Vietnam Wars, 1954-1962

These two chapters deal with a myriad of failures. First, there is the complete failure to implement any of the agreements made at the Geneva Conference. There is the sham election in the south, which puts the always unpopular and often difficult Diem in charge of South Vietnam. And then there is the willful ignorance and deliberate misunderstanding of the nature of the conflict by American strategists.

Here, in these two chapters, the tone of the book probably begins to irritate some critics. However, to those who’d cry bias, I would say that the story told here corresponds well with the modern history of Vietnam that I learned, in Vietnam. And that’s as it should be. The American story has been told countless times, in multiple ways: the stories of the American forces, the stories of policy and state department decision-making. Here we have a view of all the parts—not just the American story, but the Vietnamese story, which includes Diem’s government, ARVN, the NLF, and all the other groups and unaligned residents of the country.

And Young does not only skewer the Americans for their absurd strategy. But of course, the strategy is absurd. She notes that, even as they try to apply the Korean insurgency situation to Vietnam, they know that they misinterpreted Korea as well—that the insurgency was coming from within the south, and not only from the north. She also makes it very clear that Diem was no improvement over Bao Dai, in terms of the American choice for a puppet ruler (my words, not Young’s). Even as the Americans, with perhaps good and generous intentions, flood the south with building materials, goods and weapons, they are quickly squandered and appropriated by Diem’s corrupt officials.

Furthermore, neither Diem nor the Americans seem to be able to understand that each killing of a “Viet Cong” creates another NLF supporter from a previously unaligned citizen. As impossible as this is for me to believe, this strategy of removal appears to still be the basis of American foreign involvement (in Afghanistan or Iraq, for instance). Different, perhaps, is the ideological strength of the NLF, and their ability to promote change from within—even within Diem’s government, even in Diem’s strategic hamlets. These changes include land reforms and education for both genders—which makes it much easier for me (personally) to feel more positively towards the NLF than say, the Taliban. Nevertheless, Young’s blunt assessment of our mistakes in Vietnam really ought to inform our modern government-building strategies, if not end them altogether.


Ho Chi Minh's residence, 1958-1969 (MEW, 1996)

Vietnam Wars, 1946-1954

This chapter takes us from the end of the 40s, through to 1954, with a special emphasis on Dienbienphu. Once again, Young’s focus is the obtuseness about, and sometimes the willful ignorance of the west concerning the situation in Vietnam. She also has written several lines, scattered throughout the chapter, which painfully, searingly illustrate this early conflict in ways that few political histories do—and certainly would have been sidestepped by narratives opting for a more “objective” view.

Several problems are intersecting, causing US involvement in the first place. Following the end of WWII, the US is caught up in the restoration of Europe, and in this case France, at any cost—even though that means supporting a colonial regime which the US, at least ideologically, cannot condone. I wondered what was keeping the French presence in Indochina, since it seemed like it would have been all expenditure, with very little economic return. As it turns out, the French were concerned that releasing this one country would lead to a loss of control in their other, more profitable colonies, especially Algeria and Morocco. While this alone would have mattered little to the US, the Americans probably saw a rising expenditure on France, and the possible loss of raw materials traded in the west. These economic reasons were driving US interest and support of French troops, some of which (Young points out) were former Nazi soldiers.

There was also a growing US paranoia of communism. While this book can’t devote much space to this issue, it is a puzzling one. While there is already a history of American fear of communism prior to the 1940s, it still seems strange that the US could fail to see Ho’s continual appeals to the US as anything but an attempt to secure help from a nation he wanted to emulate. The Viet Minh connection to the Soviets, and later to China, was borne out of US blindness and refusal to acknowledge a nationalist, independence movement in Vietnam.

Meanwhile, the US is looking, rather shiftily, at ways around both the French colonial and the Viet Minh rule of Indochina. Here is where we intersect with Pyle, Graham Greene’s dangerous innocent from the state department. While Pyle is a fiction, his idea of a third force is very much a reality to the United States. While it is interesting to sit back and wonder at the decisions of the US state department and military, I find that it’s easy enough to envision being the dangerous innocent in this scenario: Pyle was a product of irrational political and strategic thinking, dressed up as rationality, and enough people in the US were convinced of this—enough to make it a reality.

The chapter ends with the French loss at Dienbienphu, and Young includes some very strong lines from people who were there, about how the heroism of the French in battle was no answer to the (less militarily strong) Vietnamese, who were fighting for an ideal. Furthermore, Young has included General Navarre’s 1953 map, which shows French-controlled and Viet Minh territories, and the situation seems stark, in general. French Hanoi, for instance, is surrounded on all sides by entirely Viet Minh territory (save the Tonkin coastline), and for a moment, can’t you envision yourself as a French citizen, trapped and perpetually at risk?

What this chapter suggests to me, in this initial reading, is that the United States were attempting to think strategically, with increasingly complex goals which were mostly economic in nature. The economic and strategic goals were almost entirely new (based on a new economy) and untested, and required delicate and constant control of everyone involved. It is amazing that the results weren’t even more disastrous than they were. Should the United States have acted based on its foundational principles instead (such as self-government or decolonization), the US might have avoided a long conflict in Southeast Asia, and it would have been unlikely that the Vietnamese would have closely aligned themselves with either the Soviets or the Chinese communist party. But historical speculation is a dangerous thing—it is reminiscent of hubris.


