Procopius's Open Salon Blog

After the Assassination

Sun, 22 Nov 2009 15:11:58 -0500

This is a day of remembrance for many, and rightly so. I was a 5 year old Kindergartner when Kennedy was murdered, and hearing of Oswald's heartless deed is etched into my memory very clearly. It is perhaps the earliest "clear" memory I have, full of detail and emotion. The older memories I have are small and episodic, lacking the emotional depth of this one.

The memory is clear, but what else is there about that day? What is the lasting impact on those who were very young grade school children at the time of the assassination? What does it do to a child when the earliest memory he has is of an event of great violence?

Children are very resilient, of course. Once the funeral was over, my classmates and I quickly moved on to other distractions. Thanksgiving came, then Christmas, and then the Beatles. Life returned to normal.

Or did it?

Here are some of the things I remember that stand out from my grade school years:

Kennedy's assassination
Vietnam
Race riots
Vietnam
Race riots
Hippies and anti-war demonstrations
Heated and ugly arguments between my parents and my older brother about the Vietnam War
The Tet Offensive, and its aftermath, when hundreds of American military men are killed each week
Martin Luther King's assassination
Race riots
Robert Kennedy's assassination
Chicago riots
Nixon's victory over Humphrey
Drugs, and the death of a 17 year old neighbor from a heroin overdose
Kent State killings

I clearly remember watching the rioting and looting in places like Watts and Newark and Detroit. Many of my relatives lived in Memphis, and I remember the phone calls from them as they wondered if the hell that engulfed their city after Martin Luther King's murder would reach into their own neighborhood.

I clearly remember watching the mayhem that was Vietnam nearly every night on the evening news, images that would be prohibited from the public during later wars in Iraq and Somalia, and perhaps other places that we know nothing about.

Violence, in other words, became the norm for a small child like me. Beginning on November 22, 1963, it became the normal state of affairs. Not in my home, mind you, and not in my safe, upper middle class neighborhood. But I watched it nearly every evening on the TV news, and it was far too often the subject of dinner conversation. Violence was expected. It was the way things were, and always would be.

Is it any wonder that Americans my age stopped letting their children out of their sight, thinking some murderer or sexual predator lurked behind the bushes just out of sight?

Is it any wonder that exurban farmland is being eaten up by sterile gated communities, complete with guard houses patrolled by faux policemen, to provide a false sense of security for the more affluent among us?

Is it any wonder we allow billions to be wasted on an unending War on Drugs?

Is it any wonder we let our leaders, even when they are baby boomers just like us, eskew reasonable diplomacy and resort to military solutions for problems as insignificant as a coup in Grenada, a tinpot dictator in Panama, or non-existant WMD in Iraq?

Is it any wonder that New Deal hopefulness, post World War II optimism, and even JFK/LBJ-style social liberalism have been replaced with the jaded, reactionary, and ultimately selfish conservatism that is dominant today, that seems to stress what is best for "Me, Me, Me" instead of "We, We, We"?

This, to me, is the legacy of November 22, 1963.

Name That Book: Answers to the Sequel

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 17:11:35 -0500

OK, for those of you who played yesterday's "Name That Book" game (here's the link), and chose NOT to use Google to find the answers, here they are:

1. "If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you'll probably want to know is where I was born, and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don't feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth."

Who else could have begun a tale with this much attitude but Holden Caulfield, the first person protagonist of The Catcher in the Rye?

2. "When he woke up in the woods in the dark and the cold of the night he'd reach out to touch the child sleeping beside him."

This is from Cormac McCarthy's The Road. Good guess, Roy! Maybe it's because of the fact that when I read this, my own son was about the same age as the boy in the story, but I have never read anything that affected me emotionally as much as this book. I know I'll see the movie, but I'm not really looking forward to it, first because there is no way it can affect me as strongly as the book did, and secondly because I don't really want to be affected like that again. It is a powerful and devastating story.

3. Straddling the top of the world, one foot in China and the other in Nepal, I cleared the ice from my oxygen mask, hunched a shoulder against the wind, and stared absently down at the vastness of Tibet."

