Now even the snow has grown sad – Let overwhelmed reason go, And let’s smoke our cigarettes through the air-vent, Let’s at least set the smoke free. A sparrow flies up – And looks at us with a searching eye: ‘Share your crust with me!’ And in honourable fashion you share it with him. The sparrows – they know Who to ask for bread. Even though there’s a double grille on the windows – And only a crumb can get through. What do they care Whether you were on trial or not? If you’ve fed them, you’re OK. The real trial lies ahead. You can’t entice a sparrow – Kindness and talents are no use. He won’t knock At the urban double-glazing. To understand birds You have to be a convict. And if you share your bread, It means your time is done.
Translated by David McDuff
It was one of those weeks where I seriously wondered if I should throw some crockery through a window or not leave bed ever again. Didn’t know whether to scream or to cry. I can only acknowledge helplessness in this never ending cycle of bad news or anxiety-inducing ventures into a seriously restricted world. The way we process death from Covid – or refuse to – by thinking of the thousands of daily victims as poor or POC (if you are a Trumpist) and thus not counting, or unvaccinated (if you are not a Trumpist) and thus somehow deserving, was just one of the things that had me upset.
My usual distraction, filling my eyes and brain with images of nature, did not exactly work out either. Having driven for over 40 minutes to the spot where birds of all kinds are usually guaranteed, I found none, well, just a few ducks and geese. It was as if all, in view of the ominous skies, had decided to leave or hide, exactly the hint I did NOT need. No hawks, no herons, no raptors of any kind, no shorebirds, zip.
Except a few sparrows, immature gold-crowned ones, I believe, but what do I know. Which led to locating the poem by Russian dissident Irina Ratushinskaya, imprisoned for years in a hard labor camp South East of Moscow, until she was released early for strategic reasons to affect the Reykjavik summit between then US president Ronald Reagan and then Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev.
Ratushinskaya, trained in physics and mathematics, had signed appeals and demonstrated for the exiled Sakharov in 1981, and was again arrested in 1982, tried in 1983 and punished with a severe seven-year labor camp and subsequent five-year internal displacement sentence. It was assumed that the persistent Christian voice in her ever more prominent poetry led to the harshness of the sanctions. After her release she joined her husband in exile in England, and later spent two yeas as poet in residence at NorthWestern University. Eventually, with Russia now led by Yeltsin, they returned to Moscow to raise their sons there. She died of cancer in her early 60s in 2017.
The poet came to mind not just because of her sparrow poem; she wrote a goose-bump-producing book on prison conditions and interactions with other political dissidents and comrades, Grey Is the Colour of Hope (1988.) That was in the 1980s. Now we have again a situation where famous people like opposition leader Aleksei A. Navalny are imprisoned (and as of Monday put on the terrorist list,) but also where an increasing number of opposition allies, rights activists and independent journalist have to choose between potential prison and exile (if they are still lucky enough to choose at all.)
And if you are still rolling your eyes over the likes of Newt Gingrich in this country threatening the members of the January 6th commission with jail time if – or when – the GOP wins the midterms, I’d advise to look at what is happening in plain sight. Independently of what the committee has – or has NOT – accomplished so far (overview here) there are real-time attacks on its members or people who favored an investigation. The Virgina attorney general, for example, just fired Tim Heaphy, University of Virginia’s counsel and member of the committee, from his post. In Texas, U.S. Rep. Van Taylor, R-Plano, is facing an unexpected number of powerful primary challenger angry over his simple vote to investigate the insurrection. I could go on.
I would not dismiss the idea of jailing opponents as a, if not plausible, at least possible fact of life under new management in 2024. After all, we have history as a guide. Which brings me back to throwing things or crawling under the covers for good. Or maybe I, too, should jump into a puddle. Which shall it be?
Alternatively, I might just run to the hills. Here are Scottish composer Sally Beamish’ Hill Stanzas. She has also set some of Ratushinkaya’s words to music, but I could not find those pieces.
Looking into the endless gray this week, all I wanted was color. The rain hammered on my roof during the nights, with leaf-stuffed gutters overflowing, water gushing by my window. Of course! Drainpipes! The solution to filling my eyes with color and pattern and my brain with delightful memories of prior travels. Thus today’s barrage of photographs, since pipes held my interest for years on end, always with faint plans to use them eventually for abstract montages.
Of course you don’t get away today with just admiring rusting pipes. Too pressing the problem – in Portland and elsewhere – of health issues associated with lead in the water.
The nation, for the most part, knows about Flint, MI and the water troubles they experienced. The crisis there has become synonymous with environmental disaster. Turns out, Portland is worse.
Since the late 1990s, samples have shown Portland exceeding the federal safety threshold for lead 11 times. In 2017, after Portland had once again surpassed that threshold, OHA required the water bureau to build a corrosion control treatment facility, according to Salis’ letter. Water from the Bull Run watershed is naturally corrosive, which can cause lead from copper plumbing and fixtures to leech into people’s homes. By building a facility to make Portland’s water less corrosive, the bureau expects to reduce the amount of lead dissolving from old plumbing into stagnant water. The facility is slated to be completed by April. (Ref.)
Here is the water bureau’s January 2022 response after decades of complaints:
Some of the actions the Water Bureau is taking include:
Treating the drinking water to reduce lead and copper;
Offering free lead-in-water testing to all residential customers and childcare providers;
Increased education and outreach to customers through mailings to multifamily residences and all homes built between 1970 – 1985;
Actively managing drinking water in the distribution system to maintain the effectiveness of corrosion control treatment; And
Proactively partnering with the Oregon Health Authority and Multnomah County Health Department.
I leave it to you to assess the quality of government/management in this city when you consider this problem was known for 30 years now.
In case you’re worried: The water bureau offers free lead-in-water testing to all residential customers and childcare providers. People can contact the LeadLine at leadline.org or 503-988-4000 to receive a free lead-in-water test.
And since we are in a practical mood today, here are 9 gutter fails that are slowly killing your house….only half joking, a beloved neighbor of ours had utterly expensive damage from rain water making its way into the walls and house foundation.