Halong Bay; it was like swimming in bathwater (MEW, 1996)

Vietnam Wars, first installment

I'll be posting, in the coming weeks, about the readings I'm doing for three different fields: 20th century US, China, and public history. In all three fields, there are some common themes I'd like to address: human experience as addressed through literature, museums, historic sites, and art. And of course, there are some general readings expected for all three fields. I'm posting today about one of the core readings for the US field: Marilyn Young's The Vietnam Wars.

The Vietnam Wars begins prior to 1945, as is appropriate. As with most subjects, no event or circumstance can exist without its historical context. Of course, an author needs to make choices about where to begin and end the narrative. Often these choices determine the message of the book, and in Young’s case, the message is this: while Americans often perceive the Vietnam War (or conflict) as occurring during a discrete period in 1960s and 70s, ending with the withdrawal of American troops in 1974, it is a misunderstanding of the conflict to limit it to these years. Furthermore, American involvement in Vietnam predates the war by (arguably) five decades, and postdates the war until at least the 1990s. Young is also writing at the cusp of the first Gulf War, without knowing the future of our continuing involvement in the Middle East, and so she mentions a possible comparison without full knowledge of just how prescient that comparison might be.

At any rate, it makes sense for Young to mention the politics in Southeast Asia in the first half of the 20th century—particularly Vietnam’s status as a French colony, and Nguyen Ai Quoc’s (Ho Chi Minh’s) appeal to Woodrow Wilson (and America) for self-determination following World War I. The failure of this, and the subsequent French, Vichy French and Japanese suppression of the Vietnamese, bringing us through to World War II, explains or demonstrates several things. First, it demonstrates the ambivalence of American politics and ideals concerning colonies and decolonization. Second, it explains the Vietnamese turn to Soviet-style socialism and the writings of Lenin—but also explains why not all of the Soviet socialist ideas would work in a Vietnamese revolution. Finally, Young’s narrative illustrates the bloody and complicated conflict that was occurring contemporaneously with the more well-known events of World War II, and which are somehow not part of the general American consciousness of world events.


Obligatory photograph of Hanoi, taken by MEW in 1996

Zen and the Art of... part two

Alright, onward to the Chautauquas I mentioned in the last post about Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. And when I’m done here, I had better get to reading and blogging about the history books in my fields. I mean, priorities…

Even though the general tone of the book put me off, I was intrigued by Pirsig’s discussion of Quality. He arrives at this particular Chautauqua while he, Chris, John and Sylvia Sutherland are traveling through Montana. When they stop to visit an artist-friend, DeWeese, Pirsig uncovers more of this mysterious persona which he used to be: Phaedrus. Phaedrus taught at the university years ago, and there’s some rather cryptic discussion of what happened to him then, and why he left the place. Rather than dwell on the mundane reasons for this, Pirsig begins to recall his classes in Quality. Specifically, he remembers trying, and failing, to define Quality in writing, despite the fact that it is the accepted belief that you need a definition in order to teach it—particularly to the students, who clearly expect in Phaedrus an authority figure to imitate.

Phaedrus has a fundamental problem with imitation. Likewise, he sees a certain “squareness” in the attempt to define Quality. And finally, among his students, he notices that the drive to acquire grades, and the drive to imitate are inextricably linked. In order to put an end to this cycle of imitation for grades, he does two things: he asks his students to write about objects or concepts that would be impossible to imitate (such as their own hand), and he eliminates grades, at least until the end of the class. The faculty and the students often react negatively, and the negative response is no doubt due to the fact that all of this is happening before the advent of postmodernism. Even the publication of this book is just on the cusp of it—so these concepts must seem very new indeed.

However, there are pieces of this Quality inquiry which seem still to apply to academia, even in a post-postmodernist age. The first has to do with grades. Really, very little has changed about the student response to grading since Pirsig wrote the book. Children who work for grades become adults who work for grades—and they are aware that imitation provides the best possible chance for an A. Innovation can earn anything from an A to an F. A product of both graded and ungraded education, I feel confident in saying that ungraded education was far superior for me, as Phaedrus hypothesized. Because the drive for learning is internal, and innovation goes unpunished, a true student has an opportunity to push the boundaries of education. Of course, as Phaedrus finds, the unmotivated student simply does not know what to do. However, he speculates, perhaps these folks should not be students.

The second piece of the discussion that still resonates has to do with internal divisions in the faculty, and between the faculty and the administration in the university, or The Church of Reason. Faculty may be guarded about new methods, or unwilling to encourage innovation among students—and this I’ve witnessed again and again myself. I’ve written before about the disconnect between the shockingly innovative writing that we read in class, and the very cautious, careful, and “objective” work we are expected to produce. But some of this professional cautiousness also comes from a guardedness against administrations, who see the university not as a Church of Reason, but as a business venture. And that attitude certainly exists, and is probably more prevalent now than it was when Zen was published.

To keep this post from being absurdly long, I will hold back my final comments on the book for a third post.

