Leaving the Stone Age

At lunch yesterday I was reading from Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs, and Steel, about which I'm sure I'll have more to say in the future, but this isn't about that exactly. As he has discussed how various societies have trounced other societies and taken them over or wiped them out, the discussion occasionally touches on societies that, until very recent times, lived with stone-aged technologies as hunter-gatherers: no metals, no plant cultivation, no domesticated animals. How could some cultures conquer other cultures and create airplanes and computers and not succumb to smallpox, while some still use chipped-stone axes?

This is my news for the past week: last Thursday a duo of Verizon technicians came to our house and installed a fiber-optic (FiOS) broadband internet connection for us. It took about three hours and was rather painless. Technicians Jeff and Adrienne were pleasant and efficient and the process was almost fun. About noon we plugged the computers in to the new connection and now I can painlessly surf places like YouTube and be part of modern pop culture.

In a matter of hours we stepped out of the stone-age of online connectivity (my 54k modem*) and into the 21st century — finally!

The funny thing is that it doesn't seem all that different. Most of the frustration from waiting has disappeared, and I don't have to write nasty-grams to friends anymore who unthinkingly e-mail 5-megabyte photographs to me. Isaac and I can surf at the same time without cursing each other. Why, the new router even came with a wireless interface so I immediately get connectivity with the laptop computer that already had a wireless port but had previously seemed like an orphan without a network.

And yet it doesn't feel so very different, maybe because my typing isn't suddenly 1,000 times faster and my thoughts keep backing up just as fast as before. I'm still waiting to see whether I get any work done any faster, although I've identified a couple of projects that I now might be able to finish before I die.

But still, I'd sort of hoped that by setting down my stone ax in the morning and picking up a laser gun in the afternoon that I might notice some major qualitative difference in my hunting-gathering experience. I suppose the difference between me and an aboriginal is that I knew what was coming, having tasted it elsewhere.

Still, I don't plan on going back to living in perfect harmony with nature anytime soon.
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* I'm so old I remember when my 54k modem was cutting-edge technology — beyond cutting edge even, because I remember when my 9600-baud modem was cutting edge and bits would never travel faster than that. Remember that? Ever wonder what happened? Information theory happened, then a deeper understanding of Shannon's laws about bandwidth, then trellis-coded modulation and lots of other cool stuff that made phone lines able to carry more information than anyone in the 80s ever thought they could.

Posted on May 22, 2007 at 12.53 by jns · Permalink · 7 Comments
In: All, Reflections

To The Fourth Cheese

There were several memorable dishes that we ate at Ristorante da Cecio, our favorite dinner spot in Rome, but one that stands out was their Gnocchi ai Quattro Formaggi, or "Gnocchi with Four-Cheese Sauce",* a plate of little snail-shaped potato dumplings in a satiny smooth and unctuously cheesy sauce. The sauce was not a garish — in taste or color — cheese concoction but a sophisticated blend of flavors from the four cheese sources whose gestalt was admirably greater than the sum of the parts.

Naturally, while we tastes and "oohed!" and "aaahed!" over each bite on nearly every occasion we ate there, we deviously pondered how to deconstruct the dish or, if necessary, steal the recipe. I'll work through channels to see whether we can get any guidance from the chef; in the meantime, we're on our own.

One evening while we were sampling the dish in the company of our friend Renzo, we asked for his thoughts on what the four cheeses might be, since he once made us a cheesy dish with some of the best qualities of this one. He thought, and rolled his eyes about a bit as he sampled a couple of morsels.

Definitely gorgonzola and mascarpone, he said; this is a common combination that he's used before. In fact, the two are marketed together as a ready-to-go mixture. Also, something like Parmigiano seemed likely, and he thought it must have some cream in it, too. As to the critical fourth cheese though, we were left without a good clue.

I'm not sure this is the definitive answer, but I've found one recipe for a dish called "Pasta Ai Quattro Formaggi" on the web, that matches Renzo's best analysis, and specifies Fontina as the fourth cheese.# I did come across one dissenter** that called for Ricotta as the fourth cheese, but this seemed less likely to me.

So here is the most likely contender so far, until I get more direct word about the secrets of the dish.

40 grams Unsalted butter
50 grams Fontina cheese; grated
50 grams Parmigiano cheese; grated
80 grams Gorgonzola cheese; chopped
100 grams Marscapone cheese
50 grams Heavy cream

Heat a saute pan until hot then add the butter. Turn off the heat and add all the remaining cheeses and cream and whisk the mixture until it is thick and smooth; the heat of the pan will provide enough warmth to heat and melt the cheeses. If the mixture is not melting evenly, return the pan to the heat for a moment or two. Add the cooked pasta to the smooth, rich sauce and toss well.

I haven't tried this yet, but if I get around to it I'll report on the taste.
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*In an earlier version of the english translation of the menu, the dish was styled as "Gnocchi to the Fourth Cheese", which is our preferred name for it. I'm sure you weren't surprised.

# If you search for the dish on the web, you'll see a dozen recipes that have these cheeses as the ingredients, but don't take that as a majority vote: all but one that I've looked at so far quote the same recipe verbatim. This leaves me in a quandary about which to quote as an "original source" for the recipe above, so I'll just arbitrarily choose this one.

** Four Cheese Pasta

Posted on May 17, 2007 at 21.27 by jns · Permalink · 2 Comments
In: All, Food Stuff

A Beethovenish Birthday

Monday night, thanks to my friend Deb, I had a very lovely evening by way of a birthday treat. True, it was two weeks after the event but then, I was out of the country at the time. Besides, I was well rested this way. Further besides, this Monday was the scheduled date of the event.

It was the most pleasant surprise when she called some days before: "Hey! Are you free Monday night? Would you like to go to a cello concert at the German Embassy?" My answer was multiply positive. That Deb might invite me to a cello recital is not totally out of the blue, since her daughter has been my cello student for the last four years.

The Beethoven Society of America sponsors a series of musical programs at the Embassy of Germany in Washington, DC (the embassy website). This past Monday was to be a recital by David Hardy, principal cellist of the National Symphony Orchestra since 1994 (brief bios here and here), and Lambert Orkis, piano (his website). As a special feature, we also had a performance of Chopin's Scherzo #4, op. 54 by George Fu, the winner of the 2006 Beethoven Society Piano Competition.

