City of Djinns

Chandni Chowk (2005)

Delhi ... was full of riches and horrors: it was a labyrinth, a city of palaces, an open gutter, filtered light through a filigree lattice, a landscape of domes, an anarchy, a press of people, a choke of fumes, a whiff of spices.
--William Dalrymple, City of Djinns (Prologue)

So the ancient Indian capital appeared to writer William Dalrymple when he first visited the city as a youth of 17.  In his 1993 book of travel and history, City of Djinns, Dalrymple writes of his year living in Delhi, as a married man, several years later. 

I've visited Delhi only once -- before and after a trek that I went on with Pascal, the teenage son of family friends, through the Indian Himalayas of Ladakh.  We were there in August 2005 -- a fine month for mountain trekking, an appalling month to be wandering about in the heat, humidity, and chaos of Delhi.

Nevertheless, the city was fascinating.  We walked long distances from one monument to another, and took tuk-tuks where distances were unwalkable.  We saw a lot.  What we lacked, however, was context.  I knew that the Muslims and the British had each once ruled Delhi, but that the city was now part of a Hindu nation.  I knew of the calamities and dislocations resulting from the 1947 partition between India and Pakistan.

Beyond that, like perhaps most Americans, my sense of the city was fuzzy.  After our first day wandering about, I might well have written something in my journal echoing Dalrymple's confused impressions as a 17-year-old.

Several years after his teenaged introduction to the city, Dalrymple, recently married, returned to Delhi, rented a ramshackle room from an interesting Sikh couple, and began shuffling about the city, trying to figure it out.  From that experience, City of Djinns evolved.

Dalrymple is an outgoing and adventurous sort of guy -- he wrote In Xanadu, which I discussed in June 2015, about his attempt as a Cambridge student to replicate Marco Polo's travels from Palestine to Beijing.  He likes people, has a talent for languages (he speaks, for example, Hindi, and seems to have some knowledge of Persian), is comfortable with persons from every station in life and enjoys listening to their talk and ideas.  And he has an enviable sense of curiosity, one that sometimes leads him to cloister himself in a library for days on end seeking the answer to some obscure question, and at other times to search barren land for some trace of a city that an ancient saga indicated might have once existed in that area.

Delhi is a palimpsest, an area on the Jumna river that one invasion after another tried to wipe clean of earlier civilizations -- but never completely succeeded.  (Indians claim that only with the help of djinns could the city have been reconstructed after each of its many destructions.)  Working backward from the present, Dalrymple shows how partition radically changed an Urdu-speaking Muslim city to a city filled with Hindus and dominated to some degree by energetic Punjabi Sikhs.  In the years before partition, the British had built a modern New Delhi -- adjacent to the old Delhi -- filled with architecture that was a fusion of Western classical and traditional Indian styles.  Similarly, each chapter leads us back further -- to the Muslim Mughals who brought Persian languages (like Urdu) and civilization, to pre-Mughal blood-thirsty Hindu tyrants, and back ultimately to the legendary times described in the great Hindu sagas.

But Dalrymple does not impose on us a dry summary of Delhi history.  We learn Delhi's history as a by-product of Dalrymple's adventures in the modern city, the people he meets, the weather that appalls him and his wife, the foods they eat, the disturbing sights that he happens upon.  Dalrymple's book is presented as "the cool year my wife and I spent in Delhi"; the history is the medicine we swallow -- always willingly -- along with the sweet syrup.

My only complaint with the book is a complaint I also had with In Xanadu: Dalrymple is an amateur student of architectural and art history.  We often hear far more detailed descriptions of rather obscure monuments than we can absorb.  It's tempting to skip over those portions of the book -- with which the late chapters are especially filled -- but it's better to read the book as a whole, as the author intended, and do one's best to follow his discussion.

Also, Dalrymple uses many Hindi and Urdu and colonial British expressions (and common contemporary Indian idioms) in his text.  Some were defined by my Kindle dictionary, others could be deduced from their context.  But I wish I hadn't waited until I'd finished the book to realize that he has appended a very extensive glossary of terms at the end of the book. 