Zen and the Art of... part one

Over the years, many have recommended Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. I kept putting it on the back burner, until a friend mentioned in passing a remark made by a U of C professor in the book, “We are not here to learn what you think . . . we are here to learn what Aristotle thinks!” Because he mentioned it, and because it involved thinly disguised professors from the U of C, I decided to give it a shot. It was not quite what I expected. I can’t say that I particularly like the book, but there are some interesting moments—and a number of moments which were provoking enough to warrant a journal entry.

I started the book at nearly the end, having skimmed through it looking for references to the University. So I started with Phaedrus’s experience at the U of C, and followed it to the end, and then decided that I’d better start from the beginning and work towards the middle. However, no matter where you start, Pirsig’s consciousness (written as the narrator) and the experiences of Phaedrus intersect. It doesn’t take long to discover that a large part of the book is grappling with mental illness, most likely schizophrenia, and what happened after electroshock treatment. “Phaedrus,” in other words, is Pirsig before treatment, and a large portion of the book is devoted to Pirsig’s journey to recover this lost person. I almost wish I had known that going into the book, because I had rather a different expectation.

Possibly, the book is interpretable in several ways, and different people choose to take away different elements. Ultimately, this exploration of mental illness is more interesting to me than a series of Chautauquas about technology, quality, classicism and romanticism, rhetoric and dialectic. However, I believe this is for what the book is really known. This set me off right from the start—not the Chautauquas themselves, because I like to think about troublesome topics—but the author’s need to force them on other people, especially his own family, and particularly his son Chris. There’s an honesty to the presentation, though. Pirsig seems to be aware of the problem, but can’t stop himself. This makes the narrator unlikable, to me, and I find I’m frustrated with what I see as self-absorption and spotty parenting.

Pirsig recognizes in Chris the beginnings of mental illness (possibly—I see mostly anxiety in his portrayal of Chris, and none of the mania or delusions that he hints at with Phaedrus). He also sees some of Chris’s posturing, “YMCA egoism,” and other behavior that troubles him. Pirsig’s method for dealing with this is puzzling—but I’m also aware that the relationship between fathers and sons is often a bit of a war. On the other hand, Pirsig seems only to reinforce some of the same values that he claims to dislike.

Generally speaking, the readers and recommenders of Zen have been men. I wondered, while reading, if there is a gender difference in both the interpretation of the book, and also enjoyment of the book—much like there is for The Giving Tree. (Incidentally, if you want to know why many women loathe The Giving Tree, I will explain in the comments) At any rate, it occurred to me that perhaps some fellows might identify with Pirsig, Chris, Phaedrus, or all three of them. While I often identify with men in literature, I can’t identify with these men. And perhaps the people who like this book have less of a problem with a sort of aggressive pedagogic tone.

I’d planned to write a little about the Chautauquas themselves, as there is quite a bit of philosophy in this book, but I think I’ll have to devote a second post to that. I’d also like to discuss in further depth the segment of the book I liked the most: Phaedrus’s experiments with Quality, and the absence of grades. And the Church of Reason. Perhaps this segment resonates with me right now, just as I’m back inside an institution that drives me crazy (academia, of course). Read onward, then, in the next post.

This is how you make me angry

In one recent email, informing me and a bunch of other folks that we won't be interviewed for a $9/hr job, the writer feels it necessary to include this final paragraph (as if the rejection itself weren't enough):

(and at the risk of being an obnoxious advice giver, I'd like to just make sure that your luck is supported by what I think is the best book ever for job hunting -- _What Color Is Your Parachute_ by Richard
Bolles. It stood me well over my twenty-three years as a software engineer, but never better than when I got laid off from my last software job, before I came to work here.)

Yes, yes, we know that you have employment, and are happy in your employment. But I guarantee you that 100% of the people who applied for your part-time, $9/hr job are just trying to eat, not trying to find their life's career. Frankly, the color of my parachute is professional history, which I happen to be pursuing while also trying to eat. And to be honest, the bank, and the electric company, and the grocery store do not care about my dreams. They care about how much cash is in my account. And if you, dear writer, could have seen my parachute when your email reached me, you would have seen that it was purple with rage, and so it's best that you were nowhere near my parachute. However, a few days have passed, and I'm back to mood-ring blue again.

Also, while I was perusing Craigslist, I came across this interesting post:

Proect Manager (Western Mass/Ct/Vt)

Engineer Architect with significant project management experience - Part time position, may lead to full time. Individual must have at least 20 years of large scale project management experience. Green or LEED projects desired. Health center/Medical/ School experience also preferred.. Please send resume/references/and availability

You will notice that the poster missed the "j" in project, put two periods after preferred, and no period after availability. All this, and there's really very little detail about the kind of work being offered here anyway. What eats at me about these posts is that someone with questionable basic writing skills is posting an ad that requests 20 years of experience in a highly specialized area which requires higher education. There's just something wrong with that.

Bittersweet dream at airport gate 712

I dreamed I was at the airport, maybe LAX, waiting for my flight to China. There was a long layover. The airport didn't really look like LAX (it didn't really look like any airport I've been to, but it was more European, maybe closest in style to Zurich) but Los Angeles would make sense as a stopover to China. I was either at gate 712, or the flight was scheduled to take off at 7:12 in the evening, or both.