Being the German embassy, I suppose, there was a list of rules about where we could park and not park and when we were allowed to arrive at the embassy and be allowed in. In fact, we got there early and the welcoming party was standing behind the imposing gate but sadly explained that they could not open it until 7pm (precisely!). We had a nice walk down the street (Reservoir Road, near Georgetown) and looked at the garden in the embassy grounds. Huge wisterias grew along the security fence.

We were allowed in at the appointed time with relatively little in the way of security checks, although our name was validated against the guest list. It's rare that I go to an event where entry is arranged according to a guest list. Fortunately, I had dressed appropriately. We were directed to the auditorium where we waited a few more minutes.

The auditorium itself was quite a pleasant, and pleasantly shaped, space for such an event. I read from the website that the chancery was constructed in the early 60s (officially opened in 1964), and designed by Egon Eiermann. The style was what was considered modern but not too outré at the time, and it's still attractive today. The auditorium was a rectangular box, the walls mostly floor-to-ceiling windows with embedded lattice-work in wood; the floor was a random mosaic of two-inch stone disks in ruddy colors. The wood accents in the windows and ceiling were all stained in a dark red-brown color, so the overall effect was warm and comfortable in contrast to the colder feel one might expect from a largely steel-and-glass building.

Naturally, the program for the recital would prominently include some Beethoven. Here is the program:

Suite Italienne, Igor Stravinsky
Cello Sonata in A Major, op. 69, Ludwig van Beethoven
  intermission
Variations on "Bei Männern, weich Liebe fühlen" (from Mozart's "Die Zauberflöte), op. 46, Ludwig van Beethoven
Sonata in a minor, Edvard Grieg

The Stravinsky pieces are charming and very appealing, and show off the players virtuosity quite delightfully.

The Beethoven sonata, to my mind the major piece of the evening, was played very, very well by the duo. This is Beethoven's most performed cello sonata — hence not really my favorite, plus the fact that it was the g-minor sonata that I had performed myself all those years ago and know the best — but it sounded fresh and convincing. Deb said that she thought they really enjoyed playing it, and I think she's exactly right. Together they seemed to have a coherent narrative and the work made a dramatic whole rather than three movements with a bunch of notes.

The variations were cute and nicely done. The Grieg is a huge piece with lots of orchestral demands made of the two people playing it. Deb found it appealing but said she felt that the last movement went on rather too long; I agreed, but it was the style of the time. I didn't find the sonata very compelling musically, but it made for great spectator sport. I certainly won't fault the performers, who played the entire program with energy and commitment.

About Mr. Orkis particularly we noticed a remarkable precision in his playing, a thing that I always enjoy in piano performance: close attention to the release of notes, the lengths of notes, and the dynamics of individual notes. Some performers are rather sloppy about such things to the extent that it makes a remarkably crisp sound with those who pay attention to it. Mr. Hardy also exhibited a sense of precision, and I'm one who prefers good technique in cello playing; I tend to discount the music making if the notes aren't in tune to begin with. Both of the evening's performers gave very satisfying performances, and their ensemble playing was notable as well.

Finally, I might mention the piano, evidently a German instrument built by Blüthner, an 8-foot concert grand. I had never heard one before. To my ear the sound was agreeably bright without being strident, and Mr. Orkis' sensitive playing certainly made the mechanism sound extremely responsive.

It was good chamber music in a pleasant venue with good friends all made for a delightful and memorable evening. Thanks Deb.

Posted on May 16, 2007 at 12.29 by jns · Permalink · 3 Comments
In: All, Music & Art, Reflections

Carter on DADT

Although I have little compunction about "speaking ill of the dead" when it comes to one of America's leading hate-mongers,* I refuse to waste any more pixels on the subject. Let's instead celebrate the living who correctly distinguish right from wrong and try to make the world a better place.

Former President Jimmy Carter, whom one is reminded is a Nobel Peace-Prize winner,

…has called on Congress to revisit the military's "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" ban on lesbian, gay and bisexual personnel. In an exclusive statement to Servicemembers Legal Defense Network (SLDN), Carter says that, "It is my long-held belief that every human being deserves dignity and respect. I often heard that phrase during my years at the United States Naval Academy, I carried it out as Commander-in-Chief, and it continues to animate my human rights work around the globe today. The nation's commitment to human rights requires that lawmakers revisit 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell,' the current policy that prevents lesbians, gays and bisexuals from serving openly in our armed forces."
[…]
In his statement to SLDN, Carter says that "'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' is the only law in America today that regulates a group of citizens then prohibits them from identifying themselves and speaking up on their own behalf. Gay soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines are unable to tell their Member of Congress or their commander that the policy is an abject failure and they are living proof because they will face discharge. Those who defend our liberties and freedoms deserve better." He goes on to say that, " . . . there are great differences in public opinion on social issues today compared to twenty years ago. When I served as President, the majority in our country did not support equality for gay Americans, but that has now changed."

"The estimated 65,000 gay men and women who currently are serving our country honorably deserve respect," Carter says. "America has always been a beacon of hope for those who believe in human rights and individual dignity. The brave and dedicated men and women of our armed forces also must benefit from this fundamental ideal."

These excerpts are from a press release from the SLDN ("Former President Jimmy Carter Calls on Congress to Revisit 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell'", Servicemembers Legal Defense Network, 15 May 2007); Carter's complete statement is available for download at the same page.
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*I refer, of course, to the unmentionable founder of the so-called "Moral Majority", who deserves to be a mere footnote. If you need further documentation of his despicable career, I can suggest starting with "Jerry Falwell dies at age 73", The Carpetbagger Report, 15 May 2007.

Posted on May 15, 2007 at 16.32 by jns · Permalink · One Comment
In: All, Current Events, Faaabulosity

Feeling Subdude

Isaac reported recently on an amusing spelling error that he spotted the other day: someone reported feeling a little "subdude". This seemed to me a very useful word, particularly as I found myself feeling a little subdude today. The word seems to me roughly as versatile as that coinage from over a decade ago — when the words made some useful distinction in computer hardware — feeling "lo-res" or, on really good days, "hi-res".*
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* True, "high-res" might be more appropriate, but violates the spirit, as well as the symmetry that "hi-res" has with the two-letter "lo-res"; "high-res" and "low-res" are just too square. Obviously, though, the hyphens are needed to keep the pronunciation meaningful; "hires" and "lores" aren't at all suggestive of the intended meaning.

Posted on May 12, 2007 at 21.51 by jns · Permalink · Leave a comment
In: All, Briefly Noted, Such Language!

