Rendition

When the United States's political and military leaders decide to pass a prisoner to a foreign government, why do they do so? Do they do so because, as spokesmen for the United States government claim, foreign governments possess linguistic and cultural skills that enable them to better understand prisoners? Do they do so with confidence in the formal agreement that these prisoners will not be tortured?

When the New York Times quotes Nabil Fahmy, the Egyptian ambassador to the United States, as saying, "We do interrogations based on our understanding of the culture. We're not in the business of torturing anyone," perhaps the New York Times should also quote the following passage found on the United States Department of State website:

The Government [of Egypt] respected human rights in some areas; however, its record was poor, and in many areas serious problems remained. [. . .] The security forces continued to mistreat and torture prisoners, arbitrarily arrest and detain persons, hold detainees in prolonged pretrial detention, and occasionally engage in mass arrests. Local police killed, tortured, and otherwise abused both criminal suspects and other persons. [. . .] (http://tinyurl.com/b4py4)

I have to wonder, when the United States government founds claims about connections between Iraq and international terrorist groups on the testimony of a prisoner remanded to Egyptian custody, whether the government is hoping that a certain kind of material will result from interrogations carried out by a country with a "poor" human rights record.

Please see this excellent article: http://tinyurl.com/dgnoy

For my birthday

I'd like a day without anger (my own, that is).

The Paris story

It's progressing.

Adolescence

A friend told me the other day that I make decisions very quickly and never revisit them. Another friend said that I suffer from insecurities arising out of repeated failures to complete big projects. But what about the little projects I fail to complete? Still, there's hope: my dad says I look good with short hair.

Hope

Maybe if I read more Thoreau, write the Paris story, finish the first fifty pages of the business book, string Rachel's beads and ride my bike more often things will get better.

I had a thought yesterday: my dissertation.

What I Feel

My life is slipping away from me.

Blue Balls

http://blueballfixed.ytmnd.com/

A phrase I hate

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Gallic Truths

Myth: Parisians are fashionable.

Truth: Parisians don't wear shorts and t-shirts.


Myth: Les trottoirs sont crottoirs.

Truth: Les crottes sont dans les egouts et les caniveaux.


Myth: Everyone smokes.

Truth: Guillaume does not, but many do.


Myth: The French are mean and snooty.

Truth: The French are short and have big noses.

Torture and Killing in Afghanistan

I talked to an MP who said that he was in charge of holding detainees and that the CIA would just come and take the detainees away. They would be like, “How many detainees do you have?” and he knew he has seventeen detainees but the OGA would be like, “No, you have sixteen,” so he’d be like “All right. I have sixteen.” And who knows where that detainee went.

-Account of Officer C, 82nd Airborne Division
Human Rights Watch
"Leadership Failure: Firsthand Accounts of Torture of Iraqi Detainees by the U.S. Army’s 82nd Airborne Division"
http://hrw.org/reports/2005/us0905/4.htm#_Toc115161403

Note: The soldiers with whom Human Rights Watch spoke had served as guards in Afghanistan and had observed interrogations at FOB Tiger in Iraq, and said that civilian interrogators at those locations had also used coercive methods against prisoners. These interrogators were always referred to by the U.S. military abbreviation OGA, which stands for “Other Government Agencies.” It was assumed that such persons were with the CIA, but because OGA also includes other civilian agencies, the soldiers with whom Human Rights Watch spoke said they could not be sure.

Today is World Vegan Day

Take a vegan to lunch today. Then eat him.

Pop

My new favorite tunes. http://www.thepartyparty.com/

A friend replies, number 14

What do you regard as the lowest depth of misery?

feeling shame


Where would you like to live?

Paris


What is your idea of earthly happiness?

hiking in Central Italy


To what faults do you feel most indulgent?

faults due to generosity


Who are your favorite heroes of fiction?

Julien Sorel
Zeno Cosini (La coscienza di Zeno)


Who are your favorite characters in history?

Socrates
Montaigne


Who are your favorite heroines in real life?

a few witches


Who are your favorite heroines of fiction?

Natascia Rostova (War and Peace)
la Sanseverina (La Chartreuse de Parme)


Your favorite painter?

Piero della Francesca


Your favorite musician?

Mozart



The quality you most admire in a man?

generosity


The quality you most admire in a woman?

generosity


Your favorite virtue?

generosity


Your favorite occupation?

walking


Who would you have liked to be?

myself (with some corrections)

Poem 22

To hear a gong above the sound of wheels
Is impossible. He twitches, a sudden birdlike
Distancing from the city. Hammers of horn
Fall on keys, resonate, are hushed.

From the ocean come orchestras,
To the ocean oil and ash. And from the lip
Of the volcano a faint rumble--then silence.

A friend replies, number 13

What do you regard as the lowest depth of misery?

Besides having failed to have a family or maintain a
love relationship?...A day at work with no chocolate.


Where would you like to live?

At the edge of a lake bordered by trees, where there
is moss, where I can hear the croaking of frogs at
night.


What is your idea of earthly happiness?

That moment when, in the midst of a difficult
conversation, you and your conversational partner
begin to understand each other, when the fear
dissipates and the empathy rises. (That and a swim in
the above lake.)

To what faults do you feel most indulgent?

Sloth, narcissism.


Who are your favorite heroes of fiction?

They are rarely heroes, but I always appreciate Haruki
Murakami’s protagonists, they’re so lost.


Who are your favorite characters in history?

Growing up I had a crush on Albert Einstein, mostly
because his intelligence was questioned when he was
young. It relieved me to know that someone so
brilliant could be thought to be mentally deficient.
Also, there was a soldier during the Bosnian war who
was ordered to shoot a group of civilians standing
over a ditch. When he questioned the order he was
told that he didn’t have to shoot them if he didn’t
want, instead he could put his gun down & go stand by
them. He did so, and he was killed.


Who are your favorite heroines in real life?

Maybe Marian Wright Edelman. Maybe I have to think
about this one more.


Who are your favorite heroines of fiction?

Easily Karana, Island of the Blue Dolphins.


Your favorite painter?

Stanley Spencer, (not the religious or worker
stuff...mostly the nudes & self portraits). But I am
loving Basquiat these days.

Your favorite musician?

Probably Ani DiFranco, yeah, I know. But then, I can
always listen to The Band, & Art Pepper, too, & then
there’s that Les McCann/ Eddie Harris album.


The quality you most admire in a man?

Self-knowledge, compassion.


The quality you most admire in a woman?

Self-knowledge, compassion.


Your favorite virtue?

Virtues are overrated, even the word “virtuous”
irritates me.


Your favorite occupation?

I suppose artist, of any sort.


Who would you have liked to be?

Myself, but much better.

France

Late next month I will be in France for nine days, staying in Paris's 5th arrondissement, a few blocks south of the Seine, quite close to the city's leading educational institutions. To prepare for my trip I have been reading weather reports, reading "La misere du monde," watching French movies, and worrying about the exchange rate.

Poem 21

Spliffing and berting the bowl of my swim,
Loose hair a pinwheel of radiant cream,
I'm as big as Tony Alba and Vincent van Gogh
When I surge from the coping and
Burst in the flow.

Poem 20

The moon hides her face in my notebook
And I am French, small, suffering.

Poem 19

On the rocks in the water the dipper
bobs and plunges and feeds
under the bridge by the road

Under me a ball of granite
and around me the stream
and the sound of the water

The bird goes on the stream
goes on the road goes on and on

Things we saw at Point Reyes

Tall pines in the mist, a pale nudibranch with a row of circles down its back, a loon chased by a seal, cliffhanging succulents, huckleberry trees heavy with fruit, a herd of multicolored fallow deer, a rubber boa, two garter snakes, mule deer, a dead jellyfish, boys with backpacks toting firewood, a beetle giving another a piggyback ride, the sea, ceanothus bushes, a tall horse, a Japanese woman wearing a Japanese hat, a pelican carcase, a solitary heron, a fallen tree that might serve perfectly as a bench, ferns, trees blackened by the Mount Vision fire with white lichen growing on them, a rock shaped like a face with spectacles, a man who told us we were in Mexico, poison oak.