艾恺 was there. I saw him wandering around, waiting for the same flight. We stopped and talked really briefly. I said, "you're back from China?"

He said, "no, I'm going." Liang Shuming was still alive, and 恺 was going to see him for some vaguely diplomatic reason. He told me what Liang had said about his meeting with President Obama, and how it differed in the extreme from Obama's press release about the meeting--and in short, it made Obama look bad. I think the upshot was that Liang was basically accusing Obama of aligning himself with corporations who had interest in China. I was really disappointed.

For some reason I told 恺 that I was going to Italy. Maybe because 恺 is Italian, or it just got all screwy in my head. Anyway, we parted, but when I discovered that we still had hours before the flight, I tried to find him again, to ask if we could just take a stroll and talk. I really needed to talk to someone, and I guess the dream was reminding me that I was lonely, and that I miss 恺 too, for reasons I can't entirely explain. I woke up feeling wistful.

See you at the bat clinic

Yes, I came home to a bat flying around the house. It scared my socks off, since it flew right at my head as I was coming up the stairs with a load of laundry. I'm quite accustomed to catching mice in a jar and taking them outside, but I've only caught one bat before this one, and it was asleep.

First I locked Harry up downstairs. I know he was chasing it, but I also think he was scared of it--he was acting weird. He's got his rabies jabs, so I guess he's okay. But I was sleeping with it in the house last night, and I don't have my rabies jabs.

So anyway, I got a towel wet and proceeded to go find it. It was large, and brown, and hiding between the bedspread on the guest bed and the wall. I had to pull the spread out slowly, and then quickly cover the thing in the towel. Then I was like, "what now?" It made all kinds of clicks. After I got the courage up, I scooped the towel into the bucket and closed it. Poor thing is probably dead already, if not from suffocation, then from shock. I feel terrible--bats eat bugs, after all!

Then I called animal control--maybe I should get it tested for rabies? I mean, just in case? Guy on phone very unhelpful. Looks like a call will have to be made tomorrow to Montague Health Department. Probably nothing to worry about--but I suppose I'm not quite ready to contract rabies and die.

Emergency-preparedness?

I was zooming along 47 yesterday when I heard a very bizarre radio spot created by FEMA/The Ad Council, about being prepared for disasters. It had looming, frightening, movie music in the background, and a very serious young woman voicing-over an undefined threat.

What was the threat? There was no clue, except the music led me to believe that it could have been one of these: nuclear apocalypse; sun going into supernova (yes, I know this is scientifically inaccurate); giant meteor headed for earth; large scale terrorist biochemical attack; plants releasing spores that create mass suicides; zombie invasion. Now, the parting words were, quite seriously, "make a kit; have a plan." Now, I know there are zombie-invasion kits on the market, but there is no kit and no plan that will help you in a nuclear apocalypse. Just sayin.'

I suppose FEMA was really suggesting more of a major flood or earthquake scenario--but I still don't see a kit and a plan as helping much. Maybe if they were to eliminate the looming music, and say, "get the hell out of town when the authorities say 'evacuate,'" and then suggest that you stay calm and assist health care professionals in a Superdome-style event, that might make sense. I still think that no kit and plan is going to help you if a building collapses on your family. You have to wait for the rescue people to do their jobs.

I was in the Loma Prieta earthquake in '89, and I'm sorry to say that a kit and a plan would not have helped the people on the Bay Bridge. After Loma Prieta, my school asked for backpacks of non-perishable food and drink, for each of us. But where were the bags stored? Would we have had access to them?

Now, a kit and a plan might make a lot of sense in a house-fire. But they clearly weren't implying house-fire--they said, "major catastrophe." A kit and a plan for egress for all family members, and a neighboring house to meet makes a lot of sense. You know what else would make sense? A kit and a plan for getting lost at the County Fair. And once you find your family, and leave the County Fair, a kit and a plan for systematically finding your car also strikes me as useful.

I'm not diminishing the idea of staying calm and rational in the event of a major emergency (ie. a flood). But let's not assume that 15 minutes of planning now will help you much in a catastrophe. That house you were planning to meet at? Washed away. That cell phone? Batteries dead. Sometimes the best things you can do are to follow directions when they are given, do your best to help the people immediately around you, and hope everyone else is doing the same.

Longa rest

Music and the voices envelop you
a hurricane, swirling around an eye;
electrons buzzing around a nucleus.
My heart beating hard and fast,
I could see the pulse in my wrist.
I was elevated, I was lifted--
high with no chemicals at all.
I drew everything around you,
like an aura all around the space
in which you were standing,
and the picture is notable
by what it doesn’t contain.
There is a great yawning lacuna
where your portrait should be.

Fallen trees! Fires! Wires!

Yes, the title says it all. Driving home through Montague, there were sudden gusts and lightning bolts. Past the Bookmill came to a fallen tree and wires on fire. Turned around, drove back past Montague, and came across another BIG tree fallen across the whole road, wires entangled. Turned around, had to clear some big branches from the road, while two big falling trees were leaning precariously against another. Followed another guy on a backroad in Montague to Millers Falls. It was apocalypse freaky. House is okay, whew.