Oh! We Like Poodles!

Behold the Poodle of God!

We've talked about it enough, so here's a lovely example, spotted on our recent trip to Rome. This PoG is painted above a doorway in a courtyard from which one reaches the stairs to the entrance of Sant'Agnese fuori la Mura, the church of Saint Agnes outside the Walls, a delightful destination which I discussed some previously.

In fact, as Bill would point out, this is a fine image of a pulvinated lamb, since it is resting on a pillow, which is what "pulvinated" indicates. (To be honest it also looked to us as though its front leg had been amputated, but there's no iconographic reason for that, so it's probably just the perspective….) Naturally, we tended to refer to this as an "empillowed poodle". The lamb, of course, is a venerable symbol of Christ, but is also associated with Saint Agnes (as I said previously, because in Latin "lamb" is "agnus", which is close enough to "Agnes" for icon work; besides, images of Agnes look adorable with her carrying around a little lamb).

Also as I mentioned briefly before, this poodle business all began several years ago when we spotted, not far from where I am writing, a needlepoint image of a lamb with big floppy ears that looked undeniably poodle-like. We are an unexpectedly irreverent lot given the number of religious avocations represented among our circle of friends.

Now, there is a reason why I bring this all up again, and it has to do with an urban legend. I just read about this in a new article at Snopes ("Sheepish Discovery"), in which they debunk a claim made in a widely circulated e-mail that thousands of sheep were imported to Japan and sold as cut-rate poodles to the unsuspecting Japanese who, it is claimed, were unfamiliar enough with both sheep and poodles not to know the difference. Puhlease. To my mind the remarkable thing is the number of not-very-bright people who believe the e-mail claim that the Japanese are unable to tell the difference.

We claim that we can tell the difference and just choose to ignore it for effect at times, although if you keep a lookout you'll see for yourself that many representations of lambs in Christian iconography do look amazingly like poodles.

I just wanted to clear that up.
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A note about the title. Some astute readers will no doubt recognize this as an allusion to the phrase "Oh we, like sheep, have gone astray…", famously used in Handel's Messiah and frequently abused by musicians who will read it as "Oh! We like sheep!" (Handel's rhythm in setting the phrase doesn't discourage this version, either.) In this case, of course, the natural object of our affection is poodles.

Posted on May 12, 2007 at 20.07 by jns · Permalink · 4 Comments
In: All, Reflections

Exponential Growth

Here's a quick question with a pedagogical purpose. Would you buy a battery from this man?

"The energy capacity of batteries is increasing 5 percent to 8 percent annually, but demand is increasing exponentially," Mr. Cooper[, vice president for business development of PolyFuel Inc., a company working on battery technology,] said.

[Damon Darlin and Barnaby J. Feder, "Need for Battery Power Runs Into Basic Hurdles of Science", New York Times, 16 August 2006.]

Forget basic hurdles of science, the basic hurdle here would seem to be an executive in a technical industry who doesn't understand what exponential growth is.

In short: growth of something that is proportional to the current size of that thing is exponential growth. Thus, demand for batteries that grows 5% to 8% annually — i.e., 0.05 to 0.08 times current demand — is exponential growth.

The constant that governs how fast something grows exponentially is the "growth rate". Small growth rate = slow growth; large growth rate = fast growth. In symbols, an exponential function of time, t, is

f(t) = A × est

where A is a constant amplitude and s is the growth rate. If s is relatively large, f(t) changes values rapidly; is s is very small, f(t) changes values slowly. If s happens to be a negative number, f(t) disappears over time, quickly or slowly depending on the size of s. The letter 'e' represents the base of natural logarithms. Why it shows up in the exponential function takes some explanation; for now, just think of it as a constant number nearly equal to 2.17 and don't lose any sleep over it.*

Many people think "exponential growth" means "grows really, really quickly", but this is a misconception. It is true that power-law growth is generally faster than algebraic growth (for instance, multiplying a number over and over again by some number, say, 47) all other things being equal, but any particular exponential function will grow slowly or quickly depending on its growth rate. Think of a $0.15 deposit in a bank account that pays compound interest; the account grows exponentially but it's going to be awhile before you're a millionaire.

So please, please can we stop saying things like "Wow! That growth is so exponential! It's huge!"

And if I were you, I don't think I'd buy a battery from Mr. Cooper, either.
———-
* In fact, 'e' is irrational (not expressible as the fraction of two integers, or whole numbers) and transcendental (not the solution to an algebraic equation, which is to say a polynomial with rational coefficients and integer powers). But that's a lot of other story that we needn't go into right now.

Posted on May 11, 2007 at 20.43 by jns · Permalink · One Comment
In: All, It's Only Rocket Science

Don't Need no Science

Is Bob Park's What's New for 11 May 2007, this quick summary of the Republican presidential-candidate field, demonstrating that science is not a conservative, traditional-family value and that Ars Hermeneutica has its work cut out for it:

BELIEFS: SCIENTIFIC ILLITERACY REACHES CLEAR TO THE TOP.
Last week at the Republican presidential debate, moderator Chris Matthews asked whether any of the wannabes did not believe in evolution. Sam Brownback, Mike Huckabee and Tom Tancredo raised their hands. John McCain waffled: “I believe in evolution, “he said, “but I also believe when I hike the Grand Canyon that the hand of God is there also.” The Sunday Washington Post pointed out that they weren’t that far from mainstream. In an ABC poll a year ago, 61% thought Genesis is literally true.

Posted on May 11, 2007 at 18.02 by jns · Permalink · 2 Comments
In: All, Current Events, It's Only Rocket Science

The Brightest Supernova Ever

Here's the lead from the NASA release about an observation with the Chandra X-Ray [orbiting] Observatory of "the brightest supernova ever":

May 7, 2007: The brightest stellar explosion ever recorded may be a long-sought new type of supernova, according to observations by NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory and ground-based optical telescopes. This discovery indicates that violent explosions of extremely massive stars were relatively common in the early universe, and that a similar explosion may be ready to go off in our own galaxy.

"This was a truly monstrous explosion, a hundred times more energetic than a typical supernova," said Nathan Smith of the University of California at Berkeley, who led a team of astronomers from California and the University of Texas in Austin. "That means the star that exploded might have been as massive as a star can get, about 150 times that of our sun. We've never seen that before."

