirt wouldn't blister my feet down to the mailbox was a privilege that was fought over because the reward was a stick of peppermint and maybe a saltine or two. He kept a bag in the corner closet of the kitchen, which still smelled of peppermint when the house sold many years after he went to his heavenly reward. (Enoch's mind was clear though he had less desire to leave this earth and his wife, but he never had any anxiety over the certainty of a better life ahead.)
One night after chasing fireflies and cousins I sat in there in an agreeable slouch, inhaled the smells till it melted down the back of my throat in thick syrupy delight trying with all my might to save a moment so strong it took my breath away only to be scared away by spooky popping sounds of the summer sun setting as the house contracted. Ears plugged with fingers, I fled the consecrated rapture of red twist tied bags echoed twisted and round candy sitting mint and brand spanking new--peppermint why the very word showed it's rapid fire camphouros whorls white on red or was it red on white lozenge to be broken and eaten carminative red memories and peppermint perfumed smiles. An herb yanked from the earth to yank me back into the earth.
When he passed away there was a family lottery for that candy dish and Dad won. It was an outside confirmation to be seen and touched to be read aloud in the present as if Grandpa is a book in my hand, how else can I become real? The peppermint stick is my sword in the stone growing straight down through my family. The candy dish is a friend that sits in silence entrusting its stories to me from the perpetual frozen era of my childhood.

Where were you when Kennedy was shot?

2015-11-22T09:09:00.003-07:00

Certain days will always reverberate through history and on November 22 at 12:29 Dallas time when the motorcade comes into sight nothing ever changes. It has become immutable no matter how much I want it to change that certain slant of light in the Zapruder film each time it's played...

Click. The Presidential limousine glides though a Houston street making a sharp left turn onto Elm.

Click. The President is smiling and waving.

Click. Mrs. Kennedy looks at him with concern.

Click. The president reaches for his throat and slumps toward her.

Click. The Governor of Texas in the front seat falls forward.

Click. Mrs. Kennedy rises and reaches across the back of the limousine.

Click. She is pushed back into the car by a Secret Service agent.

Click. The limousine disappears from view beneath an underpass heading for Parkland Hospital.

President's draft schedule for today 1963
(Source: https://www.liveauctioneers.com)

Attending an Episcopalian school in Marietta, Georgia during a Spanish bazaar, the principal announced that President Kennedy had been shot. Ready to dance in a long red silk dress. It's from Spain, I whispered to best friend Sally. Narrow black lace trimmed the neckline and the bell sleeves, while wide black lace defined the two gathered tiers of a ruffled skirt. The princess bodice was lined and closed in back with a long red ribbon. The black lace mantilla trimmed with a red satin rose; fit under my hair. Altogether a muy bonita senorita.

School was immediately dismissed.

This is Daddy's boss and of course Dad is gone and the country is on high alert. It isn't uncommon to wake up in the morning and find he had left to places unknown, but I could pretty well guess where and why.

I sat on the church steps and cried until a neighbor picked up my sister and I. A few days later, school was closed as we watched President Kennedy's funeral. It is still hard to watch Jon Jon salute his father's casket. A man named Lee Harvey Oswald had shot him from the Texas Book Depository. Feeling an odd connection to these events in a strange sort of way since at that time all the books used in public schools in the United States, as well as American ones overseas came from that building. I had always noticed, even looked for the words Property of the Texas Book Depository stamped inside the covers of all the books I studied from no matter where I lived. Some sort of security was ripped away that day.

Two weeks later the school burned down; the President dead and Dad gone, it was very frightening to a young girl in grade school. John F. Kennedy was assassinated November 22, 1963 for reasons that remain largely unexplained to this day.

That film runs fifteen seconds. And an eternity. Looking back, it seems as if it was a point where it all started to come apart it would take decades to overcome. Nothing changes except those who watch, they watch a generation of Americans who would never be quite so young again. After that nothing was the same...

Click. Vietnam.

Click. LBJ announces he will not risk running again.

Click. Robert Kennedy in a pool of blood after his victory speech in an LA hotel kitchen.

Click. Another president resigns in disgrace.

Never again, I thought each time, would I take my country so lightly, my institutions for granted. But time passes, marriage, children; fortune smiled on me in this most blessed nation I found it easy to forget, become complacent... hubris is the child of forgetfulness...

Click. Jetliners strike the World Trade Center again and again, and as much as I would like to blot it from memory I cannot and I am jerked to wakefulness, once again reminded how fragile this society is and understand that familiar feeling, that my way of life is not a machine that is run by itself, but one that requires daily heroism.

Click. The sentinels change but the uniforms that watch over us while we enjoy our freedoms do not.

"Despite only being 9-years-old, she owns Villekulla Cottage." Pipi Longstockings

2015-02-13T11:04:00.000-07:00

We played a game in one Brat Group this week. We had to tell two truths and one lie. I’m pretty sure Pipi Longstockings would be right there with us. Can you guess the lie?
1)I sailed across the East China Sea during a typhoon, jumped ship in Singapore, and piloted a KC135 simulator.
2) I dated a male stripper, a running back for the Redskins, but fell in love with, and married my best friend, a restaurant manger
3) I did a late night Foxtrot for FOD for a F16.I only have one traffic ticket, and in my closet, I hang everything left-shoulder out.

There beneath the blue suburban skies

2015-02-06T14:55:00.001-07:00

“HIROMICHI MINE
Ha Phan (sic), Vietnam, 1967
A U.S. twin-engine transport Caribou crashes after being hit by American artillery near Duc Pho on August 3, 1967. U.S. artillery accidentally shot down the ammunition-laden plane, which crossed a firing zone while trying to land at the U.S. Special Forces camp. All three crewman died in the crash.” Photo Credit

There beneath the blue suburban skies

A memory of when our father was in Vietnam

This is one of the biggest, there are others, but this sticks out the most in my mind. It was enough for me to create imaginary friends who lived in my closet and traveled to school with me that fall in the basket of my bike.

Like many other military families, we could choose where to live while our dad was overseas and it was decided that we would like as close to Vietnam as we could, which to my mom was Vacaville, CA. Dad sent us a letter, an audio tape or a package everyday, like clockwork. It was on a summer afternoon with the smell of fresh mown grass and the sounds of "I'm a Believer" drifting by on a muggy breeze, that I walked down freshly painted brown stairs to check the mail. There was nothing from Dad, I told my mom and sister.

About three hours later, Dan Rather came on the five o’clock news and flashed a picture of a C-7A Caribou that was snapped by a Japanese university graduate by the name of Hiromichi Mine. It had spent seven hours on an air transport headed for stateside media and depicted a Caribou coming apart in midair. “This incident occurred in August of 1967 when the Caribou (tail number 62-4161) flew into the line of fire of a 155mm howitzer, “states one Veteran.

Our father was flying the C-7A in support of Special Forces. We did not eat dinner; mom sent us to our rooms and spent the night crying on the phone to friends and family. We held our collective breaths for ten days while we waited for word. And then on the eleventh day, just like that, we had a lot of mail from dad.

Hiromichi Mine's picture was not only memorable for us, it became iconic for the era. Unfortunately, he was killed a few years later when the vehicle he was riding in took fire.

Source
http://www.c-7acaribou.com/album/photos/photo02.htm

Mr. Loo

2015-01-30T08:29:00.001-07:00

Dad, a 28 year old freshly minted Captain in The United States Air Force came home one day and announced that we would be moving to a place near China, Taipei, Taiwan.

Where is this place? I asked him

.... and in a moment that lasted all of a second, but the memory will live on forever, he exclaimed,

Why Missy if you go outside in the backyard and dig a hole straight through the earth you would just about be in China! It's a land of magic, just FULL of enchanted people!

After many vaccinations for typhus, tuberculosis and cholera, we were packed and loudly grinding our way across the Pacific in a propeller driven airplane. There was no First Class, no heat, nor cabin pressure and we hopped our way across like a milk train, landing in Hawaii and Guam. We moved into a small home in the Little American City in Taipei. It was built of gray limestone painted with a yellow trim, it sat on a corner surrounded by a bamboo fence and inside there was rattan matting on the floor that would leave the most intricate designs on my legs after sitting for a time. My bedroom was down a short hallway on the right and my parents further down to the left, at the end of the hall was the bathroom. I was warned repeatedly to only drink the water from the water bottles, to never EVER drink the water out of the sink or I would get the worst tummy ache even DIE if I did!

Our first night there began with great adventure. Bright flashes of light and the acrid smell of gunpowder filled my room. I had never smelled or heard gunfire before and soon after the first several volleys I heard grappling and crashing about in my father's bedroom. I was running through the dark, where I could see and my father flew by me in blue boxer shorts and t-shirt his firearm raised above his head wild eyed and screaming.!! While he defended hearth and home I hid in the clothes hamper. It came to be that there was a custom in the neighborhood at that time to welcome new neighbors by lining the fence with firecrackers and setting them off. (They are SO lucky they didn't get shot) Soon our new home was full of friendly neighbors bringing in plenty of beer and a hibachi pot. To my wonder they set it in the middle of the living room floor and cooked up some wonderful sukiyaki. I drifted off to sleep while trying to talk, not knowing there would be so much more to come.

The Japanese occupied Taiwan throughout much of The Forties and did many things to improve the island building great roads. In the The Fifties and the early Sixties the Chinese Government moved onto the island and in other words it was the rich who had the power to move into the government offices. My father was stationed there by as part of a 'listening post' to keep tabs on the Communist Chinese Government. They would gather information on the movement of the Red Army in China and had three or four minutes to relay this information to Washington DC. At this time he flew the C-47 Gooney Bird and made monthly trips to Contact Airport for some R&R in Hong Kong. There he and his flight crew would be warmly greeted by the Hotel and all the Heineken Beer they could drink, which was truly an import and a real luxury of the time.

It wasn't long before Dad heard from the General's Aide about a man from Shanghai who had paid someone off to help him escape to Taiwan. Mr Loo was a cook and was looking for a position while he searched for his son in the Taiwanese Army. He moved into a small room with a cot off the laundry room by the kitchen and had few belongings. The first day I met him the phone rang and rushing over to answer he shouted quickly and all too loudly,

Wey? Wey?

