Boyfriends and Girlfriends

Perhaps we were friends first and lovers second.
But then perhaps this is what lovers are.
--André Aciman

French director Éric Rohmer described Boyfriends and Girlfriends (1987) as his first film intended as a "comedy."  It takes place in Cergy-Pontoise, a suburb of Paris that had been constructed immediately before the picture was filmed.  The suburb is beautiful, sleek, somewhat monumental,and ultra modern.  At the time of the filming, it was also empty and bleak.  But it forms the empty canvas on which the movie is painted.

Once more, Rohmer gives us a young, attractive woman as the central figure.  Blanche has just moved into Cergy-Pontoise, and has an excellent job with the government, in some environmental position.  She runs into another young woman, Léa, an art student near graduation, and they become fast friends.  Blanche is cute and a bit shy; Léa is more maturely beautiful and assertive.  They seem to have little in common, aside from a certain common loneliness.

Léa has had a series of boyfriends.  When Blanche meets her, she is going with Fabian.  The three get together at the community swimming pool, where they find the couple's casual friend, Alexandre, in the pool.  Alexandre is tall with chisled features, an ingratiating smile, and total self-confidence.  For Blanche, it's love at first sight.

The four become close friends, Alexandre, who moves in many social circles,  less close than the others.   Blanche confides her infatuation to Léa, who is sympathetic but who tells her that the two really don't seem meant for each other.  For that matter, as it soon becomes obvious, neither do Léa and Fabian.  Fabian is athletic, or, more accurately, outdoorsy.  Léa could hardly be less so.

One day, when Léa is out of town, Blanche and Fabian run into each other in the town square.  Fabian says that he's going windsurfing.  He asks Blanche if she'd like to join him.  After some hesitation, she agrees.  She is skilled at windsurfing, and they both have a great time  The plot thickens, or at least becomes more obvious.

Later, Léa tells Blanche that she has broken up with Fabian.  They have nothing to talk about, she complains.  She's looking around for a replacement.

After several "dates" -- merely as good friends -- windsurfing and swimming, Fabian suggests they go for a walk through the woods.  Long talks, laughter, self-revelations, lying in the grass staring at the trees blowing above them.  Fabian shyly reveals his sensitivity, his feelings for nature, his unhappiness with his relationship with Léa.  Unhappiness not because he dislikes her, but because they have so little in common, so little to talk about.  He says they have broken up by mutual agreement.

Blanche and Fabian have lots to talk about, and end up in bed back in her apartment.

Afterward, Blanche is horrified, because of her feeling that she has betrayed her friend Léa, even though  Léa had broken up with Fabian, and because she has betrayed her own hopes for a romance with Alexandre.  She tells Fabian that it had been wonderful, but never again.  She likes him very much as a friend, she explains, but that isn't love.  It's not? -- Fabian seems to wonder.  He nevertheless tries to go along with her wishes, and attempts to live as her friend.

Blanche tries shyly to get Alexandre's attention.  Alexandre confides to Léa that he has never gone after another woman. He has never had to. They all come to him, essentially drop into his lap. He tells Léa he loves her; on the other hand, he finds Blanche insipid and boring.  Blanche obviously loves Fabian, but remains obsessed with Alexandre.

Do I need to explain all the ensuing complications?  Mistakes are made, misunderstandings arise.   At one point, the dialogue among the four sounds like Shakespearean comedy.  The bottom line, like the end of a Gilbert & Sullivan operetta, is that all four finally surrender their preconceptions and give in to the inevitable.   Léa and Alexandre drive off happily together in search of excitement and parties.  Blanche and Fabian look deeply into each other's eyes, beneath the sheltering trees, and throw themselves into each other's arms as the credits roll.  Everyone presumably lives happily ever after.

I suppose every viewer reacts differently to the four lovers.  To me, Blanche and Fabian make a perfect couple.  Blanche is elfin and young for her age.  Fabian confesses that Léa is too young for him, but that, paradoxically, he is also too young for her.  Léa and Alexandre escape the bleakness of Cergy-Pontoise by endless partying; Blanche and Fabian escape it by exploring together the natural beauty and outdoor activities that surround the suburb.

Blanche finally learns, Rohmer seems to suggest, that "friends" and "lovers" aren't mutually exclusive categories.

Ash Wednesday

And the lost heart stiffens and rejoices

In the lost lilac and the lost sea voices

And the weak spirit quickens to rebel

For the bent golden-rod and the lost sea smell

Quickens to recover

The cry of quail and the whirling plover

And the blind eye creates

The empty forms between the ivory gates

And smell renews the salt savour of the sandy earth.

--T. S. Eliot, "Ash Wednesday"

The plague and I

Just two weeks ago, I posted my excitement about a May celebration of my birthday by family and friends, to take place in Levanto, Italy.  Just two weeks ago, the COVID-19 coronavirus seemed like a distant threat, of interest only to the hapless residents of Wuhan, China.

Since then, of course, major outbreaks have occurred in Korea and Japan.  And, unfortunately, Italy.  As of yesterday, Italy reported 229 cases, with six deaths.  The great majority have been in Lombardy, including Milan.  None have been reported along the Ligurian seacoast.

But already I've had at least one inquiry as to whether we have a "Plan B" in case Italy appears too dangerous to visit.

When Odysseus ran into one calamity after another while sailing home to Ithaca, he blamed the anger of the sea god Poseidon. I'm tempted to seek an analogous explanation for my own frustration.   My Italian birthday party, two years in the planning?   A new virus out of China, timed perfectly to obstruct that party?   Coincidence?   Maybe.

But I will attempt to stay scientific. My response to the Plan B question was, and is, "no."  There is no Plan B.   We just don't know what the situation will be by May.  If Chinese reports, and those of the World Health Organization, are truthful and accurate, the outbreak in China seems already to have peaked earlier this month and to be increasingly under control.  Maybe the same trajectory will be followed in Italy, while the epidemic spreads in the United States. By May, it may be safer to spend two weeks in Italy than here in America.  No one can predict how widespread the epidemic will be, or which areas will be most adversely affected.