Late April in Vermont

This was Milton, VT, a few days ago:



Followed by a thunderstorm, apparently. It's been warm here in Turners, though.

The Room in le Dragon Volant

"'What is my religion?' I asked.
'A beautiful heresy,' answered the oracle instantly.
'A heresy?--and pray, how is it named?'
'Love.'"

From In a Glass Darkly by J. Sheridan LeFanu

Belchertown State School

Inspired as I was by a discussion about the now closed Belchertown State School for the Feeble-Minded (an institution not known for its humane treatment of people), I decided to take a trip over to Belchertown today to see the campus. I managed to get inside a few buildings (I only poked my head into the asbestos-ridden ones, and got into another one rather sneakily). It was kind of thrilling to be on the wrong side of the law. On the other hand, I was really nervous the whole time I was inside--I guess because I was alone, and I wasn't sure who might be squatting there. Anyway, here are some pictures:


Stairs inside an administrative or educational building


Moody indoor shot


Don't go in--asbestos!

While I was there, I ran into a woman who worked there in the 70s, who was walking with her daughter (the daughter was working on a photo project). She told me a little about her experiences there, and what she remembered/didn't remember. So it seemed to me that at least some people treat it like a ruin, or a memory site. Because the expenditure would be too great to do asbestos remediation on the buildings for adaptive reuse--and probably an equal expenditure would have to be made just to tear the buildings down--the place just sits. And I kind of like it that way. Nothing too horrible can happen there, I think, given that it's right next to the police station. Though obviously they don't patrol the area, because I was able to get into the buildings without being caught. But most of the people there during the daytime were quiet and reverent. I guess I wouldn't like to be there at night, when apparently the skinheads come to write graffiti.

The meaning of life

One day on the jobsite Doug asked Seth and me,
“what is the meaning of life?”
and I said, “work is the meaning of life,”
and Seth said, “I’m not sure I agree with that.”
I would have added, “love, too, of course,”
but there are just some things you don’t say at work.

Down by the mills

So, it seemed like a good afternoon to do some exploring: just chilly enough for a jacket and tuque, overcast with a slight mist of rain, quiet on the streets. I decided to walk down to the abandoned mill on the Connecticut river, in Turners Falls. I was alone, and in one sense, that was nice. When you're taking a walk alone through a post-industrial landscape, it gives you a little sense of adventure, allows your mind to wander, and you're free to just take in the crumbling beauty (or the beautiful crumbling, perhaps) of what sometimes seems like a post-apocalyptic town. But on the other hand, it would have been nice to share it with someone, too--to walk through the damp leaves by the river bank, looking for a possible homeless encampment on the other side of the river. But I took some pictures so I can share it with you now. Here is the view while crossing the bridge over the diversion of the Connecticut River, called the Power Canal:


Power Canal (mew)

The water is always high here, just as it always seems to be quite low in the river. I'm still not sure how clean the Connecticut River it, but I assume not very clean. So, perhaps no swimming when summer comes. But right now, it's got that late-winter beauty, hibernating. I walked on and came to a lovely mill in decay. It reminded me a little of the coal town in Oliver's Travels, which he says is in government Category D: do nothing.


Category D (mew)

Here is a close-up of two of the windows on the mill. I seem always to have a picture like this, no matter what the location. I must like the symmetry of two windows in the frame:


Two mill windows (mew)

I walked on, saw from the other side just how much of the interior of the mill had collapsed. Once the roof is compromised, the inside of the building seems to go rather quickly. And what's left is the exterior shell of brick. It's masonry that lasts, just like the ancient castles and abbeys in England, the ones you can go wandering around, communing with the stones. Why not do that here? Take away the fence, and clear the rubble and danger from the center, and then let lush grass grow all around and inside. An old mill as the American ruin. About 50 yards past the ruins, I came across a piece of inscrutable graffiti:


MonkyTurkey (mew)

At last, I came to the river. In fact, this was part of the reason for my expedition. Earlier, I had seen the person who dresses in a suit made entirely of plastic bags stopped on the side of the road coming into town from Greenfield. Her bicycle was parked on the side of the road, and she was partway down the hill towards the river. Perhaps she stops there out of necessity, of course, but I also thought she might have some kind of shelter there as well, and it occurred to me that if there was one, I could see it from the other side of the river. So, I picked my way through the leaves, acorns and coal clinkers strewn about, with the light mist growing a little stronger against my face. After much searching, I could not find any sort of encampment. However, I did spot this strange looking tree. And then I headed home.


Tree by the river (mew)

The moving target

You were a moving target
and I the arrow, embedded.
You always liked to drive--
when you were angry you'd
drive all night from Sacramento
to Salt Lake City, have breakfast
and drive back home. Of course,
home was wherever you were.
It was where you worked.

One morning I stumbled out of you
while you were downstate working.
I was drunk with new life, and I
was born on the move.
What emerged from necessity
flowered into beauty.
I have always loved the freeway,
the salty desert, the faded motel.
A place that the wind might sweep up
and carry away at any moment.

