I'm proud to be an Oregonian. We may not read much Melville, but we know how to handle a beached whale. Moby Dick itself might have been a little more entertaining if Melville had thought to use dynamite.
Here's a link to an Oregon site which shares part of a Dave Barry column then takes you to a YouTube video of one of our prouder moments.
http://www.blueoregon.com/2006/11/oregons_explodi.html
Thursday, November 30, 2006
Melville Revisited
In comments to an earlier entry, my friend Pat gently chides me (“Cretin! Philistine!”) for not fully appreciating the elegant prose of Melville. He’s right: I’ll have to take another look at Moby Dick. It’s on my reading list, which I’m now organizing based on how many more years I might reasonably expect to live and how essential it is that I finally read a certain book before I die.
But I might ask my friend Pat, “So, you say you’ve read Melville, but have you actually been there?! Non?!” Well, I have!
In 1999, I landed a job teaching summer school aboard the California Maritime Academy’s training ship The Golden Bear, a 500-foot former Navy sub chaser. More about that adventure another time, but one of our stops was Nuku Hiva, described below in an excerpt from the journal I kept at the time. I was reading Paul Theroux’s The Happy Isles of Oceania and comparing my impressions of these still mostly unspoiled Pacific islands to his. He called Nuku Hiva possibly the most beautiful island in the Pacific, and I couldn’t disagree with him.
In this excerpt, I’m taking a trip across the island on the only road—steep, muddy, and treacherous—with some CMA students and a native guide driving a Toyota pickup. I was reasonably sure we’d never get back to the Golden Bear alive:
****
We stopped a few times for pictures, then continued down a sharp canyon road into the village of Taipivai, the setting of Melville’s Typee. Although Melville only lived in the village a month, the experience led to his first and, during his lifetime, most popular novel. Theroux says it’s still the best account of village life in the Marquesas, excluding the few modern features like the bank and post office. I expect that statement is rather more inaccurate than less, but it does catch a little of the flavor of island life as I saw it.
We followed a road up out of the small village and stopped at the stone foundation of what was said to be Melville’s house, now overgrown by jungle. There was little to see or photograph, but I took a few pictures for the record. [This concludes my scholarly discourse on Melville.]
The road as it climbed the next steep ridge was even more harrowing than it had been, and the views at the top even more spectacular. We looked out over huge valleys of dense vegetation. At one time, when the islands had as many as 80,000 inhabitants, the bottoms of these valleys might have been inhabited, but now it seemed clear they had quickly been reclaimed by the jungle. It was as remote and dramatic a place as I’ve ever seen. Above the jungle valleys, the tops of mountains are in many places bare rock pinnacles. Theroux says “It is almost impossible to overstate the ruggedness of the islands—the almost unclimbable steepness of their heights or their empty valleys. At the head of every valley was a great gushing waterfall, some of them hundreds of feet high.” We stopped for pictures of one across the valley, a drop of what certainly seemed to be hundreds of feet over the bare rocks.
Then on to our next stop, the first of two archaeological sites. Our Marquesan guides, playful and personable guys, spoke reasonably good English and showed us around the ruins, stone foundations of what had been thatched huts for families and religious places. The site was being worked by one native and two French archaeologists, all of whom spoke English. They were mostly busy cutting back the jungle and had a large fire to burn the branches and vines they cut. From there they could then start to excavate and reconstruct the site. Much work had been done and the area we visited covered a few acres and had perhaps twenty separate structures uncovered.
According to Theroux and the guidebook I’m reading, all the Polynesian peoples practiced cannibalism, but none apparently with more relish than the Marquesans. (Oh, I am proud of that pun!) The best evidence was what we were told was a sacrificial altar site. At the center was a banyon tree, one of the most extraordinary living things I’ve ever seen: huge, but made up of what looked like not a single trunk but many separate trunks, each joining the total structure at the base or further up the tree. This structure, a giude explained, allows the tree to live in poor soil and also hold on in the hurricanes which might otherwise level trees of such size.