Also, while the fatality rate for COVID-19 infection has run between two and four percent in Wuhan, outside China it has been -- so far -- under one percent.  The American mortality rate associated with influenza in 2018-19, according to the CDC, was about 0.1 to 0.2 percent.  While any risk of death is something to be considered, virtually every activity poses some risk.

I'd rather risk potentially contracting the coronavirus during a vacation in Italy, than contracting it while wandering around Seattle.  Or, to be more flippant, I'd rather die from contracting COVID-19 while hiking about the Cinque Terre than die of an aneurysm while watching Fox News at home on television.

But others might feel otherwise.  No one who has planned joining  us in Italy is under contract to do so.  We can recover a portion of the vacation rental if we cancel our rental of either or both villas by March 16.  I'll poll our party to see how many, if any, would rather not travel to Italy in May.

And then decide how best to respond.

Blue jeans

When I wake up in the mornin' light
I pull on my jeans and I feel all right
I pull my blue jeans on, I pull my old blue jeans on,
I pull my blue jeans on, I pull my old blue jeans on.

--David Dundas

This week's Economist magazine carries a short feature article on that great American icon, Levi's jeans.  I found myself reading it slouched in a chair with the magazine balanced on my -- of course --blue jeans.

The article was prompted by an exhibit at the Contemporary Jewish Museum in San Francisco, celebrating the life and accomplishments of Levi Strauss.  Levi was an immigrant -- yes, an immigrant! -- from Bavaria.  He found a market for tough denim pants among the farmers and miners and laborers of early California, and his jeans, held together by copper rivets, were soon adopted by cowboys and other horseback riders.  By the time I came along, they were becoming a favorite choice for children and teenagers, as well.

But not for me.  I must at sometime have worn jeans as a kid, but my mother considered them workman's clothes, not appropriate for the children of a family with middle class aspirations.  In summer, I wore shorts for "play," up until about seventh grade, but not jeans.  In all my class photos, I seem to be wearing corduroys, which is also what I remember wearing.  (I especially remember the common sight of corduroy cuffs after they had been caught and ground up in my bicycle chain.)

My "cords" came in varying colors -- but mainly white or brown.  They also came in "salt and pepper," which I also sometimes wore, although those usually were considered a feature of parochial school uniforms.

In high school, I still wore cords, but other types of pants as well.  But rarely, if ever, jeans.  Not to school.  In college, I remember wearing a pair of jeans on one occasion, and having someone exclaim, "Wow!  Harrison in jeans?"  It seems odd in retrospect.

Once past my undergraduate years, however, I wore jeans -- usually Levi's -- routinely.  Once we were into the Sixties, jeans -- "levis" now with a small "l" -- had lost their working man's association, and had become the cool thing for young people to wear.  If not "cool," at least totally accepted.  And once I began practicing law, the first thing I did when I got home from work was ditch my suit and "pull my blue jeans on."

Now, as a retired gentleman, well into his dotage, I wear virtually nothing but jeans.  By way of pants, I mean, of course.  Usually not Levi's brand.  For some reason, I've ended up shopping at the Gap.  Gap jeans come in several styles, and when I'm shopping I can never remember which one it is that I prefer.  I have three pairs at present that I rotate -- Skinny, Slim, and Straight.  I think it's "Slim" that I prefer, but who can remember, from day to day?

My dotage, as I noted.

The Economist notes that Levi's are now worn around the world.

Marilyn Monroe wore Levi's; Andy Warhol immortalized them. Even Albert Einstein was spotted in a Levi's bomber jacket. Jeans that graced the haunches of the famous -- including Patti Smith, Madonna, and Beyoncé -- fill the gallery and span the decades.

If blue jeans, whatever the make, were good enough for Einstein, they're good enough for me. 

Four Adventures

The Green Ray had been too easy to film, too easy to edit.  And then people liked it, and I thought they wouldn't.  That's why I set out immediately afterward to make Reinette and Mirabelle.  I wanted to see if I was on the right track with the principles of lightness and improvisation, if they could function with another kind of experience. 
--Éric Rohmer

I missed last week's film in SAM's Éric Rohmer series, as I've already complained, because of a power outage at my house.  My understanding was that this week I'd be seeing The Green Ray (1986) (released as Summer in America), the fifth in Rohmer's series entitled "Comedies and Proverbs."

Unfortunately, they showed The Green Ray last week.  I understand that it's an interesting film, partly because Rohmer allowed his cast to largely improvise their lines as they went along.  He shot the film chronologically in 16 mm, so that the cast would be affected as little as possible by the presence of the camera.  According to Wikipedia, the film's major expense was a trip to the Canary Islands to film the sun's green flash at sunset.

This week's film, Four Adventures of Reinette and Mirabelle (1987), was apparently filmed using similar experiments with improvisation.  Mirabelle, a young woman from Paris, meets Reinette, a self-taught artist who lives on a farm, when Mirabelle's bike has a flat tire as she cruises along a country road near Reinette's house.  Reinette patches Mirabelle's tire, and the two talk.  Mirabelle remarks on the silence of the country, compared with city life.  Reinette tells her that nature has many sounds when you listen for them, but there's a magic moment at dawn, just one minute, when the sounds of the night stop and the sounds of the day have not yet begun.

Mirabelle is persuaded to stay overnight, to witness that "blue" moment, and then another night.  She persuades Reinette to come live with her in Paris when she begins art school.

Thus ends the first of the four titled "adventures." 

The other three take place in Paris, while the girls are roommates.  Reinette is revealed as a highly moral young woman, one who always leaves a franc for every beggar, and who returns the next day to pay for a cup of coffee she had failed to pay for the day before.  Mirabelle feels that Reinette is a gullible sucker, as do the beggars and the coffee vendor as well.  Mirabelle also tries to do the right thing, but she is more attuned to life in the city.  She is more cynical about the alleged hardships of others. 

Each "adventure" is different, and each is both funny and somewhat moving.  Each shows the contrast between the country hick, who is less gullible than she seems on the surface, and the city slicker, who is kinder than she wants to appear.  But which actions are neighborly and which are simply foolish differ, depending on whether the context is life in the city or the country.

