"Horrendous brutality"

The State of Arizona took nearly two hours to kill convicted murderer Joseph Wood by a combination of drugs that were never intended as agents for human extermination.  The "botched" execution, if that's how it can be described, most probably marks but one more step along the path to eventual abolition of the death penalty.

Alex Kozinski, the conservative chief judge of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, in a well-publicized dissenting opinion to an order denying a procedural motion, ignored the specific legal issue before the court and delivered a philosophical dissertation on the nature of the death penalty itself:

Using drugs meant for individuals with medical needs to carry out executions is a misguided effort to mask the brutality of executions by making them look serene and peaceful—like something any one of us might experience in our final moments.  [citations omitted]  But executions are, in fact, nothing like that.
They are brutal, savage events, and nothing the state tries to do can mask that reality.  Nor should it.  If we as a society want to carry out executions, we should be willing to face the fact that the state is committing a horrendous brutality on our behalf.
If some states and the federal government wish to continue carrying out the death penalty, they must turn away from this misguided path and return to more primitive—and foolproof—methods of execution.  The guillotine is probably best but seems inconsistent with our national ethos.  And the electric chair, hanging and the gas chamber are each subject to occasional mishaps.  The firing squad strikes me as the most promising.  Eight or ten large-caliber rifle bullets fired at close range can inflict massive damage, causing instant death every time.  There are plenty of people employed by the state who can pull the trigger and have the training to aim true.  The weapons and ammunition are bought by the state in massive quantities for law enforcement purposes, so it would be impossible to interdict the supply.  And nobody can argue that the weapons are put to a purpose for which they were not intended: firearms have no purpose other than destroying their targets.  Sure, firing squads can be messy, but if we are willing to carry out executions, we should not shield ourselves from the reality that we are shedding human blood.  If we, as a society, cannot stomach the splatter from an execution carried out by firing squad, then we shouldn’t be carrying out executions at all.

Judge Kozinski states eloquently the mental processes of those supporting the death penalty. 

The traditional reasons given for criminal punishment, including the death penalty, are:
1.  Retribution
2.  Deterrence
3.  Incapacitation
4.  Rehabilitation
Studies have shown that the death penalty doesn't deter.  It obviously can't rehabilitate.  It certainly does incapacitate, but so does life imprisonment without possibility of parole.  This leaves retribution as the sole objective.

Judge Kozinski may (or may not) be hoping that his vivid description of legal killings -- "the splatter from an execution carried out by firing squad" -- will crystalize in the public mind exactly what executions do, and thus lead to public revulsion.

Maybe.  But every time someone is arrested for murder, or even for much lesser offenses, I see an outpouring of on-line sentiment for punishments far more exciting and gruesome than death by firing squad.  "Death is too good for him/her," is the predominant theme.  If the accused is a young male, one commentator after another rejoices over the possibility that the accused will be subjected to repeated rapes once he's inside prison walls.  For sexual offenses, castrations in novel and blood-curdling fashions are strenuously and lovingly recommended.

Punishment by the state was originally designed as a substitute for private "eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth" reprisals by the victim's family. These reprisals often led to lengthy blood feuds that interfered with the king's desire for a stable civil society.  The only legitimate justification for preserving the death penalty, in my mind, would be an analogous attempt to satisfy the overwhelming desire for revenge represented by these disembodied internet voices, voices that howl for ever more blood and pain and long, lingering deaths.

But I suspect that these internet voices represent a small but noisy subset of the entire population.  I hope so.  I would be nervous if I felt I were rubbing shoulders daily with the shuffling zombies from which these voices seem to emanate.

The death penalty serves no legitimate purpose in a civilized society.  Few countries that we consider "developed" still feel a need for capital punishment.  Even in America, it is only in certain states -- states whose identity you can predict without much thought -- that the death penalty remains popular and frequently used.  We don't need to submit to the peculiar -- in every sense of the word -- tastes of those elements of society.

"With Aspect Stern and Gloomy Stride"

On Friday, a friend and I attended the Seattle Gilbert & Sullivan Society's production of The Mikado.  The Society has produced a G&S comic opera each year since 1955.  Of the seventeen operas, The Mikado has been the most produced; this year's was their tenth production.

This year's production was perhaps the best and most enjoyable I've ever seen done -- of The Mikado or of any of the other works in the G&S canon.  The singing was excellent, the acting hysterically funny, and the staging beautiful and imaginative.  The cast, director, and orchestra received a standing ovation.  Everyone left smiling and talking happily.

But not "everyone," apparently.  On Monday, the Seattle Times carried a lead article by Sharon Pian Chan on its Opinion page.  The article was entitled "Yellowface in your face."

Ms. Chan compares the opera's use of white players to play ridiculous Japanese characters with allowing a white actor to portray a black character  "with shoe polish smeared all over his face."  She objects to black wigs and white face powder, bowing and shuffling, and fans a-fluttering.

"The Mikado" opens old wounds and resurrects pejorative stereotypes.

The caricature of Japanese people as strange and barbarous was used to justify the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II.

With all due respect to Ms. Chan's sensitivities, and with due respect for the painful fact that Japanese-Americans living in  the Seattle area were major victims of the World War II internment -- someone needs to get a grip.  And a sense of humor, which is another way of saying "a sense of proportion."

As the column writer herself observes, W. S. Gilbert's libretto was intended as a pointed satire of political and social foibles in Victorian England.  Mr. Gilbert had never visited Japan.  Both he and his audience would have considered any claim that The Mikado was an effort to present an accurate portrayal of tyranny in then-contemporary Japan to be every bit as absurd as a claim that Shakespeare's The Tempest was an attempt to illustrate the difficulties facing poor souls shipwrecked on Bermuda.

Gilbert's Japan was a fairytale setting, just as fanciful as the Black Forest settings in the Grimm's fairy tales.  The faux-Japanese setting looks like a fairy tale world, and is received by the audience as a fairy tale world.  This production even incorporates a line in the traditionally improvised patter, "I've Got a Little List," that observes the absurdity of American actors with fake British accents, pretending they are Japanese.

Asian-Americans may still face problems in America, but those problems have nothing to do with a perception that they are "strange and barbarous."  A more serious problem may be one once shared by American Jews -- a concern by universities that they are being offered a greatly disproportionate percentage of freshman admissions.  This is a fairly "high class" problem, one not shared by "strange and barbarous" peoples.

As one re-reads the entire Chan article, one begins to suspect that alleged slander of the Japanese isn't her real concern.  She suggests that the Society work with local Asian-American theater groups to "re-interpret" and -- presumably -- supply the cast for The Mikado.