Next to the banyon was a stone slab where the victims were killed. We were told that their heads were put among the roots of the banyon. Most striking, though, was the “bone pit,” perhaps thirty feet deep, lined with stone, where the feasters tossed the bones of their dinner victims. Perhaps this was to fertilized the tree or somehow further consecrate the site.
Oddly, it didn’t feel too eerie or horrific to be here, perhaps partly because the students were clamoring around being their usual goofball selves, partly maybe because the anthropologists were there to provide some scientific distance. In a sense, being there and talking to the Marquesan guides and scientists somehow reduced the sense of dread I’d had in the past when reading about such horrible things and places. Not that getting eaten by your enemies would be a fun way to go out, but these had been a fierce people, with each valley populated by a clan that would fight for its territory and food supply, which was more seasonal and uncertain here than in other tropical islands.
*****
Cannibals figure large in both Typee and The Happy Isles. Theroux’s theory is that Pacific Islanders love Spam because it tastes most like boiled human flesh. I’m not sure of the basis for this theory.
Typee was indeed Melville’s most popular book because it contained not only adventures among cannibals but highly suggestive intimations of free love among the beautiful young women of the islands.
I’m a little sorry we did make it back.
But I might ask my friend Pat, “So, you say you’ve read Melville, but have you actually been there?! Non?!” Well, I have!
In 1999, I landed a job teaching summer school aboard the California Maritime Academy’s training ship The Golden Bear, a 500-foot former Navy sub chaser. More about that adventure another time, but one of our stops was Nuku Hiva, described below in an excerpt from the journal I kept at the time. I was reading Paul Theroux’s The Happy Isles of Oceania and comparing my impressions of these still mostly unspoiled Pacific islands to his. He called Nuku Hiva possibly the most beautiful island in the Pacific, and I couldn’t disagree with him.
In this excerpt, I’m taking a trip across the island on the only road—steep, muddy, and treacherous—with some CMA students and a native guide driving a Toyota pickup. I was reasonably sure we’d never get back to the Golden Bear alive:
****
We stopped a few times for pictures, then continued down a sharp canyon road into the village of Taipivai, the setting of Melville’s Typee. Although Melville only lived in the village a month, the experience led to his first and, during his lifetime, most popular novel. Theroux says it’s still the best account of village life in the Marquesas, excluding the few modern features like the bank and post office. I expect that statement is rather more inaccurate than less, but it does catch a little of the flavor of island life as I saw it.
We followed a road up out of the small village and stopped at the stone foundation of what was said to be Melville’s house, now overgrown by jungle. There was little to see or photograph, but I took a few pictures for the record. [This concludes my scholarly discourse on Melville.]
The road as it climbed the next steep ridge was even more harrowing than it had been, and the views at the top even more spectacular. We looked out over huge valleys of dense vegetation. At one time, when the islands had as many as 80,000 inhabitants, the bottoms of these valleys might have been inhabited, but now it seemed clear they had quickly been reclaimed by the jungle. It was as remote and dramatic a place as I’ve ever seen. Above the jungle valleys, the tops of mountains are in many places bare rock pinnacles. Theroux says “It is almost impossible to overstate the ruggedness of the islands—the almost unclimbable steepness of their heights or their empty valleys. At the head of every valley was a great gushing waterfall, some of them hundreds of feet high.” We stopped for pictures of one across the valley, a drop of what certainly seemed to be hundreds of feet over the bare rocks.
Then on to our next stop, the first of two archaeological sites. Our Marquesan guides, playful and personable guys, spoke reasonably good English and showed us around the ruins, stone foundations of what had been thatched huts for families and religious places. The site was being worked by one native and two French archaeologists, all of whom spoke English. They were mostly busy cutting back the jungle and had a large fire to burn the branches and vines they cut. From there they could then start to excavate and reconstruct the site. Much work had been done and the area we visited covered a few acres and had perhaps twenty separate structures uncovered.