For me, the most interesting aspect of the movie -- which I no doubt would have noted in The Green Ray as well -- is the naturalness of unscripted dialogue.  Watching the two women work at patching the tire was like watching a couple of kids doing the same job next door.  At times, they were merely mumbling as they bent over their work -- without the subtitles, I doubt I could have understood what they were saying even if I spoke French.  Their conversations, like the conversations of most of us, didn't always proceed directly from A to B to C.  They went about in circles, repeating themselves. 

We might not want to watch all movies filmed this way.  There's room for the witty, almost artificially articulate conversations between Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn.  But Four Adventures reminds us that real people rarely speak that way.  They stutter and mumble and grope for words.

Marabelle and Reinetta do grope for words.  But, in doing so, they seem real and honest and very human.

Beautifully filmed, both in the country and in Paris.

A modest proposal

We recoil with horror from the unfamiliar, certain that we could never accept it in our own lives.  But I'm confident that humanity is more resilient than that.  We've survived -- and even thrived on -- much that seemed intolerable in the past, once we accepted its necessity.

I'm in the early stages of reading The Dispossessed, by the interesting author Ursula K. Le Guin (see past posts to this blog).  I have no idea yet where the story will go; I merely want to think about one small matter it touches on.

The setting is a planet, settled by humans in the distant past, circled by a moon only slightly smaller than the planet.  The planet is somewhat earth-like in terrain and in politics and economics.  But several centuries earlier, a dissident group of anarchists voluntarily emigrated to the moon (Anarres) -- a bleak desert with slightly less gravity and a thinner atmosphere -- and formed their own egalitarian society.

Shevek, a twenty-year-old brilliant physics student, grew up on Anarres, and has naturally absorbed its values.  He now has been accepted as a student at a remote location on Anarres set aside for very advanced scientific studies.  He has been given a room of his own, similar to what we find in dormitories at our own universities.  He is bewildered and filled with shame.  He has never had a room where one could simply close the door and be alone.  Such rooms have been reserved for cases of obnoxious misbehavior -- as we would send children to their room for "time out."

Since he was two years old, Shevek has always lived in a dorm room of four to ten beds.

Only gradually does he accept the advantages such a luxury -- if that's what it is -- provides for a person of his introverted personality and engagement in intense personal study..

He describes the normal quarters for Anarres citizens of all ages and occupations:

Everybody had the workshop, laboratory, studio, barn, or office that he needed for his work; one could be as private or as public as one chose in the baths; sexual privacy was freely available and socially expected; and beyond that privacy was not functional.  It was excess, waste.  The economy of Anarres would not support the building, maintenance, heating, lighting of individual houses and apartments.

Imagine!  A society so egalitarian that everyone slept in identical accommodations.  And a society economically so close to the minimum required for civilization that those identical accommodations were beds in dormitories.  It's enough to make Fox News experience a meltdown.

I sit here, alone -- even my cats having passed on -- in a large house with four bedrooms and all the privacy I could ever need.  How would I ever survive in such a society?

But then I think, maybe pretty well?  In my younger years, I happily and voluntarily slept in huge dorms with bunk beds in youth hostels all over Europe.  And loved it, at least while traveling, because of the company and society afforded by fellow travelers. 

But forget the huge hostel-like dorms.  Anarres chose such bare-bone accommodations not out of ideology, but because it was all they could afford.  We are a rich country, living in a poorer world, but a world still rich compared with Anarres.  Let's assume, without proving, that we could afford to provide a private room -- similar to the Spartan rooms of my college dormitories -- for every man, woman, child, or couple in our country.  Maybe an additional adjoining room for children, if we blanche at sending our two-year-olds to the children's dorm.

Why not make such dorm rooms the default accommodation for everybody, provided by the government free of charge and paid for by our taxes?  Anarres was a completely egalitarian society, but I"m not arguing for that.  I'd say that if you had a job that permitted you to buy a McMansion on Lake Washington, and you just had to have it, go for it.  But these dorm rooms would be there waiting for you, whenever you chose.  Dorm rooms not just for mentally ill or unemployable vagrants.  Not just for the rejects of our society -- although for them, too.  For all of us.

These rooms would be available for the temporarily unemployed, for students paying off their student debts, for young adults who were engaged in their community and needed only a bed to sleep in, for empty nesters after their kids left home, for the elderly.  For single people who valued the opportunity to hang out with neighbors in the common room facilities provided, rather than live alone in isolation. For folks like me who keep complaining in their blogs about home maintenance!

In some ways, these rooms would be like assisted care facilities for folks who didn't need assisted care.  Or like England's council housing, but consisting of just rooms and access to common areas, not apartments.

Maybe for a fee, dining facilities would also be available, serving something like the dreaded dorm food of one's college years.  The food would not be of gourmet standard, but its eating would provide additional social opportunities.

We are faced with enormous housing problems in this country.  Not just for the homeless.  The major problem is providing housing for those who cannot afford to buy a house or rent a decent apartment.  Housing in many cities today, whether owned or rented, is costing forty to fifty percent of a worker's salary.   My dormitory suggestion would address those problems, while providing a housing option to many others, people who, given the option, would be happy to live in minimal but safe and healthful housing and use their money for other purposes.

Of course it would cost money to build and maintain free dormitories.  Maybe we should just keep building new houses all over the landscape for those who can afford them, bus those who cannot afford them thirty miles or so each day into the city to work, and continue to walk around the homeless, the addicted, and the mentally ill who lie sprawled out on our sidewalks?.

Personally, I'd rather live on Anarres.

Homeowner's lament

This week's movie in SAM's Éric Rohmer film series was The Aviator's Wife (1981).  You didn't read my discussion of the film, did you?  No.  Because I didn't attend.

Hours before the film began on Thursday, I lost power in about two-thirds of the rooms in my house, together with all the major appliances.  After three hours, the power came back on.  But in those rooms affected, the power cycled between normal and dim.  A quick check on the internet made me concerned about the safety of my wiring, and I turned off everything in the affected areas.

While The Aviator's Wife was showing downtown, I was hunkered down in my darkened house, waiting for an electrical fire to consume all my hopes and dreams.