Astronomers think many of the first stars in the Universe were this massive, and this new supernova may thus provide a rare glimpse of how those first generation stars died. It is unprecedented, however, to find such a massive star and witness its death. The discovery of the supernova, known as SN 2006gy, provides evidence that the death of such massive stars is fundamentally different from theoretical predictions.

The photographs accompanying the release are extraordinary, showing that the supernova was as bright as the core of its galaxy — that's bright! It seems this one was bright enough that some light even reached the mainstream press, as in this story from the L.A. Times.

As additional background, may I point out my own posting called "A Star Explodes in Slow Motion", which feature an informative excerpt from Galileo's Finger: The Ten Great Ideas of Science, by Peter Atkins.

Posted on May 10, 2007 at 22.27 by jns · Permalink · Leave a comment
In: All, It's Only Rocket Science

Noctilucent Clouds

For those who fear that there may be nothing left in the world to discover (hardly a chance!), consider this item from Space Weather News for April 25, 2007:

NIGHT-SHINING CLOUDS: NASA's AIM spacecraft left Earth Wednesday on a two-year mission to study mysterious noctilucent (night-shining) clouds. Hovering at the edge of space, these clouds were first noticed in the 19th century; they are remarkable for their electric-blue color and sharp, wavy ripples. In recent years noctilucent clouds have been growing brighter and spreading. What causes them? Theories range from space dust to global warming. For the next two years, AIM will scrutinize the clouds from Earth orbit to learn what they may be telling us about our planet. Visit http://spaceweather.com for more information about the AIM mission, pictures of noctilucent clouds and observing tips.

Posted on May 10, 2007 at 22.06 by jns · Permalink · Leave a comment
In: All, It's Only Rocket Science

Calm Outside the Walls

On Friday morning we left our hotel a little earlier than usual, about 9:30, to catch a bus* that went northwest outside the ancient walls of Rome, through the Porta Pia and up Via Nomentana a way. We spotted out destination out the window and got off at the next stop to visit the basilica of Sant'Agnese Fuori le Mura (Saint Agnes outside the walls. The official site.).

Sant'Agnese is an ancient church, a 7th-century church rebuilt over a 4th-century catacomb, the site of Agnes' tomb. (Some history.) One's first view from the street is distinctly unprepossessing. In addition to being what looks like a dusty old brick building, the front of the church faces away from the street — so all one sees is the back of the building and the curve of the apse — and is built below street level. The level of the church matches the level of the catacombs, and street level is at the height of the second-floor gallery inside the basilica.

Oddly, one gets to the church by walking down the street and through a doorway that seems to have nothing to do with the church, into a courtyard where there is a passage and a staircase going down to the rear of the nave. The walls of the staircase are lined with fragments of ancient memorials that were excavated from beneath the church, words engraved in Latin and Greek in stone.

This is a basilica style church, meaning that it is shaped rather like a barn: long, narrow, but tall. There are a few chapels along the sides, but the overall impression is of a simple space, cool, semi-dark, but nicely decorated. The proportions of the church are quite restful. One of our favorite authors, Margaret Visser, wrote a book a few years ago about Sant'Agnese called The Geometry of Love. A number of photographs that accompany the book are online, with nice shots of Sant'Agnese and Santa Costanza (which we'll get to in a moment). They're worth browsing through. The ground-floor plan reveals something interesting about the building: the facade is not quite perpendicular to the walls of the nave.

There are beautiful, old mosaics to see, some paintings, the chapel decorations, the altar and baldacchino are all quite lovely. But my overall impression of the basilica is that of calm and quiet. This is a place that is not nearly so frequently visited as the "major" churches in Rome, but it is a rewarding place to visit and significant church regardless. There were people who came through while we were there, but there were times when the entire space was ours alone, and it was remarkably peaceful.

While we were there a small, young woman showed up to open the sacristy (the traditional place where one buys postcards and other souvenirs); for a small fee she offered a tour of the catacombs. We'd visited Sant'Agnese before, and we'd visited some other catacombs before, but never these. We took our tour along with a mother and her two fascinated children, and had a nice look around with narration in Italian and English. Catacombs are very evocative places, tiny and cozy, carved out of the soft tufa that is common in the volcanic region. Near the end of our tour we passed by the tomb holding the remains of Agnes, which is positioned under the altar of the church.

Sant'Agnese is actually part of a very old complex of churches. Walking behind the basilica a short way takes one to the piazza of the Mausoleum of Santa Costanza (there are photographs in Margaret Visser's collection, linked above). It started out — but was possibly never used — as a funerary building for Constantia, daughter of the Emperor Constantine. She died in 354 CE, and it's a fourth-century building. It is a remarkable rotunda shape, small and round with a dome. Around the region under the dome is a barrel-vaulted ambulatory with gorgeous (and old!) mosaics in the ceiling. The space, like Sant'Agnese, is beautifully proportioned and remarkably peaceful. (Here are two sites with information and plans and photographs: in Italian and in English.)

Outside Santa Costanza is a large lawn in the ruins of a very large early church, called an "ambulatory basilica" in the historical marker. The meaning is that it was a large, basilica style church with "aisles", additional wide spaces flanking the columns of the nave, perhaps with added chapels and altars. The aisles would have lower ceilings than the nave, which would often feature clerestory windows high in the nave walls, above the level of the roof of the ambulatory.

Sant'Agnese is an active parish today, and there was a community center where some pre-teen boys were playing basketball or somesuch, and an old man was bowling bocci balls. In the midst of all sat a small cafe in a rose arbor. We had some refreshment and sat and rested a bit, looking up at the roses growing over our heads, which were in bloom while we were in Rome.

A friend told me that she's taking a Mediterranean cruise and will be in Rome for just a couple of day. Too little time! Perhaps you can see why I suggested that a trip to visit Sant'Agnese and Santa Costanza and environs might be a good choice. In the end we were only there for maybe three hours, but it was such a calm and peaceful and interesting three hours that it seemed much greater than something that a mere three hours might contain.
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*I forget offhand which number bus, but Bill might remember.

Posted on May 10, 2007 at 12.11 by jns · Permalink · One Comment
In: All, Reflections

Gravel on Love

From Raw Story (David Edwards and Mike Sheehan, "Mike Gravel: 'Love between a man and a man is beautiful' ", 9 May 2007)

New Hampshire's WMUR TV hosted a conversation with [Democratic presidential candidate Mike] Gravel in which the former US senator, answering an audience question about gay marriage, replies, "If a couple of lesbians or gay men want to get married, and they love each other, they should have the right to do that and enjoy all the legalities in our society that go along with that. I have no problem with that at all."

