Every book is a quotation;
and every house is a quotation out of all forests, and mines, and stone quarries;
and every man [woman] is a quotation from all his ancestors.
Ralph Waldo Emerson, Representative Men (1850)
It never ceases to amaze me, especially in regards to my grown children, how right Emerson is.
Spending a few days with daughter #1 reminded me that she is such a quotation of this guy:
and also this gal:
What a lovely combination of grandparent quotations!
The lunar phase on November 13, 2013 is Waxing Gibbous. The moon is growing bigger.
Take a look this afternoon. A waxing gibbous moon appears high in the east at sunset. It’s more than half-lighted, but less than full.
When I flew to New York last week, it was at sunset. We flew over the clouds in the dark. The lights of the cities twinkled below. Then I looked out the window and there was the big dipper (Ursa Major)!
The moon was a sliver then. What a beautiful world!
O Lord, our Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the earth! who hast set thy glory above the heavens.
2 Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings hast thou ordained strength because of thine enemies, that thou mightest still the enemy and the avenger.
3 When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained;
4 What is man, that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that thou visitest him?
5 For thou hast made him a little lower than the angels, and hast crowned him with glory and honour.
6 Thou madest him to have dominion over the works of thy hands; thou hast put all things under his feet:
7 All sheep and oxen, yea, and the beasts of the field;
8 The fowl of the air, and the fish of the sea, and whatsoever passeth through the paths of the seas.
9 O Lord our Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the earth!
Psalm 8 (KJV)
* e.e. cummings
Well, I don’t know about you, but I just love Central Park. It really is the coolest. I mean we have a large, beautiful municipal park in my flyover town too, but it quite pales next to New York’s.
Someone had a brilliant idea back in the mid-1800s. Two men in particular, the poet and editor of the Evening Post, William Cullen Bryant, and the first American landscape architect, Andrew Jackson Downing, began to publicize the city’s need for a public park in 1844. All the big European cities had one, so why shouldn’t we? The state of New York appointed a Central Park Commission to oversee the development of the park, and in 1857 they held a landscape design contest.
Photo of American Elm trees from the Central Park Website
In 1858 Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux won the design competition with a plan they entitled the “Greensward Plan”. They really knocked themselves out. Construction began the same year, continued during the American Civil War, and was completed in 1873.
Central Park is the most visited urban park in the United States.
You’ll find babbling brooks in the middle of this great metropolis!
Shakespeare “in the park”
And there’s Shakespeare and Burns and Sir Walter Scott and many more statues to see. However, there is no sense of the space being cluttered with objects, which I like a lot. We walked all around the reservoir and down to the skating rink. We climbed to the top of Belvedere Castle, which was not as strenuous as the Walter Scott monument in Edinburgh but I did have a flash-back because the stairs are very similar!
We saw many of the outcroppings of Manhattan schist which we have seen in our favorite movies.
We walked over those famous bridges as well.
Across the street from the park and a block or so from daughter #1’s apartment is the wonderful American Museum of Natural History. I had not been there since 1978. Happily, not much has changed!
One of the largest and most celebrated museums in the world, the museum complex contains 27 interconnected buildings housing 45 permanent exhibition halls, in addition to a planetarium and a library. The museum collections contain over 32 billion specimens of plants, humans, animals, fossils, minerals, rocks, meteorites, and human cultural artifacts, of which only a small fraction can be displayed at any given time, and occupies 1,600,000 square feet. The Museum has a full-time scientific staff of 225, sponsors over 120 special field expeditions each year, and averages about five million visits annually.
Theodore Roosevelt and Indian mate guard the front door.
Last Friday we saw many stuffed mammals, the big blue whale, dinosaur skeletons and bones,
and the wonderful hall of Northwest Coast Indians, which is the oldest extant exhibit in the Museum. There were hundreds of children running around, but they did not bother me. They seemed to be enjoying themselves in this gloriously old-fashioned space–and why wouldn’t they?
Holden Caulfield, you’ll recall, was a big fan of this museum, so I thought about him when I was there.
