Die Musik - Mein Leben

Two weeks ago, or thereabouts, my brother Ge. and I went shopping for music scores at a small music antiques shop in Charlottenburg, and as a 'thank you' we received secondhand books: one by Joachim Kaiser, another evidently a philosophical reflection on Bach, and the third a memoir by Daniel Barenboim, which was published in English originally and in German by Ullstein in 2002. Since I feel too hyperactive to sit down and read a book without hopping to the computer now and then, it seems best to write about the process of reading and then nip over to one or two other websites (Pinterest, for instance, which I have finally officially joined since mid-March) intermittently.

1:35 p.m. One thing I've wondered is when Barenboim's family came to Argentina, since it is (after all) a newish country for European references. The book explains that his grandparents on both sides fled there from the Soviet Union in the 1900s.

1:49 p.m. When did he begin to play? — Barenboim has no Arthur-Rubinsteinesque tales of consummate ability at the age of two* with which to bowl over his reader, or perhaps he modestly withholds them. He grew up in a musical family, and his mother taught him piano first, and soon his father took over.

* I don't have his autobiography at hand, but a certain online encyclopaedia provides the details.

2:20 p.m. In Argentina, he writes, musicians visited the house of Ernesto Rosenthal in Buenos Aires. One of the visitors was Sergiu Celibidache, the conductor from Romania who also for instance taught at the Curtis Institute of Music in the USA. (It's where Hilary Hahn went, and from what Papa tells me it seems like a rather hippieish and freewheeling place instead of a musical barracks for the next generation.) He is easy to find on YouTube, for instance in this video with the Dutch National Radio Symphony Orchestra: Ravel's Bolero, in the early 70s.

2:40 p.m. As a seven-year-old, Barenboim gave his first concert in Argentina, where he had already been going to school. He writes that even when he became a teenager school was a priority insofar as he didn't go on long tours, so that he had a 'quite normal school education.' I think 'quite normal' is being stuck in there for the grim duration and not having much during the holidays and after school to take one's mind off of it, but anyway. (c:

2:47 p.m. In the early 1950s his family moved to Israel because his mother, in particular, as well as his grandparents on her side, were highly excited by the formation of the new homeland. His father's piano lessons continued, and Barenboim writes that this was quite convenient insofar as he didn't have to hop back and forth between different teaching and musical philosophies. Also, he was taught to think of music and technique as integrated concepts, so that there wasn't undue emphasis on scales and other technical exercises and undertakings in isolation. An important thing was to be taught what was needed by the scores, let's say of a Mozart piano concerto.

This really rang a chord, but rather because I always mess up scales and do better when they are part of a piece of music. Unlike with Barenboim, I don't know if it can objectively be said to be the only possible philosophy or the best didactic method for me. But at least it keeps me happy and keeps me in good humour with the music. Also, even under these conditions, it is nice to feel that a piece I work on for a while on can send me forth into the world again with a new piece of the technique puzzle, even if I haven't tracked down the relevant finger exercises or scales for repetitive formal drills.

To translate back into the English, Barenboim writes,

"I often meet musicians who begin by trying to solve specific problems in a technical, mechanical way, so that they can wedge in the 'musicality' afterwards — like whipping cream on a cake. But these things — technique and interpretation — should be connected from the outset [...]".

For me, I think it is perhaps rather a failing that (as far as I know) I don't want to resolve technical problems or look at music analytically for its composition, for fear of losing the charm and emotional roundedness of the music. If I were really a musician and weren't a shallow person, shouldn't it make no difference? But perhaps it is the case as with academic work, where I think the worst possible thing is to engage with the subject shallowly and then become convinced that one knows everything because it is too easy — whereas diving into learning and researching, and pushing past mental barriers, produces a degree of thought and emotional development which doesn't make one flippant or cold.

3:22 p.m. Well, I'm only on p. 17, which is the disadvantage of a reading liveblog when I'm the one in charge of writing it; but I think I'll take a break and look at Easter crafts, etc., on a certain pinning website now.

Paschal Pleasures

This morning I was the first to wake up except Papa, having gone to sleep at a seasonably early time and had a rather sound go of it. Europe's 'leap forward' to summer time, viz. the loss of an hour between 2 a.m. and 3 a.m., was not really bothersome. It was still greyish weather and single snowflakes of large compass idly footled about in the sky.

This year the Easter bunny duties were for the most part assumed by J., who assembled the table picturesquely, with a great deal of chocolate eggs in brightly coloured foil, the plate whereupon a sugar-dusted cake lamb reposed as a present from a family friend, Maltesers (the confectionery), an orange for everyone, and a belled goldwrapped chocolate bunny on each of our little plates.

While I waited for the others to wake up, I began watching the Easter mass from St. Peter's Square at 10:14, thanks to ZDF's internet livestream. I didn't get very far in, but did hear the reading in English from Corinthians. (Puzzled by the unelevated language of the text, I later lamented that the Catholic church didn't seem to be using the King James Bible any more, whereupon Mama et al. groaned and I remembered that England was Anglican by King James's time.) The German voiceovers were a pain, but some of the commentary was useful. I liked the way that the garb and postures of the deacon, cardinals, etc. resembled those in medieval paintings, as if someone had animated them for my benefit — and I loved the flower arrangements, which were in fine taste in my opinion — it turns out that they are Dutch —, arranged with an eye to the manner in which greenery and blossoms naturally disperse and group themselves.

Then came the Easter breakfast. There I forgot the eggs so that they boiled a good eight or nine minutes despite the loftiest intentions. This year there was no to-do of dye or watercolour paint, though J. has painted his own eggshell in a design which was intended to resemble Islamic art and which I thought (and said, perhaps tactlessly and at any rate to a bemused audience) looked very Celtic. It has a little green but a lot of dark berry red and black and gold, and shapes of hares with a thick band of ornamental pattern as a kind of Greenwich Meridian/(straight) International Date Line. At any rate, we did eat raisin bread and graham bread and freshly baked rolls (dough of industrial provenance) with jam, cheese, egg, or ham. The tea and coffee were also toastily-hot and at the ready.

After that our paths diverged.

Canada Customs and the Pope

Since I am not likely to set much finger to keyboard for the purposes of this blog any time soon, and since although not a hermit I am doing a fairly good impression of a reticent and occasionally growly troll hiding under a bridge — here is a somewhat silly video from a Canadian political/social comedy series which my family and I enjoyed watching when we weren't cringing over 'inappropriate' bits.




As far as things I don't mind talking about are concerned, the news I've been following lately also comprised a great deal about the new Pope. Having been thoroughly disgruntled by his predecessor and prone to speaking very lightly of the Vatican, it sort of bowled me over to find that by a simple choice made over two or three days, I have been basking in a kind of rosy haze at the thought of Pope Franciscus. The novel idea of seeing God's work as going amongst the poor and needy and, heaven forfend, even listening to them — instead of reading up and holding endless speeches on dusty theological disputes; dusting off ceremonious chasubles or other antiquated trappings which had been discarded by less tradition-happy popes; and carefully keeping away from the other religions which are suddenly all evil again since Pope John Paul II died — has been so entrancing that I even thought of attending church again.

As suspected, I didn't act on this impulse, but it feels nice to be in a state of mind where I'd sincerely consider it. On the other hand, Franciscus's vivid acquaintance with The Evil One (to whom he ascribed a role in certain gay marriage legislation in Argentina, and whose name he dropped on the Pontifex Twitter account) seems a little naive to me. Belief in a red man with horns and a forky tail is not really supported by the actual text of the Bible, if I am properly informed, and there is something undignified about it unless you have a true, mature feeling for apocalyptic upheaval and sinisterness like a Hieronymus Bosch. Similarly, I think that fantasizing about satan is an odd activity (and a misdirection of energies) for a man of God.

Another thing that impresses me as human and sensible about the new Pope, though, is that he seems to be trying to lead as ordinary of a life as possible — walking amongst hoi polloi, talking with people he disagrees with, living in quarters which are about what he has been accustomed to, speaking the language of the neighbourhood where he lives instead of Latin, travelling in a vehicle which does not look too silly, making his own arrangements re. newspaper delivery, and (metaphorically speaking) not wearing too many bells and whistles. It seems an excellent way to remain reasonably levelheaded.

*

I would talk about university stuff, but the last semester was the WORST (not so much terrible as pointless and irritating) and I'm grumpy about having to return from the holidays in mid-April.

*

Lastly, for people who are not excessively bored by Twitter and are interested in the issue of gay marriage, here is a link to a lovely though unexpected political statement by the American lifestyle (well, not that kind of lifestyle) magazine Martha Stewart Living. It refers to the 'equals sign'  =  which has been adopted and spread as a pro-gay-marriage symbol by (I think) the Human Rights Campaign. [Link] I found it quite heartwarming — unlike the decision of the US Supreme Court not to decide on 'Prop 8' yet. Someone wrote a comment underneath the photo that the magazine would lose Twitter 'followers'; in fact I have kept track of it and its numbers have gone from 46,429 to 46, 451.

