Cape Cod

by

The Blob

I just watched the original The Blob, starring Steve McQueen. A great movie if there ever was one. See the trailer.

Now I want to go to Phoenixville, PA, one of the sites for the film. This year’s Blobfest will be on July 8-10.

The last four lines are even more relevant during climate crisis:

Dave: They’re flying it to the Arctic. 

Steve: It’s not dead, is it?

Dave: No, it’s not. Just frozen. I don’t think can be killed. But at least we’ve got it stopped. 

Steve: Yeah, as long as the Arctic stays cold.

by

The Fulbari resort in Pokhara

Fulbari Resort & Spa

The Fulbari Resort and Spa in Pokhara, Nepal, was envisioned as the country’s most luxurious and only 5-star resort. It would re-imagine architectural wonders of the golden age when Newari kings ruled in the Kathmandu Valley, supplemented with a golf course, spas, casino, and other modern amenities. 

Set on a high bluff, with 26 acres, Fulbari, meaning “flower garden,” offers panoramas of Fishtail and Annapurna mountain ranges to the north and the Seti River gorges to the south.

In 2018, we stayed at a much more modest place in Pokhara, but I wish that we had at least visited Fulbari.

It’s now facing foreclosure, a victim of the general economic difficulties in Nepal and recently of Covid-19.

by

Herring on the run

Blueback herring on the Herring River, Wellfleet

The lilacs are blooming and the buttercups brighten the river banks, so the blueback herring are swimming upstream to spawn. We counted 89 in one ten-minute stretch this week, thus honoring World Fish Migration Day.

The herring do surprisingly well, despite the constricted tidal flow in the river. Their biggest problem comes at the culverts. Fortunately for them, the one near our count site did not have a snapping turtle, raccoon, or crow waiting on the upstream side.

Culvert on the Herring River, to be enlarged as part of the project to restore the Herring River estuary.

We love seeing the herring. They tell us that the river, although damaged, is not dead.

A friend and neighbor says that she loves the herring, too, especially when they’re pickled with peppercorns and bay leaves, then served with onions. That was possible in the days when the river flowed freely. Our hope is that fishing, shellfishing, birdwatching, boating, and more can return when the river is restored.

by

Earth Day: The light flickers

Sammy (age five), who knows about layers of the ocean

For a hundred fathoms the sun rays penetrate
The sea is warm and full of life
Phytoplankton turn the sun’s energy into food.

The sunlight zone is what we know
Where the dolphins play
It’s the ocean blue.

Varying by season and latitude
Fish and seagulls, squids and jellyfish
Tiny copepods feed giant whales.

Below is the twilight zone
Worthy of Rod Serling
It’s dimly lit and cold, but still supports life.

Bioluminescence
Fish eyes are large, directed upwards
Food silhouettes.

Then there is the deep, the midnight zone
Constant darkness, except what creatures themselves provide
Crushing, almost freezing.

Thousands of feet down
The water’s weight presses down
Yet the sperm whale can dive here.

He searches for food
At depths we can’t imagine
He recycles and moves nutrients.

His carcass stores carbon
Providing habitat and food for others
He’s an ecosystem engineer.

He lights up our life
When he leaves the page
We discover the real darkness and cold.

by

Section hiking the Appalachian Trail

Section hiking the Appalachian Trail means doing a segment at a time, whenever it’s convenient. It’s not as glamorous as a thru-hike, but it’s still a great way to experience the “footpath for the people.”

Unfortunately, my cancer recovery segments are very short. I may need 21,800 segments to complete the 2,180 miles. That’s going to take a while.

But I’ve accomplished a few already. The photo above was taken two days ago near Great Barrington, MA. The one below is near Becket, MA in January.

by

Reading my own writing

This morning at breakfast, faced with a large stack of unread magazines and newspapers, I realized that I really wanted to go upstairs to my office to work on my own book project instead.

Although my own writing is clumsy and inarticulate, it’s never on a topic that doesn’t interest me. Also, if I don’t like a word choice or phrasing, if an important side point seems left out, I can just fix it right then and there.

It’s never perfect; there’s always some way to improve it.

In contrast, in this great collection of magazines––New Scientist, The Nation, Mother Jones, Natural History, Texas Monthly, Mad, The New Yorker, and more––there are occasionally topics of only minor interest; some articles are too long, some too short.

What can I do if I disagree with a word choice or think an argument is unsupported? Fume? Write a letter to the editor? It feels very passive compared to what I can do with my book project. For me the life of the writer seems far superior, not in a moral sense, but simply in the sense of attracting my time and attention.

But then I flipped through an issue of The New York Review of Books (August 19, 2021). For a reader, that’s always intimidating. Faced with hundreds of interesting new books, my write now strategy looks even more attractive.

I came across an excerpt from a new book by Wisława Szymborska, How to Start Writing (and When to Stop). It’s a collection of the advice columns that she wrote anonymously in the Polish journal Życie literackie (Literary Life) from 1960 to 1981.

