City of God, City of Man

A new strain of flu, a world-wide pandemic, a death rate apparently exceeding that of 1918-19: No one should have been surprised, but no one was prepared. Moreover, this influenza virus frequently attacked the brain, leaving survivors with varying degrees of brain damage and memory loss.

The government was crippled -- the American president herself suffering from memory loss -- but continued to function. Goods and services were in short supply. As in earlier troubled times, people turned inward, seeking fulfillment within themselves rather than in consumerism. Christian fundamentalism thrived. Many concluded that the last days were upon us. Believers awaited the "rapture," the Second Coming, the Last Judgment.

This is the setting for Sigrid Nunez's sixth novel, Salvation City, the coming of age story of an intelligent youth named Cole, during the months before and after his fourteenth birthday. Cole -- the son of nonreligious Chicago professionals ("he'd been raised to believe religion was for retards") -- regains consciousness in an orphanage, after being severely ill, and learns that his parents have died. Eventually, he meets Pastor Wyatt and his wife who take him to their home in "Salvation City," a small, evangelical community in Indiana. His world is turned upside down. His parents had always lived in nervous fear of death; in his new community, on the other hand, everyone was eager to join Christ -- any moment now -- in His heavenly kingdom.

The story is told from Cole's point of view, with flashbacks to his earlier life as he gradually regains those memories.

All the ingredients seem available for a formulaic science fiction adventure. But Nunez understands that for any 13-year-old, in any society, the world he faces is always baffling, scary, turbulent -- but also exhilarating. To an intelligent boy growing up, say, during the decline and fall of Rome, great historical trends like barbarian incursions at the frontiers of empire, debasement of the currency, and the decay of domestic government would not have been among his primary concerns. Like boys of every age, his daily thoughts would have centered on his first love, his need to establish an identity apart from his parents, his search for vocation, his desire to find meaning in the universe.

Nunez's story is primarily about a boy's discovery of himself. The pandemic is the backdrop.

Even before the pandemic struck, Cole had been separating himself emotionally from his parents, especially after he discovered that his mom was making plans to leave his father. Silent and withdrawn, in the throes of adolescence, Cole was intelligent and observant and a gifted artist (drawings and graphic stories), but a bored student, an academic underachiever.

Cole's hostile response to the adult world represented by his parents is challenged by the warm Christian environment he encounters in Indiana. Nunez neither ridicules nor idealizes this less sophisticated world. Pastor Wyatt is conservative theologically, but loving toward everyone. He displays a full understanding of -- and sympathy for -- human weaknesses. He does not share the excitement of many in his flock that the"rapture" is imminent, and he reminds them repeatedly that their task is to live Christian lives, whether the world ends tomorrow or far into the indefinite future. His love and that of his wife for Cole, who becomes the son they were unable to have themselves, is touching and convincing beyond doubt.

Cole learns much about himself, about other people, and about the search for God while living in Salvation City. He falls in love with an older girl, and learns about heartbreak. He learns that even the best of adults have their own weaknesses, just as he does himself. He gains confidence in his artistic abilities. He learns to shoot a gun, despite his dislike of hunting or even fishing, realizing that, in the more dangerous post-pandemic world, an adult who does not know how to defend himself is at the mercy of others. He learns compassion for his parents, some degree of understanding for their problems, and regret they died still stinging from his rejection.

But he suspects that, even after all the Bible study that he has done together with the Pastor, he doesn't really possess the same strong faith as do the Pastor and the others in Salvation City. Too often in his prayers, he feels he is speaking only to the air or to himself.

Also, he realizes that his education before the pandemic was mediocre, and that his home schooling by the Pastor's poorly educated wife has been a disaster. Watching TV, he learns of a highly selective school in Washington, D.C., attended by bright students who -- unlike himself when attending public schools -- are neither bored by their studies nor bullied by their fellow students. He is overwhelmed by envy.

A huge misunderstanding had been allowed to take place. Why hadn't anyone seen that just because he hated school didn't mean he was lazy and dumb? It was unfair; it was a mistake. Somehow it must be corrected. If not, he would grow up to be something worse than an underachiever. He would grow up stupid, an ignoramus.

If he spent his life in the comforting world of Salvation City, he realizes, he would always be considered an uneducated bumpkin. Maybe bright kids, like those on the TV show, wouldn't bully him, but he knew that, as he was now, they'd never want him for a friend. "They would ignore him. Maybe even feel sorry for him. The one thing worse than bullying."

Always quiet, always withdrawn, Cole slowly decides that the folks in Salvation City are wrong about at least one thing: the world is not about to end. He doesn't reject the religious training the Pastor has provided -- he is more than willing to reserve judgment about questions of faith -- but he strongly feels the need to learn and to experience much more than he can ever learn or experience in Salvation City. He has a long life ahead; he's excited about living it. He begins making plans to leave.

He knew the things he wanted now he wanted badly enough that nothing would stop him. It was only for a little while longer that his place was here. He knew that he would stay, and then, when the time came, he would go away. He did not know if he would return.

He is speaking about residence in Salvation City. He also is speaking metaphorically about his life on earth.

And he is finding himself. Cole is growing up.

Slouching toward Facebook

Here at the Northwest Corner, we don't review hit movies. If professional screen critics are reviewing a movie in every newspaper in the country, I'm not going to waste my time trying to compete. You're better off checking out the film on Rotten Tomatoes. The only exception has been "Slumdog Millionaire," but my post discussing that film was written the day after its opening in Seattle, well before anyone dreamed it would win the Oscar for best picture.