Brief Newsflash of Studies on a Monday

The past three weeks I went to university fairly regularly and ended up grumpy and exhausted, and last week I skipped every class except for one on Friday where I had been asked to do a presentation. So, after skipping another class this morning, I slept in past 10 a.m. and went to Latin in the early afternoon in a kind of relaxed and happy frame of mind — quite alert, too, considering that it was on Monday. It is the last class before the exam next week, which thankfully I needn't write but which I hope to try for the sake of practice. The Latin course has been very difficult. Since the teaching assistant explains everything so precisely, however, (post facto, though, meaning that my embarrassingly flawed worksheets have already been handed in and are beyond hope of correction) the framework of the grammar has gradually become clear. I feel quite pleased with my progress by the end of the semester, and so (judging by the positive murmurs when the teaching assistant asked for commentary today) is the rest of the class.

From Haloes to Hospitality

This week I have been fired by the wish to show up to all of my classes virtuously, at an excellent juncture as it turns out since a great proportion of the students are staying away in a presumable spillover from the holidays, so I feel the beginnings of a halo glimmer around my head whenever I — exquisitely on time — tread into a classroom these days.

Since this semester's schedule combined with the necessary repetition of the prelanguage course demands that I be at university at 10:00 on Mondays and 8:30 every day thereafter, I have been going to sleep before midnight and waking up spontaneously between 3 a.m. and 7, then relaxing as I like to do in the tranquillity of nighttime, and then taking as long or as little time as I like to dress and pack things together, and then going out the door.

Today I had a prelanguage course Greek grammar class preceded by a first-year Greek grammar class, followed by the overview of Turkish literature lecture which has set in since two weeks before the Christmas holidays after all the Persian literature was overviewed by a different professor.

In the first-year grammar we reviewed the present active participle — ταξιδευοντας, etc.— in sentences which were so incredibly depressing that I had no idea what was going on until I realized that the chapter's theme was criminal justice and prison sentences. For the prelanguage course there was a little vocabulary mixed in, and we had to complete small, much more cheerful exercises surrounding the four seasons: ανοιξη, καλοκαιρι, φθινοπωρο, and χειμωνα.

In the Turkish literature class I recognized the letter wāw on the chalkboard from my small discursions into Persian vocabulary and felt tremendously pleased with myself. I should have known the kāf, too.

***

Anyway, I've had little projects at home going on, and one of them was to dabble in modern music again and figure out what I like. I did this in possibly the stodgiest way thinkable, by looking at NPR's 2012 best-of lists and then listening to over a hundred songs on YouTube. In terms of genre I felt quite undiscriminating, but I wasn't especially taken by electropop and nostalgic folk music from urban types (along the Mumford and Sons line, which I — probably unfairly — now think of as 'fauxlk music') and the kind of punk music where pale young women who seem on the verge of passing out sing feebly off-key whilst playing the keyboard, and that while I felt less self-conscious when my parents walked into the room when I was listening to jazz I found most of it incredibly boring, and I really do like rap music because I think it has more substance than most other stuff. I don't know if I've mentioned it before, but the real rap like the Wu Tang Clan separately and collectively do intimidate me because they can feel so hard and joyless and genuinely aggressive, but the rest is kind of easier to hear.

'Skyfall' bowled me over, but I only listened to part of it once and I wonder if the reaction was proportionate; at least it is nominated for an Academy Award, so . . . Arvo Pärt was on the list, and much to my surprise because contemporary classical music all falls under unoriginal, neurotic, self-indulgent overintellectualizing minimalist tosh concocted by academic aesthetes in my mind, I liked the song, as it was performed by an Estonian choir.

The musicians I had heard of before were Bonnie Raitt and Neil Young, and perhaps unsurprisingly I also liked them best. Above all, both musicians' voices are like instruments which they have learned how to use, with the twang and the colour and everything beautifully calibrated and mature (like a fine wine, to add another cliché to this paragraph), which less experienced singers seem to try to replace with lovely sincerity but little originality through Bob Dylan- or Dolly Partonesque affectations. Bruce Springsteen, I was surprised to find, seemed anodyne despite the persona.

But the only songs which have stuck in my head this year are "We Are Young" from fun., as well as "Whistle" from Flo Rida and that song from One Direction, which I had already heard because the apprentice in the bookshop and I listened to them together during the summer. I've heard 'Gangnam Style' and 'Call Me Maybe' the requisite number of times, too, but I thought that Gangnam Style was kind of harsh and degenerate — though I think that most people who look at the cheerfully absurd-seeming music video will probably wonder what on earth I mean.

As far as the singers accompanying themselves on the piano went, I considered it best to ignore the offerings in that line, excepting rare cases like Diana Krall's. Because if the piano is to have no tone and no expression at all, and a rather sparse score, one might as well prod around a well-tempered and multicoloured Fisher Price keyboard for noise-loving two-year-olds. But I consider the horrendousness in this area more due to the absence of effort (or of respect for the instrument) than of talent.

In the end, I pruned these 100+ songs into two shortlists — one for fun songs and bands, and one general list which I am planning to revisit:

A Sleep-Deprived Account of the New Year's Concert

The traditional hatchet job, with my apologies for hyperacidity or inaccuracies, follows:

Yesterday morning, as is our wont, we watched the New Year's concert of the Vienna Philharmonic on television; this year it was an unusually large contingent, as Papa, Mama, Ge., J. and I were there, laughing and groaning and minding the music as the moment demanded. I had been up for some twenty hours and was as a result in a vague and grumpy frame of mind.

This year the conductor was Franz Welser-Möst, on his home heath, though rightly or wrongly I felt that his musical terrain was more Wagner than Strauss, just as with Daniel Barenboim I seem to remember that there was a hint of Beethovenishness throughout. The music encompassed not only the Strausses and Josef Hellmesberger Jr., who as the ORF commentator noted was an early conductor of the Vienna Philharmonic and is therefore honoured regularly in the programme, but also Verdi (a charming morsel of Don Carlo) and Wagner (something from Lohengrin) in honour of their impending 200th birthdays. For the Wagner the brass section melted together into an almighty unisono roar which had the subtle heft of, though more harmoniousness than, a sledgehammer. It felt in my view a little ponderous for a classical, rectangular concert hall. In terms of musical bells and whistles, grating boxes came out towards the end of the concert, there was a harp, and the triangle often came into play.

I approved considerably of the flower arrangements, at least insofar as to find them uncommonly tasteful, arranged to give an overall impression of pink rose colour. There were, as customary, roses, anthuriums, orchid-like flowers, and for a change snapdragons, nestled in greens, and though the anthuriums were anthuriums they were so pale pink and beigey-yellow that I barely noticed them, which is as it should be.

For the first half of the concert I was inattentive or out of the room, preferring even to begin translating a Greek text for a course presentation to sticking around in my grouchy mood, but then I arrived for the cinematic pièce de résistance which is the intermission tourist video — an experience much softened by the aforementioned sleepiness.

Light in Winter

From the Book of Hours of Louis XII of France, 1498. Victoria and Albert Museum.
(Wikimedia Commons)

A Christmas Carol in Theatrical Form

About six years ago I thought of writing up Dickens's Christmas Carol in play format so that we could act it at home, and since I didn't have the story immediately at hand I made it up a little as I went along, thinking very much of the film versions (principally of 1938 and 1951) and a little of the characterization of Charles Montgomery Burns in The Simpsons. Here are the first two scenes, of three which I have already written in draft. It's not a very serious thing; among other things, I haven't thought much about what is required for writing a drama as opposed to any other sort of text, and am quite used to reading plays as fiction and not imagining or seeing them as theatre.

***

Scene One
Cratchit sitting at a desk, writing with a quill in a ledger. He is wearing a coat and a scarf, and is evidently cold.

Cratchit: (trying to cheer himself up by singing) "Joy to the world! The Lord is come! . . ."
Scrooge: (throws open the door and stalks in grimly) There's another coal on the fire, I see. I distinctly remember counting five when I left. How often must I tell you to bring two coats with you to work and leave the coal-pile alone?
Cratchit: Please, sir, you only told me once, and I thought that since the pitcher on the window sill is frozen . . .
Scrooge: What is winter if not the season of ice? Practicality is the key, Cratchit. Do you see this padding in my waistcoat?
Cratchit: Yes, sir.
Scrooge: That, Cratchit, is yesterday's Times of London. Several pages, crumpled up and placed judiciously within one's clothing, are as good as a fur coat. (He takes off his hat and hangs it on the clotheshook; crumpled newspapers fall out. He shuffles across the floor, rustling. Cratchit involuntarily looks at Scrooge's feet, wondering what the sound is. Scrooge notices.) Ah! You are wondering what that is in my shoes. Well, Cratchit, I will also tell you that a double sheet of newspaper serves excellently in lieu of socks, and it doesn't need darning.
Cratchit: Most ingenious, sir. (Writes on some moments in perplexity, as Scrooge carefully removes the extra coal from the fire and drops it into the ash pail. At last he has screwed up his courage to make a humble request.) Please, sir, it is the twenty-fourth of December, and I wonder whether I am permitted to take off the last quarter hour in addition to the day off tomorrow.
Scrooge: A quarter hour off?! The day off tomorrow?! But, Cratchit, it is a weekday tomorrow. Business waits for no one!

Horse Chestnut Poems, II

The Horse Chestnut

In May the long and dipping leaves flock
gloriously along the supple branches,
thin and translucent and dark and cool
and veined in lightly threading cords;
and clusters of white pink-specked blossoms
rise in thick and heavy spires on stems
tenderly and freshly green,
beset upon by hordes of bees
who render the magnificent dome
into one great leafy, lovely hive.