A friend replies, number 12

What do you regard as the lowest depth of misery?

Not being able to be with the ones I love the most. The 18th and 19th hours of a long long work day/night. When the body is not willing and the mind has turned into mush. Finishing those last few tasks as the sun rises. The world moving in infinite exciting directions around you, while you're toiling like a slave at some menial meaningless task. It's a soul killer.


Where would you like to live?

A victorian house on a wooded plot with a stream running through the backyard. I would like to have toads on my property. Owls are also a must. Maybe somewhere near Bodega Bay.


What is your idea of earthly happiness?

Earthly happiness is limited. I want to love and be loved, be validated by my peers. Air my soul out in distant lands. Make beautiful music for people to enjoy. Laugh until I'm out of breath. A lane of my own on the freeway.


To what faults do you feel most indulgent?

Internet porn, coffee, ice cream


Who are your favorite heroes of fiction?

Jesus, Bertie Wooster, James Bond


Who are your favorite characters in history?

Jesus, Gandhi, �


Who are your favorite heroines in real life?

Janet Reno, Mother Theresa, single moms.


Who are your favorite heroines of fiction?

Emma Woodhouse, Agent 99.


Your favorite painter?

I don't know, maybe Elizabeth Peyton�


Your favorite musician?

Forgive me for saying the obvious: John Lennon.


The quality you most admire in a man?

Big balls and speaks the truth.


The quality you most admire in a woman?

Nice rack and speaks the truth.


Your favorite virtue?

Truth.


Your favorite occupation?

Berlin. Least favorite would be Iraq.


Who would you have liked to be?

An civil engineer, or architect with panache and hutspa (I don't know how to spell that word).

My prostate

from BBC News

Vegan diet 'cuts prostate cancer risk'

A vegan diet may have health benefits

A vegan diet might lower the risk of developing prostate cancer, say researchers.

They have found that men who eat a vegan diet have lower levels of a growth factor that is associated with prostate cancer than either meat-eaters or vegetarians.

The research's publication comes after controversy about claims that dairy-free diets prevent breast cancer.

Earlier studies have suggested that the risk of prostate cancer is increased by high levels of the growth factor IGF-I.

Other research has shown that prostate cancer rates are generally low in countries with a low consumption of meat and dairy products.

The new study, by the Imperial Cancer Research Fund's Cancer Epidemiology Unit in Oxford, reveals IGF-I levels are 9% lower in vegans than in meat-eaters.

First evidence

Dr Tim Key, senior scientist at the charity, said: "Previous studies have shown that men with prostate cancer have higher levels of IGF-I and that even small differences in the circulating level are predictive of prostate cancer risk.

"Our study shows that the circulating level of IGF-I is different in vegan men than it is in non-vegans, including vegetarians.

"The lower levels of IGF-I found in vegan men might reduce their risk of prostate cancer."

There has been much coverage in the media about the possible effect of a dairy-free diet on breast and prostate cancer risk.

However, until now there has been no scientific evidence to prove the anti-cancer benefits of a vegan diet.

Dr Key said: "More research is needed before it would be possible to say whether having a vegan diet reduces a man's risk of prostate cancer."

The study, carried out in 696 British men, also found IGF-1 levels were slightly lower in vegetarians than meat-eaters.

The men in the study were taken from a larger European study (EPIC), which is looking at the relationship between diet and cancer to follow-up and check for prostate cancer in men with different dietary habits.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/782959.stm

Also interesting: http://www.ajcn.org/cgi/content/full/70/3/525S

Stones

There we were, four people, on the lake shore. Waves shhhhed among the pebbles. The smallest of us took a keen interest in the pebbles. Her flesh grew rosy in the cool lake water. A yellow lab took an interest in her rosy flesh. Bill Gates waved from across the way. It had all the makings of tragedy. I closed my eyes and focused on the blackberry seed between my incisors.

Inheritance

I inherited my father's long bones but not his ears. I inherited my mother's fine fair hair but not her eyes.

Why I live where I do

Alexandria is a most marvelous place, thieving, whoring, filling one's heart with buzzing confusion. Venice sends shimmers across one's days. I've visited these cities with Durrell and Roeg and others as my guides, but never have I set foot in them. After living in Chicago, Taipei, Santa Monica, Los Angeles, Beijing, I have always returned to the city where I was born, where my mother lives, where I run into Nat in the library and dream of the lives that might have been.

Many of my old friends have moved. Three live near Los Angeles, one in western Massachusetts. My sister left San Francisco a couple of years ago. My father hasn't lived here for a decade.

My work is mediated through the internet -- I could be anywhere. San Francisco is expensive and I often skip a meal or two to pay my rent. And it's a saddening place for me, a futile social experiment in a time of war and hatred, a place where I'm no longer fully integrated, a bit of a backwater.

But it's the only place I've ever thought of as my home, the only place I've felt no need to defend because its existence is as much an unchangeable given as my own. I love the other places I've lived and to say I love San Francisco is not quite accurate. I am the city, maybe. Maybe that's close.

Interview with Alistair Crooke

Interview: Fostering Muslim-West dialogue
By Humayun Chaudhry

Monday 08 August 2005, 17:32 Makka Time, 14:32 GMT

Alastair Crooke is a former official with Britain's MI6 intelligence agency who has worked in some of the world's most dangerous hotspots.

He spent many years in the Arab and Muslim world and engaged in dialogue with Hamas and Hizb Allah, as well as facing paramilitary forces and drug cartels in Latin America and militias in Africa.

His last posting, based in Jerusalem, was as a senior adviser to the EU high representative on foreign affairs, Javier Solana.

During this time, Crooke helped end the Israeli siege of the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem in 2002 and worked to mediate the summer 2003 ceasefire between Palestinian armed groups and Israeli forces.

Now retired and leading his own non-profit organisation, Conflicts Forum, Crooke hopes to foster a broader dialogue between the Muslim world and the West.

Aljazeera.net spoke to him on the phone while he was in Lebanon recently.

We asked him about the London and Sharm al-Shaikh bombings, the war on terror and dialogue with Islamist groups.

Do you believe the London attacks are a consequence of Britain's participation in the war on Iraq?

I believe there is no causal motivation that has been established yet for what happened in London, on the two occasions, so I think it's difficult to say what is the causal trigger to these two events.

But I think it's very clear that there has been a great deal of anger and hostility that has risen from Muslims everywhere, from not only events in Iraq - that is an important element - but much more widely, in Afghanistan, but also the Palestinian issue and others, that has radicalised many young Muslims, not only in the UK but everywhere.

Would it be fair to say that Britain's role in Iraq increased the terror threat to the UK?

I think what one can say is, the role of Iraq - the events in Iraq - the way they have turned out, has increased the radicalisation of particularly young Muslims and here in the region [the Middle East].

It's very clear not only in Britain but even here in Lebanon in the camps [about 400,000 Palestinian refugees live in camps in Lebanon], people are angry and concerned about what they see happening in Afghanistan and Iraq, and even the policy towards Iran.

How do you explain the apparent increase in bombings taking place around the world, most recently seen in London and Egypt? What is happening?

