Sunday, April 30, 2006

The Weekend: a little of this/a little of that

1. The Book. "River Sutra" by Gita Mehta. I usually like novels set in India. The setting is normally just exotic enough, and the characters distinctive. But this novel is not really a novel. It is more like a series of short fables, told by pilgrims of all faiths wandering up and down the banks of the Narmada River. The central character is an Indian high level government bureaucrat who leaves his post and takes up a much easier one in the quiet Narmada country, where he runs a government inn for travelers and pilgrims. So, the book is like Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, with Moslem, Hindu and Jain travelers telling their fairy-tale like stories, all of which have a similar theme. I used to be very different from the way I am now, but the world was too much with me, so I decided to leave it all behind. Worth reading? Not really.

2. The Play. See yesterday's blog.

3. The Restaurants. Mixtec, a low-key Mexican restaurant in Adams Morgan (stick with the baked cheese appetizers) and Cafe Luna on 17th and P (soup and a salad; guess what? it was excellent).

4. The Book Sale. Arlington Library's spring sale, always a big one. Didn't get there until today at noon (it opened Friday), but the big book I found was "This I Cannot Forget" written by Anna Larina, Bolshevik Mikhail Bukharin's widow. After a life no one should have to lead, she wrote this book when in her late 70s (she was much younger than her husband). It was published in the 1980s. Larina signed the book (in Russian). there are no signed copies on ABEbooks.

5. The Rally. The Dafur rally on the mall this afternoon drew a large crowd (I would guess 30,000 to 40,000, but the estimates I have seen so far are not that high). Many speakers; most repetitive. But you have to admire those who are trying to do something. 200,000 people dead. 2,000,000 displaced. Unknown numbers attacked and raped. Still going on. Best speech that I heard: Al Sharpton. David Saperstein of the Religious Action Center spoke well. I would say 1/3 or so of the rally attendees were members of Jewish groups. This is probably OK--the motto is, after all, 'never again'.

Saturday, April 29, 2006

Angels in America/Devils in Germany (3 cents)

We just saw "A Bright Room Called Day" (an impossible to remember name), Tony Kushner's first play, performed by the Rorschach Theater Company. Hannah acted as dramaturg and assistant director.

It was a very ambitious project for this relatively small theater company, operating out of a church off 16th Street that itself seems quite impoverished. The play takes place on the stage in Germany, in 1932-1933, and on the screen in America in 1984-1985. The live action follows a group of leftist/Communist friends who see their dream of a Marxist uprising in Germany and a united front againt Fascism turned upside down as Hitler comes into, and consolidates power. The screenplay follows the ravings of Zillah Katz, who seems to fear the Ronald Reagan is almost as bad. (What would she think of George Bush II?)

I thought the play was well done, but it is a very wordy play, and takes almost three hours from curtain to curtain. It gives you a lot to think about both as to how difficult it is to determine which negative trends in governmental policy are truly worrisome, and which are likely to pass, and as to how differently different people react to them. It shows how much can depend on one individual (in this case Hitler), and provides interesting thoughts about why the Germans reacted to him as postively as they did.

Is it the most enjoyable play ever written? The cleverest? The fastest moving? No. But it does provide a worthwhile evening of theater.

Thursday, April 27, 2006

Another Disappointment

I went to hear Sebastian Junger talk and read about his new book about the Boston Strangler tonight at Politics and Prose. It was quite disappointing, and I know that the review of his book have been mixed.

I do not know much about Junger. His bestseller was "The Perfect Storm", which I have not read.

The strangler, Albert di Salvo, worked at the Junger house in Belmont MA when Junger was a child and while the murders were taking place. This gave him a connection.

But, he says, the story is really about "reasonable doubt". What is it? How do you measure it? How do we know that we know what we think we know? Not only as a murder case juror, but throughout life?

He does not present particularly well, and he does not convince you that he has a lot to add on the subject of reasonable doubt.

All I could think of was O.J. Simpson. Why does everyone assume (know) he was guilty?

Another Extraordinary Young Woman Leads an Extraordinary Life (1 cent)

Having read about Roya Hakakian in Iran and Zainab Salbi in Iraq, I have now come across Yelena Khanga in Russia, and her 1994 memoir, Soul to Soul (or dusha k dushu).

Listen to this: Her maternal grandmother was Jewish, born in Warsaw, emigrating to the U.S. with her family as a young girl. Her maternal grandfather was African American, originally from Yazoo City, MS. Both interested in leftist politics and Communism, they decided to put their money where their mouth was, and moved to the USSR in 1931. It was there, in 1934, that her mother was born, an African American in the USSR, who became the Russian authority on historic African music. And she met a Muslim from Zanzibar, who left her shortly after their child was born to move back and become independent Zanzibar's first vice president. Shortly thereafter, he was murdered.