So I won't try to review "The Social Network." The fictionalized account of Mark Zuckerberg's invention of Facebook, which opened nationally last night, has been reviewed favorably by virtually every critic across the country. In addition, the film and its director (David Fincher) are the subject of a feature-length, five-page article by David Denby in this week's New Yorker. The film is already notorious. It is highly controversial in its unflattering portrayal of Zuckerberg; it deals with the perhaps defining societal change of the past decade; it purports to reveal the world of a tiny but influential segment of today's youth to their elders -- and to their peers and to themselves. For all these reasons, the film will be widely viewed, and no doubt, win many awards.

It's an important film. It is well directed and extremely well acted. Until I read the Denby review, I expected it to be little more than a below-the-belt attack on the kid who is today the world's youngest billionaire. It's not exactly that, and it's certainly much more. I saw it last night. I loved the film, and I recommend it.

Just two observations -- any more, and this post would, in fact, end up being a review! The film's Zuckerberg is a brilliant Harvard student who is obsessed with creating something that will set him apart in the eyes of the world. Because of this obsession, together with his underlying personality, he has little patience or concern for the feelings of the people around him. As the film points out, he creates a social network of 500 million "friends," but ends up with not one real friend of his own.

Regardless of whether the fictionalized Zuckerberg bears any resemblance to the real Zuckerberg, the fictionalized Zuckerberg is not unique in the world's history. Many, if not most, great artists, scientists, musicians, philosophers -- those great enough to change their world -- have had an equal or greater inability to relate normally and compassionately with others. Their devotion to their art, to the pursuit of their dreams, is so all-involving that they seem unable to take the time or devote the minimal energy needed to empathize with even those most eager to provide help and support.

The movie's Zuckerberg says and does monstrous things. But he never seems a monster. His cruel behavior toward others reminds me of the absentminded slaps we might give bugs that land on our arm. The blows are fatal, but not really intentional. We have always recognized that greatness of accomplishment may sometimes overshadow lack of human decency. We admire Caravaggio's paintings, even as we deplore the events of his life. It's not that we excuse anyone, even a genius, for cruel and thoughtless behavior -- but we nevertheless applaud the contributions of such geniuses to our world.

My second observation is simply that Jesse Eisenberg is a wonderful actor. I first remember him from "The Squid and the Whale," a 2005 film (under-rated, in my opinion) in which he played a sensitive teenager -- a boy who idolized his father, a boorish professor, and was in danger of following in his father's footsteps. He shows the same sensitivity in his portrayal of Mark Zuckerberg. His Zuckerberg can behave in the most cruel and callous manner, making jokes -- often very funny jokes -- that devastate the people about him. And even while he trades his soul for an elusive, always-receding goal of internet "connectivity," trampling on the feelings of everyone around him in the process, pain and confusion flicker across Eisenberg's face, revealing his character's bewildered inability to understand the dislike and hatred he arouses, especially in the people he most wants to impress.

I liked Eisenberg's Zuckerberg, even while I deplored his actions. He was very funny and very bright. I admired his excitement and his ambition. I liked the way he talked, which is the way bright college kids tend to talk. I felt sorry for his inability to accept and respond to the friendship that his best friend and business partner offered him, and to the affection that his girlfriend -- who dumped him during the opening credits -- had obviously once felt for him.

But then it was easy for me to like him -- he had never squashed me underfoot like a bug.

There is much more to this film -- many deeper concerns to appreciate -- than these two quick observations. Go see it.

Gliese 581g awaits

If you've been staying at all awake, you sense the excitement. Astronomers have announced the discovery of a new planet, one that may be capable of supporting life as we know it. Actually, it isn't the planet that's just been discovered: it's the relatively benign conditions on that planet, based on data from observatories in Chile and Hawaii.

The planet -- known, somewhat unimaginatively, as Gliese 581g because it's a planet in orbit about the red giant star Gliese 581 -- is 20 light years from earth. As cosmic distances go, this is remarkably close. Even so, it would take a photon of light 40 years to make a round trip. With present technology, it would take you and your descendents considerably longer. If you did have a rocket ship that was cool enough to reach relativistic speeds, you might not age all that much while gone, but you would find that a frighteningly long period of time had elapsed here on Earth once you returned. You know about relativistic effects, right? Don't blame me; I'm just the messenger. Blame Einstein.

Our sun will someday be a red giant, just like Gliese 581. It will become much cooler (hence the change in color, like watching bright yellow embers in a campfire cool down to a dull red), and its perimeter will expand out to the present orbit of Mars. (Even though engulfed by a mere red giant, there will be plenty hot times here on Earth.) It's a sad fate for a star, kind of like watching a young athlete slow down and bloat up as he ages. So Gliese 581 has seen better years, as stars go, but he still has the pleasure of having reached the perfect condition to support his child, Gliese 581g.

Anyone living on Gliese 581g will experience a fast year. The planet zooms around its sun in only 37 days, less than one-third of Mercury's very short orbital period. And like Mercury, Gliese 581g's revolution on its axis is coordinated with its orbit, so that it keeps the same side always facing the sun. The average temperature for the whole planet is about the same as that of Antarctica, but with one side much too hot and the other much too cold. There would be a zone between the two in constant twilight, however, where the temperature would be "just right" -- temperate enough to permit water to exist in liquid form, a necessary pre-condition for development of life.

Moreover, the mass of the planet -- about three or four times that of Earth's -- would be sufficient at the temperatures predicted to hold a terrestial-like atmosphere.

One of the astronomers announcing the discovery said that the chances of life in some form existing on the planet were "almost 100 percent."

He's talking about bacteria or lichen, but you know how these things go. One day it's protozoa, and the next day, you've got fish crawling out of the sea on tiny feet. Before you know it -- ZOWIE!! -- you've got dinosaurs roaming about.