According to Theroux and the guidebook I’m reading, all the Polynesian peoples practiced cannibalism, but none apparently with more relish than the Marquesans. (Oh, I am proud of that pun!) The best evidence was what we were told was a sacrificial altar site. At the center was a banyon tree, one of the most extraordinary living things I’ve ever seen: huge, but made up of what looked like not a single trunk but many separate trunks, each joining the total structure at the base or further up the tree. This structure, a giude explained, allows the tree to live in poor soil and also hold on in the hurricanes which might otherwise level trees of such size.
Next to the banyon was a stone slab where the victims were killed. We were told that their heads were put among the roots of the banyon. Most striking, though, was the “bone pit,” perhaps thirty feet deep, lined with stone, where the feasters tossed the bones of their dinner victims. Perhaps this was to fertilized the tree or somehow further consecrate the site.
Oddly, it didn’t feel too eerie or horrific to be here, perhaps partly because the students were clamoring around being their usual goofball selves, partly maybe because the anthropologists were there to provide some scientific distance. In a sense, being there and talking to the Marquesan guides and scientists somehow reduced the sense of dread I’d had in the past when reading about such horrible things and places. Not that getting eaten by your enemies would be a fun way to go out, but these had been a fierce people, with each valley populated by a clan that would fight for its territory and food supply, which was more seasonal and uncertain here than in other tropical islands.
*****
Cannibals figure large in both Typee and The Happy Isles. Theroux’s theory is that Pacific Islanders love Spam because it tastes most like boiled human flesh. I’m not sure of the basis for this theory.
Typee was indeed Melville’s most popular book because it contained not only adventures among cannibals but highly suggestive intimations of free love among the beautiful young women of the islands.
I’m a little sorry we did make it back.
Saturday, November 25, 2006
Speaking of Starbucks
I don’t spend that much on lattes, but when Starbucks went up to $3 for a grande, I kept track for a week or so, and it adds up. It seems a good part of what I’ve been saving on diesel fuel has gone into specialty coffee drinks. Another reason I’m not rich.
So I decided I’d buy my own espresso maker, one that would steam milk so I could froth up a good head of foam, which I like. The cheapest one I could find locally was $50, but it wasn’t hard to find a high-end steam engine for over a grand. In the end, I decided to stick with the occasional store-bought.
Then, a few weeks ago when I was shopping, I was in the coffee section and noticed the Melita one-cup coffee maker. I had an idea, so I bought one for two bucks, along with some paper filters and espresso beans.
Back home, I heater water in a kettle and ground enough beans to make a very strong shot. Meanwhile, I started heating milk on a hot stove, stirring gently with a wire whisk so it wouldn’t scald. When the water got hot, I poured a shot-full through the cone and into my Starbucks Tokyo mug, which I bought in Tokyo in 1998 when I was teaching English there for a semester.
While the shot was seeping through, I picked up the pace with the whisk. In a surprisingly short time, I had a nice head of foam. I poured the hot milk into the coffee and spooned a little peak of foam on top. It looked like the real thing. I let it cool a minute and took a sip. Delicioso!
So I decided I’d buy my own espresso maker, one that would steam milk so I could froth up a good head of foam, which I like. The cheapest one I could find locally was $50, but it wasn’t hard to find a high-end steam engine for over a grand. In the end, I decided to stick with the occasional store-bought.
Then, a few weeks ago when I was shopping, I was in the coffee section and noticed the Melita one-cup coffee maker. I had an idea, so I bought one for two bucks, along with some paper filters and espresso beans.
Back home, I heater water in a kettle and ground enough beans to make a very strong shot. Meanwhile, I started heating milk on a hot stove, stirring gently with a wire whisk so it wouldn’t scald. When the water got hot, I poured a shot-full through the cone and into my Starbucks Tokyo mug, which I bought in Tokyo in 1998 when I was teaching English there for a semester.