Yelena grew up with her mother and grandmother. She was one of the few native blacks in a white society. She was very bright, had perfect pitch, became Moscow doubles tennis champion, and went to Journalism school at Moscow State University.

She knew little about her grandparents. Her grandmother, who was ostracized by her family when she married a black man, did not talk about her Judaism. Her grandfather died at 53; Yelena never knew him. She knew nothing about Zanzibar.

She knew a lot about the USSR. And because her mother was an important figure in Moscow intellectual society, she knew many of the important Russian literati. Her mother had remarried Yegor Yakelev, editor of the Moscow News. And, because she was black, her mother knew the leftist blacks of the world, including Paul Robeson and W.E. Dubois.

In 1985, during the Yeltsin years, the first exchange of journalists between the USSR and the USA was arranged, and Yelena flew to Boston. She was, of course, fluent in English. As a result of this trip, she began to explore both sides of her American family, and eventually met her 92 year old grandmother in Zanzibar.

What a fascinating story.

And the story is only part of the fascination of this book. Yelena Khanga has a totally new and fresh perspective on race relations, and racially based assumptions, that will add much to your understanding of this important topic, and help you (I think) work through issues today.

Wednesday, April 26, 2006

Front Page WSJ (1 cent)

Yesterday.

1.

"When he was 22 years old, Loren Davis bought 75 chairs from a funeral home and opened his own fundamentalist church next to a Hells Angels bar on the Houston docks. Someone shot out a window once, he says, but nobody ever came in to hear him preach.

"Every Sunday for three months, Mr. Davis stood before the empty seats and preached the Gospel as if he were Billy Graham in a packed stadium. Finally, he recalls, his mother showed up and, after listening to her son's solo sermon, suggested he find another career."

It turns out that Davis is now an evangelizing success in Africa, where there are currently 95,800 "long-term" missionaries preaching.

With 95,800 Christians with Bibles, and even more Moslems with scimitars, what's a poor African to do?

2.

Italy (surprisingly) might be the cleanest country, and household product advertisements fail there is they promise time-saving efficiency or ease of use. 80% of Italians iron all of their laundry and only 2% use cleaning wipes.

3.

Air Canada has realized that you can't make money off flying airplanes, so they are turning their main task into a loss leader and concentrating on all the side tasks that most airlines fan out.

Having flown Air Canada.........

4.

Ken Lay says that it was the media and underlings who brought down Enron.

Sort of like saying, "yes, I helped push him off the cliff, but it was the gravity that caused him to fall."

Tuesday, April 25, 2006

I Just Must Be Dumb (1 cent)

From today's New York Times (with my annotation):

For thee billtion years, life on earth consisted of singled-celled organisms like bacteria or algae. Only 600 million years ago did evolution hit on a system for making multicellular organisms like animals and plants. (so far, so good)

the key to the system is to give the cells (whatever that is) that make up an organism a variety fo different identities so that they can perform many different roles.

So even though all the cells (whatever they are) carry the same genome (whatever that is), each type of cell must be granted access to only a few of the genes (whatever they are) in the genome (whatever that is), with all the others permanently denied to it.

People for instanc,e have at least 260 differnet types of cells, each specialized for a different tissue or organ, but presumably each type of can activate only some of the 22,500 genes in the human genome.

the nature of the system that assigns the cells their various identities is a central mystery..........

They have discovered a striking new feature of the chromatin (huh?), the specialized protein (what is that?) molecule (huh?) that protect and control the giant molecules (who are they?) of DNA (what is that?) that lie at the center of every chromosome (whatever they are).

I am just dumb. But, for years, I have failed to understand any of this.

Sunday, April 23, 2006

And It's a Good Thing that I Read it All (21 cents)

Not "The Emperor of Ocean Park", but David Grossman's "The Zig Zag Kid".

Grossman is an Israeli journalist/novelist who, despite his American sounding name, writes in Hebrew and is published here in translation. I had never read anything by him, and found a signed copy of this book at a used book store last week.

It is a novel, and a very unusual one. I am not sure if it was meant for an adult audience, or a younger audience. It is a coming of age fable, the story of young Nonny Feuerberg as he approaches his Bar Mitvah in the 1970s. (The book was written in the 1990s).

Nonny is sent out on an "adventure" by his father and his not-quite-step mother, a sort of scavenger hunt which starts on the Jerusalem-Haifa train, where one thing is supposed to lead to another. But it gets off-track, so to speak, very early, as Nonny is befriended by an older man acting as his guide, telling him that they are going to do woundrous things, and that he will be back home by Bar Mitzvah time. And, if he wants, he can go home any time he wants.