What I think we see is a division in views that is taking place. I think we have on the one hand groups like the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas and Hizb Allah who are trying to build a Muslim society, and to get a stake in society and in power, by working through the electoral process, by trying to work or to try to contrive the reforms that will allow them, if you like, from the bottom up, popular Islamism.

You see that very clearly taking place in Egypt, where there is a process of drawing on a popular desire to see elections, changes and reforms - and trying to mobilise that popular support in order to get a stake in power, whereby they can bring about the changes that conform with what their constituencies are looking to.

On the other hand, I think there is a different trend which sees the project of decolonisation after the last European war having been incomplete and having failed, and amongst some of this trend, you get the sense that you have to break the system in order to make the system. You've actually got to bring down the structures in order to start again.

That accommodation ultimately will fail because the West won't allow groups like Hamas, Hizb Allah and others to participate fully in the electoral process. So they are looking to another way of doing that, in which they are challenging, if you like, completing the process of decolonisation. They believe you have to pull the structure down and start again.

I think this dichotomy was elegantly described by Muqtada al-Sadr [a Shia Muslim cleric in Iraq] in a recent interview, in which he said, 'Look, there are some of my brothers who believe that by working with the provisional government, they can work to bring about an end to the occupation of Iraq. Well, I wish them luck with that, but I believe ultimately they will fail because the United States will not allow it. That is why I believe that first by resistance we must bring about the end of occupation, and only then will it be possible to create a state, a Muslim state, in Iraq'.

And I think that is something of the dilemma we are facing, that I think what we saw in Egypt is [both trends] taking place at the same time. On the one hand, you have the Muslim Brotherhood and the other groups working politically, challenging for power through the electoral process, and we see the bombs that took place in Sharm al-Shaikh - we don't yet know the full motivation - which may represent the other trend, which says, you've got to collapse the system before you can really rebuild a fair and just society.

You make a distinction between the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas and Hizb Allah, and al-Qaida or al-Qaida related-groups, that are more global in their actions?

I think there is a big difference between the two, in that what you have is Hamas, Hizb Allah, Jammat Islamiya, Muslim Brotherhood and these groups.

They may be seen on the one hand through the optic of using resistance or violence, in support of their objectives, but these groups all favour elections, they look for reform, they're looking for constitutional change in their society, and that is an important difference between these groups and some of the other Salafi, Takfiri, extreme radical groups who are looking for polarisation.

So what does al-Qaida want?

Well, I'm afraid I'm one of those people in the West that thinks this title, al-Qaida, has become so overused and used so widely, that I mean that's it's impossible any longer to say.

I don't think there is that organisational structure that is so often presented in the West, but I think it is quite clear the main objective is the removal of Western armies from Muslim lands and an ability to create a just society in Muslim lands. But their methodology is very different.

This is to oversimplify it, but it has some objectives which were evident in 1998 [the year Osama bin Laden declared a fatwa calling on his followers to kill American nationals and allies of the US, and the year of the East Africa embassy bombings] which was about polarisation and radicalisation and a short circuiting of the route to an Islamic society by an act of "shock and awe" that would radicalise the ummah [global Muslim community] and bring about an instant change.

But for many Muslims and many groups - including the Islamists - they would say it has alienated much of the ummah by the type and nature of the violence that has been used to radicalise the situation. And also some would say that it has made the conditions for Muslims worse off because of "the war on terror".

And certainly, some groups might point to the situation of the Palestinians as an example and say it has greatly deteriorated. So what have these acts achieved?

Do you think America is waging the ''war on terror'' in an effective manner?

You have to go back and say, what is a war? "Terror" -whatever that means - I don't use that word because I don't think it's necessarily helpful to understanding what we're dealing with.

And certainly, if we are, it's why I prefer to use such words as political insurgency - an incipient political insurgency - because an insurgency is basically about psychology and politics and that's what we have been trying to understand, and that's what we have to deal with.

But I think there are two things that are very important to understand. One is that in dealing with the situation we have now, the first thing is the West often muddles together things that are so completely different. They group Hamas and Hizb Allah and put them in the same box and say all of this is "Islamist terrorism".

They couldn't be more poles apart. Just [recently] for example, I heard that there is an assassination list put out by some of these radical groups which contain Hizb Allah names on it, proposing that they should be assassinated.

There is a world of difference between bunching them together - the struggle and the difference between [these] groups.

The other thing that is important to understand is we often talk about anger and hostility, but there is also a feeling in the West that it is just anger and hostility to the West and that, if only things settle down in Iraq and if Muslims are more educated and get a little bit more money, it will all go away and vanish and things will become stable again.

I think that is to miss the point.

There is anger, and there is this hostility, but there is also beneath that a substantive critique of Western policies, of Western economic structures of our financial system, of our trade policy, of our development policy, of our foreign policies and also an alternative view of how a society should be. In other words, the challenge that they are not necessarily universal values.

So I think we should just not regard this as a froth of anger that will be dissipated, if only a little more money and investment is poured into the [affected places].

I think the anger may diminish, but there beneath this, a substantive and real critique needs to be addressed by the West and not denied by them.

US President George Bush says that extremist groups like al-Qaida hate the democracy and values the West represents. Is this a correct view and understanding of what motivates such groups?

This is completely wrong. Muslims everywhere - and the polls underline this very clearly - reflect the same values: They do not hate our values, but they do hate our policies.

The problem is with our policies and politics.

Polls show very clearly that Muslims support elections, they want popular participation in government. They want effective and good governance and they want reform. And these are the same values as European and American societies.

There is no difference on values.

Muslim values expressed in the polls represent no threat to our societies.

Perhaps they will look for a society that is underpinned with ethical values not only in a personal sphere but in an institutional sphere, and in a sphere of governance in order to avoid what they see as some of the weaknesses of a secular liberal democracy, but that is not a challenge, or an existential threat to our societies.

Why do you believe it is important to talk to groups that use such tactics as suicide bombings?

I don't want to imply that that is a condoning of these tactics, but what we are looking at is we are talking to those groups that have sometimes used political violence, but these are groups that should also be seen, on the other hand, [as groups] who do support elections, who do support positive reform and change, and who reflect significant Muslim constituencies.

They have a real legitimacy. They clearly have many people who support their activities and vote for them and express their support.

So they do have a real legitimacy, which the West must not sweep under the carpet and pretend it's not there.

With the other groups [such as al-Qaida], there is no indication of whether they have a clear legitimacy. Maybe some arguments that they make have some resonance, perhaps or not within the whole of Muslim societies, but some sectors of it.

There's no formal way of judging the degree to which there is legitimacy for their views, as opposed to some ephemeral resonance that some arguments have within Muslim society, so there is a big difference, I believe.

The other difference is, if they're looking for polarisation and radicalisation, then I'll doubt if they want to talk to anyone.

Should governments not take the principled stand that they should not negotiate with those who use such indiscriminate carnage?

We need to find the most effective way to break a cycle of violence and we need to address it in a number of ways.

One of the clear things I'm saying is that once you look and understand that this is also about politics, it means we have to have a political approach, as well as a need to protect our societies too.

Every society has to protect its citizens, that is the duty of a government.

But it is also important to look at it more widely and to understand possibly that by labelling and lumping together groups like Hamas and Hizb Allah and others that clearly are wanting to participate ... to try to deny them political space, to isolate and demonize them and disempower their discourse is the wrong way to go about it.

You have moderates and young people - even people here in the camps in Lebanon - who would say to their political leaders, "Look, see where your moderation has got you? See what you've succeeded in? Your still labelled a terrorist, you are still hunted down and killed and it has achieved for you nothing."

If that continues, it would be not surprising if people - young people - will say there's no point [in positive participation].

Maybe the radical groups have got the right idea in this, if you like.

It's a challenge between those who believe you can work through the system to bring change and those who believe you've got to break it and start from the beginning.