This is Jon Krakauer's gripping account of the 1996 tragedy on Mt. Everest, when a sudden storm stranded a large number of climbers in the high "death zone" of the mountain, ultimately claiming 5 lives. The book is Into Thin Air, a great adventure all the more resonant since the events it describes actually happened, and the teller suffers from real survivor's guilt.

4. "The village of Holcomb stands on the vast wheat plains of western Kansas, a lonesome area other Kansans call 'out there'."

"Out there" is where the events of Truman Capote's In Cold Blood take place. This is the one that I suggested straddles the line between fact and fiction.

5. "A throng of bearded men, in sad-coloured garments and grey steeple-crowned hats, inner mixed with women, some wearing hoods, and others bareheaded, was assembled in front of a wooden edifice, the door of which was heavily timbered with oak, and studded with iron spikes."

I love that last phrase, "studded with iron spikes", hinting at the terrible rigidity and pain society inflicts on Hester Prynne and her child in Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter.

6. "The boy with fair hair lowered himself down the last few feet of rock and began to pick his way toward the lagoon."

Who says children are sweet and innocent? Certainly not William Golding in Lord of the Flies!

7. "In the week before their departure to Arrakis, when all the final scurrying about had reached a nearly unbearable frenzy, an old crone came to visit the mother of the boy, Paul."

This was my freebie, at least for anyone who is a fan of science fiction: Frank Herbert's Dune.

8. "In the summer of the Roman year 699, now described as the year 55 before the birth of Christ, the Proconsul of Gaul, Gaius Julius Caesar, turned his gaze upon Britain."

Oh, Ben Sen, if you had played the game last month, you would have known that Gibbon was already used, so it must be something else this time! And Sgt. Mom was correct, the author made nearly as much history himself as is in the story he relates. It is A History of the English Speaking Peoples, by Sir Winston Churchill.

9. "The thousand injuries of Fortunato I had bourne as I best could, but when he ventured upon insult, I vowed revenge."

I was impressed at how many knew the one short story I included, from the man who more or less created that genre. It is Poe's story of revenge and the perfect murder. It is "The Cask of Amontillado."

10. "In 1949 the smokejumpers were not far from their origins as parachute jumpers turned stunt performers dropping from the wings of planes at county fairs just for the hell of it plus a few dollars, less hospital expenses."

I nearly included Norman MacLean's much better known A River Runs Through It, but that one would have been too easy, with its immediate reference to fly fishing and religion, so I used his posthumous narrative/memoir Young Men and Fire, instead. A really wonderful book. Extra credit to everyone who got it right!

Thanks again for playing. I'll repeat what I said last month: I'm glad I put the game together, because I'm pretty sure I couldn't answer many of these otherwise!

Mahler, Vienna, and a Fin de Siecle Masterpiece

Sat, 21 Nov 2009 08:11:34 -0500

I stand here in wait of my friend;

I wait to bid him a last farewell.

O friend, I long to relish

The beauty of this evening at your side.

Where do you tarry? You leave me so long alone!

The words were put to music and first performed this third weekend of November, in the year 1911. The music's composer did not hear the performance. He had died six months earlier in his Vienna home. Most of the words were written centuries before by several ancient Chinese poets. Gustav Mahler took the ethereal verses and altered them slightly, even writing the final lines himself. Then he applied the words to his intensely dramatic musical score. The result was one of the greatest symphonic masterpieces of the twentieth century, Das Lied von der Erde, in English The Song of the Earth.

He alighted from his horse and offered his friend

The drink of farewell.

He asked him where he was heading

And why it had to be so.

Mahler was dying as he put the words to music. He knew it. But he also sensed that much more than just his fragile body was nearing its end. His beloved city of Vienna watched over a decaying and anachronistic empire that would cease to exist before the end of the decade. The octogenarian emperor, sad, lonely, and embittered, looked to his authoritarian neighbor to the north as a possible savior. Instead, its bellicose Kaiser was absorbing Austria into his growing network of client states, a bridge to the wealth of the Middle East and the Lebensraum of Eastern Europe. Incredibly, the great Hapsburg Empire had evolved into nothing more than a Prussian puppet.

I walk to and fro with my lute

On paths swollen with soft grass.

O beauty! Flush with love, with life

Unending -- O drunken world!