We are beyond the point, I like to feel, where blacks and Asians are unable to perform white parts.  I recall, as just one example, that young boys of all races have performed the title role in the Broadway production of Billy Elliot -- the story of a Geordie-accented boy in County Durham.  It's a little late in the day to be upset by white actors portraying Asian characters -- or who use makeup in so doing.

Go see The Mikado for yourselves.  Enjoy it and don't feel guilty.  You aren't being racists in so doing.

Once was enough

So many bright, young, hopeful faces! 

As I walked across campus this morning -- one of the most beautiful campuses in the nation -- I luxuriated in the relatively calm and relaxed ambiance of the summer quarter.  Plenty of summer college students, but in nowhere near the numbers seen during the normal academic year.

More noticeable than enrolled students were their even younger peers, kids gathered in groups, or walking with parents, or out on their own -- singly or in pairs.  They're recognizable, even apart from their obvious youth, by the excitement and curiosity on their faces. 

Who are they, I wonder?  Most, perhaps, are newly admitted students, already visiting the U Dub to get oriented for fall quarter.  Some may be the happy beneficiaries of "thick envelopes" from several colleges -- doing a little comparison shopping before making a decision.  Many are still younger -- high school or even middle school students -- brought by parents or as part of school groups.

Do I envy them?  Of course.  I envy them the way I envy a traveler I see setting out on a new journey.  So many experiences lie ahead; so many interesting things to learn.  And, of course, I envy their unthinking confidence that a nearly infinite number of days and years lie ahead of them, time to accomplish all their dreams, time to waste if they choose, with infinite time still to spare.

Would I trade places with them?  A difficult question, because I recognize how their apparent bliss can deceive.  Recall what it was like to be 18 years old.  Or 22.  Yes, you had the entire world open before you, and seemingly limitless time to work your will upon that world.  But what was it you wanted to do?  And how did you go about doing it?

I struggled with these questions longer than most, but they are questions most of us struggled with to some extent.  The curse of having heard teachers, year after year, speak of your "great potential."  But potential to do what?  How does an 18-year-old assert the self-control necessary to focus on a single objective, when he can't decide whether the objective is worth the effort required to attain it.  Or whether he, whatever his perceived "great potential," has the actual ability to attain it.

Especially, now that he finds himself in college and surrounded by clever classmates, most of  whom also have "great potential."

My fear -- and I suspect most of my classmates' fear -- was that I would totally fail to live up to that "great potential" -- in the eyes of others or, even worse, in my own eyes.  I was haunted by the words of Holden Caulfield's teacher, in Catcher in the Rye:

“I have a feeling that you're riding for some kind of a terrible, terrible fall. But I don't honestly know what kind. . . Are you listening to me?"

"Yes."

You could tell he was trying to concentrate and all.

"It may be the kind where, at the age of thirty, you sit in some bar hating everybody who comes in looking as if he might have played football in college. Then again, you may pick up just enough education to hate people who say, 'It's a secret between he and I.' Or you may end up in some business office, throwing paper clips at the nearest stenographer. I just don't know. But do you know what I'm driving at, at all?”

Oh, Holden knew what he was driving at, all right, and so did I.  He was attempting to draw a picture of the secular hell of wasted lives, the hell to which young guys who didn't live up to their "great potential" were presumably assigned.

I know better now.  That hell exists, all right, but a little indecision and fumbling around at the age of 20 doesn't suffice for perdition.  There are second acts in American lives -- sometimes third and fourth acts, as well -- despite what F. Scott Fitzgerald tells us.  You can explain that to a college-aged student, and he may understand you, and he may even agree.  But he agrees with you theoretically; he agrees with you insofar as what you say applies to others.  For himself, if he is the worried sort I seem to have been, he foresees only a One Act Play, one chance to get it right.  He may grant himself an extra year or two beyond 22, but if his career isn't well on its way by the age of 25 -- he sees himself flipping paper clips across an office at best, or more likely living unemployed in his parents' basement -- or in a cardboard box.

So, no.  I've been there once.  That was enough.  When we say we wish we were 20 again, we mean we wish we had young bodies and many years lying ahead.  But we assume that we would know then, in that second childhood, everything that we know now.  That we would know we were about to make the right decisions and enjoy reasonably successful careers and lives.  You give me all that, and sure, I'd go back and do it again. 

I wouldn't dread the hours of study, the writing of long term papers, the studying for tests, the tolerance of intolerable roommates.  Those were the easy costs; now they sound almost fun.  But it's the psychological stresses resulting from an almost existential fear and uncertainty and self-doubt that I'm not willing to experience again.  When I consider those particular stresses, I agree with singer Maurice Chevalier when he sings:  "I'm so glad I'm not young anymore."

Tiny soaps

I guess it was those bars of soap that first alerted me.

I buy packages of bath soap, maybe ten bars to a package.  I won't tell you the brand, except that it's a four-letter word beginning with "D," and that I'm glad I use it and wish everybody did. 

A couple of years ago, I noted that the bars had begun presenting a more esthetic, scupted appearance.  But then I also noticed that the sculpting was actually a concave excavation.  The soap company had shaped the bars so that there was less soap in each bar, although the overall dimensions, as seen in the outer wrappings, appeared no different from before.

How odd, I thought, that a soap company would save a little bit of soap on each bar, just so they could, presumably, not raise the price.  Of course, most people don't use a bar of soap down to the last cubic centimeter -- they toss it and open a new bar.  So the company not only saves costs on each bar, but induces buyers to throw out a greater proportion of the soap they purchase than they would otherwise.

A bit cheezy, but I shrugged it aside and bought more soap.

Then came the toilet paper issue.  This month, I've noticed that toilet paper now comes in smaller rolls.  Not smaller in size per square, thank God, but smaller in diameter per roll.  Again, another apparent attempt to hold down the price of product per unit by decreasing the amount of product per unit.

Where will it all end?  Salespersons with straight faces selling face cloths to us as "bath towels"?  Cologne and shaving lotion in perfume bottles?  Children's paper scissors advertised as home barbering scissors?  A pint of beer with only 14 ounces? (Oops, they do that already.)

Toothpaste comes in varying sized tubes, so it's difficult to know whether they have been reducing those sizes.  So far as I've noticed -- not that I'm all that observant when it comes to tubes of tooth paste -- they haven't.  But, as tooth paste manufacturers cast envious eyes on recent doings in the soap and toilet paper market, surely the temptation will exist?