The best thing, though, in that museum was that everything always stayed right where it was. Nobody’d move. You could go there a hundred thousand times, and that Eskimo would still be just finished catching those two fish, the birds would still be on their way south, the deers would still be drinking out of that water hole, with their pretty antlers and they’re pretty, skinny legs, and that squaw with the naked bosom would still be weaving that same blanket. Nobody’d be different. The only thing that would be different would be you. Not that you’d be so much older or anything. It wouldn’t be that, exactly. You’d just be different, that’s all. You’d have an overcoat this time. Or the kid that was your partner in line the last time had got scarlet fever and you’d have a new partner. Or you’d have a substitute taking the class, instead of Miss Aigletinger. Or you’d heard your mother and father having a terrific fight in the bathroom. Or you’d just passed by one of those puddles in the street with gasoline rainbows in them. I mean you’d be different in some way—I can’t explain what I mean. And even if I could, I’m not sure I’d feel like it.
― J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye
I love this particular paragraph and so I have always had a soft spot in my heart for this museum. I know exactly what Holden means, don’t you? Some things should just not change. They are great they way they are. And because we are always changing, we need those stable places in our lives.
It is 25-degrees here in my flyover town this morning. Hope you are keeping warm today!
Well, I am back from New York City! I had a terific time with daughter #1.
New York is indeed a great and beautiful city. I especially love the Upper West Side and wonderful Central Park. And of course–spending time with daughter #1–priceless!
More tomorrow after I’ve decompressed a bit!
So asks Siegfried Sassoon in his poem, “Aftermath”, written in 1919. Here it is in full:
Have you forgotten yet?…
For the world’s events have rumbled on since those gagged days,
Like traffic checked while at the crossing of city-ways:
And the haunted gap in your mind has filled with thoughts that flow
Like clouds in the lit heaven of life; and you’re a man reprieved to go,
Taking your peaceful share of Time, with joy to spare.But the past is just the same-and War’s a bloody game…
Have you forgotten yet?…
Look down, and swear by the slain of the War that you’ll never forget.Do you remember the dark months you held the sector at Mametz–
The nights you watched and wired and dug and piled sandbags on parapets?
Do you remember the rats; and the stench
Of corpses rotting in front of the front-line trench-
And dawn coming, dirty-white, and chill with a hopeless rain?
Do you ever stop and ask, ‘Is it all going to happen again?’Do you remember that hour of din before the attack–
And the anger, the blind compassion that seized and shook you then
As you peered at the doomed and haggard faces of your men?
Do you remember the stretcher-cases lurching back
With dying eyes and lolling heads—those ashen-grey
Masks of the lads who once were keen and kind and gay?Have you forgotten yet?…
Look up, and swear by the green of the spring that you’ll never forget.
And that was less than a year or so after the end of the war. Certainly, for Sassoon, the Great War remained the defining event of his life. He never ‘got over it’ and he never allowed himself to forget. But the world moves on and a lot of people prefer to cultivate amnesia, while others think that public remembrance is just a way to glorify and justify war (we’ll say no more of those people).
The veterans of WWI are now all at rest and those who fought in WWII are fading fast — all the more reason to remember then this Veterans’ Day. It’s no longer fashionable to talk in terms of “the greatest generation”, but really, many of these people did extraordinary things under the most hideous circumstances without wavering or complaining a bit.
Go to the military obituary page at the Daily Telegraph and read about some of the incredible things that people did and survived during WWII. Take mild-mannered naturalist John Cloudsley-Thompson, for example. At 21, he commanded a tank crew in North Africa, got severely wounded, did a stint training men at Sandhurst, and finally convinced his commanding officers to send him back to active service just in time for D-Day and the long fight to Germany. His marvelous obituary reminds us of what good character really means. In North Africa in the face of horrible fighting and conditions, the young officer “defused the tension of waiting to take on the Afrika Korps by directing his crew to hunt for spider and scorpion specimens. He even acquired a desert fox from a local which his crew tamed and nicknamed “Noball”. At one point the fox got lost inside the tank’s engine, forcing the entire squadron to wait before moving off.” Can’t you picture this and don’t you wish you could have known him? After the war, he became a well-known professor and prolific scholar.
There he is in 1964 in the Sudan. He is survived by his three sons. They sure don’t make ’em like that anymore. So let’s drink a toast to Professor Cloudesly-Thompson and all those like him, who served their countries. Be at peace.
Start spreading the news. I’m leaving today. Not to be overly dramatic or anything…but I am leaving later today for New York to have a little visit with daughter #1. I am tagging along with my husband who has a meeting. I have never done that before, but it seemed like a good time to do the whole ballyhoo thing.