I'm ready for a return to Delhi -- not to experience the city as Dalrymple did, which would be impossible without his background -- but to visit the Red Fort, the Viceroy's Palace, the Chandni Chowk, all the many tombs and other monuments, with some understanding of who build them, and why, and the historical reasons for their being where they are in today's Delhi.

Rampart Ridge

Monday, I did something of a speed walk to the top of Mt. Si, trying to make a better showing than I had earlier in the summer, as reported here on June 26.  (I succeeded, bettering my time by six minutes.)  Since then, I've noticed a pain in my back, above my left hip, whenever I walked uphill. 

I wanted to continue preparing for my short trek in Crete, a month from now, but not at the price of worsening any injury.  So, today I selected a hike that would include uphill hiking, but not one as stressing as was Mt. Si.

From my Rainier National Park guidebook, I selected the Rampart Ridge loop trail, starting and ending at Longmire lodge.  The trail ascends about 1,200 feet to Rampart Ridge, north of the lodge, continues eastward along the ridge until it meets the Wonderland Trail (which circles Rainier), and then descends again via the Wonderland Trail back to the lodge.  The loop is about five miles in length which, together with the moderate elevation gain, seemed to make it an ideal candidate.  And today proved an ideal time for it -- the first moderately cool day we've had in the Northwest in some time.

To reach the trail, you cross the highway from Longmire, where the "Trail of the Shadows" begins.  This is a nature trail, and also a trail that reveals and explains the remains of various structures from the "ancient" (nineteenth century) history of the Longmire settlement.  The trail loops one mile around the edge of a small lake.  I began walking the nature trail counter-clockwise, but you can reach the beginning of the Rampart Ridge trail a bit sooner by walking clockwise.  The point where the trail takes off from the nature trail is clearly marked -- and, in fact, the Park Service has done an excellent job with its signage at every junction I passed.

The Rampart Ridge trail proper commences with a lengthy series of moderately steep switchbacks -- about the same steepness as the typical climb on the Mt. Si trail, but with a far more forgiving trail surface.  You are not in danger of twisting your ankle on rocks with every step, as you often are climbing and descending Mt. Si.  The climb is through beautiful, dense, old growth timber.

Eventually, the trail becomes more horizontal as you approach the ridge.  You get one look down a very steep cliff on the north side of the trail, but the ridge then becomes broader and all you see are trees.  I had hoped that the ridge itself would be above tree-line, at least part of the time, so I could observe Mt. Rainier and other peaks while hiking.  But it's not.  At one point, about 1.7 miles from the start, you walk into a clearing with an impressive view of the mountain -- which was partly concealed by a cloud today (see photo). 

You then continue walking -- still on an excellently groomed trail -- nearly horizontally for another 1.2 miles, until you intersect the Wonderland Trail.  Another set of signposts suggest more ambitious destinations ahead, if you choose to walk eastward on that trail -- Pyramid Peak Camp (1.7 miles), Devil's Dream Camp (3.9 miles), Indian Henry's (5.0 miles).  I felt my hike was nearing its conclusion all too soon, and was tempted to head eastward at least some distance, hiking to destinations that post-hike research reveals as magnificently alpine.  But I recalled my reasons for choosing this hike originally, and stuck with my conservative plan.   

From the intersection, I therefore turned the other direction and followed the westbound Wonderland Trail down -- fairly steeply in places -- to the highway, crossed the highway, and followed a path parallel to the highway another quarter mile back to Longmire.

Not a terribly ambitious hike, but enjoyable.  And my back?  Didn't bother me a bit while hiking, either up or down.  Hasn't bothered me since I returned to Seattle. 

Of course, I did take some Tylenol before and after the hike.  So maybe I cheated.

Balkan Express

A modern photo of refugees
on a Macedonian train -- but
it shows how we felt!