You know those little "travel size" tubes that meet TSA airline regulations for carry-on bags?  Will those eventually be described as "jumbo size"?  Sort of like olives, where "large" means small, and "jumbo" means medium?  Or, inversely to women's clothing sizes, where a size 12 steadily grows larger to meet ever larger women.  (As Wikipedia warns, in giving dimensions of women's sizes:  "These charts are significantly smaller than many current US clothing companies.")  But dress sizes face different consumer hopes and fears -- an American woman's  hope is to buy less goods per dress unit, not more. 

In general, the trend, even as we grow larger and larger in body size, is to provide less and less per unit for products to wash, dry, and otherwise pamper those plump bodies.  Like many others, I suppose I'll gradually just stop my comparison shopping, my studying the "price per ounce" information provided by the supermarkets.  I'll just throw stuff on the counter, swipe my Visa card, and close my eyes when my purchases are totaled.

It's better that way.  When you know you're playing a game that's fixed, you ultimately lose interest in the details of how your loss has been accomplished. 

The Maltese Falcon

Between 3:30 and 5:00 a.m. this morning, I read the final chapters of Dashiell Hammett's The Maltese Falcon. 

I'd seen the 1941 movie a couple times in the distant past, but I doubt I would ever have read the book if the Sunday New York Times travel section hadn't carried a first page article entitled "San Francisco Noir."  The article led the reader around and about the not-so-noir streets of the modern city, seeking out the locales that Hammett identified so carefully by street and address in his book.  The article was profusely illustrated -- some photographs atmospherically noir-ish, others not so much.

I learned to love San Francisco before I ever really knew it, from reading Herb Caen's books (e.g., Baghdad by the Bay) as a teenager.  Then came years of college in the Bay Area, and later a short period as a member of the working classes, living on Sutter Street near Gough.  If I weren't loyal to the Northwest Corner today, I'd be living in "The City."  Assuming I could  afford it.

The Maltese Falcon, published in 1929, dealt (as did Caen's later newspaper columns to some extent) with an earlier San Francisco -- darker, more mysterious, and definitely non-techie in a world where "Silicon Valley" was meaningless.  (Wasn't sand made of silicon?  Did the phrase mean a "sandy valley"?)

The story -- a detective story, for those incomprehensively unfamiliar with even the plot of  the movie -- is complex, entertaining, and unnecessary to describe here.  What fascinates me is the language of the novel, the descriptions of 1920s San Francisco, and the atmosphere of foggy darkness, both physical and moral, that the author constructs.

Hammett tells the novel from the point of view of Sam Spade, the detective, but he tells it from an observer's vantage point.  In other words, we learn every word spoken by Spade, as well as his most minute gestures.  But we learn nothing of what goes on inside his head aside from what we learn or can infer from those objectively described words and deeds.  Spade responds almost instantly to new events with clever improvisations.  Have these responses been simmering in his brain over a period of time, or are they truly spontaneous?  We have no way of knowing. 

Literature classes recognize the concept of the "unreliable narrator."  Here, the narrator appears totally reliable.  But he is reporting the assertions of Sam Spade, whose words are almost always intended to deceive and who -- for us as well as for his antagonists -- is thus totally unreliable.

Herb Caen first showed me San Francisco as a city of mystery.  I remember especially his tales of  Chinatown -- the narrow streets, the only half-assimilated Chinese residents, the sounds and smells of a port city, a little Singapore or Hong Kong.  I was disappointed when I first visited Chinatown as a teenager  to discover that -- so far as I could observe -- it was merely a small tourist area selling souvenir t-shirts and faux Chinese works of art. 

Hammett deals with an earlier era, an era to which, I like to believe, Caen was hearkening back -- an era when reality still approximated the exotic image.  A town of seedy detective agencies, borderline-corrupt cops, dark alleys, complicit hotel detectives.  An active port city with ships arriving almost daily from Seattle, San Pedro, New York, Hong Kong and Singapore; a port city that attracted active smuggling, and whose connections with the rest of the world were close commercially but distant in time.

One phrase from the novel itself haunts me with nostalgia:

After a leisurely breakfast at the Palace, during which he read both morning papers, ....

San Francisco today has one embarrassingly poor daily newspaper.  Imagine a time when it had two papers in the morning alone.  Spade's favorite paper was the Call.  That fact excites my own recollections of days when the city had, besides the morning Examiner and the evening Chonicle, a third, albeit second-rate, newspaper, the Call-Bulletin -- an obvious product of a merger that itself later merged into the Examiner, now itself defunct as print journalism.

And then there is the matter of noir, a term describing literature that emphasizes "tough, cynical characters and bleak settings."  Hammett's novel is an early example of the genre.  Spade is a tough dude, displaying few signs of emotion that the dispassionate narrator can report.  As the book begins, he is involved in an affair with his partner's wife, and shows shockingly little distress when the partner is dispatched during the first chapters.  He beds women simply to keep them happy and under his control.  He lies to virtually everyone as a matter of policy.  He scorns the cops.  He uses his fists without hesitation.  He is blandly homophobic, perhaps merely reflecting his times.  He violates his client's confidences, and induces attorneys and medical workers to violate their own.  He has no moral code, seemingly, except survival and the making of money.

And yet ... we regard him at the end as a somehow decent fellow at heart.

The bleak settings entertain me, perhaps, more than the cynical characters.  As beautiful and gentrified -- as comfortable, both physically and psychologically -- as San Francisco is today, something in me longs for the mysterious and dangerous city of my teenage imaginings.  The Maltese Falcon gives me that city, by chapter and verse, street name and building description.  It's all there to be reconstructed in our minds, at our leisure, in our own time.

Finally, a warning.  Once you've seen the movie, however long ago, you can't read Hammett's description of Spade without picturing Humphrey Bogart -- or of Joe Cairo without seeing Peter Lorre.  And similarly with the characters played by Mary Astor and Sydney Greenstreet.  Hammett was fortunate to have a movie that interpreted his novel so faithfully and well.  For us today, the book is a supplement to the movie, as well as the movie's being a supplement to the book.  A synergy between the two produces an enriched experience.

Thanks to the NY Times for leading me to the book -- even though I was forced  to turn on the lights at 3:30 a.m.to finish it off, to see the story to the ending I already knew and expected..

Soccer (sorry, football!)

Germany 1; USA 0.

Hooray -- success for the USA!  Huh?

Yes, I realize that the United States today backed into the next round of the World Cup by relying on Portugal's win over Ghana, and on Portugal's less impressive history of goal scoring during these play-offs.  Still, the somewhat puzzling question of how today's loss can be celebrated as a victory symbolizes in a sense my overall confusion concerning the world's most popular sport.