The idea of life existing a not-impossibly-distant 20 light years away reminds me of an old Ray Bradbury story I read as a kid, one of the short stories that comprise The Martian Chronicles. In "Mars is Heaven," an expedition to Mars is greeted by a bucolic farming community scene right out of the American Midwest. Furthermore, each of the crew members discovers deceased relatives living on Mars, living in houses and farms identical to those they recall from childhood. The crew appears to have discovered heaven. And they like it a lot.

Until one night, one of the crew members -- after a warm and convivial evening reliving old times around the dinner table with his wonderful relatives -- realizes some odd discrepancies. As he lies in bed, he begins to suspect that Martian aliens are using telepathic powers to make themselves and their environment resemble people and places that they find in the crew members' memories. He tries to sneak back to the rocket ship in the middle of the night, hoping to radio a warning back to Earth, but runs into one of his "relatives" as he tries to leave the "farmhouse."

The Martian reads his mind, of course, and knows that the jig is up. Before the Earthling's eyes, he changes into his true, Martian form. Not a pleasant sight, at least by Earthly beauty standards. It all ends quite unpleasantly for the crew, and the members of Earth's Expedition to Mars disappear from history. As mysteriously as did the Roanoke colonists in Virginia, I suppose.

Anyway, that's what can happen when one civilization finally meets up with another. Ask the Aztecs and the Incas all about it, if you're not convinced by Ray Bradbury.

Life on other planets? Be careful what you wish for.

Dreams of Persia

I suppose one shouldn't count one's eggs until they're hatched. Don't tell everyone that you're going to ask the cheerleader to the prom, or announce that you're applying for a Rhodes scholarship, or brag that you'll write the great American novel just as soon as the kids leave for college. But, dang it, some things are so exciting -- you just have to shout them from the treetops.

My sister and I purchased airline tickets to Tehran today!

We're gambling (with non-refundable tickets!) that between now and April, Israel won't have nuked Iran back to the stone age, nor will the Islamic Republic have sent its citizenry pouring out of Iran and across the Middle East in a modern day jihad. Nope, we're just hoping that everything stays nice, calm, and peaceful-like -- at least until this trip's over.

My college alumni association is sponsoring what it calls a "suitcase seminar." The announced focus of the two-week visit will be ancient Persian and medieval Islamic architectural and archeological sites, to be studied in some detail as we loop our way around the entire nation. But obviously, we'll be keeping our eyes open wide to the rhythms of modern day Iranian life, and to the thoughts and attitudes of the country's citizens. Everyone who visits Iran says that its people are extraordinarily friendly and hospitable to foreign visitors -- even to us visitors from the Great Satan itself.

Our guide grew up in India and Pakistan, the son of a U.S. foreign service family. After college, he spent 35 years as a career diplomat himself, serving as U.S. ambassador to Pakistan, and (before that) Poland, under the Clinton administration. At present, he holds academic positions, specializing in modern Islamic civilization and East-West relations, at both Stanford and Harvard. I trust that his diplomatic skills will serve us well, getting us into and (especially) out of the country in one piece.

I suppose I'll have to remove my Facebook link to this blog, once I apply for my visa in January. As sympathetic and friendly as my feelings have always been toward the Iranian people -- and despite my being neither Jewish nor a disaffected Iranian exile -- I'm sure that somewhere in my 338 posts (to date) I've said something that might offend a rather paranoid Iranian leadership (e.g., this sentence itself). I'll keep holding my breath and trying to stay on my best behavior until I have my visa actually in hand.

More to come on this very interesting trip as the months pass.

September surprise

Christine O'Donnell, a Tea Party favorite and Delaware's unexpected Republican nominee for the Senate, is now forced to contend with accusations of youthful dabbling in witchcraft -- and with horrified responses from her conservative erstwhile fans.

Hey, it was just high school high jinx, she states. Now she goes to church. In fact, she went to church on Sunday, after the witchcraft allegations surfaced, rather than appear as scheduled on "Fox News Sunday" and "Face the Nation."

In 1999, according to Fox News, it seems that she admitted on TV that she had

"dabbled into witchcraft. I never joined a coven."

"I hung around people who were doing these things. I'm not making this stuff up. I know what they told me they do," she said.

No biggie. Oh there was the occasional odd date.

"One of my first dates with a witch was on a satanic altar, and I didn't know it. I mean, there's little blood there and stuff like that," she said, laughing in the clip.

"We went to a movie and then had a little midnight picnic on a satanic altar," she said.

I guess she didn't inhale. And all this time, we thought "witch" was just a meaningless pejorative.

We Democrats have all kinds of loonies in our ranks. Hell, we embrace 'em! But this latest revelation may not go over well with large portions of Ms. O'Donnell's right wing constituency. As if she weren't already enough of a headache for a Republican mainstream leadership hoping for a Republican Senate come November.

Bless those cats

Loki and Muldoon, my two handsome and sophisticated cats, more or less share with me in the organization and running of our household. Not that they actually dictate terms to me, of course, or remind me when to change my shirt or mow the lawn. Nor have they sufficient manual dexterity to write out shopping lists or throw my clothes out the window when I come home late at night.

In other words, my relationship with them falls somewhat short of marital bliss. But neither are they helpless and innocent toddlers, wholly dependent on my whims for their continued survival. Aside from their small size, excessive fuzziness, and blissful silence, they are more like a couple of pre-teens. Junior partners within the household, certainly, but fully capable of expressing and enforcing their wishes.

Theologians tell us that animals -- even cats -- do not possess immortal souls (although a USA Today poll last May showed that 81 percent of responding readers believed that "good pets go to heaven"). These learned scholars maintain that animals are merely part of the furniture that we've been provided for our greater comfort here on earth, along with trees, brooks and amber waves of grain. Unlike most pet owners, I'll reluctantly go along with the "immortal" part of the equation, but to assert that my pets possess no souls at all suggests that they are automatons -- little machines responding mechanically to stimuli according to embedded programs.

