"No man is an island."
Or so John Donne taught us. He was probably wrong on several levels concerning that observation -- as he was on others.
But there is little doubt that men fear becoming islands. Unattached. Lonely. Insular -- to take advantage of a too-obvious Latin pun. A fear that induces Emerson to echo in our heads that we "lead lives of quiet desperation and go the the grave with the song still in [us]."
Even those of us who enjoy being alone fear absolute isolation from all human company. Very few of humans can thrive on the psychology of the hermit life.
Such ruminations came to mind yesterday while I watched two of the nominees for the best picture Academy award. And both were about human isolation.
The first was 12 Years a Slave -- the winner of that coveted award. The movie is based loosely on the memoir of Solomon Northrup, a Black freeman living in New York who was lured from his middle class home to Washington, DC., where he was shanghaied into slavery in the South of the 1840s.
My first reaction was that the film was flat. Beautifully filmed, but free of almost any emotion.
But that is the film's center. Even though the film concerns slavery, it is actually a movie about the impact of isolation on the human soul.
Lost in slavery, with no way to escape or to contact his family, Solomon Northrup learns to survive as a slave by complying. By becoming a good servant. A role that repeatedly save his life.
That is exactly what slavery is. An institution where emotion serves no purpose, and hope has no place in daily living.
Solzhenitsyn wrote that he could not understand why Russians did not resist when the KGB came to arrest them -- moral outrage required resistance. But, when they came for him, he wrote: "I did nothing."
If the movie is relegated to its surface text, it is not very interesting. If this is supposed to be solely an anti-slavery movie, it would fall far short of its mark.
After all, it is the tale of one middle-class American who was illegally sold into slavery. It is not the story of the rest of slaves who were immorally held within the vice of the peculiar institution.
At the other end of the emotional scheme is American Hustle -- a clever movie about the Abscam sting operation of the 1970s. It is all emotion. Often played out at full volume.
The film centers on a two-bit con artist, Irving Rosenfeld (Christian Bale), and his equally conning partner and mistress, Sydney Prosser (Amy Adams), who are forcefully recruited by an FBI agent, Richie DiMaso (Bradley Cooper), to help DiMaso make four additional arrests. That scheme, through a series of coincidences, ends up being the Abscam sting -- involving phony sheiks, a cast of shady politicians, and the Mafia.
Bale's character is the center of this corrupt universe. A small-time swindler who cannot stand the prospect of losing any of the people in his life who show him the slightest bit of kindness -- his demented wife (Jennifer Lawrence), his adopted son, his mistress, and the sting's primary target, the mayor of Camden, New Jersey.
It is his fear of isolation that eventually brings the movie to an extremely clever ending. An ending of which the actors provide fair warning early in the movie.
I have seen only three of the nine movies that were nominated for the top Academy award this year. (I saw The Wolf of Wall Street in Mexico. don't worry -- be happy) Of those three which was the best?
Let me answer that question with a question. Which of your mother's dishes were best: her fried chicken, her apple pie, the bread she bought from Safeway, or the crystal bowl she inherited from her great aunt?
Such questions make no sense without a shared perspective of what we mean by "best." What objective criteria are being applied. And just what it means to apply them.
What I can tell you is that I enjoyed all three. Having said that, I doubt that I would want to see any of them a second time.
But for American movies of this decade, that may be high praise, indeed.
"Why are you always looking for meaning?"
A young friend posed the question. We had been discussing film-making, and I had been going on and on about the subtext of the plot in one of Christopher Nolan's movies.
I don't think he meant the question in the same sense that Sartre would have asked the question of Malraux. "Why don't you just enjoy the experience? Why are you always looking for meaning?"
I thought of that exchange yesterday while reading two books that have been on my reading pile since last October. I had almost forgotten they were lurking in my Kindle.
The first was Anne Lamott's Stitches: A Handbook on Meaning, Hope, and Repair. It is a tiny book for what seems to be an immense philosophical topic. Especially, if it is a handbook to the meaning of life
But she is not that type of author. Even though she is an essayist, she writes as a poet. And because she is a poet, she tells her truths through stories. Her experiences. Or experiences of people she knows.