When I get up in the morning,
on my way to work I think:
"I'm just going to keep driving."
In a few hours I'll be somewhere entirely new,
a place free of the weights of the past.
And in a few days I'll be somewhere old,
a place that brings tears unaccountably.
I'll slip that old tape in the deck
and feel the waves of memory
crash around my head like a breakwater.

Sometimes I drive all night,
looking for something, and then
coming home in the darkness I see
two points of light, inexplicable, unwavering.
Two lanterns holding fast
though you'd expect the inky night
to wash them both away.

A couple of days in Chicago

The old neighborhood (mew)


Downtown (mew)


Wells St., Spade and Archer (mew)

Just a city poem

I’m in a strange city. As I emerge from the trainyard, with the tracks stretching ahead and behind me, I’m looking for a landmark, a destination. Nothing is familiar, yet everything is familiar: long blocks of masonry and cornices, long blocks of Lustron and glass block, long blocks of signs and parked cars, long blocks of streetcar rail and cable in the air, disappearing beyond a turn in the boulevard. Nothing seems new, not the buildings, not the dusty road, not the signs or the cars, not even the derelict men lingering and shuffling at the corners. They don’t see me.

I’m running. Fear’s not why I’m running. It’s just that sometimes I feel the need to move fast, to beat it across the pavement, to get somewhere. Only I’m not getting anywhere. I’m on one side of the boulevard, flat and long and dusty. Sepia, almost. Particulate permeating the air. The boulevard has a diagonal turn, an elbow. As I pass it, all I can see is more and more and more city stretching on and on ahead. I run past one striking building, its name immortalized in blue and white tile above the entrance. One landmark in a sea of faceless edifices.

It has no name, this city, and there’s no one here I know. I’m looking for you in the reflections of the shop windows, in the windows of the streetcars as they shudder down the road, in the faces of the walkers as they brush past me on the sidewalk. I stop and stand still for a moment, turning ‘round, breathless, lost. Lost in beautiful decay, its living heart pulsing beneath its deceptive surface. Here I am. I don’t know where I stand. Find some way of telling me.

Interior manifestation

For what purpose this life,
the body a mysterious object;
this particular consciousness,
a mind both whole and opaque;
this particular moment
so strange and yet so ordinary?
Where is its radiance?

Here is a raw geode, unbroken;
I can hold it in my hand and it
appears as simply a stone might—
rough and cool, a weight in my palm.
But from within I can feel the heat
radiating outward—as I
brush the dust from the crevices
I know inside there lies dormant a
glittering core, a heart of vibrant color.
Understanding this, I close my eyes:
you are whole, but transparent to me.
Tell me—do I dare split it open?

More great gym ideas

Okay, so I work out at the Y, which is a pretty great place, but I have a few ideas which could improve the experience, and also the attendance. The first is environmental in nature. I thought of all the collective workouts happening all over the country and the world, and thought: why can't they hook up the stationary bikes and rowing machines to the power grid, so that we are all generating energy which can be put to good use, and which is made by burning calories instead of coal? I know I'm not the first to think of this--so c'mon! I bet more people would go to the gym if they thought they'd be helping out the planet too.

The second has to do with the very special Expresso bikes. (This reminds me of the time at the University of Chicago when the newspaper editor joked he was going to the Henry Crown Gymnasium to work out on the Lexis-Nexis machines--which incidentally is a law database) Anyway, the Expresso bikes have various scenic routes to ride, and they also have a video game which features Chinese dragons. This is all very good, but I have some better game ideas.

How about "Cyclo Driver: Streets of Hanoi, Vietnam"? Your goal is to drive your cyclo from the university to the No Noodles shop without getting hit by a crazy motorcyclist! Bonus points at intersections.

Or what about "North Shore X-treme Crazy Mountain Bike Ride"? The more jumps, drops, and skinny tracks through the Pacific Northwest terrain, the better!

Or, finally, "2 AM: Ukrainian Village to Lakeview, Chicago." Nothing like a smooth ride down those city streets when the traffic is quiet and last call has just been made.

Three places, with rain

Thirsty desert dust, primeval Sierra mountains behind me,
sitting on the Renault outside a cowboy bar when it starts to rain
big heavy tears, as the Nevada plain stretches out in front of me.

Monsoon in the jungle, tall bamboo, sugar cane and bananas
and a little girl holding the biggest damn grasshopper;
It’s the size of a lobster, and somehow I’m not even fazed.

Sitting on top of a slick wet grave, the one that says “Going.”
The one next to it says “Good,” so depending on which way
you look at them, it’s Good Going or Going Good.

Unspoken [excerpt]

There is no single place: for me there are so many,
like shards of broken glass, shattered across the small planet--
etched into my skin like scars; they form patterns in the
muscle and bone; they are the well-worn synapses.
I think to myself, “hey, that’s in the realm of poetry,
sacred, you know.” You can only give those stories away,
like a song, like a flower left in secret on your doorstep,
like a hand on your shoulder, that moment of warmth.

Hyde Park dream

This dream started very far away from Hyde Park (Chicago), as I was picking up some intermittent work from Leary & Wilson, framing a building which looked a lot like the Shelburne Winery (at the stage where we were standing walls). I said something funny to Crippy, and then I realized it wasn't Crippy, it was just another guy who looked like him. All the crew that I had known in the past was gone. Ben seemed different too, but I really noticed when he lit a cigarette (in real life, Ben doesn't smoke).