An electrician came by yesterday morning, and for a mere $270 told me that there was nothing wrong with my house.  I had lost one phase of power from the street, and he pointed to what he said was a loose wire on top of the pole where the wire to my house originated.  Call the power company, he said.

So I called Seattle City Light, on the eve of a three-day holiday weekend.  To make a long (and irritating) story short -- let's just say that I won't be able to even schedule anyone to come rescue me until Tuesday.  I'm now experimenting to find out how long milk at room temperature will stay drinkable.  Restaurant meals are sounding better and better.

Over the past couple of weeks, my cleaning woman pointed out that my vacuum cleaner no longer worked.  I took it in today, and learned that repair will cost at least seventy dollars.  My basement wall, where a pipe enters from underground outside, sprung a leak a couple of weeks ago.  A plumber made a stab at sealing the leak.  And my insurance company -- as noted earlier -- not only demanded that I remove moss from my roof, but also has also demanded that I repair a few steps to a side porch that neither I nor anyone else ever uses.

I'm a guy who has built his financial security -- not to mention his approach to life -- on living 33 years in the same house blissfully deferring maintenance.  I'm now concerned that these small matters are but the harbingers of disasters to come.  It reminds me of a recent cartoon where a repairman gave a young homeowner three options, the last of which was to curl up in a corner and cry at his folly for ever deciding to buy his own house. 

I can relate.

And when all is finally tidied up and repaired?  What about that earthquake -- The Big One -- the one due any moment, the one that scientists say will essentially wipe out Western Washington?  Sure, as I posted a few years ago, I've paid big bucks to have the house anchored to its foundation.  Do I really think that little makeshift bit of prevention will save my house from ... [whispered softly]  ...  THE BIG ONE??

I doubt it.  I'm doomed.   

Towers of silence

Tower of Silence in use,
vultures waiting patiently above

Ever since my two-week visit to Iran in 2011, I've held myself out as an expert on all matters Iranian and Persian, smiling condescendingly at any opinions expressed by those who had never been there.  So, of course, I was interested in last night's final lecture of the UW Alumni lecture series -- this one discussing life, death, heaven, and hell in "Ancient Iran."

It was the largest audience of the series, including an unusually large number of students from Roosevelt and Garfield high schools.  Whether attendance was heavy because it was the last chance to catch one of this year's lectures, or because of interest in Iran, or for other reasons, I have no idea.

The lecture was actually limited to a discussion of Zoroastrianism, the more or less indigenous religion of the Persian Empire -- an empire stretching at its maximum extent from India to Turkey, before being subdued by Alexander the Great.  Persia as a great and independent empire was temporarily eclipsed by Alexander's conquest, but Zoroastrianism continued throughout the region until the Arab invasions brought Islam to the area in the seventh century A.D.

As the lecturer explained, Islam's victory over Zoroastrianism was not instantaneous, but proceeded steadily over a period of time.  In recent times, the religion has continued to exist primarily in parts of India and Central Asia.  The lecture opened with a photograph of the Tower of Silence in Yazd, in southeastern Iran, which was in use until very recently.  Yazd, like portions of Central Asia, was an area remote enough to escape thorough subjugation by Islam.

I had visited the Tower of Silence in Yazd, and was excited to see early photographs taken when the tower was used for its intended use -- a place where the dead were undressed and laid in rows about a circular hole, awaiting the attention of the ever-present buzzards.  The buzzards picked the bodies clean within hours, and the bare bones were pushed into the central pit. 

The speaker pointed out that almost every religion and culture has taboos against allowing the dead to be eaten by predators.  The only other place, according to the speaker, where something similar occurs is Tibet.  The practice evolved from the Zoroastrian belief in what I guess we would now call a Manichean world, where the power of the creator, Ahura Mazda, contends against the powers of darkness.  Dead flesh belonged to the forces of disorder and evil. Vultures, and notably dogs, were agents of good, removing the corrupt flesh from the world. 

The lecture focused not only on the towers of silence, but on funeral arrangements in general.  It also observed that some of the most eye-boggling and gruesome visions of Hell have come from Zoroastrian writings and carvings.  Although no known direct connection exists between Zoroastrian visions of Hell and the descriptions of Hell in medieval Christian writings, including Dante's Inferno, the resemblance is striking.   We were also showed illustrations of the souls of the dead being weighed after death, their thoughts, words, and deeds during life determining their final destination.

The lecture was interesting, but a greater background in Zoroastrian theology would have made much of it easier to understand and assimilate.   But again, the lecture was limited to 45 minutes, with maybe ten more minutes for a few questions. 

Ursula K. Le Guin

Shortly after Christmas, I wrote a post praising Ursula K. Le Guin's novel, A Wizard of Earthsea (1968).  I expressed my surprise that, although I enjoy science fiction and fantasy, I'd never heard of the author or the book.  I had become mentally and emotionally immersed in  the book, and emerged from it at the end, blinking in the light of what we refer to as "the real world."

Since I wrote that post, I've read the remaining five books of Le Guin's Earthsea series, and another novel, even more complex and disturbing, The Left Hand of Darkness (1969).  I've read critical reviews of these and other works, and several articles about Le Guin in the New York Times, including her obituary two years ago.  I realize that one of the most impressive writers of our time had somehow come and passed by outside my notice.

I've always considered Tolkien's Lord of the Rings to be one of the masterpieces of fantasy literature.  I still do, but it is a fairy tale of epic proportions, and was never intended to be something other than that.  The characterizations, even Frodo himself, are to some extent cardboard cut-outs.  The settings are often beautiful, but beautiful as in the background of a Disney cartoon. 

By contrast, Le Guin's settings are so richly and lovingly described that the reader feels he is reading a travelogue of a real world, written by a very perceptive and literate tourist.  In the midst of the tensest moments of the plot, the narrator stops to take note of an unusual bird or plant.  The characters presented are as complex and often puzzling in their reactions and motivations and self-understanding as are you and I, the readers.