Children are, of course, the ones most at risk. They are often exposed to multiple sources of lead contamination: the water they drink, the dust they inhale from the paint used in older houses or contaminated soil in poorer neighborhoods often build adjacent to industrial sites. Parents who work in certain industries – automotive repair shops for example – can inadvertently bring lead particles home on their clothing. Kids are also surrounded by toys that expose them to lead:
“Lead softens the plastic and makes it more flexible so that it can go back to its original shape. It may also be used in plastic toys to stabilize molecules from heat. Lead dust can be formed when plastic is exposed to sunlight, air, and detergents that break down the chemical bond between the lead and plastics.” The CDC recommends to keep plastic toys away from young children who put their hands in their mouths after or during play.
Lead poisoning has serious consequences, developmental delay and learning difficulties included. Here is a link to the Mayo Clinic site that describes what to be on the look-out for symptoms.
And if all this is not enough justification to dig into my drainpipe archives, then maybe this is: Drainpipes are having a moment after homophobic Politician arrested at Gay Sex Party. (A right-wing Hungarian politician tried to avoid being arrested at a party in Belgium during lockdown by climbing out of the windows and down a drain pipe.) Everything that puts shade on the ruling Fidesz party is welcome….. (a rival lawmaker in Hungarian parliament, Zoltán Varga, reportedly brought a drainpipe to the floor of the legislature to use as a prop in a recent speech railing against the ruling Fidesz party’s hypocrisy.)
And here is a piece of music that captures sounds of rain and multiple rhythms when it runs, or dips or plops or gushes down the pipes…beautiful composition by John Luther Adams (2009.)
Let’s end with Ford Maddox Ford. (The entire wonderfully snarky poem can be read here.)
In the Little Old Market-Place
(To the memory of A. V.)
It rains, it rains, From gutters and drains And gargoyles and gables: It drips from the tables That tell us the tolls upon grains, Oxen, asses, sheep, turkeys and fowls Set into the rain-soaked wall Of the old Town Hall.
Here’s to the next 8 days that are supposed to be entirely dry!
Today I want to introduce the poetry of someone my US readers will likely be unfamiliar with. I chose the poet and the (excerpted) poem because they represent so much of what I admire: a review of both, the good and the bad that surrounds us, a strong desire for justice or the fight for it. A will to remember history, awe of nature, and pleasure derived from language that uses patterns related to science while sounding lyrical as we expect from poetry.
It also fits with last Monday’s Jewish holiday of Tu B’Schevat, the Festival of the Trees. It’s not a biblical holiday but marks the beginning of the annual agricultural cycle for trees (and tithing.) Starting with the 17th century, the date was celebrated with a Seder meant to repair our standing in the earthly and spiritual realm. Four cups of wine are offered, from white to shades of red symbolizing different levels of creation. Foods are served that remind us of the complexity of our existence. The first fruits and nuts have inedible shells, like pomegranates or almonds, and represent the physical world in which protection and defenses are necessary. Then fruits with inedible cores like apricots or olives, to recall both physicality and inner emotions that need protection. The third group are fruits like figs or blueberries that can be fully eaten. They stand for the highest level of physical and spiritual perfection achievable in the corporeal world. The final “fruit” is not physical and cannot be eaten, standing in for the spiritual realm.
Today’s poem includes numerous fruits and trees and certainly thinks through how we can integrate, change or repair the many layers that make up our existence.
Danish writer Inger Christensen was one of Europe’s leading contemporary poets until her death in 2009. (Here is a link to a great overview of her approach to life and work.) A staunch progressive and a visionary, she focussed on community over individualism and encouraged all of us to act on our beliefs. In my more blasphemous moments I think of her as the Hannah Arendt of poetry.
I am currently reading a brilliant collection of her essays,The Condition of Secrecy, that was published posthumously. For today, though, I offer a long-form poem based on the alphabet and the pattern of the Fibonacci sequence of numbers (each number the sum of the two previous ones.) Yes, by definition it gets long – and no, I am not posting all 76 pages of it – but also ever more inclusive of the many aspects of our world. The alphabet pattern is slightly lost in English translation (a superb one) – it’s simply not possible to maintain the beginning letters. I don’t speak Danish, but I can “hear” the pattern. Here is the comparison for one of my favorite sections:
5
efteråret findes; eftersmagen og eftertanken findes; og enrummet findes; englene, enkerne og elsdyret findes; enkelthederne findes, erindringen, erindringens lys; og efterlyset findes, egetræet og elmetræet findes, og enebærbusken, ensheden, ensomheden findes, og edderfuglen og edderkoppen findes, og eddiken findes, og eftertiden, eftertiden
5
early fall exists; aftertaste, afterthought; seclusion and angels exist; widows and elk exist; every detail exists; memory, memory’s light; afterglow exists; oaks, elms, junipers, sameness, loneliness exist; eider ducks, spiders, and vinegar exist, and the future, the future
The poem gives me goosebumps every time I read it, with its intricate world-building, its ability to conjure the beauty of nature and the horror of our human potential for destruction, often in the same breath. Published in 1981, the psalm-like verses include the terror of nuclear annihilation, but the vision beneath it all really speaks to timeless ways of mankind endangering itself (and the planet) in our struggle for riches and power. It also reminds us of all that exists independently of us, to be cherished and protected.
My photographs are of some of the plants and trees she mentions.