But shortly I found myself in Hyde Park, making my way back to my office from class. The quads were green and lush, and the ivy was bright and growing rampantly all over the stone walls. I decided to shortcut through one of the gothic buildings--a large one--but realizing that it was not one which I was very familiar with. On the inside, I discovered that there wasn't an identical set of wooden doors on the other side of the building, but instead a huge open stone or slate staircase. Above and all around were the typical gothic details you find in those buildings. I decided to go upstairs and have a look around. There was a fellow coming up behind me, maybe in his late 50s. He said, "are you on the way to [mumbled] class?" I said no, that I was just having a look around, but then I got curious. On the uppermost floor, I could see where the class was being held, and I went in. It had already started, but it looked like it was being team-taught by the guy who had followed me up the stairs, and another fellow. I gathered it was a philosophy/science class--the philosophy of science? But rather more specific in nature. I sat down and took out my notebook; I thought it might be fun to listen in on lecture.

The lecture started with a discussion of the Litt-Avis Overconverter (if anything should ever be named this, I insist upon credit!). I realized that the second professor was wearing a blue shirt, and his haircut was distinctly Spock-like. After class, the professor who'd followed me up the stairs stopped to talk with me, and we were going on for a bit when I realized that I had missed the lecture I was supposed to attend (the 111 class that I am the TA for here at UMass) and was already halfway into my office hours. I started in a run for Social Sciences (ah you dreamer, thinking your office is in Social Sciences!) and didn't make it before I woke up.

Systemic circulation

There's great gaps and silences
while I'm watching the patterns of your veins
as they splay upwards and return
to the center, to your heart.
From across the room I can feel
the beat and the flow
a hint of a smile when
spent cells become reoxygenated;
a little laughter when
I have to win you over ev'ry day anew.

A few words from "Two Gentle People"

"They did not exchange addresses or telephone numbers, for neither of them dared to suggest it: the hour had come too late in both their lives. He found her a taxi and she drove away towards the great illuminated Arc, and he walked home by the Rue Jouffroy, slowly. What is cowardice in the young is wisdom in the old, but all the same one can be ashamed of wisdom. ...

"...while he sat beside her and remembered the street outside the brasserie and how, by accident he was sure, he had been called "tu."
'What are you thinking?' Patience asked. 'Are you still in the Rue de Douai?'
'I was only thinking that things might have been different,' he said.
It was the biggest protest he had ever allowed himself to make against the condition of life."

--Graham Greene

Old house dream

I dreamt last night that Pat and I were carpooling to work, south on 89. Pat was his usual self: funny, charming, cavalier about work. We talked a little about Stanley, his dad. He was looking at some drawings and photographs of mine, and I guess I mentioned that I wanted to get a picture of the old house at Cherry Street. So he got off at exit 17 so we could stop by. We drove up the street and I saw it: changed. It was brick (which seemed right, even though in life it was clapboard), but the new owners had taken down the front porch. It looked naked. They had attached a beat up old barn door across the front entrance, and there were a few abandoned junkyard cars on the left side of the building. My heart sank.

I had a key, so we went in. Oddly, it appeared lived in. There was furniture, and it looked in reasonable shape, though the configuration of the house was different. In the basement, there was flooring, but the flooring was interrupted by rock formations that jutted from the floor. When we came back upstairs, I noticed water seeping in at all the joints, and cascading down the center of the double-paned door. It gave me chills, all of a sudden. I looked around back and to the side, where Tina’s house should have been. Instead, there was a huge outcropping of rock. The rocks were gray, peach, and sandstone, mottled. It was much too large to have been put there, but I knew it couldn’t be natural, either. Instead of being flat, out back, there was a steep slope down, after which I noticed nothing. Everything was strange, and silent.

We heard a car pull up, and I was afraid we’d be in trouble for trespassing, so we hurried outside. As it turns out, it wasn’t the owners, but a rental agent who thought that we were looking to rent the place. I was angry and chilled at the same time. I tried to find Pat so we could leave, but for some reason, he went back inside. And then I woke up.

On teaching (part 2)

My previous post--that was a class, and an instructor to whom I responded positively. There were other, not so happy times, too. In the fall two years prior to the class above, I took my very first college class [a core social science] on a Monday or Tuesday morning, with MP. He was an intimidating figure then--impossibly crisp at all times in his mandarin collar shirt, with his hair slicked back, and round gold-rimmed glasses. A few weeks into the class, I went to see him at office hours (which was required). It was a trek into the ivory tower, as physically represented by the sixth floor of Harper. It really was a funny little tower, with more gothic windows overlooking the interior courtyard.


View of the interior courtyard (mew)

We had to sign up for office hours in 15-minute increments; graduate students could have 30 minutes. Before me, there was a graduate student, talking about Heidegger, I think. I was tongue-tied; I had nothing to say. It may not have been so imposing in reality, but I remember a very large desk, behind which MP was sitting, possibly leaning back with his fingertips touching--you know, the C. Montgomery Burns position--except that instead of “excellent,” he was saying, “this is a puzzling paper.” I’m not sure what I needed just then, but a human connection would have been nice. How I managed to pass the class--by finding something (anything!) to say about Marx, or Freud, or Durkheim--is beyond me.