"I think that people who create these problems of homophobia and the likes of that do us a disservice," Gravel continues. "We are all human beings and one of the things that should motivate us, most of all, is love."

Posted on May 9, 2007 at 17.26 by jns · Permalink · One Comment
In: All, Common-Place Book

Three Plates in Rome

Eating in Rome is fun and different for me, for very little reason other than what seems a refreshingly different approach to organizing the meal. For years I had learned and mostly implemented a French-style, multi-coursed approach to a dinner, with a progression of courses that followed certain prescriptions. In Italy, it all seems much simpler: there's a first plate (primo piatto) followed by a second plate (secondo piatto).

Primo is pasta, risotto, or maybe soup; secondo is meat or fish. Naturally, there may be something before the pasta — the antipasto — and there may be a sweet — dolci — after it's all over, or almost all over since there may still then be the after-dinner drink — amaro or grappa or limoncello were popular. Having the meal composed, in principle, of a first plate and then a second plate seems unfussy and sensible. Note, however, that the smaller number of "courses" implies nothing about how much food is actually served or consumed!

This trip there seemed to be a couple of dishes that I enjoyed several times, and they created a motif to our dinners for me. I suppose I might describe them as favorite dishes, but it's a sort of situational favorite: these dishes taste different to me from any similar preparations here in the US, and I like the way they taste in Rome.

The antipasto de mare (seafood antipasto) I had on three occasions in two different restaurants; the version shown in the top photo was at our favorite, family-run restaurant near the train station (Ristorante da Cecio). In their version there is a small pile of salad greens decorated with an assortment of preserved and pickled seafoods: sardines, squid (yes, those are tentacles), and salmon, along with some olives, capers, and a light dressing of olive oil. The pickled squid in particular lent a delicate piquancy to the plate.

At another favorite restaurant ("La Tana Sarda", a Sardinian restaurant in the San Lorenzo section of Rome) the preparation of the dish by the same name was somewhat different, but still satisfying. Here was a plate with three seafood salads: different mixtures of salad greens with shrimp or salmon or squid, the whole thing decorated with sardines (it was, after all, a Sardinian restaurant). More olive oil and capers there, too.

Several times I ate a primo of spaghetti con vongole (spaghetti "with clams"). These clams are lovely little things with ridged shells, a different variety than what we get here in the US. Steamed with some white wine and garlic, they make a simple and subtly flavored sauce for the spaghetti. For lunch once that was all I had. I don't have a good picture of an example, but the second photo shows me eating a nice plate of spaghetti con vongole at La Tana Sarda where, incidentally, we went for dinner to celebrate my 51st birthday.

When I need a secondo I often like to try a mixed grill, something that seems much more popular in Europe than in the US for some reason. The third photograph is a very nice mixed grill that I had at the aforementioned Ristorante da Cecio, which establishment will be a character in several stories yet to come. This combination included a pork chop, a scallopine of veal, and a piece of very tender and tasty beef that came from I know not which part of the animal.

This is not all I ate, of course. Several times lunch-time found us near another favorite place and we had wonderful salads at one or another L'Insalata Ricca, whose specialty is large salads with fanciful combinations of ingredients. It made for a nice luncheon that didn't weigh us down. Once we ate at a pleasantly quiet Chinese restaurant just a block off the via del Corso; we walked along that route on a Sunday along with all the rest of Rome and this restaurant was our escape from the madding crowds. There were a couple of times when we ate in Trastevere, the section of Rome across the Tiber from the main part of the city; the food in each case was fine but unexceptional.

Breakfast we invariably had in the small breakfast room at our hotel: hard rolls, toast, cereal, juice, coffee (a nasty, brutal concoction) or tea, danish. Nothing to write home about, but it got us going and kept up the energy until lunchtime, which never begins before 1pm. After all, what is one to do while the shops and churches are closed — typically 1pm to 4pm — except eat?

One evening we had a lovely home-cooked meal at the apartment of our friends in Rome, Jim & Renzo. It should go without saying that a home-cooked meal is always a nice thing, particularly with good company.

Posted on May 8, 2007 at 23.00 by jns · Permalink · 3 Comments
In: All, Food Stuff

Unexpected Delights in Rome

Planned sightseeing and famous points of interest on a trip are all well and good, but I find that what really gives a trip its spice and creates the finest lasting memories are the unexpected delights: places or events that one just trips across accidentally, spontaneous and unplanned. At lunch on Sunday we all talked about some of these and listed the bounty from our just completed trip to Rome.

Chagall exhibit

While we happened to be in Rome there was an exhibit of works by Marc Chagall: "Chagall delle meraviglie (Chagall in Wonderland)" at the Victor Emmanuel monument. I'm a big fan of Chagall, Isaac less so, but we both enjoyed the exhibit immensely. It was beautifully displayed and the space was comfortable for viewing. In one part of the gallery there were paintings in a mezzanine above the main floor from which one could look down and see two dozen large paintings in one glance, which had quite a powerful effect.

A tiny display in a small gallery at the beginning showed some mass-printed ephemera, broadsheet entertainment for the people, that had unusual images of anthropomorphized animals and people floating over villages, printed in color with big blotches of primary pigments. It was a revelation: these were the sources of so many of the at-times bizarre imagery that we associate with Chagall's iconography! It was quite a discovery for me, and has greatly filled out my understanding and appreciation of Chagall's work. Perhaps I will say more once I plow through the remarkably heavy exhibition catalog.

Tomasso in Formis

On one of our big church-touring days we were making our way from S. Stefano Rotundo to Ss. Giovanni e Paulo, under Bill's guidance since he had the oracle (i.e., the map) in hand. Partway there we encountered an open gate that led into a garden that seemed the shortest path to our destination, so in we went. What a lovely, peaceful garden it was, too! Paths, stately trees, and an abundance of blooming acanthus with very few people around. We strolled with pleasure. Along the way we saw a brick wall with an open gate in it! Well, we were accepting open-gate invitations that day so in we went.

What we found was a small, narrow but long courtyard that looked like a forgotten alleyway off another forgotten alleyway, but actually it was a tiny piazza / garden in front of an equally tiny church called San Tomasso in Formis; we had no idea what "in Formis" might mean,* but it sounds like the Latin word for "ants" so we started referring to is as Saint Thomas in Ants. According to the Churches of Rome Wiki entry:

The church is ancient, but was rebuilt in 1209 by the Trinitarian Order. It had been given to St John of Matha by Pope Innocent III two years before, and was the first seat of the Order. They also built a hospital adjacent to the church, but after it had fallen into decline it was demolished in 1925. The appellation, in Formis, refers to the aqueduct of Claudius.