Alphabet
(Excerpt)
by Inger Christensen
translated by Susanna Nied (1-8) and Pierre Joris (9-end)
1
apricot trees exist, apricot trees exist
2
bracken exists; and blackberries, blackberries; bromine exists; and hydrogen, hydrogen
doves exist, dreamers, and dolls; killers exist, and doves, and doves; haze, dioxin, and days; days exist, days and death; and poems exist; poems, days, death
5
early fall exists; aftertaste, afterthought; seclusion and angels exist; widows and elk exist; every detail exists; memory, memory’s light; afterglow exists; oaks, elms, junipers, sameness, loneliness exist; eider ducks, spiders, and vinegar exist, and the future, the future
6
fisherbird herons exist, with their grey-blue arching backs, with their black-feathered crests and their bright-feathered tails they exist; in colonies they exist, in the so-called Old World; fish, too, exist, and ospreys, ptarmigans, falcons, sweetgrass, and the fleeces of sheep; fig trees and the products of fission exist; errors exist, instrumental, systemic, random; remote control exists, and birds; and fruit trees exist, fruittherein the orchard where apricot trees exist, apricot trees exist in countries whose warmth will call forth the exact colour of apricots in the flesh
7
given limits exist, streets, oblivion
and grass and gourds and goats and gorse, eagerness exists, given limits
branches exist, wind lifting them exists, and the lone drawing made by the branches
of the tree called an oak tree exists, of the tree called an ash tree, a birch tree, a cedar tree, the drawing repeated
in the gravel garden path; weeping exists as well, fireweed and mugwort, hostages, greylag geese, greylags and their young;
and guns exist, an enigmatic back yard; overgrown, sere, gemmed just with red currants, guns exist; in the midst of the lit-up chemical ghetto guns exist with their old-fashioned, peaceable precision
guns and wailing women, full as greedy owls exist; the scene of the crime exists; the scene of the crime, drowsy, normal, abstract, bathed in a whitewashed, godforsaken light, this poisonous, white, crumbling poem
8
whisperings exist, whisperings exist harvest, history, and Halley’s
comet exist; hosts exist, hordes high commanders, hollows, and within the hollows half-shadows, within the half-shadows occasional
hares, occasional hanging leaves shading the hollow where bracken exists, and blackberries, blackberries occasional hares hidden under the leaves
and gardens exist, horticulture, the elder tree’s pale flowers, still as a seething hymn; the half-moon exists, half-silk, and the whole heliocentric haze that has dreamed these devoted brains, their luck, and human skin
human skin and houses exist, with Hades rehousing the horse and the dog and the shadows of glory, hope; and the river of vengeance; hail under stoneskies exists, the hydrangeas’ white, bright-shining, blue or greenish
fogs of sleep, occasionally pink, a few sterile patches exist, and beneath the angled Armageddon of the arching heavens, poison, the poison helicopter’s humming harps above the henbane, shepherd’s purse, and flax, henbane, shepherd’s purse and flax; this last, hermetic writing, written otherwise only by children; and wheat, wheat in wheatfields exists, the head-spinning
horizontal knowledge of wheatfields, half-lives, famine, and honey; and deepest in the heart, otherwise as ever only deepest in the heart, the roots of the hazel, the hazel that stands on the hillslope of the heart, tough and hardy, an accumulated weekday of Angelic orders; high-speed, hyacinthic in its decay, life, on earth as it is in heaven
9
ice ages exist, ice ages exist, ice of the arctics and ice of the kingfisher; cicadas exist, chicory, chrome
and the chrome yellow iris, the blue iris; oxygen indeed; also ice floes in the arctic ocean, polar bears exist, as fur inscribed with an individual number he exists, condemned to his life; & the kingfisher’s mini-drop into the ice-blue rivers
of mars exists, if the rivers exist; if oxygen in the rivers exists, oxygen indeed; exists indeed there where the cicadas’ i-songs exist, there indeed where chicory heaven exists blue dissolved in
water, the chrome yellow sun, oxygen indeed; it will exist for sure, we will exist for sure, the oxygen we breathe exists, eye of fire crown of fire exist, and the heavenly inside of the lake; a handle infolded with bulrushes will exist , an ibis exists, and the movements of the soul inhaled into clouds exist, like oxygen storms deep inside Styx and in the heart of wisdom’s landscape ice-light, ice identical with light, and in the inner heart of the ice-light emptyness, live, intense like your gaze in the rain, that fine life- iridescent rain where gesture-like the fourteen crystal lattices exist, the seven crystalline systems, your gaze in mine, and Icarus, impotent Icarus exists;
Icarus swaddled in melting waxwings exists; Icarus pale as a corpse in civvies exists, Icarus all the way down where the pigeons exist; dreamers, dolls exist; the dreamers’ hair with cancerous tufts torn out, the dolls’ skin pinned together with nails, rotting wood of the mysteries; and smiles exist, Icarus’ children white as lambs in the gray light, will indeed exist, indeed we will exist, and oxygen on oxygen’s crucifix; as hoar-frost we will exist, as wind we will exist, as the rainbow’s iris, in the shining shoots of mesembryanthenum, in the tundra’s straw; small
we will exist, as small as bits of pollen in peat, as bits of virus in bones, as swamp pink maybe maybe as a bit of white clover, vetch, a bit of chamomile exiled to the lost again paradise; but darkness is white say the children, the darkness of paradise is white, but not white as a a coffin is white, that is if coffins exist, and not white as milk is white, that is if milk exists; white is white, the children say, darkness is white, but not white as the white existing before fruit trees existed, their flowering so white, darkness is whiter, eyes melt
10
june night exists, june night exists, sky finally as if lifted up to celestial heights and simultaneously pushed down as gently as when dreams are visible before being dreamed; a space like swooned, like saturated with whiteness, a timeless
knell of dew and insects, and nobody in this gossamer, nobody understands that autumn exists, that aftertaste and afterthought exist, only these restless lines of fantastic ultrasounds exist and the bat’s jade-ear turned towards the ticking fog; never was the globe’s inclination so beautiful, never were the oxygenated nights so white,
so dispassionately dissolved, softly ionised white, and never was the limit of invisibility so nearly touched; june, june, your jacob’s ladders exist your sleeping beasts and their dreams of sleep exist, a flight of galactic germs between the earth so earthy and heaven so heavenly, the calm of the valley of tears, so calm and the tears sunk back, sunk back in like groundwater again underground; earth; the earth in its revolution around the sun exists; the earth in its itinerary through the milky way exists; the earth on its way with its load of jasmin, and of jasper and iron, with its curtains of iron, its portents of joy and random Judas kisses and a virgin anger in the streets, jesus of salt; with the jacaranda’s shadow on the waters of the river, with falcons and hunters and january in the heart, with the well of Japoto della Quercias Fonte Gaia in Sienna and with july as heavy as a bomb; with tame brains, with heart jars or heart grass or berries, with the roots of ironwood in the exhausted earth
the earth that Jayadeva sings in his mystic 12 century poem; the earth with its coastline of conscience, blue and with nests where the large heron exists, with its neck curved blue-gray , or the small heron exists, mysterious and shy, or the night heron, the ash-colored heron exist and the degrees of wing beats of sparrows, of cranes and pigeons; the earth with Jullundur, Jabalpur and Jungfrau exists, with Jotunheim and the Jura exists, with Jabron and Jambo, Jogkarta exists, with earth-swirls and earth-smoke exists with water masses, landmasses, earthquakes exists, with Judenburg, Johannesburg and the Jerusalem of Jerusalems
*
atombombs exist
Hiroshima, Nagasaki
Hiroshima 6 august 1945
Nagasaki 9 august 1945
140.000 dead and wounded in Hiroshima
about 60.000 dead and wounded in Nagasaki
frozen numbers somewhere in a distant and ordinary summer
since then the wounded have died, many at first, indeed most, then fewer, but in the end
all; in the end the children of the wounded, stillborn, dying,
many, continuously, some, finally the last ones; in my kitchen
I stand and peel potatoes; the faucet runs and nearly covers the noise of the children in the yard;
the children yell and nearly cover the noise of the birds in the trees; the birds sing and nearly
cover the murmur of the leaves in the wind; the leaves murmur and nearly cover the silence of the sky,
the sky which is light and the light which since then has nearly resembled the fire of the atom bomb
Here is a musical rendition on Soundcloud. It might cut off if you don’t have an account, alas.