In some ways my capacities are greater now, but I’m still capable of feeling adrift, left behind. My struggle with Sewell (and Geertz and Sahlins, by extension) is evidence of this. Life experience (including MP’s class, but also the intervening years since then) has made deciphering abstractions easier. I experienced a similar phenomenon mathematically, when I retook the GRE after having been a carpenter for three years. I did better. But my memory of college bears a certain similarity to my memories of early childhood: you know enough to be aware of the newness of everything, but not enough to do anything about it.

A pleasanter recollection of office hours is found in my memory of EL. I suspect he was somewhere between 75 and 80 when we first met. He wore large hearing aids; the kind that fit over the earpiece of your glasses. Also, he was a large man, both tall and robust. He used to wax poetic in class about potatoes and butter (he was Irish, you see, and it was Irish history). He used the Socratic method in class. You had to come prepared, like in The Paper Chase, because he would go ‘round the room, posing questions. It really looked bad when you couldn’t answer.

Nevertheless, he was a popular instructor, and at test-time I could only get a seat on the floor (thank goodness not everyone came to class for lecture). EL also required everyone to visit him at office hours. He remains the only person who has ever asked me:

EL: “So, what does your father do for a living?”
Me: [laughs] "Hopefully nothing!"
EL: “Oh, is he retired?”
Me: "Oh no, he passed away years ago."
EL: "He what?" [adjusts hearing aid]
Me: "He’s dead."
EL: “Oh, well, what did he do for a living?”

I have to give him credit for not saying “I’m sorry;” I hate when people do that. We also bonded over a love of Wilkie Collins, the Victorian sensation novelist and friend of Dickens. Even during his Socratic moments, EL was able to put you at ease. Some people do this quite naturally, others can’t . . . and in some cases, it depends upon the individual chemistry between student and professor.

On teaching (part 1)

I’ve been reading, among other things, UMass’s Handbook for New Instructors, in preparation for spring semester. In thinking about teaching, I am reminded of how I survived the Great Purge of Modern Chinese History. Picture it: Social Sciences 108(?), a small room on the first floor of a gothic building on 59th Street, with arched, multi-paned windows overlooking the Midway through wintering ivy. The first day of class, and I suspect there were 25 or 30 of us packed in there. 艾恺 comes striding in, in his customary fashion (I knew him already from his Civ course). I suppose he assessed the room and decided that the class was too large. He then began to lecture, and through his sharp content-driven questioning, he proceeded to frighten 15 students into never again returning to class.

I did not deserve to be spared. Perhaps he remembered me from the previous fall. Of course, even had he humiliated me, I would still have returned to class on Wednesday, and so maybe he thought any effort expended there would be in vain. Or, possibly he liked me. As I said, I didn’t deserve the confidence. He asked me two things (I’m sure I looked like I was in severe pain, since I was waiting for the other shoe to drop through the whole class):
1) “Miriam, you know what feng shui is?" (geomancy) and
2) “You’ve seen The Last Emperor?" (I hadn’t. This requires some explanation. He must have remembered me since a conversation in the previous year had uncovered a mutual love of movies, and had touched upon both The Cardinal and Oliver Reed’s enforced weight loss.)

Tenacity has its rewards, and we remain friends. Often, when I’m teaching a large group, I like to pretend that I am 恺. This includes his way of striding around, his mannerisms in talking, his actorly presence. Of course, I would never do what I’ve described above—I haven’t the nerve, or the heart. In my experience of him as a warm, personable, human individual, this incident has always puzzled me a little. Whatever its meaning, it really brings me back to a moment in which I can really, viscerally, remember what college is like—internally. And what it is like is . . . terrifying.


Social Sciences classroom (mew)

Midnight Mass

So I attended midnight Mass on Christmas Eve at Our Lady of Czestochowa (in Turners Falls) without chickening out. It was pretty, and smelled nice, though they might have given a page number now and again so I could see where we were in the liturgy. I was sitting in the back with all the other folks who don't take communion. There were quite a few people there, though, and most of them did go up for communion... and not all of them were in the senior set. The homily was of an interesting nature. He started out with a very gentle critique of the Bishop's method for bringing people back in to the fold, and then began to talk about the reasons which one might want to either return to Catholicism, (or perhaps convert?). As a way of beginning, he talked about the big bang--undoubtedly an unusual topic for a Christmas sermon. I guess the point was that there is an unknown at the time of the big bang--the "nothing" from which something is created. It is like Catholics (and Jews) to accept science and incorporate it into religious meaning, so for this I am appreciative, and it is one of the many similarities I find between the two religions.

He also spoke (though less eloquently than Gerry, the Vicar of Dibley!) about the enduring power of the story of Jesus, of Christhood, and the spread of the gospel over the last 2000ish years. It's been said better, but anyway. It was a nice, inclusive service, and there was some Polish in there, naturally, but the congregation is far from homogenous. There are African-American, Hispanic and other European-American parishioners there. I managed to sing along when I could, especially for Kyrie, which I like.


Swiss Guard at the Vatican, 2007 (mew)