Word List #5

[For this installment of Word List, I selected as illustration a map painted by son David, depicting the character of his town, San Francisco.]



PRETTY:
This week, a friend in Sonoma wrote to inform me the Forbes Company had named his town one of the ten prettiest in the nation. As a parent, I disagree in principle with Forbes naming his town prettiest. It can only create resentment in other towns and cause them to grow up wrong. Nor does it help to divert admiration from Sonoma and say,"Oh, and here comes our dear little Bakersfield --she's at that oily, awkward stage, but such a nice personality." Also, showing off Sonoma while Cotati suffers a weight problem and her brother, Auburn, peevishly collects guns in the hills will just make her smug and give up on academics.

MYSTIC:
Unlike the example set by Sonoma's uncommunicative cousin, Richmond, not all mystics smell funny. That is a myth promulgated by his bookish, picayunish brothers, Berkeley and Davis, neither of whom gets out much. In truth, mystics seek the extraordinary experience of all-inclusive reality and bathe often as anybody else.

MYSTICISM:
As a belief or practice, mysticism forms around an enraptured, ineffable state --an ecstatic identification of the self in relation to all things, all events. This sense of totality is expressed by such phrases as,"All is one" and "One is all." You may recognize this as the motto of Alexandre Dumas's THE THREE MUSKETEERS --"tous pour un, un pour tous!"-- a novel demonstrating the need for mystics to be really good swordfighters.

DOES:
Of course, pretty is as pretty does, which is generally pleasant and I have exaggerated its schismatic potential. But what more effectively causes regional schism is political misbehavior seeking divisions along sectarian lines --a problem that cannot be exaggerated. Where that happens I, like Richmond, go mystic: There is only one religion and it is all of them. Then I hightail it before answering Jeremiads start their signatory rumbles. And maybe I smell a little funny too.

Unaided Human Flight Or ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ

The title of this essay is also its illustration. It is a rainy day --not the title, the title is the upper-case alphabet. I mean I am in a rainy day-- and what happens on rainy days is I can't go outside and fix something on the world. I used to, no matter what the weather, go out in storms and do vigorous things. I had measureless confidence, immunity to discomfort and the figure of a discobolus. Now rain inspires me to hole up with fluency, ease and artistic fervor. Such is the changing intellectual climate of age and the lure of comfort. With age also comes reflection, sometimes in so many directions it makes no sense, so I will limit this discussion to two distinct streams of thought.

Not an easy prospect. It is late March, usually a time for sitting in the sun thinking of nothing while woolly-ants trumpet and gallimaufry blooms. I believe I have just described idiocy, but that is my approach to clear-minded meditation. However, it's raining and I am in here, doing this. What is this? A response to friends' oft-repeated scolding that I ought to seek wider readership. I figure people read what they want and don't what they don't, but maybe if I offered something sensational they would gain in number. Unaided human flight sounds good. I just added it to the title. Let's try that.

First, let's talk about architecture. Too much coverage is given these days to international belligerence, elitist power-grabs, scandals, social upheavals and too little to architecture and the upper-case alphabet. One can be full of good intentions and mechanical know-how and still accomplish nothing because of architectural ignorance. Consider the Golden Gate.

There is a strait in California defined by headlands of the San Francisco and Marin peninsulas. When it was discovered, in 1769, by Jose Ortega, he wisely turned his party back until a bridge could be built. They circled nearly 170 years, which seems a lot until we consider what went into the project. Schools of mechanical know-how had to be built and operated until they produced architects. Meanwhile, Sgt. Ortega hiked all over the state founding things named Ortega. My Stunt Double grew up on Ortega Street, which I mention only to show we were born much younger than people are now and weren't so nervous about details.

Point is, mechanical distribution of gravitational force through the science of architecture saves many lives. Motorists who tried to drive across the Golden Gate before there was a bridge pretty much lost everything. Those who survived blamed their calamity on fog or misinformation, but make no mistake, gravity got them. Then came architecture, a beautiful orange bridge, and millions of lives get saved every week. Similarly, literature has been saved by the invention and arrangement of the alphabet.