Ironically, while political and economic institutions across Europe nervously teetered on the brink of collapse, the old continent was blossoming in a great burst of fin de siecle creativity. In France, what had begun as a visual artistic movement, Impressionism, found new expression in the music of Debussy and Ravel. An exciting young artist named Pablo Picasso wandered between Madrid and Paris, and in the process invented cubism. German speaking artists in Central Europe went in a different direction. These Expressionists looked at the world in decidedly harsher tones than their Latin counterparts. Mahler was a part of this group, his music forming a bridge from the romanticism of Wagner and Brahms, to the avant garde atonality of Arnold Schoenberg and Anton Webern.

Weary people head toward home

To learn once more in sleep

Forgotten happiness and youth!

The birds perch quietly on the branches.

The world falls asleep!

This great cultural flowering was accompanied by political corruption and decay. Such had been the case before, in places like seventeenth century Venice, and fourteenth century Constantinople. Anyone who cared to look could see that Vienna's fate was no less dire than those once great centers of culture. Still, the dying empire gave birth to a nervous splendor.

I seek peace for my lonely heart.

I wander to my homeland, my abode.

I will never roam in the distance.

My heart is quiet and awaits its hour!

As a result of political intrigues and anti-semitism, Mahler was forced to resign his post as Director of the Vienna Court Opera in 1907. At about the same time, his daughter died from scarlet fever and diptheria. Mahler himself learned that he was suffering from a terminal heart condition. These last years of his life were difficult and lonely. Thoughts of death consumed him. Still, the music swirled in his head. He had to get it out, and he had to do it quickly.

Mahler's end of life burst of creative energy produced some of the most sublime and heartbreaking music ever composed. Both Das Lied von der Erde and his Ninth Symphony are gigantic works, each consisting of well over an hour of music, always complex, at times exquisitely beautiful, at other times dark, discordant, and foreboding.

Years ago, I read an essay by Leonard Bernstein in which he holds up Mahler as the perfect representation of early twentieth century music. His late works predicted the catastrophe of the two world wars, and offered a sense of resolution, some might say resignation, to the approaching Götterdämerung.

Perhaps so. I really don't know. But I do know this: Mahler is the apex of fin de siecle Viennese culture. The beauty of his music leaves me both melancholy and hopeful. The last "Lied" of the Song of the Earth is called "Der Abschied", or "The Departure." It contains the most magnificent vocal music that I have ever heard. The piece ends with no real musical resolution. It fades way, with the singer almost imperceptibly uttering "ewig...ewig...", "forever...forever...", the orchestra answering in equally hushed tones while the harp and celesta evoke an otherworldly ascendance. The message of death and eternal life carries a shattering emotional resonance. Ultimately, there is hope.

Everywhere the dear earth

Blossoms into spring, and turns green anew.

Everywhere, forever, blue light shines in the distance!

Forever...forever

Forever...

Mahler: Das Lied von der Erde

"Der Abschied", final 5 1/2 minutes

Name That Book: The Sequel!

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 10:11:07 -0500

Last month I posted a little game called "Name That Book," in which I quoted the first sentence from ten different books, and the reader was to guess what book or story the quote was from. Today, I am posting the sequel. Some of the quotes will be pretty easy, some not. All in all, I suspect this month's game will be a little easier than last month's.

First, some hints.

Just as was the case last month, the sentences I have chosen are the opening sentences of the main body of the work. If the book contained a foreword, preface, or other type of introduction, I ignored the opening sentence of that and went straight to the first sentence of Chapter One.

Of the ten books I have selected, three are clearly non-fiction, and one blurs the line between fiction and non-fiction.

The most recent is from our current decade. The oldest is from the nineteenth century.

There is one well-known short story included.

One was published posthumously.

In each case but one, either the book itself has been made into a movie, or the author has had other books or stories adopted for film.

So, without further ado, name that book! Answers on Friday evening...

***********************************************************

2. "When he woke up in the woods in the dark and the cold of the night he'd reach out to touch the child sleeping beside him."

4. "The village of Holcomb stands on the vast wheat plains of western Kansas, a lonesome area other Kansans call 'out there'."