The church was restored several times in the 16th and 18th centuries, and little is left of the medieval furnishings and decorations.

Relics of de Matha are preserved in the church, it seems. The church itself is tiny — smaller than most suburban houses of recent vintage in the US — but charming. The restoration and current decoration reveal little of its great age, but its location does: it's evident that its surroundings have had centuries to come and go and hide it so out of the way.

Catacombs at St. Agnese

I mentioned in my previous posting, about our morning spent at the church of Sant'Agnese outside the walls, that we hadn't really expected to tour the catacombs there, although we knew that there were catacombs. In fact, we had thought to visit the Catacombs of Priscilla, which weren't very distant; Isaac and I had been there before and enjoyed the experience.

So it came as a nice surprise that the catacombs at Sant'Agnese were open and that the guide was available to give us a tour. The three of us were joined by a mother and her two children — children who thankfully were very interested in their tour — and we had the tour in alternating Italian and English, which was fun. I thought it an extra treat that our path took us past a grate-covered window through which we could see the marble casket that held the remains of Agnes beneath the altar of the church. Catacombs are a unique experience, to be sure, and there were several points of interest in these, so I'm pleased that we got to compare it to the catacombs we had visited previously.

Chapel at Santa Maria dell'Umiltà

On our last full day in Rome, our other traveling companions, the "marys", had reservations for a Papal audience; Isaac and I went to pick up their tickets at Santa Maria dell'Umiltà, the residence for American priests doing graduate studies in Rome, which handles all such matters for American visitors. Once we were buzzed in through the inconspicuous door on the street, we found another quiet atrium where I could sit on a bench while Isaac collected the tickets. He did and joined me on the bench.

Rather suddenly a priest dashed by with a small group in tow: "Have you seen the chapel?" he called out. "No," we thought, and the implication was that we should follow him on a path that took us through corridors in the adjacent building and finally let us out at the back of a small chapel. What a chapel! Yes, it was tiny, perhaps only 12 meters long and nicely proportioned, but brilliantly decorated with artwork, mosaics, and plenty of gold. In one chapel was a painting of the Virgin of Guadalupe — our guide explained that it was the first to arrive in Europe, sometime in the 1600s. In the opposite chapel, a beautifully carved, full-sized crucifixion of wood, equally old but of unknown origin. We gawked for awhile, then our priest guide suggested that we could now pray for awhile (I gawked more), then he escorted us back to the courtyard. It almost felt as though we'd imagined it.

Salla Borromini

Late one afternoon we made our way towards Chiesa Nuova (the "new church" — built in the late 16th century — also known as Santa Maria in Vallicella), where we wished to visit. We didn't hurry because it was about 3pm and we didn't expect the church to reopen from its afternoon break until 4pm. We milled about a bit.

As we milled we discovered yet another open door, inviting us in. We found an atrium with a display of large panels about the restoration work being done there. I'm not entirely clear on what was what, but it appeared to be offices and such devoted to the Capitoline Archives, in effect an official library of the city of Rome. As we read the panels we kept seeing reference to the Salla Borromini, the name of Borromini being familiar from a number of beautiful churches he had designed in Renaissance Rome.

Well, it was not entirely clear but it seemed that the Borromini Room was a point of pride for the library. Furthermore, the notes suggested that it might be open, if one could find it someplace upstairs. So, we took to the stairs, and climbed several flights. At each turn it seemed that the building became more and more lonesome and deserted, but we persevered. Finally, at about the third floor (European counting, from the ground floor up three flights), we saw a glass-paneled door behind which we thought we could see some people moving about. Boldly, we walked in and ignored the people staring at us.

Indeed, we were in the Borromini Room. Evidently it was a slow day there because someone scurried off to find a woman (whose name I didn't catch) who could tell us about the room. She didn't speak English, but she had a relative in Boston whom she visited and perhaps she spoke Italian more slowly so that Isaac could translate — at least, that seemed to be the rationale. Indeed, she showed up and led us around the room to admire the design, the proportions, the artwork, the ceiling, the original collection of books — even the new books looked to be a couple of hundred years old. The room itself was designed in the 17th century, originally as a library, for which purpose it still served. This was clearly a point of pride.

It was fascinating and we felt that serendipity was really favoring us that day with a very special treat. As we were finishing our tour the conversation turned more personal. Where were we from, what did we do? Isaac explained that we were: 1) a Catholic priest; 2) an Anglican priest; and 3) a physicist. "Aha," she exclaimed, "you represent the three major religions!" She was manifestly pleased that we appreciated her humor.

We felt we had developed quite a rapport, and it's evident that our guide did too. As we were leaving she dashed off and returned with two copies of the historic guide to the room which she gave to us as mementos. They're in Italian, yes, but I'll spend time deciphering its mysteries nonetheless.

S. Nicola in Carcere excavations

Down from the Capitoline Museum, just past the theater of Marcellus, is a very old church called S. Nicolo in Carcere, "Saint Nicholas in Jail", dating roughly from the 8th century. (We were told that Nicholas was never in jail, but that the name referred to a nearby jail; the explanation had the air of bogus about it, but there you go.) The exterior side walls are odd looking because there are columns half buried in them. We found out why when we were offered a tour of the excavations beneath the church by a guide who spoke reasonable English. We entered the excavations through a locked gate in the confession (the area under the altar where, frequently, important relics are housed).

It was another world. The site, in ancient times, had once seen three adjoining temples, one dedicated to Janus, one to Juno, and one to Spes ("hope"). All three dated from about 250 BCE. When the current church was built it was upon the foundations of the central temple and it incorporated in its outside walls foundations and columns from the nearby temples. Under ground we saw ancient streets (very narrow), old brick arches (very shallow), and the foundation blocks that the temple columns stood on. It was fascinating, and old; when I touched those bricks I was touching probably the oldest thing created by humans that I had ever touched. It was another special adventure.

Our waiter at Ristorante da Ceci

Well, it was a pleasant and unexpected delight that the waiter at our favorite restaurant (more on that story in the fullness of time) was not only attentive, accurate, and efficient, but exceedingly cute and personable as well.

