- Enhance the lives of the people I care about whenever possible.
- Fight sloth (the Deadly Sin, not the adorable forest creature).
[Books] Book Look: Paris in the Present Tense
[Travel] Down on the Bayou
[Rant] Nothing New
Wednesday, February 06, 2019
The Month That Was - January 2019
Once again, I have no New Year's resolutions to break, just my ongoing strategic goals:
[Books] Book Look: Paris in the Present Tense
[Travel] Down on the Bayou
[Rant] Nothing New
[Books] Book Look: Paris in the Present Tense
[Travel] Down on the Bayou
[Rant] Nothing New
[Books] Book Look: Paris in the Present Tense, by Mark Helprin
At the risk of giving away the conclusion, I was disappointed with this book. Helprin is an author I admire greatly, he can form a sentence like few others and his skill at allegory and parable are second to none, but this one left me feeling unsatisfied.
This is the story of an old man, a 70-something French Jew, a survivor of the Holocaust as a child, who has devoted his life to art, specifically composing music. He has many regrets, not the least of which is that by pursuing his artistic dreams he has sacrificed any sort of financial well-being -- a thing that would be useful now that his grandchild has been given a cancer diagnosis. What follows is a string of deeply implausible incidents, including a 70-something man defeating three armed and violent young men in a street fight, killing two of them with his bare hands.
In the course of trying to set things right at the end our hero encounters lots of cliches. Eccentric egomaniacal corporate leaders and their stooges, pusillanimous and conniving intellectuals, ethnically appropriate buddy cops, a bullied and hapless loser, and assorted others of two-dimensions.
As a picture of old age, it only partially succeeds. To our aging hero, the underlying terror of old age is the world moving away from him. Technological advances coarsen the world (in his view), his job in academia is withering on the vine as he is slowly being phased out, worst of all the anti-semitism that so informed his childhood is resurging.
While all these things are true, they are superficial (except of course the anti-semitism). The real terror of aging is the irreversible decay of you body and skills and underlying fear of dementia or otherwise becoming totally dependent. No such fears affect our fit-as-a-30-year-old aging hero.
While our hero is nicely drawn and coherent. His need to fix things, to make things right, in view of what he sees as the costly decisions he may have made early in life is sharp and believable. The fact that his feelings and behavior toward women didn't change over the course of his life -- the child being father of the man -- also rings true. But it's not enough to overcome the dominant sense of implausibility.
Should you read Paris in the Present Tense? Nah. You could do worse, but you could also do better, including most of Helprin's other writings.
This is the story of an old man, a 70-something French Jew, a survivor of the Holocaust as a child, who has devoted his life to art, specifically composing music. He has many regrets, not the least of which is that by pursuing his artistic dreams he has sacrificed any sort of financial well-being -- a thing that would be useful now that his grandchild has been given a cancer diagnosis. What follows is a string of deeply implausible incidents, including a 70-something man defeating three armed and violent young men in a street fight, killing two of them with his bare hands.
In the course of trying to set things right at the end our hero encounters lots of cliches. Eccentric egomaniacal corporate leaders and their stooges, pusillanimous and conniving intellectuals, ethnically appropriate buddy cops, a bullied and hapless loser, and assorted others of two-dimensions.
As a picture of old age, it only partially succeeds. To our aging hero, the underlying terror of old age is the world moving away from him. Technological advances coarsen the world (in his view), his job in academia is withering on the vine as he is slowly being phased out, worst of all the anti-semitism that so informed his childhood is resurging.
While all these things are true, they are superficial (except of course the anti-semitism). The real terror of aging is the irreversible decay of you body and skills and underlying fear of dementia or otherwise becoming totally dependent. No such fears affect our fit-as-a-30-year-old aging hero.
While our hero is nicely drawn and coherent. His need to fix things, to make things right, in view of what he sees as the costly decisions he may have made early in life is sharp and believable. The fact that his feelings and behavior toward women didn't change over the course of his life -- the child being father of the man -- also rings true. But it's not enough to overcome the dominant sense of implausibility.
Should you read Paris in the Present Tense? Nah. You could do worse, but you could also do better, including most of Helprin's other writings.
[Travel] Down on the Bayou
An all too short trip -- a couple of days barreling around the bayou area of western Louisiana, along I-10 between Lake Charles and Baton Rouge. It's an area of fascinating contrasts. Like everywhere else it is gentrifying, albeit perhaps a bit more slowly than most, but the old school bayou is still on display everywhere. I-10 itself straight-lines through some picturesque, even eerie, swamp scenes. The little towns along the way still look like support villages for agriculture or fishing or perhaps settlements of refinery workers.
And refineries -- the area primary industry -- are in evidence everywhere. Huge, complexes of gnarled metal and worn buildings and billowing smoke. Looking like a environmentalist's dystopian trope made real. They make a stark contrast to the lush greenery from which they spring.