In the earth, there sunken lie
the tarnished sombre chestnut hulls
which fell as copper-tinted paeans
to the whorled charm of gleaming wood
and now in death return to dust
or sprout a lingering greyish stem
which a lightless neighbourhood will starve
or which a fortuitous sunlit orifice
will raise and cherish into life.

For now the deep Elysian shadows
spread among the cobblestones
and touch the abandoned windows
high in doors of the archaic stables,
guard from view the burdening growth
of a persistent English ivy
whilst it crowns, as if a laurel,
the crumbling, swallow-harbouring brick.

At a distance and yet in sight,
stranded on the crest of fields
that dive and rise into the hedges
and bathe their feet in unseen rills,
a kindred tree casts far its foliage
in a lonely but grand clump:
a watcher of the meadows
and the shelterer of the horses
when, their loping gambols ended,
and finding the sun's orb too fierce,
they canter flowingly to bask
in the arbour's chilly sanctuary.

***
[Second Version, April 14th, 2009, rev. Oct. 20th and Nov. 25th]

[The other horse chestnut poem is here.]

A Poem from the Archives

Written in Grade 10, a grand effort inspired by a classmate who was being sort of annoying:

Once there was someone
Whose head was not good;
A crayon he broke
On his head, which would
Addle the wits that were left him
quite good.

***

In graveyard fields
I, ***, lie
The cricket's chirp
My lullaby.
For restlessly
[in spirit still]
I wander about
Those who see me
Scream and shout
I died at school
Not long ago
[(of boredom)]
At least I now
French can forego.

St. Nicholas, Part I: Philosophical Abstractions

Yesterday was a wearying day and I went to sleep fairly late (or, er, early), so though I had set the alarm clock, I turned it off once it rang (the first class began at 8:30) and thus slept through to noon and later.

The kitchen was still in a mess, but all the shopping had been done. I had the Byzantinian folk literature course at 6:15, so for the next couple of hours I read books online and copied out (by hand) a few more lines of Homer in the Greek original.

TO round out my Greek studies and to relieve my guilt for not doing more in that language, I have decided to read the Iliad and translate it in my head. Surprisingly enough we do not have an ancient Greek text of the Iliad itself wherefore I had to turn to an electronic text, and I am writing it out by hand so that it's easier to consult. About a week ago I looked into the bookshelves, and by grace of my grandfather's and my father's love for ancient Greek, found:

Richard John Cunliffe, A Lexicon of the Homeric Dialect (University of Oklahoma Press), ed. copyright 1963.
Homer, The Iliad (Penguin Classics) Transl. E. V. Rieu, 1966.
Homer, Ilias, Odyssee (dtv weltliteratur) Transl. Johann Heinrich Voß (Iliad: orig. publ. 1793), edition from 1982.
Homer, Ilias und Odyssee (Rheingauer Verlagsgesellschaft) Transl. Johann Heinrich Voss, edited by Hans Rupé and E.R. Weiß, 1980.
William Bishop Owen and Edgar Johnson Goodspeed, Homeric Vocabularies (University of Oklahoma Press), revised by Clyde Pharr, ed. copyright 1969.
J.E. Zimmerman, Dictionary of Classical Mythology (Bantam), 1980. [This has a label bearing my grandmother's name and our Victoria address on the title page.]

St. Nicholas, Part II: Eats

Ge. and I prepared the St. Nicholas plates just before I left for university: milk and dark chocolate-covered gingerbread, clementines, domino stones coated in milk and in dark chocolate, tree tips or Baumkuchenspitzen which are tiny pineapple-fragment-shaped pieces of layered sponge cake (the layers being light with dark edges like the growth rings in a tree, or the layers of a French bûche de Noël) once again covered in chocolate, Spekulatius biscuits, and marzipan potatoes which Ge. bought after I'd left because they were manifestly missing. (c:

The rest of the menu was:

Sweepsteak

(Beef roast with onion, recipe from the I Hate to Cook Book)

Boiled potatoes

Coleslaw salad à la döner kebab

Cauliflower

Salad with aceto balsamico and quark dressing

Sugared oranges in brandy

The potatoes were intended to be lemon potatoes, which I had eaten and enjoyed at a Greek restaurant on West Broadway in Vancouver over six years ago, but the time ran out.

As for the coleslaw salad, I julienned red tomatoes by cutting the peel into slabs and deseeding it and then slicing it into strips, then thinly cut up a quarter of a red cabbage, yesterday. I left these in the fridge overnight so that the cabbage would grow milder, and I hoped the acid in the tomatoes would have a similar effect. What was tremendously cool was letting the tomato juice come into contact with the cabbage juice, because obviously the pH (acidity concentration, I guess one could say) of the tomatoes made the cabbage juice turn pink from its lovely aubergine colour. This afternoon I grated in a carrot on the coarsest holes, sliced in half of an oval lettuce, and sprinkled pomegranate seeds on top; then after the Byzantinian literature class I chopped in some parsley and julienned a little cucumber. Except for the quartered tomatoes which I added and the pomegranate seeds, and the relative scarcity of cucumber and lettuce, it was pleasingly like the salad which normally comes with our favourite takeout döner kebabs. Finis.

I sprinkled aceto balsamico over the cauliflower, cut into small chunks, so that it would become less cabbagey; I think it worked, and fortunately nobody minded the dark vinegar watermarks.

The other salad was of leafy lettuce, of which I had arranged intact leaves around the perimeter of the bowl, which looked very festive; I sliced cucumber over it, put chopped parsley in the middle, quartered some of the tomatoes and removed the greeny stem bits, shook over more pomegranate seeds, and then prepared my dressing.

The sugared oranges were a monumental pain in the neck, also because I thought they turned out too sour though everyone else was happy with them. Removing the pith was difficult, slicing them was difficult because the knife didn't like becoming wet or working with a soaked wooden cutting board or who knows what, so I ended up smushing part of the orange rather than slicing it. The clementines which I mixed in also refused for the most part to slice properly, falling into the disarray of their individual segments instead. I sprinkled sugar in between the layers and added some brandy, but I didn't taste the brandy and thought that more sugar would not have come amiss. The thing is that I have sentimental reminiscences of sliced oranges infused with sugar and kirsch which my father made, and have tried to emulate them; only I was too cheap to buy a 10 euro bottle of kirsch from the store and too demanding to buy a cheap bottle.

I have plans to make tzatziki, and two aubergines to use up, tomorrow, so we'll see how that goes. (c: My attempt yesterday to make baba ghanoush with a third eggplant was a bit interesting, though not in disastrous wise.

At any rate the beef was excellent and so were the platters full of gingerbread and chocolate, and the rest was fine, so I think it was a good day from the culinary front. We also brought some extra festivity into the evening by singing 'Lasst uns froh und munter sein' and, in Mama's case, tootling out Advent songs on the French horn.

THEN we watched a books television show with Dieter Moor and his guest Franz Müntefering, whom I did not greatly admire as a politician but had to admit is rather charming and not without thoughtfulness and humour as a private individual. I had considered him unoriginal and complacent.

Lastly, Ge. and J. and I watched the Daily Show and the Colbert Report together. So now I feel greatly relaxed; the question is whether I will make it to my 8:30 a.m. class tomorrow.

Carrot Cake and Dictionary Extracts

This morning I woke up when the alarm clock went off at around 7:15. I considered it too early, turned it off, and then went back to sleep. A while later I became conscious again and decided to skip my Greek prelanguage course class; then I slept through all the way until 1:50something.

Since then I've opened up the Wikipedia article for Rumi and written down a few more words of Farsi along with their transliteration and German equivalents, for university, and have otherwise been pleasantly not doing much in particular.

Isn't Arabic a fairly lovely script? I imagine that there are many different iterations, like print versus cursive writing in the Latin alphabet, so the kind which I am reading in the Farsi-to-German dictionary may be a more utilitarian specimen. Here is an example in my rudimentary scribbling:

***

J. and Ge. went shopping for Ge.'s birthday and since then I have baked a round tin and a very long rectangular tin of carrot cake for the birthday lad. The recipe may be found here.

It turns out that the ingredients for the frosting were a trifle incomplete; the butter-and-cream-cheese frosting rarely turns out well for me anyway. So I softened a little butter over the stove, mixed it in with a slender tub of cream cheese, and added vanilla sugar and plenty of icing sugar. Then I made a second frosting with icing sugar, a drop or so of lemon extract, the bottle's cap full of brandy, milk and water. Since rosemary has a lemony taste and it was there, I took a dried leaf and crumbled it in. The family came to eat the result and made insulting remarks about ants (well, not really insulting — more funny) at the sight of the nondescript dark bits of rosemary, and then tucked in quite happily.

Besides I've been reading some news and meditating a grand journalistic effort again with a great deal of skepticism

An Excursion on Butterscotch Eggnog

Two cups of whipping cream.
One cup of whiskey.
Half a cup of brandy.
A cup of sugar.
Twelve eggs.
Two cups of milk.
Flavourings.