I really like the World Cup games.  I like the fact that, unlike Olympic team sports such as hockey and basketball, almost every country has a shot at doing well.  A former champion, like Spain, can lose in the first round four years later.  It isn't exactly "parity," but World Cup teams are closer to parity than are sports such as, say, Olympic basketball (USA) and ice hockey (Canada).

I like the pageantry.  I like the good-natured nationalism.   I like the enthusiasm.  I like following the scores in the newspapers. 

I wish I could like watching the games.  A new generation of Americans has come of age, whose members played soccer as kids and who follow the fortunes of favorite European teams like Arsenal FC, Barcelona, Bayern Munich.  They know the great international players, and they know the tactics of each team.  Soccer literacy has come to them as easily as baseball statistics did to earlier generations of American kids.

I, of course, understand the general rules of the game.  What I don't understand are the tactics and strategies of the teams.  Basketball is my least favorite American team sport, and perhaps for the same reasons as I'm left baffled by soccer.  Basketball players run up and down the court, shooting baskets, and the most baskets win.  But I've never played the game or followed it closely enough to understand with any depth how the players are interacting as a team (when they do!) so as to generate those baskets. 

Basketball at least produces a lot of baskets and showy slam dunks.  A soccer game, like today's match with Germany, consists of watching players running up and down the field for 90 minutes, kicking at the ball and trying to get it under control.  Almost randomly, it seems, an occasional ball goes through the goal.  And just that one goal can be decisive, as it was today.

I tried today to focus on the play and to appreciate the literate, British accented commentary.  My mind wandered and, eventually, so did my feet.  I did happen to be watching when Germany scored its one goal.  It was exciting, I guess, but why did it happen?  Why didn't the USA do the same?  Beats me.

I never scoff at -- in fact, I am totally sympathetic with -- Europeans who can't grasp the excitement of American football.  (Although football, to me, has the great advantage of giving you time between plays to let your mind regroup, and prepare for what needs to be done next.)  But I suspect you need to have grown up playing touch football in a neighborhood empty lot, and watching your classmates play in high school and college, to really appreciate the game. 

Soccer today already is booming in the United States at the school level, and is becoming increasingly popular with the general population --  nowhere more so than here in the Northwest Corner where the Portland, Seattle, and Vancouver fans are highly vocal and at each other's throats throughout the season.  Soccer will soon become a major sport throughout America at the professional level, and our teams will eventually become World Cup contenders.

I hope to be around when that happens.  And  I hope, by that time, to have a better intuitive grasp of the game!

Outsmarting the bears

It's ever so portant how you walk.
And it's ever so jolly to call out, "Bears,
Just watch me walking in all the squares."

--A. A. Milne

I returned last night from a four-day visit to Glacier National Park.  It was the first time I'd visited Glacier since a family vacation when I was ten.  It didn't disappoint.

Glacier is a hiker's park par excellence.  And the Many Glacier region of the park where I stayed is a center of some of the best hiking in the park.  Unfortunately, June -- especially this June -- is not the best month for hiking.  Glacier Park is at a high elevation and at a high latitude, and the snow lingers.  This year, especially, when three or four weeks of unseasonable blizzards immediately before my arrival had tied up transportation in the park. 

The Going-to-the-Sun Road -- the sole west-east traffic artery through the park -- still  has not opened to through traffic, and may not for another couple of weeks.  To reach Many Glacier -- in the northeast portion of the park -- I had to take U.S. 2, a lower altitude route which skirts the southern boundary of the park, from my airport in Missoula.

Once at my destination, and checked into the Many Glacier Hotel -- built a hundred years ago, before the park had been created, by the Great Northern Railway -- I had a number of fine hiking options open to me.  But none that went above a certain altitude, where the trails were still covered by melting but unstable snow fields. 

But the primary obstacle to successful hiking was not meteorological, but psychological.  The Park Service distributes literature raving about the beauty and quality of its hiking trails.  It also warns prominantly -- both in literature and on trail signs, about the danger of bears.

Entering Grizzly Country

You are entering a wilderness area and must accept certain inherent dangers, including snow, steep terrain, water and wildlife.  There is no guarantee of your safety. 

Bears have injured and killed visitors and may attack without warning and for no apparent reason.

(Emphasis in original)  This was by no means the most alarming of the warnings I encountered, merely the one I happened to photograph.  Hikers were strongly urged not to hike alone, and to make a considerable racket on the trail to warn bears of one's approach:  talk loudly, sing, clap one's hands, etc. 

I had arrived at the park alone, and had every intention of hiking -- if at all -- alone.  My inherent good breeding, as well as my inhibitions, precluded my behaving in the loud and uncouth manner suggested by the National Park Service.  Was I thus doomed to spend my time on the hotel deck -- basking in the warm sun, reading, gazing at the awe-inspiring scenery, and sipping yet another "Going-to-the Sun" IPA?

Certainly not.

The Park Service suggested -- as a supplement, not a replacement, to the above admonitions -- that the prudent hiker carry a cannister of "bear spray."  I don't believe I had ever heard of "bear spray," but it certainly exists and is available for purchase at local outdoors shops.  Carrying it into bear country is as reasonable as a young secretary's decision to carry a can of Mace into her dark parking garage when working late at night.  In fact, the similarities are innumerable.

Suitably armed with a $49.95 can of bear spray, capable of propelling a reassuring seven-second cloud of pain and confusion some thirty yards in front of me -- a cloud that would instantly cause a bear to lose interest in pursuing me as either prey or an object of fun and amusement -- I felt, if not invincible, at least more confident.  Spencer Tracy did not walk the lonesome streets of Black Rock without a weapon in his holster; nor would I walk into the grizzlies' lair without my cannister of bear spray hanging from my belt, armed and ready to fire. 

I now understand the hitherto seemingly peculiar psychology of the NRA's hordes of devotees.  When confronting a bear, one can purchase manhood for $49.95.

The Many Glacier Hotel sits on the southern shore of Swiftcurrent Lake, and on Friday I did a warm-up hike, 2.6 miles, on a tourist-oriented nature trail circling the lake.  The hiking was fun, and no bears -- either grizzly or the more amenable black -- threatened my life or limb.

The next day, I hiked to the western end of the lake, walked across an isthmus to neighboring Josephine, and proceeded along the northern shore of that long lake.  About half way along the shore, a side trail begins the climb to the Grinnell glacier.  The park ranger had earlier warned not to proceed beyond the point, about two miles in, where the trail was obliterated by late snow, and so far as I could tell no hikers were disregarding that warning.  From the high point on the trail, one had excellent views of the glacier and of Grinnell Lake below, the beneficiary of the melting snow and ice from the glacier -- water that cascaded down to the lake by numerous spectacular waterfalls.