Around the larger cities -- Lake Charles, Lafayette, or Baton Rouge -- is where you find the gentrification and homogeneity. Also, to no small extent, some solid tourist infrastructure. Although "tourist" in this case mostly means servicing folks from Houston. I-10 is the route between Houston and New Orleans. Since this area isn't a major national destination, the bulk of the tourists are daytrippers or weekenders from Houston. Folks from the booming Houston-Austin-San Antonio triangle have disposable income to spare.
So folks come by to fish the lakes and rivers, view wildlife, and gamble. Especially gamble. Lake Charles has multiple casinos the nicest of which is the Golden Nugget, which would not be out of place in Vegas. Neither would the table minimums. Weekend nights you won't find a minimum less than $25 which is comparable to the Vegas Strip. I'm sure the less glitzy casinos in the area are cheaper.
The Nugget also has the best restaurant selection in the area, although they are all upscale regional chains, nothing unique. They are still very good; I can recommend Vic and Anthony's Steakhouse and the Grotto for traditional Italian. I would not have known they were chains had I not been told since they don't exist in Michigan.
Another thing folks come down here for is genuine Cajun food. The area is peppered with the sort of dumpy food shacks that appeal to the contemporary lust for authenticity. You can tell from the warm swamp-friendly drawls of the denizens that, gentrified or not, it's still bayou. Outside you are likely to see a pack of road-worn pickups parked next the shiny Jaguar of an upper-middle-class foodie.
Sadly there was little luck to be had in that area, what with travelling on a holiday weekend. In the boonies, there is still respect for the sabbath to some extent. An attempt to get a po' boy at a highly recommended shack failed when it turned out they only serve pre-packaged BBQ on Sunday. On Monday (the Holiday) there was another scramble to find a traditional po' boy that ended with another false start and an unfortunate experience with service. (The names of these places are withheld to protect the innocent from the wrath of my multitude of fervent followers.) I would not mind giving a food adventure here another try though.
The single act of sightseeing involved a visit to Avery Island, the home of Tabasco Sauce. It's sounds silly, but it's actually a pretty cool place. You can do a brief self-tour of the Tabasco factory and learn the history of Tabasco (it's actually kinda interesting), but the real treat is the Jungle Gardens, 170-acre wildlife sanctuary.
Even in the middle of winter (it was in the fifties) it was quite lovely. It's easy to imagine how lush it would be in Spring. I assume the place would be full of cranes and various water-borne life. Huge flocks of hawks were gathering in the trees -- I had never seen hawks flock like starlings; I always assumed they were solitary or paired, but this was a hawk jamboree. There are thickly wooded pathways, a bamboo jungle, picturesque stone bridges, and, somewhat unexpectedly, a shrine to the Buddha. Very cool place; wish I had brought my DSLR instead of just my phone. In a distant way it reminds me of the Ringling Museum in Sarasota, or even San Simeon: a very wealthy man, or in this case family -- the McIlhennys, founders of Tabasco -- has a great financial success and devotes a good portion of their wealth to creating a space of great beauty, then sharing with the world. Were I ever to be worth a bajillion dollars I would hope to do the same.
I like the Bayou. Despite facing same sorts of upheavals the rest of the country is facing, it still has unique character, and that's not something many places can say in the face of the era of homogenization. Even in the middle of the flashy Golden Nugget, you would never mistake the natives for hipsters. That said, I'm not sure I would go out of my way to go back. It was cool and fun, but so are many places and travel time is dear. On the other hand, if I lived in Houston or even as far as Austin or San Antonio, I probably be weekending here three or four times a year at least.
They had better hope Texas never legalizes gambling. The blow to the bayou would be ruinous.
And refineries -- the area primary industry -- are in evidence everywhere. Huge, complexes of gnarled metal and worn buildings and billowing smoke. Looking like a environmentalist's dystopian trope made real. They make a stark contrast to the lush greenery from which they spring.
Around the larger cities -- Lake Charles, Lafayette, or Baton Rouge -- is where you find the gentrification and homogeneity. Also, to no small extent, some solid tourist infrastructure. Although "tourist" in this case mostly means servicing folks from Houston. I-10 is the route between Houston and New Orleans. Since this area isn't a major national destination, the bulk of the tourists are daytrippers or weekenders from Houston. Folks from the booming Houston-Austin-San Antonio triangle have disposable income to spare.
So folks come by to fish the lakes and rivers, view wildlife, and gamble. Especially gamble. Lake Charles has multiple casinos the nicest of which is the Golden Nugget, which would not be out of place in Vegas. Neither would the table minimums. Weekend nights you won't find a minimum less than $25 which is comparable to the Vegas Strip. I'm sure the less glitzy casinos in the area are cheaper.
The Nugget also has the best restaurant selection in the area, although they are all upscale regional chains, nothing unique. They are still very good; I can recommend Vic and Anthony's Steakhouse and the Grotto for traditional Italian. I would not have known they were chains had I not been told since they don't exist in Michigan.
Another thing folks come down here for is genuine Cajun food. The area is peppered with the sort of dumpy food shacks that appeal to the contemporary lust for authenticity. You can tell from the warm swamp-friendly drawls of the denizens that, gentrified or not, it's still bayou. Outside you are likely to see a pack of road-worn pickups parked next the shiny Jaguar of an upper-middle-class foodie.
