October poem

An October dawn seen from my breakfast table.

Since the beginning of April I have been writing, instead of a diary entry, something that vaguely (sometimes more closely) resembles a poem. This is one about a dawn I wrote a few days ago.


The precious Indian summer days

slipped away under cover of a near full moon night

leaving behind a gray morning

without

the peach, orange, tangerine dawn

clouds

of my last few breakfasts.

Woods Hole, Massachusetts

Wood's Hole, on "lower" i.e,the southwest end, Cape Cod began as a whaling town. today it is world famous in particular for two institutions: the Wood Hole Oceanographic Institution, a foremost center for the study of the all things marine where the depths of the oceans are studied both by manned crafts and by a variety of robots -- all of which are one-of-a-kind, all of which are designed and manufactured and maintained right there. The harbor, even on a very drizzly, gray day is a lovely sight.
The Marine Biology Labs is an independent institution which has the world's finest laboratories for the study of marine life with the goal being contributing to the understanding and betterment of human life. This institution has provided workspace for 54 Nobel Prize scientists as well as hundreds of others. The numbers of scientific papers published are vast.

A group of 55 seniors from the Academy for Lifelong Learning were given tours of both institutions with lectures by well trained volunteers. Some had been on such a tour previously, I had not. I had merely spent a couple of hours in the town and had no overview at all so I learned a lot. Below is the manned capsule from Alvin, the deep sea going sphere designed to hold three scientists, sitting very close together. It has made 4600 plunges to the bottom of the ocean. At the moment the capsule and the structure that allows it to be lowered and raised are being reconstructed in a somewhat larger size. As can be seen in the photograph, the two people standing in front of it would barely fit inside. I get claustrophobia just looking at it.

One of the most renown accomplishments of a WHOI scientist was the discovery of the location of the Titanic. That was news making but the ongoing and extensive data gathering about the sea, the underwater volcanoes, the sea creatures unknown before being discovered by WHOI scientists is far important. The enormous amount of information that has flowed out of this small town over the past 50 or so years as more and more instruments have been designed, contributes enormously to our understanding of life on earth.

Two Movies in less than 24 hours

Two movies in 24 hours. I have an openness to stories, especially visual stories makes this a heavy trip along with what I'm reading. Now and then I've read of movie lovers who go to three or four movies ion a kind of orgy, say on a dreary Sunday in NYC -- with many theaters close together in some areas and showings running from about 11:30 a.m. to 11:30 p.m. that is entirely possible with time out for a meal somewhere in the middle. Those film lovers are not people who go to every bit of drek, they try to see decent movies. Doesn't work that way for me. Two in less than 24 hours makes me feel somewhat bludgeoned, largely by myself.

Last night's movie was Mozart's Sister, in French at the nearest art film theatre. I always go to movies that have something to do with classical music. Of course, I knew that Nannerl was very talented and denigrated by Papa Leopold who used the two children like performing ponies to earn his living. This movie focuses on Nannerl's relationship with members of the Sun King's family, a princess and the Delphine, both of whom are enchanted by Nannerl. The story seems to be mainly fictional. The actress looks too old for the role but she is the daughter of the director. Most scenes were mediocre and the story light. But I loved a scene in which Nannerl starts singing one morning, Woflie joins in, they begin singing counterpoint. "A keyboard!" Wolfie cries. They run to a harpsichord, she playing the lower keyboard and he the higher. They compose together, apparently reading one another's minds as jazz musicians do, and both in a state of contained ecstasy. Beautiful!
Today's movie was made in Belgium called Illegal. It was about a Russian woman who is an illegal alien and is picked up on the street in a routine document search. She is put in a detention camp and won't talk. She has a 12 year old son who is being taken care of by a friend -- sort of. She's spunky and determined and she's befriended by a black woman who regularly gets beaten up by the guards [unpreachy reference to racism, of course]. When our heroine is to be deported she fights hard and causes a riot on the airplane, then is beaten badly, but sneaks out of the hospital ward and managed to get home to her son.

Such detention camps exist, not only in most European countries for illegal aliens, they exist in America also. People all over the world are moving from country to country seeking safety, work, a better way of life and countries are handling it with bureaucratic ugliness everywhere. This movie won a major prize at the Cannes Film Festival. The consensus was that it won not because it is fine film making [the critics think it's too much like an American TV special] but because this is a political problem that needs to be addressed.

Hello, Indian Summer

After looking at a show of 51 small quilts at the National Seashore visitor's center in Eastham, Rachel and I walked on the one good trail that starts from that center. The first third or so was beside what is called Salt Pond, a graceful inlet pond. Twelve swans were swimming on it. I don't believe I've ever seen twelve all at the same time before. Here are a couple of pictures -- they were spread over the fairly large pond, but four or five were gathered in one little inlet area. They are so elegant and seem so serene.