Is there a democratic transformation, or an "Arab spring" under way in the Middle East - in Iraq, Lebanon, Palestine - and is this because of the policies of George Bush?

Well firstly, I'm not sure that's what we have got.

I mean, we may have had some events taking place, but elections in Palestine have not taken place. Parliamentary elections we have yet to see... taking place, even the completion of the municipal election.

I was in Paris recently, and I read that Hamas should be excluded from participating in the elections. I think that was a call from Silvan Shalom, the Israeli foreign minister. So, in short, it's fine to have elections as long as you vote only for Fatah [the ruling Palestinian party of President Mahmoud Abbas] effectively is the message.

The question about Iraq is a difficult one. What has the invasion achieved so far?

In Lebanon, the turnout, although people were excited and enthusiastic about the elections, the turnout was very low in areas because people felt disenfranchised and they didn't feel that the elections - although these are changed circumstances from what had existed in previous elections - were not necessarily offering a real choice.

You're presently in Lebanon. What lessons can today's Iraq learn from Lebanon's history?

Lebanon has shown the possibility for internal accommodation and for pluralism. And I think it is to the credit of parties, and I say even those parties that are classified or regarded like Hizb Allah, as "terrorist".

Hizb Allah has played a very important role here in these recent months in trying to ensure stability in the region and to help the process towards a pluralistic outcome.

So you will find that even the groups that are quite often criticised in the West have played a positive role in helping towards creating stability and a political process. It is a credit to not only Hizb Allah, but to the other groups as well in the positive changes they are achieving.

I know it's still very tense and there are many challenges ahead, but to that extent, it's been very positive.

Would you say that a slide into civil war in Iraq is preventable?

I don't know. I'm sitting here in Lebanon. And I think to know those things you have to be on the ground [in Iraq], so it's difficult to say.

http://tinyurl.com/7rj4p

Poem 18

Shaking sand from the shoes of my sister
I watch the lamp-wrapping fogs
And lingering on the stoop, I persist, or,
Better, you persist in naming my nieces

According to the periodic table,
Slinging their names into the mist
Until Helium rings against
Jenny's undone laces and catches hold.

I've an aversion to the way you walk.
It's as though your mother bound your feet.
The fogs slink around your ankles
Healing all the harm of family.

Poem 17

Rearranging vowels in the mouth of a Finn
How he marks his turf
Telling time, he unwinds a consonant
How he finds the fart

Premises:
Old = Primitive
Neurotic = Taboo
Suppressed = Present

Poem 16

Standing in the tobacco field, the damp flap of wings overhead.

Biting off each word, rearranging them into new phrases.

We made them of leather, the bindings, and we painted them with gold.

Pale sunless skies of summer
The telephone excitable
The three women finding humor
In the office crucible

Where the onion has been its essence lingers.

Penguins still flying, yeti still slugging

http://n.ethz.ch/student/mkos/pinguin.swf

A stranger replies

What do you regard as the lowest depth of misery?

Finding myself lost in a Central American jungle after having been
brutally dumped and then having a boa constrictor drop out of a tree and onto my back. While I'm being swallowed alive, the last thing I hear is a skil saw cutting through sheet metal.

Or, and this is based on a dream I recently had, dating Gary Coleman and trying very hard to feel like I'm in love with him while we're sitting on a couch with my parents.


Where would you like to live?

Where the sheets smell of pumpkin and the shelves are lined with fresh hay. Or Mongolia. Or maybe Copenhagen. Or Iowa City, Iowa. Or how about in a teeny-tiny invisible capsule that I could fly around in, spying on people all over the world -- that would be cool, wouldn't it?


What is your idea of earthly happiness?

True and unconditional love. Free beer. Swimming in lakes and rivers at night. A warm bed.


To what faults do you feel most indulgent?

This one is hard to answer, as once I feel indulgent, those things no longer seem like faults.


Who are your favorite heroes of fiction?

There's a character in a George Saunders short story entitled "The
Falls." His name is Morse. And bear with me, but here is the initial
description of him:

"Morse was tall and thin and gray and sepulchral as a church about to be condemned. His pants were too short, and his face periodically broke into a tense, involuntary grin that quickly receded, as if he had just suffered a sharp pain. At work he was known to punctuate his conversations with brief wild laughs and gusts of inchoate enthusiasm and subsequent embarrassment, expressed by a sudden plunging of the hands into his pockets, after which he would yank his hands out of his pockets, too ashamed of his own shame to stand there merely grimacing for even an instant longer."

So this guy is unsure of himself and indecisive. But by the end of the story he makes this incredibly heroic, doomed decision. So him.
Also Humbert Humbert & Hazel Motes.


Who are your favorite characters in history?

A.A. Milne, Christopher Milne, Saul, MLK, the poor guy who accidentally cut down the oldest ironwood tree in North America, Cabeza de Vaca.


Who are your favorite heroines in real life?

Freddy Mercury, Martha Stewart, Valerie Solanas, Lydia Davis.


Who are your favorite heroines of fiction?

Mrs. Dalloway, Julie Hecht's narrator in _Do The Windows Open_ (who strongly favors the author, I understand), Judith Fellowes, Martha (_Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?_).


Your favorite painter?

Chuck Close.


Your favorite musician?

Will Oldham.


The quality you most admire in a man?

Fecklessness & talent. I like men who say really smart things but who aren't aware that they're smart. Gentleness. Bravery. Modesty.


The quality you most admire in a woman?

Wit, interests & skills beyond what might be considered "feminine"
stuff. Open-mindedness. Likes to kick it with the ladies just as much as with the mens. Modesty. Loyalty.


Your favorite virtue?

Compassion. And the ability to swear a lot without offending anyone.


Your favorite occupation?

Reading, writing, eating meals, watching a really good movie & then
talking about it afterwards, listening to music.


Who would you have liked to be?

Me, only incredibly wealthy and able to boss everyone around.

A friend replies, number 11

What do you regard as the lowest depth of misery?

Knowing on Saturday eve I am supposed to leave for the army the next morning. I still dream about that sometimes and wake up choked. Worse than that, losing my beloved ones frightens me to the degree of inconceivability.


Where would you like to live?

As far as possible from anything related to an army.


What is your idea of earthly happiness?

Sleep 6 hours in a night, and be able to read a good novel without being interrupted in the middle. Then playing with [my son] Asaf on the beach. Won't resist slow passionate sex, an interesting CD, and a good movie either.


To what faults do you feel most indulgent?

All of the above (ideas of earthly happiness).


Who are your favorite heroes of fiction?

Hmmm. So many. A few I can think of right now are: Ferinand Bardamu (Celine, "A Journey to the End of the Night," 1932); Hanno (Thomas Mann, "Buddenbrooks," 1901); John Marcher (Henry James, "The Beast in the Jungle," 1903), the narrator of "Wittgenstein's Nephew" (Thomas Bernhard, 1982), the narrator of Georges Perec's "W or the Memory of a Whildhood " (1975).


Who are your favorite characters in history?

The European Jewish intellectuals: Benjamin, Kafka, Celan, Primo Levi, Ernst Cassirer, even Leon Blum.


Who are your favorite heroines in real life?

Helene Grimaud, Martha Argerich, Adrienne Rich. Women who have second thoughts about men.


Who are your favorite heroines of fiction?

Gina (David Fogel, "In Front of the Ocean," 1932); Briony (Ian McEwan, "Atonment," 2000); all Viriginia Woolf's horoines; Proust's female heroines.


Your favorite painter?

This week it would be Paul Klee again, thanks to a small sketch of an emptry room from 1917.


Your favorite musician?