6. "The boy with fair hair lowered himself down the last few feet of rock and began to pick his way toward the lagoon."

7. "In the week before their departure to Arrakis, when all the final scurrying about had reached a nearly unbearable frenzy, an old crone came to visit the mother of the boy, Paul."

8. "In the summer of the Roman year 699, now described as the year 55 before the birth of Christ, the Proconsul of Gaul, Gaius Julius Caesar, turned his gaze upon Britain."

9. "The thousand injuries of Fortunato I had bourne as I best could, but when he ventured upon insult, I vowed revenge."

There you go. How many can you name?

An Historic Breakfast for Thanksgiving

Tue, 17 Nov 2009 07:11:42 -0500

“These people are friendly gave us nuts bread”

William Clark, autumn,1805

During the autumn of 1805, Lewis & Clark’s Corps of Discovery finally reached the lower Columbia River. Their first impression of the Native Americans they met there was very positive, especially after the natives shared their berries and nuts with the strange, pale skinned men they met descending the great river in their peculiar, large canoes. By now, the corps’ original provisions of foodstuffs were almost completely depleted. The men came to rely on the generosity of the Indians, as well as their own ingenuity in applying wild native nuts, berries, and grain to the recipes they had brought with them from the East.

When the corps reached the Columbia River Gorge, they found wild hazelnuts in abundance. We know that the protein-starved corps eagerly consumed these nuts. It seems likely they would have mixed the nuts in with their diminished stores of corn meal and wild prairie grains, as well, to extend their supply of meal for the approaching winter.

The recipe below is based on our present day understanding of pioneer culinary tradition in general, and specifically what is known of the Lewis and Clark expedition’s diet as inferred from their meticulously kept journals.

This recipe seems especially appropriate for the Thanksgiving holiday. After all, the Thanksgiving meal is centered around uniquely American dishes that were largely unknown to Europeans prior to Columbus. The turkey was such an iconic American bird, in fact, that Benjamin Franklin lobbied to make it the national symbol for the young nation instead of the bald eagle. Other dishes associated with this holiday are also native to America. Cranberries, for instance, were introduced to early colonists in Massachusetts in the days of the first Thanksgiving, and were not shipped to Europe until the 1820’s. Pumpkins and pecans were both native to North America as well, and were probably unknown in Europe until the eighteenth century. What would Thanksgiving be without one or the other of them used in a pie?

So, in the spirit of Thanksgiving, our most “American” holiday, I offer this recipe for corn-hazelnut pancakes. It is taken from Mary Gunderson’s The Food Journal of Lewis & Clark: Recipes for an Expedition. This is a dish that would have been eaten for breakfast by pioneers making their way west across the Northern Plains and the Pacific Northwest. It is a dish that William Clark may have prepared himself, with the assistance of Sacajawea and her amateur chef husband, Toussaint Charbonneau. You may enjoy it yourself. After all, why limit the Thanksgiving meal to dinner? Try an historic American Thanksgiving breakfast!

Ingredients

½ cup chopped hazelnuts

1 ½ cups stone-ground cornmeal

1 tsp baking soda

½ tsp salt

2 T vegetable oil or other fat

1 cup water

Vegetable oil for frying pan

Pancake topping, such as berries, butter, honey, or molasses

Spread chopped hazelnuts on a baking sheet and place about 4 inches from a preheated oven broiler. Turn the broiler off, and leave nuts in oven for two minutes, or until they are golden brown. Remove from oven and set aside.

Combine cornmeal, baking soda, and salt. Add oil and one cup of water to make batter. Let stand about 10 minutes, then stir in the hazelnuts.

Heat a heavy skillet over medium high heat, adding enough oil to cover the surface. (I prefer a cast iron skillet.) Using a tablespoon, pour batter onto the skillet. You will want to make fairly small pancakes, or else they will fall apart. Cook about 90 to 100 seconds per side. They will be golden brown and slightly crispy on the outside. Serve with butter, honey, or berries. I think molasses goes especially well with rustic pancakes like these.

Note: For a more “modern,” tender pancake, replace ½ cup of the cornmeal with ½ cup of flour or whole wheat flour, add 1 egg, and reduce the oil to just one tablespoon.