While the shot was seeping through, I picked up the pace with the whisk. In a surprisingly short time, I had a nice head of foam. I poured the hot milk into the coffee and spooned a little peak of foam on top. It looked like the real thing. I let it cool a minute and took a sip. Delicioso!
I find that one- or two-percent milk works best for my tastes. Nonfat isn’t quite as sweet. Also, I can make a good mocha by just adding a shot of espresso to a cup of hot chocolate, then spurtzing whipped cream on top.
Yum.
Now I’m saving as much on coffee drinks as I am on commuting costs, with only a tiny investment up front.
Still, I’m not rich and will have to look again at the budget.
Saturday, November 18, 2006
Mr. Starbuck!
Somewhere in my profile I joke that I never finished Moby Dick. Has anybody? Why?
Over on defective yeti, which is a funny blog, our poor blogger has set himself the task of somehow reading the whole book and reporting as he goes: Here's his report at the 1/4 mark:
Page reached: 140 of 522 (26.82%)
Status Report: Oh, man. Chapter 32. This is probably a strong contender for the title of Most Skimmed Chapter In Classic American Literature. I would have skipped it myself if I hadn't resolved to read this book in its entirety.
Thirteen pages long -- about three times the length of the average chapter -- "Cetology" has the narrator giving an impromptu lecture on the nature of the whale, grouping the beasts into fourteen categories and offering lengthy descriptions of each. Here, Melville uses a literary technique known as OMG BORING! In some other context I might have found this engrossing, but here it's like, "Dude, you got your marine biology lecture in my adventure story!"
I wonder how many people have quit reading Moby-Dick at "Cetology". I bet this chapter is a veritable Goodwin Sands, with a thousand shipwrecked readers littering its shore.
I could have been one of them, as Moby-Dick is perilously close to violating my One-Third Reading Policy, which states that I shall abandon any book that I am not enjoying when I am a third of the way through it. Unfortunately I am determined to finish this thing, so quitting on page 174 isn't an option. But Cetology has sapped my of all momentum. Chapter 32 is a disabled vehicle in the center lane of this book's narrative.
You can follow the fun at http://www.defectiveyeti.com/
Over on defective yeti, which is a funny blog, our poor blogger has set himself the task of somehow reading the whole book and reporting as he goes: Here's his report at the 1/4 mark:
Page reached: 140 of 522 (26.82%)
Status Report: Oh, man. Chapter 32. This is probably a strong contender for the title of Most Skimmed Chapter In Classic American Literature. I would have skipped it myself if I hadn't resolved to read this book in its entirety.
Thirteen pages long -- about three times the length of the average chapter -- "Cetology" has the narrator giving an impromptu lecture on the nature of the whale, grouping the beasts into fourteen categories and offering lengthy descriptions of each. Here, Melville uses a literary technique known as OMG BORING! In some other context I might have found this engrossing, but here it's like, "Dude, you got your marine biology lecture in my adventure story!"
I wonder how many people have quit reading Moby-Dick at "Cetology". I bet this chapter is a veritable Goodwin Sands, with a thousand shipwrecked readers littering its shore.
I could have been one of them, as Moby-Dick is perilously close to violating my One-Third Reading Policy, which states that I shall abandon any book that I am not enjoying when I am a third of the way through it. Unfortunately I am determined to finish this thing, so quitting on page 174 isn't an option. But Cetology has sapped my of all momentum. Chapter 32 is a disabled vehicle in the center lane of this book's narrative.
You can follow the fun at http://www.defectiveyeti.com/
Spring Lake
About a month ago, Mary wanted to take the scooter for a ride on a beautiful fall afternoon. I followed along on my motorcycle.
I thought I’d ridden pretty much every road within at least a hundred miles in my many years of motorcycling around Oregon, but Mary led the way on a few country roads that were new to me, and in less than ten miles from town, we were at Spring Lake, which I’d never seen before. It’s a beautiful small, natural lake surrounded by farmland and rolling hills, and the fall colors were spectacular.