Although I was disappointed -- with bear spray at the ready -- to encounter no ursine threats, I did run into (almost literally) a big-horned sheep grazing on the trail.  He obviously was more familiar with human hikers than I was with animals with curling horns; we watched each other for a while, and then squeezed past each other on the narrow trail.  I had no cause to visit fiery hell upon the calm animal, through an inappropriate blast of my precious bear spray.

Having returned to the Lake Josephine trail, I continued to the west end of the lake.  At this point, there is a dock maintained by a concessionaire who operates a boat service from the hotel.  For a mere $24, one can cruise the length of Swiftcurrent, undertake a quarter mile portage (of oneself, not the boat) to Josephine, and climb aboard a waiting vessel that takes you to this western end of the lake.  And returns you, in reverse order, to the hotel.  Most of the cruisers appeared of a certain age, and perhaps not ready even for easy lakeshore hiking.

Another mile took me to Grinnell Lake, with its view of the many waterfalls from the glacier.  I had pictured myself sprawled on a lakeshore meadow, blissfully eating my mid-day sandwich.  The last portion of the trail, however, passed through snow, and the snow continued right down to the lake's edge.  I still blissfully ate my sandwich, but necessarily used my daypack as insulation between my rear and the cold, wet ground.

The entire day's hiking covered about eleven miles.  Other than the moderate climb up the Grinnell glacier trail, the hiking was all on level lakeside trails (in a few places flooded by high lake levels, necessitating minor detours), and I returned to the hotel not really feeling as though I had covered that much distance.

The only bears I saw were tiny dots on a cliff, high above the hotel.  Every morning, tourists stood on the hotel's deck, staring at the dots.  Some claim they saw them move.  A ranger assured us they were bears. 

The very threat of the sight of my bear spray appears to have successfully kept the beasts at bay.

I took some great photos, which nevertheless hardly do justice to the beauties of the surrounding alpine mountains.  A very enjoyable long weekend, but next time I'll do it a few weeks later in the summer.
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  A sample of my photos of the park can be viewed by clicking here.

Return to normal

We began carrying books upstairs today. 

What am I talking about?  Merely giving you an update following my last post.  The end is in sight.  The house, to a large extent, once more feels like a home.  The furniture is back in the house, and resting in its proper places. 

Only the piano is missing -- due back from the movers on Saturday -- and the books.  Tons and tons of books.  (Not literally, of course.)  We began carrying some books up from the basement today, and what I refer to the media room -- from which "Confused Ideas" is written, edited, and published -- is now fully restocked.  That amounts to seven of about 21 first-floor bookcases full of books.  We'll begin work on the "library" -- I flirt with pretentiousness -- tomorrow, and the living room some time after the piano has been reinstalled in its place of honor.

It's been tedious, and would have been impossible without the extraordinary labors of my brother and his wife.  Known informally to the world -- and on their t-shirts -- as P&V Contracting.  The back deck still needs to be cleaned -- in progress even as I type -- and refinished.  And the house needs to be retrofitted seismically -- a job that can't be done until late August.

It should all be pretty much completed, except for the retrofitting, by this time next week, at which time I'll be en route to Glacier National Park for a few days of exploration. 

Then I can begin worrying about new furniture to replace the present sofa and chairs, derelict after the depredations of generations of house cats!

It didn't have to be this way.  I understand that some people handle home maintenance as the need arises, rather than defer it for half a lifetime.  I find that concept hard to grasp.  Obviously.

Empty house

"A house is not a home," as the song goes.  Dionne Warwick may have been singing about the absence of love, but her observation applies as well to the absence of furniture.

I'm typing this post hunched uncomfortably over a PC monitor and keyboard that are balanced on my piano bench.  Pretty much everything else on the ground floor is gone.  The slightest noise echoes throughout the house. 

 My floors were to be refinished beginning yesterday. Because of the fumes, my feline friends and I had to be out of the house by Sunday, and not return until Friday morning.  The piano was hauled away for storage on Friday.  Twenty-one bookcases and their books were dismantled and moved to the basement.  All the furniture was moved to either the basement or under a tarp on the back deck.

At the last moment, the contractor delayed the work until tomorrow. So my living arrangements had to be changed, and I don't move out until tonight, returning Saturday morning.  (Somehow, the contractor decided at the same time that he could do the whole job in one day less.)  I've had two days of hanging out in what is, in effect, an empty house.  The cats recoil in horror from its tomb-like ambience, and spend their time either outdoors or in the relative comfort of the still-furnished and carpeted upstairs.  They dash through the deserted downstairs as swiftly as possible, claws skidding on the bare floors as they move from one environment to the other.

I'll just be glad to have it all over by Saturday.  I realize now the degree to which furniture -- however decrepit and cat-scarred -- and art actually do make a house a "home."

Forget Dionne's lament of "no one there you can kiss goodnight" -- I'll be content with chairs, sofas, carpets, stereo playing in the background, and a good book on my lap.

Sound mind or sound body. Take your choice.

As I've mentioned on many occasions, I was a scrawny little runt when I was kid.  I ran around in circles, hyperactively, but no one ever accused me of being athletic.  No one now, for that matter, ever asks me if I used to play linebacker back in high school.

But I wasn't a complete wash-out, even as a small dude.   I did get good grades.  But I suppose some folks -- until now -- might suggest that I spent all those hours in the library simply to over-compensate for my lack of brawn, for my doubtful future as a successful hunter-gatherer.

Ha! I exclaim.  Ha, ha!  While you were watching professional wrestling on TV, I was perusing this week's copy of The Economist.   As my favorite laissez-faire publication discusses, recent studies suggest that homo sapiens has evolved as top dog on the food chain by diverting nutrients from his muscles to his brains.

Our brains use up twenty percent of our metabolic energy.  The smarter our species has become, the more energy our gray matter consumes.  To provide the brain's needed energy, our bodies have sacrificed muscle tissue metabolism.  As a result, fellow primates such as chimpanzees and rhesus monkeys are today twice as strong as humans.  Even primates who were forced to imitate humans, by living the life-style of a couch potato, retained a much stronger muscle metabolism.

The article warns that these studies represent comparisons between species, not between human individuals.  The Economist may feel it necessary to pander to the feelings of the Neandertals amongst us.  I do not. 

Those linebackers, point guards, and power hitters, over whom everyone so swooned in high school, succeeded athletically not by use of steroids -- steroids had not yet reached my small home town -- but by diverting glucose from their cerebral cortex to their overdeveloped muscles. 