My musings about writing over reading stopped cold when I read one letter in which Szymborska decides to console a writer rather than to give him/her some hope of publication.

A splendid fate awaits you, the fate of a reader, and a reader of the highest caliber, that is to say, disinterested—the fate of a lover of literature, who will always be its steadiest companion, the conquest, not the conqueror. You will read it all for the pleasure of reading. Not spotting “tricks,” not wondering if this or that passage might be better written, or just as well, but differently. No envy, no dejection, no attacks of spleen, none of the sensations accompanying the reader who also writes.

She goes on to describe the many benefits of being a reader, rather than a writer:

And there is also this not inconsiderable benefit: people speak of incompetent writers, but never of incompetent readers. There are of course hordes of failed readers—needless to say, we do not include you among them—but somehow they get away with it, whereas anyone who writes without success will instantly be deluged in winks and sighs. Not even girlfriends are to be relied upon in such cases.

So, where to go from here?

I decided that I had read enough; the cantaloupe was finished and the oatmeal was cold. I could still pour some more coffee and return to my writer’s garret. Like the Ancient Mariner:

He went like one that hath been stunned,
And is of sense forlorn:
A sadder and a wiser man
He rose the morrow morn.

by

Why cancer makes me happy

OK, quick disclaimer: Cancer only makes me happy in some ways at some times, but that’s a better score than from many other activities I know about. At other times cancer/chemo varies from unpleasant to horrible. Along that line, it has at least given me a better, embodied understanding of what other people with cancer and chemo go through.

But let me say what those “some ways at some times” actually are. How could they emerge through the fog of fear, pain, loneliness, uncertainty, and the literal mental fog of cancer/chemo, not to mention little things like nausea, constipation, loss of hair, appetite, sleep, swimming, and social life?

Look to this day

Well, one huge happiness making of all this is that it puts the rest of life in a good perspective. The great Sanskrit dramatist Kalidasa wrote that we should

Look to this day for it is life
the very life of life.

In its brief course lie all
the realities and truths of existence the joy of growth
the splendor of action
the glory of power.

For yesterday is but a memory And tomorrow is only a vision. But today well lived
makes every yesterday a memory of happiness
and every tomorrow a vision of hope.

Look well, therefore, to this day….

I memorized that poem long ago, and tried at times to live its precepts. But it took cancer to teach me what it really means. All of those minor annoyances and anxieties that used to clutter my days now dissolve into the mist.

It’s like the drama on a Netflix show: While I’m watching it can seem incredibly important, but the pause button puts it in its place.

Connection

Another thing I’ve long known, but not absorbed (too many examples of this to count) is the importance of connection to family, friends, acquaintances, even strangers. John Donne’s Meditations contains another passage which I memorized, but failed to understand fully:

No man is an island entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main; if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as any manner of thy friends or of thine own were; any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind. And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.

The cancer has caused me to reconnect with old friends and family. I’ve learned about weddings, births, and deaths, new jobs and houses. Let me be clear: I could have reconnected with any of those people anytime. But I didn’t.

It took cancer/chemo to wake me up to one of life’s simple truths. So much for reading many books and getting a PhD!

Courage

I never thought of myself as timid. Awkward yes, and fumbling, but often more fool hardy than frightened. (There was that time when my partner and I canoed over a dam backwards. She sensibly thought we should turn back and I wanted to push ahead. That led us to turn sideways, then go in full reverse. But that’s another story.)

Cancer/chemo has taken away needless fears. I have a relaxed attitude about many things now and a willingness to take risks that I didn’t have before. But it’s not in an aggressive way. I’d actually be less likely to want to go over a dam backwards, but I’d be less fretful about it if I thought it were necessary.

Learning

It’s almost embarrassing to says this, but cancer/chemo is a great learning opportunity.

The experience certainly concentrates the attention and there is so much to learn about cancer, therapy, the body, chemicals, new technologies, the medical system, and more. Each new side effect, as unpleasant as it might be, also opens up doors to new ways of understanding the body and world I live in.

Priorities

Echoing Kalidasa, cancer/chemo has helped me prioritize what I do, in a way that makes happier.

I used to play piano to get ready for a lesson, or because I somehow thought I should. Now i do it because I love the music and love bringing my fingers into that. Like David Sudnow, I see that the “ways of the hand” are a miracle to savor.

Moreover, I make the time for piano that I want. I’ve stopped doing many things that once seemed necessary––they weren’t really.

Peace

A major concern for cancer is depression. The fear, the pain, the loneliness, are a recipe for getting depressed or anxious. But I’ve oddly been less so than I was pre-cancer.

I’m not in denial. That would be hard to do anyway. What I think is going on is that cancer/chemo has helped me do what I ought to have been doing all along. I’m focusing on things that matter and shoving aside the rest.