My sister, Mr. Loo and I, Tien Mou, Taipei, Taiwan, 1959

Of course in my whole little life I had never heard the phone answered in such a manner and every time he would answer the phone I would just collapsed into a pile of little girl giggles! He was up early every morning leaving a pair of freshly shined shoes outside my father's door and asking me what I wanted for breakfast. He would cook me whatever I wanted which was usually pancakes with a light dusting of powdered sugar. (It wasn't until I returned to the US that I learned about syrup on pancakes. ) Later on we would set out for the street markets where he would shout and haggle, smell and sniff with a great flourish and style, the fruits and vegetables and finally choose only the best shrimp or pork for the meals he would prepare. These tasty delights he would carry home on his shoulders in a contraption I'd never seen. It was a bar with two rattan baskets hanging from the ends, perched just so as if he was wearing it. Most of what I liked about being with him was looking through his eyes at all I saw...sharing whispers that were funny, but we'd soon forget. Surely in my little girl heart it was as though we would never part and though I'll never capture what he meant to me in pen, I'm going to hope for the best.

One day while watching Mr Loo cook I took great note of the fact that he could drink the water out of the sink. Oh indeed I was astounded ! Mr Loo was definitely enchanted!

Dad had recently purloined a radio from a helicopter and gave it to Mr Loo who began to spend his evenings in his room listening to the Communist broadcasts, hoping to hear news of his son. Sometimes I would try to come in and listen too, shooing me out of the room, he was afraid that if he was caught listening to these broadcasts, they would throw him in jail. Standing rejected at the door one night I made a point of telling Dad about my amazing conclusion about Mr Loo and his immunity to the poison water! Threatened with losing his daughter's undying affections Dad rushed to the bathroom, seized his toothbrush and returned to the kitchen. He thrust it victoriously under the running water in the sink and furiously brushed his teeth until his mouth foamed bubbling proudly that he too was able to fearlessly face the death by tummy ache!

Because there was a variety of cultures Mr Loo spoke primarily Mandarin and this is the language my father says I spoke though I only recall a few phrases. Mr Loo's most frequently used phrase around me was,

Oh no Missy , please don't do!!

When I heard that I knew I was doing something terribly wrong. One day I had decided that the little keys that came attached to the tin cans to open them was a magical key that opened walls from the electrical outlets where all sorts of wonderful people lived in my imagination. It was fortunate for me that we were on alternating current by that time, but I did hear him yell just before the terrific shock. Watching the clothes tumble merrily around in the dryer window one boring day, it occurred to me that this might be a lot of fun for my younger sister to experience. Luckily she was too heavy for the drum to turn but it did cause the fuse to burn out and a great deal of smoke which brought Mr Loo to our rescue declaring,

Oh no Missy , please don't do!!

Time for Kindergarten and I was sent to a Catholic School. Preparations began for the Sacrament of First Communion and the girls who were to be the Bride of Christ, wore the most beautiful pink dresses with lacy shawls, I had ever seen. I was unaware that I was Methodist and not Catholic and arrived at the breakfast table one morning dressed in my own pink jumper. After some consternations from Mr. Loo I was dispatched to my room to put on my uniform. Carefully folding my jumper into three folds and then rolling it military style like I had watched Dad, I snuck the jumper into the metal lunch box I carried to school. It wasn't long before I was sitting in the church pew biting back tears feeling terribly left out during Communion. A few days later still angry about the whole matter I thought to myself , rather than waiting for the peddy cab to show up and take me home I would ride the bus like everyone else. It wasn't long before I realized that in my stubbornness I had made a terrible mistake and I was hopelessly lost on a city bus. I saw a man I knew was a religious, whether he was Buddhist, Priest, or a Shinto I'll never know. He reminded me of Mr. Loo and that was more than good enough for me..... I meekly joined this stranger while I waited for someone to find me. Meanwhile back at home the peddy cab had arrived without me and the driver, who the more excited he became the faster he talked, surmised that Missy, had been kidnapped by someone in the Chinese Government as some kind of plot against the spying US Government ! I have no idea how fast that message was relayed to Washington, D.C., but half of the US Air Force was out searching for me and it was Dad who found me waiting on the steps of the shrine-- temple -- church The only picture I have of Mr Loo is of him standing proudly behind me in my pretty pink 'Communion Dress.' He had seen my intangible wish and made it a cornerstone of reality.

A hero is a man who does what he can and his greatest power was his simple patience with me.

Mr Loo always wore Khaki trousers and a crisp white dress shirt rolled up at the sleeves. He always smelled of fresh ginger and garlic and whatever he thought I would feel. I watched one day as he drew beautiful pictures on paper. I asked him what he was drawing and setting me on his knee, he explained he was writing letters to whoever he could think of about his son His son had been drafted into the Army when he was only fifteen and that was Mr Loo's reason for coming to Taiwan -- to find his son and get him released from the Army. Indignant that Mr Loo was suffering so, I marched through the kitchen, reached up on the counter, grabbed a spoon and banged out the back door. He watched me digging furiously for a while through the window then opened the door and asked me what I was doing.

Why Daddy says, I sobbed, if I dig a hole right through the earth there will be China and your son can come home!

With a grateful bow he shut the screen door and left me to my futile task.

I don't know if Mr Loo was ever united with his son and my father can find no records of Mr Loo's full name.

Who else but I could have understood the words he used, his sense of humor, each of these things I know and cherish as if they were my own. Who knew him as well as I did? And who could have loved him as I did? It is said, 'Some people come into our lives and quickly go. Others stay for awhile, and we're never the same'

Maryanne Radmacher-Hershey wrote, "I am not the same having seen the moon shine on the other side of the world." There I learned that the greatest treasures are not those visible to the eye but found by the heart. And even though Mr Loo and I shall never be again as we were, it was enough.

Honoré Daumier

2015-01-09T08:09:00.000-07:00

At the time of his work Honoré Daumier had been well known for satirical lithography he submitted his work often to the liberal French Republican Journal, Cariacture In these pieces, he made derisive fun of the foibles and misbehavior of lawyers, politicians and middle class gentry. In touch with the acute social and political unrest in Paris at that time he depicted events that were the result of the rapid development of an urban industrial society. As might be expected, the sting of his critical wit often put him in conflict with the government. In his unfinished The Third-Class Carraige

Daumier's quick penmanship style shows the viewer his interest in the political community. At that time it was an in your face realism, a way to cover events in an unrealized vehicle. The rude railway compartment of the 1860s. The people are poor and can only afford third-class tickets, he would repeat this subject many times in his many works.

He shows them to us in the un-posed attitudes and unplanned arrangements of the millions thronging the modern city--anonymous , insignificant, dumbly patient with a lot they cannot change. Daumier saw people as they ordinarily appeared, their faces vague, impersonal blank--unprepared for any observer.

Art Through the Ages

King Louis Phillippe was Daumier's first great theme, he also had a biting way to get across the inherent need for the social reform of the French heirarchy depicted in the tragic portrayal of current events in Rue Transnonain,1834. Crafting from the ordinary continuum of life he randomly gathered isolated views ..... unrehearsed details of human existence. His unique efforts would go on to achieve a reality antecedent to the candor and spontaneous settings being captured by the snapshot camera at the end of the century.

Sources

Debbie Godwin Adams. "Artists and Art in the Classroom" Tucson, Arizona.

1994. (Lecture presented at St Joseph's Catholic School.)

Justus, Kevin. "Art and Culture II." Tucson , Arizona.

1992. (Lecture presented at Pima Community College.)

De La Croix, Horst, Richard D. Tansey, and Diane Kirkpatrick.

Art Through the Ages. University of Michigan: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.

1991.

Rue Transnonain

2015-01-08T08:17:00.000-07:00

Honoré Daumier had an eye for the details of his era and a wink at the timeless foibles of politics and society, he excelled at this by pricking the pretensions of 19th century France.

As for artists, Daumier might have said,

'there's always the possibility of transforming disappointment into delight.'

The primary purpose of his art work was to show the brutality of the French government while dealing with the working class, dedicating much of his life and art to social realism. Concentrating on the inequities between the classes, and atrocities committed by the government. Daumier mocked those in power, mostly in lithographs for the newspaper Cariacture Even his boss, activist publisher Charles Philipon, was the subject of caricature. But the king was Daumier's first great theme, and while King Louis Phillippe did have Rue Transnonain confiscated, the most nefarious cartoon was The King on the Pot, which landed Daumier in jail for six months, plus a 500-franc fine, thousands in today's dollars.

Despite serving time in prison for the content of his political cartoons, Daumier continued to criticize the French government,and this is where the true meaning of the Rue Transnonain lies.

French workers rioted in April of 1834 because of harsh working conditions and a new law forbidding the formation of Unions for workers. Because of an sniper's bullet a French Police Officer was killed and the reckless retaliation by the Police many innocent people were killed. It is this event that was the source of inspiration for this particular lithograph published in L'Association Mensuelle.

Unlike his earlier work, there is a total absence of caricature. Instead, the victims are portrayed with realism and similar to Francisco Goya's The Third of May, 1808 as a depiction of harsh social reality. Daumier's ideas of using art as political commentary creates a sharp, realistic angle of vision. Rue Transnonain is also important because the central dead adult was appropriated from Eugéne Delacroix's earlier revolutionary image Liberty Leading the People(1830). More than likely, the contemporary French audience would have noticed how the prostrate figure in Daumier's image is placed in a similar pose to that of Delacroix's dead man in the right foreground below the allegorical figure.

However, we are not shown the dramatic moment of execution but the terrible aftermath. The broken scattered forms lying in the midst of violent disorder, are reported as if newly found. Duamier uses every device of skill he can muster to make the situation real letting the harsh facts speak for themselves. It was obvious and evident, there was no need for interpretation from the artist. The army had rushed in and indiscriminately murdered these people. The gravity of the figure of the man, who has fallen onto his child-- he's dead; the child dead-- and the intimacy of this domestic room was profoundly moving to people. At first glance one sees the initial scene of a man in his pajamas lying dead against his bed, then the viewer is drawn to pay closer attention to the work. there is a baby crushed under the man with just its head and arms coming out from under the weight of this man. There is a pool of blood forming from the baby which intends to play on the viewers sympathy eliciting violent emotions of hatred towards the murderers who took the lives of these innocent people so obviously sleeping as indicated by the attire and disarray of the bed. The scenario is used by Daumier to elicit strong emotion and a need for social reform. The print's significance is in its factualness. What was new this time in art was the increasing artistic bias toward using fact as subject. Daumier's manner is rough and spontaneous; carrying expressive exaggeration as part of its remarkable force. He is true to life in content, but his style is uniquely personal.