As an alternative, we can listen to Danish composer Carl Nielsen’s 4th symphony, The Inextinguishable, celebrating “the elemental will to live” against the backdrop of WW I. It feels weird to write this while by all reports Scandinavian and Baltic nations are standing their defense forces at attention giving the developing situation with Ukraine.
I believe in the great discovery. I believe in the man who will make the discovery. I believe in the fear of the man who will make the …. discovery.
I believe in his face going white, his queasiness, his upper lip drenched in cold sweat.
I believe in the burning of his notes, burning them into ashes, burning them to the last scrap.
I believe in the scattering of numbers, scattering them without regret.
I believe in the man’s haste, in the precision of his movements, in his free will.
I believe in the shattering of tablets, the pouring out of liquids, the extinguishing of rays.
I am convinced this will end well, that it will not be too late, that it will take place without witnesses.
I’m sure no one will find out what happened, not the wife, not the wall, not even the bird that might squeal in its song.
I believe in the refusal to take part. I believe in the ruined career. I believe in the wasted years of work. I believe in the secret taken to the grave.
These words soar for me beyond all rules without seeking support from actual examples. My faith is strong, blind, and without foundation.
by Wistlawa Szymborska from View With a Grain of Sand Harcourt Brace 1993 translation: Stanislaw Baranczak and Clare Cavanagh
I wonder if this poem seeded the idea of a book, a remarkable book that looks at the consequences – intended and unintended- of scientific discoveries. Benjamin Labatut’s When We Cease To Understand The World is a small volume describing mathematical and scientific research, ruminating about the psychological states of those engaged in the work, and weaving fact and fiction in ways that meander between horror story and lyric poetry.
The last time I felt like this when reading a novel grounded in history, was decades ago when I couldn’t put Pat Barker’s Regenerationtrilogy down, never mind babies screaming for attention, house wanting to be cleaned, lectures needing to be written and exams to be graded. Both authors share the skill of sending readers on two parallel paths, leaving it to us to drop and pick up the strands where truth ends and imagination begins, where facts are overshadowed by psychological analysis or feelings discarded in the light of facts. Both also excel in alternations of intensity and subtlety, in itself a weird combination.
Barker succeeds in sustaining our attention to history, social structures, identity (before that became a political concept) across three complex volumes, never letting up tangential brilliant confabulation,. She thinly veils her portraits of historical people behind pseudonyms and graphically imparting on us the horrors of World War I and what they did to the soul of artists.
Labatut, in contrast, keeps it short – perhaps aware of contemporary attention spans. His subjects are famous scientists, although the pages are sprinkled with some names less familiar, and some characters are completely made up. He has a knack to impart scientific facts in ways that do not frighten even the math- or physics-phobic reader, partly because the narrative swings endlessly back to the human interest story at the heart of the tales – how do you accept the fact that your discovery brings suffering and ruin to the world? Do you continue to proceed?
Both authors do not shy away from delving into details of horrors, yet the texts themselves have a certain serenity as if we are watching our own history unfold from the safe location of a distant star. That in itself is, of course, a trick, since it indirectly suggests that our own responsibilities need not be considered when focused on those who wreaked the actual havoc, or do they? The wishful thinking of Szymborska’s lines (admitted to be without justification in fact,) should it not be headed by us, in the ways we should be willing to obstruct, to risk, to endanger our standing by unpopular but necessary actions?
Szymborska’s “I believe in the refusal to take part” is less wish than command. One that is faintly echoed in the last chapter of Labatut’s work which introduces us to a night gardener, a former mathematician who has given up on the world, too clear-eyed about the catastrophes awaiting us, in a society that uses the principles of quantum mechanics without ever truly understanding them. The very last parable of the book describes the final demise of lemon trees cut down by their own excess riches. It somehow all came together, and I felt humbled by it.
Szymborska, again, sarcastically:
“I am convinced this will end well, that it will not be too late,”
How many more reminders do we need by brilliant writers that clinging to this belief simply won’t do?
On a more upbeat note, here is a fun compilation of unintended, positive consequences of scientific discoveries.
Music today by Bartok who was enchanted with mathematical principles and symmetry, particularly the Golden Mean. The ratio appears in this piece. Give it a chance, it grows on you.
In January 2020 I wrote about my foreboding regarding a recently emerged virus no-one had ever heard of. Maybe my sense of unease had to do with the fact that the Chinese government put millions of people on strict lockdown – it HAD to be serious to justify such intense reaction, hadn’t it? Last weekend I had similar disquiet about what is unfolding in Kazakhstan; let’s hope I am wrong this time and there will be no comparable consequences. Doesn’t hurt, though, to try and understand the situation.
Kazakhstan is a huge country (the size of Europe, basically) bordering on both Russia (as former part of the Soviet Union) and China. Both, Russia and China have major interests in maintaining and/or expanding their grips on the country, for political and economic reasons. So does the West, for that matter (bitcoin bros who do a lot of mining there, included.) (I am summarizing today what I learned from several sources here, here and here, from the progressive to the conservative spectrum. The most easily read overview was found here.)