Here’s hoping we do better than these guys:
Have a good weekend yourself!
XIII. “REST AND BE THANKFUL!”
AT THE HEAD OF GLENCROE
Doubling and doubling with laborious walk,
Who, that has gained at length the wished-for Height,
This brief this simple wayside Call can slight,
And rests not thankful? Whether cheered by talk
With some loved friend, or by the unseen hawk
Whistling to clouds and sky-born streams that shine,
At the sun’s outbreak, as with light divine,
Ere they descend to nourish root and stalk
Of valley flowers. Nor, while the limbs repose,
Will we forget that, as the fowl can keep
Absolute stillness, poised aloft in air,
And fishes front, unmoved, the torrent’s sweep,–
So may the Soul, through powers that Faith bestows,
Win rest, and ease, and peace, with bliss that Angels share.
–Composed by William Wordsworth during a tour in Scotland and on the English border in the autumn of 1831
“Rest and be thankful” are the words inscribed on a stone near the junction of the A83 and the B828, placed there by soldiers who built the original military road in 1753, now referred to as the Drovers’ road. The original stone fell into ruin and was replaced by a commemorative stone at the same site.
The section is so named as the climb out of Glen Croe is so long and steep at the end that it was traditional for travellers to rest at the top, and be thankful for having reached the highest point. The current road no longer keeps to the floor of Glen Croe but steadily climbs across the southern slopes of The Cobbler, on the north side of the Glen, to the highest point of the pass. The westward descent to Loch Fyne is through Glen Kinglas, and from here the A815, the main road to Dunoon and the Cowal peninsula, branches off to the south.*
I have not been to this particular corner of Scotland, but I wish I had! Wow. And isn’t it great that they erected a stone inviting people to “rest and be thankful”?
Anyway, I thought this fit in nicely with my effort to be thankful this month–don’t you agree?
*Information and photos via Wikipedia
I watched several good movies this weekend. The first was recommended by a friend with discriminating film tastes--Sunshine (1999) starring Ralph Fiennes and a host of English and Hungarian actors.
The film follows a Jewish family living in Hungary through three generations, rising from humble beginnings to positions of wealth and power in the crumbling Austro-Hungarian Empire. Fiennes plays all three characters: the grandfather who changes his name to become a Judge, the son who converts to Catholicism to get into the right fencing club in order to win an Olympic Gold medal and the grandson who ultimately sees the futility of it all and changes his name back to Sonnenscheim (sunshine).
It is a really well done movie filmed beautifully in Europe, which makes a good point without hitting anyone over the head. One must never sacrifice one’s “self” to a government, because they are all imperfect and will betray you in the end. The grandfather who loves the monarchy is let down and the son who acquiesces to the National Socialists is betrayed by the Nazis and murdered at Auschwitz while the son watches. He, in turn, becomes a Communist after the war in order to avenge his father’s death, but comes to learn that the Communists are ten times worse than even the Nazis. He learns that one must be true to oneself and one’s family in order to breath freely.
A Canadian-Hungarian production, it was not nominated for one single Oscar–gee, I wonder why? It won several European awards and the Genie for best Canadian Film. Ralph Fiennes is outstanding, although I wonder if he has a clause written into his contract that he will participate in up to but no more than three mad, impassioned sex scenes involving standing up with a woman or in some awkward position in the woods or on a table. Because of technology, you can fast forward through these.
Anyway, it held my interest for three hours and I recommend it.
I also watched Monsters University which I enjoyed very much.
You gotta love Mike Wazowski. And this guy:
On Sunday night I watched Cabaret (1972) which I had DVR’d when it was on TCM a while ago. I have to admit, I had never seen it before!
Directed by Bob Fosse, it stars Liza Minnelli as Sally Bowles, a nightclub performer who “romances” two men in 1930s Berlin. Liza won an Oscar and, although she plays a decadent and amoral gal, she is by far the most appealing person in the movie. However, try as she may, there is nothing remotely sexy about Liza and it all seems very tawdry and sad. Maybe that is the point. The men all look alike. It was a big hit in 1972 when I was in high school. It won eight Oscars. I’m glad I watched it, but it isn’t really my cup of tea. Give me Seven Brides for Seven Brothers any day!