As has been often pointed out, while LOTR is a saga that, like most ancient sagas, pitted the forces of good against the forces of evil, Le Guin's novels rarely have true heroes or true villains.  The battle isn't against an evil-doer, although some characters do evil, but against hostile environments and against the impersonal forces of fate and necessity.  And, often, against the protagonists' own undiscovered emotions and fears.  Le Guin's heroes seek -- like the wizards in the Earthsea series -- to maintain the proper balance in the universe, always aware that every act -- good or bad -- has unforeseeable consequences.  As does every failure to act.

It is this approach -- the approach that most reflects real life -- that makes her stories so complex and satisfying.

The Earthsea books, as noted in my earlier post, present a world populated by humans very like ourselves, perhaps as we were in the late middle ages.  The place is Earth, but an Earth with a different geography, where civilization, at least so far as is known by the inhabitants of Earthsea, is limited to a huge archipelago of islands, stretching from the northern latitudes to the tropics.  But beyond this geographical difference, the notable difference in Earthsea is the existence and acceptance of magic as essentially another branch of science. 

The smallest village has a village witch who uses simple spells to protect homes against fire, or livestock against diseases.  But beyond this level of village magic, which at times becomes nothing more than superstition, is the greater magic of the wizards, a magic that evolves from the very nature of the created universe and of whomever or whatever created it.  True wizards are highly trained, but no training will make a wizard unless he has been an inchoate wizard from birth -- a power that is randomly distributed among mankind, without distinction between rich and poor, aristocrat or peasant.  Earthsea's wizards are analogous to the great scientists of our times, perhaps.

The world of The Left Hand of Darkness, by contrast, is the roughly earth-sized planet of Gethen, at the outer limits of the known human universe.  A planet whose population dates back to the legendary past when an advanced civilization sent colonies to habitable worlds within their reach, a colonization which populated both our Earth (Terra) and Gethen.  The known inhabited universe, some hundred light years in diameter, consists of a few hundred planets, each of which belongs to a benevolent association called the Ekumen.  The Ekumen has sent Genly Ai as an explorer/ambassador to Gethen, seeking its people's agreement to join the Ekumen.

Genly Ai finds himself embroiled in political intrigue within the kingdom in which he landed and within a neighboring country, and caught up in the international struggles between the two countries.  Gethen is a much colder world than ours, perhaps gradually coming out of an ice age.  Technology on Gethen has reached perhaps the level we reached in the mid-20th century, with a number of differences resulting from the physical differences between our worlds.  For example, no one ever considered developing airplanes on Gethen, because they have no birds -- nothing that ever suggested the idea or desirability of sailing through the air. 

But the most interesting feature about Gethen is that the human race had become hermaphroditic, and had become essentially asexual for most of each month before "coming into heat," as we'd say about a dog, for a few days.  Only during this period of estrus did each individual become, unpredictably each month, either male or female in gender.  Thus, for example, a man might have a number a children, only some of whom would be "children of the flesh," meaning ones he had actually given birth to himself.

Le Guin, in discussing both Earthsea and Left Hand of Darkness, has explained that, unlike many science fiction writers, she has no interest in predicting the universe of the future or in explaining what is or is not scientifically possible.  She is interested in "thought experiments"  -- hypotheticals where she presents a number of given initial conditions and then explores the possible or necessary consequences.  What if magic were one of the sciences?  What if we were hermaphroidites whose lives were far less controlled by sexuality?  What if most of our world were covered with ice?

As I said at the outset, in these worlds there are no major villains or Homeric heroes.  Her protagonists -- Ged in Earthsea, Mr. Ai in Left Hand of Darkness -- are humans who master their physical and social environments, yes, but more profoundly who master themselves.  Men who learn, however well they can, how to maintain a proper balance of forces in the universe.  Or at least in the part of the universe they inhabit and understand.  “If you cannot or will not imagine the results of your actions, there’s no way you can act morally or responsibly,” Ms. Le Guin told an interviewer in 2005.  

Not surprisingly, Ursula Le Guin had been fascinated by Taoism since she was a teenager, and was a translator of the Tao Te Ching.  Taoist thought permeates much of her writing.

Le Guin was a Radcliffe graduate with a master's degree from Columbia in the romance literature of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance.  Born in Berkeley, she spent much of her life in Portland, where she taught history at Portland State University, and where she died at the age of 88 in 2018.

Her writing is beautiful and haunting, her thoughts profound, her imagination unbounded.  I'm glad I've finally discovered her work.

Birthday boy

Villa Preia

I celebrate an impressive birthday this year.  I'm too shy to tell you which one, but it is divisible by both ten and four, but not by three.  My official birth date is in March.  I was born under the sign of Aries, and in the Chinese Year of the Dragon.  This combination is so auspicious that it's almost a miracle that I'm not now President of the United States.  At the very least.

The third century Christian writer Origen wrote that Christians not only should refrain from celebrating birthdays, but should look on such celebrations with disgust.  On the other hand, although a brilliant writer, Origen allegedly had himself surgically castrated in order that his respectability as a teacher of young people should never be questioned, and many of his writings were condemned as heretical.  More to my liking is the Persian birthday custom of joining with one's friends to consume an entire cow, horse, camel, or donkey.

In place of eating a horse, however, family and friends have decided to join me in Italy, the last half of May, to celebrate my longevity at a warmer time of year than the March of my actual birth date.  Maybe consume a lasagne or two.  We have rented for a week two large villas in the seaside town of Levanto, between Genoa and Pisa, and on the edge of the Cinque Terre.  We will keep one of the villas (see photo) for a second week.  I will be joined by 23 guests the first week, and 13 the second week.

Guests include my extended family -- which I've always considered an unusually small family, but which has ballooned with passing years -- and various friends.  Friends include my closest friend from Stanford undergraduate days, and my closest friend from University of Washington graduate and law school days, together with their respective wives.  Among the guests will be four kids, ranging in age from eight months to ten years.