From the pond, we briefly had panoramic view out to a sand bar with the ocean beyond. The view was a little ruined because there were a dozen or more all terrain vehicles out there, so the natural grace was compromised. The remainder of the trail wound through a mixed forest. The shade was actually quite welcome on this very, very warm Indian summer day. Happily Rachel knew of a wonderful ice cream place in Orleans -- what better way to end such a lovely day?

Serious Things on my Mind

So many serious things are on my mind tonight I almost don't know where to start -- in a sense none of it is personal, and in a sense all of it is personal. I will only mention three.

To begin with the ugliest: I say the documentary film about Emmett Till this afternoon. I had known the story that was a catalyst in the civil rights movement but this documentary showed a picture of him in his casket after his mother was heard describing many of his wounds. The extreme brutality was shocking. I know brutality goes on at all times somewhere in the world but my imagination cannot manage to understand how anyone can so mutilate another person. His murderers did not even know the boy. What they did was from some blood lust, some massive perversion of humanity. And they were acquitted by the jury and eventually died "natural" deaths of cancer. I find some consolation in knowing that the civil rights movement gained many victories although prejudice still exists in this country even in this liberal area as some people in the audience recounted.

The most exciting is that I just watched the You Tube video reading of the statement of the protesters in the park on Wall Street. I signed the solidarity petition yesterday for what tiny bit that is worth. I am delighted a movement has begun to protest and hope it will be picked up all across the country. The statement is very inclusive; I'd be happy if this turned into a movement as big as the anti-Vietnam war movement of the '60s. It's way past time to push back at the corporations and financial institutions.

The saddest was Steve Job's death at such a young age. Almost since I have began working on a PC I have been aware that Mac computers inspired a special fanatical devotion among their users. I did not get one until about five years ago but I have become a dedicated fan as well. I copied a part of the address Jobs gave at Stanford in 2005. I don't know if he already knew he was fighting cancer, perhaps not, but he was a serious man, focused on individuality. This is some of what he said:

“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice.

“And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.”

The Elephant and the Dragon

I am taking a discussion class based on the book The Elephant and the Dragon by Robyn Meridith, a writer on economics. The subject is the economic rise of India and China, with China predominant. Economists make me profoundly uneasy. They see the world in terms of money, and I realize that money is powerful. But economic discussions are always abstract and these discussions talk only about manufacturing and trade balances. Economists concentrate on that portion of the population who work for big corporations whatever country they're talking about. But the truth is only a small percentage of the people in any country actually work for big corporations. Furthermore everything else is generalized. Saying that 4% of Americans control over 40% of America's wealth means nothing. The same is true in China or India. I have a deep distrust of thinkers who don't factor 96% of the people into an equation. The statements that people make in the class are essentially meaningless to me.

As a product of a "fly over" state [Indiana] where no one I knew worked for a large corporation, or had a bank account in excess of $10,000 [if ever that!] or an education much above high school, I think of the vastness of China [and India] and all the "fly over" land there and the millions of people who are not taken into the abstract patterns of economists except when they mention that rural people are moving to the cities at greater rates than ever because they hope to find jobs in those factories. But that is so simplistic, so inhuman and finally so meaningless. I am frustrated as I read the book -- which was published in 2007 and so is already five years out of date -- and I'm even more frustrated in the class as a room full of well meaning, curious, intelligent senior citizens tries to understand something about the world they hear about on TV and read about in newspapers. It seems to me they haven't the tools to understand another country if they have only economic abstractions. I'll revisit this subject in a couple of weeks when I have an opportunity to speak to the class about what I know and feel about China having been there more often than anyone else in the class [4 times although two of those times, to me, were not to China but to Tibet -- no matter what my passport says.]

A panoramic view

Just thought I'd do a panoramic view of the beach I walk on. Above is looking east which goes on for about two miles at the very tip [on the right] is the Kennedy Compound which is really not visible from where I was standing.

Below is the beach I walk on. The picture is a little deceiving because the end is a blend of another land mass across a small inlet area


The whole thing is very peaceful -- especially in the quiet hours of morning when I sometimes see only one or two other people, and perhaps a dog or two. Then it feels like my private world with nice wide perspectives. On the watery horizon I can see something tall on Martha's Vineyard and at night a lighted beacon. Often I see the ferries cross the eastern horizon going or from the Vineyard. And of course many smaller craft, from kayaks and rowboats [like the one in the picture, to graceful sail boars and all sizes of motor boats. Lately there have been quite a few fishermen out there and I was told they are catching tuna -- smallish, but, surprisingly, tuna.