After publication of my last blog entry, two days ago, crazed fans have been begging me to expand on my reference to my 1961 trip, via "Balkan Express," from Belgrade to Athens.

By "crazed fans," I refer to my sister.  I thought she would know all about the experience, just from absorbing our family's oral traditions.  But I'll refresh her recollection.  Memories do fade over 55 years, however, especially when not reinforced by any written letters or journal entries that I can locate.

As I mentioned earlier, three friends and I, left to our own devices in Belgrade, decided to take the train to Athens.  In those days, few people bothered with reservations.  You simply bought a ticket and hopped on the next train.  Like riding the subway, and -- as with the subway -- if there weren't enough seats by the time you scrambled aboard, you stood.

We stood.

At the time, all European passenger cars consisted of a series of compartments, each seating eight passengers (in second class), with a corridor running along one side of the car.  When there were no seats, you stood in the corridor.  The train stopped frequently.  The passengers were not, for the most part, Western tourists -- they were Yugoslavian country folk and poor workers.  Tito's Yugoslavia was no doubt a socialist paradise, but not quite yet a developed country.

The train reached Skopje, in present day Macedonia, and stopped.  A train today covers the route from Belgrade to Skopje in ten hours.  It was certainly longer in 1961.  Our train not only stopped in Skopje, but stayed stopped.  No explanations were given.  No encouraging words were provided.  The train's toilet facilities were not available while stopped in the station, for reasons left to your imagination.  The station WC consisted of a room with a large concrete floor.  At the far side of the room was a hole in the floor.  Many, many people had used the facility.  Few of them had bothered to make it to the hole.

We still had no seats.  When not using the WC, we stood in the coach aisle or, most of the time, sat on the aisle's filthy floor with our knees tucked under our chins.  We four were not, by any means, the only occupants of the aisle.

We remained stopped in Skopje for at least twelve hours, anywhere up to 24 hours as I recall.  My subconscious has repressed some of the details.  But eventually, the fabled Orient Express pulled into Skopje, and we were transferred to that train.  The Orient Express had sadly declined since its golden days of Agatha Christie fame.  But it had seats -- every one of us had his very own seat.  Padded seats.  And the only repulsive odors in the cars of the Orient Express were the ones we brought with us on our own clothing.

The Orient Express proceeded to Thessaloniki, across the Greek border, whence the majority of the carriages continued east to Istanbul, and the rest of them -- we students included -- went by separate engine to Athens.  I don't even recall crossing into Greece -- I think I slept most of the way to Athens, where we arrived early in the morning.  How many mornings after leaving Belgrade?  I have no idea. 

On arrival, we quickly found a cheap hotel and then immediately headed on foot to the Acropolis.  As I noted in a letter home, it's great to be young.

Train fans may be interested to know that  a modern "Balkan Express" operates today between Belgrade and Istanbul, with sleeping facilities and dining car.  This train follows a route through Bulgaria, stopping in Sofia, rather than south through Skopje.  From the on-line photos, any resemblance between it and the Balkan Nightmare Express of my memories is limited to the fact that both operated on rails.  There is also a Belgrade to Athens route -- temporarily suspended for track maintenance -- that requires a change of trains in Thessaloniki.

And finally -- a marvel undreamed of in 1961 -- within the next two years, a high speed train running at 200 km/h (125 mph) will begin service from Thessaloniki to Athens.

Athens

Before meeting up with my trekking group on Crete on October 1, I'll spend three nights on my own in Athens, reacquainting myself with a favorite city that I haven't visited for 37 years.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, this will be my fourth visit to Athens.  I first visited it in 1961, as an overseas college student.  Our school had completed a field trip to Belgrade, after which we were free to do whatever we wanted for several days before classes resumed in Florence.  Kids headed in all directions -- Vienna, which still had a Graham Greene-esque Cold War appeal, seemed a favorite destination.  But three classmates and I chose to hop the Balkan Express to Athens.  The Balkan "Express."  The horror, the horror!  But that's a story for another time ...