The basic mechanics were there, and the know-how, but literature escaped us for eons. Chief reason humankind was so late to it is each letter had to be forged individually by blacksmiths. They were heavy, cumbersome and a lot of them couldn't stand up by themselves, nor could the letters they forged. But there are certain details that cannot be detected at ground level. You need an overview of the whole alphabet to see why it begins and ends as it does.

From this vantage, you can see that A and Z are the best choice for containing the thing. Neither letter will tip easily, even when Y topples or C heaves back. Midway, you'll notice sturdy-looking M, N, R, and a businesslike boot under Q to keep P upright, especially after O rolls into it. T, U and V are so inherently unstable it takes both W and X to keep them off Y, which, as we've seen, has its own problems. From a bit higher up, we can see F will never stand on its own and I will fall off anything, given the opportunity.

If you leave off admiring the sound architectural principles of the alphabet --which held it still long enough to serve literature-- you'll notice you are flying. Don't be alarmed, but as I write, the rain has run to thunder and lightning and it's best we land now and go indoors. Age seeks its own comforts, and I think it's time for a good cackle in the chimney corner.

True Meditation

As illustration for this essay I am using a panel of our dining room sideboard that was particularly ugly and deserved what it got. It got several decades of kids growing up and pasting anything having to do with bicycles on it.

I considered this in two ways: it would decrease the resale value of the house and thereby keep me from getting snagged in the recent real estate crash; it gave the kids something meditative to do while I meditated and their mom bounced off walls taking care of everybody. If you would like audio accompaniment as well, I suggest Olivier Messiaen's (1941) "Quatuor Pour La Fin Du Temps", in which Jesus is a broad phrase on the vionocello, a Word --Logos-- to express infinite slowness, which is how light experiences time. But you can substitute anybody, even yourself, who wishes humanity would realize the universe speaks through us too, whether we like what it's saying or not.

In physics we learn the universe is composed of events. In broader philosophy we learn matter and mind are two ways of organizing events. Matter exists without biology; mind does not. We can safely infer the universe uses both organizational modes to communicate with itself. Because both combine in production of meaning, we assume the universe is getting to know itself in greater detail. It seems to be having a childhood. What further cosmic devices it develops by the time it begins dating are as yet unfathomable. Our job is to puzzle it out and help.

Here's how some Eastern groups go about it. They concentrate on the purposes of meditation, which are to live in the moment, pacify negative emotions, attain physical, mental and emotional health, live non-violently, purify consciousness, balance action, reaction and inaction. Modern medicine has ascertained this discipline improves the neuro-endocrine system, regulates emotions and hormones, reconciles subconscious mind and personality. Not bad.

Here's a generally Indian procedural list: Kayotsarg, relaxation and self awareness; Antaryatra, exploration of body & consciousness; Svash Preksha, perception of long breathing; Sharir Preksha, perception; Chaitanya Kendra Preksha, perception of psychic centres; Leshya Dhyan, subtle perception; Anupreksha & Bhavana, auto-suggestion; Asana & Pranayam, postures and breathing; Dhvani & Mudra, healing and hand posture. The goal, briefly, is transformation of negative emotions into positive ones. Lot of terminology but simple enough.

Here's how it translates into Western Dialogue, at my house anyway:

She: Wake up! Wake up!

I: Mmmphh?

She: You're asleep in your chair.

I: I was meditating.

She: You were snoring.

I: Chanting sub-vocally.

She: People who sleep in chairs fall out and hurt themselves. You were about to fall out!

I: You know Norma, this is the reason monks don't usually have wives.

She: Nobody'd marry them because they're always asleep and falling over.

I: Meditating, prostrating.

She: So you'd rather be a monk than married to me?

I: Uh, I'm all enlightened now. Think I'll go outside.

And I do go outside, usually to think. In thought, one solves --but with each answer more questions present themselves. This makes life marvelous and frustrating, so many people wisely stop thinking before it gets out of hand. I, however, have learned to shuffle off to the pumphouse where, among other philosophical instruments, I keep a humidor. Nicotinic meditation tends to clarify facts at hand even if it does not pull them out of thin air. It does not unify one with the universe or smarten one up, but it does calm one down during spousal bickers and successive attacks by offspring upon the paneling.

Flight Of The Aerolark

In the early 1950s, my uncle drove up in a new car. New Car, wheeee! It was an Aerolark sedan, made by Willys of Jeep fame, sold to people who wanted the sturdy dependability of a service vehicle in their family cars. I scampered out to see it.