Hmmm. Today it would be a mixture of Murcof (an electronic music artist) and Schumann (thanks to the beautifull "Pletnev Plays Schumann"). Tomorrow it'll be others.


The quality you most admire in a man?

Intellectual honesty.


The quality you most admire in a woman?

Same, plus.


Your favorite virtue?

Kindness.


Your favorite occupation?

Pausing. (While holding an interesting book in one hand, a good cake in the other, a cup of strong coffee on the table, and Dietrich Fischer Diskau singing in the background.)


Who would you have liked to be?

An author, a painter, an experimental musician, a traveler, a wondering Jew.

Video of Ivory-Billed Woodpecker

Marvelous. http://www.birds.cornell.edu/ivory/index.html#.

Gus Van Sant, "Last Days"

It's less that, as my friend David said, Van Sant has abandoned "bourgeois framing" than that he's returned to the wandering, loping style he used to great effect in "Mala Noche" and "My Own Private Idaho." A number of directors are challenging their viewers with super long shots, held almost beyond endurance, these days. Tsai Ming-liang in "Goodbye, Dragon Inn"; Abbas Kiarostami in "Five Dedicated to Ozu"; now Van Sant. It's as though we're witnessing a haunting by the ghost of Antonioni (he's not dead, but he might as well be).

From the very beginning of "Last Days," which was filmed in the woods of New York state, the loping, aimless, muttering figure at the center of the story is adrift, and I worried that the big stone house he prowls and flees and hunts through would drag him to the bottom of his merciless sea.

What is his face to us? A beautiful blank, less expressive of his existential exhaustion than his costume shape-shifting. The music he makes as we watch through a window tells the tale far better than any line he ever speaks or could speak.

Rumsfeld's solution to extremism

In an essay published in yesterday's Financial Times, Donald Rumsfeld, whom we might begin to distrust after two grossly wrongheaded endorsements in bad intelligence gathering (Team B in the 1970s and assessments of Iraq's weaponry more recently), declared it "essential that we take care in understanding what motivates -- and does not motivate -- extremists to commit mass murder." I certainly think this statement unassailable. But Rumsfeld does not make any attempt to understand what motivates terrorists in his essay. Instead he simply assails the "empty justifications" that terrorists give for their actions.

We need better than this.

The essay, entitled "There can be no moderate solutions to extremism," amounts to an apology for the use of violence to counter violence and offers reassuring statements such as "[The extremists] failed on September 11. They are failing in Iraq and Afghanistan." By what measure does the secretary of defense assess failure?

A friend replies, number 10

What do you regard as the lowest depth of misery?

untimely death of people one cares about

Where would you like to live?

near water with a useful city in hailing distance

What is your idea of earthly happiness?

creating fulltime with my family nearby

To what faults do you feel most indulgent?

ice cream

Who are your favorite heroes of fiction?

monkey wrench gang

Who are your favorite characters in history?

odysseus

Who are your favorite heroines in real life?

singers

Who are your favorite heroines of fiction?

aglaya (from the brothers karamazov)

Your favorite painter?

seurat?

Your favorite musician?

david byrne/elvis costello

The quality you most admire in a man?

telling truth to power without violence

The quality you most admire in a woman?

telling truth to power without violence

Your favorite virtue?

compassion

Your favorite occupation?

naturalist

Who would you have liked to be?

Tom Paine

A change in American policy

The Financial Times ran a story in today's edition describing an important change in the Bush administration's approach to international Islamist terrorism. Instead of the military strategy that has done nothing but increase the number of terrorist attacks around the world, the goal will be to "develop and implement a comprehensive strategy to discredit and demystify extremists' ideology and promote moderate Islamic voices."

This should have been the first step taken by any American leader aware of the international support for anti-American terrorism that has been growing for over a decade. The bombs, assassinations, destruction of civil infrastructure and immoderate rhetoric that have been official American policy since the attacks of September 11 legitimize terrorist violence. The continuing American support for the international arms trade and the failure to set an example in the area of nuclear weapons disarmament deliver the same message.

As long as we practice torture and kill innocents in the pursuit of those who declare themselves our enemies, we foster a culture of violent retribution and racist disregard for the suffering of Afghanis, Iraqis and others who do not look like white America.

I will write a letter to President Bush today, praising him for adopting this new polocy of outreach to the Muslim world.

A friend replies, number 9

What do you regard as the lowest depth of misery?
Perceived isolation.

Where would you like to live?
Earth, especially New York City, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Paris,
Istanbul, Florence.

What is your idea of earthly happiness?
Feeling intense waves of pleasure course from the soles of my feet up through my body -- often triggered by enjoying people I love, beauty, food, sex, water, and being helpful to and needed by others.

To what faults do you feel most indulgent?
Perceived isolation.

Who are your favorite heroes of fiction?
None at the moment.

Who are your favorite characters in history?
MLK, Gautama buddha, Mandela, Cousteau...oh, this is too hard. I could go on all day.

Who are your favorite heroines in real life?
Wangaari Mathai.

Who are your favorite heroines of fiction?
None at the moment.

Your favorite painter?
Of the famous painters: Chagall, O'Keefe, Klee

Your favorite musician?
So many.....

The quality you most admire in a man?
Verve, passion, moral strength, confidence, compassion.

The quality you most admire in a woman?
The same.

Your favorite virtue?
Joyfulness and compassion.

Your favorite occupation?
Entrepreneur, writer, musician, dancer, actor, lover, aunt, friend,
human.

Who would you have liked to be?
Who I am, will be, and was.

Poem 15

One sunny day when bluebirds careened
I had my fill of everything
And everything forsook me.

A friend replies, number 8

What do you regard as the lowest depth of misery?

the moment I realize a betrayal is present, the reaction is most
physical and the painful shudder travels down into my hands...


Where would you like to live?

in italy. In a romantic, idyllic mid size town, with a fountain and a
plaza and neighbors with like minds, citizens respectful of beauty and a well balanced life—to be able to walk or bicycle where I need to go.


What is your idea of earthly happiness?

the ground beneath me as warm, a well cushioned lounge chair resting in the shade of a tree, a view beyond of rolling hills and agriculture. And the idea that everything is in its place and my daughter is safe...


To what faults do you feel most indulgent?

perfectionism revealed in a clean floor.


Who are your favorite heroines in real life?

my daughter for her integrity, and my aunts, all who are surviving
losses and ill health in absolute grace.


Your favorite painter?

chagall, for being so romantic in his interpretations of life, cy
twombly for the beauty in his work.


The quality you most admire in a man?

respect


The quality you most admire in a woman?

grace


Your favorite virtue?

absolutely kindness


Your favorite occupation?

like pastime? dancing with a partner and forgetting everything...and
taking a walk with someone


Who would you have liked to be?

a partner of a respectful and kind man...

A friend replies, number 7

What do you regard as the lowest depth of misery?

To go through life never knowing someone loves you.

Where would you like to live?

First choice: I'd love to live beside a small lake in the mountains of Italy. Second choice: Camden Maine.

What is your idea of earthly happiness?

Earthly happiness, gosh...really great coffee on a breezy porch...with no place to be all day.

To what faults do you feel most indulgent?

I am most indulgent when it comes to my daughter, Kate. But I don't care. She's my only one, and I adore her. She appreciates me, so it's easy.

Who are your favorite heroes of fiction?

Authors or characters? As for authors, I would have to say John Steinbeck, Ernest Hemingway, and Tennessee Williams. Characters: Billy Buck (The Red Pony), Ishmael Chambers (Snow Falling on Cedars), Peter Pan, Ivan Ivanovich.

Who are your favorite characters in history?

I love Mark Twain. He was a smart ass long before smart ass was cool. Martin Luther King was awesome. Oh, I can't forget Lewis & Clark and Sacagawea.