The north end of the lake is natural, with wetlands, reed beds and lots of waterfowl, including herons and egrets, as well as a variety of hawks. (In the winter, the basin is also home of the largest concentration of bald eagles in the lower 48, but the eagles haven’t arrived yet this year.)
The south end of the lake was a particular surprise, with a tidy but very modest trailer park with single- and double-wide trailers and a few spots for RV overnighters. The park had a beautiful lawn with a small dock and tables and chairs. Although it’s private property, we stopped for awhile and enjoyed watching geese and a trio of pelicans sitting on a floating log.
I was struck by this scene in part because the surrounding farmland is starting to be bought up by land-rich retirees, mostly Californians, who are building luxury mansions often costing over a million dollars. This lakeside property has to be worth a fortune, but a lucky few regular folks get to live there for now. I didn’t ask what a monthly rent might run, but I have a feeling it’s still an inexpensive little secret.
I was struck also because the longer I live here, the more beautiful I think it is. Spring Lake is just another delicate, picturesque little spot that’s been there all along, only a few minutes from home.
I’ve posted a few shots to my site at Flikr, and you can view them by clicking on the Ross’s Photos link in the right-hand column.
Wednesday, November 15, 2006
Life the hound Eqivocal
Mary and I were sort-of attacked by pit bulls over the weekend, and let me first assure friends and family that we made it out alive and with all of our fingers and toes.
Watch: QWERTY
See?
Right hand: POIUY
We decided to spend the three-day Veterans Day weekend at the Lava Beds National Monument, which is only about an hour south of town and which has several virtues.
First it’s only about an hour south of town.
Also, it is a historic battlefield and you can visit the sites of various battles between Modoc Indians and United States Cavalry in what was the last Indian war in North America. (Basically, the Indians won all the battles but things didn’t turn out so good for them anyway. The rest is history.)
Finally, there are lots of caves.
The best thing about the lava beds is that it’s almost entirely deserted in winter and has a nice primitive campground, so when there’s a lot of snow in the passes, Mary and I can pull our trailer down there with a reasonable chance of making it back home when we have to. Since I’m not a big fan of battlefields, caves, or even lava, for that matter, the best part for me is building a big fire, because it’s very cold in the winter, and listening to coyotes while I look up at the stars at night.
In my drinking days, I would drink a lot and howl at the moon. Now I just howl at the moon. It’s amazing how much fun you can still have sober.
Except, anyway, this time as we drove down to the campground we couldn’t help but notice that every campsite was occupied by multiple vehicles, numerous tents, and dozens of kids, most of them of the teenage persuasion. We drove around awhile and weren’t sure we were going to be able to find a place to even stay, so we finally asked one group what was up. They told us that there were one or two sites still open and that they were Pathfinders.
Pathfinders?
Like Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts, but for Seventh-Day Adventists.
Sweet Holy Jesus (!), (literally), I’m thinking they’ve got back issues of Awake! or The Watchtower in all those utility trailers they’re towing and Mary and I are the only heathens within fifty miles. I’m feeling a lot of solidarity with the Indians, but we decided to set up the trailer in a rather nice remaining spot and whatever happens, we don’t answer the door.
It turns out that Seventh-Day Adventist teenagers are unimaginably well-behaved, enough so that it was starting to creep us out a little. Mary teaches junior high and I’ve substituted eighth grade, and we know something’s not right with these kids. But still, the weekend is quiet considering our few hundred neighbors. I shivered beside my campfire, and our dogs had some nice walks. No coyotes, but the dogs prefer it that way after a close encounter in the Grand Tetons last summer.
Sunday morning as we were packing up, a young woman of twenty-something, not quite looking like an Adventist somehow, walked by with two pit bulls. Nice dogs, she assured us, and they were, if a little oafish. Still, these are scary looking dogs even if they’re licking your hand at the moment. Brindle, they were, which is pit bull for camo. She said she got them at the pound and one was part lab and one was part Shar Pei because it had wrinkles. And I’m thinking “Right, and I’m part white mouse because I have blond hair going to gray.” These were pit bulls, but she never uttered the “PB” words. Our dogs were safely tied to the picnic table and not acting like idiots for a change, a pretty good sign they know who not to mess with. They didn’t mess with the coyote in Grande Tetons, either.