In my conversation on why I look for meaning in movies, I told my friend that I watch movies and read books to discover more about the human condition. To see the world through other people's eyes. And to learn more about myself and what I believe -- often finding new ideas to make my own.
Anne Lamott answered the question in a similar vein.
Augustine's insight that to search for God is to have found God is deeply profound, because the belief we hold in the existence of another world opens space within us, and around us, which creates a more radiant reality.
She uses the analogy of stitches. The process of darning to pull life together through bad times by finding "one place in the cloth through which to take one stitch." Sometimes, it means just being there as a truthful friend. Or sharing the experience of friends who have survived through travail.
That is why she is a poet. In the tradition of the bards who sat around the campfires in the germanic forests. Speaking Truth through tales.
But she was not alone yesterday morning. After I finished Stitches, I opened up Aimless Love: New and Selected Poems -- Billy Collins's latest publication.
Collins, of course, is a poet. Perhaps one of the best living American poets. Not only because his poems are good. Very Good. But because they are readily accessible to the lay reader. I think of him as a contemporary Robert Frost -- with a better sense of humor.
Initially, I was a bit put off by the book. And that was my own fault.
I know what "selected poems" means in a title. It means that published poems have been re-cycled to garner a bit more revenue. To fill out a tome of new poems that would not otherwise constitute a full book.
It turns out that I was too rough on myself. Even though I had read all of the selected poems in his other books, I found myself enjoying them.
I should not be surprised. The nature of poetry invites re-reading. Good poets know how to conserve words -- to hide both text and sub-text amongst a few well-chosen images.
And, as I have already told you, Billy Collins is a good poet.
I also had a good lesson in accessibility as I was reading in the bathtub yesterday. And up popped "Royal Aristocrat" that found meaning in my soul -- because it was deep calling to deep.
For the past two or three months, I have been struggling to produce essays for this blog. I always write something. But almost all of it is something a bit less than what I would have liked.
And I think I know why. I may have stopped searching for meaning in my own writing. In one small poem and in one small book, I have a better idea of where I should be headed on these pages.
I will leave you with Billy Collins. If you would like a good chat on such small matters as the meaning of life, you might invite Anne Lamott and Billy Collins into your house for lunch or tea. You will be better for it.
Royal Aristocrat
My old typewriter used to make so much noise
I had to put a cushion of newspaper
beneath it late at night
so as not to wake the whole house.
Even if I closed the study door
and typed a few words at a time —
the best way to work anyway —
the clatter of keys was still so loud
That the grey and yellow bird
would wince in its cage.
Some nights I could even see the moon
frowning down through the winter trees.
That was twenty years ago,
yet as I write this with my soft lead pencil
I can still hear that distinctive sound
like small arms fire across a border,
one burst after another
as my wife turned in her sleep.
I was a single monkey
trying to type the opening lines of my Hamlet,
often doing nothing more
than ironing pieces of paper in the platen
then wrinkling them into balls
to flick into the wicker basket.
Still, at least I was making noise,
adding to the great secretarial din,
that chorus of clacking and bells,
thousands of desks receding into the past.
And that was more than can be said
for the mute room of furniture,
the speechless salt and pepper shakers,
and the tall silent hedges surrounding the house.
Such deep silence on those nights —
just the sound of my typing
and a few stars singing a song their mother
sang when they were mere babies in the sky.
I have commented often on the beauty of Mexico's scenery. For good reason. It is a beautiful country.
And I know good scenery when I see it. Growing up in Oregon has taught me to appreciate the beauty that surrounded me every day.
On a recent trip to Chiapas, I heard a fellow traveler say as we were boating through some stunning canyon walls: "Well, they are not as impressive as the ones we have in Ontario." I have no idea whether or not the statement was factual. But it was silly.
Beauty does not exist through comparison. It simply exists. And it exists to be appreciated on its own terms.
I decided to work out that philosophy in the sunshine of central Oregon yesterday. The temperature was perfect short-sleeve weather. Mid 50s with barely a cloud in the sky.
For at least thirty years, I have driven by the a sign that attempts to seduce the driver into turning west to Smith Rock State Park. Not that it would take much seduction. The rock formations that make up the park are just off the major highway north of Redmond.
But I have always been on my way somewhere. Too busy to stop and smell the basalt.