Who are your favorite heroines in real life?

My mom, my daughter, and myself.

Who are your favorite heroines of fiction?

Anna Karenina, Moll Flanders, Fantine, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, the Bronte sisters.

Your favorite painter?

Georgia O'Keefe.

Your favorite musician?

It's a toss up. Miles Davis, Pharoah Sanders, Charlie Parker, Jellyroll Morton, among many others. Favorite songwriter of ALL time: Johnny Mercer

The quality you most admire in a man?

Integrity/compassion

The quality you most admire in a woman?

Strength/compassion

Your favorite virtue?

Oh, I don't know. All of them. Probably tranquility is my favorite.

Your favorite occupation?

I love being an editor, but I'd rather work on twelve books a year, instead of 200.

Who would you have liked to be?

Exactly myself, but in the 16th to 18th century.

A friend replies, number 6

What do you regard as the lowest depth of misery?
Chewing gum using an open mouth.

Where would you like to live?
Katroo.

What is your idea of earthly happiness?
Lighted Roman candles.

To what faults do you feel most indulgent?
Boredom.

Who are your favorite heroes of fiction?
The prince in Michael Arlen's Midnight Adventure.

Who are your favorite characters in history?
Secretariat.

Who are your favorite heroines in real life?
I don't have any right now.

Who are your favorite heroines of fiction?
Miss Tiggy Winkle.

Your favorite painter?
Courbet, to start.

Your favorite musician?
Martha Argerich and others.

The quality you most admire in a man?
Oooh, lots and lots of qualities.

The quality you most admire in a woman?
The willingness to share her perfume occasionally.

Your favorite virtue?
To be quiet.

Your favorite occupation?
Playing hide and seek.

Who would you have liked to be?
An equestrienne.

A friend replies, number 5

What do you regard as the lowest depth of misery?

Losing contact with humanity--all friends, family, loved ones, society, i.e., being totally and completely alone.

Where would you like to live?

In Los Angeles in a spacious, well-lit condo with a Japanese bathtub, energy efficient appliances, and considerate neighbors and a little garden/nature area.

What is your idea of earthly happiness?

Balancing personal life with a good career and extracurricular activities.

To what faults do you feel most indulgent?

It's not so much the fault that I consider as the creature that commits it. I indulge people and animals rather than faults themselves. (Note: unless they are so egregious. We're not talking genocide and pollution but rather forgetting to wash a dish.)

Who are your favorite characters in history?

Wei Jingsheng, Abraham Lincoln, Margaret Sanger.

Who are your favorite heroines in real life?

Aung San Suu Kyi, Eleanor Roosevelt, civil rights activists, and grass roots environmentalists.

Your favorite painter?

My grandfather, the late Edwin Dahlberg.

Your favorite musician?

Too many to mention and always changing.

The quality you most admire in a man?

Modesty and good hygiene and sense of responsibility.

The quality you most admire in a woman?

Modesty and sense of responsibility.

Your favorite virtue?

Honesty and diplomacy.

Your favorite occupation?

Historian, novelist, film director, political activist. (Note: that does not mean I would want to take up all those occupations. )

Who would you have liked to be?

Myself.

A friend replies, number 4

What do you regard as the lowest depth of misery?
Watching Quentin Tarantino's movies

Where would you like to live?
On a kibbutz, preferably one that's located close to SFO

What is your idea of earthly happiness?
A glass of Bordeaux, french fries and chateaubriand cooked to
perfection. Spouse's optional.

To what faults do you feel most indulgent?
Buying expensive eyeglasses.

Who are your favorite heroes of fiction?
Marlow (Heart of Darkness); Candide (Candide).

Who are your favorite characters in history?
Perikles (ancient Athens); Bayard Rustin.

Who are your favorite heroines in real life?
Rosa Luxemburg.

Who are your favorite heroines of fiction?
Elizabeth Bennett (Pride and Prejudice).

Your favorite painter?
Jean-Michel Basquiat.

Your favorite musician?
Elvis Costello.

The quality you most admire in a man?
Sociability, self-reflection.

The quality you most admire in a woman?
Strong-mindedness that's not masculine.

Your favorite virtue?
Self-reflection, humor.

Your favorite occupation?
Biker on the Discovery Team.

Who would you have liked to be?
Eighteenth-century aristocrat.

Intervention

I am imposing an embargo on all references to spouses in future replies to the questionnaire.

A friend replies, number 3

What do you regard as the lowest depth of misery?

Watching helplessly as someone I love suffers.


Where would you like to live?

A large city, preferably one that has been large for several hundred
years, marked by history, readily explored on foot, comparatively mild in climate, with grand architecture, innumerable cafes, restaurants, bars, bookshops, and libraries, and adjacent to a significant body of water.

What is your idea of earthly happiness?

To reach the end of my life and know I’ve done everything I was capable of doing.

To what faults do you feel most indulgent?

Self-indulgence, particularly in artists.

Who are your favorite heroes of fiction?

Charlie Marlow, John Self, Bucky Wunderlick.

Who are your favorite characters in history?

T. E. Lawrence, Bruce Chatwin, Sean Flynn, Sabbatai Zevi.

Who are your favorite heroines in real life?

My wife.

Who are your favorite heroines of fiction?

The narrator of Denis Johnson’s The Stars at Noon, Leni (The Trial).

Your favorite painter?

Kandinsky, Howard Hodgkin, Vermeer, Mark Rothko.

Your favorite musician?

Leonard Cohen, Richard Thompson, Glenn Gould, Bill Frisell.

The quality you most admire in a man?

The ability to confront and impede the evil, cruelty, and ugliness of
the world without becoming evil, cruel, and ugly.

The quality you most admire in a woman?

All of the above, plus she’s beautiful and likes me.

Your favorite virtue?

Courage and decency, taken together; separately they’re of limited use.

Your favorite occupation?

Writer.

Who would you have liked to be?

A more courageous writer.

A friend replies, number 2

What do you regard as the lowest depth of misery?

SEEING YOUR ROOMMATE EMERGE FROM YOUR CLOTHES CLOSET - THEN REALIZING HE HAS BEEN IN THERE FOR SEVERAL HOURS

Where would you like to live?

SEATTLE

What is your idea of earthly happiness?

HEARING MY DAUGHTER LAUGH

To what faults do you feel most indulgent?

SAN ANDREAS

Who are your favorite heroes of fiction?

WILLIE WONKA

Who are your favorite characters in history?

F.D.R., THOMAS JEFFERSON, M.L. KING

Who are your favorite heroines in real life?

WIFE

Who are your favorite heroines of fiction?

NANCY DREW

Your favorite painter?

ROTHKO

Your favorite musician?

FURRY LEWIS

The quality you most admire in a man?

CLEANLINESS

The quality you most admire in a woman?

WISDOM

Your favorite virtue?

BREVITY

Your favorite occupation?

NOVELIST

Who would you have liked to have been?

ME

I reply

What do you regard as the lowest depth of misery?

Living in a land without music.

Where would you like to live?

I would like to live among friends and books in a small house with a large garden in San Francisco.

What is your idea of earthly happiness?

Dancing to "Fear of Music."

To what faults do you feel most indulgent?

Loving too much. Overdoing the life of the mind.

Who are your favorite heroes of fiction?

The Chinese brother who swallowed the sea. Toru Watanabe. Vautrin. Orlando.

Who are your favorite characters in history?

Zhuangzi. Picasso. Coleridge. Balzac. Tolstoy. Thoreau. Gandhi.

Who are your favorite heroines in real life?

Marcella, Julia, Madhur.

Who are your favorite heroines of fiction?

Certainly not Alice or any of Austen's or Dickens's females.