Problem is: this man is not part if the father's plan for his son, and the father (an Israeli policeman)puts out an APB, saying that his son has been kidnapped.

I don't want to give it away, but the adventures are exciting and not quite legal, and takes Nonny where he never imagined he could go.

For most of the book, I wondered why I was reading it at all. I thought it silly, but again I stuck with it (only half the size as the Carter book), and -- as coming of age fables tend to do -- everything turned out not only well, but exceedingly well. (Wish I could tell you more but, who knows, you just might read it.)

So, I think this is a wonderful book. What did it remind me of? Maybe Herman Hesse's Siddhartha. Maybe Coehlo's "The Alchemist". Maybe Yann Martel's "Life of Pi" (which I have not even read).

Saturday, April 22, 2006

I Can't Believe I Read the Whole Thing

All 657 pages of Yale Law School professor Stephen L. Carter's novel, "The Emperor of Ocean Park". But, I did.

The book is not totally uninteresting, but could have been edited down to half its size, and could have lost a third of its characters. The protagonist, Talcott (or Misha, called after Russian chess player, Mikhail Tal) is a law professor, whose father is a bitter, archconservative, African American ex-judge, who dies at the start of the book. The next 600+ pages show how Misha finds out just how bad his father really was, engaging in a conspiracy with a former colleague and present U.S. Supreme Court judge to fix cases for the benefit of large corporations controlled by one, single underworld character.

I can't believe I spent most of my evenings this week with this book.

I Can't Believe I Read the Whole Thing

All 657 pages of Yale Law School professor Stephen L. Carter's novel, "The Emperor of Ocean Park". But, I did.

The book is not totally uninteresting, but could have been edited down to half its size, and could have lost a third of its characters. The protagonist, Talcott (or Misha, called after Russian chess player, Mikhail Tal) is a law professor, whose father is a bitter, archconservative, African American ex-judge, who dies at the start of the book. The next 600+ pages show how Misha finds out just how bad his father really was, engaging in a conspiracy with a former colleague and present U.S. Supreme Court judge to fix cases for the benefit of large corporations controlled by one, single underworld character.

I can't believe I spent most of my evenings this week with this book.

Thursday, April 20, 2006

Do I Have This Straight? (14 cents)

On the White House lawn today, as I understand it, President Bush had just told President Hu (President Who?) that he should allow dissenters to speak. At that very instant, a spectator yells out unpleasant things about Huum (about Whom?)and his treatment of the Falun Gong members (a/k/a the "good guys"). The heckler, in a showing of how well we brook dissent, is carted off and arrested.

Hu's on first?

Tuesday, April 18, 2006

Lunch Time (3 cents)

Something about Passover makes you want to eat lunch early.

But I was on the phone, so in order to make the Tuesday concert at Epiphany Episcopalian I would have had to walk faster than usual, and even then I would be late. And, besides, did I really want to sit through a concert of Native American flute music, when the weather was so nice? (Not that I have any idea of what this music would sound like) With a pang of guilt, I decided not to go.

So, what to do? Remember, I was very hungry. I decided to get a salad at Cosi, and began walking up Connecticut Avenue, to turn onto M Street and go to 20th. Well, I guess I missed my turn, because before I knew it, I was all the way to the circle.

Then, I remembered that the books at Second Story's table were marked at $2 yesterday, so I thought there was a good chance that a new $4 shipment would be in today. No, the books were still $2, so I spent no time there. Besides, you recall, I was hungry.

So, I walked down 20th Street, past Eli's Kosher Restaurant (closed for the holiday without so much of a sign explaining why the door was locked and the lights off) to the 20th and M Cosi, where I dutifully ate my salad (reading sections 2 and 4 of the Wall Street Journal: how to get a job when you are over 50, what happens when your friend becomes your boss, Museum of Modern Art exhibit on contemporary Spanish architecture, and a few health related articles), having rejected the Cosi bread.

I left the restaurant feeling not quite fulfilled, so I decided to go to the Mud Hut at 17th and M, and get a cup of coffee. Probably the best and most consistently good coffee in the neighborhood (but as a lunch place, the restaurant's unusual menu has not changed in a decade, and many more tables are empty than filled), which I did.

It was too pretty to go back to the office, so I decided to cross 17th Street and walk east on M, past the National Geographic, and the Wilderness Society, and the NEA, and the American Chemical Society, and the Jefferson Hotel, and the American Chess Center and the Madison Hotel, and the Homebuilders, and the Wyndam Hotel, and Thomas Circle, where I had to detour to L Street because of construction.