Posted on May 6, 2007 at 14.07 by jns · Permalink · Leave a comment
In: All, Reflections

Team Chiesa

Rome has some 450 churches; it seems that one can't walk 50 meters without encountering yet another church. As we strolled we would sometimes point and exclaim: "Oh look! It's another church!"

Some people find it odd that I, an atheist, should show an interest in visiting churches in Rome. Obviously, there's more to the churches than religion. They are art and architecture and culture and history, shiny and dull, gaudy and plain. I like to visit the churches to see all those things, and to listen to the stories they have to tell about Rome. Besides, touring the churches of Rome is a good way to see different neighborhoods and regions of the city since they are spread all over; it gives structure to a walking tour that otherwise would be almost as chaotic as daily life in Rome looks to be.

On this trip we managed to visit a good number of churches. Not all 450 by any means, but we did manage some 15% of the total, which is a good stab. Isaac was happy because we made it to all the four "patriarchal basilicas" this time (Saint Peter, Saint Mary Major, Saint John Lateran, and Saint Paul outside the walls), all of which also happen to be extraterritorial, i.e., they actually are part of the State of Vatican City and belong to the Pope. (Remember: Vatican City, whose boundary is entirely contained within the modern city of Rome, is a sovereign nation whose head of state is the Pope.)

It's true that they all tend to blend together a bit after the first 20 or 30, but seeing a big bunch creates a gestalt impression and brings out similarities as well as differences. Perhaps I'll have more to say about some of these in the future, but for now I just want to collect up the list of names to keep track of them. They're listed here in the order that we visited them, and I think I got them all sorted into the correct days, too.

Posted on May 4, 2007 at 14.58 by jns · Permalink · 6 Comments
In: All, Reflections

Brief Spring Hiatus

It may seem unusually quiet around here for the next 10 days or so, but this time by choice. Isaac and I are going to Rome, Italy again, this time with a much smaller tour group — there will be only 5 of us, one of whom is one of my four regular readers. The rest of you are invited along for a future trip, likely to a different destination next time.

Posted on April 23, 2007 at 12.12 by jns · Permalink · 3 Comments
In: All, Briefly Noted

Types of Printing

Soon after his time in Basel, Dürer took up a new medium–one that would prove very important not only in his own later work but also in shaping the directions that print would subsequently take us. It was copperplate engraving. Copperplate was less in evidence than woodcuts were during the maturation of print [in the fifteenth century]. Yet it came into use at the same time that woodcuts were finding their new popularity. It represented the second of the tree essential forms of printed images, the third being lithography.

Woodcuts are a form of block printing, in which every part of the surface that is to be inked, and which is intended to touch paper, is raised. Copperplate engraving is a form of intaglio. The word intaglio comes from the Latin intagliare, "to cut into," and refers to the process in which an image is cut into a plate. Ink is spread on the plate, filling in the cuts, and the excess is wiped away. The incisions then hold just enough ink to leave their mark on the paper.

Lithography, however, would not be invented until the nineteenth century. It is a process in which a surface (originally of stone) is treated chemically. Ink adheres only where it has a chemical affinity. One inks the plate, then wipes off the excess ink. That leaves just enough ink in the areas where the plate was treated to make an image.

[John H. Lienhard, How Invention Begins : Echoes of Old Voices in the Rise of New Machines (Oxford : Oxford University Press, 2006), pp. 179–180]

Posted on April 22, 2007 at 11.35 by jns · Permalink · Leave a comment
In: All, Naming Things

The Original Bath of Maria

One other Hellenistic [i.e., ancient Greek] inventor had worked directly with steam, but she showed greater staying power in the long age of alchemy that covered the wake of Hero and Lucretius. She was a chemist called Maria the Jewess. Maria has left fewer personal tracks than any of the others we have mentioned, despite her greater influence. Most of what we know about her comes from an Egyptian alchemist named Zosimos, who wrote in the later days of the Roman Empire, five hundred years after Maria lived. Among other things, Zosimos talks about her invention of a device called the kerotakis

The kerotakis was one of many forms of stills, boilers, and reflux condensers that Maria invented. In it, she boiled mercury or sulfur in a lower container and used its condensing vapor to heat copper or lead in a pan above. It was a high-temperature version of the double boiler.
The familiar double boiler is an extremely clever contrivance. We cook food in an upper pan that is nested in a lower pan of boiling water. The food stays at the same temperature as the steam condensing below it–at 100°C. (The only reference to Maria that lingers in the modern world is the French word for a double boiler–bain-marie, literally "Maria's bath.")

[John H. Lienhard, How Invention Begins : Echoes of Old Voices in the Rise of New Machines. Oxford : Oxford University Press, 2006, pp. 44–45.]

Posted on April 22, 2007 at 11.14 by jns · Permalink · One Comment
In: All, Naming Things

Lienhard's How Invention Begins

How Invention Begins, by John Lienhard (Oxford : Oxford University Press, 2006) was a fascinating book. I picked it up because the cover looked nice when I was shelf surfing at the library. It was a fortunate if serendipitous choice, because I really enjoyed reading it.

Lienhard is an engineer, and he takes an in-depth engineering look at the process of invention. Not the process of the "canonical inventor", the person designated by history as the inventor, but the cultural process that expresses a social zeitgeist and builds the technological matrix of progress that can bring the invention into being. There are stories after stories of the precursors and almost-rans who contribute mightily to an invention's creation. (More, naturally, at my book note.)

Now, on to the leftover quotations. This first hints at huge changes about to sweep across Europe and lays groundwork for a major shift in epistemological outlook, including the rise of science in later centuries.

The French scholar Pierre Abélard seized on the new logic [when Christian Europe rediscovered Greek learning through Muslim Spain in medieval times] as he turned Aristotelian dialectic loose on Holy Scripture. "By doubting we come to inquiry," he said, and "by inquiring we perceive the truth." Abélard wrote four rules for inquiry:

  • Use systematic doubt and question everything.
  • Learn the difference between rational proof and persuasion.
  • Be precise in use of words and expect precision from others.
  • Watch for error, even in Holy Scripture.

[p. 147]

In the next we learn that there is less rarely something new under the sun than we think, but we also find that an amazing woman of an earlier time affirmed our educational philosophy at Ars Hermeneutica.

After the Civil War, Marcet's natural philosophy [expressed in her book, Conversations on Natural Philosophy, for the edification of young women] remained in print, but the many copycat textbook writers no longer included descriptions of machinery in the subject. Machines dropped out of liberal education, and the focus shifted to principles. Those principles became a specialty with a new name: natural philosophy was now replaced with the word physics (from the French physique).