Despite his high standing among other artists, the poet Charles Baudelaire called him the,

'Michelangelo of caricature.' Daumier spent much of his life in debt and when things got too hot for politics, he would turn to safer subjects. We see a tremendous interest in not as an illustrator, not to describe incidents in the book in any detail at all, unlike his contemporaries, but instead his desire to express their human experience. For example, in Miguel de Cervantes' book about human experience, the aspirations of Don Quixote, and then the human folly that the book contains. Daumier finds as a subject for lampooning Don Quixote, a wonderful symbol and image for the political cartoonist and his talented social satire -- the familiar, the tilting of the windmills, the idealism, the line, the uplift of the lanky, elongated form, and then there is Sancho Panza who was, down in the dirt, in the muck of the earth. In true satire there is always a display of disappointment in the world.

Honoré Daumier aided, abetted and recorded the emergence of so many aspects of modern art and life as we know it.

Sources

De La Croix, Horst, Richard D. Tansey, and Diane Kirkpatrick.

Art Through the Ages. University of Michigan: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.

1991.

Picture Source

The End Game

2015-01-05T19:21:00.001-07:00

“All along the watchtower, princes kept the view” -Bob Dylan

A KC-135A taking off with water injection to its J-57 engines

I was looking at the splattered dust outside my window today when it hit me. I was like some kind of Pipi Longstockings going to the fair when I turned in my orange and white ID card to the guard shack at the front gate of Davis-Monthan AFB. I handed over my precious past to the grinning guard in green fatigues, neither one realizing that this was the last sounding of the death knell of my youth.

No one ever told me about this hidden right of passage. It is snake-like in its knowing, still and harmless as it waits for the right moment to unleash its wound like a deep dark secret. Stronger in my broken places, I was looking for my future, ready to embrace life in a heady youth.

Today, many of my former communities are now unsightly; desolate places. The high guard towers point at an empty sky, their scowling silhouettes softened by rowdy nests of shrieking birds. Sandbags have rotted away in grimy ditches and the shimmering light of day dances in what were once protected rooms. Warehouses that were bursting with stores lay barren surrounded with weathered whitewashed rocks.

Motorpools heavy and low with lethal profiles of armored vehicles sit vacant save for a few desolate and twisted weeds. The leathered, oily smells are long since vanquished by the breezes of time. Sections of the high perimeter wall have deteriorated and dropped into disordered heaps of brickwork. They have met their demise – exhausted of the throbbing rhythm of men and machinery that made her so powerful. The only sounds are the sorrowful squeals of metal roofs beating out lonely staccatos in their wastelands.

Maybe if I had been equipped with some iota I could have known that this inevitable day would come. I have long since raised my children and procured a home since my displacement. I can’t help but wonder what it will be like when the door closes on this chapter in this isolation from my military birthright. An unwilling sacrifice of my homeland in exchange for the quasi-rights of a civilian.

Will my sacrifice allow fathers and mothers to be able to raise their children to be strong and proud? Will I have left our world a better and brighter place for having been here? Every fiber of my being wants this to be tangible; it would justify the palpable price I have paid in the sorrows of leaving behind yet another friend, another school.

Three moves equals a fire, most Military Brats intuitively appreciate that phrase as soon as we read it. So here we are, living among the natives never really knowing if we are awakened to their detectable presence.

My surroundings have absorbed me for some thirty odd years now and today I realized that my father had the most selfish reason for wishing that this would all come to pass for me. He simply hoped to raise a child that would not have to fight another war in this land of the free; home of the brave.

This is Just to Say

2014-12-31T08:00:00.000-07:00

This is Just to Say

I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox

and which you were probably
saving
for breakfast

Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold

- William Carlos Williams

A 'found poem' in the form of a note left on the refrigerator door using a recurrence of personal pronouns instead of phonetics, This is Just to Say (1934) is also a typography left open to a wide variety of interpretations that veterans of marriage and cohabitation can enjoy as well as understand. Williams once recalled that this poem was an actual note he had written to his wife-"and she replied very beautifully" It provides directions for the eye that reads the lines silently and that teases out the poem's meanings.
Leonard M. Trawick in World, Self, Poem: Essays on Contemporary Poetry from the "Jubilation of Poets says it..... might suggest three possible readings. The poem could be concerned with the uselessness or self-entrapment of sexual desire, comparable to "Th'expense of spirit in a waste of shame." There's the potential Oedipal reading, with the boy thwarted in an attempt to comprehend his origin; to learn of it from his mother. Or there's the reading that would suggest self-referentiality; it is the poem itself that "means nothing."
A more subtle literary analysis by Charles Altieri in his essay Presence and Reference in a Literary Text: The Example of Williams debates the merits of this little poem as having a more sophisticated intent--

" that it creates and inhabits a middle ground between myths of presence, on the one hand, and Derridean absence, on the other, and functions as a speech act to affirm community and communication. A request for forgiveness for the small theft of some plums, the poem enacts the relationship, the relatedness with the wife, that permits the speaker to expect that he will be forgiven...."just saying"–it is an ordinary utterance, something just said, that, because of the way it calls the community, or marriage, into being, and creates the other in her freedom to forgive or withhold forgiveness, attains justness." Altieri writes that in the poem, "A strong sense of humanity ultimately prevails. . . . The justness of the speaker's poem is its recognition of his weakness and its lovely combination of self-understanding with an implicit faith in his wife's capacity to understand and accept his deed and, beyond that, to comprehend his human existence as a balance of weakness, self-knowledge, and concern"

Inspired by hunger playfully raiding the icebox like some Dennis the Menace caught on tiptoe with hands in the cookie jar, Williams admits to his Dagwood raiding of Blondie's refrigerator, piling the stolen food high, to make one of his infamous midnight sandwiches. The narrative poem on the surface gives a glimpse into one of his slice of life poems on the subject of stealing plums in the words and moments he did steal the plums, stole them from his own icebox, stole them away from the breakfast that he might himself have had on them, reveled in the stealing and loved the confessing of stealing.
Much anthologized and frequently parodied (see:Variations on a Theme by William Carlos Williams) William Carlos Williams is Patron Saint of American Poetry and master of the ordinary phrase ....and for Flossie, in fair exchange one delightful poem for the plums she was saving.

Sources
Fisher-Wirth, Ann. "The Allocations of Desire: 'This Is Just to Say' and Flossie Williams's 'Reply.'" William Carlos Williams Review 22.2: 47-56. Osborn

Brats Story-time, a call to Assembly

2014-12-27T12:16:00.000-07:00

'Bat-outa-Hell II' ,Martin B-26 Marauder that flew with the 387th BG, 557th BS.
http://bathead.com/noseart1.html

"If they would only keep their damned hands off of it."- Ira S. Godwin LTCOL (RET)

Once upon a time, way back in the day when "Brats: The BratPin" was a struggling rock star and consisted of nothing more than elaborate design requests for Brat jewelry and a fistful of Veteran Trading Cards, there lived a wee group of fans of Pat Conroy who was one of the rare deities of an earlier Bratdom era. Before The Internet, he wrote a book about the life and times of a military family that later became a well-known Hollywood film. He prefaced a book about growing up as a Brat in US Fortresses, by Mary Edwards Wertch noting that “We are an undiscovered nation living invisibly in the body politic of this country,” and he went on to elaborate, “We’d never stopped to honor ourselves, out loud, for our understanding service to America.”

Later, Donna Musil made it so we could recognize this invisibility with her "BRATS: Our Journey Home" documentary and today we have an abundance of Brat Projects: UNCLASSIFIED: The Military Kid Art Show, Our Own Private Battlefield, BRATS Workshops, BRATS Clubs, Military Kid Art Camp, BRATS & Race, and Military Brat Library, to name a few.

It was all over except for the dancing in the streets. Now we could spread our recognition across the land, over the seas and around the world.

But that never happened. Knowing that Brats would never rename themselves, several ignorant military organizations decided to impose their visceral reactions to the four letter word Brat upon us, and chose to encourage a civilian to create a new term for Brat and thus, OPERATION CHAMPS was constructed. Over the years the military organizations deliberately built the status of OPERATION CHAMPS in a bald faced attempt to pay no heed to the true community.

One brisk autumn day, the small group of Conroy fans in "Brats: The BratPin" group took notice of an article in a USAA webzine that proffered an interview with the creator of OPERATION CHAMPS. The dialogue disturbed many Brats; the idea that someone, a civilian, would dare to rename and re-brand them by using their SCHOOLS and their LITTLEST Brat bothers and Brat sisters, was not only reprehensible, it was unacceptable.

Outrage swelled across the many rivers and valleys of Facebook Brat groups. As calls to rally came forth, it was suggested, by the now besieged rocker, that we should have a group and we shall name it "BRATS: Stolen Valor - Stolen Identity," (BSVSI).

Within this same call to Assemble, others stood up similar groups and they all began to cross support each other.

Lady Donna and her colleagues were taken by surprise. They looked up from their many worthwhile and meaningful projects that languished because they had been suppressed by the military organizations who remain adamant about NOT using the word “brat” in their literature, and said, “Wait! We cannot splinter, we will spread too thin!” and “Stop! This will reinvent the wheel!”

Nevertheless, the buglers had already sounded the call to Assemble. Groups materialized, keyboards were taken up and they flew to Assembly like Brats out of Hell.

Groups in the Assemblage swelled into the thousands. In twenty-four hours, the BSVSI Brats numbered over a thousand; in three weeks, there were three times more.

Like all Brats, Lady Donna reacted strongly to the news about the co-opting of the Brat name and her hard work. For many weeks she remained an overwhelmed observer of these events. Sometime during the genesis of the groups, she found herself swept into them by well meaning supporters and some of the group creators made her an administrator without the courtesy of asking her!

Eventually, the leaders of "Brats Without Borders" caught up with the flocks of Brats and, as they have been doing for decades, reassured them of their heritage, offering sage advice and support.

Thus is the story of the strange phenomenon of the creation of BRATS: Stolen Valor - Stolen Identity and tandem groups.

- Eyewitness testimony by BSVSI creator, Debbie Godwin Adams.

Gallant young troupers

2014-12-22T07:00:00.000-07:00

"When we were growing up, every aspect of personal and private life was a measure of our father's professional competence." – a military brat

Mary Edwards Wertsch writes in her book, Military Brats: Legacies of C hildhood Inside the Fortress, the recollection of a variety of children who grew up in the authoritarian, and not authoritative, there is a distinct difference, environs of the military. "The notions of conformity, order and obedience reign supreme... The great paradox of the military," writes Wertch" is that its members, its self appointed guardians of our cherished democratic values, do not live in a democracy themselves. Not only is individuality not valued in the military, it's discouraged. There is no freedom of speech, save on the most innocuous levels. There is no freedom of assembly for anything that is not authorized. There is not even a concept of privacy as civilians understand it, for in the military the distinction between public and private is thoroughly blurred. What a soldier says and does privately and what his spouse and children do and say can be held against him."
From birth we are imprinted with names like Dwight and Omar. USAF parents are particularly fond of naming us after air force bases like Travis, Edward, Luke, and Kelly. (Famous aviators) Even the Marines call their daughters Maureen or Marina Cora. And there's nothing like being born in a hospital where Moms make their own hospital cornered bed, then shuffle to the mess hall to collect their dinner tray.