I walked L Street to, I think it is 10th, where construction intervenes one more time (condominiums galore), and I went down to I and continued, with no destination east on H, where, opposite the Grand Hyatt as I walked along the site of the former D C Convention Center, I came upon a parade in support of Fulan Gong, and a very impressive one it was. Large two and three person banners in Chinese and English, claiming that the Chinese government was persecuting practitioners, putting them in concentration camps, and taking their organs and selling them (sometimes even before the prisoners have died). They tell a horrific, if true, story in a very respectful way. There were, I would guess, 30 or 40 banners. (As to whether the story is true, I had been reading about all of this in the weekly Epoch Times, but that paper has some connection with Fulan Gong, I think.)

There was also a large movie crew on the old convention center site. Trailers and trailers. Including a catering trailer and, by my count, a line up of 80 large bottles of water.

At any rate, after the parade ended, I turned south again and walked down to the DC library (what a depressing, and embarrassing place that is) and went in to see if there were any books for sale that interested me. (There rarely are here). And, the first book I picked up was Bill Gates' book on business practices in the 21st century, signed by Gates with a letter to a Congressman Johnson (not sure who that is, but will find out). Not a book that I will ever read, but for $2...........

Because time was growing short, I was going to take the subway back, but the weather was just too good, so I walked.

I had left my office about 12:15, and returned about 2:10. Not too bad. No concert, no museum. but not too bad.

Monday, April 17, 2006

A Movie, a Garden, a Play and a Game

Other than work, that is pretty much it for the last few days.

The movie: Crash, the academy award winner. It is very hard to watch because everything that happens is so awful, but it is very tightly directed and very strongly acted. And very much worth it. The story of race relations? Reallly the story of paranoia, with everyone afraid of everyone else: the Mexicans, the Blacks, the Persians (whom everyone thinks are Arab), the Asians. Everyone is there but the Jews. And out of their fear (sometime the result of past experience; sometimes the result of who knows what?), they do awful things to each other. And, everything they do affects everyone else, but they are all connected. A difficult movie. Definitely hyperbolic. But with more than enough truth to make it worthwhile.

The Garden: The Washington Arboretum, where the azaleas as all beginning to come out. Give it one more week, and go.

The Play: Bal Masque, the story of three couples who attended Truman Capote's 1966 Black and White Ball to celebrate the success of In Cold Blood. It takes place the night of the ball, after the party breaks up. And no one comes out of the experience whole.

Capote is never on stage, but he is the lead character, because he is like a puppeteer, selecting his friends, and manipulating them even when he is not physicaly present. Marriages will break up, self esteem will vanish, nothing will be the same.

The actors are to a person excellent; and Richard Greenberg, the playwright gives them his usual extraordinarily clever dialogue. He is a master.

Any shortcomings? Yes, the play ends with a short third act that seems not well thought out. Two of the husbands wind up on a park bench in the pre-dawn hours and discover that they are better off in a physical relationship with each other than they are with their wives.

The other Greenberg play that I saw, Take Me Out, was about a gay baseball player. So, I guess this is Greenberg's thing. Not quite forgiveable, but he is so talented that it can at least be overlooked.

And the game: Tonight's final Washington Capitals game, where they beat Atlanta 6-4, and ended a season with a very poor record, but which gave everyone much hope for the future.

Sunday, April 16, 2006

A Frenchman visits the U.S. (4 cents)

Alexis de Tocqueville traveled through the United States in 1831. He came ostensibly to examine American prisons, but it was really just an excuse to examine America and American democracy. After all, the American revolution seemed to be a political success; the French revolution was not.

In 2004, the Atlantic Magazine paid French philosophe Bernard Henri Levy to travel the United States. Sort of (but not exactly) a twenty first century de Tocqueville. Levy spent about a year roaming the U.S. He is no de Tocqueville, and his impressions are catch as catch can; they are not profound.

Levy is not a stranger to America. He had been here many times. He speaks English. And he travels in style, with a driver, in first class accommodations, with introductions to well known Americans (actually American men) in most of the places he visited. There are a few interesting pastiches - I especially enjoyed his treatment of his visit to the Black Hills and Mt. Rushmore. But generally, he stayed above the surface, and moved on too quickly (interrupting his trip for flights to political rallies across the country during the 2004 campaign, and once to take a quick trip back to France to see a new grandchild) from place to place. Yes, he spoke with Norman Mailer, and George Soros, and Morris Dees, and he visited prisons from Rikers Island to (would you believe it?) Guantanamo, but so what?

His conclusions are prosaic: The U.S. has people of various political beliefs. America was not as imperialistic as Britain or France. No position is all right, or all wrong. All Americans are not religious crazies. And so forth.

If you have not read this book, there is no reason to read it now.