The groups gathered each week are so heterogeneous in ages and interests that I've made it clear to everyone that how they spend their time in Italy is entirely up to them.  No one will be in "in charge" as social director, preparing games and adventures.  But Levanto has a large number of hiking trails extending not only through all five villages of the Cinque Terre, but to other towns and villages inland from the sea.  A significant number of my guests love to hike.  A significant number love to sit in small cafés, sipping coffee or wine, or eating meals, as they watch the crowds go by.  A significant number like sitting and walking on the sandy beach.  A significant number will be happy simply lying on one of the villas' many decks and balconies, staring out to sea.  I'm pleased that, considered as a Venn diagram, these sets of vacationers intersect to a large degree, and I'm pleased to be at the center of the intersection.

You will recall that Bilbo Baggins celebrated his eleventy-first birthday by a similar convocation of his much larger extended family.  In his welcoming speech, he proclaimed

I don't know half of you as well as I should like; and I like less than half of you half as well as you deserve.

shortly before slipping the One Ring on his finger and disappearing from sight and from the Shire.  It would be my greatest dream to make a similarly dramatic  speech and disappearance, but the words would be too confusing and ambiguous, as were Bilbo's.  And, of course, I do lack the ring. 

Following this two-week Saturnalia, my sister and I and a couple of other close relatives will recover our senses for a week at a small rustic house on the shore of Lake Como.  I plan to read, stare at the lake, stroll occasionally to the nearby village, and maybe explore lakefront towns by using the lake's extensive ferry system.

It should be, all together, a three-week observance that will take the edge off the horror of my advancing years.  I'm looking forward to it -- and to my co-celebrants -- eagerly.

Rhymes

For a courting's a pleasure but parting is grief
And a false-hearted lover is worse than a thief.
For a thief will just rob you and take what you have,
But a false-hearted lover will lead you to your grave.

"On Top of Old Smoky" was one of the "pop" songs that my childhood piano teacher gave me to play, in the misguided hopes that popular music would be more enticing to me than classical.  A few minutes ago, I found myself singing it in the shower.

It's not the first time as an adult that I've found myself singing it, and I'm always caught up by the faulty rhyme between "have" and "grave," as marked above.  A quick check on the internet shows that many recent lyrics have changed "have" to "save," in order to make the rhyme tolerable.  But I know that the lyrics on my sheet music -- which I can't locate now -- were as above, and I remember being disturbed by them even as a kid.

The song, like many folk songs, originated in the Appalachian Mountains.  One of  the first reductions of the song to writing was done by an English folklorist who wandered throughout the mountains during World War I, learning the local music.  According to Wikipedia, the words were sung to a completely different melody than the one we know, the modern melody having been adopted from a song called "The Little Mohee."  

The modern version of the song was made popular by a folk group called The Weavers, who released a recording of it in 1951 that sold over a million copies.  No more than two years later, I was assigned the song by my piano teacher, but I have the undocumented feeling that the singer shown on the cover sheet was an individual, not a group.

But I digress.

During the shower, I began wondering about why the song had this fake rhyme between the two words.  It happens often in poetry.  I can sort of understand that a poet, writing a poem, might be impressed by the fact that the two words looked alike, even if they didn't sound alike.  But a folk song?  One not written down until the early twentieth century?

But then I looked up the pronunciations of "have" and "grave."  Bingo!  "Grave" has two acceptable pronunciations -- with a long a or a short a.  And "grav" rhymes pretty well with "have."

"Have" and "grave" (with a long a) are called "eye rhymes," for obvious reasons.  The less used pronunciation of "grave" explains this case of eye rhyming.  Possibly or probably, "grav" was the common pronunciation of "grave" in the Appalachians at the time the lyrics evolved.  Similarly, "flood" and "brood" at one time rhymed, although my dictionary doesn't give alternative pronunciations that might rhyme today.  Such eye rhymes are called "historical rhymes."  

When you read Middle English poetry, and even Shakespeare, you find many examples of historical rhymes:

The great man down, you mark his favourite flies;
The poor advanced makes friends of enemies.
--Hamlet

or

When my love swears that she is made of truth,
I do believe her though I know she lies,
That she might think me some untutored youth
Unlearned in the world's false subtleties.

--Sonnet 1

Several on-line correspondents have claimed that in the English Midlands, "subtleties" and "memories" are even today often pronounced to rhyme with "lies."  As, presumably, they were in Shakespeare's time.

On the other hand, when I see an eye rhyme in a poem by a modern writer, I don't know what to think.  I'm not a poet.  Maybe he thinks we enjoy poetry with our eyes, rather than our ears?  Or maybe he just doesn't care, and I'm the philistine I suspect I am for objecting?  Maybe so, maybe so.  

But now I know I'm entitled to sing "On Top of Old Smoky," making "grave" rhyme with "have" if it makes me feel better.  And it does.  

Chloé in the Afternoon

Frédéric is a successful and attractive young Paris businessman.  He lives in the suburbs with his wife, Hélène, who is employed as a teacher and also, at the same time, is writing her dissertation for an advanced degree.  The couple have an infant daughter, and another child on its way.

Frédéric loves his wife, but feels that marriage somehow traps him.  He has no real physical desire for other women, but apparently likes the idea of the chase, the sense that other women might want him.  While taking the Métro to work, while wandering the streets during lunch breaks, while shopping in stores, while talking to his firm's secretaries -- women and their attractions obsess him.

And then Chloé arrives -- a woman he knew in the past, apparently not intimately.  She has been working in New York, is now out of work, and needs assistance from a friend.  She says.  Frédéric is somewhat nervous, but wants to help her.  Soon he is following her around while she shops, helping her rent an apartment, and, ultimately, making appointments for afternoon "dates," which consist in having drinks and talking.

Things drift along, he and his wife have a new baby boy with whom he's besotted, Chloé becomes more demanding of his time and ultimately confesses she is in love with him.  She doesn't want to ruin his marriage, she says, but all men deserve an occasional mistress.  He meets her at her apartment, she appears naked from the shower, and a seduction appears imminent.  Frédéric begins to pull off his turtleneck sweater.  Just as he has the sweater half off, he looks in the mirror.  He realizes that he looks exactly as he does when he delights his children by pulling up his sweater to resemble a turtle.

Frédéric flees the apartment, leaves the office for the day, and goes home early to surprise his wife.  She is puzzled and looks concerned, but happy to see him.  They head for the bedroom.  Fin.