In 1961, most Americans really didn't visit Europe unless bundled together on an American Express tour bus -- and then only to the "safe" precincts of Western Europe.  So much the better for us.  Back then. the Acropolis was just a hill covered with ruins.  You wandered up, climbed all over the Parthenon, took  photos of each other leaning against the columns, stayed as long as you liked.  Now, I understand, it's an "attraction" for which you -- along with huge crowds of fellow tourists -- pay a hefty admission fee. And it's "look, don't touch."

In any event, we were in Athens for only a day or so.  But in 1970 -- older, presumably wiser, certainly scruffier in appearance -- I returned with a backpack for a stay of several weeks in Greece.  About a week of that time was spent in Athens. 

If I had been somewhat aimless in my sightseeing while a college student, nine years later I was much more definite in my interests.  I had developed, I thought, a good feeling for the history of ancient Greece, and of ancient Athens in particular.

Why?  Well, I'd taken undergrad courses in Greek history. But mainly because I had read and re-read, like a bible, what may well be the best fictionalization of the Greek classical period ever written -- The Last of the Wine, by Mary Renault.  Ms. Renault is perhaps most famous for a trilogy of historical novels reconstructing the career of Alexander the Great.  She also wrote two novels -- discussed in posts I wrote last winter -- attempting to ground the legend of Theseus in some form of historical reality.

In her Alexander novels, she dealt with an historical figure about whom much is known.  In the Theseus novels, she constructed an entire pseudo-historical reality based on shadowy and often inconsistent legends.  In The Last of the Wine, she was less interested in interpreting the life of a person -- real or legendary -- than in helping the reader understand a city and civilization, its politics and religious beliefs and culture, and its people.  She succeeded masterfully: If the Athens portrayed in her book isn't a perfect portrayal of the actual fifth century Athens, it's probably as close as anyone could come, in popular rather than scholarly form, given the historical record available to us.

The book is narrated by a fictional young Athenian in the late fifth century B.C., from his first memories near the beginning of the Peloponnesian War to the defeat of the Thirty Tyrants about thirty years later -- the period during which many of the most famous Athenians were alive and kicking -- Socrates, Plato, Xenophon, Alcibiades, Kritias.  To me, as a tourist, my reading of The Last of the Wine -- which I carried in paperback in my backpack, along with my trusty Greece on $5 a Day -- was my introduction to ancient Greece, and my inspiration for the places I planned to visit.

Fascinating places I would never have thought of visiting -- like the hill of Lycabettas -- became my destinations because of their place in Mary Renault's story.  I was the proverbial country hick, wandering around a big city, starry-eyed because he was seeing all the places he had read about in books.  And I loved it.

So, many years later, I'll return to Athens.  My small hotel is in the Plaka, in the shadow of the Acropolis.  Swooning less this time, no doubt, but still filled with an eagerness to gain, so far as possible in the two or three days I have available, a better understanding of Athens -- both the city as it is today, and the city that provided so much of the foundation of our Western civilization.  

(And I still have that dog-eared Mary Renault paperback. I'll be reading it again before I leave.)
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I've been to the Acropolis three times -- each time at sunset when it was balmy and golden. The second was my tour-book visit. The others were just for mood and daydreaming. I think I could visit it indefinitely and never tire of it. The last time, I walked down to the Areopagus after they chased us off the Acropolis, and watched the light fade and the lights come on all over the city -- and the Son et Lumiere light up the Rock. Everyone around me was French, and their voices were like music in the warm late twilight. The Areopagus is a gathering spot for young people -- some with guitars. I've walked by it at 11 p.m. and seen its silhouette serrated with heads staring off across the city.
--Journal, July 27, 1970

Little Men

Tony in acting class

When the evening temperature in Seattle hovers at an uncomfortable 90 degrees, there's nothing like a 7 p.m. movie in an air conditioned movie theater to improve one's mood.  Especially when the movie's shown in a luxury class Sundance theater.