Saturday, April 15, 2006

Passover Thoughts

Each year, reading the Haggadah raises new questions. Is this good, because it demonstrates the depth of the text and the tradition? Or is it bad, because it shows how silly so much of it is? The answer to that one is beyond me.

This year (having tired of thinking about how the glorification of the plagues is outmoded in this day and age of instant communication, when one can fly from Cairo to Tel Aviv in thirty minutes, and how the entire story of the escape from Egypt cannot help but hurt Jewish-Arab relations), I thought about other things.

For one thing, I was thinking about the "fleshpots of Egypt" that some people wanted to return to. I had always assumed that a fleshpot was like a nightclub, with girls and hashish (sort of like Studio 54), but an article I read said, 'no', the concentration should be on the 'pot', not the 'flesh', and that the fleshpots were the pots in which meat was cooked, which is just what the Israelites, who were stuck eating manna, would have wanted.

A new way of looking at this!! I had always been mistaken as to what a fleshpot was!!

So, I went to dictinary.com, and merriam-webster.com, etc. to get the precise definition: Studio 54 was a fleshpot.

Oh, well, so much for trying to learn more by reading.

In additional to fleshpots, I thought about time and place.

The Haggadah has apparently been pretty much untouched (except by the modern versions) since shortly before 900 C.E. And it was compiled in Babylonia by Amram Gaon, although much of it is based on much older sources.

So, here in Babylon (actually Sura), present day Iraq, Amram is telling the story of Abram (Abraham), who left present day Iraq with his family, and went to Canaan, where he was promised that the land would be the homeland of his progeny, who would be numerous, like the sand on the beach. And he is telling the story when Canaan, present day Israel, was under Moslem control, and there was no chance that the Jews would ever return there.

So, Abraham's journey (maybe 2500 years before the time of Amram) and the unwanted journey of Abraham's great grandson Joseph to Egpyt is told, as well as the escape from Egypt by the Jews some 300-400 years later.

And, of course, the famous discussion of the four rabbis (Jose, Akiva and the others), which would have taken place about 800 years prior to the compilation by Amram, when following the destruction of temple and the desolation of Jerusalem, some were plotting a further campaign against the Romans, the misplanned Bar Kochba revolt, during which Akiva was to be killed.

So the story goes through time, the last event having taken place almost 2000 years ago, and the first one taking place almost 2000 years before that, and having been compiled and put into continuing use over 1100 years go.

It is impossible to discount the importance of something like this in Jewish cultural and religious history, whether it appears today to be relevant, accurate, humane, or even well written and well organized.

So, while people can put together "freedom haggadahs" and "feminist haggadahs" and "vegetarian haggadahs" and anything else, I don't necessarily think this for the best. I think rather the traditional hagaddah remains the best of all, but that the use of the traditional haggadah without commentary would be the equivalent of the bible without commentary, bound to lead - in this day and age - to misunderstanding, to fundamentalism, and to isolationism.

Tuesday, April 11, 2006

Bonnie Kellert must be ecstatic

because of the standing ovation she received after today's solo piano concert at Epiphany Episcopal.

Four virtuoso pieces (19th century, many noted romanticism): Chopin nocturne, Mendelsohn theme and variations, Scriabin prelude and nocturne and Liszt waltz.

Only the last piece was familiar to me, but boy did I like the Scriabin. The nocturne portion is for the left hand only, but the lend hand sounds like (at least) two hands, and goes all up and down the keyboard (no, not glissando)

Passover

Once again, it seems like the first night of Passover will fall on the full moon. A continuing coincidence, or intelligent design?

Goldwater (11 cents)

This replaces my earlier posting, which did not do the trick.

Here is what I wanted to say:

In 1964, the Republicans nominated Barry Goldwater, Arizona senator, to run for president against Lyndon Johnson. Johnson won almost every state, in large part because even most of the Republicans thought Goldwater too conservative. Goldwater supporters were considered dangerous by most people, and in 1968, the Republicans changed course and nominated the very, very politically moderate Richard Nixon.

Goldwater had written a book in 1960, called Conscience of a Conservative, published by a small southern press (later republished many times), which laid out his political philosophy. I recently bought a signed first edition, and thought I would read it to see whether he seemed a radical in 2006 as he did in 1964.

The book is very short, and extremely simplistic and quick to read. I can see how it attracted the interest of so many people, who probably were not used to reading books of political thought.

His position is clear. An active federal government could easily become despotic. This is why the constitution left so much to the states. An active government at any level saps individuals of their individuality. This is why small government is better than big.

The role of government in defense is clear. He states that he is a firm supporter of equal opportunity as set forth in the 5th and 14th amendments. He believes in a strong social security program (suprise there) to give seniors sufficient (but not overly generous) resources by which to live.