The country, after achieving independence from Russia, was governed for the longest time by an autocratic ruler, former President Nursultan Nazarbayev. In a surprise move to avoid democratic elections, he appointed a successor, Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, in 2019, who seems to be now in a power struggle with the old guard, trying to wrest influence from their hands. The country had opened up its vast resources (it contains 60% of all the mineral sources of the former Soviet Union) to Western investment right after 1990. The incoming riches were not spread evenly, though, with kleptocracy being a major problem. The population suffered from increasing debt and poverty after the 2008 financial crash. Repercussions of the MG17 flight disaster followed, since Western sanctions against Russia hit Kazakhstan equally hard as member of a customs union with Russia.
Then came Covid and killed not only huge numbers of people, but left many more in financial ruin. When gasoline prices were increased at the beginning of the year and inflationary pressure rose, anger erupted and large protests rose in Almaty and spread to other large cities, challenging the ruling party. As I write this, over 160 people have been killed, thousands wounded and close to 10 000 arrested. Government buildings have been destroyed, the airport shortly occupied, and the security forces were given orders to “shoot to kill without warning.” Just 3 days in, Tokayev’s government called on the “Collective Security Treaty Organization,” the Russian-led equivalent of NATO, to send troops to quell the unrest. It’s the first ever CSTO intervention, and it’s based on the accusation of a foreign attack on the sovereignty of Kazakhstan.
Russia immediately sent 3000 paratroopers (including some from Belarus and Armenia) who Putin says will stay “as long as needed,” but are now expected to be withdrawn within the week. Russia has multiple, important reasons for intervention. For one, Russia’s nuclear fuel cycle depends on Uranium from Kazakhstan, with their own companies mining it there and enriching it in Novouralsk, Russia. Also, the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan was the heart of the Soviet space program and is still used as its primary space-launch facility.
More importantly, about one-quarter of the population of Kazakhstan is ethnic (orthodox-christian) Russians, deeply resented by the nationalist who are Muslim. If there was a civil war, ethnic cleansing would be a problem, including a stream of refugees across Russian borders, which Russia cannot easily absorb given its own problems.
Most importantly, though, Russia wants to quell any possibility of Western-oriented revolutions a la Ukraine, that could extend into its very own territory. Putin and the Kazak government claim that outside forces are stoking the fires, as they did in Ukraine. Western NGOs (many of them funded by Americans) are said to have encouraged protests against the incumbents, and armed “provocateurs” are claimed to incite the violence. Activists from other “color”revolution certainly have shared their tactics and strategies by their own public claims.
One question is, of course, how all of this will influence the NATO-Russia talks concerning Ukraine. Russia has before threatened to react to Western provocations and amassed troops at the Ukrainian border, demanding that Ukraine will never join NATO. Russia is also determined not to have “revolutionary fervor” spread within its own borders, clamping down on political change. These talks will surely be affected by this recent example of flexing a military muscle at the drop of a call. Russia’s military response has already been declared a win for Putin by media across the globe.
A more Moscow-friendly Regime in Kazakhstan might be a danger for other Central Asian strongmen and certainly be fought by China, because Kazakhstan is the route for some 10% of China’s annual natural gas consumption and some 29% of its imports. China is also worried about spillover effects” which could encourage citizens in Kazakhstan’s neighbors, or even Chinese citizens, to rise up against their government. If Kazakhstan moves closer to Russia as a result of the current situation this would pose a threat to China’s interests.
Other markets could be influenced as well, with inflationary pressures that drove these protests alighting in many more countries. In short, it’s a volatile situation that could have major repercussions in geopolitics. By all reports, an invasion of Ukraine, if intended, will have to happen sooner rather than later, with weather conditions permitting heavy artillery to proceed while grounds are still frozen and a (U.S.)world, distracted by the pandemic and weakened by polarization, that has fewer resources to respond.
The Kazak people have a history of both suffering and resilience. Stalin-imposed starvation cost 1.3 million lives; suppression of strikes and protests by unions against land reforms and rigged elections incited many more. The protests now are likely directed against the concentration of power and riches in the hands of a few, are asking for political reform and more independence as well as economic reprieve. They might, in the best of all worlds, lead to concessions. More likely, they will increase subsequent repression.
I tried to find female Kazak artists (I had seen an exhibition by a feminist collective some years ago in Berlin), but many websites are cut off (apparently the internet there has been affected by the protests.) Images today are therefore by photographer Nadav Kander, one of my favorites. He went to Kazakhstan in 2011 to photograph the landscape, ravaged by nuclear bomb- and long-range missile testing near the cities of Priozersk and Kurtchatov. The testing program included covert studies of the public’s exposure to radiation. The series took its name from T.S. Eliot’s The Wasteland. Good time to revisit this work.
Sometimes I find myself fascinated by ideas that artists have without necessarily liking what they do with them. Or, perhaps more precisely, without being able to relate to the resulting art in ways that I had thought I would.
Often that happens when the artist, the idea and the artwork are all enclosed within an identity that I have little access to. I’ll deliver examples in a moment, but generally I think it has to do with my lack of knowledge about specifics that sustain the art. Then again, I often fall completely for art I know nothing about, can’t grasp, couldn’t explain, but love, love, love. Hm. One more mystery in this universe.
Here is a fascinating project by a gifted musician, Judith Berkson, a composer and performer steeped in Jewish cantorial music who teaches at CalArts School of Music. About a decade ago she wrote an opera, The Vienna Rite, based on the collaboration between composer Franz Schubert and the Viennese cantor Salomon Sulzer during the 19th century. Sulzer often performed with Liszt and was a close friend of Schubert’s. He tried to integrate Jewish liturgical tradition and Western European art music, pushing boundaries in a society that was not too keen on these efforts. Sounds like a perfect set-up for something riveting that transfers music-melding into a modern realm, I thought. I usually like music straddling borders, for example the late Frank Zappa compositions (Perfect Stranger) performed with Ensemble Intercontemporain, commissioned and conducted by Pierre Boulez, mixing up elements of rock, jazz and classical music.