Their brains shrank as their biceps bulged.  They headed back to apedom; I swam with the evolutionary current.

I've known it all the time.  And so have you.  We just needed to see proof.  Thanks, Economist.

A lovely locution -- not!

Language has its fashions, fashions that wax and wane.  The waxing and waning of fashions in slang, a form of language defined in part as being "ephemeral," are even more volatile.

Some slang expressions come and go rapidly; others hang around for generations.  Some are irritating the very first time we hear them, and grow only more irritating with the passage of time.  Sooner or later, they pass away, perchance only to spring to life once more, even after we believed them properly dispatched with a wooden stake pounded through their clichéed hearts.

Take "not," for example.  Not as "not" is traditionally used, but as a word, standing alone at the end of a sentence, negating the truth of that sentence and, indeed, holding the sentence of which it is putatively a part up to the reader's scorn and derision.

According to Urban Dictionary -- that indispensable arbiter of all modern usage -- "not," so used, originated with the 1992 slacker movie, Wayne's World.  Urban Dictionary presents an example from the screenplay: "What a totally amazing, excellent discovery... NOT!!!"  No further explanation of the "not" usage is necessary.  We've all heard it; we've all deplored it; we've all used it ourselves on occasion, in our vain efforts to sound "with it" when speaking to younger generations.

But "not's" heyday was the 1990's.  One might be excused for believing that "not" had fallen from favor by 2014, that it sounded almost as dated as "23 skiddoo" and "so's your old man," even to the tin ears of an aging would-be hipster.

And yet -- and here's the reason for this post's diatribe -- take a look at the May 10 issue of that most proper, most erudite, most British publication, The Economist.  Specifically, take a gander (nice word!) at the headline on page 46:  "An easier part of the world -- not."  Then, swiftly move ahead to the headline on page 51:  "Made in France, not."

It is to weep.  Shouldn't we expect the magazine most likely to be found on the upper middle class's coffee table (along with the New Yorker) to use slang, if at all, only when the slang is fresh?  Or should we be unsurprised that a magazine of its august pedigree should be twenty years behind the times in its grasp of trends in contemporary language usage?

A question that I cannot answer, and that I leave as an exercise for the reader.

But what next?  If The Economist's editors live still in the realm of Wayne's World, what new horrors may be forthcoming?  "Party on," the magazine may exclaim.  Or, "Vladimir Putin's such a stud -- SCHWING!"  Perhaps we'll read a clever retort to a serious statement on foreign relations by President Obama -- "That's what she said!"  Are there no limits to this reputable magazine's puerility?

As the magazine itself at times reminds us, "Only time will tell."

"Roughing it" in Africa

“You know you are truly alive when you’re living among lions.”
― Karen Blixen, Out of Africa

I awoke Friday morning, which was Thursday night here in Seattle, and packed for the trip home.  On the way to the airstrip, on the edge of the Kalahari desert, we stopped at a rural village's small school  Some fifteen or so boys and girls, ages 10 and 11, performed, in costume, native songs and dances -- dazzling me by both the kids' techical proficiency and their ability to engage self-confidently with their audience.   They were charming and personable, and I'll remember their show every bit as well as I will the thrill of my first leopard sighting. 

We then packed ourselves into a couple of small planes and flew for an hour to Maun.  From Maun, we flew to Johannesburg.  And from Johannesburg, I flew to Paris, and then on to San Francisco -- where, at 4 p.m. Saturday afternoon in the Presidio, I joined my family for a nephew's fairly traditional wedding.  Different tribes; different rituals.

I flew home the next day, and here I am.  More "alive," I like to think, for having lived for two weeks, among-- to some extent -- the lions of Botswana.

Needless to say -- but I will say it -- it was a great trip. 

As I discussed in a pre-trip post, on arrival in Johannesburg, we began our visit with a biking tour of Soweto.  I guess I had a sense of foreboding -- a feeling that we would be intruding, as if we were jauntily visiting South Central Los Angeles in 1992, or Harlem during decades past.  Instead we were welcomed cheerfully and humorously by people of all ages out on the streets, in situations where there was no danger of a rehearsed reception.  We visited areas where the infrastructure was third world, such as one would find in rural India, for example, but where -- whatever their problems -- the inhabitants seemed to feel no resentment toward us, either as whites or as relatively wealthy tourists.  It was an eye-opening experience, topped off by a visit to the Nelson Mandela memorial, and to early homes of both Mandela and Desmond Tutu.

We flew to Victoria Falls the following day.  Still magnificent, it was less easy to observe in its entirety than it had been during my visit with Doug, years ago. The heavy flow of the Zambezi at this time of year creates a heavy, obscuring mist.   Also, I sense that the views from the Zambia side of the river are less dramatic than those from Zimbabwe. But we enjoyed meeting our first baboons on the trail, and being drenched beyond all expectation by fall-out from the cataract as we struggled across the Knife's Edge bridge.

After one night at Vic Falls, we drove into Botswana for the main portion of the trip. 

The portions of Botswana that we visited are all associated, to greater or lesser extent, with the Okavango Delta.   The delta is, in effect, an enormous marsh or shallow lake, formed by run-off from seasonal rains during January and February in the Angola highlands.  The water level was increasing while we were there and will reach its maximum by June.  There's no outlet; the water begins falling after June -- mainly by evaporation, but partially by absorption into the sands of the Kalahari.  For reasons not understood, the Angola rainfall has been heavier the past four or five years, and the delta has been increasing in both geographical extent southward and in its depth of water.    

From our touristic point of view, the delta is important because of its support of animal life.  The animals we went to see -- big game and small -- tend to wander away from the river during the wet season -- including May -- and return as water becomes unavailable except within the delta.  This means that we missed the period when the density of wildlife becomes greatest.

But it was dense enough for our purposes.  Huge herds of elephants.  Giraffes ande zebras, banded together for mutual protection.  Antelope of all persuasions -- especially impala and kudu.  Lions, male and female.  And -- a personal first for myself -- one sighting of a leopard, at rest during daylight hours in some brush.  Only tigers and bears were missing, oh my!

We stayed at five separate resorts, from the Chobe River, to the heart of the delta, to the edge of the vast Kalahari -- using each resort as a base for exploration by vehicles and by boats.  We jumped from resort to resort by small bush planes.  The resorts themselves were very nicely designed, both environmentally and esthetically, but one never felt that he was "roughing it."  This was a safari more like something Robert Redford and Meryl Streep might have experienced, rather than an exploration in the "Ma and Pa take the kids camping" mode.  Having now experienced both kinds of safaris, all I can say is they're both great and each has its advantages. 