Your favorite painter?

Hans Bol.

Your favorite musician?

Joni Mitchell. Also Dawn Upshaw, Sviatoslav Richter, Thelonious Monk, Nathan Milstein, Randy Newman, Stan Getz, Johnny Hodges, Georges Brassens.

The quality you most admire in a man?

Originality. Also kindness.

The quality you most admire in a woman?

Kindness. Also social ease, tact and utter lack of vulgarity.

Your favorite virtue?

Courage.

Your favorite occupation?

Walking the streets of big cities, humming to myself, catching flattering reflections of myself in passing shop windows.

Who would you have liked to be?

The Kangxi emperor. Thoreau. Marcus Aurelius. Escoffier. But I am very happy being myself.

A friend replies, number 1

What do you regard as the lowest depth of misery?

A. [A disclaimer: My answers are not etched in stone but
jotted down on scrap paper.] Corporally, to be mentally
alert but to suffer chronic, abject physical pain.
Spiritually, to be forced to choose between self-preservation
and self-sacrifice for the sake of the common good.

Where would you like to live?

A. Ideally, somewhere with excellent plumbing, decent infrastructure, clean air and water, lack of noise pollution, no pest problems, and good radio reception, that's light and roomy, all within a coastal climate in the environs of an admirable local government and reasonable real-estate prices. [Purslane comment: Denmark?] [Reply: That doesn't sound too bad.]

What is your idea of earthly happiness?

A. To want not and to desire less.

To what faults do you feel most indulgent?

A. Tragic adorability.

Who are your favorite heroes of fiction?

A. Unlike in real life, in fiction I prefer anti-heroes
and villains. But, rest assured, Holden Caulfield bugs the
hell out of me.

Who are your favorite characters in history?

A. It depends on my mood. Over the years, they've included George III, Alexey Romanov, Alexander Hamilton, the Marquis de Lafayette, Albert Schweitzer, Thomas Chatterton. . . . I'm so depressed that I can't think of any women I'd put on the list. [Please add Seneca the Younger to my androcentric list.]

Who are your favorite heroines in real life?

A. No one. I don't believe in real-life heroes or heroines.

Who are your favorite heroines of fiction?

A. Again, I tend to find heroes and heroines dull, so I can't think of one at the moment.

Your favorite painter?

A. I don't have one.

Your favorite musician?

A. Nowadays, I'm reluctant to pick favorites. My favorite
is whoever I'm listening to a lot at the moment.

The quality you most admire in a man?

A. Brawn.

The quality you most admire in a woman?

A. Brawn.

Your favorite virtue?

A. Compassion.

Your favorite occupation?

A. Carpenter. Or French-pastry chef.

Who would you have liked to be?

A. Professionally, a Cold War-era spy. If I had to put myself in the body of another, real or fictional, I wouldn't.

Good things

The perfect Indian resturant menu

Appetizers

SAMosas


Farinaceous

Uttapham with tomato and onion

Mung dal pancakes with garlic, chiles and onion

Chickpea flour pancakes

Uppama with peas, urad dal, chana dal, cabbage and potato


Smaller Dishes

Haak cooked in mustard oil

Radishes cooked with their leaves

Spinach with ginger, fennel seeds, cardamom, onion and garam masala

Tomatoes cooked in mustard oil with panchphoran, dried chiles, black pepper and jaggery

Bitter melon stirfried with panchphoran


Larger Dishes

Cauliflower with coconut, sesame seeds, cashews, chiles and mustard seeds

Khatte baigan

Eggplant with panchphoran, sesame seeds and amchoor

Lotus root sauteed in mustard oil with hing, ground fennel seeds, roasted cumin seeds, fresh tomatoes and ginger

Morels with ginger, garlic, cumin, coriander seed, fresh tomtoes, fresh peas and garam masala

Green beans with mustard seeds, garlic, ginger, sesame paste and lemon

Green beans with hing, mustard seeds, cumin, urad dal, dried chiles, cayenne and coconut

Aloo bhaji

Potatoes in a sauce of fresh coconut, garlic, tomatoes and dried chiles


Soups

SAMbar

RaSAM


Chutneys

Tomato, cucumber and onion

Sweet and sour lime pickle

Tamarind mint chutney

Spicy tomato SAMbal

Hyderabadi tomato chutney with ginger, garlic, cayenne, cumin, fenugreek and dried chiles


Drinks

Ginger-flavored limeade

Tea with cardamom and cinnamon



(with thanks to Madhur Jaffrey)

Coming Soon

A series of interviews with leading political, maternal, medical and cultural figures. Exclusively here.

Thoughts on a massacre or two

Terrorists killed fifty or more people in London on Thursday. American troops killed seventeen innocent Iraqi civilians just days before that. I did not shed a tear for the Iraqis, though their lives are as important and meaningful as those of the Londoners whose deaths left me sobbing. Why didn't I cry? Is this a moral failure?

Bombs explode in London

The news from London, which I read this morning, is ghastly. I started sobbing uncontrollably after reading a BBC report and an article in the New York Times. Then I had to call my mother.

What an awful thing. An awful, awful thing.

Poem 14

Entering the village at dusk,
on foot, hungry.

The long, hollow street.
A smell of spice and oil.

A torn curtain, door ajar. Invited in,
we sat on the floor.

Behind veils, the daughters,
rifles unslung, the sons,
spoke to us of drums, drought,
Lincoln.

We painted their walls with red.
We took with us the veils and rifles.
We tore down the moon and the sky.

Spielberg's Goof

Though he went to great lengths to make Amistad historically accurate (it still wasn't), Spielberg doesn't seem to have the same attitude toward his new project, Vengeance.

According to an article in today's Ha'aretz, Spielberg has chosen to rely on the least reliable of the books on the Mossad assassinations of alleged terrorists responsible for the deaths of Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympics.

Poem 13

A monk has duties to only God
Whom he attends uxoriously.
There is no modern, no monastic Now,
Only seven discussions with Why.

On all fours I beheld God
Holding up her mirror;
On a bone heap I reclined
Drunk as Noah, fewer fleas.

I am in love with power,
With shop windows, stage sets,
A fire that nothing burns.
I am in love in love in love
With what is to come
From within me.

BBC Documentary on Torture in America's Prisons

The entire documenary may be viewed at http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article8451.htm.

It shows that torture is rampant in the American prison system. And the torturers are rarely punished.

Torture in America

American soldiers tortured prisoners in Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay. Now Iraqi troops and police trained by the USA are torturing prisoners. Of course, police departments in big American cities have long been known to torture prisoners. This is an especially big problem in Los Angeles, where the Sheriff's Department and Police Department routinely settle lawsuits in excess of $100,000 because policement beat civilians with impunity, sometimes fracturing skulls or killing their victimes.

War of the Worlds

The moral of Spielberg's movie is "A man must do what he can to protect his family, even if he's divorced and his ex-wife, whom he still loves, is glowingly pregnant with her new hubsband's child." But no. A man need not kill another man so that his daughter can get a good night's sleep. Even if the other man is nutty. No.

The movie is a mess. Three three-legged aliens visit a basement safehouse where Spielberg's protagonist watches as they drink water and look at old photos. This is pure hokum, as is most of the movie, especially Morgan Freeman's sententious voice-over and the movie's stupid ending.

Poem 12

The sunlight descended along the fence,
Reminding me of what it had been to live here
And by extension there, where light was never
Less than grand, embellishing, extreme.

And where it went into waves my memory was flat,
Untroubled, no imperfect acts to wonder through.

What it was to be with you, arguing,
Alive. Under that eternal summer sun.

Recapture me.

Departure

Off to see War of the Worlds. So excited!