Not yesterday. I decided it was time to get a bit of exercise -- and to put my new camera to good use. So, a hike it was to be.
The parking lot was filled on a Friday morning -- with hikers trudging up the Misery Ridge trail, horse-back riders fording Crooked River, bicyclists pedaling through the rocks, and rock climbers doing their best ant impressions on the faces of Phoenix Buttress and Morning Glory Wall.
I was one of the trudgers. But not a very active one. I would just develop a good stride when another vista would frame itself for me -- and out would come the camera. It was almost like losing my way in a Tolkien novel.
I could have very easily spent the full day there -- and I may return before I head south next week. But I had one more place to visit. Another stop I have intended to make for years. In this case, over 50 years.
The Crooked River, that looks so bucolic flowing past Smith Rock, takes on an entirely different characteristic a few miles up the road. Instead of flowing along the surface, over the years, the river has gouged out a river bed through a layer of basalt and tuff -- forming a 400 foot scar over the face of the plateau near Torrebonne.
For about 80 years, the only way to cross the gorge by car was the Crooked River High Bridge designed by one of Oregon's architectural heroes. Conde McCullough was responsible for designing a series of bridges on the Oregon coast that were not only beautiful in their own right, but blended seamlessly into the surrounding landscape.
The Crooked River High Bridge was another of his design. A steel arch bridge that arcs unobtrusively over the gorge. It is beautiful enough to simply stand and watch it.
The bridge went into service in 1926, and was closed in 2000 when a newer bridge was opened. You can see it echoed behind the green filigree of the original bridge.
I was prepared to dislike the new bridge. Most of the bridges that have replaced McCullough's work have been hideous. But not this one.
If anything, it attempts to replicate the combined arc and horizontal plane of the original. It is almost Japanese in its combined simplicity and beauty.
But this place is not only a place of beauty. It is also a place of horror.
Gertrude Jackson had two young children. A boy and a girl. Then she began an affair with Jeannance Freeman. At some point, they decided the children were getting in the way of their relationship.
On May 11, 1961, the four of them drove to the Crooked River High Bridge. Jeannance pummeled the boy almost to death with a tire iron. The women then threw both of the children from the bridge to their death in the Crooked River Gorge.
I was a newsboy for The Oregonian at the time. I can still remember the black and white photograph of the bridge on the front page of the newspaper. Along with the story so gruesome that not even the Grimm brothers could have conceived it.
As I stood on the bridge yesterday, I wondered just where the events played out. Where evil had come face to face with Oregon beauty.
That memory gave new poignancy to the signs that dot the site: "Supervise children at all times."
On my walk back to the car, I met a young man with his three children walking toward the bridge. I greeted him. He grunted and made no eye contact.
Watching him take his children to the bridge was a bit unnerving. But I am certain they were there for the same reason I was. To witness Oregon's natural beauty. Up close and personal.
And to prove that beauty can prevail over horror.
The elephants are heading to the beach. At least, they are in Oregon.
I put my mother on an airplane to Portland yesterday morning. She and her friend Ruth are on their way to Seaside to participate in the 50th Dorchester Conference.
For those of you who are not Oregon politics junkies, the name probably means nothing. But the conference has a long and storied history in these parts.
It was organized by then-State Representative Bob Packwood as a response to the 1964 elections where the Republicans took a shellacking. In Oregon, as well as around the country.
The conference was designed to find a way to nominate Republican candidates in Oregon who could win general elections. And it worked. First in legislative races. Then in state-wide races. In 1968 Bob Packwood himself was elected as United States Senator -- replacing one of Oregon's most powerful Democrats, Wayne Morse.
If you have not already read the subtext, the Dorchester Conference was interested in electing Republicans. But the Republicans it was most interested in were liberal Republicans. That was an era where some Oregon Democrats were far more conservative than some Republicans.
Over time, the Dorchester Conference took on a more conservative tone. But, when the chips were down, its roots would show. Especially on issues like abortion.
Well, those roots have shown once again. On the 50th anniversary of the conference, some of the more conservative members of the Republican coalition have decided not to show up at the conference. The details are unimportant. I will simply say they feel as if they have been insulted by the conference organizers.