Our group of twelve was diverse in background and experience, but united in sharing a strong sense of humor and imbued with loads of curiosity.  We bonded easily. 

 Karen Blixen (aka Isak Dinesen) left her beloved Africa behind in 1931, never to return.  In this, at least, I don't intend to emulate her.
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A selection of my photographs, posted on Facebook, can be viewed at:     https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10152468892089602.1073741844.761679601&type=1&l=bf97bc50b6

Into Africa

It was about 81 degrees today, here in the Northwest Corner, with 86 predicted for tomorrow.  Well nigh impossibly warm, sunny weather for Seattle, considering that we've reached only the last day of April and the first of May.  I recall one of my blog entries a couple of years ago lamenting that it had barely reached 80 once, at a time when we were already well into mid-July.

It's become my tradition that I leave Seattle in what may well prove to be the nicest days of the year, traveling to some far-off destination with far less attractive weather.  Take my hikes in the Scottish Highlands and in the English Lake District, for example.  Please.  (I'm joking -- those were excellent and memorable hikes.  Excellent in every respect but the weather, and even the weather was authentically British.)  

So I'm keeping a close watch on Johannesburg, in whose direction I launch myself on Friday.  Tomorrow's high will be 74 degrees.  Not bad, of course, but not a better-than-balmy May Day in Seattle, either.

I eagerly await my trip -- a marathon 41 hours of travel.  That includes a five hour layover in San Francisco, where I'll meet up with my sister at the airport, and a 12 hour layover in Paris.  You can do a lot in Paris in twelve hours, but I'll be arriving at about 2 a.m. Seattle time, with half my trip still lying ahead of me.  Shall I sit in the airport, in broad daylight, and try to sleep a bit?  Or shall I go into town and see a bit of springtime in Paris?  I guess I'll play it by ear and see how I feel.  I'll still have another eleven hours of flight ahead of me, from Paris to Johannesburg.

Less than two hours after my scheduled arrival in Africa, my cousin -- the fearless leader of this safari -- has scheduled a three-hour bike tour of Soweto.  Soweto, of course, is the native township where student uprisings against the apartheid government began in 1976.  At least 176 students were killed during the demonstrations, with observers making other estimates of up to 700 deaths.  All because the government tried to force the use of the hated Afrikaans language in the black schools, on a strictly equal footing with English. 

I don't know whether there's any true analogy, but I think of Soweto as being the Harlem of Johannesburg.  One obvious difference from Harlem, of course, is that in South Africa the native blacks were the overwhelming majority of the country's population.  In any event, the area has great historical significance -- today's Soweto lies within the Johannesburg city limits and represents about a third of the city's population -- and visiting it should be a memorable experience.

I suspect that I'll be ready for bed and a sound sleep immediately following the bike ride and dinner.  Bright and early the following morning, we fly to Livingstone in Zambia -- and admire Victoria Falls for a day and a half before driving westward into Botswana.

"Longview man in Damascus"

Syria has been a problem internationally for the past few years.  Before the current rebellion, it was a frequently touristed country, a country from which forays could be made into a more problematic Lebanon.  But going back even further, the relative status of the two countries was once more reversed.  In the late 1960s and early 1970s, Lebanon was, in large part, a tourist's paradise. Syria, on the other hand, was a revolutionary, socialist state, and a thorn in the side of American diplomacy.  As with Iran today, from 1967 to 1974, we had no diplomatic relations with Syria. Syrian visas had to be obtained through the Pakistan consulate.

While going through some old boxes, I've just discovered a yellowed copy of my hometown newspaper, The Daily News.  The paper contains an article that I well remember scribbling out in long hand, while sweating in the sultry heat of the Beirut YMCA.  I mailed the article back home to the Daily News, where someone forced himself to read my scribbles, and decided to print it. 

Having nothing more interesting to write about today, I've decided to preserve the 44-year-old article in my blog.  I'm typing it verbatim from the newspaper.  I'm making no attempt to "improve" my then-journalistic writing style, or my use of language and punctuation.

The article was published on August 29, 1970.
----------------------------------------------------

BEIRUT -- Damascus isn't host to many American tourists this year.

At first sight this may seem strange.  The road from Beirut to Damascus is good, the fare by shared taxi is only the equivalent of $1.65 and my visa was issued swiftly and with no difficulty.

But there are few takers.

This was emphasized to me by a friendly group of students, somewhere in the twisted labyrinth of streets that make up old Damascus.  I had been wandering along rubbernecking, camera in hand.  In my blue jeans and shaggy mane, I no doubt appeared as exotic to the natives as they to me.

Suddenly I found myself sitting on a chair in the little dirt street, surrounded by a throng of young people.  One, who could speak English, handed me a bottle of orange pop and began asking questions.

"My friend, where are you from?"

"From America."

"America!  But there have been no Americans in Damascus for many, many years!  Why have you come?

"Oh, curiosity, I guess.  I wanted to see what your city is like," I said.

"Curiosity, yes."  And then sadly.  "There are few visitors here any more.  But there are many visitors in Beirut, yes?"

"Yes, many," I said.  "They may be afraid to come here.  (They nod agreement.)  But your government has been very kind to me."

After taking a group picture of them and promising to send them a copy (I still have my friend's address printed out in  careful Arabic), they smilingly bid me farewell.

This condensed exchange is just one of many examples I experienced of the warmth and curiosity of the Syrians, especially the young, toward foreign visitors.

Unfortunately, just a few moments later I tasted official Syria in the form of a rather Kafka-esque experience.  Fear of such incidents no doubt discourages many from visiting Syria.

I had been followed by three grubby, appealing urchins for several blocks.  They begged to have their pictures taken.  So, finally, while we grinned at each other, I posed them swiftly, clicked the shot, and started to move on.

Suddenly I was surrounded by a group of Syria's ubiquitous soldiers.

"My friend, you should not take pictures of these boys in the street," one said.  "They are bad pictures."

I wasn't prepared to argue.  I apologized profusely for whatever I had done.  I vowed not to do it again.

But justice obviously demanded more than nice talk.  One soldier took my camera in one hand, firmly held my hand in his other, and moved off to the police station with me.

The young desk officer examined both me and my passport with awe.  This case was obviously too big for him to handle.  He led me to his superior, a large, jovial mustached fellow with a disturbing resemblance to a World War II photo of Stalin.