Sadly there was little luck to be had in that area, what with travelling on a holiday weekend. In the boonies, there is still respect for the sabbath to some extent. An attempt to get a po' boy at a highly recommended shack failed when it turned out they only serve pre-packaged BBQ on Sunday. On Monday (the Holiday) there was another scramble to find a traditional po' boy that ended with another false start and an unfortunate experience with service. (The names of these places are withheld to protect the innocent from the wrath of my multitude of fervent followers.) I would not mind giving a food adventure here another try though.
The single act of sightseeing involved a visit to Avery Island, the home of Tabasco Sauce. It's sounds silly, but it's actually a pretty cool place. You can do a brief self-tour of the Tabasco factory and learn the history of Tabasco (it's actually kinda interesting), but the real treat is the Jungle Gardens, 170-acre wildlife sanctuary.
Even in the middle of winter (it was in the fifties) it was quite lovely. It's easy to imagine how lush it would be in Spring. I assume the place would be full of cranes and various water-borne life. Huge flocks of hawks were gathering in the trees -- I had never seen hawks flock like starlings; I always assumed they were solitary or paired, but this was a hawk jamboree. There are thickly wooded pathways, a bamboo jungle, picturesque stone bridges, and, somewhat unexpectedly, a shrine to the Buddha. Very cool place; wish I had brought my DSLR instead of just my phone. In a distant way it reminds me of the Ringling Museum in Sarasota, or even San Simeon: a very wealthy man, or in this case family -- the McIlhennys, founders of Tabasco -- has a great financial success and devotes a good portion of their wealth to creating a space of great beauty, then sharing with the world. Were I ever to be worth a bajillion dollars I would hope to do the same.
I like the Bayou. Despite facing same sorts of upheavals the rest of the country is facing, it still has unique character, and that's not something many places can say in the face of the era of homogenization. Even in the middle of the flashy Golden Nugget, you would never mistake the natives for hipsters. That said, I'm not sure I would go out of my way to go back. It was cool and fun, but so are many places and travel time is dear. On the other hand, if I lived in Houston or even as far as Austin or San Antonio, I probably be weekending here three or four times a year at least.
They had better hope Texas never legalizes gambling. The blow to the bayou would be ruinous.
[Rant] Nothing New
Media navel-gazing has been ratcheted up in the past couple of weeks, what with facebook violating privacy and scamming kids, and social media in general screwing up your head. It's sleazy cousin, clickbait, turns out to be equally distasteful, but it's the only way media companies can stay in business, unless of course you're the biggest clickbait producer in the world, in which case you are desperately dumping payroll. Whee.
All this reminds me of how old I am because I can't see it as anything new or worth getting exorcised about. The effect of media ubiquity on our lives was foreseen many years ago, it's just amplified. Here is Marshall McLuhan from The Media is the Message in 1967:
Want some more? This is Stefan Zweig from The World of Yesterday in 1938:
So maybe take ten- to twenty-percent off over there Squirrely Dan. (Apologies for the Letterkenny quote, ya pheasants.) All that stuff you see that's going to destroy the world, isn't. Trust me. It's nothing new. Nothing is new.
All this reminds me of how old I am because I can't see it as anything new or worth getting exorcised about. The effect of media ubiquity on our lives was foreseen many years ago, it's just amplified. Here is Marshall McLuhan from The Media is the Message in 1967:
In the past, the effects of media were experienced more gradually, allowing the individual and society to cushion their impact to some degree. Today, in the electronic age of instantaneous communication, I believe that our survival, and at very least our comfort and happiness,is predicated on understanding the nature of our new environment, because unlike previous environmental changes, the electric media constitute a total and near-instantaneous transformation of culture, values, and attitudes. This upheaval generates great pain and identity loss, which can be ameliorated only through a conscious awareness of its dynamics. If...we continue in our subliminal trance, we will be their slaves.That's 1967 kiddies. We had three TV channels, FM radio (just barely), and dialing a phone meant dialing.
Want some more? This is Stefan Zweig from The World of Yesterday in 1938:
But travelling, even as far as to other worlds under other stars did not allow me to escape Europe and my anxieties. It seems almost like Nature's fierce revenge on mankind that the achievements of technology through which we have taken her mysterious forces into our own hands simultaneously destroy the soul. The greatest curse brought down on us by technology is that it prevents us from escaping the present even for a brief time. Previous generations could retreat into solitude and seclusion when disaster struck; it was our fate to be aware of everything catastrophic happening anywhere in the world at the hour and second when it happened.1938. For 80 years this transformation has been going on. Did it accelerate with the Internet? OK maybe, but media ubiquity has been going to destroy our souls for almost a century now. Multiple generations have lived and died with their souls destroyed by the media. Yet here we are, doing pretty well, making progress in the crazy, haphazard, 10-steps-forward-9-steps-back way of humanity.
So maybe take ten- to twenty-percent off over there Squirrely Dan. (Apologies for the Letterkenny quote, ya pheasants.) All that stuff you see that's going to destroy the world, isn't. Trust me. It's nothing new. Nothing is new.
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