These things, in Melissa Clark's New York Times recipe (which I already mentioned a year or two ago) make me very happy. The quantity is large enough for my brothers, sister and parents too. (c:

America!: Election Night (Liveblog)

12:36 a.m. Have decided to stay up all night to follow the presidential elections and possibly the death penalty abolition amendment in California as well as other initiatives. I think I will do it a bit impersonally, though not 'journalistically,' because I like reading about the experiences of people who really are Americans instead of the secondary recipients of the joy or the reverse of American politics overseas.

One of my favourite stories so far: A Fox news channel show analyses 'voter intimidation' in Philadelphia. It consists of one member (apparently) of the New Black Panther Party standing at ease before a voting place, and opening the door for an elderly white lady.

Everyone seems to have voted:

From: @MarthaStewart on Twitter.

Those who also voted included Maria Shriver and her daughter, who both happily voted for Obama; Solange Knowles, Whoopi Goldberg, Carmelita Jeter, Chelsea Clinton, RuPaul, etc. Also, Donald Trump; though whether this is an overall loss or gain for democracy it is impossible to tell.

To put it in historical context, the actress Anika Noni Rose reminded people to treasure their voting rights — that her own great-aunt "was the first Black person to cast a vote in her Fla. town. She was cursed and spat upon."

Apparently journalists become caught up in everything, too:

From @campbell_brown on Twitter.

There have been many blunders made, and strange rules or rumoured rules, for instance that one isn't permitted to publish photos of one's voting ballot in twelve states. There are also strange voting initiatives; according to a commenter on Jezebel, Nebraska is voting on an amendment to "declar[e] hunting and fishing a constitutional right." (iammonsterface)

3:21 a.m. To make some use of my education (hopefully without making errors in the English-to-Greek translation), behold η ακμη της δημοκρατίας :
The Huffington Post's rather depressing summary of voter intimidation and other small catastrophes throughout the country.

3:53 a.m. Some schadenfreude may have been felt (by me) now that Wisconsin, the home state of Paul Ryan and host to the collective bargaining rights fiasco under Gov. Scott Walker, has been projected to be for Obama.

3:56 a.m. Out of idle curiosity I have consulted the New York Times's website's former election maps — I was glued to the 2004 map during my first year at UBC so I remember it well — and here is Wisconsin's recent presidential voting record:

2004: 49.76% Kerry / 49.36% Bush
2008: 56.3% Obama / 42.4% McCain

Wikipedia helps with the 2000 and 1996 elections. Based on the figures given I have hastily calculated (warning: not reliable) that in 2000 Bush had 47.69% as opposed to Gore's 47.91%; in 1996 Dole had 38.48% versus Clinton's 48.81%. So it is definitely a Democratic-leaning state.

It also makes me happy that Claire McCaskill has apparently beat Todd Akin for a senator's seat in Missouri. The defeat couldn't have happened to a lovelier soul. In the words of @AlexCarpenter:

"The Rape guy lost" "Which one?" Your party has serious issues if people have to ask "Which one?" #GOP #itstheTwentyFirstCentury

The Greek newspaper I follow on Twitter is keeping up to date, too. It reports, thanks to ABC, a Νίκη Ομπάμα στη Μινεσότα — Minnesota, which Obama did win heavily in 2008 too.

In Colorado, a voter initiative is attempting to legalize weed . . .

4:55 a.m. Michelle Obama writes, reconcilingly: "More than anything, I want to thank you all for everything. I am so grateful to every one of you for your support and your prayers. –mo" (@MichelleObama) She posted the message 16 minutes ago (as of . . . now) and it already has 7,118 'retweets.'

5:17 a.m. Barack Obama has possibly won? (Taking into account votes in California?) He has written:

This happened because of you. Thank you.

At the same time there are early reports that he has conquered in Ohio. And now:

We're all in this together. That's how we campaigned, and that's who we are. Thank you. -bo 

and

Four more years.

5:33 a.m. CNN and other outlets seem to be saying that Obama has won, too . . . !!

5:39 a.m. Defense correspondent for NPR, @larrybarnaby, reports the scene from Romney's headquarters:

Mood funereal at Romney Hq, people hugging, crying.

6:33 a.m. The New York Times online (apparently) calls the election for Obama. Still no concession speech of Romney; the Republicans are, per C-Span feed, watching CNN dourly while the Democrats are dancing, waving flags, holding up four fingers ('four more years!') and listening to music.

6:37 a.m. Worth celebrating: America's first openly gay senator, and a lady, Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin.

6:52 a.m. Chant of "Mitt!" at the Republican headquarters, with whistles. Now "U-S-A." CONCESSION!

6:56 a.m. Mitt Romney is eerily cheerful. "Besides my wife, Ann, Paul is the best choice I've ever made." All righty then. Wives of his sons are apparently all home-tenders while their husbands campaign . . . Now he reconciles with teachers.

"Job creators." Oh, there's the old Romney.

"Governor Romney is conceding the race with a classy speech," writes the NAACP.

7:02 a.m. Loud cheers amongst the Democrats. "Four more years!" is their chant. A video of Edith Childs and the "Fired up? — Ready to go!" chant is played.

7:22 a.m. I'll have to go to university so I can't listen to Obama's speech. But it's been well worth the white night, and I am going to rest contented that the US and the world are safe again for four years! I hope this is not exorbitantly optimistic but rather a prediction of nice things to come — though the absence of new wars and so on is already a very good thing per se.

An Unpleasant Event

This afternoon, when I was sitting in the bookshop, a lady from the Tempelhof district came in and asked whether I knew about the attempted honour killing down the street. I had seen candles and flowers beside the door but didn't know it was about that (and had felt it would be sensationalist and snooping to examine it further). She said that she wanted us, as the neighbours of the woman, to write a flyer condemning the attempted honour killing, which had already been written up on a website which tracks such honour killings in Germany.
Basically what I said was that any murder or attempted murder is already condemned by me and by most other people — that it is condemned generally, condemned under much of Islam, and condemned I thought also in countries like Afghanistan where it is culturally rooted. (I had read up on this issue, admittedly not in depth, for my class presentation on Islamic feminism in the USA. But I also felt a bit antagonistic because I don't like pointing at other countries and cultures and talking about how backward and savage they are, particularly if it is completely undeserved.)

I also said that I didn't see that it was possible for me to do anything, particularly unasked by those most concerned — unless the family asks for support — and that at best I could post a sign from a women's organization (which she named) directing possible future victims to a helpline or other resources in the window. Much of the time I was in the uneasy position of arguing that I am not my sister's keeper; the woman was generally dissatisfied (though reconciled by the end of the conversation, I think) with the responses of me and of other people she'd talked to as well. In hindsight I wished I had asked her what interested her personally in the case so much, because I think it is far better to engage in a cause when one has a specific personal knowledge or connection to it, and I am certain that she must have one.

When I read up on the case, it was that a young Iranian woman had been attacked with a knife by her former boyfriend in her apartment a week ago; the little daughter is under the care of youth services and she herself was operated on so that she survived. It was so biblically brutal that I understand why the label of attempted honour killing was affixed to it, but I think it is brutal entirely because the man was psychotic.

It does feel unsettling to live around the corner from a near-homicide, but after living here for six years I know that most of my neighbours would never even think of doing anything like it and that, God willing, it won't happen again.

Persian Literature, Phanariotes, and Plaints

The Greek classes haven't become much easier, but that perception is partly also because the conversation class took place on Friday.

On Thursday evening there was the Byzantinian folk literature course; we read part of Digenis Akritas (often known as Akritis), a Byzantinian epic which coincidentally enough was written around the time of Beowulf and has apparently since then been reinvented into a national epic. The emir's song which starts the whole thing is the most unmitigated twaddle I have ever read in that line, being tremendously sappy and at the same time gruesome; it seems to have little originality or depth to recommend it. I find it hard to believe that it wasn't invented in the 19th century when it was discovered in Trabizond (and seems since to have been conveniently lost, only to resurface in Italy and in Madrid's Escurial during the 20th century as divergent copies), because it has a generic, ahistorical quality to it which one tends not to find in most folk epics, which are distinctive, weird, and frequently digressive. On the other hand, obviously this opinion shouldn't be taken as my final one since it is not based on a very profound acquaintance with the text. Anyway, the professor mostly spoke in German, and it was only when the classmates were talking in Greek when I didn't understand anything.

Before that the Persian literature survey course took place, as mentioned in the last blog post, and it was mostly an overview of the evolution of the language (Dari; Farsi being the Arabic for Parsi, which in turn derives from the name of a southwestern province of present-day Iran; etc.) and of different verse forms. Just as it is difficult to present Elizabethan verse by stating that sonnets have fourteen lines, grouped together according to the poet's approach, and containing either the Spenserian or other rhyme schemes — without providing any examples —I think it would have been more relatable if snippets of Persian verse had been given. But there is not that much time to do that; besides I copied down two of the titles from the reading list and looked up the first; this led me to read up on al-Mutanabbi, but he is not, I think, Iranian. What did interest me particularly is that the Persians seem to have been using rhyme since before the 9th century AD, whereas if I remember English literature properly it only popped up around the time of Chaucer (so the 14th century) in Britain.

On Friday morning there was the Greek prelanguage course, where we read the first chapter of a book which I remembered from last year, and a classmate from that year and I held a discussion about the difficulties of the other Greek courses. I still tend to be rather sleepy (because the classes usually take place at 8:30) but it is a nice class and it's reassuring that it isn't in Greek.