And so, after reading rave reviews, I went to see Ira Sach's film Little Men.  Read the reviews yourself.  The New York Times, the New Yorker -- and a 96 percent favorable critics' rating on Rotten Tomatoes.  I'll just add my cheers.

Briefly, the story takes place in a gentrifying area of Brooklyn, where Brian (a "not that successful" actor) and Kathy (a psychologist) have inherited a building with a residence upstairs and a business downstairs.  The downstairs is occupied by a dress shop run by a friendly, hardworking, but taciturn seamstress and proprietor, an immigrant from Chile, played absolutely magnificently by Pauline García.  Brian discovers that his father had been renting the shop to her for years at a rent far below market.  He and his family move to the Brooklyn building from Manhattan.  They intend to put the rental back on a rational business footing.

The couple have a son, Jake, and the renter has a son Tony.  Both boys are 13.  Jake is an introverted aspiring artist; Tony is an extraverted aspiring actor.  They bond almost instantly into a touchingly close friendship.  The actors playing the boys are also outstanding -- playing their parts with a high degree of early adolescent energy, with humor, with deep sincerity, and ultimately with pathos. 

They dream of starting high school together at La Guardia high school, a highly selective public school near Lincoln Center specializing in the visual and performing arts.  After several halcyon weeks together, however, zooming around Brooklyn on scooter and skates, their parents begin trying to pull them apart as relations over a new lease quickly become strained.

All the adults act reasonably from their own points of view.  The parents of both boys are loving and proud parents.  But the devastating effect of their business quarrel on the two boys is low on their set of concerns, certainly far lower than their concern over the amount of rent. 

The end is predictable.  We see Jake, a year older, alone, painting at La Guardia.  Tony has disappeared, presumably slipping with his mother into a poorer neighborhood with less demanding rents.  Jake's eyes light up for a moment in an art museum when he spots Tony visiting with a group from school.

Tony doesn't see Jake. He walks away.

Ira Sach's direction is perfect.  The acting by all actors blew me away.  The photography of the adults, of the kids, of Brooklyn, is beautiful and striking.  Brian acts in a Chekhov play within the movie, and the movie itself has been described as "Chekhovian." I hope the subtlety of the script and of the acting doesn't doom it with today's public.

I left the theater pensive, sad, but pleased with my investment of a couple of cool hours in overheated Seattle.
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(8-26-16) The film was shown in Seattle for seven days at one theater. It then disappeared, most likely to reappear eventually in the world of Netflix. My hopes for its popularity have been apparently dashed.

No longer a "society"

Folio Society's Beowulf

Everything changes and nothing stands still.
--Heraclitus

All things do come to an end.  I suppose it only seems like it's usually the "good things" that we lose.

I received an email today informing me that my membership in the Folio Society would come to an end on September 1.  In fact, everyone's membership would end on that date.  The organization will simply publish books and market them to the general public after that date.

I had been a member since 1980.

What is/was the Folio Society?  In simplest terms, I suppose, it was a British book club.  But to me, and probably to most American members, it seemed more like a small, fraternal organization for the promotion and enjoyment of fine books -- "fine" in terms of both literary excellence and physical attributes.  Joining as I did, just out of law school, it seemed to provide a link between me and all those imagined virtues of educated Englishmen, virtues that attract an American Anglophile as flames attract moths.

The Folio Society was born in 1947.  It was thus 33 years old when I joined it for the 1981 calendar year.  I have thus been a member for more than half of the Society's life in post-war Britain. 

In August of each year, the Society sent out a prospectus listing planned publications for the following year.  At the time I joined, and for many years thereafter, one book was published each month.  You were required to order in advance at least four books each year to maintain your membership.  As a member, you also received a quarterly literary journal containing articles about forthcoming publications, and various publication bonuses for maintaining your membership.