Uncle had the hood up so we could see its works. There was no light alloy anywhere. Valves were in the block, and the block was all heavy slabs of cast steel secured by big black bolts. Six pistons and twelve tappets made no more noise than a soft spring rain. Carburetor drew with satisfied, throaty sighs. It was an engine built for the ages and I was entranced.

But what most fascinated me was visible only after the great gray curve of the hood banged shut. It had an ornament on its snout, a sculpture in chromed steel of a streamlined dreamship, an avicular aerodyne that seemed to speed thru space despite being bolted down. I was lifted and held up where I could look down on it. And there it was, the essential Aerolark, the soul, and beneath, reflected in the shiny hood, a sky of scudding clouds.

Yesterday I got out my sketchbook and returned to that moment. I drew and remembered. The '50s were a very forward-looking time but there were setbacks. For example, sometimes I was given a dime, and I liked dimes. I liked Mercury's winged head. It represented fleetness and futurity, but one saw fewer and fewer of them. New dimes had Roosevelt on them and I supposed it was prudent and accurate to leave wings off him but I was disappointed. There were many disappointments.

Then I began to grow. After my tail dropped off, I commenced to think, and realized much of thinking is the creation and identification of reliable analogies. One encounters symbols sacred and profane, pedestrian and sublime. One fashions them into patterns and, from patterns, derives axioms. One strives for algorithms of enduring stability. One strives for method, synthesis that embraces the outer nebulae and the human heart. We strive for a design that will always choose the future that best includes us.

So I share here an image that has soared across my sky in dreams and hopes, a shape composed of negative drag and anti gravity that speeds, despite its antiquity, into a bright future. It has its own vitality, its own life, roaring and streaking over all stages of labor, love and living. One looks up and sees the Aerolark caroming into the future, raises one's hat-brim, wipes the sweat from one's eyes and says, almost reverently, "Geez! What the hell was that?"

My Encounter With Tyrannosaurus

I was sitting in the back porch reading and enjoying the early signs of spring --galanthus hung with snowdrops, plumb blossoms starting, new grass striving with old. A clutch of yellow daffodils held my attention briefly before I returned to reading. Then I heard a rustle and looked up again. One of the daffodils had got knocked over, its little trumpet mashed on the soil.

"What the...who's out there?" I said.

There was a movement among the stalks. Something was hiding.

"Show yourself or I'm coming out!"

A raspy voice came from the daffodils. "Come out and do what, puny man?"

"I've got a broom and I'll chase you with it."

An ugly, very cross-looking head, about the size and color of a pickle, rose up slightly above the flowers. "Hah! I don't think so," it said. "I'm a Tyrannosaurus!"

"Correct me if I'm wrong," I said, "but I heard your kind was fifteen feet tall, not fifteen inches."

"Oh, you're not mistaken. I'm huge! I'm just standing very far away."

"No you're ten feet off in my daffodils."

"Damn," he muttered. "Binocular vision. Time was when only us Tyrannosaurs had that kind of depth perception. Look, I'll come out but you stay on the porch, and no brooms!"

As the creature emerged he began to explain himself: "You're not entirely incorrect about me. My family, the Tyrant Lizards, is most associated with T-rex, who really was fifteen feet tall --taller than T-bataar but only came up to T-imperator's shoulder. Tyrannosauridae is a large and various group."

"And what sort are you?" I asked.

He turned around and said, somewhat self-consciously, "Er, Tyrannosaurus-cottontail."

"That's a fine, impressive tail." I said, "But what became of your relatives?"

"Oh, they're gone."

"I'm sorry. Extinct then?"

"Not that I know of. You've doubtless seen pictures of them and know they always looked very upset. That's accurate. They got dissatisfied with the era they were in, developed a space-program and left for another planet entirely."

"The era, Jurassic?"

"No, Prohibition. Tyrannosauridae love beer. The bigger ones couldn't get enough anymore. By the way..."

"No problem," I said, taking the hint. "Small glass ok?"

I brought out a bottle of stout and poured a bit for him, which he quaffed eagerly.

"Thanks," he said. "It's dry work hiding and skulking. Not really used to it. T-cottontails rely on disguise to move about freely. Which reminds me..."