Then I went to the bookshop, where I wrote the professor an email setting forth the practical impossibility of pursuing the Greek studies this year according to suggestions which the professors and the department have made.

Then I returned for the first year Greek conversation class, which was largely in Greek. A fellow student read out a summary of a text, which she had written, and I didn't understand a thing except "1941" and "Mussolini"; and then the professor talked about Macedonia and also mentioned 1941, and that was basically all I understood in that hour. If there are proper nouns to latch onto, I can figure out what the subject is, but everything else is doubtful. Some words I wrote out and then looked up in the dictionary. Then we were given a satirical poem which she read, and the more experienced classmates understood it and found it funny, and I only knew what was going on when she went through it and translated the unknown words one by one. Then she gave two different homework assignments, one for the experienced (maybe four or five) and another for the inexperienced (another three or four) students. It was confusing and I didn't like being shut out of much of the class; while on the other hand I had to recognize that the professor was making an effort to accommodate us. It's not that I don't remember and didn't learn a great deal last year, it's only that I would have to know three times that vocabulary to get along.

In the evening I had the modern Greek history class, where we were given texts in German and Greek, specifically about the Phanariotes(?) who rather precariously climbed into the elite and served as interpreters and even margraves(?) in the Ottoman Empire, named after the city quarter Phanar in Istanbul. I came in a little late, and the class switched from Greek to German after I entered, but if the other students were irritated by the necessity they didn't show it. Sometimes the professor talked in Greek with the other students, if they asked something in the same language, but he was often comprehensible to me and would switch back eventually anyway; besides I guess it is comforting to feel considered and not feel dumb.

Anyway, it's all been kind of stressful

A Happy End and Halloween

I finished my essay on Monday, in the evening, and since then have been taking it easy because I was quite exhausted. There are certain advantages to finishing these things before the start of the new semester, observed Papa, and I agree.

Yesterday evening we celebrated Halloween well. J. and Ge. dressed up, and I wore my Scottish tartan skirt which is more of a compromise than a costume; and five groups or so came by and were allowed to dip into the enormous bowls of candy which Ge. and J. had bought. (I had bought some too, but the licorice spirals and vitamin fruit gummies, for instance, were consumed last evening.) There was plenty left for us, which rounded out the experience.

Other than that, it's been quite cold and the really dark skies with thick clouds and a charcoal-grey colour at their bases have begun pulling through. The plane trees are still quite green, and so are a couple of the trees, even if they have lost most of their leafery.

Soon I will have a lecture on Persian literature, so this is a very brief blog post. (c:

An Obscure Rant on the First Byzantinian Folk History Lesson

This morning I went to my Greek class with my professor from last year, and it went reasonably well although I had forgotten to take along my grammar book and although she was speaking in Greek for much of the time.

Then I went to the bookshop where two books were bought by separate customers, one person returned a book since his children already had it, one lady chose a book and didn't buy it since the credit card machine wouldn't recognize that a chip existed in either of the two cards she tried, the post delivery man left a package for a neighbour, two gentlemen came in looking for a book I didn't have at hand, someone from the house management firm came by, I had dropped my key inside my purse so that I fished for it even though J. (who was guarding the shop) waved me through the open door, and last but not least, two or three plumbers went in and out to address a massive overflow into the cellar thanks in part to an ancient pipe. The plumber who explained what was wrong afterwards was polite to me, but obviously not impressed.

At home I had enough time to watch the Daily Show with Jon Stewart, and then I was off to university again for a course in Byzantinian vernacular literature. By this point I had been up for almost twelve hours.

IMAGINE my surprise when I entered the class and, by and by, professors came in as well as the students. Since the professors were youngish and I thought that my professor may have shown up to provide moral support to a new teacher, it was a great surprise to me when I thought, 'Finally the professor has shown up,' and then he wrote out his name . . . and it was the name of the department head! It turns out that the first part of the lesson was allotted to an introductory event of the Greek faculty.

By this point I was incredibly grumpy, since I hate introductory events, cheerleading for upcoming university courses or semesters, and particularly being forcibly friendly and 'cool' with fellow students — when I think that the ideal relationship with a fellow student is to barely exchange a word during the entire year and then be happy to meet each other again by surprise. Besides I want to focus on the darned academic matter.

Anyway, the professors were introduced, we students were each supposed to say what our minor's programmes were, I refused to make eye contact and therefore got away with not answering; and then I had no chance to wriggle out of it when the department head asked us each to give a little background on ourselves, specifically why we were studying Greek (which is admittedly a reasonable question, but one whose answer is mostly boring for fellow students except if the answer is that one wishes to join a cult whose text is the untranslated New Testament). Besides I have to finish my essay and have no time for distractions!!! The structure of the bachelor's programme was elucidated, and then the professor contingent and the prelanguage course students left; and the actual class began after a short interval in which I read one of the most rebellious sections of the Autobiography of Malcolm X with a great deal of sympathy although my grievances were much more trivial.

As in a different course this morning and on Tuesday, because there are students in the incoming year who have actually gone to Greek schools and speak it amongst each other — whereas my classmates from last year wouldn't dream of it and like me exert themselves considerably to proffer two or three credible sentences at a time — some of the class was conducted in Greek!

As a person who sat in many a class where I inconveniently knew a little too much, like a German class in Canada and an English class in Germany, I did my best not to inconvenience my classmates or demand anything. I was bored and it didn't improve my working habits, but I dealt with it because otherwise I could have just knuckled down and learned extra grammar or whatever so that I could be put in a more difficult class. Besides I thought that some things would be new and in fact they were; and I don't think everything always goes the way one would like it and that it's useful to learn to handle that.

Such masochism should be widespread!

Anyway, as Mama also pointed out, the language immersion should be helpful. But it drives me mad that I, after only one year of language instruction, am being asked to keep up the same level as someone who has lived in Greece!!!

On Tuesday my saintlier reaction to this state of affairs was to begin listening to a Greek news video on a semi-daily basis again — not because I understand more than half of it but because it helps to have the language in one's ear. But today, muchly enraged, I surmised that I could passive-aggressively counterbalance the situation by coming in for extra help during my professor's office hour until the gaps of knowledge are closed and by taking up her time thusly practice a form of civil disobedience which neither Martin Luther King, Henry David Thoreau, nor Mahatma Gandhi would likely recognize. Ge. and J. were not much impressed by this unsaintly notion, either, so I am just going to enjoy the idea of it.

My Essay on the Moorish Science Temple, Part 2

Apologies in advance for the statistics salad which this part of the essay has become. I will undoubtedly have to condense and beautify it in the German-language version which I hand in. It is also subject to small changes as my research, er, finishes progressing.

THE FOUNDER AND PROPHET of the MSTA, Timothy Drew, was born in North Carolina, on January 8, 1886, by his own account. Greensboro is mentioned as his birthplace; it was a town of some 2,100 inhabitants at the time of the 1880 Census, with a long history of settlement including of the Quakers — First Lady Dolley Madison was born in present-day Greensboro in 1768 — and with its own War of Independence battle in 1781. During slavery it was a station on the Underground Railway; the abolitionist businessman Levi Coffin opened a Sunday school for slaves in 1821 which was however swiftly suppressed; during the Civil War, it was Confederate territory. Its population grew steadily; in 1910 it encompassed approximately 15,895 souls.

Photo: Drinking at "Colored" Water Cooler in Streetcar Terminal,
Oklahoma City, Oklahoma (July 1939)
By Russell Lee
From Library of Congress, prob. public domain

The south at the end of the 1800s was plagued by Jim Crow laws, segregation, and lynching,¹  as it would continue to be until the 1950s. The Emancipation Proclamation had been passed in 1863, but so was the segregationalists' legal cornerstone Plessy v. Ferguson in the Supreme Court in 1889. There were serious miscarriages of justice, like the Scottsboro case in 1931. As far as voting rights were concerned, even in 1957 a Mississippi teacher — an African American — who tried to register to vote had obstacles set in his path. Then he was informed that the attention of the Ku Klux Klan had been drawn upon him, so he was under police protection for a time.²

There were continued attempts at procuring an education and establishing businesses, likewise in the north. Even before Booker T. Washington founded his National Negro Business League in 1900, there were thousands of African American businesses. Only two banks numbered amongst them, but by the end of the decade the quantity was 'nearly fifty.' A minuscule fraction of African Americans had also gone to college by 1899 (1,914 in the thirty-four black institutions and 390 in white ones, which included prestigious institutions like Bowdoin and Oberlin colleges; and women were among them). Newspapers proliferated and, in a few cases, had over a hundred thousand readers.

American culture of the turn of the century, and later, certainly facilitated the success of African Americans in the arts, if only in spotty fashion. Sidney Poitier, for instance, was only nominated for an Academy Award in 1958, after a lot of cinematic water had gone under the bridge.