We were starched and creased and by the time we were five we were little militarized troupers. The Marines even have a Devil Pup summer camp in San Diego. I must admit there was some envy when I read about that. Wertch explains, "When asked by civilians if it was really all that different to grow up in the military we children of the Fortress sometimes draw a blank....(It's) like being drafted into a gigantic theater company. The role of the warrior society, even in peacetime, is to exist in a state of perpetual "readiness": one continuous dress rehearsal for war. The principal actors are immaculately costumed, carefully scripted and supplied with a vast array of props...this is not a theater of improvisation. And then there is the supporting cast: the wives-- who may lack costumes but whose lines and movements are crafted every bit as carefully-- and the children, the understudies."
Weekend chores occurred on Saturday for us. At 0700 we got up, ate breakfast and while Mom and Dad went off to the commissary Sister and I had two hours to get the house squared away. Some kids that were interviewed in the book tell about their room inspections including beds made a certain way. Our shoes had to be lined up and the clothes hung with the left shoulder facing outwards. And while ours did not include bouncing any quarters off the bed we could not sit on our bed spreads; if something was set on the bedspread it had to be neatened up immediately. Furniture was not allowed to be kitty-corner.

One Friday night Dad won a typewriter at bingo and I awoke to orders of the day typed and posted on my closet doors, but there was no standing at attention during inspections like there were for some of us. Actually Dad just took a look at our rooms and pronounced them "outstanding" most of the time. Occasionally we were jokingly threatened with the "white-glove inspection" and told to get down on our hand and knees and use some "elbow grease" on that bath tub ring! Afterward Dad and I would open the window on the second floor, set the radio on the sill and watch the Woodward boys play street hockey while listening to the dih-dih-dah-dah-dah of some far away station. We were far enough north that it may have been Russian.

Some kids relate that they received Article 15's if things were not ship shape. In our home, they were reserved for more serious infractions imagined by maternal alcoholism. One boy recalled his mom doing the white- glove inspection and finally came up with some dust from behind the toilet. When I read that I thought of all the kids like me who had lived in the same quarters scrubbing the same bathrooms and felt a kinship like I have not felt before; something less than family, yet more than friendship. Maybe that's why we always begin with where we lived and what years we lived there. Then I grinned and wondered if these family-like friends would have stifled a giggle too if they saw a Colonel in dress blues standing over the sink, peering into the mirror and using my eye lash curler to straighten out a wayward eyelash that was bugging him. 'Can't be winking at the General's wife,' I teased my father.

We have rich and difficult roots and like Mary Edwards Wertch says we're troupers, real troupers.

Lost in a Sonic Boom

2014-12-20T20:00:00.000-07:00

"Giving the speed of sound the slip; has cracked the air like a penny whip."—John Updike

I hate flying, but I love the sound of jets overhead. I love the sounds of interstates when I’m in a motel room in some barren uptown. Like urban fireflies, cigarettes glimmer in the parking lot on a Thursday night when all the salesmen are fast asleep. And I love highways when I wake up on a Greyhound and it is first light in the heart of nowhere, when I’m at a truck stop whose retro-wonder I'd drink in if the bus wasn't leaving and I had more than five minutes to finish breakfast and brush my teeth.

It's a safe feeling, somehow, to be nowhere. And the sound is the only thing that makes it safe, the assurance that there is a plan that everyone else is going too.
I love the military base near me. I could never live there anymore, but I love the sounds it makes at night as a pretty pink sky sweeps away the contrails. I love stepping out of my small and slow life into a place where if I crumpled up and died I would be impossible to differentiate from a lost plastic bag of refuse tipped out across the gutter of some dirt filled wash with creosote and no human faces. Hey, the whole high desert, the residential blankness; the calmness of simply not existing.
To the casual observer I look no different from any other person, just another gray face in a gray world. But to those of us who have endured the forges there will always be an unspoken bond, and I will identify the pale pockmarks of my friends as if they were my own reflections. There is no universal insight magically granted to those who have been raised in the military, but my time there guarantees one thing - I will never be connected with those cold souls who risk nothing and therefore gain nothing.

Hummingbirds emerge in my yard and I wonder where they came from. And I don't finish the thought because I go inside and they evaporate. I am so fleeting, with my spirit chasing the passions I dreamed up, and I tear like roaring jets towards nothing. It feels good to rush toward nothing. But it feels best in the core of that squall, when I hear the rushing all around and I am standing still, flickering like a cigarette and aiming my guts at oblivion.

It is accomplished

2010-04-03T07:14:00.002-07:00

Eucharist and Orders, Fruits of the Spirit

For Holy Thursday 1998 as a part of his preparation for the Holy Year of 2000 John Paul II writes in a letter to his priests:

In tender and mysterious language, the Gospel of John tells the story of the first Holy Thursday, when the Lord, at table with his disciples in the Upper Room, "having loved his own who were in the world, loved them to the end" (13:1). To the end! : until, that is, the institution of the Eucharist, which anticipates not only Good Friday and the sacrifice of the Cross but the entire Paschal mystery. At the Last Supper, Jesus takes bread in his hands and for the first time utters the words of consecration: "This is my body which will be given up for you". Then, over the chalice filled with wine, he proclaims the words of consecration: "This is the cup of my blood, the blood of the new and everlasting covenant. It will be shed for you and for all so that sins may be forgiven," and he adds: "Do this in memory of me". Thus, in the Upper Room and without the shedding of blood, Christ completes the Sacrifice of the New Covenant, which will be accomplished in blood on the following day, when he will say on the Cross: " Consummatum est " - "It is accomplished" ( Jn 19:30).

Eloi, Eloi Lema Sabchthani

Translated this means, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" and according to Mark and Matthew this phrase is a citation of the Hebrew or Aramaic text of Psalm 22:1. It is one of several allusions to Psalm 22 in the narratives of the death of Jesus. There are six other utterances from Christ on the cross as noted by the Gospel writers. "I thirst," ¹ "Father, forgive them," ² "Woman, behold your son; here is your mother," ³ "Today you will be with me in Paradise," ⁴ "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me," ⁵ " Father, into Thy hands I commend my spirit," ⁶ and "It is accomplished."⁷

Each evangelist presents the death of Jesus from his own perspective. For Mark, the death of Jesus was the occasion for the unveiling of the messianic secret. Only at the crucifixion could he be acknowledged as the Son of God ⁸ Mark may have been offsetting the view that exaggerated the miracles as revelations of Christ's divinity. For Matthew, the cross was Israel's rejection of the Messiah. Because of it, God's judgment came upon the nation at the fall of Jerusalem in 70 CE. ⁹ For Luke the death of Jesus at Calvary and his following assumption into heaven ¹⁰constituted a major crossroad in the account of salvation, launching a new period of the church and its widespread mission. This period would be go on to be covered in the book of Acts.

However the Gospel of John progresses like a pendulum. It opens by proclaiming, "In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God" Then the story arcs in a descending sweep, as the Word becomes flesh in the person of Jesus Christ. The earliest disciples accepted Jesus cheerfully. They dubbed him as Rabbi, Messiah, Son of God, and King of Israel, and jovially went along with him to Cana's wedding feast. But the pendulum kept on plunging, as people became more and more bewildered, cynical, and unreceptive to Jesus' claims; they charged that he was a blasphemer, tried to stone him, and finally they pulled out all the stops and began plotting his execution. The low point comes in the middle of the gospel, when Jesus' public ministry comes to an end, and it's clear that even though he had presented all of these signs they still refuse to believe. All that is left to do is to throw down the challenge and prove his case. Craig R. Koester explains in his manuscript The Passion and Resurrection According to John:

The Fourth Gospel... portrays the crucifixion as the glorious completion of Jesus' ministry and the fulfillment of God's will. In contrast to the other gospels, John says that Jesus went out "bearing his own cross" (19:17); there is no suggestion that Simon of Cyrene had to help Jesus reach Golgotha. Unlike the other gospels, there is no reference to darkness or mocking at the cross. Instead, the text stresses that the cross brings Jesus' ministry to its telos or "goal." Jesus knows that all is now "accomplished" (telein, 19:28a) and asks for a drink "to accomplish" the scriptures (teleioun, 19:28b). His final words are "It is accomplished" (telein, 19:30). The cross is the completion, not the interruption of Jesus' ministry.
The Old Testament scriptures provide further clues to this Johannine perspective. An ordinary observer would assume that the soldiers divide Jesus' clothing and cast lots for his tunic for the sake of their own personal gain. But John explicitly states that these actions fulfill Ps 22:18, indicating that the scene is governed by divine purposes (John 19:23-24). Again, Jesus' words "I thirst" (19:28) could be a simple statement of human need. But John points out that this too accomplishes God's will, since the vinegar fulfills Ps 69:21.

The work of Christ

The phrase the work of Christ it is intended to describe the saving significance of the Christ event or soteriology. The original Christian traditions recorded in Acts does not draw attention to the death of Christ, but addresses the Christ event in its entirety as God's act of salvation. Over the course of time, more exact descriptions were established to understand the implications of Christ's death and it is John who shifts the focus away from the cross and spotlights the revelation that Jesus brings in his earthly life. ¹¹

His death looks on the surface as if to be no more than the occasion when he retuned to the Father from whom he came ¹² But this miscalculates the magnitude of Christ's death in the Fourth Gospel. The words and works are all eclipsed by the hour of the passion. ¹² When he states, "It is accomplished" Jesus conveys that he has done his part and what happens next, is up to the power and love of God. Earlier in Luke, Jesus gives a hint to his disciples as to the divisions that are to come and uses this phrase for the first time saying, 'I came to cast fire upon the earth; and would that it were already kindled! I have a baptism to be baptized with; and how I am constrained until it is accomplished.' ¹³ By the time he repeats the expression again he has been convicted by both the Romans and the Jews and is hanging from the cross. As was customary for the times, a notice is fastened to his cross. It is a charge sheet and every criminal who was crucified received one so that people would know what happens to those who would commit similar crimes. The two greatest charges against humanity at this time are the crimes of defying the rightful authority of God and of trying to set oneself up in the place of God. Jesus has been found guilty of treason and blasphemy.