As a result, even though the conference has no formal relationship with the Oregon Republican Party, three organizations (Oregon Right to Life, the Oregon Family Council,
and Common Sense for Oregon) announced they will not participate in the conference because "the
evidence suggests that this year's Dorchester Conference has turned into a
publicity stunt for liberal social causes rather than a forum for Republican
dialogue."
Instead, they will hold a freedom rally this Saturday in Clackamas -- a suburb of Portland.
That is too bad because all three have voices that should be heard on the three conference discussion issues that have been announced: 1) Actions to Improve the Affordable Care Act; 2) NSA Surveillance vs. Privacy; 3) Same Sex Marriage. Not surprisingly, the issue that has caused the greatest stir is the last one.
The conference's greatest strength is its openness to all points of view. I had considered attending because I wanted to discuss an idea that has been percolating in my little brain over the past year. It combines same sex marriage with the goals of Oregon Right to Life.
My prediction is that the Dorchester Conference will endorse same sex marriage. Whether it does or doesn't, same sex marriage is coming to Oregon -- either through a ballot measure (the preferred method in a democratic republic) or by court order (a method that will cause populist grief).
Taking that as a given, my idea was to combine the Christian grace I have often seen exhibited by Oregon Right to Life with their brilliant political acumen in attempting to save the lives of as many unborn babies as possible. And one of the best methods is to ensure that any baby who is unwanted can have a home where she is wanted -- through adoption.
And that is where my idea comes in. I am not certain what type of educational materials Oregon Right to Life currently distributes. But here is a modest proposal.
Why not distribute a brochure to every couple who marries in Oregon informing them of the adoption services available in the state? Or to place the brochures where families seeking children might read them?
The primary purpose of marriage is to produce children and to provide a safe environment in which to raise them. But not every couple is biologically capable of producing their own children.
That is where adoption comes into play. And without regard to what the sex of the parents may be.
It is time to bury old battles and deal with the world and its complex realities. Maybe it is also time to focus on a primary mission and to not get distracted by those things we cannot change in life.
As I said, it is a modest proposal. But it just may help all of us live better lives with one another.
Do you want to start a fight?
Just pull out a map. Such as this one.
That is what Absolut – the vodka people – did in 2008 when it published one of its edgy advertisements showing the Mexican-US border as it would have been if General Santa Ana had not proven that his military skills were no better than those of George McClellan. (guns and texas roses)
There was much gnashing of teeth and moaning in the dark from Americans who felt as their destiny had somehow been made less manifest. By a booze ad.
I thought of that adman edginess today when I saw this map.
It is nothing more than an ethnicity map. But it does bear the infamous Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo line. And its subject matter will undoubtedly raise eyebrows in certain quarters.
The map shows the density of Mexican ethnicity (not citizenship) by county. Not surprisingly, the heaviest Mexican ethnicity is centered on the counties along the border. My observations during my assignment in Laredo in the early 1970s is consistent.
The accompanying article in The Economist includes an interesting paragraph: “Some are recent arrivals; others trace their roots to long before the map was redrawn. They didn’t jump the border -- it jumped them.”
It is true that there were Mexicans living north of the border when it was drawn. (Technically, anyone living north of the border was a Mexican subject.) Some with ancient land holdings granted by the Spanish crown. And some who fought shoulder to shoulder with the insurgents to gain independence on behalf of the Texas Republic.
But there were not many. And it was the lack of Mexican civilian and military settlements that made the contested land such a prize for the Polk administration.
I suppose I had never asked myself why what we now know as the American Southwest was devoid of settlers in the early 1800s. It turns out that it is the same reason that the Mexican government invited American settlers to Texas -- to protect the Mexican frontier from one of the best fighters in the Americas. The Comanches.
Two summers ago, I was enjoying lunch in the courtyard of a fellow blogger in Pátzcuaro. One of our fellow diners told us he was reading the best book about American Indians he had ever read. S.C. Gwynne’s Empire of the Summer Moon: Quanah Parker and the Rise and Fall of the Comanches, the Most Powerful Indian Tribe in American History.
He was correct. I knew next to nothing about the amazing story of the Comanches. How they had transformed themselves from a low-status mountain people to the fiercest horse-mounted war machine the Indian nations had encountered. They drove all other tribes from their territory.