"More beer?"

"Rain check! I gotta go to the cleaners and pick up my bunny suit."

Pumpkin Pants, Evolution Or Creation?

This weekend, from a woman whose opinion I have always treasured, I've been learning some excellent lessons about pumpkin pants. She is a theatrical costume designer of substantial experience. The subject was trunk hose, about which I had read the following: Trunk hose and slops can be paned or pansied, with panels of fabric over an inner lining. Pansied slop is a bulbous hose with a layer of fabric strips from waistband to leg. These are called "pumpkin" pants.

She replied that pumpkin breeches are not always slops: "Slops are similar in that they are also big, balloon-y shorts that can have slashes and panes in them, but slops predate pumpkin breeches and are both less structured and usually hit lower on the thigh. Pumpkin breeches hit quite high on the leg and are much more structured. Slops were more drapey."

I wanted to try on a pair, but was wary of going to a clothing store and asking for pumpkin pants with pansied slop. Who knows what that'd get me in this day and age? So I did the next best thing. I got out my sketchbook and headed back to the 16th century. I even made myself a little younger and better-looking for the trip. As you can see by the middle figure in the sketch above, I also got a doublet and wacky hat thrown in.

Not only did I feel as silly as I looked, the outfit inspired me to greater curiosity. So I cast my thoughts a hundred years ahead, to the late 17th century. There I met two handsome fellows. One on the left is a French peasant. On the right is a mounted gendarme. Fashionwise, both appeared to have been thrown together at random --frills, sashes, hangy-down things all over them-- which argues in favor of evolution. But I had my suspicions.

Both wore frock coats of considerable length, with distracting amounts of buttons. Gendarme had high, broad boots and peasant had a skirt on. These boys were hiding something! What? I decided I did not want to know, but suspected they had pumpkin pants somewhere. This would argue pumpkin pants were part of their creation. Concealment suggests creation and evolution equally.

I brought these findings forward to my authority, who pronounced my trunk hose slopless. She said:"I have a less precise visual shorthand for differentiating between the two: Slops=Pirate pants, pumpkin breeches=Shakespeare pants." This meant I would have to backtrack, prior to 1564 --Shakespeare's birth year-- to get any idea of proper slops. I decided to go lie down instead.

However, this question is by no means settled: Pumpkin pants, created or evolved? There is much to do and more data to collect. Data is important! Except for my gendarme using a (at the time, uninvented) snaffle bit to control his dinosaur, my account is historically correct. But did slops disappear or evolve into disguise? Until I am rested enough to deal with pirates, I must be content to live with the mystery.

Waiting

There is an ancient therapeutic art that predates Yoga, Tai Chi and certainly the medical philosophy of Galen. Its origin is shrouded in prehistory but is rediscovered by every generation. It may not even be a human invention because animals and insects practice it as a general thing. Even plants organize seasonal frenzies of it. It is called waiting.

Consider the specimen pictured above. In the background we can make out an orange extension cord where he has been running a saw. There is evidence also that he has been splitting logs with sledge and wedge. There is a battered yellow wheelbarrow with nothing in it. This means he's in the middle of a chore. Why is he sitting down? He is waiting.

Notice the traditional posture --gloves in hand, sitting forward, marginally alert expression. Notice also the official, all-weather waiting exercise machine he sits on, and over which he demonstrates such mastery. Obviously a skilled practitioner. He is waiting until he feels like going back to work. That could take a while, so let us examine the history of this discipline.

When we don't feel well, we get medicine. Medical science, as we know it, has advanced to quite a complicated thing, commensurate with the increasing complexity of disease. But there was a time when the only communicable distemper was fleas. The treatment was waiting, waiting until they went away or until one got used to them. And there was, we can be historically certain, even a time before that.

It was during that distant golden age the therapy was practiced and perfected for its own sake. One withdrew from the challenges of primordial life by sitting down and waiting until one's spouse came out taking snapshots and asking where the firewood is. Careful attention to this essay provides a reply of unimpeachable authority.

The therapy discussed here has existed longer and adapted itself more universally to modern medicine than any other. You will not find space devoted to later methods --aerobics, acupuncture, meditation, massage-- of spiritual and physical therapy in all medical establishments, but by golly you'll find a waiting room.