Berkson’s opera, however, was not particularly well received. A NYT reviewer, who had previously liked Berkson’s solo album Oylam and who had written a very encouraging piece while the opera project was in gestation, voiced disappointment bordering on scorn. Here is an excerpt of The Vienna Rite, but must admit I found the opera hard to listen to (before having seen the reviews.) Maybe I had expected recognition of classical themes, or traditional melodies. Maybe the cantorial echoes were indecipherable by an ear not exposed early to that music. I simply didn’t “get it.” Trying hard to “understand” something unfamiliar perhaps interfered with taking the music in.
For today’s music, then, I offer a different Berkson composition that is rather beautiful and familiar. The V’shamru is a prayer sung at the beginning of Shabbat pointing to the responsibility to protect and/or observe the day of rest, celebrating the covenant with G-d. The music captures both the intensity of the obligation and the joy associated with reciprocal protection within such a relationship.
The second, also unusual idea comes from a completely different corner. I stumbled across Taylor Mac, a theatre artist, when exploring some recent performances of Walt Whitman’s poetry. Just reading the performer’s “bio” (linked above) was an experience that brightened my day considerably. Its essay length was matched by the length of the listed awards and honors :
“the International Ibsen Award, is a MacArthur Fellow, a Pulitzer Prize Finalist, a Tony nominee for Best Play, and the recipient of the Kennedy Prize (with Matt Ray), the Doris Duke Performing Artist Award, a Guggenheim, the Herb Alpert Award, a Drama League Award, the Helen Merrill Playwriting Award, the Booth, two Helpmann Awards, a NY Drama Critics Circle Award, two Obie’s, two Bessies, and an Ethyl Eichelberger. Its wit, as bios go, seems unmatched.
Leave it to me to have never heard of the performer before.
Mac performed a compilation of Whitman poems out in nature during a residency in the Lower Hudson valley, in full drag, make-up, and a level of facility and abandon that this old woman can only dream of. I could not tell if the poet, one of the heroes of the gay community, a forbear who did live as much as express his longings, would have wanted to perform or hear his work performed like this out in the fields and woods – the bovine audience seemed unfazed. I was utterly unsure what to make of it for myself. Is access to the poetry helped by the reminder of the underlying sexuality or hindered by distraction through the sensory overload provided by the visuals and voicing? Is it ok to drag the poet out of the closet in which he tried to hide increasingly with growing fame, censuring his own writings? Was it the high-brow rule to avoid mixing “serious” art with spectacle that dampened my delight? Deep down embarrassment at my own complex reactions to drag?
Maybe I was still influenced by Sam Kahn’s recent essay about art that shocks – a thoughtful look that compares the classic function of art either as protective or subversive of the sociopolitical order, with art developing a taste for shock largely for its own sake in the 19th century. All the transgression and boundary pushing we have seen in the last century led to people suddenly being out of ideas Kahn argues persuasively, fully opposed to using shock.
Do watch the Whitman link above and gauge your own reaction!
It certainly made me more interested in learning about Whitman, and the controversies surrounding not necessarily his queerness, but his distinct longing for (and seduction of) the under-age set. Which biography to choose???
If you have the time, here is a smart video of the performer explaining the project and the motivation behind it. Worthwhile.
Photographs today are from the Vienna Central Cemetery where so many composers are buried. I am also adding some images of the Jewish part of the graveyard, not much visited by the sight of it and wildlife in it….who knows, Salomon Sulzer and his family might be buried there.
Essential Meaning of Wanderlust: a strong desire to travel.
Full Definition of Wanderlust: strong longing for or impulse towardwandering. – Merriam Webster
If you check the definition for wandering on Merriam Webster you’ll notice that it includes “meandering, not keeping a rational or sensible course, or movement away from the proper, normal, or usual course or place.” Anything but hiking which the original German term “wandern” refers to.
Wanderlust was at its root about hiking, a desire to get back into nature, explore the natural world during the period of German romanticism. Artists from the 18th century on tried to find new inspiration beyond the cities and experience or express their feelings rather than simply depict scenes. That was true for visual artist as much as composers and authors. The fear of nature, as represented by forbidding mountains or cliffs or the vagaries of the seas transformed into fascination, even awe.
Thomas Cole A View of 2 Lakes and Mountain House, Catskill Mountains, Morning. (1844)
Later, and perhaps connected to the European system of artisan apprenticeships and journeymen, Wanderlust took on the meaning, probably more familiar to us, of the urge to roam anywhere but home, the longing for seeing the world at large and confronting unforeseen challenges.
Albert Bierstadt Giant Redwood Trees of California (1874)
It was all about the hero in nature, made small by awe (just look at these tiny figures in their immense surroundings), or seen big as conquering the obstacles encountered. It was about deceleration and a certain longing for glorified older times. It was also about the larger story of finding meaning in life, or allegories of a life’s progression, or expressing one’s relative take or standing in the natural order of things, a rise in individualism. And often it was linked to nationalism and pride of the beauty of one’s country.
Gustave Castan Landscape with Hiker (1870s)Gustave Castan Gewitterstimmung im Rosenlauital (date unknown)
The quotes convey it well: “The things one experiences alone with oneself are very much stronger and purer.” (Eugene Delacroix.) “Amid those scenes of solitude… the mind is cast into the contemplation of eternal things.” (Thomas Cole.) “I must stay alone and know that I am alone to contemplate and feel nature in full. I hav to surrender myself to what encircles me, I have to merge with my clouds and rocks in order to be what I am.” (Caspar David Friedrich.)
Karl Eduard Biermann Das Wetterhorn (1830)
A few years back Berlin’s Alte National Gallerie had an exhibition of paintings ranging from romanticism to expressionism that focused on landscape and the wanderers within. Some of today’s paintings are from that show, some are personal picks from other encounters, and they leave out the more familiar ones. They do show a trajectory, though from the early romantic leanings to more expressionist offerings that de-emphasize the human/landscape interaction. This was the first painting you saw when you entered – and the only woman of the bunch…
Jens Ferdinand Willumsen Die Bergsteigerin (1912)
However you frame it, I was bit by the Wanderlust bug since early childhood, and felt suffocatingly stifled when first Covid made travel impossible in 2020, and then health issues put a curb on hiking as well in 2021.
Vincent Van Gogh Man with Backpack (1888)
I am therefor thrilled to report that on the very first day of 2022 I managed part of a hike, in snow no less, that reprised my last one in 2020 before things fell apart. I had reported on it here.