And that territory was the heart of the territory the Americans had wrested from Mexico. James Polk may have thought he had won a great prize for the United States. What he had won was one of the longest-running war Americans would face. It it ended only when --
Wait a minute! That is the whole point of Mr. Gwynne's book. And I do not want to spoil it for you.
Once you have read it, you will never look at maps like these two in the same way.
I am starting to feel like an administrator for Obamacare.
At least, when it comes to my much-anticipated trip to Central America.
You know the drill by now. Last September I told you how my cousin Dan presented me with an offer I could not refuse. (a new dawn)
He and his wife were planning a three-month road trip from Florida to where the Pan-American Highway ends in Panama -- and then returning. It was exactly the type of adventure that drew me to Mexico.
And then reality intervened. Dan had a great employment opportunity arise. The trip was postponed until later in the year -- October or November. (i'm on the road to central america)
I was still excited about the prospect. And well I should have been. The prospect of seeing Central America Jack Kerouac style was something that every aging American male would like to do. The spirit of Jack London is more than ethereal in our aging souls.
In mid-February, Dan let me know the Apollo rocket was back on the gantry. (the inevitability of surprise) He would be waiting at my gate in Melaque when I returned from this tax trek north. But not in October. It would be a mere four weeks away in March.
I would fly in on a Wednesday, and the three of us would pull away on Saturday -- headed to the land of pistols, ponies, and bandits. Well, maybe not so many ponies.
Just before I came to Oregon, cousin Dan contacted me again. The allure of more employment had once again postponed the trip. Until October.
With each postponement, he has apologized profusely. There is no need. When it comes to figuring out where I will be on any given day, I am as flexible as they come. Combine that with my obsession with taking this trip, and I am more than happy to wait until October. Or wherever it happens.
And that is why I am not as concerned as the Obamacare administration. I know my trip is going to happen -- and I am going to have a good time.
Is there anything better than swapping tales with old friends?
There may be. But sharing stories over dinner has long been one of my guilty pleasures.
Last night Ken, Patti, and I were having dinner at The Ram (a chain that is vaguely reminiscent of the pub near the law school we attended together), and the topic of student protests on campus came up. More specifically, student protests against speakers.
You know the rather sad litany. If a small group of students can mold their moral indignation into a frenzy loud enough to cow their betters in the academic administration, the invited speaker will be unfriended by the university.
The classic example occurred last October. A group of radical students at Brown University, with voices stronger than their reason, shouted down a speech by New York City Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly.
Kelly was there to argue why New York City’s stop-and-frisk policy has deterred crime. But his argument was never heard. He was repeatedly shouted down by students who must have learned their rhetorical skills from either the Red Guard or the Nazi Youth.
It was not always so. Ken was an undergraduate at the University of Montana in 1974. John Dean, fresh from the aftermath of Watergate, had been invited to speak before several thousand students at the university.
Dean came to the stage, set aside his speech, and announced that he would like to speak directly to the audience about their concerns, rather than deliver a set speech. The organizer had provided index cards for questions.
As if on cue, about a dozen students marched forward following a sociology professor -- placards in hand. They were the Montana Socialist Party – as Monty Pythonesque as that sounds.
They mounted the stage as if they were storming the ramparts of the Bastille. Dean moved away from the microphone, and the professor ranted on about the inappropriateness of having a known felon address the university audience. He then built himself into a frenzy of moral indignation and challenged Dean to donate his honorarium to the poor people of Missoula.
Nonplussed, Dean took the microphone and agreed to the challenge -- if the professor could show that he had donated his last pay check to the poor people of Missoula. The Montana Socialist Party slunk away to the exits.
That story sums up why fascist-minded students would rather shout down their opponents than engage in actual debate. They too often show up to a knife fight with a glob of organic goat cheese.
There is no doubt that some people who show up at universities have controversial ideas. That is what universities are supposed to be -- places to think through ideas. To learn why we believe what we do. Universities are where the First Amendment should be accorded its full practical application.
As John Dean proved at Ken’s school, when freedom of speech is given its head, the fatuous can easily be winnowed from the truth. That may be why students, who are not educated in rhetoric, can only destroy rather than build.