If my cat -- who looks longingly at me with soulful eyes -- is merely an automaton, how do I know that my fellow humans -- Republicans, especially -- are any different? Theologians, whose intelligence is far subtler than mine, have thought through all of this, no doubt, because they agree that cats and dogs do have souls -- just not immortal souls. (Do goldfish then have souls? Ants? Bacteria? Viruses? Computer programs? Shut up! You're making my head hurt.)

My mind races today in these peculiar channels, because I see that churches are already giving advance notice of services for "the blessing of animals" on October 4, the day commemorating St. Francis of Assisi, patron saint of many of the better things in life -- animals, certainly, and also the environment, Italy, San Francisco, and stowaways. I've never attended such a service, but I understand that people bring animals of every description to the church to be blessed. During inclement weather, the animals may actually be brought into the church itself.

The prescribed prayers are rather dry -- they ask God to grant that "these animals may serve our needs and that your bounty in the resources of this life may move us to seek more confidently the goal of eternal life." The prayers thus seem carefully designed to avoid the slightest suggestion that the animals, once blessed, will one day join us in Heaven. More disturbing, the prayers don't even petition that the poor animals be granted happiness during their short time with us on earth. The church's concern is all for the welfare of the human owners. The blessing might as well be for the continued high performance of the parishioners' BMWs and Porsches.

But whatever the official theological objective of sprinkling holy water on the tiny heads of kittens and puppies, I suspect the great majority of pet owners are themselves praying that their four-legged companions be granted long life and the greatest happiness of which their strictly mortal souls are capable -- not for the sake of their human owners, but for the sake of the animals themselves. As an understanding Franciscan writer -- displaying more of the spirit of St. Francis than does, perhaps, the dry language of the official liturgy -- comments:

As the prayer is offered, the pet is gently sprinkled with holy water. Believe it or not, most pets receive this sacramental spritz with dignity, though I must admit I have seen some cats flatten their ears a bit as the drops of water lightly pelt them.

But the owner is happy, and who knows what spiritual benefits may result?

I believe every creature is important. The love we give to a pet, and receive from a pet, can draw us more deeply into the larger circle of life, into the wonder of our common relationship to our Creator.

Exactly! It's a nice ritual. I'd take Loki and Muldoon to be blessed, but they refuse to be spritzed by any church that deems them inferior to humans.

And I, in turn, refuse their pleas to be taken to Wiccan rituals. It's a standoff. We'll just have to continue living together without benefit of clergy.

Small stature, big heart

Maybe I've mentioned this before ... well, yes, I know I have. But I was the tiniest boy in my class, all the way through grade school. In class photos, I was the one standing in the bottom row -- far left or right -- who held the sign: "Miss Leghorn, P.S. 67, Grade 3, 2009-10." Excessively crew cut, face all askew, as I squinted into the rare Northwest sun.

It would be overly dramatic to say that being a dwarf child cast a pall over my entire life. No, I suspect there were other factors as well: My alumni magazine this month, for example, features a lead article discussing how physical attractiveness (or lack thereof) affects virtually every aspect of one's personal and vocational life. Frankly, I'm amazed I even ended up an alumnus. If it weren't for my generous annual $15 donations to the alumni fund, they probably would scratch me off their mailing list.

But I digress. Being elevation-challenged myself has always led me to empathize with the little people. In the hope -- curiously in vain, as it turns out -- that the little people would occasionally return the favor. And so, my heart leapt with joy and excitement when I read today's news article about a Yorkshire cow named Swallow.

Now, cows aren't generally my favorite animals. "Bovine" doesn't connote -- to my mind, at least -- sharp repartee and a quick wit. But Swallow, as cows go, is remarkable, if for one reason only. She is only 33 inches long, nose to tail. That's little. If she lived in my back yard, god forbid, she could easily wander into the house through my cat door and curl up on the couch. (Cows do curl up, I've seen them, but usually way out thar in the meadow.)

Swallow seems to have swallowed her diminutive size with equanimity. It never caused her to despair of success in life. Or in matters of the heart. In fact, her romantic liasons have already resulted in nine bright-eyed youngsters, with a tenth in the oven, as it were. This does raise a question or two, if not an eyebrow. I've seen lots of, to be delicate, boy cows. They're pretty tall, huge and husky. Think "linebacker." But let's avoid idle, salacious curiosity. In her eleven years of active life, Swallow's somehow managed to experience nine blessed events, and all her youngsters have grown up to be normal sized cows, with normal cow-like intelligence.

I've seen photos of tiny Ozark women with broods of huge, cow-faced teenage sons, so I suppose we shouldn't be surprised. Anyway, she's a happy mama, living a fulfilled life, and I rejoice for her. She reportedly spends her time, when not giving birth, out socializing in the fields, chewing the cud with her cow friends -- and, um, "listening to BBC radio in her cowshed." Seriously. I quote verbatim from the Associated Press.

God bless her, I say. An inspiration to us all. Be proud. Stand tall, albeit small.

Separation anxiety

Three more weeks until classes begin at the University of Washington. I walked across campus a couple of days ago, a beautiful late summer day, and noticed the various orientation activities for new students already in progress.

Last year at this time, I mentioned my bemusement at parents' increased involvement in the launching of their kids' college careers. I wasn't certain -- I'm still not, completely -- as to whether this is a good or bad thing, all things considered.

When I left my small home town in Washington for school in California, parental involvement was simple. My dad took a couple of hours off work to drive me and my three suitcases to the train station. My mom, who also worked, had already said her goodbyes earlier that morning. We shook hands, he told me to study hard, I boarded the train, waved, and that was it until Christmas. Just like the Norman Rockwell painting!

This year, there has been a flurry of news stories describing the difficulties parents are having in "letting go." My parents' farewells would seem incomprehensible at best, criminal at worst, to many parents today. My folks were very concerned with my education and my happiness. I would never have described them, however, as "helicopter" parents, hovering overhead.