The story sounds hackneyed, and I admit that I was mildly bored at times.  But Éric Rohmer's film, Chloé in the Afternoon (released in America as Love in the Afternoon) (1972) -- shown last night as part of the Seattle Art Museum's Rohmer film series -- has been rated by some critics as the best of Rohmer's "Six Moral Tales."  Its excellence, and what made me enjoy much of it, was the sensitive and understated acting by virtually everyone in the movie, and its at times eloquent dialogue.

In the first section of the film, the Prologue, Frédéric admits that he has a continuing fantasy that probably dates from when he was ten years old:  He has a secret fluid contained in an amulet that he wears around his neck that causes anyone who speaks to him to lose their free will.  He then fantasizes about six encounters with attractive women who, against all expectation, immediately, upon request, agree to "date" him in one sense or another.  Funniest was the woman who turns out to be a prostitute.  He asks her to date him.  She says I charge a thousand francs.  He replies I charge two thousand, and she responds "Very well, that sounds reasonable."

Frédéric feels stultified living in the suburbs, and invigorated by the crowds of Paris.

I love the crowd as I love the sea.  Not to be engulfed or lost in it, but to sail on it like a solitary pirate, content to be carried by the current yet strike out on my own the moment it breaks or dissipates.  Like the sea, a crowd is invigorating to my wandering mind.

Each night when he returns home, he finds Hélène working on her dissertation.  When they have company, the friends are her academic friends, talking about matters foreign to him.

But at work?  He is surrounded by secretaries who cater to him, kid with him.  Surrounded by a city packed with beautiful women, each of whom, he suspects, has a fascinating life story to investigate.

What makes the streets of Paris so fascinating is the constant yet fleeting presence of women whom I'm almost certain to never see again.

Yes, it's a hackneyed story, repeated no doubt around the world in places far less interesting than Paris.  But Frédéric, Hélène, and Chloé are all intelligent, attractive, and interesting people.  Even Chloé, the interloper and disrupter, is a sympathetic character -- amoral but kind, and not totally unreasonable in her demands upon Frédéric.

But the film is Frédéric's story, and -- like the protagonists in other Rohmer films I've watched in this series -- he finds himself bored with his life and tempted to stray from a basically sound relationship. At the last moment, he realizes how much he has to lose, pulls himself together, and turns away.

Family and Religion in China

I was critical in past posts about the first two lectures in this winter's history series, sponsored by the UW Alumni Association and the History Department.  I'm happy to report that tonight's lecture, the third out of four, was a significant improvement.  But I'm still discontented, for reasons I'll relate as I go along.

Tonight's lecture was entitled "Death and the Ancestors: The Religion of the Family in China."  It was given by Patricia Ebrey, a senior professor with a string of publications and honors.  She did not read her lecture, surreptitiously or otherwise.  She accompanied her lecture with a well illustrated and thought-out power point presentation, and used its bullet points to assist her in speaking, allowing her to show that she was lecturing about a subject that she knew well and had thoroughly mastered.

She discussed four time periods in Chinese history:

• The Shang dynasty (before 1000 B.C.)


• The rise of Confucianism 


• Incursion of Buddhism (100 B.C. to about 900 A.D.)


• Confucian revival (900 A.D. to about 1800 A.D.)

We know about the Shang era mainly from our study of graves and some written material.  The surviving graves seem to be primarily those of the nobility.  They are notable for the number of skeletons found in them.  Some of the skeletons are obviously war captives, with clear signs of execution.  Others were, at least nominally, family volunteers, willing to accompany the deceased to wherever he was going.  As time went by, human sacrifice dwindled, but did not disappear; it was largely replaced with animal sacrifice.

With the rise of Confucianism, the respect to be paid the dead, and the rites to be followed by family survivors, were codified in considerable detail.  The professor said that even at this early time, Confucianism did not require any specific belief about the existence of an afterlife.  The rites and sacrifices -- sacrifices of food and objects of interest to the deceased ancestor -- offered to the dead were considered primarily a means of binding the society of the living together by engaging in common rituals.  (I suggest, therefore, it resembles Islam in being more concerned with proper actions than proper beliefs.)  Confucian rituals were rigidly patrilineal -- only a male heir could provide for the welfare of his ancestors.  Therefore, not having a son was not an option.

When Buddhism arrived from its origins in India, it became popular, but did not demand abandonment of earlier rituals or beliefs, Confucian or otherwise.  It spread relatively quickly because it provided hope for an afterlife (through reincarnation and, ultimately, nirvana) and encouraged compassion towards fellow humans and other living creatures.  For men and women who did not want to marry or have children, it provided the status of monks and nuns.  Logically, Buddhism was quite contradictory to Confucianism, but its tolerance allowed followers to engage in rituals prescribed by both religions at the same time.

Confucianism revived after a millennium, being considered more "Chinese," and its revival continued up until modern times.  Professor Ebrey discussed briefly the attempts by the Maoists to stamp out all religions, and the revival of Confucianism with some support from the Communist Party in recent years. 

Ok.  My final complaint:  The lecture lasted about 45 minutes, with another 15 minutes to answer questions from the audience.  The professor did an admirable job of covering the material that she did in a coherent and logical fashion, but her subject matter -- which was fascinating -- could easily have provided sufficient material for ten weeks of two-hour lectures. 

I hope the Alumni Association finds a way to provide more extensive lectures in the future.  I'd willingly pay a higher fee for such series, if  necessary.

Let parties work it out

I watched CNN last night, waiting for results from the Iowa caucuses.  And, like everyone, I was disappointed in the delay.  But I was also irritated at the constant carping by the CNN newsmen, carping as though this were a personal insult by the State of Iowa suffered by CNN and other media.  Note to news media -- the Iowa caucuses weren't all about you, nor were they a show offered for the benefit of you and your viewers.