Poem 11

Her hair, that of a purling wave,
argued for a miner's wages,
contended with bleak preachers,
presented utopian programs.

Her waist, that of a bust of Homer,
dreamed of butterflies, thin branches,
mocked my Blackberry dialogues,
laughed all the way to sunset.

Her cheeks, her butt, her absent eyebrow,
diminished by distance, swollen by silence.

Woodpeckers

Small, lovely, working in vain on the bamboo poles my vines twine around.

Poem 10

You belabored me with your tale of nine cats,
Your imperfect night visions, Indian hymns.
The day opened like laundry on the line,
A stack of white plates, Moroccan courtyards.
When we were older, the country seemed uncertain,
Restless, a place to find open windows and song.

We wisely wrote a never bettered treatise,
The Art of War for Dummies, prefaced by Mercutio.
And when royalties piled up, we smelled a skunk,
Undid the ballast, and up we swung.

Poem 9

Why am I built so? Why such fair skin,
Fine hair, long limbs? I am no bonobo.

Spitting

"Put the right amount of wine in your mouth, between one-quarter and one-half ounce. Once you have tasted the wine and are ready to expel it, pucker your lips, tighten your cheeks, and press your tongue up against your top teeth, broadening the tongue so that it extends past the molars on each side. This pools the wine between the top of your tongue and the roof of your mouth. The key is muscle control and force." (adapted from an article in Slate)

Poem 8

Clouds not quite fog, a curfew ignored by japing seals
And heeded by the poppies, which purse their bells
Encrimsoning the dim field. A poking curlew queries
The sand with a bill like a blind woman's stick
Jabbing the exclusive truth of what yields.

Your afternoon sighs, weary of sunlight, flowers,
Exhausting the season of light,
Refusing me words and the ready communion
Of wordlessness.

My poles, my beans

A second tripod went up this morning and already mild young bean vines are yearning for its legs.

The hills of the island

We heard an explosion at noon. We passed through clouds of butterflies. We ate on the ground, bread and cherries and olives. We made the kite emblazoned with a tiger's face go up only so far, then sink down, over and over.

Poem 7

Like any other day but
for the piano, the way she
moved her hair out of the way of
the music.

Poem 6

The scent of pianoforte
not pounded
not played
but tended to,
cared for,
embraced.

Poem 5

In the other room, somewhere,
sounds of a scuffle, or John Cage
attacking a piano. I thought of
Montana, your Syriac brow,
as the music blistered and swelled.

Poem 4

The piano in the other room
playing "Montana" eternally
reminded me of dancing
on the beach in India
sacred cowries round my neck

Poem 3

The hoary skunk died at the crossing
Slow moving, indolent thing
Never in a hurry, royalty and royally culled.
Its spirit fled (slowly)
Leaving on the air a reminder
(slipped through my open window)
Things live among us that are ever wild.

Because both books have characters who burst into flames

Did the author of The Trial read Bleak House?

Poem 2

In disarray, the leaves of humdrum Thursday
white and green, blistered red, gathering
sun and sorting shade. We walk together
through high arches, pausing where the tide sends tendrils of morning
and saying hello
saying hello.
Hello.

Poem

Correct me when I err
And when I bait a porpentine.
Defend me should she coat her
Glad rag aviator gloves with turpentine.
Perfect me, o horde of losts, for I am
But a sham, lost, guilt-burst bibber,
Persuadable as the wand'ring Yellow River.

Noodles

I boiled linguine. I let it cook well past al dente. Did I regret it? No! For the first time in decades I cooked pasta until it was soft. I dressed it with tomato sauce. It was so deeply satisfying. I adore soft noodles. Don't tell a soul.

Wild Grass apology

Not Zhu Rongji, silly me, Hu Jintao. Hu's on first.

The Whistler

I'm reading a good little book on LW (or, as I like to call him, The Whistler) by A. C. Grayling. It's apparent that Wittgenstein, who never read much philosophy, was a philistine intent on marching along his own philistine road that he believed would solve every philosophical question ever invented, but all his language games are quite silly. He appeals to teenagers and those with a sort of arrested philosophical development because he appears to be such an outsider (well, he was an outsider) and radical, but I prefer those thinkers who work from a deep understanding of the tradition to those (like Roberto Calasso) who just want to trash it.

Him and his car

My car's my best friend. My office. My home. My location. I have a very intimate sense when I am in a car with someone next to me. We're in the most comfortable seats because we're not facing each other, but sitting side by side. We don't look at each other, but instead do so only when we want to. We're allowed to look around without appearing rude. We have a big screen in front of us and side views. Silence doesn't seem heavy or difficult. Nobody serves anybody. And many other aspects. One most important thing is that it transports us from one place to another.

Gold panners

For two days, the obscene and racist players "orientation" video shot by Forty-Niners public relations director Kirk Reynolds was a front page story in the San Francisco Chronicle. It's also captured the attention of the Bay Area Chinese community: the Sing Tao Daily (Xingdao ribao, at www.singtaousa.com) ran a front page story yesterday on the video, focusing on the scenes that ostensibly show San Francisco's mayor (played by Reynolds) quizzing a Chinese American in San Francisco's Chinatown (the part is played by a Korean American employee of the Forty-Niners who has opened eleven martial arts schools in California) about a Chinese newspaper report on the football team. Sing Tao Daily published stills of the scene, which show Reynolds speaking with a man with grotesque buckteeth, a baseball cap, and a goofy smile. According to an inset piece entitled "Materials Like This, Training Like This" (Ruci cailiao, ruci xunlian), the Chinese character speaks with a heavy accent and makes a series of inadvertently humorous statements: the whole bit relies on tired racist jokes about Charlie Chan-style English. Comments like "[Forty-Niners quarterback] Tim Rattay doesn't practice with his teammates, so most of the time he plays with himself" and "The Forty-Niners are very patriotic, support the president . . . support the erection of George W. Bush" give some idea of how inane this scene is and why the Chinese community might react angrily to the news. (Please note that all text in the Sing Tao Daily is in Chinese, so my translation is unlikely to represent an accurate record of the video dialogue.)

Jesus Christ

What if Jesus was the hunky hero of a bodice ripper? The heroine's name is Artemissy Crownshadow: she has graduated from serving as domestic servant to a cereal magnate to running a small green political campaign consultancy. Jesus is the illegitimate son of a Cuban sweatshop zipper stitcher, has nice eyes, raises people from the dead. They meet in the desert.

Matua Valley Paretai Sauvignon Blanc 2004

Wonderful wine! Powerful, hugely aromatic, quite reminiscent of Seresin. I bought mine at San Francisco's Ferry Plaza Wine Merchant for US$19.

for readers of Ian Johnson's Wild Grass

Bad news. Mure Dickie reports in today's Financial Times that "A Chinese court has refused to hear a landmark lawsuit by hundreds of private investors whose oil wells were seized by the state and police have detained their lawyer." This is also bad news for all of those ambitious young Chinese women and men who have enrolled in Chinese law schools in the expectation that the growing rule of law will fill their pockets with renminbi.

While Vladimir Putin puts the dukes of Russian oil behind bars, Zhu Rongji sees to it that no one in China rises to a dukedom.

Orson & H.G., meet Steven

The late Spielberg is wonderfully weird. I am teenage excited about http://tinyurl.com/a2zus.

Perfidy

When Werner Herzog threw himself on a cactus after completing the filming of Even Dwarves Start Small, did he think that he was taking away all of the sins of mini-man? If we worshipped birds he'd have trailed a wing on the ground, feigning a limp, passing himself off as a scapegoat.

My lunch with Andre the Giant

It had been years since Andre last called, and still his sub-baritone cascade of language reverberated in my ears.