Grinnell College in Iowa has taken the desperate step of conducting a formal "Parting Ceremony." Welcoming speeches are given to both kids and parents. Then the freshmen march through the college gates, which swing shut after them, leaving the parents outside. The separation is symbolic, but effective. Other schools, such as Colgate and Princeton, state bluntly in their program materials that orientation events are intended for students only.

Obviously, a problem exists that has colleges concerned.

College administrators tell anecdotes of parents who attend classes with their offspring for the first week or so, and take them to the registrar to help them change schedules where needed. Parents will ignore barricades and signs designed to ensure that only students handle class registration and attend orientation events. Less egregiously, but still bemusing, today's parents and kids expect to be in daily contact -- often multiple times per day -- by phone and text message.

What's a parent to do? Especially after reading The Happiest Kid on Campus: A Parent's Guide to the Very Best College Experience (for You and Your Child). You're supposed to let him or her attempt to have the "very best" experience all by him or herself? I don't think so!

Not being a parent myself, it's easy for me to laugh and pontificate. But I can empathize with today's parents, parents who have been far more involved in every aspect of their children's lives all along than parents dreamed of being even twenty years ago. It makes it hard now to cut -- or even significantly loosen -- the cord. But if the cord isn't going to be cut when the young people (not really "kids," any longer) are 18, we shouldn't complain a decade from now when we find ourselves increasingly alarmed by a "Seinfeld generation" of young adults who still can't make decisions or enter into commitments with any degree of self-confidence.

"I'm supposed to shed a few tears and then send her to the world, right?" asked one incredulous mother. Yup, I'm afraid that's the way it's always worked.

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Factual information and parental anecdotes from New York Times (8-22-10) and Seattle Times (9-4-10)

Homage to Ludwig

August -- and the summer -- draw to an end. A new school year. For me, too. In another two weeks I'll be back to my weekly schedule of piano lessons. Let me indulge myself by updating my last status report.

My work during the summer, supported by two lessons, continues to be limited to Beethoven's Pathétique sonata. The second movement, the easiest and the first that I tackled, now sounds pretty decent, at least some of the time. I play it at the proper tempo, hit most of the notes most of the time, and put a certain amount of expression into it. I'm hoping for additional hints from my instructor on the latter, although I realize that musicality or musical expression ultimately has to come from within myself.

I'm pleased with my progress on the third movement. I play the movement -- almost, but not entirely -- at an even tempo, and I've ironed out a large number of speed bumps that were bothering me for a long time. There are still two or three areas that give me some trouble, but I've been overcoming those difficulties as well. Also, the movement has a number of quick runs up and down the scale that need more practice.

Having said that, I have to admit that I'm still quite far from performance speed. The third movement is played at varying tempos by different performers whom I've watched on YouTube, but it's a fast allegro, and I clearly have a way to go to reach even the slowest of their tempos. I understand that speed comes automatically with practice, and I certainly have increased my own speed dramatically, even without making an effort to do so.

I also would like to memorize both movements. A friend of mine, who performed the sonata in recital as a teenager, assures me that I can never claim to have mastered any classical piece until I've memorized it.

The first movement -- the longest and most difficult -- is still a formidable work in progress. I haven't even tried playing the last half, and I'm still awkwardly picking my way through the first half. I was hoping to have made more progress on the movement over the summer, but it remains a major project for my upcoming year.

Finally, my instructor told me during my last visit that she wants me to find another -- perhaps easier -- piece to work on, together with the Beethoven. She's afraid I'll get sick of the Pathétique, if that's all I ever play. (I suspect she may just be sick of listening to it herself every week.) Anyway, I'm looking around for something appropriate, which is kind of fun.

If it isn't obvious, I'm very glad that I jumped back into piano biz last winter.

One lump or two?

A number of years ago, I worked with a very likeable attorney. He was friendly to everyone, tried to avoid hurting the feelings of colleagues and staff, and had a good -- if quirky -- sense of humor. He was memorable -- especially for a defense trial attorney -- because of his love of Italy in general and Italian opera in particular. When we moved into new offices, he saw to it that, instead of having conference rooms prosaically designated as A, B, and C, these rooms were instead labelled Aida, Boheme and Carmen.

I knew he was a Republican, and generally avoided arguing politics with him. On one occasion, however, we did have a good natured discussion about taxes. He, of course, wanted taxes to be low, the lower the better. I pointed out that lower taxes meant decreased services. Not just aid to the arts, to National Parks, to transportation -- but to the unemployed, the disabled, the elderly, widows and orphans (yeah, I pulled out all the stops!). Many people in our society, I reminded him, through no obvious fault of their own, depend completely on public assistance. Cutting taxes means taking away the life jackets that just barely keep these folks' heads above water.

He looked at me, sort of blankly, and shrugged. "So what?" he asked.

You have to understand that this guy was not the office cynic. He was not a wise guy. He didn't go around joking about the misfortunes of others. He wasn't obviously racist. That's why I was stunned into silence by his "so what." It was a conversation stopper. I wandered out of his office, and tried to on about my normal business.

This guy would never deliberately harm a flea -- if he was dealing with the flea in person. But once the "flea" became an abstraction, just one of a mass of fleas out there in the outside world, he no longer had the ability or the interest to empathize with whatever oppression and suffering rendered that flea's existence miserable. If the story of civilization is the progressive redefinition of "family" from its original meaning to encompass, first, an extended family, then the tribe, then similar social and ethnic groups, then a geographic region, then the nation, and then all humanity -- my friend was still somewhat low on the level of civilization. And yet, to all appearances, he was the very epitome of a "civilized" man.