My Essay on the Moorish Science Temple, Part 1

Current or former MST location in Chicago. Taken by Google Street View, April 2009

***

I DECLARE it does appear to me as though some nations think God is asleep, or that he made the Africans for nothing else but to dig their mines and work their farms, or they cannot believe history, sacred or profane. I ask every man who has a heart, and is blessed with the privilege of believing—Is not God a God of justice to all his creatures? Do you say he is? Then if he gives peace and tranquility to tyrants and permits them to keep our fathers, our mothers, ourselves and our children in eternal ignorance and wretchedness to support them and their families, would he be to us a God of Justice? I ask, O, ye Christians, who hold us and our children in the most abject ignorance and degradation that ever a people were afflicted with since the world began—I say if God gives you peace and tranquility, and suffers you thus to go on afflicting us, and our children, who have never given you the least provocation—would He be to us a God of Justice?

—David Walker

DuBois, W. E. Burghardt. "The Talented Tenth."  in: Washington, Booker T., et al. The Negro Problem. Mobile Reference, 2009. Web. [Google Books]

IT'S not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.

—Barack Obama

"Top 10 gaffes in presidential campaigns." SFGate.com. Web. 13 Oct. 2012.  [http://www.sfgate.com/news/slideshow/Top-10-gaffes-in-presidential-campaigns-49242.php#photo-3472619]

 ***

If you seek out the places where the religious community Moorish Science Temple of America is or was once located, by present-day virtual means, you are often transported into disconsolate environments.

These tend to be urban ones: names of shops are painted onto signs and awnings by hand, the antiquish false fronts would fit perfectly into the Wild West, the street is fissured or seamed by dark tar strips, a quadrangle of grass grows where a house was torn down, old-fashioned sedans are parked alongside the road, in extreme cases the roof is dilapidated so that it must be drenched during rain, industrial terrain is immobile, windows of houses down the street are nailed shut with boards, and the shop or house itself has grates in front of the windows and door to ward off theft and violence. A casual search for an address in Pittsburgh leads to local news of three shooting deaths within two years in front of one bar, and one in Fayetteville in Georgia leads to a police blotter.

Therefore it seems, also if one reads of the history of the Temple, that to arrive at the truest picture of the origins and present state of the Moorish Science Temple's congregation, one must endeavour to understand its socioeconomic context, formerly and currently. Many aspects of the doctrine and mythology, and all of the internal politics, of the Temple will come short in this essay, also because even scholars dispute what information is fact and which fiction¹; while Chicago is particularly focused upon since it can serve as a microcosm of the industrial north.

_______
Google Street View. Web. 7 Sept. - 13 Oct. 2012.

Sherman, Jerome L. "Does bar play a role in violence?". Pittsburgh Post-Gazette 22 Nov. 2009. Web. 30 Sept. 2012.

"Rockdale Blotter - 10/29/10." Rockdale Citizen 28 Oct. 2010. Web. [http://www.rockdalecitizen.com/news/2010/oct/28/rockdale-blotter-102910/]


1 Even the year of the founder, Noble Drew Ali's, death varies depending on the scholar.
Pinn, Anthony B. Varieties of African American Religious Experience. Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress, 1998. 215. Web. [Google Books]
The Illinois State Archives have a death record for "Timothy Drew" on July 20, 1929; and the African-American newspaper, the Chicago Defender (the image is credited to a "Defender Staff Photographer"), apparently ran a photo of "Noble Drew Ali"'s funeral. The caption mentions that he was buried at Burr Oak cemetery, where his headstone bears the date "1929."
"Prophet Noble Drew Ali's funeral." Moorish Society. 4 Apr. 2012. Web. 29 Sept. 2012. [http://moorishsociety.com/2012/04/04/prophet-noble-drew-alis-funeral/]
Illinois Statewide Death Index. Web. 2 Oct. 2012 [http://www.ilsos.gov/isavital/idphDeathSearch.do Search for "Drew" and "Timothy."]
"Noble Drew Ali." FindAGrave.com. 1 Feb. 2005. Web. 13 Oct. 2012. [Link]
So the year 1929 — not 1920 — seems plausible.

[P.S.: Really not so fond of the new MLA formating, which I am using for all my footnotes and which looks very different from what it did back in 2005 when I last applied it to university work.]

Notes From the Essay-Path

Last night I read the first part of a long history of Chicago's parks, particularly on the South Side, which I found extremely interesting and which has made me look at streets in a different way. Basically the idea is that the early magnates and city government of Chicago were privy to the fairly new arrangements of Haussmann in Paris, which served as an inspiration to the new streets; and that the same Frederick Law Olmsted who planned out Central Park in Manhattan and Prospect Park in Brooklyn wanted to have boulevards as tree-beplanted 'tunnels' between parks. Since at that time the traffic was horsedrawn and pedestrian, the grandest boulevards seemed to consist of several different tracks; and it was only in the 1890s where asphalt and electric street lamps came into use. The question with the streets is how to arrange the drainage, prevent excessive strain on the surface, and stay aesthetically pleasing; for a while cedar wood paving was used on some roads and 'blast furnace slag' was one possibility for the gutters. The streets' forerunners were sometimes Native American trails, navigating through surer and less swampy soil, and one or two avenues which joined the park district later were pioneer plank streets. I liked the other trivia, too — that a gas lantern had 8 to 10 candlepower or something, whereas the electric lamp had 2000. Lastly, the park management on the West Side was clearly hugely corrupt, but at least in this report the management on the South Side looks highly respectable.

The whole point of the exercise is to have a contextual sense of urban development during the 19th and early 20th centuries, which may seem beside the point of my essay, but which isn't particularly as the socioeconomics which might bring forth religious groups are its focus. So I have read much more of the Autobiography of Malcolm X, for instance, but I don't think I will bring the Nation of Islam into the essay aside from mentioning that it is partially the legacy of the Moorish Science Temple's .

For the purposes of an essay it's self-defeating, but like during the last semester I keep on wondering what Truth is in relation to history. The basic question is, how can I write something which someone who is affected by the subject which I am writing about would recognize? I don't know all the time which facts are true and which are important. So I use instinct and I consult different sources from different perspectives in different disciplines. Obviously this takes longer, but I dislike feeling sloppy and mendacious.

Besides, I think that the principles and the historiographical ideas of the Moorish Science Temple are easily found enough, and that these are moreover fluid and open to interpretation by different followers and perhaps closed to interpretation by the skeptical outsider. The organization and its degrees of power don't interest me very much either, because they seem to me to be 'ersatz' for something else. So I want to take a very concrete approach, make something clear of the events like the Great Depression and the New Deal and the First World War, the formal and informal minutiae of segregation, and the evolution for instance of Chicago; perhaps something of the general religious foment if I manage to bring my investigation of the prominent branches of Christianity in the first half of the 20th century to a reasonable point; and still, I guess, in an authorial manner, capture some of the individual human drama.

In short, this is all overly ambitious, but it kind of sweeps one up in its breadth and historical momentum.

***

Anyway, right now I am at the bookshop, and it has been a quiet morning thus far. I went to sleep after 5 a.m. last night and woke up before 9 a.m., so I feel a little hollow-eyed. But this is definitely preferable to my original notion of remaining awake the entire night.

A Poem on Fieldmouse Fodder

 I wrote the original draft of this poem on November 26, 2008 and have thought of posting it several times because I like horse chestnut trees and it comes to mind sometimes when the seasons change. Some of these things are observed but I have no idea if fieldmice eat chestnuts. It's not a very good or original poem in my opinion, so I include it more for its atmosphere.

***

Its winding roots are dipped
into the clayey chilled soil
and the wetness of dark water
blooms and seeps around their threads;
grasping rock, enclosing pebble,
cleaving through the fundament.
Anchored there, the trunk swells stoutly,
rough and grey and boldly tall;
and grows athwart in hefty branches,
stalwart perches for a nest.

*

IN SPRING, its fuzzed and pale leaf-buds
curl up to the bald cool sky.

In summer, the palmeate rays of green
raise sprinkled towers of rose-flecked blossom
from these drift the lightsome petals
wandering over brooding grass;
and weigh with lazy dignity
in lonely clump on shadowed fields, —
or burst with power, a tree of life,
amidst the tomblike secluded domain
of some distressing cobbled yard.

In autumn, shrivelling as if by flame
of scorching sunsets, lit the world
as from a hidden fiery pool,
crowns of spikes, crowns of cruelly
slaughtered verdure;
spindly-tipped maces whose fresh green thorns
harden, whose casket breaks asunder,
whose milkwhite flesh grows soft and dies
as the dark-pearled nut
is unhusked and left to lie,
a treasure exposed,
to insects, fieldmice, squirrels, and men.

In winter, melancholy,
lofty twig and branch untenanted,
ordered flurry of raindark twigs,
gently scaled and bronzy tips
which promise much in coming springs,
and skeleton with tangled ribs
where birds alight, and hide, and sing.

Live-Blog of the Pacified Ogre

To be honest, I'm not working on my essay intensely today, since I feel scatter-brained and like my concentration needs a rest. I have a bad conscience, but I want this to be a 'complete' essay and for that I want to keep researching different aspects and keeping a thoughtful pace until everything falls into place. Besides, I want to be accurate and not lie about anything except if all of my sources are at fault and so there's no way I could know that it's untruthful. Anyway, this should be a leisurely live-blog.

1:09 a.m. I'm foraying into general American religious life in the early 20th century and have discovered a census from 1951 which lists denominations, the numbers of their churches or synagogues or other houses of worship, and the numbers of their members. Now I'm looking up the churches which were listed on Wikipedia. I expect some invigorating sensationalist reading; some of the first words I read were "speaking in tongues." It is really fun to be reading about a subject for a long time and partly overcoming pretty dry texts, and then to start reading tidbits which are as stimulating and striking as anything fictitious.