We had a nice morning packing up, and then we decided to take the dogs for a last walk around the campground before we left. All the Adventists were packing up and leaving, too, and the next part reminds me of a poem I read recently.
The Hound
By Robert Francis (1901-1987)
Life the hound
Equivocal
Comes at a bound
Either to rend me
Or to befriend me.
I cannot tell
The hound’s intent
Till he has sprung
At my bare hand
With teeth or tongue.
Meanwhile I stand
And wait the event.
Since Mr. Francis lived to be 86, I assume life was more or less friendly to him. (I’ve noticed that most poets seem to live to an old age. I think I might take up writing poetry.)
In our case, Life the hound turned out to be the pit bulls and I was fairly clear on their intent. They were going to kill us or kill our dogs, maybe both. Mary saw them first and yelled a commanding—NO!!—which they ignored and came on fast. Their heads were down, hair up, and they were growling. This wasn't a social call to see if we'd like to read a few Bible tracts.
Each of us had one of our little dogs, Bandit and Nick, on a leash. The pit bulls separated and one went for Mary behind me and the other for Bandit, and I, I had my trusty walking stick which I pretty much don’t leave home without any more because this kind of thing isn’t all that rare. My stick, actually an aluminum pole, has a big wooden ball on one end and a sharp spike on the other. I’ve done this before, and as the pit bull closed in I gave it a good Old Testament smite on the head and it stopped him in his tracks. I could see he was looking at some stars of his own. He was still eyeing Bandit and growling, though, so I smote him again, and he backed off.
Meanwhile, Mary just behind me had picked up Nick and turned her back to protect him, and some saintly Adventist guy had intervened and somehow got a hold of the second pit bull’s collar. Thank you, Jesus.
The whole thing lasted a few seconds and was accompanied by a lot of shouting on our part and barking by all the various dogs, and then it was over and there were dozens of Adventist kids looking at us with their mouths open and you could tell everybody was really scared, us included. I just said “Let’s go” to Mary, and we walked away, me with the spike end of my stick covering our retreat.
So that was it. Life the hound equivocal, and I’m reminded sometimes that it can swat you dead, in a heartbeat, like a bug, and there’s really not a lot you can do about it. My walking stick wouldn’t deter even one really determined pit bull unless I actually ran it through with the spear end, and I doubt I could ever do that in time because you never know if it’s an actual charge or just a regular dog thing that will end with everybody sniffing butts.
It all got me wondering what I’d do in a more serious attack, so I checked out some martial arts web pages when I got home. One said to wrap a shirt around your arm, then when the dog bites the shirt, fall on it and pin it with your chest, then gouge its eyes out with your thumb. Be sure to get them both because a pit bull will keep coming if it has a good eye left.
Good idea! These martial arts guys, they’re such kidders! I don’t recall having a lot of time to wrap a shirt around my arm.
Or, I have a gun, but that would risk hitting an Adventist kid, and there’s no better way to ruin a nice campout than by shooting someone else’s dog. My gun is totally false security, but I’ve long realized that false security is the only security. (We’re currently in a very nasty war prosecuted on that premise, but the administration is loath to explain it that way.) I like my gun because I sleep better when I have it with me out in the woods, but I wouldn’t want to ever actually shoot something with it.
So it’s best to laugh about the whole thing and remember what that pit bull looked liked when I conked him on the head and just hope that next time there will be another nice Adventist man to pull off the second dog.
But really, two pit bulls, they’re probably going to win if it gets serious.
Friday, November 03, 2006
Track Day
I was hoping to get in a track day this fall but didn't make it, partly because of money, partly because I got too busy with school.
Still, I try to keep up my technique.
Still, I try to keep up my technique.
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