As Jesus hung from the cross for six hours Luke notes that there was darkness over the land. Vinegar is offered to him for the first time. It is refused and then Jesus accepts the second offering, then John writes that he says, 'it is accomplished or completed or fulfilled —tetelestai. Having spoken his last, Jesus bows his head and hands over his spirit or wind or breath —pneuma.'(John 19:30). Theologian Derek Morphew, in a book on Gnosticism says, "Tetelestai means 'it is accomplished' or 'it is consummated.' Christ was declaring His sacrificial work to be completed."

Despite of all of the confusion, the secrecy and plots, the conspiracies of Herod and the Pharisees to trump up charges and set the stage for the subsequent conviction. Up until this split second, all of the miracles and mysteries lead up to what Jesus would finally complete on the cross. It is the instant where he brings in the new order that he represented by the changing of the water into wine. ¹⁴ It is when he makes his flesh accessible for the life of the world, ¹⁵ that he heals the blindness of humanity, ¹⁶ and that he bestows eternal life. ¹⁷

It is also on the cross that all the claims made in his great "I am"s are confirmed. The I ams are the sayings of Jesus that not only raised a lot eyebrows but also goad the community leaders into taking action against him. After saying, "I am the bread of life," Jesus left most of his disciples scratching their heads, grumbling that it was a "hard teaching" that no one could figure it out. After declaring, "I am the good shepherd," many people called him a lunatic, saying he was "raving mad." Finally, John tells his readers, it was when he said, "I am the resurrection and the life," that the case against Jesus was cinched and the chief priests quickly set into motion the judicial wheels that would get Jesus arrested and put to death.

Throughout his gospel John emphasizes that it is because of what is accomplished on the cross that Jesus is the true bread from heaven, ¹⁸ that he is the light of the world, ¹⁹ the door of the sheep, ²⁰ the good shepherd, ²¹ the resurrection and the life, ²² the way the truth and the life, ²³ and the true vine. ²⁴

Additionally, it is through his accomplishment at the cross that the Spirit-Paraclete is released which leads the Johannine community into all truth. ²⁵ So it was the death of Christ and his glorification that made it possible for the Fourth Gospel to not only ascribe the "I am" sayings to Jesus but to demonstrate that the work of Christ as complete.

In spite of the noticeable concern of the author on the Revelation with the events leading up to the end and with the new heaven and the new earth that lie beyond, the cross for John played a crucial role in salvation history. Later on it would be the central Christological image in Revelation as the Lamb that was slain, along with Jesus' fulfillments of the prophecies in Psalms, that would establish the new covenant with God and determine future course of history.

Sources:

Fuller, Reginald H. The Oxford Companion to the Bible,(1993) p. 184.

Koester, Craig R. "The Passion and Resurrection According to John"

Accessed May 7, 2005.

Pope John Paul II. Letter of the Holy Father Pope John Paul II to Priests
Accessed May 7, 2005.

Sarris, Chris. It is Finished Six Hours One Friday
Accessed May 7, 2005

Tiller, Patrick A. The Oxford Companion to the Bible,(1993) p. 184.

Yes, Virginia, There is a Santa Claus

2010-04-02T07:41:00.002-07:00

Editorial Page, New York Sun, 1897

We take pleasure in answering thus prominently the

communication below, expressing at the same time

our great gratification that its faithful author is

numbered among the friends of The Sun:

I am 8 years old. Some of my little friends say

there is no Santa Claus. Papa says, "If you see it

in The Sun, it's so." Please tell me the truth, is

there a Santa Claus?

Virginia O'Hanlon

Virginia, your little friends are wrong. They have

been affected by the skepticism of a sceptical age.

They do not believe except they see. They think that

nothing can be which is not comprehensible by their

little minds. All minds, Virginia, whether they be

men's or children's, are little. In this great

universe of ours, man is a mere insect, an ant, in his

intellect as compared with the boundless world about him,

as measured by the intelligence capable of grasping

the whole of truth and knowledge.

Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus.

He exists as certainly as love and generosity and

devotion exist, and you know that they abound and give

to your life its highest beauty and joy. Alas! how

dreary would be the world if there were no Santa

Claus! It would be as dreary as if there were no Virginias.

There would be no childlike faith then, no poetry, no

romance to make tolerable this existence. We should

have no enjoyment, except in sense and sight. The

external light with which childhood fills the world would

be extinguished.

Not believe in Santa Claus! You might as well not

believe in fairies. You might get your papa to hire

men to watch in all the chimneys on Christmas Eve to

catch Santa Claus, but even if you did not see Santa

Claus coming down, what would that prove? Nobody sees

Santa Claus, but that is no sign that there is no

Santa Claus. The most real things in the world are those

that neither children nor men can see. Did you ever

see fairies dancing on the lawn? Of course not, but

that's no proof that they are not there. Nobody can

conceive or imagine all the wonders there are unseen

and unseeable in the world.

You tear apart the baby's rattle and see what makes

the noise inside, but there is a veil covering the

unseen world which not the strongest man, nor even the

united strength of all the strongest men that ever

lived could tear apart. Only faith, poetry, love,

romance, can push aside that curtain and view and picture

the supernal beauty and glory beyond. Is it all real?

Ah, Virginia, in all this world there is nothing else real and abiding.

No Santa Claus? Thank God he lives and lives

forever. A thousand years from now, Virginia, nay 10 times

10,000 years from now, he will continue to make glad

the heart of childhood.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!!!!

From The People's Almanac, pp. 1358-9.(Public Domain)

Virginia O'Hanlon recalled the events that prompted her letter thirty-six years after it was printed:

"Quite naturally I believed in Santa Claus, for he had

never disappointed me. But when less fortunate little

boys and girls said there wasn't any Santa Claus, I was

filled with doubts. I asked my father, and he was a

little evasive on the subject.

"It was a habit in our family that whenever any

doubts came up as to how to pronounce a word or some

question of historical fact was in doubt, we wrote to

the Question and Answer column in The Sun. Father would

always say, 'If you see it in the The Sun, it's so,'

and that settled the matter.

"Well, I'm just going to write The Sun and find

out the real truth," I said to father.

"He said, 'Go ahead, Virginia. I'm sure The Sun will

give you the right answer, as it always does.' "

Francis P. Church had covered the Civil War for The New York Times and worked for 20 years at The New York Sun , more recently as an anonymous editorial writer. The son of a Baptist minister he usually received the more controversial subjects on the editorial page, in particular those dealing with theology. A sardonic man, Church had for his personal motto, "Endeavour to clear your mind of cant."

"Is there a Santa Claus?" the childish scrawl in the letter asked. At once, Church said he knew that there was no avoiding the question. He had to answer, and it was imperative that he answer truthfully. And so he turned to the task and began his reply which was to become one of the most memorable editorials in newspaper history. Church married shortly after the editorial appeared. He died in April, 1906, leaving no children.

Francis P. Church's editorial, "Yes Virginia, There is a Santa Claus" originally appeared in the The New York Sun in 1897, more than a hundred years ago, and was reprinted annually until the paper went out of business 1949.

Virginia O'Hanlon grew up to become a teacher and principal for the New York City school system retiring after 47 years. Whenever she received mail about her Santa Claus letter she penned a reply and attached an attractive printed copy of the Church editorial. Virginia O'Hanlon Douglas died on May 13, 1971, at the age of 81, in a nursing home in Valatie, N.Y.

Public domain text

Spring

2010-04-02T07:38:00.001-07:00

O my grey hairs!
You are truly white as plum blossoms.

In spite of the burden of his medical practice and a young family, Williams published four books of verse, Al Que Quiere! (1917), Kora in Hell (1920), Sour Grapes(1921), and Spring and All (1921), that visibly launched him as America's leading modernist. It was throughout the 1920s and 1930s while Williams labored mainly in anonymity during his stint with Robert McAlmom editing Contact where strong ideas arose to bond the earth with the reality of life. Soon the editors of the short-lived publication insisted that art stem from everyday life.

This celebration of the everyday came in part from a response to archaic forms of expression. Early in the century, poets of the movement known as imagism included many American poets. In addition to Pound and Lowell, H.D. (Hilda Doolittle) and William Carlos Williams–turned from ideas to things. They endeavored successfully to use a detached depiction of objects in the world, an approach that could truly create a deep emotional response in the reader.

Williams' work was frequently published in both Pound's and Amy Lowell's Imagist collections of poetry. Hence his first successful poems adhere essentially to the dictates of Imagism. The poems from this period of his life illustrate Williams steadily fashioning his elastic enjambment modes from the unrefined textile of run of the mill Modernist verse. They expose a gathering of distinctive imagery, alongside his desire to prove that he really values them. Words are used to envision short scenes and vivid objects. From time to time they pay homage to Eastern precedents and the subject of living life, love and the nature of truth and beauty, many of which are encapsulated within the metaphor of fruit. Profoundly influenced by Chinese and Japanese poets, Williams composed verse in which the existence of an object took center stage.

In this manner Williams shapes his response to the forces around him and Spring is no exception. Like summer spiders, an autumn moon or the winter bush warbler of the well seasoned haiku. The poet brings to the reader spring plum blossoms. He does a stunning job of putting such a simple sentence before the reader and allowing the mind's eye to clearly place it in an 8 X 10 mental Rolodex.

Sources:

Original text: "Spring," Sour Grapes: a Book of Poems (Boston: The Four Seas Company, 1921): 58. York University Library Special Collections 4748.

Selected Poetry of William Carlos Williams (1883-1963)

Public domain text taken from The Poets' Corner

William Carlos Williams

Williams' Life and Career

Solar sail

2010-03-31T05:35:00.003-07:00

"We have lingered long enough on the shores of the cosmic ocean.
We are ready at last to set sail for the stars."
-Carl Sagan

Inspirations for setting sail for the stars in science fiction goes back at least as far as Cordwainer Smith's The Lady who Sailed the Soul published in 1960. Arthur C. Clarke popularized the idea four years later in his short story Sunjammer, since reprinted in 1972 under the title The Wind from the Sun.

I first read about the idea of a spacecraft unfurling a huge but incredibly thin solar sail,in Larry Niven's sci-fi novel The Mote in God's Eye . His idea was to utilize the pressure of sunlight on the sail - radiation pressure – on a craft weighing several tons that could accelerate to more than a kilometer per second within days, and then go on accelerating so long as it remained relatively close to the sun. It was one of his technological ideas I could understand and it has fascinated me ever since. Niven's idea is similar to what Xeger discuses in the previous write up. By using giant ground based lasers that would give the craft an initial shove and it would even make it possible to tack the craft by angling the sail. By using the light of the sun which is composed of electromagnetic radiation that exerts force on objects it comes in contact with with a solar sail and lasers the combination would create the potential to send a craft anywhere within the solar system.