I remember all of this when I read about the Tea Party supporters who are now massing back in Washington. They are not deliberately evil men and women. They want lower taxes. Who doesn't? They want smaller government; and what government there is, they want to make more local. These are good objectives, in themselves, and worthy goals to keep in mind when contemplating and devising governmental programs. But I sense a collective shrug, a murmurred "so what?", when Tea Partiers are reminded that their taxes aren't just money thrown down the drain -- that in part those taxes allow persons less lucky than themselves -- those dealt a poor hand in terms of brains, social skills, good parenting, good schooling, inherited character traits, or just plain bad luck during their lifetimes -- to live a life surrounded by at least the bare minimum requirements of our society: food, housing, clothing, education for their children.

I understand the concerns of the Tea Party. But I also sense this total failure on their part to empathize significantly with others -- with those to whom they aren't related by blood, friendship, or similar ideology -- a failure so total that the very real hardships of others appear of little consequence compared with their obsession to shrink government and lower taxes.

As I was when I confronted my attorney friend, I'm left speechless. Not this time out of shock, however, but because I realize that argument is useless. The typical Tea Partiers have a different mindset, a different way at looking at life. Their philosophy is not alien to me, not incomprehensible -- but it doesn't represent the best this country has to offer. It's a more primitive way of thinking, one that we should all have been growing beyond by now, and I think, if pursued, one that will lead to enormous future problems. Not just problems for the so-called underprivileged, but for our country and our civilization. For all of us.

Through a glass darkly

A bright, warm, sunny day in Seattle. After a week or so of gray skies and cool days, summer finally returns -- temperatures in the 80's, birds chirping, voices of kids playing in the streets.

But, as that philosopher Buddy Holly once said, "it's raining, raining in my heart."

I'm afflicted with a summer cold. It came on gradually, tickle by tickle in the back of my throat. I ignored it. It would not be ignored; it insisted. By Sunday, I'd stopped doing anything productive. I sat and stared into space. I gazed at my unengaging Facebook screen. I picked at my piano keys. I went to YouTube for musical inspiration and fell asleep listening to Horowitz. I couldn't stay awake during the day; I couldn't stay asleep at night.

Yesterday was worse, today not much better.

Telling folks you have a cold earns you no respect, no sympathy. Why would it? When I was nine or ten, I had a cold most days of the year. So what? Life was to be lived. Now, I get a cold maybe twice a year, and the experience undoes me. Whenever it gets near me, the wuss-o-meter goes off the scale.

No matter how beautiful the day outside, no matter how moving the music I hear and attempt to play, no matter what exciting events I see beckoning in the future -- with a cold, everything's in black and white. Or, more accurately, gray. A cold leaves you alive to limp through daily life, but drains all of the joy and all of the beauty out of the experience. If love provides us intimations of immortality, a cold offers sober insights into the flat, cold world of clinical depression.

But, as many webpages have advised me over the past day or so, the worst symptoms of a cold generally are over within three days. I should be about there. Do I see a bit of color at the end of the tunnel? -- like viewing Oz from the gloomy depths of a Kansas tornado?

I'm not sure. Who cares? I'll get there when I get there.

One further observation: clinical depression (The Bell Jar notwithstanding) generally doesn't cause one to churn out gripping and memorable writing.

Neither does the common cold. And I guess that's all I got to say. So yeah.

Brotherhood in America

On page A14 of today's New York Times, there's a large photograph of five attractive teenaged boys and girls, sitting on a front porch (stoop, I suppose they call it) in Queens. They're laughing and joking together. They look like they might be your own kids, or maybe those of your neighbors next door.

The NYT hasn't pictured them because they've been accused of mugging someone; nor are they there because they're promising young rocket scientists. They are newsworthy only because they're all Muslims, and they're just killing time while somewhat hungry, waiting for sunset. They are observing Ramadan.

As one of the girls comments, discussing what fasting for Ramadan means to her:

It's all about being mad mellow. It's cool, too -- it lets you find out who you are, too. You have more time to look at yourself.

Pretty scary, huh?

I remark on this small story only because, in today's Seattle Times and in newspapers across the land, one finds the latest diatribe from columnist Charles Krauthammer. He continues to be aghast at the proposal to build a mosque near Ground Zero.

Krauthammer, to give credit where due, seems not to claim that Muslims have no legal right to build the mosque, only that to do so would be both "insensitive" and "provocative." The Japanese wouldn't "plant their flag" at Pearl Harbor, he conjectures, even though few Japanese alive today have any personal responsibility for the 1941 bombing. Why can't the Muslims be equally sensitive?

But the Japanese -- those who live under the Japanese flag -- are not Americans. The Japanese flag represents a foreign nation. A mosque does not represent a foreign people. Those five kids laughing in the photo are just as American as Mr. Krauthammer.

To say that Muslim symbols or places of worship are not welcome near Ground Zero, because the attack on the World Trade Center was the work of Muslim extremist fanatics, is like saying that Catholic churches should not be built in California because of the cruelties committed by Spanish conquistadores in the name of Catholicism.

I suspect that Krauthammer sees those five Muslin teenagers as young people entitled to the legal protections of citizenship, but I suspect also that he does not see them as "American" in the same sense as Dick, Jane and Baby Sally, who live next door to him in Happytown, USA. He can't believe that those kids are equally appalled by what happened on 9-11, that they may see little connection between the god to whom they pray and for whom they fast and the "god" that animated Osama bin Laden's hatred of America.

Whether a mosque is built in Lower Manhatten is symbolic. Krauthammer and I agree on that. Do we recognize the estimated 7 million Muslims who live in the United States as our fellow citizens? Do we accept them as every bit as "American" as Dick and Jane? Do we acknowledge that their religion is just one more thread in the complexly woven fabric of American religious life? Or do we hold them -- including those happy, devout youngsters in the photo -- at arms' length, acting polite, perhaps, but viewing them in our hearts as nothing more than local representatives of a small group of diabolical Middle East fanatics?