"Stalin" obviously wanted to forget he had ever seen me, but by now he had a large crowd of underlings about him, awaiting his decision.  I recalled that revolutionary countries occasionally resort to summary executions.  But even revolutionary bureaucrats are adept at passing the buck.

Joking with our now considerable retinue, Stalin led us to his superior, an ascetic SS type who wearily glanced at me, my passport, the incriminating camera, and finally at the mob.  My God, I thought.  Pontius Pilate!

With an air of resignation, he picked up his vintage 1930 phone and put through a call to -- who knows?  The Ministry of Foreign Affairs?

Through it all, I was given repeated assurances that they definitely wanted visitors to take lots of photos.  But of their beautiful girls and handsome men, their fine buildings.  Not pictures of street children, pictures which would bring shame on Syria among my American friends.  This was told me in voices full of both fatherly warning and comradely friendship.

The call to the Ultimate Authority finally was returned.  My camera was gravely handed me.  The crowd was hushed.

"You will, please, open the camera."

"But that will ruin all my pictures!" I said.

"Yes, please."

I felt like Alice confronted by a courtroom full of playing cards.  I should be able to blow them all away and wake up.

I opened the camera.

"Please give to me the film."

I watched helplessly as my pictures of mosques, narrow streets, fezes, veiled women, robed sheiks -- and my student friends -- were exposed to the light.  I watched as some 20 frames of film were pulled from the cartridge and senselessly aborted.  Incongruous with my emotions, they were all laughing happily at this triumph of socialist decency over decadent Western realism.

My camera and passport were politely returned.  They were still chuckling together as I walked down the hall.  The soldier who first "arrested" me came up.  "My brother," he said, "do not hold this against me."  He was just doing his job, he said.  He sincerely hoped I would enjoy my stay in Damascus.

In that moment, hearing the combination of friendship and national pride in his voice, and recalling America's image in Syrian eyes, my film seemed rather unimportant.  We smiled as we parted.

No, not many Americans will visit Damascus this year.  And I can understand why.  But it is too bad, for both our countries.

When the rains came

I haven't paid much attention to Hollywood's biblical blockbusters since I turned about 20.  For the most part, they seemed both bad theology and bad aesthetics.

But the release of Darren Aronofsky's Noah may draw me back to the theater, just out of morbid curiosity. 

The story of Noah and the Ark is known to all.  Kids have (or used to have) as toys small wooden boats that they could march their little lions and giraffes into -- two by two.  As the story was told to us in Sunday School, God did seem a bit excessive in his irritation with mankind, but then we weren't sure exactly what mankind had been up to, back in those antediluvian days.  But, it all ended well for our heroes -- the dove, the olive branch, God's covenant embodied in a rainbow.

James Baldwin added a bit of uncertainty to the denouement, it's true, by alluding to the ambiguously hopeful language of a Negro spiritual:  "God gave Noah the rainbow sign, no more water but fire next time".  But that was later -- no one told me anything in Sunday School about any "fire next time."

The reviews in publications like the New York Times and the New Yorker make it clear, however, that Aronofsky has presented us with no Sunday School pageant.  He reads the story in the Bible as revealing to us -- or at least to him -- an appalling world, an appalling God, and a frighteningly appalling Noah.

As both child and adult, I've always read the story in Genesis as describing a world much like our own, where humans just like ourselves had been increasingly acting out, as we humans are apt to do, until a somewhat anthropomorphic Deity finally felt he'd had enough.  Modern society hadn't yet invented "time out, go to your room" or "you're grounded" as punishments for wayward kids; under the circumstances, only mass drownings seemed appropriate.

But Aronofsky proposes that in the brief three chapters of Genesis since Eden, the world had gone downhill -- physically and morally -- in a big way, rendering our present-day fears of global warming and criminal conduct somewhat laughable by comparison.  Fallen angels still hung around earth, now embodied as 16-foot high "Watchers" who, although fallen and frankly plug-ugly, were friendly and helpful to Noah and family as they built their ark (more a floating box than a boat), all without the assistance of Home Depot.

Humans back in the day tended to live many hundreds of years; Noah himself was about 500 years old when he got the chilling word from God.  We might be getting a bit irritable at that age ourselves, and can sympathize with the irritation and intolerance that Aronofsky's Noah apparently displays toward everyone, including his own family, and ultimately toward God himself.

So does Aronofsky get it right?  My own version of the Bible explains the events leading up to the Flood fairly succinctly as follows:

When men began to multiply on the earth, and had daughters born to them, the sons of God saw that the daughters of men were fair, and they took wives for themselves, as many as they wished.  Then the Lord said, "My spirit shall not remain in man forever, since he is flesh.  His lifetime shall be one hundred and twenty years."

There were giants on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God had relations with the daughters of men, who bore children to them.  These were the mighty men who were of old, the men of renown.

When the Lord saw that the wickedness of man on the earth was great, and that man's every thought and all the inclination of his heart were only evil, he regretted that he had made man on the earth and was grieved to the heart.

Genesis 6:1-6.

  My edition of the Bible seems somewhat frantic in offering an unusual number of reassuring annotations to these verses, annotations that don't entirely alleviate the peculiarity of their imagery. 

Who were the "sons of God"?  From the reviews I've read, I'm not sure that Aronofsky deals with that issue, but some writers have suggested that embodied angels had been dallying with fair human women.  Sort of a "Leda and the Swan" myth.  My Bible's annotation insists that the sons of God were the descendants of Seth and Enos, while the "daughters of men" may well have been wicked offspring of Cain.  An interesting, but not surprising, inclination to blame the women for any resulting improprieties. 

But it's of course the "giants on the earth" who really grab our attention, as they did Aronofsky's.  To him, the giants were huge angels embodied in stonelike bodies.  To the annotator, they were merely "men who were noted for their strength and cruelty."   

Genesis says nothing about the post-Edenic earth's having fallen into environmental crisis, or having been ravaged by constant warfare between brutal contending forces (although, a few verses later, it is proclaimed that the earth was "corrupt" and "filled with violence.")  But, on the other hand, neither does Genesis claim, as I gathered from Sunday School, that men like us lived peaceably if wickedly together, happily tilling the soil of the Fertile Crescent and raising cheerful but corrupt families.  It just doesn't say much of anything on the subject.

A brief textual description of an astonishing and powerful event presents great advantages to the dramatist.  He can interpret the event in any of a number of wildly differing fashions, none of which do harm to the underlying text.  He can bring his own hopes, fears, and obsessions to the story he tells.  Ancient Greek dramatists famously made such use of their civilization's own myths and legends.

It sounds to me that Darren Aronofsky has done exactly that.  And I'm afraid I can't resist going to watch it.