Related to many gossamer dreams about space travel, solar sailing is most often read about in science-fiction tales, however using the sun to glide through space has more than just a fictitious etymology; it's now being given more serious consideration as new materials composed of lightweight carbon fibers only a few microns thick become available. Ed Gabris, a senior engineer at NASA, notes:

Mercury Mariner

The proposal of using the sun's energy to propel spacecraft across the cosmos has been around for centuries, says one expert:

Johannes Kepler

comet tails

Continuous force exerted by sunlight
A large, ultrathin mirror
A separate launch vehicle

To give you an idea how fast (solar sailing) is, you could travel from New York to Los Angeles in less than a minute with a solar sail vehicle traveling at top speed...If NASA were to launch an interstellar probe powered by solar sails, it would take only eight years for it to catch the Voyager 1 spacecraft (the most distant spacecraft from Earth), which has been traveling for more than 20 years. By adding a laser or magnetic beam transmitter, NASA said it could push speeds to 18,600 mi/sec (30,000 km/sec), which is one-tenth the speed of light. At those speeds, interstellar travel would be an almost certainty.

Actual theories about solar sailing had their beginnings in the Russian aeronautics pioneer Konstantin Tsiolkovsky and his associate Fridrickh Tsander. In 1924 they were making notes about "using tremendous mirrors of very thin sheets" and "using the pressure of sunlight to attain cosmic velocities". It was American engineer Richard Garwin who has been attributed with coining the term in the latter part of the 1950s. Early on models included huge aluminum-coated Mylar sheets that could be aimed at the sun and "blown" toward deep space, powered by sunlight. However, such relatively heavy sails would take a very long time to go anywhere, so scientists have spent years researching and developing fresh kinds of sails and innovative techniques to thrust them into space faster and more efficiently. The promise of solar sailing in space continues, NASA has recently been in the news about awarding funds for the expansion of solar sail hardware and simulation development. The time is coming soon where we can set sail for the stars. A solar sail powered space ship is scheduled to be launched in the fall of 2002:

The craft will be launched on a rocket fired from a submarine in Russian waters. The solar sail spacecraft will separate from the rocket, then unfurl and fly for a few weeks or months around the Earth pushed by the Sun.

For many space enthusiasts the modest sum of a four million dollars price tag for this Kitty Hawk moment embodies the future of practical, reasonable and quicker space travel exploration. Soaring through galaxies on sunbeams is magic and I for one can't wait!

Sources:

How Stuff Works

Picture Source

SPACE.com Exclusive: Breakthrough In Solar Sail Technology

Space News

Turns of Phrases

Douglas C-47 Gooney Bird

2010-03-26T13:56:00.001-07:00

The early 1900's saw great progress in aviation. Though most research at the time was spent on the military operation of this newfangled and far-fetched mode of transport, the civilian sector was able to take great advantage of the groundbreaking movements forward in flight. The Douglas Aircraft Co. constructed the first DC-3 at their California plant in the mid thirties. On the whole it was an advanced improvement of the earlier DC-1 and DC-2 airliners, the DC-3 became the most adaptable transport aircraft of the 20th century. At last carrying passengers could make profits. It made such a splash people called it "the airplane that changed the world" and by the middle of the decade the Douglas DC-3 had launched their commercial airlines and in 1939 the DC-3 accounted for 90% of all world airline trade. One writer at the Photovault Aviation Museum notes:

The cabin of the DC-3 can seat up to 28 passengers in comfortable reclining seats. I still get goose bumps seeing this venerable airliner take to the air. The legacy of this aircraft type is unmatched in the history of aviation.

Nicknamed C-47 Gooney Bird, the DC-3 is the plane that made civilian transport a profitable reality, and has become a legend in its own time. It has many names and designations - Skytrain, Spooky, Puff the Magic Dragon, DC-3, C-47, R4D, Li-2 and several others. But the name that most USAF pilots know it by is the Gooney Bird. Eisenhower depicted this plane as one of the most important weaponry of WWII. The C-47 "Gooney Bird" was the military version of the dependable DC-3. C-47s were based out of some of the most primitive airfields around the globe. It flew in a multiplicity of configurations. The rugged and dependable C-47 made a crucial contribution to the Allied war effort during World War II, serving as a transport for troops, supplies, and wounded soldiers There were over a thousand C-47's, carrying paratroopers for the assault, filled the skies over Normandy on D-Day. As a military aircraft the C-47 Gooney Bird was used for supplies to airfields and, most importantly, dropping paratroops for taking over neutral airfields. A slow climber it was easy pickings to blow the Gooney Bird with a single hit. It was never intended to fulfill a high altitude role, and thus is limited to 25,000 feet or below. She carried a single rear gunner and typically flew with an escort.

The Gooney Bird has played many roles besides being an aerial workhorse to transport people and cargo. It has been a bomber, fighter, airborne communications center, amphibian, living quarters, hospital, a flying washing machine, and command post. No aircraft in history has held the longevity of the C-47 in all of its variations. Capable of carrying substantial loads to and from even the most primitive of airfields, and possessing a durability record unequaled in aviation, this type is in wide service still files into the 21st Century. When some of the more than 10,000 built ended their days, they have been made into a hamburger stand, tea house, mobile home, seaside cottage, an officers club and even a chicken coop.

Sources:

C-47 Skytrain, D- Day Invasion, Olive Drab - Pacific Aircraft

Commercial Aviation-Aircraft: the Douglas DC-3

Conversations with my dad.

Literary criticism

2010-03-21T08:04:00.001-07:00

The most basic definition of literary criticism would be a reasoned consideration of literary works and issues. Often taken as the earliest important example of literary criticism is Plato's warnings against the hazardous outcomes of poetic inspiration in general in his Republic

More specifically it has been referred to as"practical criticism," the interpretation of meaning and the judgment of quality. In the most narrow sense:

philosophy

student of

literature

biographical questions

and problems of method

this distinction often proves artificial

notable works of criticism

discussion of texts

nature of literature

Concepts and contents of literary criticism include, but are not limited to, an author page citation,bibliography ,direct quotation,extrinsic criticism,impressionistic criticism, intrinsic criticism, judicial criticism, literary criticism,paraphrase, précis, correct usage of private domain vs public domain, summary, technical criticism, and works cited.

To demonstrate a mastery of literary criticism the author creates a working bibliography listing and properly formatting a number of sources of information from literary criticism sources, at least three indices to find sources for a research a preliminary outline, and identifying the best sources to support their thesis and subtopics. Is able to adjust their topics based on the availability of sources, take notes to gather information to support their outlines, and communicate their appreciation to others by selecting a variety of appropriate media sources.

Using outlines and notes, adjust their topics based on the availability of sources take notes to gather information to support their outlines communicate their appreciation to others by selecting a variety of appropriate media sources Literary criticisms customarily have a title page, a final outline, author page citations, and a works cited page.

As the very basic definition of a literary criticism it is a discussion of literature, including description, analysis, interpretation, and evaluation of literary works. Like literature, criticism is hard to define. The critics objective is to challenge definitions of literature and criticism that seem unworkable, too general or to narrow in some manner. The task is to deal with different dimensions of literature as a collection of texts through which authors evoke more or less fictitious worlds for the imagination of readers.

For example one can look at the text's formal characteristics, critics usually recognize the variability of performances of dramatic works and the variability of readers' mental interpretations of texts. By paying particular attention to its language and structure; its intended purpose; the information and world view it conveys; or its effect on an audience--in studying an author's purpose the literary critic forces beyond a writer's conscious intentions affecting what the writer actually communicates. At heart an exploration of the complex relationship between truth and fiction in various types of storytelling. In studying literature's impact on its audience, critics have been increasingly aware of how cultural expectations shape experience.

Works of literature are studied long after their first publication, awareness of historical and theoretical context contributes to the enjoyment, appreciation, and understanding of them. Historical research relates a work to the life and times of its author. Paying heed to the nature, functions, and categories of literature provides a theoretical framework joining a past text to the experience of present readers. The tradition of literary criticism combines observations by creative writers, philosophers, and, more recently, trained specialists in literary, historical, and cultural studies.

Selected References

ENCYCLOPÆDIA BRITANNICA

Literary Criticism

Cuban Missile Crisis

2010-03-20T08:51:00.003-07:00

Fourteen days in October 1962 when John F. Kennedy went eye ball to eye ball with Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev.

Russians are discovered installing offensive nuclear missiles in Cuba when an American U-2 RECON spy plane returns with intelligence photos catching Khrushchev red-handed. Khrushchev categorically denied it until Adlai Stevenson, an American statesman, showed the photos to the United Nations. This angered Khrushchev to the point that he took his shoe off and pounded on the table in an effort to gain attention.

President Kennedy, in a televised address on October 22, 1962, announced the discovery of the installations and proclaimed that any nuclear missile attack from Cuba would be regarded as an attack by the Soviet Union and would be responded to accordingly. He also imposed a naval blockade on Cuba to prevent further Soviet shipments of offensive military weapons from arriving there.

The stand-off lasted for a day or two after the United States blockade against Cuba. Khrushchev backed down and removed the missiles.

Source: Most of this information comes from recollections of my father. At the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis we were stationed at Dobbins AFB in Marietta, Georgia, near the Third Army Headquarters. He recalls lots of flying time in the C-47 Gooney Bird taking Army VIP's down to Key West, Florida. The Army moved a lot of troops down there during the crisis. Nike missiles were installed in preparation to shoot down any Russian missiles should they appear over the horizon. Most of his work that he did while stationed there is still classified.

While Army brats wore dog tags in case the world went up in smoke and we needed some identification, a couple of Navy brats living across the street, twins Kevin and Ken, disappeared overnight. I asked at the bus stop that morning and was told their family were given eight hours notice to bug out.

Picture Source

Womyn

2010-03-20T08:41:00.000-07:00

anthropomorphically

womyn

James Finn Garner,
"Goldilocks ," Politically Correct Bedtime Stories, (1994).

When I first saw this word womyn there was lots of confusion, then a deep sigh of realization. Gone were my guilt-free days of eating Cool-Whip out of the tub in a chocolate induced bliss. Now they had reshuffled semantics to demonstrate compassion toward people who can't spell.

I was wrong. This isn't about spelling in the strictest sense, but more about how people view themselves in terms of societal values. Several studies by linguists have discovered that a good deal of the time many people think that using the word "men" refers to both genders. Since the idea of women as men's possession is becoming more and more antiquated in first world countries a significant number of womym would like to change grammar that reflects a more modern image of their gender in today's society by replacing the letter 'a' in the singular sense and 'e'for plural usage with the letter 'y.'