Dancing out of China

I'm depressed by a movie whose premise seems promising -- a premise that leads me to watch it despite mediocre reviews, suspecting that the reviewers either just didn't get it, or were overly focused on technical aspects that would appear less important to a cinematic layman like me -- but that so fails to live up to its promise that I leave the theater feeling cheated.

Last night I attended the Seattle opening of Mao's Last Dancer, a dramatization of the real-life story of Li Cunxin, a Chinese ballet dancer who defected to the West in 1981. Li's life is the very stuff of drama: born to and raised by a peasant family in provincial China; selected almost arbitrarily to study ballet in Beijing at the age of 11 (because Madame Mao decided she wanted a ballet company); forced to undergo strenous physical training for an alien art form that he didn't understand and didn't enjoy; transformed as a teenager from a hitherto lackluster dancer by his viewing of a videotaped performance by Soviet defector Mikhail Baryshnikov; and, finally, his realization as one of the top performers at the Beijing Dance Academy, contrary to early expectations by his instructors. This rags to riches story alone would have made a fascinating movie.

But, wait, there's more. During a period of warming in Sino-American relations, Li's dance group was visited by officials of the Houston Ballet. The director was strongly impressed by Li's dancing, and invited him to spend three months with his company in Houston. Chinese officials were concerned with Li's "political readiness," but reluctantly agreed to the visit. In Houston, Li fell in love with another dancer, married her secretly, and decided to defect. He insisted on visiting the Chinese consulate to explain his decision. While there, he was seized, held captive, and was about to be flown back to China. Enormous adverse publicity, plus intense diplomatic discussions (then Vice President Bush was a patron of the Houston Ballet (who knew?)), led the Chinese to release Li, with the admonition that he'd never see China, or his family, again.

Years later, with liberalization in China, Li had become a hero -- although a politically unreliable one -- in China itself. His parents were secretly flown to the United States where they watched from the audience as Li danced an interpretation of Le Sacre du Printemps. They were brought up on stage to meet their astonished and emotionally overwhelmed son during curtain calls. ("Why are you dancing naked?" his father asks in Chinese. "Let's talk about it later," his son grins.)

All of this should have been great cinema. Somehow, however, it sounds a lot better on paper than it appears on film. The scenes shot in China are dramatic and seemingly authentic. The hardships suffered by all Chinese during the Cultural Revolution are touched on lightly, but convincingly. But the film's opening scene depicts Li's arrival in Houston, with subsequent flashbacks revealing his childhood and adolescence. These opening Houston scenes apparently were designed to contrast America, land of plenty and of freedom, with Maoist China, land of poverty and oppression. Li is shown bedazzled by the skycrapers and modernity of Houston (now eclipsed, of course, by the excesses of Shanghai), and marveling at the consumer goods heaped upon him by his host, the director of the Houston Ballet.

To me, the Houston scenes appeared pure, cheap Hollywood dreck. More footage was devoted to the director's leading Li around from store to store, buying him merchandise, and to showing him the wonders of Houston's disco scene, than was to the director's efforts to integrate him into his own ballet company. I confess to a strong distaste for Texas, at least to the media's routine portrayal of Texas, and most of all to Houston. The cultural elite looked and sounded like a bunch of moneyed snobs out of any one of a number of TV series set in that state. The entire Houston cast looked like a bunch of mediocre Hollywood actors. America in general came across as a country with too much wealth and far too much self-satisfaction.

Li's relationship with the woman he married was touching, at least in the early scenes, but by the time of his defection it was unclear whether he was staying in the U.S. for the sake of love, or for the sake of greater artistic freedom and much greater prosperity. Both, probably, but I couldn't help wondering if he wouldn't have made more of a contribution to ballet by returning home to his company in Beijing.

Li's marriage did not last -- according to the movie, because his wife's own dancing career could not be fulfilled in Houston. During his 18 years with the Houston Ballet, he remarried and finally moved to Australia, where he lives today and where he wrote the best-selling autobiography on which the movie was based. An interesting interview with Li appears on the first page of the Arts section in today's New York Times.

I wish I'd forgone the movie, and read the book.

P.S. -- But some of the ballet scenes, danced by a principal of the Birmingham Royal Ballet, are admittedly spectacular. Too bad the movie didn't present more ballet and less disco.

Hadrian's Wall

I returned late Wednesday night from my cross-England hike, following Hadrian's Wall from the North Sea to the Irish Sea. I can now say I've walked in the footsteps of Roman legionaires. Less preciously, perhaps, I can say that I've spent two weeks -- hiking, riding on trains, and staying at Bed and Breakfasts -- rubbing shoulders with the English people of today, an altogether pleasant and enjoyable experience in itself.

But we all know already that the English tend to be intelligent, quietly witty, endlessly patient, and more or less good-naturedly tolerant of us American buffoons. So I don't need to linger on that aspect of the trip.

My hike was arranged through a British provider -- the company reserved the B&B's at which I would stay each night, and arranged for a local company to move my luggage each day, while I was hiking, to my next destination. They also provided maps, a guide book, and detailed instructions on how to find my accommodations each evening. The trip was unguided. I had to hike (roughly 14 miles a day) and carry a daypack.

I have rarely worked with a travel vendor that was as quietly efficient or that did so precisely everything that it promised to do at the time I paid (quite inexpensively) for the package. I'd be happy to give the name of the vendor and further details to anyone who is interested in this hike (or one of the many others, all over Britain, provided by the company), together with my unqualified recommendation.