1:36 a.m. "Eschatological." I've seen it before and have no idea what it means.

1:38 a.m. "The wicked will not suffer eternal torment in hell, but instead will be permanently destroyed." Merciful Heavens!

1:42 a.m. Note to self: must read New Testament to see if Jesus in fact cared what clothes people wore.

2:49 a.m. Washing of feet! (Not mine; it's a practice within the church I'm reading about.) The "anointing of oil" also reminds me of the anecdote, courtesy an old New York Review of Books article, about the ex-Attorney General John Ashcroft, a ceremony, and vegetable shortening. Or, indirectly, about the time my mother taught Sunday School and we made a tincture of hyssop steeped in alcohol. I was wondering why I couldn't remember the sermons in the church, and now I realize that it was because I wasn't always in the room then; I was in the basement with my age peers learning about the trinity or about Lazarus instead, in an ecumenical way since I'm baptized Catholic and the church was Protestant. (Obviously I'm in a reminiscent mood.)

3:38 a.m. Snake-handling.

4:16 a.m. Re. eschatology: oh.

5:09 a.m. I'm tired and will thus go to bed soon. (c:

The Ogre Tackles An Essay

This time I am trying a live-blog of my History and Culture of the Near East essay again, not this time because I am effervescing past the brim with joyful discoveries but because I am gnarled with grim chagrin and tired besides. On principle persons who slept perhaps five hours the night before with a degree of choice should not complain, but I feel so monumentally grumpy that one might as well celebrate it.

5:42 a.m. I am looking up the streets of extant Moorish Science Temple buildings on Flickr, and there is an overenthusiastic photographer who has uploaded millions of photos of Manhattan and Brooklyn, which end up in my results page even if I am researching an entirely different city. Every time this Thing comes up again, and the blast-durnded street address isn't even given when in fact it *is* relevant, I have been intoning the F-word very loudly in my head. Brevity is the soul of wit, said Pope (or I think Shakespeare, first), and many have said since his time that less is more.

6:25 a.m. The Flickring is done and I am going to sleep! Longer liveblog, perhaps, tomorrow. Must rest before I turn into a zombie and begin to prowl for cerebellaceous fare.

Kirkpatrick and a Du Bois-Washington Debate

Yesterday and the day before I went on a grand cooking venture, so today I have been using up part of the remainder of a generous bunch of mint, picking over excess parsley, and wondering at my own indefatigability evidenced by my making a potful of rice pudding sometime between lunch and dinner today.

After sleeping in I began to reread the Autobiography of Malcolm X, with an eye to using it as a source in my Moorish Science Temple essay. The Temple itself has not been mentioned so far, but perhaps its insights into the Nation of Islam might be useful. When I was a teenager I found the events in it a bit brutal and the language of the narrator very stern, nearly up until the end. I was also a little annoyed that he hinted at a great deal about the Nation of Islam but neglected particulars (good aspects, bad aspects, internal politics, etc.) — now I suspect that he simply refused to draw the FBI a map. Rereading the earlier bits now, his boatloads of just resentment are still striking. From my own perspective, I think that his still-festering wounds were poisoning him and as far as the culprits (misguided welfare workers, benevolent classmates and reform school leaders and so on who would not recognize him as his own intelligent person, etc.) were concerned it was pretty useless to point the wounds out to them in public; most of us simply aren't interested in rattling the skeletons in the closet of our conscience. As a self-portrait and as a narrative with which young readers can identify, I think his childhood as described in his autobiography works well; as a massive Yom Kippur schedule of everyone he's known, not so well.

Last evening I watched videos with Itzhak Perlman on YouTube, inspired by his visit on the Colbert Report. While clearly much prized by people who know these things better than me, I didn't think before that he had any strikingly idiosyncratic style; but his two pieces on the Report woke me up to the fact that his playing is excellent and full of character, and even if the interview was a little awkward the the music fit into the show perfectly, so now I am a convert.

During the past week I played the cembalo now and then, a thorough round of fugues and preludiums from the Well-Tempered Clavier being good fodder for a brooding mood, and I could admire again their inexhaustible character. What is kind of fun is to experiment with the very curious sound of the instrument itself, particularly with the different levers, and then to play things in an uncanny witchy way like Wanda Landowska does with pieces like something by Couperin on YouTube which frankly terrifies me a little. There is something about decadent creepiness in church-like music that makes me kind of mad for religious reasons, because I think it is like death-worship or a richly rotting waste or a pagan mass or something of the sort. Which sounds kind of Puritan, but I have not reached for any pitchforks yet; it simply means that I like finding a bit of fright but try not to go the whole hog. As for 'role models' at the cembalo, I did a search for something by Ralph Kirkpatrick since I read part of his Scarlatti biography in an autodidactic mood in the mid-2000s, besides which his name appears in some sort of advisory or supervisory capacity on some of our scores. It turned out to be an excellent idea because (at least this was my strong first impression) he has a lovely intelligence and command of detail and depth.

Regarding university, I went to my professor's office to review my exam and we came to the conclusion that I must review my grammar before the next semester. My professor and the department secretary drew up the letter which states that I have satisfactorily attended the course and its exam. Then, last morning or perhaps the morning before that, the letter came with my student identification for the next year. So everything is all set, except for my Moorish Science Temple essay, for which I have been reading a little Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. Du Bois, and being driven up the wall a little by Mr. Washington. One choice sample is a passage about how "backward" he finds Bushmen, while I have held much the opposite stereotype: a self-sufficient and proud group, sophisticated in their hunting techniques and their culture — how many still live in the countryside, though, I don't know. Another is his baby-with-the-bathwater claim that higher education is making young African-Americans useless; they should humbly learn and practice some craft (wheelwrighting, etc.) so that they may accumulate a little property and thus earn the respect of the white community. !!! Of course it's lousy of me to be annoyed that he isn't politically correct enough, but his opinions are clearly indicative of extensive brainwashing by the pale elite of his time, and there's no need to be so patronizing. Du Bois then ridiculed the wheelwrighting philosophy with a gunpowder momentum which made me feel rather better again.

My Notes of Sept. 5th Democratic National Convention Day, Part VI

N.B.: I have not run a fact check on some of the Democratic speakers' claims. If I'll do, I'll amend these 'minutes.'
N.B.B: This is, at last, the final installment of notes for this convention! Next night I might even sleep more than three hours instead of being discommoded by the time zone differences. (c:

11:26 p.m. Antonio Villaraigosa. Chant: We are fired up! Nomination seconded by everyone roaring "Yea!"

Ashley Judd at the ABC's Missing
@ The Paley Center 2012,
by Genevieve.
April 11, 2012.
via Wikimedia Commons,
(Licence: (CC BY 2.0))

Alice Germond, secretary of the committee, calls the roll of the states. We know that every state counts and that every vote is precious, she says, apparently criticizing treatment of Ron Paul delegates in Republican Convention. California has 609 votes, 37.5 million people! I like the secretary, who could be a benevolent figure amongst the magicians' faculty of Hogwarts. Dr. Joseph Lowery speaking for Georgia! [Besides being a civil rights activist and minister, I've just seen that he is the person who incorporated the in, my view very funny, mellow/yellow, etc., line at the Obama inauguration.] The young Iowan speakers are pretty endearing. As Mississippi passes to Ohio, Obama receives enough votes for an official nomination. Music: "Celebration Time" as a screen says "Over the Top!" 384 votes for New York State. Puerto Rico: land of Sonia Sotomayor. :) Is Ashley Judd announcing Tennessee (home of Grand Ole Opry) 's votes? [A certain online encyclopaedia states that she "earned a Mid-Career Master in Public Administration degree (MC MPA, a one year degree, not to be confused with the more rigorous two-year MPA) from the John F. Kennedy School of Government," in 2010, before mentioning that yes, she is a political activist.] She looks lovely. Vermont: "first state in the union to outlaw slavery," says Sen. Patrick Leahy. Virgin Islands, which has 12 votes. Virginia: home, for instance, to Gabby Douglas. Washington State. Wisconsin. etc. I've boiled this all down considerably, because this took a very, very long time.

My Notes on Sept. 5th Democratic National Convention Day: Part V

N.B.: I have not run a fact check on some of the Democratic speakers' claims. If I'll do, I'll amend these 'minutes.'

Elizabeth Warren, con'td.:

She "grew up on the ragged fringes of the middle class," her father was a maintenance man, her brothers went to the military and moved on to other jobs, she was a waitress at thirteen and then an elementary school teacher and now a mother and grandmother 'married to a great man.' Hails the opportunities of America. A bit of agitation against "Wall Street CEOs" who arrogantly demand taxpayer handouts despite their reckless handling of the economy resulting in terrible losses. Generally an argument for equal economic opportunity. "I got mine; the rest of you are on your own": her interpretation of the Republican ethos. 'Corporations are people': — I haven't written this down perfectly — 'no — people have hearts and they have children, they live and they love and they die; and that matters.' Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, survived by grace of President Obama's steadfast support in the face of enormous corporate opposition. No to "free ride" and "golden parachute." Main Street/Wall Street talk. She was a Methodist Sunday school teacher, too, and quotes "Inasmuch," which also cropped up in the Republican convention.