The word man evolved from Old English which was used to describe a man, mann, human being, or person. Sometime around the latter part of 1000 AD it gained the sense of "adult male." Later on people began to use wer and wif to distinguish the sexes, but wer began to disappear by the end of the 13th century and was replaced by man. Many think that woman means "of man." arieh explains where the suggestion of this comes from, "People may think that woman means 'of man' because of Genesis 2. Of course, the words in question there are the Hebrew Ish and Ishah, not the English. And Ishah doesn't even mean 'from Ish.'" A little research into the etymology reveals that woman comes from Old English in the form of wimman and the plural wimmen. It began replacing the older Old English term wif sometime during the 17th century. Before that the archaic word quean was used to describe a "female human being."

Since America had no authoritative source that determined what vocabulary was acceptable Noah Webster published his first of dictionary in 1806. Many editions followed and were considered the authorities, prescribing the "correct" spelling and the "correct" meaning of words. By middle of the 20th century the unabridged Webster's Third International Dictionary was published and this particular kind of prescription came to an end as being the primary reason for a dictionary. Rather than telling readers what was "correct" and "incorrect" about language, dictionary editors "described" how the language was being used. By the early 1990s the Random House dictionary listed gender-neutral words like chairperson as well as gender specific ones such as herstory, and spellings like "womyn." This is what lexicographers call "word choice." As words begin to appear in the media they note down citations in the popular press like the example above. Political cartoons and advertisements are another source for citations. When a particular word appears in "reputable" papers dictionary editors will finally accept it.

The debate over this word is a lively one. Many camps claim it as their own and several think it quite clever to eliminate the male association and promote feminism or lesbianism in one fell swoop. Others say it's mind-bogglingly childish and it makes their head hurt to think about it. Yet at the same time a number of people point out that this is another form of sexism. No matter what anyone's preference is, only time will tell whether or not this word becomes a linguistic preference in the English language and the best way to find out is keep checking those dictionaries.

Sources:

Online Etymological Dictionary

UrbanDictionary.com

Word Use and Abuse

Lion of Lucerne

2010-03-20T08:26:00.003-07:00

The commerce of Lucerne consists mainly in gimcrackery of the souvenir sort; the shops are packed with Alpine crystals, photographs of scenery, and wooden and ivory carvings. I will not conceal the fact that miniature figures of the Lion of Lucerne are to be had in them. Millions of them. But they are libels upon him, every one of them. There is a subtle something about the majestic pathos of the original, which the copyist cannot get. Even the sun fails to get it; both the photographer and the carver give you a dying lion, and that is all. The shape is right, the attitude is right, the proportions are right, but that indescribable something which makes the Lion of Lucerne the most mournful and moving piece of stone in the world, is wanting.
The Lion lies in his lair in the perpendicular face of a low cliff--for he is carved from the living rock of the cliff. His size is colossal, his attitude is noble. How head is bowed, the broken spear is sticking in his shoulder; his protecting paw rests upon the lilies of France. Vines hang down the cliff and wave in the wind, and a clear stream trickles from above and empties into a pond at the base, and in the smooth surface of the pond the lion is mirrored, among the water-lilies.
Around about are green trees and grass. The place is a sheltered, reposeful woodland nook, remote from noise and stir and confusion--and all this is fitting, for lions do die in such places, and not on granite pedestals in public squares fenced with fancy iron railings. The Lion of Lucerne would be impressive anywhere, but nowhere so impressive as where he is.
Martyrdom is the luckiest fate that can befall some people. Louis xvi did not die in his bed, consequently history is very gentle with him; she is charitable toward his failings, and she finds in him high virtues, which are not usually considered to be virtues when they are lodged in kings. She makes him out to be a person with a meek and modest spirit, the heart of a female saint, and a wrong head. None of these qualities are kingly but the last. Taken together they make a character, which would have fared harshly at the hands of history if its owner had had the ill luck to miss martyrdom.
Mark Twain, The Nest of the Cuckoo-clock A Tramp Abroad (1880)

Four years after the success of Innocents Abroad, Twain undertook a new journey; for his journeys have been largely the occasion of his books and from this adventure emerged A Tramp Abroad written as a humorous and cynical commentary on his walking trip through the Black Forest in Germany to the Alps. In this excerpt Twain is remarking upon his visit to a Swiss monument. Located in the heart of Europe, Switzerland is a banquet of beauty, with indigo blue waters that shine brightly against the verdant hills of the nearby mountains. High-speed trains whisk vacationers around at astonishing speeds, though many decide to take a trip by longboat on some of the country's quiet waterways and easily reach its charming communities and modern metros. It is one of the world's most advanced industrialized nations, yet Lucerne remains a captivating medieval city. Located in north central Switzerland Lucerne, also called Luzern, is adjacent to lac des Quatre Cantons. It's easy to understand why Lucerne belongs to the ten most recommended cities in the world with its magnificent settings of lake and mountains The town grew up around an 8th century monastery and has been a vital trade center since. Today the city enjoys a bustling tourist trade and thriving manufacturing plants for metals and chemicals.

And, like a dew-drop from the lion's mane
Troilus and Cressida. Act iii. Sc. 3.

Just northeast of Löwenplatz is one of the highlights of Luzern, the somber Lion Monument. Craved into the face of a sandstone cliff It is a monument to the Swiss Guard who perished during the French Revolution shielding the Tuileries.

The sanctuary is 6 meters high and 10 meters long. Carved into the face of the rock is a dying stone lion above a reflecting pool. An inscription etched in Latin above the memorial reads "Helvetiorum fidei ac virtuti -- "To the fidelity and bravery of the Swiss"; Underneath are the names of the 26 officers who fell protecting the Tuileries. Mark Twain described it as "the most mournful and moving piece of stone in the world."

It's easy to be royal
If you're already leonine
- I just can't wait to be king

From the 15th to the 18th century the Swiss mercenaries were a highly respected fighting force among the European armies. The most famous of these were the Swiss guards in the French army hired by the Bourbon Kings for protection in 1516. On August 10, 1792, King Louis XVI, Marie Antoinette, and their children at the Tuileries Palace in Paris found themselves encircled by a violent horde of 30,000 French Revolutionaries. Demanding that the contingency of 900 Guards step aside the Swiss mercenaries, prepared to die for the French royal family they had been hired to protect, refused. As a result over 700 Guards lost their lives in the fight that followed.

Shortly before the crowd arrived at the palace gates the king and his family snuck out and ran away. No one told the Swiss Guard that they were protecting a vacant palace; their noble sacrifice was pointless. Within a year a decree by the French Legislative Assembly which suspended the king's powers King Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette were captured and executed by guillotine.

The French revolutionists attempted to bring to an end the Swiss troops. However in 1803 Napoleon I employed a number of Swiss regiments, which were practically wiped out in the Moscow campaign of 1812. Swiss Guards were hired for the Bourbon restoration, and countless were slaughtered in the July Revolution of 1830, after which they were abolished for good. In 1874 the constitution of the Swiss government constitution "forbade all military capitulations and recruitment of Swiss by foreign powers." Finally by 1927 even volunteering in foreign armies was prohibited. Only one exception remains today and that is the Papal Swiss Guard of the Vatican. Established by Pope Julius II in 1505, the Guard remains as a personal sentinel of the pope. Enlisted from the Catholic provinces of central Switzerland, the Swiss Guard at the Vatican consists of 6 officers and 110 privates who are not allowed to marry. These papal guards of the Vatican in Rome wear colorful uniforms that, are by some accounts, designed by Michelangelo.

Courage...is the complexion of virtue.
Diogenes

It is the heroism of the Swiss Guard at the Tuileries Palace that was eventually commemorated in 1821 by the great sculpted lion outside one of the gates of Lucerne. Commissioned by one of the survivors in 1812, it was designed by Bertel Thorvaldsen (1770–1844) a principal neoclassicist; he created sculptures of mythological characters, including Hebe (1806), and monuments, such as the Lion of Lucerne (1819). Most of the work was done by a student from Constance, Lukas Ahorn (1789-1856). The original stucco model is on exhibit in the nearby Glacier Garden. During the early 1800's many artists felt that neither reason nor neoclassical art could do justice to human reality. Much of the art was affected by the rational ideal of Neoclassicism and its use to symbolize moral and heroic links with the ancient past. The lion, always considered a symbol of courage and strength, served the artist to demonstrate a heartrending event, a struggle to the death. Added into the mix was the strong trend of nationalism sweeping Europe during the 1800's. This gave rise to commissions for large monuments and the earliest one was the Lion of Lucerne and it was clearly meant to convey a sense of national identity.

There is no doubt that the monumental three dimensional relief is an allegorical reference to the noble courage of the Swiss Guards The large innocent creature is depicted, suffering pains of mortal wounding, alone and in silence, unable to articulate or express the depth of his anguish. The poignant expression on the lion's face rivets the eye. As the observer looks beyond the face they see that the dying beast is draped over his shield; his heart impaled with a broken lance. Cast aside is a shield with the Swiss state seal recognized throughout Europe as the insignia of the Thirteen Cantons of Switzerland. The Guards had no flag but they had a shield with a white cross "traversante" on a red field, and it came to be known in Switzerland as the "federal cross". A paw reaches forward in final allegiance protecting the French fleur de lis even as it dies, the motif of the Bourbon kings. Sometime during the 12th century a French monarch became the first to use the fleur de lis on his shield. It may have been Louis VI or, some sources say, Louis VII. Later on the kings of England would take on this emblem as a part of their coat of arms to call attention to their claims to the throne of France.

Since its creation this particular lion has earned a special place in many hearts. The German war memorial in Fuchsstadt, near Hammelburg, has a dying lion analogous to the well-known Lion of Lucerne. There is also the Lion of Atlanta. A civil war memorial unveiled in 1894 to pay tribute the approximately 3,000 Unknown Confederate Dead. The large marble replica of the Lion of Lucerne also portrays a dying lion lying on a furled Confederate flag.