I arrived in London on July 28, spent a night trying to sleep despite disruption of my circadian rhythms, and took the train the next morning to Newcastle, a ride of about 3 ½ hours. A transfer onto one of Newcastle's excellent rapid transit trains and I arrived at Tynemouth, a beach town on a cliff overlooking the North Sea. I located the first of the B&B's that my provider had reserved for me -- on Tynemouth's main street, and a half block from the sea -- and knew immediately that I was going to enjoy the hike. The B&B was a small building, crowded in with other buildings on the street. I rang the bell, and was greeted by a kindly, elderly woman, a genteel lady who seemed to have stepped out of a 1940's British movie.¹ She had been expecting me, she said, and offered me tea, gave me a key to the front door, showed me to my room, and then tactfully disappeared.

I next saw my hostess in the morning in the small dining room where she served me, together with a few other guests, the amazing meal called an English breakfast -- eggs, ham, bacon (British style), mushrooms, tomatoes, baked beans, and toast presented in that strange English rack designed to make sure the toast is cold by the time you eat it. This process, with some variation, was to be repeated every morning for the next eight days.

I finished my meal, more than adequately fueled up for my first day's walk, a walk that began at Segedunum Fort (which I toured) where Hadrian's Wall begins, continued along the Tyne riverfront through downtown Newcastle, and ended up at Newburn, a suburb just west of Newcastle. My first day's hike was eleven miles, just to warm me up, the next day was 14, and the days varied only slightly in distance from that day on.

The path for the first three days was fairly flat, often following the "Military Road" -- a road constructed along side, or actually on top of, the wall in the 1740's, as an emergency means of getting troops from Newcastle to rural areas where the Scottish forces favoring Bonnie Prince Charlie were making incursions. The wall was here visible only in isolated pieces, although the "vallum," a ditch just south of the wall, dug as part of the wall fortifications, was nearly always visible. By the fourth day, however, as the path climbed into the hilly central part of the country, the wall was gloriously intact (although at reduced height since Roman times) for long stretches. Roman milecastles also could be seen through much of this hilly area, as well as the foundations of Roman forts built into the wall.

I had arranged for a one-day layover near Twice Brewed, at the central point of the hike, an area that had some of the best stretches of the wall. I took advantage of this free day to hike to the ruins and archeological works at Vindolanda, a Roman fort pre-dating the wall and located about a mile or so south of it.

And the hike wasn't all about the wall. The scenery was magnificent. A geologic formation called the Whin Sill cuts across Northumberland and Cumbria in northern England, resulting in gradual uphill slopes from the south, falling sharply by rock cliffs to the north. The Romans took advantage of the Whin Sill in designing their defenses, building the wall along its ridge. The rocky crags, and the lakes that form at the base of the cliffs, add drama to the already beautiful green, rolling hills.

The dramatic portions of the hike end at the small city of Carlisle, and many wall hikers end their hikes at this point. I went ahead and hiked the final 16 miles to the actual termination of the wall at Bowness-on-Solway, a tiny town on the Solway Firth, an inlet of the Irish Sea. There are no surviving Roman ruins along this last 16 miles, but the very flat walk alongside the Firth is attractive -- although the day seemed very long by the time I reached Bowness!

All in all, an easy hike, compared with, say, the Himalayas. But the daily distances were greater than I'm used to, and my feet paid a price. Unfortunately, I had developed a hot spot on one foot before leaving home -- some problem with my shoes -- and this translated into blisters on the hike. I had plasters stuck over both heels and was hobbling somewhat painfully for several days. But the experience reminded me that low grade pain is something that you can push into the back of your mind if the experience is otherwise interesting and enjoyable enough. Character-building, as my parents' generation would have said. I do suggest well-broken-in boots or shoes, plus a supply of Second Skin, to anyone planning such a hike.

And the weather, that had greatly concerned me before departure?

At some point on your walk it will rain; if it doesn't, it's fair to say that you haven't really lived the full Hadrian's Wall experience properly.

--My (obviously British) guidebook

Despite all my forebodings (see prior blog posting) and despite threatening skies daily, the rain didn't really fall (a few drops, maybe) throughout most of my hike. I was beginning to fear that I therefore wasn't "properly" experiencing everything that Hadrian's Wall had to offer. Luckily, I was hit by a shower near the end of the final day, a shower strong enough to force me to dig my windbreaker out of my daypack.

I was less than two miles from my final destination. I just grinned as the heavens opened.

After sleeping at a delightful B&B with a view from my window of the ancient and rather spooky graveyard next door, I took a bus back to Carlisle, and the train to London, where I spent four nights recovering from my exertions. London is always fun, and I took in a couple of West End shows, as well as visits to the British Museum (greatly renovated inside since my last visit) and the National Gallery.

A truly interesting and relatively inexpensive two weeks, an experience I'd recommend to anyone who enjoys both history and the outdoors. (If you're anxious for more, I've posted photos of the hike on Facebook.) (For map of hike, see earlier post.)

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¹I learned on my return that my Tynemouth B&B has undefined "associations" with Charlotte Bronte, Charles Dickens, Thomas Carlyle and Lady Byron. I did sense that I felt literarily inspired while I slept.

---For Immediate Release---

The Northwest Corner will be closed until August 12, while Rainier96, (its publisher) sets off on a quixotic quest, hiking coast to coast across England. Rainier96 observes that, at this very moment and for the next few weeks, the climate of Seattle and its surroundings has (and will have) achieved its peak of perfection. Few places on earth can equal the Northwest Corner for beauty. Few places have a better and more elaborate network of hiking trails.

Rainier96 also takes care to point out that the forecast over the next two weeks for that portion of England to which he adjourns calls for rain showers virtually daily, with temperatures never to exceed 65 degrees.

His dampish hike, and his departure from the Northwest Corner, thus become what can only be called a bitter and dismal study in irony.

But a man's got to do what a man's got to do. Stiff upper lip, and all that. Note your calendars for mid-August.