10:31 p.m. Antonio Villaraigosa: introducing Bill Clinton, via a film treating him a little like a rock star and mentioning the Clinton Global Initiative as well as his presidency and its economic triumphs. High enthusiasm for Bill Clinton.

10:34 p.m. The man himself. Loud cheers for characterizing Obama as man who is "cool on the outside" but burning with fervour for America on the inside; and "after last night," the man "who had the good sense to marry Michelle Obama." He recapitulates the dire picture which the Republican National Convention speakers drew of the Democratic economic philosophy, then says that "We're all in this together" is a better philosophy than the Republican "You're on your own."

Hate of far-right Republicans for Obama and some Democrats is in his opinion unprecedented. (Chelsea Clinton is there too!) Says that understandable frustration in hard times may make for good politics, but cooperation leads to good policy. Despite this extreme climate, Obama deserves encouragement because he is "still committed to constructive cooperation." Cheers for Joe Biden for his role in that cooperation. Praising Obamas' support for serving military, veterans and their families.

Criticizes prioritizing putting Obama out of work to putting people in work. Dissects Republican economic platform and says that is identical to or worse than Bush-era policy which got America into the current situation. Banks are beginning to lend again, house prices beginning to pick up again, but economic recovery has not been felt by many yet. But no president could have "repaired the damage that he found in just four years." Clinton mentions cutting greenhouse gas emissions! Student loan reform: fixed low percentage of income for up to 20 years. It means that college graduates can still take low-paying jobs like teaching or police work.

Clinton explains parts of health care law which have already gone into effect, e.g. extended family coverage for young people, insurance for people with preexisting conditions soon to arrive, 80-85% of health care premiums required to go to payer's health care instead of to company profits or premiums. "Raid" on Medicare was no such thing; it was a reappropriation of money that was being misused by health care providers to close a loophole. (I don't know what that means precisely either.) Says that under Romney's proposed policy, Medicare would end in 2016 due to bankruptcy. Seriously criticizes proposed cuts to Medicaid: nursing home care, care for people with disabilities — autism, Down's syndrome, etc. — as well as services to poor people will be diminished.

Rebuts welfare work requirement (which Clinton helped legislate into being) claims of Republican campaign ads, quotes Republican pollster who said that he wouldn't let the campaign be run by fact-checkers, jokes that "Finally I can say: 'that is true!'" About the economic plans in general, says that "arithmetic" is the distinguishing offering of the Democrats.

Then the speech ends, and Barack Obama comes out to shake hands and hug.

My Notes on Sept. 5th Democratic National Convention Day: Part IV

N.B.: I have not run a fact check on some of the Democratic speakers' claims. If I'll do, I'll amend these 'minutes.'

8:42 p.m. Sister Simone Campbell, nun who is travelling while protesting Ryan budget on behalf of fellow Catholics. Cites Council of American Bishops' disapproval. "We are all responsible for one another. I am my sister's keeper. I am my brother's keeper." Says that poor people who are struggling to support themselves need help; they should not starve, and they should not die of undiagnosed conditions because they don't have the funds to visit a doctor. "This is part of my pro-life stance, and the right thing to do." "Listen to one another, rather than yell at each other," she says at a very loud volume. I find it kind of friendly and, I guess, organic when non-politician speakers make little errors in following the teleprompter and don't pause when the audience drowns them out.

8:50 p.m. Cheers greet the governor of Delaware, Jack Markell, who begins by hailing Joe Biden. Talks somewhat oxymoron-ically about Mitt Romney's 'roots.' Says he is a businessman, too; was at Nextel (and later at Comcast) and is a self-declared capitalist and believer in private equity (like Bain Capital's work); but he believes one should learn the right lessons. Romney concentrated on the wellbeing of his shareholders, and therefore focused on the bottom line; but in government this approach is detrimental. And outsourced jobs and unemployment when companies are driven out of business are a huge problem for others. I found this kind of convincing.

8:58 p.m. Karen Mills, Mainer of the Small Business Administration. She's a little like a besuited professional in a commercial and makes as many hand gestures as our very own Chancellor Merkel. She seems to be emphasizing that the Obama government is not nannying small businesses, but simply improving the ambient conditions so that they can thrive.

(Film which I missed due to Nutella bread break. *N.B. I am not paid to advertise a certain chocolate-hazelnut spread.*)

9:05 pm. Chipper craft beer brewer from Virginia, Bill Butcher, speaks in praise of Obama's measures for small businesses.

9:07 p.m. "California's State Attorney, Kamala Harris." Talks about the legal fundament of America and its ideal role in preventing the kind of activity which leads to financial crises, denial of rights. She says that letting mortgage foreclosures run their course, as Romney apparently suggested, 'is. not. leadership.' Refers to credit card company regulations to keep gratuitous fees in check. Speaks for American Dream.

Film on immigration. Obama thinks letting illegal immigrants' children nationalize is also 'good for our security.'

9:16 p.m. Benita Veliz, graduated student, speaking in favour of Dream Act. She introduces:

My Notes on Sept. 5th Democratic National Convention Day: Part III

N.B.: I have not run a fact check on some of the Democratic speakers' claims. If I'll do, I'll amend these 'minutes.'

Film with Obama speech about changes in health care, and about women's choices in their contraception.

Cecile Richards at the 2011 Time
100 gala.
April 27, 2011
by David Shankbone
via Wikimedia Commons
(CC BY 3.0 Licence)
Use maybe restricted due to
personality rights.

8:05 p.m. Elizabeth Bruce has endometriosis, was tentatively diagnosed by a nurse with Planned Parenthood after her doctors thought that her pain symptoms were only psychosomatic, and guided to a doctor who gave her an operation; thereby she was eventually able to have a daughter. Reaffirms importance of Planned Parenthood in providing women's health care for the poor.

8:08 p.m. Cecile Richards of Planned Parenthood. Paul Ryan, Todd Akin, etc. focus on denying women's rights even though they are purportedly focused on the important question of the economy, she argues. Points to role of contraception in improving higher education rates and life expectancy since Planned Parenthood was founded in the previous century. Mad Men reference. 3 million people come for Planned Parenthood services annually. Mentions God. Contributes to the compendium of American folksy sayin's. Loud applause for her mother, Gov. Ann Richards, and she tears up a little, as do members of the audience; apparently she (the mother) was friends with Obama. Rather militaristic in her mannerisms, but indubitably staunch in upholding her causes.

8:17 p.m. Representin' elderly white men, although a trifle afflicted with the Boehner-tan (what Silvio Berlusconi might call bronzato), enthusiastically: Representative of Maryland and Democratic Whip, Steny Hoyer. Quotes Jesse Jackson, says that Republicans' priorities are out of order: these would rather see Obama out of office than address crucial problems in America. Says that Democrats' stimulus spending averted second Great Depression. Talks about a January where 800,000 jobs were lost — since this is in the wake of the Christmas commercial season where employment can be expected to peak, this is a little of a weaselly statistic, I think. Says that war expenditure is incompatible with fiscal responsibility. Paul Ryan fib mention by inference!!! He is wearing a flag pin. "God bless every American, and God bless all of you!" he concludes. Chant of "Four more years!" in the audience. Hoyer seems like he's a fun conversationalist.

Film: Vietnam War veteran and organizer of charity (Aleethia = 'truth' in Greek?) for wounded soldiers, from Virginia. In his opinion, Obama cares; "you can hear it in his voice when he says: 'Welcome home.'"

8:28 p.m. The veteran, Ed Meagher, speaks, about helping veterans not to feel ostracized for their visible injuries and their military careers generally. Refers to G.I. Bill, which I think was also a Republican initiative (McCain?). Mentions risk of suicide, which I think is kind of brave since it's evidently not a visible and not necessarily a socially accepted injury.

8:31 p.m. Eric Shinseki, General (ret.) and Veteran Affairs Secretary. Admires Obama's "devotion to veterans," says that they bonded over World War II service of their parents' generation. 'Finest military in the world.' Mentions 'warriors,' which always makes me think of Mel Gibson in furs askew and big blue stripes on his face, going "rawrrr" and fumbling with a sword whilst running on a hill with his fellow Celts. Talks about 'historic expansion of treatment for PTSD and traumatic brain injury.' Probably not enough, though, since I have read articles about how unsupportive the military still is about "shell-shock." "President Obama is determined that we will repay our debt to them. God bless our veterans! God bless our president!", etc.

8:35 p.m. Governor of Colorado, John Hickenlooper. The intro music really is strange. He talks about the wildfires and the tragedy in Aurora, a trifle too briskly in my opinion. Mentions 'bickering' again. Says that his state's Republicans work with him, unlike federal congressmen with Obama; pokes fun at Mitt Romney's tax return disclosure-lessness. Talks about improvement in tourism and agricultural exports and development of natural gas and environmental energy resources. Also, in beer industry. Says he was laid off in 1986 recession. Co-started a business. 'Like so many other businesses, it was not only me, it was we.' City development loan, investments from friends helped him. An example of communities coming together to help each other. Mother: single mother of four children, said that you can't control what comes at you, but you can control how you respond. Praises Obama for 'finding hope where there was none.' Shout-out for being "fellow skinny Democrat with a funny last name."