Patience

Rumi, the 13th-century Persian poet says this well:

Patience is not sitting and waiting. It is foreseeing. It is looking at the thorn and seeing the rose, looking at the night and seeing the day. Lovers are patient and know that the moon needs time to become full.

by

Little appreciated benefits of cancer & chemo

It’s hard to avoid the negative aspects of cancer and chemo treatment: fatigue, isolation, and ruminations about life. But too much of that and we miss seeing the positives.

Let me name just a few of these:

  1. Losing all those stubborn pounds that have resisted diet and exercise.
  2. Being free to eat ice cream with hot fudge sauce. The fact that it doesn’t taste as good as it once did just means that I can eat all I want.
  3. Postponing dental appointments, colonoscopies, haircuts, and other invasive medical procedures.
  4. No dishwashing, carry out compost, pulling weeds, etc.
  5. Having an unassailable excuse to avoid meetings and other events that I didn’t want to attend anyway.
  6. Being insensitive to ambient temperature. I still get hot or cold, but it doesn’t seem to have much to do with the weather or what I’m wearing.
  7. Unlimited streaming with no guilt.
  8. Good excuse for my slowed walking pace; so much better than “getting old” or “being lazy.”
  9. Learning much about how our amazing body works. Like Heidegger’s broken hammer, we understand it best when it’s broken.
  10. Reminder to focus on the things that matter in the finite time we all have.

by

Should we teach Critical Race Theory?

There is a lot of talk in some circles today about Critical Race Theory (CRT), mostly that it’s a dangerous idea, which should be banned.

Whenever I hear someone say “we should/should not teach X!” I wonder what they mean by “X” but even more, what they mean by “teach.” Most people have no idea what the CRT controversy is about or even what CRT is. I suspect that many of the opponents and even proponents don’t either.

What do we mean by “teach”?

But beyond the important question of what it is are we actually talking about is the one about teaching. There are many things that should be taught, but none in a doctrinaire fashion. Should we teach the life cycle of butterflies? Definitely, yes. It’s fascinating; it can be investigated in a hands-on way as well as through texts; it has important implications for agriculture; it can open up inquiry into nature more broadly; and much more. But I would hate to see it taught as evidence for a “proof” or “dis-proof” of evolution.

The same is true for CRT. If teaching it meant only forcing students to think one way about race (I don’t know of any proponent who thinks that), then I’d join the critics. But it could be terrific if it means opening up avenues of inquiry for students.

To be more specific, for most people who know something about the theory, it means asking how ideas about race have shaped our history and who we are today. The focus is usually on how specific laws and policies have dealt with race––constructing its meaning, delimiting rights and responsibilities, allocating resources, and so on. It can open up into questions of scientific racism, the intersections with class, gender, religion, nationality, and other dimensions.

How, for example, did Federal programs, banking regulations, and Jim Crow laws affect the ability of Blacks to get federal mortgage assistance after World War II? There are many things to say about that question, contrasting opinions, and things to discover. There is no single idea to learn and scholars are studying it further.

What should we teach?

Should we teach that the US is racist to it core? No, not if that means an unexamined mantra to be memorized. But historical scholarship tells us that there is a lot of evidence of racism in our founding documents, in the ideas and arguments of founders. There’s certainly enough to support asking questions in a sustained, critical fashion.

Should we teach that the US is founded on freedom? Again, not if that means indoctrinating one unexamined claim. It’s true that in the late 1700s free, white, males with property achieved hard-fought success in determining their own political destiny. And it’s true that some of our founding documents have ringing calls for freedom for all. But the exciting story about the US can be uncovered only by examining how freedom and civil rights have been expanded (with some setbacks) throughout our history, even though they remain unfulfilled to this day.

The ongoing story has no single, simple “truth,” either in CRT or in easily falsifiable claims that masquerade as “patriotism.” We should not pretend otherwise.

Unlearning

One problem with teaching unexamined doctrines is that it can lead to later disillusionment and a complex unlearning project. But maybe that’s a good thing. Should I be taught to revere our Constitution as it stands, then learn later that it was shaped in part by racists and the desire to perpetuate slavery? Would that make me feel betrayed and question everything I had been taught?

That’s a harsh approach, akin to throwing the toddler in the deep end. Perhaps that’s what critics of CRT are after: a bracing, subversive repudiation of patriotic pabulum, which would generate unbridled critique?

You’ve got to be taught

South Pacific‘s “You’ve Got To Be Carefully Taught”  tells us

You’ve got to be taught before it’s too late
Before you are six or seven or eight
To hate all the people your relatives hate
You’ve got to be carefully taught

Let’s try to move beyond teaching hate. Does CRT mean learning to hate all the people your relatives loved? I don’t think so. If it were a new kind of hate, I’d be strongly opposed to it.

CRT does want us to move beyond the kind of hate that South Pacific exposes But if it means helping students ask questions about their history and to be carefully taught falsehoods.

If we can show students life in its fullness, their own inquiry can lead them to discover all we know and more.