Emil Nolde Der alte Wanderer (1936)
Today’s images are a comparison between July and January conditions of the very same sights on the trail up to Mirror Lake, OR (I did not do the full hike up to the top of the Tom Dick and Harry mountain on New Year’s Day.) Or I would have looked like this.
Ferdinand Hodler Der Lebensmüde (1887)
It is hard to explain why hiking feels so empowering – beyond the stress relief of physical exertion and the pride to pull it off (even in slo-mo and across much diminished distances.) I have no spiritual inklings when out in nature (have I ever?) but an endless appreciation for the beauty around me and the sensory input that reaches from smell to sound to visual reflections of light and shadow. I cherish the resilience of the landscape that surrounds me and, I guess, take it as a model. I like to observe change, when revisiting familiar sights over and over again, as long as that change is natural and not imposed by human interference. Drives me up a wall, when parks are closed for remodel…. no matter how much environmentally sensitive reconstructions are warranted – I feel deprived! And, I admit it, I like the “hunt” with my camera for wildlife of all sorts, the sudden gift of sightings, hoped for, but never guaranteed. I hiked long before I took up photography, though, so that’s just a bonus. Maybe it is the freedom that Hardy (below) describes, to move away from daily anchoring by duty.
So grateful that at least day hikes are back on the menu!
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Freedom
Give me the long, straight road before me,
A clear, cold day with a nipping air,
Tall, bare trees to run on beside me,
A heart that is light and free from care.
Then let me go! – I care not whither
My feet may lead, for my spirit shall be
Free as the brook that flows to the river,
Free as the river that flows to the sea.
by Thomas Hardy (1840 – 1928)
I’ll hike to that! While singing Schubert’s ” Der Wanderer.“
One should not forget, though that there are serious alternatives to hiking, in case you are housebound – read this fascinating piece and consider!
2022. Welcome to a glut of grim as NYT editorialist Frank Bruni put it so aptly a few days ago.
Let’s ignore it and focus on New Year’s resolutions instead.
Which happen to be the same as the Old Year resolutions…. well, mine anyway.
What have we got?
A deep urge to bear witness, even if it hurts so often, since it is about the only thing I can do these days with times of active protesting gone the same way as has my unwrinkled skin, my youthful energy (hah), my casual risk taking.
Bearing witness can come in a number of ways – one is not to look away when confronted with the misery or injustices of the world, the plight of the houseless and incarcerated, for example. Another is to seek out facts that truly inform us, when those facts are often conveniently stashed out of sight.
Which brings me to the second resolution: staying grounded in observation and reason, not believing with “blind faith” or falling for “alternative truths.” Two plus two equals four. Wishing otherwise doesn’t make it so. Neither does claiming so. In a world where fear and unpredictability have given rise to unprecedented amounts of conspiracy theories, let’s focus on scientific expertise.
Add to that a third resolution: let’s practicecourage. Courage to live, to resist, to speak up, to goof off on tangents because they bring pleasure. Courage to chronicle, knowing full well that we are witnesses in the shadow of death around us. Courage to turn to both: the historians and the poets. Historians because they tell us about those in power and what they do with it, crimes and lies included. Poets because they often convey the essence of history from the perspective of the victims – suffering and humiliation.
And no poet did this better than Zbigniew Herbert. I want to start 2022 with the poem I have offered here before – it just remains one of my favorites of all time, and encapsulates all I have listed above. His words infuse me with courage, remind me of the power of faith (in whatever you happen to believe) and point to our moral obligations even when the going gets rough. It sings a quiet defiance to historical facts of oppression and manipulation.
The Envoy of Mr Cogito by Zbigniew Herbert
Go where those others went to the dark boundary for the golden fleece of nothingness your last prize
go upright among those who are on their knees among those with their backs turned and those toppled in the dust
you were saved not in order to live you have little time you must give testimony
be courageous when the mind deceives you be courageous in the final account only this is important
and let your helpless Anger be like the sea whenever your hear the voice of the insulted and beaten
let you sister Scorn not leave you for the informers executioners cowards – they will win they will go to your funeral with relief will throw a lump of earth the woodborer will write your smoothed-over biography
and do not forgive truly it is not in your power to forgive in the name of those betrayed at dawn
beware however of unnecessary pride keep looking at your clown’s face in the mirror repeat: I was called – weren’t there better ones than I
beware of dryness of heart love the morning spring the bird with an unknown name the winter oak light on a wall the splendour of the sky they don’t need your warm breath they are there to say: no one will console you
be vigilant – when the light on the mountains gives the sign- arise and go as long as blood turns in the breast your dark star
repeat old incantations of humanity fables and legends because this is how you will attain the good you will not attain repeat great words repeat them stubbornly like those crossing the desert who perished in the sand
and they will reward you with what they have at hand with the whip of laughter with murder on a garbage heap
go because only in this way you will be admitted to the company of cold skulls to the company of your ancestors: Gilgamesh Hector Roland the defenders of the kingdom without limit and the city of ashes
Be faithful Go
translated by John Carpenter & Bogdana Carpenter
Counterbalancing the gravity of the resolutions and the darkness of the season I offer you colorful brooms – someone reminded me that tradition forbids to sweep and clean on the first day of the New Year. Now where did that myth come from? Found that and other New Year’s old wives’ tales on Maids.com, no less.
Or brooms used for flying, another myth, I’m told. One first mentioned in 1451. Here is a fascinating account of the history associated with witches and brooms. Told you, I’d dig out the fact! Even the facts of the origins of myths…
OK, let’s just remember what sunlight does to color – and that it will surround us again, eventually, sweeping clean the last cobwebs of superstition.
Music today is a reference to the energy which I hope fills the new year and gives you an idea of my kind of house cleaning….
In true appreciation of your continued reading, encouragement and critical interaction my gift to you for the holidays is:
No politics today.
No social justice issues today.
Nothing complicated or sad today.
A poem about how to be hopeful with the help of nature.
Here’s a collection of images from a hike up Wahkeena Falls last week, into the mist with a sprinkling of snow. There was beauty and the reminder that there are always more chances. If you had told me in the hospital at the beginning of the year that I would hike some miles up the steep hills of the Gorge by the end of it, I would have declared you insane.