But look at civil rights. He believes in one man, one vote (nothing by the way is said in the book about women, not suprising for the time), but he also believes that the constitution does not require integrated schools, and that this is a matter of states' rights. He himself, he says, favors integration, but who is he to tell what the people of Mississippi or Alabama want?
He is against democracy (too unwieldy, and likely to lead to dictatorship of the majority) and in favor of a republican system, which he says we have. But isn't an Alabama declaration of school segregation an exercise in dictatorship of the majority?

Presumably, if the constitution said to "integrate the schools", he would say OK. But, he said, when the 14th amendment was passed, the states who passed it maintained segregated schools, so you can't say that the 14th amendment requires integration.

He talks about federal spending, which he says, even in Republican administrations, grows consistently and is too high. But he warns against cutting taxes (which he generally is in favor of doing) without cutting expenses as being disastrous for the country.

He does not like welfare; he thinks that it contributes to classes of people growing dependant on the federal government, and then believing that they have entitlements, and their growth and development would be sapped for generations. In certain ways, he is correct, but he does not talk about any programs to assist those who really need it (other than through social security), such as those who are ill or disabled. He expects that, generally, everything will work out.

You can't fight mother nature. That's another theme of sorts. He says that equality of opportunity is important, but that nature endows people differently and some will fail and some succeed. He says that any attempt to equalize the results is doomed to failure.

He is very strong on education, but on basic, hard education, not the "progressive" education that was in vogue. And he is against any federal assistance to education, as leading to federal controls.

The final part of the book deals with foreign policy: Cuba and the Soviet Union. It says what you think it would. Carry a big stick, and don't give in. He is not all wrong in this area.

It was interesting to read. Some of the political issues today are, of course, different. But the philosophical issues remain the same. I should look at some of his last writing to see if he changed any of these basic positions as he grew into the role of beloved, elder statesman.

Sunday, April 09, 2006

Disappointment (and a subsequent pick-me-up)

I went in to see Thank You For Smoking yesterday evening with the greatest of expectations. But, boy, did I think it was a waste. Not really clever; not very funny.

The baked trout with cooked tomatoes and artichoke hearts at Arucola afterwords (and the glass of Chianti Classico) provided a good pick-me-up.

Saturday, April 08, 2006

Escape Literature

Books of no literary value, but which transport you out of your humdrum existence, is what you think about when you hear the term "escape literature", but this is not what I am talking about.

I am talking about memoirs written by people who have escaped from one place to another. People who had the misfortune to be in societies under political, social or religious dicatorships of one or another sort, who have escaped to societies free enough that they can write about their experiences and remain alive.

Holocaust books are one obvious category. Books about life under the Soviets, or under Castro are others. Today, the largest group of these books are being written by people who are leaving Islamic societies for western societies.

I have just read three of these books.

"Journey from the Land of No" is Roya Hakakian's story of her childhood and adolescence in Tehran. She is now a journalist in the U.S.

"Between Two Worlds" is Zainab Salbi's story of her childhood and adolescence in Baghdad. She lives in Washington.

"The Oath" is Khassan Baiev's story of his childhood and early adulthood as a physician in Chechnya. He lives in Boston.

These are three impressive individuals whose lives have taken them through extraordinary experiences. They are all still young (I believe each is in his 30s). They all grew up in places that were, for them, quite nice, until bad things started happening.

All three places are Moslem for the most part. Salbi and Baiev are Moslem; Hakakian is Jewish.

All were westernizing the in the late twentieth century. Chechnya as part of the USSR and then the Russian Republic as a commercial and oil center. Tehran under the Shaw, and Baghdad under Baathist leadership. But under the westernizing cover, something else was going on. Islam was having a difficult time adopting to a non-Islamic, secularizing society. The Shah and the Baathists and the Russians could only make these lands safe for westernization by operating brutal dictatorships, feeding resentment and need for change.

In each case, in Iran with Khomenei in 1979, in Iraq with Saddam Hussein, and in Chechnya, where they saw the Baltic States declare their independence upon the break up of the USSR, there was at first great optimism that nationalism and Islam (achieving control by anti-Western actions and words) would lead to a new and better and freer society. No one (at least none of these authors or their family or friends) thought that chaos was just around the corner; yet it was, and not in one place, but in all three.