What was unusual were both the titles published, and the format of the books.  Let me give you as an example a list of the titles I selected for my first year:

Evelyn Waugh, Black Mischief
Robert Graves, Goodbye to All That
Guy de Maupassant, Une Vie
Greville's England
Thomas Bewick, My Life
The Pastons, a family in the Wars of the Roses
The Poems of Catullus

With the possible exception of the Waugh novel, I suggest these are not selections that you would have found offered by Book of the Month Club or the Literary Guild, here in America.

Similarly, the prospectus emphasized the printing and binding of each volume.  For many years, the Society pledged to use letterpress printing, rather than offset or more modern methods, wherever possible -- like a record club vowing to provide recordings on vinyl, rather than CD.  The bindings were beautiful, and, in years before my arrival, often odd to the point of amusing even the Society's stolid fans.  But the books overall were of the highest quality, and made excellent additions to my library.

Gradually, however, the modern world intruded on this paradise.  The books remained -- and still remain -- excellent in every respect.  But they became increasingly less idiosyncratic, and -- in appearance -- obviously far more the result of modern mass production.  Books were no longer published once a month; the prospectus began listing larger and larger numbers of books per year.  In recent years, a prospectus came out several times a year, with ever larger numbers of books being offered.  And the titles were no longer limited to fairly obscure works of British and classical history and literature -- they now include everything from sci fi and fantasy to science and contemporary American fiction.

So what, you ask?  Sounds like great books and lots of variety.  And you're right.  The Folio Society continues publishing excellent books, and I've continued buying them.  But today's notice that "membership" will be abandoned because the concept of membership interferes with sales to the mass reading public destroys my all-too-elitest reason for joining the club in 1980, and for looking forward each summer to receiving the next prospectus -- the sense that I was participating in a small society devoted to production and purchase of books not readily available to, or read by, the mass market.

Today, of course, everything is available to the mass market.  We no longer live in 1947, when paper was first becoming available again for such frivolities as the publication of books with no military use.  It must have seemed almost deliciously sinful to use paper for books as frivolous as the three books published during Folio's first year:

Tolstoy, Tales
George du Maurier, Trilby
Aucassin and Nicolette

And so it goes.  Nothing is certain but change.  Best wishes to the Folio Society, as it now publishes as a normal book publisher.  I'll still be buying its books, whatever its incarnation -- just not with the same quiver of excitement as in the days when I could claim "membership."

Grouchy about the Olympics

Am I excited that, as of yesterday, the USA had won 52 times as many medals as had Estonia?  Not really.

If I were the World Dictator of Sports, competitors in the Olympics would compete solely on their own behalf, not as representatives of their home country.  ("Their home country" is a fairly fluid concept nowadays, in any event, in our global society where athletes have a number of possible residences.)  We would see no grand procession of athletes carrying national flags during opening ceremonies.

If a runner sets a new record, that's his own achievement -- as the award of Olympics medals to individuals already recognizes.  As Americans, we may be proud that one of our own has won a medal.  But I see no reason for us to total up the number of medals awarded to athletes of each nation, and publish a daily list of "who's ahead" -- surprise, it's us again!  (Our newspapers used to total men's and women's awards separately, when that worked to our advantage.)  The fact that the gold medal winner was born in Colorado rather than Manitoba or Shanghai is an accident of geography -- not a reason for national self-congratulation.

I make an exception for team sports, although I regret the fervent nationalism aroused even there.  Off hand, I see no better way to identify a team than by the nation from which its players originate.  But I cringe -- probably even more than I do with individual sports -- when the USA, with a team filled with highly-paid professional basketball players, defeats a small country, and our fans yell "USA, USA" as though they had witnessed a mighty national accomplishment.

And don't even get me started on the issue -- now forgotten -- of amateur vs. professional athletes in the Olympics. 

I have more to say on the subject, much more, but won't.  I've discussed my thoughts with others too many times, and my thoughts have been greeted by -- at the very kindest -- rolled eyes.  I just don't understand athletics, I'm told.

Funny.  I thought I did.

What are those buggers up to?

One proposed form
of Dyson swarm.