Sources:

Bram, Robert Philips, Norma H. Dicky, "Swiss Guard," Funk & Wagnalls New Encyclopedia , 1988. Swiss Guard

The Fleur-de-lis Symbol in Crests, Arms, and History

Lion of Luzern

The Lion of Luzern Monument

Lucerne : The Lion Monument and around

Oakland Cemetery

Picture Source

Public domain text taken from Project Gutenberg's A Tramp Abroad, Part 4, by Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens)

Gandy dancer

2010-02-19T15:21:00.002-07:00

Gandy dancer comes from a part of American railroad terminology. Along with the engineer, lengthman, trackman (US), pointsman, signalman, station manager, and, porter; there were the gandy dancers. They were the laborers in a railroad section gang. The evidence for such a personage is sketchy at best and the word-detective.com explains:

Gandy Manufacturing Company of Chicago

Gandy

gandy dancing

However, he goes on to tell that no such manufacturer has ever been found to exist in any Chicago business directory during that period. Since then it has come to identify in more general terms as a designation for an itinerant laborer. Most dictionaries list its origins as unknown. One web site that hosts information about the Gandy Dancer Trail in Wisconsin says frequently the crews used vocal and mechanical cadences to synchronize the swinging of hand tools or the movement of their feet. So perhaps the name Gandy dancer originates from the rhythms of work used by the past crews who constructed the railroads.

Alabama Arts tells an interesting story about African American men teamed in groups of 8 to 14 whose responsibility it was to lay or care for the tracks of the southern railroads. Called Gandy dancers they developed a rich work song tradition composed of:

dogging

The most efficient callers were comparable to the powerfulness of a preacher who could inspire a congregation. Each caller created his own particular signature and style by using tonal boundaries and melodic style typical of the blues.

Railroad.net recounts a similar story from Texas. Because teamwork was needed to lift and move heavy sections of track or rail many groups of men developed calls and hollers. All would move together in unison at a particular point of the call and the movements required to move together resembled dancing movements. Like sea shanties it was the rhythm of the song that was importdatnt to the execution of the task at hand. It would stand to reason that the most coordinated job was rail alignment. Tracks would shift slightly after a certain amount of traffic. If not aligned, derailment, and disaster might happen. Aligning track was an onerous and difficult task because of the great weight of the track and timing needed to move it. Here is an example of a Gandy dancer call I discover on-line and found interesting:

Not My Job

I'm not allowed to run the train

The whistle I can't blow
I'm not allowed to say how fast

The railroad train can go
I'm not allowed to shoot off steam

Nor can I clang the bell
But let the Damned train jump the track

And see who catches hell.

-The Gandy Dancer's Verse

The phrase first appeared as a term around 1918. Since then it has had various slang meanings, including a petty crook or tramp, an Italian, a jitterbug, or a womanizer or active socialite. Many wonderful railroad terms were not so fortunate. H.L. Mencken noted that the now extinct fireman on steam locomotives was called an "ash cat," a "bake head" and a "diamond cracker," among other names. Though we still have a few metaphors that use railroad workers' jargon making the leap into todays' usage such as : "jump the track" and "asleep at the switch" for example. It has been used as a reference to railroad slang in a book called Railroad Avenue by Freeman H Hubbard, published in 1945. Others have suggested that gandy may be a corrupted form of gander, from the nodding heads of the workers using the tool, implying that the tool was actually named after the gandy dancer who used it. But this is no more than guesswork as they say, but still an interesting phrase with a very rich and colorful history behind it.

Sources:

Alabama Arts

Gandy Dancer's Verse

Railroad.net

word-detective

Dumpling

2010-02-19T15:14:00.004-07:00

Mr Loo and I ventured out of the Little American City and into the street markets of Taipei. There I saw some unusual items that were exotic and new. A mass of dried bamboo leaves, tied up in bunches. A profusion of dried chestnuts, hard and wrinkled, shells removed, with flecks of brown skin still caught on them. Shrunken mushrooms and fat shrimp piled high in open boxes, all with their distinctive aromas. As we browsed the stalls he told me a story from his school days that was very similar to the following:

When fishermen heard of his suicide, they set forth in boats to look for him. Thus began the tradition of having dragon boat races at this annual festival. Legend has it that when Qu Yuan's body could not be found, his admirers threw rice wrapped in bamboo leaves into the river so that the sea creatures would spare the patriot's body.

Dumpling making was a family affair, he explained, one that had abruptly ended when the Chinese government came to take his son away. Today was a day for him to remember his ancestors, the origins of the festival and reflect for a moment on patriotism, the importance of loyalty and commitment to the community, an honor that I was too young to appreciate. For me it was all about the simple joy of delicious dumplings.

We had purchased a variety of them made with fillings of shrimp, chicken, pork, scallops, Chinese sausages, and even salted egg yolks. A trace of citrus mingled with oil as they slipped down our throats trails of savory sensations blending the sweet, nutty flavors of the ingredients. My next experience with dumplings was at a potluck dinner after church in the states. Interesting, but understandably it was not the 5th day of the 5th lunar month and the sermon was not about the patriotic poet. All things considered they were not quite up my expectations.

Dumpling theory

The actual definition of the dumpling is very broad and they share a universal genesis having arrived in the present from the myriad cooks who more than likely wondered what to do with leftover scraps of pasta or bread dough. Since the physics of boiling water guaranteed a constant temperature with relatively little tending of the open fireplace that invited the addition of vegetables, it's easy to imagine that the cook simply dropped the bits of dough into the soup and made dumplings.

"Little dumplings from basket" or xiao long bao first appeared at least a century ago in Nanxiang, northwest of Shanghai. yclept says that, "Incidentally, xiao long bao are in the same family as the stuffed steamed breads (the wrapper is actually a very thin yeast dough). Jiaozi and wontons use a noodle skin instead. The ubiquitous little bundle of joy seems to be indigenous to almost every culture. From boiling and steaming to baking and frying the gastronomic records are dotted with a dozen different dumpling names. The Chinese fried up wontons millennia ago and Scandinavians supplied us with klubs. While the Germans added spaetzle and knodel, Italians served up ravioli, and Spaniards added tamales and empanadas.

It seemed as if life without dumplings was simply not worth living or was it? The Europeans explored the shadier side of dumpling theory during what is called "The Golden Age of Poisoning." The Victorians relished the idea of purchasing poisons at the local pharmacy and arsenic was the most popular choice since the white powder imitated the effects of cholera as well as food poisoning. Historian Katherine Watson did a delectably gruesome study of poisoning that began around 1752." The typical Victorian poisoning took place in a home," she says, "which was poor, but with enough spare capital to make killing worth the trouble. The typical murderer sat down to a meal with the victim. " In the 540 cases she researched there were more than 50 different toxins used. They murdered according to their means and the poor picked arsenic. In the 1840s the good citizens of Yorkshire could procure an ounce of it for a mere two pence:

Children were also quite likely to be poisoned. Between 1863 and 1887, homicide victims (from all causes) were more likely to be children under five than all other age groups combined, and poison took its share of this grisly toll. "I'll poison you out of the road" was a threat easily understood by children of the Victorian poor.

Anyone not getting on well with their family were warned," Don't eat the dumplings," but laws were eventually introduced to limit how the dangerous drugs could be purchased.

Southern flavors with dash of history

The recipe that follows is one from the grandmother of a friend from El Paso, Texas. I would have never imagined that basil could add such a wonderful sage-like essence that complements the flavor of the chicken. It's never disappointed unless of course there weren't enough dumplings to quell the cravings for more.

Lorri's Chicken and Dumplings

chicken

sweet basil

evaporated milk

Place the chicken in a 5-quart pot, cover with water and bring to a boil for a half hour. Remove the chicken and set it aside. While the chicken is cooling add the basil, broth, evaporated milk and butter. Cut the biscuits in fourths and drop into the potage. Some salt and pepper to taste would be nice too. While the biscuits are dancing around on top of the boiling water you can pull the chicken from the bone and shred it into bite size pieces. Add it back to the stew. Cook it for fifteen more minutes to make sure the dumplings are cooked through. For classic southern style cooking serve with fried okra, turnip greens, buttermilk biscuits and apple butter for a deliciously soul warming meal.

The aroma and feel the cottony lightness of these dumplings have eventually become our family's comfort food. The globs of dough that sit atop a thick pot of stew cooked to fork-flaking perfection just beg to be bathed in butter. But whether it's dumplings wrapped in bamboo leaves ready for steaming or a big pot simmering on the stove, either way, the tastes and textures of dumplings remain as fresh in my memory like a breath from a spring breeze on the 5th day of the 5th lunar month in the Little American City on the other side of the Pacific.

Sources:

Chinese Dumpling-The Traditional Chinese Food

www.phys.ttu.edu/~chenxp/ChineseCulture.html

Don't eat the dumplings

Feeding the dragon

Modern Unified Dumpling Theory

Picture Source

Prairie Fare

Xian Dumpling Dinner

One of the Heroes

2010-02-05T21:19:00.001-07:00

In old family letters my cousin found this poem written in the fine script of a woman's handwriting. There is no name or date. The paper and handwriting indicate that it was written a long time ago, perhaps as early as 1883, the earliest date found so far. The author is unknown and may be a family member or a poem copied because they liked it.

If you know who the author might be, please leave a comment.

One of the Heroes

Hark, through the wild night's darkness rings out a terrible cry,
And the woman shudders to hear it, in the room up close to the sky:
"Fire!" in accents of terror, and voices the cry repeat,
And the firebells join in the clamor out in the stormy street.
"God grant we are safe, my darling," she says to the child in her arms,
While the voices far down in the darkness add to the bells' alarm.
Then she thinks of the two little children who are sleeping peacefully near],
And, "God pity the people in danger," she adds with a thrill of fear.

The voices ring louder and louder. She hears the swift tread of feet
And the sound of engines rumbling below in the stormy street.
"It must be the fire is near us." She listens: a step on the stair.
Then the door is flung wide and beyond it she sees the red flames aglare.
"Give me the child!" cried the fireman, "There's not a moment to spare!"

The flames like a glittering serpent are writhing up the stair.
"No, I will carry my baby," and then she points to the bed
Where the light from the hall shines brightly over a golden head.
One little head on the pillow - one only - the fireman sees,
With flossy curls stirring about it in the firey breeze.
He lifts the child while the other is cuddled away from sight.
And springs down the stair where the flame-hounds snarlafter their prey in its flight.

On, on, through the fire that leaps round as a swimmer breasts the wave,
Scorched and blinded and breathless, to go by, and he comes not back.
The flames leap higher and higher.
The weak walls sway and crack.
"Oh! My lost child!" cries the mother, forgetting the babe at her breast.
In this moment of awful anguish, she loveth the lost child best.
Up from the crowd, all breathless with horror and doubt and fear
Goes a cry: "Thank God, he's coming with the child!" and cheer on cheer

Rings through the night, blending strangely with the wind and the wild flame's roar,
As out of the tottering building, the fireman springs once more.
Straight to the mother he staggers with the rescued child and cries:
"I left him, and I have saved him!"

Author Unknown