Even then, however, Marcet's subject layout remained. It is apparent in physics texts today. But when the name of natural philosophy became physics, it ceased to lie at the center of liberal education, where Marcet knew it belonged.

Since women were not admitted to college, she had set out to create a home liberal education for them. Before she was done, she'd provided courses in chemistry, natural philosophy, economics, botany, and geography. Today, however, we barely remember that natural philosophy belongs in the core of a liberal education, and we completely forget that such an education must include the machines we live with every day. Today we might well find marcet's ideas to be very provocatie as America falls behind in technical and scientific education. [p. 210]

Finally, for this miscellany, a brief reminder that universal education in America is not a modern, commie-liberal idea but one in which our democratic traditions are steeped, not to mention that science and technology at the time were clearly part of the liberal arts, something that everyone would benefit from learning.

Ever wondered why they used to be called "land-grant colleges"?

In 1862, for example, Congress had passed the Morrill Act, which mandated a grant of 30,000 acres of federal land, per congressional representative, to each state to be sold to provide an endowment for "at least one college where the leading object shall be, without excluding other cientific and classical studies, and including military tactics, to teach such branches of learning as are related to agriculture and the mechanic arts."

Here we clearly read America's determination that we would be a free people, with a liberal education–a truly liberal education, that is–one focused upon the agricultural and mechanical arts but not excluding the rest of what we see today as necessary for a healthy general education. [p. 224]

Posted on April 22, 2007 at 11.06 by jns · Permalink · Leave a comment
In: All, Books, Common-Place Book

Quammen's The Boilerplate Rhino

Here's another title from recent weeks' reading: The Boilerplate Rhino, by David Quammen (New York : Simon & Schuster, 2000). It's one of his collections of essays, all of which were published originally in his monthly column for Outdoor magazine between 1988 and 1996. Like most collections it has uneven spots, but I enjoyed reading it. (More at the book note.)

In the usual way these are a few miscellaneous passages that I marked for one reason or another.

First, from the essay "Either or Neither", about slime molds and Alan Turing, a provocative pairing to say the least. As he explains, he also gives us a short and poignant portrait of Turing.

This is also an essay about Alan Turing. Who was Alan Turing? Not, as you might suppose, a biologist who studied the slime molds. Turing was a brilliant English mathematician, a pioneer of computer theory, a Fellow of the Royal Society, and one of the chief cryptanalysts responsible for breaking the German naval code during World War II. Enigmatic himself, he helped solve Hitler's fancy machine-based cipher system, known as Enigma. He was a gentle nerd who buried his money in the woods instead of entrusting it to a bank, collected wildflowers and fir cones to study their anatomical patterns, took up long-distance running in his thirties, turned his hand to mathematical biology, made some trailblazing efforts in th field now known as artificial intelligence, and dreamed of building an electronic machine that could play chess. He was also a quiet but stubborn rebel against authority, an unsecretive homosexual at a time when homosexuality was illegal in Britain, and eventually a convicted perpetrator of forbidden acts, a victim of quackish "organotherapy" in the form of court-mandated hormone treatments, and a suicide. He died of cyanide poisoning in 1954. [p. 140]

Next, from "The Great Stinking Clue", about an unusual fruit called "Durian". Durian, it seems, is as much reviled as it is revered; this essay asks the question (non-musical): would Durian without the stink still taste as sweet? I saved this bit because I liked the idea that fruit is a tree's means of locomotion.

Fruit is the means that trees have invented for traveling from one place to another. But not every fruit travels as well, or as far, as others. Some kinds are adventurous. Some are more laggard. Some hit the ground unswallowed and don't even roll. So to get to the core of the matter, you'll need to do a little traveling yourself. My advice is: Start with a flight to the island of Bali. Then follow your nose upwind toward a species of tree called Durio zibethinus.

The fruit of that tree is a yellow-green ovoid, big as a rugby ball, heavy as fate, upholstered all over with thorns. It goes by the name durian, from the Malaysian word duri, for thorn. It's a hard capsule that hangs from a stout stem and God help you if you're beneath when it falls. It looks about as succulent as a stuffed porcupine, but it splits open along suture lines to reveal its amazing innards. Each inner chamber contains several large gobbets of ivory-white pulp. That's the edible stuff. Inside each gobbet, a seed. The seed itself is as big as a chestnut. Durian is renowned throughout Asia for its luxuriant flavor, its peculiar anatomy, and its indecent stench. [p. 93]

Finally, as visitors to Björnslottet will know, I'm not a big fan of the traditional, suburban lawn. For historic reasons ours is mostly low-growing weeds (selective pressures from mowing encourage the short forms) that slowly get taken up as I replace the lawn with garden.

Anyway, this excerpt from "Rethinking the Lawn: Turf Warfare in the American Suburbs" struck a chord.

There was a time, back in the late Fifties and early Sixties, when I was inclined to view the American lawn as part of a Communist plot. Thousands of square miles of valuable landscape, from Bangor to San Diego, were covered with useless swards of turf. Millions of man-hours (and, more pointedly, boy-hours) were squandered each year on its upkeep. Did that extravagant commitment of resources serve the national interest? Clearly not. Like the helpless GI in The Manchurian Candidate, so it seemed, the entire class of American suburbanites had all somehow been brainwashed to execute certain dronish tasks. Mow. Rake. Trim. Fertilize. Kill off the broadleaf invaders with poison. Mow again. It was ruinously stupid. Khruschev, I figured, had to be chortling up his fat little sleeve.

I conceived and nurtured this theory during my own long boy-hours spent at the exhaust end of a mower–hours that, I believed, would have been far better devoted to more meaningful pursuits (such as baseball, or throwing cherry bombs at hornets' nests, or breaking my nose on the handlebars of a bicycle), if only the cabalists in the Kremlin hadn't managed to perpetrate this wholesale diversion of democracy's young talent into the soulless drudgery of lawn care. Sputnik and then Uri Gagarin had gone into space, after all, while America remained earthbound and I stained my Keds green with grass clippings. I was the only son among three children, and therefore the designated mowist. We lived on a half-acre. Formerly farmland, and before that deciduous forest, amid the rolling hills and the humid breezes of southwestern Ohio, it was relentlessly verdurous. [pp. 171–172]

Posted on April 20, 2007 at 11.44 by jns · Permalink · One Comment
In: All, Books, Common-Place Book