My introduction to the American presidential nominating process came when I was twelve years old.  My family was spending a week in a beat-up motel at the ocean.  No TV.  My dad and I sat in our car, for hours on end, listening on the car radio to the Republican convention that nominated Eisenhower over Robert Taft.  I was enthralled.  Why had no one told me about all this before?  It helped that, months earlier, I had chosen Ike as my candidate, with about the same degree of analysis and thought as I chose the Brooklyn Dodgers as "my" team in the World Series.

The subsequent Democratic Convention was, in some ways, even more interesting, as I listened to it sprawled on the floor in front of my family's Magnavox radio/phonograph console.  While Eisenhower had won on the first ballot, after delegates pledged to Harold Stassen were released and swung to Ike, it took the Democrats three ballots to choose Adlai Stevenson.

Four years later, I was all geared up for both conventions, and our family finally had a television set on which to watch them.  But Eisenhower was assured of a second nomination, and Adlai was easily nominated once again.  (There was an unusual open vice presidential contest, which a young senator from Massachusetts almost won, but that contest was sort of an after-thought.)

Four more years, and I was a college student, watching the conventions at home during summer vacation.  Kennedy won the Democratic nomination, but the battle was hard-fought.  And the 1960 convention was the first where I observed the phenomenon that I also observed last night -- an assumption of entitlement by the broadcast media.

So far as I know and recall, the conventions in 1952 and 1956 were similar to conventions as they had been for many past years.  They were covered by the media, with intent interest from the public, but the media were there to observe and report on proceedings -- not to influence them.  Those proceedings included not only passage of the platform and voting on the candidates, but a large amount of American hoopla designed to whip up a frenzy of enthusiasm among the delegates, give them the opportunity to meet and greet each other and form political friendships and work off frustrations, and in general to reward them for their devotion to the party.  This "hoopla" was best exemplified by the wild celebrations on the convention floor in support of various candidates -- bands marching around, people dancing in the aisles, huge posters being thrust aloft, balloons being released.

It all took time, but who cared and who was keeping track?

Television, as it turned out.  I remember clearly CBS's news anchor Walter Cronkite -- who I loved and who most of America seemed to love -- bristling with frustration at the amount of time that was being "wasted" by all this activity on the floor, and by the inability of his reporters to find the people they wanted to interview in the midst of all the noise and congestion.  This just won't do, he said repeatedly.  The American public won't stand for this foolishness.

What he meant was that he wouldn't stand for it, nor would his network and its advertisers.  They wanted a fast, easily watchable, and rationally orderly process, one on which he could smile benignly and have a good idea of what was about to happen next.

By 1964, he was getting his way, as the conventions were put under tighter and tighter control, keeping in mind at all times the convenience of the television cameras.  Strangely enough, as things became more and more regulated, the public became less and less interested, and the networks offered increasingly truncated coverage.  (The increasing adoption of state primaries, resulting in fully pledged delegations, also took much of the drama and suspense away from the ultimate conventions.) 

I no longer spent every waking hour in front of the tube, studying every minute detail of how the rules operated, and how parliamentary procedure guided the proceedings.  (The fact that I was no longer twelve years old may also have had some impact, admittedly.)  Until today, sometimes I watch only the acceptance speech by the ultimate nominee.

But, even admitting a number of causes, network television essentially eliminated the nominating conventions as a mass gathering of the party faithful, the chief, but not sole, purpose of which was to choose a nominee. 

Ironically, the years in which I had the most intense interest in nominating conventions was the very decade or so in which their importance in our nation's political life was fading and dying.

The broadcasts from Iowa last night showed this same tendency by the media to act as though their convenience, and the convenience of the television audience, should determine how Iowa party leaders should run their show.  Many were attacking the caucus system itself, for being awkward, chaotic, inefficient, and especially "undemocratic."  Undemocratic because only a small percentage of the general public attended the caucuses.

I participated in caucuses through 2008, after which Washington Democrats submitted to a presidential primary.  The caucuses were an excellent form of direct democracy, where neighbors gathered, discussed issues, and voted for candidates.  I saw no sign that attendees were "frightened" about voting in public in front of friends and neighbors, as claimed last night.  We're a weird democracy if speaking out in public or even showing one's opinion is a frightening experience.

But the "undemocratic" claim should be saved for some future blog post.  I simply submit now that a party's procedure in selecting a candidate is not a general election.  If a party means anything, it is an organization that puts forth candidates and proposals that further its own ideals and goals.  When not only members with little interest in politics, but members of the general public who don't even consider themselves members or supporters of the party, have a major role in selecting a party's candidates, then the party system appears somewhat irrational.

If that sort of "democracy" appears desirable, then we should adopt for presidential races the same procedure that Washington and a few other states have adopted for non-presidential races -- non-partisan primaries.  If a state has twelve electoral votes (like my state), the 24 candidates running for electors receiving the highest number of popular votes would run against each other in November, regardless of party membership.  Or scrap the electoral college, and hold a national primary with the top two candidates, irrespective of party membership or non-membership, opposing each other in a general election. 

Yeah, like any of that's ever going to happen.

But if we continue with our present system, allowing the parties in each state to determine how their candidates are selected, the news media should stand aside, watch the proceedings with interest, perhaps editorialize after the fact, but not inject themselves into the primaries or caucuses or conventions in real time, where their enormous influence may have an impact on the ultimate outcome.

Groundhog

"Happy Groundhog Day!" I shout, in a fit of blogophoric originality. 

Why the ironic "originality"?  Because I note that I've already blogged on or before Groundhog Day, with said day as the topic, in 2009, 2010, and 2016.   Last year, I posted the day after Groundhog Day -- a day on which Mr. Hog did not see his shadow -- with an observation that, despite the old marmot's prognostication the day before, it was then snowing.  I trusted, however, that the snow would be a brief interlude in our rapid progress to an early spring. 

Over the next ten days, we had four massive snow storms move through the area, making February 2019 the snowiest February in Seattle history since 1916.  Ol' Brer Groundhog, he just curled up in his bed, and he laughed fit to kill.

At least if something similar happens this year, the Groundhog has given us fair warning today.

But as for now, we have blue skies, bright sunshine, and a crisp 37 degrees (2.8º C) at 10 a.m.  I'll enjoy it while I can, regardless of what Marmota monax has announced about the next six weeks.