According to Hakakian, even the Jewish community welcomed the exile of the shah and the entry of the ayatollah. A religious state had to be freer than a state which maintained its power through the thugs of Savak. But, step by step, the state grew narrower and narrower in outlook, diversity was oppressed, and the brutality of the shah was replaced by an equally brutal Islamicist brutality. Hakakian's middle class Jewish family, her father a respected teacher, was torn apart, little by little. A society where Jews were allowed to be Jews, yet associate with Moslems, was no more. Yet, with all of their troubles (and there were many), they got out. As one of her friends told her: "you're lucky, Roya. You're a Jew. Once you leave Iran, you'll get a visa to any country in the world. But where can I go?" And, she continued, "You must go. Go soon. Go and never look back."

Salbi's case was even more unique. Her father was a pilot for the Iraqi airlines, flying international routes. The family spent a month every year at Boeing in Seattle, where he receeived advance training. Her mother was from a family prominent in Baghdad for generations. They knew Saddam Hussein. And then, the unthinkable happened. Saddam asked her father to pilot his private jet. This was an offer you could not turn down, and it destroyed their lives. They lived well. They had advantages. They were given a weekend house on the estate where Saddam had his weekend house. He was a regular presence and guest. They all hated him. They all pretended to love him. They were afraid of everything, and of everyone.

Her mother wanted to leave. Her father said it was impossible. The marriage broke up. Salbi tried to escape into an engagement with a young man of very different background. Someone not of the Iraqi elite. It was a disaster. Then, her mother told her she found her a match, with a man 13 years her senior, from Baghdad, but who lived in Chicago. They were married; her was brutal. She left him. But it got her out of Iraq.

Hakakian became a journalist. Salbi started a non-profit organization to help women brutalized by war, and has spent time in Bosnia, in Afghanistan and, yes, even back in Iraq. They are both extraordinary individuals. And they have told their full stories.

Baiev fought to become a doctor, when there were quotas at Russian medical schools. He became a plastic surgeon, specializing in very difficult cases. He spent much time in Russia, learning (as he had not realized growing up) how much prejudice existed against Chechens. When the war broke out (not once, but twice), he felt he had to stay in and around Grozny to help the war wounded.

His story is grueling. He finally left and was given political asylum here.

These are three unbelievable stories. Yet there are thousands more, undoubtedly, similar to them. And there are millions of others who, like Roya Hakakian's friend, are unable to get out to tell their stories. They must live through these horrible times, or die in them.

There are terrible things happening in this world right now. And we can't seem to do anything (right) about them.

Play it again, Sam

Here I am sitting in my study with the Comcast Music Channel "Singers and Standards" on in the other room. I can see the TV through the open door, if I look to my right. And I am looking, every time I hear a singer who I think is particularly good (or bad).

So is it me, or the music? They play recordings by both contemporary pop and jazz singers, and those who performed from the 1940s or 1950s forward.

Whenever I hear someone, I don't care for, it turns out to be someone contemporary (with about a 50-50 chance that I know who they are). But when I turn because I think the performer is top notch, it turns out to be Ella Fitzgerald, Rosemary Clooney, Mel Torme, Frank Sinatra, Dinah Washington, Dinah Shore, and even Jaye P. Morgan.

Is it me, or the music?

Tuesday, April 04, 2006

Light Reading

What I wanted was light reading, so this weekend, that is what I read.

First, I read a first novel by Stephanie Kallos, called "Broken for You", published about two years ago. It was not bad, although I thought it went from barely believable to 'you gotta be kidding' towards the end. Basically, this young woman moves from New York to Seattle because her boyfriend walked out on her (and she knows he will wind up in Seattle) and takes a room with a very, very rich widow, who decides (in part because she has just been diagnosed with a brian tumor) to rent out a room and not live alone. The young woman is befriended by a young man she works with (they spend their time looking for the old boyfriend) and the older woman finds romance with an 80 year old man.

The young woman tells the old woman her story (parents each walk out on her, she is raised by an aunt) and the old woman tells the young woman hers (husband was a shipping magnate and importer of fine porcelain and glass). The young woman's father, a middle aged drifter, also winds up in Seattle working at a bowling alley, where he meets, among other people, an elderly Holocaust survivor.

The old woman learns that her husband's fine antiques were in fact stolen by Nazis from Jewish families in Europe, and on a trip to Paris, discovers that one set of porcelain belonged to an elderly Holocaust survivor, who turns out to be the woman who befriended the young woman's middle aged drifter/father. The Holocaust survivor dies.

The old woman discovers that a man who works at a bowling alley is the legatee of the Holocaust woman and invites him to her house to take the china service. He comes.

The house is now more crowded, because not only the old woman and the young woman are there, but also the young woman's new boy friend, and the old woman's new boyfriend. And a nurse (not registered) to take care of the old woman, and Kosher Katz, a caterer.

Oh, yeah, on one of the excursions to find the old boyfriend, the young woman gets hit by a car (her father, the bowling alley employee, witnesses the accident, but does not know it is his daughter). The daugher is paralyzed and in a wheel chair (but improves by the end of the book).