We learned efficient use of stellar energy because they blacked out this planet.  In fact, that's how we discovered them.  In a period of three days, Eros gradually disappeared from telescopes.  We sent a tug to  find out why.
--Ender's Game

Life sometimes imitates fiction.

In Orson Scott Card's popular 1985 science fiction novel, Ender's Game, Earth is threatened by a race of intelligent aliens, insect-like in appearance, who are seeking new worlds to colonize.  As the quote above suggests, the presence of the "buggers" was first evidenced by the sudden fading from view of the asteroid Eros.  We discovered that Eros had been surrounded by material that absorbed all of the sun's normally-reflected radiant energy, allowing the buggers to use that energy to power their activities on and inside the asteroid.  Eros appeared as black as starless Space as the Earth spaceships approached it.

Eros's fate came to mind as I read a brief article from Popular Mechanics about the strange behavior of "Tabby's Star," more formally known as  KIC 8462852, a star within our own Milky Way galaxy.  The star shows variations in brightness that are inexplicable under any known scientific theories.  The star was discovered in the 1890s, but has been intensely studied for the past four years by use of the Kepler space telescope.

According to a more in-depth article in Wikipedia, the star showed a dip in brightness of 15 percent in 2011 and of 22 percent in 2013.  Its overall average luminosity has dimmed by 20 percent since its discovery in 1890.

In the absence of other compelling explanations, some scientists have suggested that the dimming may result from an artificial structure or collection of satellites (a "Dyson shell" or "Dyson bubble" or "Dyson swarm") that an alien civilization may be constructing around the star, constructing it with the intent of intercepting a large amount of the star's radiant energy and using it for their own ends.  Such a project may be theoretically feasible, but far beyond our present engineering skills.

If our observations of Tabby's Star do reflect, therefore, a Dyson whatever, we would be observing the activities of a civilization far more advanced scientifically and technically than our own. 

Would such an advanced civilization be peaceful, or would it be human-like and aggressive.  Who knows?  The star is 1,480 light years from Earth.  That gives us more than 1,480 years to prepare for the encounter, in the unlikely event that our neighbors are able to travel near the speed of light, and that our puny civilization should attract their interest.

The buggers in Ender's Game, of course, had both the ability and the interest. 

It was only after Earth had totally destroyed the buggers' civilization in the greatest genocide of all time that we discovered that the buggers had mistakenly believed we were insensate animals, incapable of intelligent thought and consciousness.  They were actually far less savage killers, subjectively, than we were when we cleared the prairies of bison. 

Have fun, future generations.  No one ever said that life in the next millennia was going to be simpler than in the past.    

Hiking in Crete

Having recovered physically from my Yorkshire hike -- although, obviously, my mind has still not recovered enough to write regular blog posts -- I am looking forward to my next foreign hiking opportunity. 

In late September, I'll be traveling to Crete for a small-group hiking tour organized by the same British company with which I traveled to Tajikistan in 2013.  The trip begins with my arrival in Chania, on the northern coast of the island, whence we will be carted down to Omalos, at the head of the famed Samaria gorge.  The gorge is some ten miles long, and only about three yards wide in places -- the walls towering over 1,600 feet above the gorge where we will be hiking.  Samaria is one of the most famous canyon walks in the world.

The hike through the gorge will take just one day.  Before that climactic day, we will climb a mountain north of the gorge, and after the gorge hike we will do a number of day hikes -- examining old Turkish forts, walking along the south Cretan coast, visiting small villages, and climbing another mountain just to prove we can still do it.

Before meeting up with my group in Chania, I plan to spend three days in Athens, revisiting beloved ancient sites recalled from youthful travels and from my reading of history.  It will be my fourth visit to Athens, but my first since shortly after graduating from law school -- many years ago! 

In the past, I've always managed to visit Greece at the peak of the tourist season, and during the peak of the summer temperatures.  I hope to enjoy both cooler temperatures and fewer fellow tourists this time.