This weekend was filled with lots of real-life Nazi monsters and not-so-scary animated Monsters. Weird.
Sunday was All Saints’ Sunday when we Episcopalians remember “all the saints” –and by saints I mean that “glorious band” of Christians who have gone before us, leading by example. Protestants generally regard all true Christian believers as saints.
William Farel, John Calvin, Théodore de Bèze, and John Knox in Reformation Park, Geneva
We are reminded on All Saints” Sunday to think of those saints who have influenced our lives. We all have them, starting usually, if we are lucky, with our mothers. I believe in God–Father, Son and Holy Ghost–chiefly because she told me about Him. Furthermore, I followed her example and her advice to remember that “this is the day which the Lord hath made. Let us rejoice and be glad in it.”
Of course, there have been teachers, ministers, friends who throughout my life have supported and guided me. Some I’ve written about here, but their names wouldn’t mean anything to you, so I won’t make a list. (But a list is a good idea.)
Frederick Beuchner, however, is a saint you have probably heard of. I am happy to say that I have heard him preach and even shaken his hand. I brought my three children to hear him and they too have shaken his hand.
I have also heard Archbishop Desmond Tutu preach and shaken his hand.
I went to a Billy Graham “revival” and that, too, was an awesome experience. There were thousands of people present, so I did not get to shake his hand.
All three men are saints in my book and their words–both spoken and written–have helped me along on my journey.
I feel that I need to include a woman here in my personal army of saints–how about Jan Karon? She has done what is nearly impossible: written popular fiction with a palatable Christian message that is not “Christian literature” per se. She has sold millions–you go, girl!
It has never been an easy thing to be a saint out in the world. One might argue, today especially. They are not feeding us literally to the lions, but metaphorically, it happens every day.
What God says…is ‘The life you save is the life you lose.’ in other words, the life you clutch, hoard, guard, and play safe with is in the end a life worth little to anybody, including yourself, and only a life given away for love’s sake is a life worth living. To bring his point home, God shows us a man who gave his life away to the extent of dying a national disgrace without a penny in the bank or a friend to his name. In terms of human wisdom, he was a Perfect Fool. And if you think you can follow him without making something like the same kind of a fool yourself, you are laboring under not a cross but a delusion.
There are two kinds of fools in the world: damned fools, and what Saint Paul calls ‘fools for Christ’s sake’ (I Cor. 4:10).
–Frederick Buechner
Our dedication to Christ may sometimes make us look like fools, but I like the company.
*Hymn 286, The Hymnal, 1982
In the spirit of Thanksgiving, I’m going to list five things for which I’m grateful. But since it’s early in the month, let’s start with the most basic, mundane stuff and work up to the most important closer to the holiday.
1. Elastic waists, stretchy material, and the color black. Let’s face it. Some of us 50-somethings have not aged as gracefully as others. I’m the type with lumps and bumps that require camouflage. So I’m grateful to J. Jill for styles I can wear comfortably, but still look reasonably tidy in. And black is definitely my favorite color.
picture from jjill.com
Okay. Now picture her a foot shorter, twice as wide, and thirty years older, and presto, c’est moi! Yes, I’m grateful (if dumpy).
2. I’m also grateful for this little product: Eucerin redness relief soothing nightcream.
I use it morning and evening. It’s not expensive and it works amazingly well to even out skin tone and help with those pesky wrinkles. I love the stuff.
3. Green Mountain Coffee. It gets me through those morning classes when I’m feeling uninspired. If only my students drank it too!
It’s roasted in Vermont — what more do I need to say? Yum.
4. Supermarket flowers. Every now and then I buy myself flowers. I especially like these (can’t remember the name), though I’ve never had this color.
They last for weeks if you use the (nasty) chemical preservative they come with. In November, which is notoriously cold and rainy, I am especially grateful for flowers.
5. Let’s not forget the vacuum cleaner. I know, it’s not exciting, but I thoroughly appreciate my warhorse. It takes a lot of use and abuse and keeps on going. Since you are all very well acquainted with vacuums, I’ll spare you a picture. However, mine is coming to the end of its natural life and I am thinking about getting a new one. I would appreciate recommendations!
So that’s my list of some of the little things that make my days better. No deep, spiritual connections here, but it’s a start, What are your basics?
*Obviously, I’m not getting anything for plugging the products listed above. I just like them!