And, the old woman, discovering that her porcelain and glass is stolen property decides to replicate Kristallnacht and, over time, break it all, which the young woman helps her to do. The young woman, though, discovers she is an artist, and takes the shards of glass and porcelain and makes art work on Jewish themes (she is not Jewish)

Well, the father comes to the house to get the porcelain, meets the daughter and decides to move into the house, as well. Eventually, the father realizes he is the father, and the daughter realizes she is the daughter. And the old woman dies. And the young woman and the new boyfriend decide to get married, and Kosher Katz caters the meal, and they break a glass!!

When I finished that book, I wanted something even lighter, so I read, believe it or not, Maury Povich's memoirs, "Current Affairs", written about 15 years ago. If you thought that Maury Povich was a second rate host and newsman, the book will convince you that you are right. He was an indifferent student, who got by because his father was the sports reporter for the Washington Post and therefore he met everyone and because, as he says, he is very likeable.

The book details his early years as a journalist (when he realizes he won't ever be a network anchor). You note that he really doesn't get any stories (there is always someone else to do that) and he is just there being likeable. This continues, but his marriage disintigrates, he roams around city to city, meets Connie Chung, and eventually is hired by Rupert Murdoch of Fox fame and hosts Current Affairs, where they concentrate on the seemier (but not too seemy) side of things: crimes involving famous people and the like.

This is the story. I am sure that Povich is a nice guy. He does not seem to be an important individual, in that he was not the one who shaped the show, or anything else as far as I can see. He also shows that there were a lot of dirty tricks in his brand of journalism. Is that good? Perhaps. Perhaps not.

And did Current Affairs set the stage for the soft news shows we have today? Perhaps. Perhaps not.

Did I ever see the show? Perhaps. Perhaps not.

Have I seen Maury Povich on any subsequent shows? Perhaps. Perhaps not.

Would I recommend this book to others? Perhaps. Perhaps not.

What's So Hot About It? (2 cents)

Sometime early on Saturday, one of our smoke detectors started to ting. Not to clang, which would mean we needed to get out fast, but to ting. To me, a ting means that the battery must be replaced. Then it stopped tinging.

Later that evening, the tinging started again, so I did what anyone would have done. I grabbed a chair, climbed it, unscrewed the smoke detector, moved it to the kitchen, turned it over, and carefully removed the battery. To remind me that I needed to get a new 9-volt battery, I put the old battery in my pants pocket.

Sunday morning, at about 8 a.m., I put on a different pair of pants and transferred everything that had been in my Saturday pockets (including the battery) into my Sunday trousers. I left the house, and spent the morning doing a number of things about town, picked up my wife at 1 p.m. (she had been at a conference), went out to a leisurely lunch/brunch, went to three shoe stores, and drove home. It was now about 3 or so, and we immediately parked my car and sat down in my wife's car, a step preparatory to going to a local car wash, for our Volvo's 2006 treat.

We sat in line at the car wash only a short time, getting out at the vacuuming stand. We received a piece of paper showing that we were getting a Super wash, rather than either a Regular wash, or an Absolutely the Most Super wash, and (as my wife went outside to stand in the breeze and read a book), I got in the cashier's line.

I waited for the two people in front of me to pay for their washes, and reached the cashier, who told me the price. I thought about charging it, but changed my mind. I took out my wallet and a $20 bill. I needed 45 cents, which was in my left front pants pocket. I reached in the pocket, which contained my car keys, change and the 9-volt battery. I touched the battery and almost yelled in pain and surprise.

The battery was unbelievably hot, like it had just been taken from a fire. I couldn't hold it. I had to wrap it in paper.

The question is: what caused it?

A chemical reaction that I should have known about? A first time occurrence? A supernatural visitation?

Anyone know?

Monday, April 03, 2006

Do you have the time? (2 cents)

at three seconds after two minutes after one o'clock on the 5th of April, the time will be 01.02.03.04.05.06.

so there

Sunday, April 02, 2006

Bumper Stickers of the Week

Both seen on Friday:

1. Where are we going, and what am I doing in a handbasket?

2. You are getting too close. I am not that kind of a car.

And.....

lawn sign seen on Saturday:

House for Sale
With Owner

Suddenly, It Was Too Late!!

I forgot and now have to wait six months.

I wanted to stay up last night, turn my computer on, and see the clock automatically adjust itself to daylight savings time.

How does it do it? Is it 1:59 and then 3:00? Is it 2:00 and then 3:00? Is there a lag? Does it give you warning? Does it give you a chance to reject daylight savings time?

Wait 'til October.