Mist
It amazes me when mist chloroforms the fields and wipes out whatever world exists
and walkers wade through coma shouting and close to but curtained from each other
sometimes there’s a second river lying asleep along the river where the sun rises sunk in thought
and my soul gets caught in it hung by the heels in water
it amazes me when mist weeps as it lifts
and a crow calls down to me in its treetop voice that there are webs and drips and actualities up there
and in my fog-self shocked and grey it startles me to see the sky
by Alice Oswald (elected as the first female professor of poetry at the University of Oxford in 2019)
Here is to crows, blue skies and actualities. I will see you in the – happy – new year.
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And in case you still need more support to get through these next weeks, I urge you to try the following relaxation exercises. If Bruno Pontiroli’s models can do it, so can you! Possibilities abound!
That’ll be me!
Since all the animals reminded me of Camille Saint-Saëns’ Carnival, here is his Christmas Oratorio, equally enchanting. Merry Christmas.
When I was young and impressionable I had to read a book titledHunger by Knut Hamsun. Why they would serve us literary fare by a Norwegian Nazi remains a mystery. Maybe my German high school teacher was as enamored by the Nobel Prize author as were many others, more famous people: MaximGorky, Thomas Mann, and Isaac Bashevis Singer. The book explores the psychological decline of a pretty asocial character who is driven almost mad by hunger, but as a consequence of refusing available food, fully in line with Hamsun’s celebration of individualism and freedom to choose. In the end the protagonist escapes his woes by hiring on to a ship and sail the seas, being fed, presumably, three meals a day. It felt odd, even to a 15-year old, that hunger was not presented as an inescapable scourge for the many who lack access to food, but as a choice. Some of my thoughts on the issue of food insecurity you’ve read in earlier blogs.
Write it. Write. In ordinary ink on ordinary paper: they were given no food, they all died of hunger. “All. How many? It’s a big meadow. How much grass for each one?” Write: I don’t know. History counts its skeletons in round numbers. A thousand and one remains a thousand, as though the one had never existed: an imaginary embryo, an empty cradle, an ABC never read, air that laughs, cries, grows, emptiness running down steps toward the garden, nobody’s place in the line.
We stand in the meadow where it became flesh, and the meadow is silent as a false witness. Sunny. Green. Nearby, a forest with wood for chewing and water under the bark- every day a full ration of the view until you go blind. Overhead, a bird- the shadow of its life-giving wings brushed their lips. Their jaws opened. Teeth clacked against teeth. At night, the sickle moon shone in the sky and reaped wheat for their bread. Hands came floating from blackened icons, empty cups in their fingers. On a spit of barbed wire, a man was turning. They sang with their mouths full of earth. “A lovely song of how war strikes straight at the heart.” Write: how silent. “Yes.”
Translated by Grazyna Drabik and Austin Flint
I know, it’s the week of Christmas. Visions of food associated with the occasion, pungent smells permeating houses, meals shared with loved ones, unusual things like goose or carp (if you are German,) gingerbread and Stollen (a baked Marzipani concoction of about a million calories per slice,) all mouthwatering and sweet. Now why do I have to ruin that by reminding us of hunger as a weapon, an instrument of torture, a tool of extermination? Yes, a whole region of Jews were killed by being driven into a corral near the town of Jaslo and refused food and water. Can’t we let the past rest, at least during this week of celebration?
I would, if it were only the past. Just as Szymborska exhorts us to keep the memory alive – Write it. Write. – I cannot but say it, say: we are faced with hunger by design, here and now, in our American Prison system. There a few who bear witness. Last week this singular report was published by the ACLU of Southern California in cooperation with various other organizations. It “combines testimonies from people who were incarcerated in the Orange County jails during the pandemic with public records. Nutrition facts, menu items, and budget information gathered from the Orange County Sheriff’s Department through Public Records Act request.”
For almost two years now the thousands of inmates in this system have not had a hot meal. The three meals they get are mostly inedible sack lunches that contain moldy bread, spoiled slices of meat, and an occasional apple or orange. It is not enough food, particularly if you cannot eat it if it’s rotting, and it is so unhealthy that food-related illnesses have skyrocketed. Food poisoning from the spoiled food is one thing; the high sodium and carbohydrate contents have increased heart disease, diabetes-related problems, and circulatory system illness.
The situation has gotten so bad, that even the Board of State and Community Corrections asked the jails to add hot meals after their inspection revealed the horror of the situation. What happened? Hot cereal was added to breakfast, but soon after refused again. Soup was added to dinner (high-sodium broth with floating onion and tomatoes to be found with a magnifying glass.) However, the soup was put on the floor in front of the cells, often only accessible after an hour when it had become cold and by now detected by bugs that live in the shadows of the prison hallways, equally desperate to improve their food intake.
Kitchen closures where justified with Covid-19. The closures saved a good amount of money to the prison system, none of which has been re-invested into better nutrition for the inmates. In addition, the system has made a significant amount of revenue on items that incarcerated people can purchase through commissary (some $10.000.000 a year.) That kind of food might be more edible than bug-infested soup, but it is also not healthy, like most items that come out of dispenser. Medical and religious diets have been denied due to Covid restrictions, or so it is claimed.
“If a budget recipient spends less than its predicted budget, the surplus rolls over or goes towards other department expenses. That means that when OCSD receives a budget for food services and ultimately spends less than was budgeted, the remainder rolls over and can be used for other expenses like staff salaries. That is what happened when OCSD shut down the hot kitchens.”
These are the numbers that show the development during the Covid years, all on the backs of the inmates.
I”n 2018, OCSD rolled over just $72,000 from the food budget to use on other OCSD expenses; in 2019, OCSD rolled over $90,000. In 2020, after OCSD stopped serving hot food, they rolled over $963,013. In 2021, OCSD is on track to rollover $656,472.”
You can find all the details and art work and experiential testimony by the inmates in the report. Images today were created by the prisoners.
I do not know if the situation is any different in Oregon. But I do feel that we are ignorant of all of it unless we happen to have our noses pushed into it. Without knowing, of course, there will be no memory, no transmission of the horrors of one’s times to future generations as a warning. And poets will have to dig up a past that we failed to change in our present. Spread the word, if you can. The link to the report, again, is here.
